This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of our look through Titus chapter 3. We're
going to be taking a look today at verses 3 down through verse 7, some awesome
verses in this book that tell the story of your life, who you are. In these
verses, let me tell you some of what you can see in here that we're not going to
focus on today.

You can see in these verses the three persons of God in your salvation. You can
see the kindness and love of God the Father. You see the washing and rebirth and
renewal by the Holy Spirit.

And you see that it's poured out generously through Jesus Christ. You see in
these verses how the three persons of God are involved in your salvation. You
also can see in these verses the three tenses of your salvation, past, present,
and future.

In the past, you see justification in these verses. In the present, you see a
new life of good works. In the future, you see that you are an heir of the hope
of eternal life.

But instead of focusing on those two things, I'm going to focus instead on the
story. I want to focus today as we look through these verses on the three-part
story of your life, formerly, but now, and in the future. What happened in the
past?

What's happening right now? What are we looking forward to in the future? If you
are a follower of Jesus Christ, this is the story of your life, every one of our
lives.

To become a follower of Jesus Christ, you can right now, today, in this very
moment, you can say to Him, "Jesus Christ, I want to follow You. I want to live
the kind of life that You've made me to live. I want to live in relationship
with You.

" How can you begin to follow Jesus Christ just by something as simple as a
prayer? Because He's already paid the price. He's already died on a cross.

He's already shown His willingness to work in your life through the power of His
resurrection. So because of His power, because of what He has done, simply by
turning to Him in faith, you begin to follow Him. And when you do that, or when
you did that, you begin to live out this story that we're talking about
together.

What's this story? It begins in the past. In the past is verse 3.

At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all
kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and in envy, being hated and
hating one another. This is a picture of what life is like without God.

It's a picture for so many of us. I read that and you think, "Oh, that's my
family. Oh, that's my company.

Oh, that's my school. Oh, that's me. That's the place that I work.

That's the things that I do. It's us. We're foolish.

We make decisions we shouldn't make, and then we have to pay the price for them.
We're disobedient. We do what we want instead of what we know is right, and we
pay the price for that.

We're deceived. People fool us into doing things, and we wonder, "How could I
have been so stupid? " We're enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.

We do things just to feel better. We do things to feel better that hurt the
people that we love the most by sinning even, just to feel better. We live with
all these relational cancers in our lives, malice and envy.

We're always looking at other people and comparing ourselves, being hated and
hating one another. We have these relationships that we want to work, but
they're not working. Now, I read these verses, and it's amazing.

Something happens. Once you come to know Christ, you start to follow Christ, He
begins to change these things in your life. Now, not immediately, slowly, but
surely.

He begins to change you from the inside out. Some things change immediately,
some of them take longer. As those things begin to change, I just have to warn
you, don't be too critical of those who don't yet know Jesus, because this is
what you were not too long ago, for some of us seemingly just seconds ago.

It is amazing for all of us how quickly we forget, how quickly we become
judgmental of these things in other people's lives, how quickly we come to the
point where instead of seeing that this was us, formerly, we want to distance
ourselves from the truth about what we used to be. Well, Paul doesn't. He
doesn't distance us at all.

He says, "Formerly, this is what you were. " And if you want to live the story
of your life, you've got to be honest about that. But that's not all you're
honest about.

That's not where you live. That's just what you're honest about. The question
really here is, are you so proud of your salvation that you can't even remind
yourself of what the past was like?

Or are you grateful your salvations that when you remind yourself, instead of
living in the past, it brings you into the present and the future? You see, you
don't live there. This is formerly.

This is where it used to be. If you try to live there, you're going to live a
miserable life. No, you live in the now and you live in the future.

But now, where do we live? Now is in verses four to six. Let me read those
verses.

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us. Not
because of righteous things that we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved
us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured
out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.

When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, that's what created the
now in your life as a follower of Christ. The kindness of God and the love of
God. And we talk about, we talk a lot about the love of God.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And how God's love
sent His Son into the world to live for us and die for us and be resurrected for
us. We don't talk much about the kindness of God.

It's just as powerful a word here. We don't think of it usually as a very
powerful word. God so loved the world.

