Chapter one of this relatively brief letter of Paul to Titus spoke to us of the qualifications and responsibilities of an elder. That's how it's been taken down through the ages. But Paul didn't specifically write to all elders. He wrote to one man, one elder, Titus. And from there began to speak about the office of elder. That's why this letter's in God's word and that's why we know that it does speak to all elders and all ages as to the qualifications of gifts and graces necessary. and necessary because God loves his church. He doesn't want ungifted men who, with all good intention, are just incapable of bringing edifying ministry to bear in the body of Christ. Or he doesn't want people in his church who may have very gracious and loving hearts, but without the gifts, or who have all the gifts and can speak with the tongues of angels, but lacking grace, and firm the people in pride and arrogance, rather than in the humility of Christ. So we've seen these qualifications and they've been stressed for an entire chapter. In chapter two, we saw something of the inner workings of the church membership. If you have qualified elders, gracious, gifted men, and that they are keeping on target, they're not distracted, trying to do a bunch of gimmicks and things like that, do the work of the deacons, for example, and get tangled up in the money of the church, the way a number of sessions are doing in our own presbytery, and that we did for a while, until we recalled ourselves to our office as elders, is to minister the word and prayer. and the deacons handle the finances. With such order in the church, we see how the membership grows and flourishes and develops in the way that is in conformity with God's will and God's character. In our passage, we move on to believers' lives in and testimony to the world. Now, We don't want to just move along here and say, now we've got another topic before us. There's a flow, and there's a sense and significance to the priority. The work begins with these leaders of the church. And the leaders are supposed to be servants of the people, not lords over the people. They are to be servants of Christ, and if you're a servant of Christ, you will get on your knees and wash a person's dirty feet instead of saying, let me give you a lecture on how to keep your feet clean. There will be that kind of character in ministry, and that will cause people to flourish in Christlikeness. Whereas the imperious route, I'm here to just tell you the truth and teach and throw out the rules and the doctrines and you've got to obey them or else you're going to be punished. That doesn't cause any kind of edification. But does it just stay in the church? If all of this order is in place, and is followed, and is growing, we might say, we're self-obsessed. We're prioritizing ourselves. We're putting the emphasis on these officers of the elder, and they're having to preach, and teach, and live, and encourage the people, and serve the people, and so forth. And it all becomes so interned. But no, it doesn't, because just as if you have church officers who are servants of Christ, they're not going to be imperious, imposing figures. They're going to be down on their hands and knees all the time, or a lot of the time. They're not going to be people who frighten you. They're going to be inviting people. They might be impressive, but the grace overcomes any fear you might have. gifted and gracious elder. So if we're more Christ-like, we're more servant-like. And if we're more Christ-like, our lives aren't just going to work in the church. where the environment is controlled and contained largely by the instructions in God's word to assemble ourselves together so that we can encourage one another in love and good works. And does that mean just good works amongst ourselves or good works amongst visitors who come into the church or visitors or members of our own church who are kind of maintaining a certain status of conformity to the teachings of scripture, or have few sins, relatively harmless sins, as opposed to flagrant and obvious sins. No. If we're growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ, we'll not only love and care for one another in the church, but we'll go out And we can't help but go out, we live most of our lives out of the church. Live in our jobs, we live in our neighborhoods, we live in our schools and so forth. And so we come to our passage where you'd see the flow. If we confuse this or if we reverse this and think the priority is where I live right here and now. You get to a point where you don't even go to church because you see no connection between I'm living a certain way right now, I'm wrestling with problems, I'm having challenges and so forth. I have too many responsibilities, legitimate calls and concerns. I just don't have time to go to church and sit and listen to basically words. But if the words are the priority, they lead on to action. They bring life, they develop love and truth in our lives and experience. So devotion to Christ in his church, according to the contours of his word, leads on to service for Christ in the world. And the service is not primarily, notice, set out before us as going and doing certain specific tasks. The scriptures always emphasize the heart, always emphasize the attitude before the action. Because the actions, well, the devil has lots of nice looking actions, but a rotten heart. And God doesn't respect the outer appearance, he respects the heart. If the heart's right, the actions are going to be right. The actions are going to follow rightly. So he starts right off, Paul does in our passage, with remind them. Remind who? Remind these elders, but also he's been going on to talk about people in the church and different Places of life, older men, older women, younger men, younger women, even slaves, people in all sorts of situations, all over the place. The gospel is applicable to people in any situation. Remind them, remind them all, remind the elders, remind the people, remind them all, In, in the, in the, in the determination to maintain a ministry of the word and prayer, either in ministering it and serving it as elders and applying it to yourselves, ourselves too, uh, or, or people basically primarily receiving it and living it out. Remind them that they still do live in the world and you're not just supposed to work in this. Christianity is not supposed to just work in the church. Church history is full of horrible and embarrassing examples of men, elders, who work fine in the church and have a good reputation in the church, and they go home and abuse their families. They fail in their families. The church is full of people who have been in that situation, and it's something that should sober us all and make us very prayerful, humble if we're an elder. and very prayerful for ourselves, but also saying to the people, pray for me, pray for me. You give me a minute's peace in your prayers, and I'm liable to just pop up and become imperious once again. So remind them. Remind them that it works in the world, too. And here's how it works in the world. Dare to be subject. Subject to the rulers, subject to the authorities. He's