That sounds powerful. God was so kind. That doesn't sound very powerful to us.

That sounds like somebody helping somebody across the street. Boy Scout helping
an old lady across the street. Just being kind.

We miss the point because this word is a very powerful word. The kindness of
God. He sees us in our hurt and in our pain.

And He could have left us in our hurt and pain because we deserved that hurt and
pain. We had walked away from a relationship with Him. And so all of mankind was
stained by the reality of sin.

And the kindness of God is that He would not leave us there in kindness when He
did not have to. But He had the power to. He reached out to us while we were
still His enemies.

He reached out to us and He brought us to Himself. The kindness of God and the
love of God. The word love here is the word philanthropy in the Greek language.

And you recognize the English word that we get from that. Philanthropist. The
word philanthropist we think of as somebody who is generous with their money.

God is generous with His salvation. God is generous with His creation. God is
the great philanthropist in that He sent Jesus Christ to give His life for us.

God's love is unconditional. In verse 5, He saved us not because of the
righteous things that we had done. Just because of His mercy.

If you miss that, you miss the core of Christianity. You miss the core of Jesus
Christ. You miss the core message that we have to share of the good news.

If there's anything in you that thinks your salvation somehow came because of
what you have done, let that go right now. And recognize it only came because of
God's mercy. If there's anything in you that's waiting for you to do some good
thing so you can deserve your salvation, let that go right now.

And realize it only comes because of God's mercy. And through His mercy, God
works salvation in our lives. In fact, we get the description here of exactly
how He does it.

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Here's the description. We could take a long time with this one, but in my life
I've got my spirit, little s.

That is the selfish spirit. That is the spirit that sets itself up against God.
That's just me.

That's me living my life for myself. God, because of what Jesus Christ has done,
is willing to save me. And so when I trust Him, He pours His Spirit into my
life.

And the picture here, this picture of washing and rebirth and renewal, obviously
we symbolize this picture in baptism, but this is what we're symbolizing. We're
symbolizing the fact that God has poured His Spirit into my heart, into my life,
into my soul. And through doing that, He has washed me clean, like some of those
old songs say.

It is not based on what I have done. It's based on what Jesus has done. And God
pours His Spirit into me, and in doing that, it becomes who I am.

I am clean. I am washed. I am forgiven.

I am seen by God in that brand new way. And it's done by Jesus Christ through
what He did. By that, I am justified.

That means that I am declared not guilty because of what He did. So now that's
where you live. You live clean.

You live justified. You live not guilty before God because of what Jesus did.
What about the future?

There's the past. There's the present. What about the future?

The future is in verse 7, "So that, having been justified by His grace, we might
become heirs, having the same hope of eternal life. " The future is that we
inherit all the blessings of God. That's what we look forward to.

The future is that based on God's grace, I am looking forward to God's promise
being lived out in my life. You are looking forward to God's promise being lived
out in your life for all eternity, having been justified by grace. It's based on
grace, not performance, but grace.

I've been accepted by Christ. It's based on His acceptance, not my becoming
acceptable. Because of all of that, what do you have to look forward to?

Just everything. We're heirs having the hope of eternal life. What does this
word "heirs" mean?

It means that we are inheriting, along with Jesus Christ, all that's being given
to Him as God throughout all eternity. We are heirs of all that is to be.
There's no selfishness in that because we realize it's along with Jesus Christ.

There's no selfishness in that because we know to the depth of our being that
it's only because of Jesus Christ. So that's you. That's you.

Your past. Being honest about that. Your present.

Being grateful for that. Your future. Being hopeful as we look forward to that.

Let's pray together. Jesus, thank you. Thank you that my past is no longer my
past.

That's not the only story of my life. It could have been. But because of you,
because you called, because you came.

Because of you, my life has changed. You saved me. Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you for your pouring
out of your spirit generously on us as we trust in you.

And thank you for your future. Help me to look forward today, whatever
circumstances I'm facing, help me to look forward today to that future that you
have prepared because that is guaranteed by your love, by your kindness, by your
promise and your salvation. Thank you, Jesus.

In your name. Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to talk together about one of the most
dangerous sins that we often ignore.