talking about the civil authorities. And this goes on to speak in our passage to an outworking really of the fifth commandment that tells us to honor our father and mother. Sometimes mom and dad get that commandment a bit mixed up. They think it means honor your father. and your mother. In other words, honor one or the other. The word of God puts the two together. Honor your father and mother. And it speaks directly to children to do that, but it speaks to parents too. You do not have two independent beings in a marriage. You have one flesh. You must have a consensus to approach anything rightly with your children. Dad is not the boss. Dad is not the king. He thinks he is, but that's his sin. That's the remnant of what God told Adam and Eve. The man now, he's not rejoicing in you and saying, your flesh are my flesh and bone are my bone. He's a dominator. He thinks he's a king. And you're still going to, you're going to just cave into that. God was describing what sin had done in ruining the first marriage. So be subject to, honor your father and your mother. But that has implications in the civil realm as well. Honor those, respect those, obey those over you. It's the outworking then of the fifth commandment. Submission to authority taken under the rubric of the first authority any of us ever faces. And that is in the home with our parents. They are our superiors. They're older. They can actually walk around. And we can do nothing but wiggle and not even know that our own hand is connected to us. And so on it goes. But here it plays out into duty to civil government. And the attitude is to be one of being in subjection. And that's a kind of a strong word, you know, be in subjection. The Nazis, the ones in the war crimes, you know, who were charged with various war crimes, kind of the party line was, I was only following orders, just following orders. I'm doing what the Bible said. Well, we'll return to that in just a minute. But the reason the word is strong as it is, is that there is in all of us a strong impulse to imperialism. delusions. I'm the king. I'm right. I'm the one on the throne. Everybody else has to kowtow to me, even God. If it rains and I'm planning a picnic, I hold it hard against God because he's supposed to do what I want him to do. Jesus characterized it to his own disciples. They had the impulse. You have the impulse. I have the impulse. to build an empire for ourselves and view everybody else in our life more and more like slaves that are to be obedient to our whim. Jesus, when his own disciples were showing that, he says, be careful. The Gentiles, the unbelievers, have an uncontrollable, they are imprisoned and dominated by the sense of lording things over others. They want themselves to be considered supreme in any context, and that's in all of us. But believers in Christ are to be different. We are to be submissive. We are to be submissive. We are to be the servants. We are to be radically subject to governing authorities. To be obedient in attitude and action. Carrying out the action. To be obedient and ready for every good deed. Verse one goes on to say, every good deed. Now let's go back to the Nazis. The Nazis claimed to be Christians. The churches in Germany, Protestants especially, pretty much supported the Nazis. And they all fell in line along this thing. This was a big thing. Hitler, this is how he got all the officers to follow him. They knew he was crazy. They knew he was wrong. They knew he was evil, many of them. Hardly any of them supported him. But he got them to take an oath early on, an oath before God, that they would submit to him. And when the evil colors started coming out more and more in him, they were caught. And many of these men, German officers, were Christian men. They were in a genuine crisis of conscience. It was because they hadn't been taught very well. They hadn't had elders who had been teaching, and they'd been growing in the truth of scripture. devised a culture and offices, and more and more arbitrarily defined offices. This is what an elder should be doing, not just preaching, not just ministering the word and praying. He has to be doing lots of things and be seen to be doing lots of things in the church. He has to give a good example by being an activist and so forth. Everything gets away from the simplicity of Christ. And what I'm saying here is that in this very word, good deed is the qualification. If you're being told to do something evil, it doesn't matter who tells you to do it. It doesn't matter if it's your king, your emperor, your president, your senator. It doesn't matter who tells you to do it. As a Christian, you know that's not a good deed, and you refuse to do it. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were told to worship an image. They said, we're not going to do it. Are they violating what Paul's saying here? Are they violating Romans 13 and being unsubmissive to governing authorities? Heck no. They were being supremely obedient to the governing authority of their God, because he expressly said, do not worship images. Daniel, the same thing. Let's make a law. Nobody can pray. Daniel flagrantly disobeyed that law, or so it seemed. He really didn't increase it. He just did what he'd done all along. But it seemed now radically out of accord, radically rebellious to the regime. He went home at the appointed time, his regular time, opened up the doors, you can come and see if you want, I'm not trying to hide, and he prayed, and he got into the lion's den. Now this is what the Lord's Word is calling us to. to have that attitude of submission. And you might think that would make us mindless sheep, we'll follow anything. But it actually makes us like a razor or like a sword that can cut and tell the difference between good and evil and cleave to the good and love the good and hate the evil. But hate it with a pure hatred, not hate it with just anger. or the old imperious impulse now finding an outlet. It's godly, godly hatred. Believers are to be different then. They're to be obedient in action, as well as submissive in attitude, ready for every good deed. But isn't Christ the only authority for believers? If we have the Lord God, why should we even concern ourselves with the governing authorities? Well, I'm just saying this to mention it. I don't want to assume everybody understands this. He, God, continues to exercise his reign through the civil governments. And so sometimes you can have very godless civil governments, such as the Babylonians. And God told his own people, serve the king of Babylon and live. Serve the king of Babylon and live. Did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego violate that? No. They were serving the king of Babylon because by their stand in godliness, they actually brought to Babylon's emperor give glory to God. You couldn't have a better work than that. So, as Paul says, be subject for Romans 13. You go and read that this afternoon. Romans 13, verses 1 to 7. Plutarch, one of the ancient writers, expressed this in a letter saying that the church in Crete chaffed against the Roman yoke. They, in particular, were just thinking, this is wrong. These Romans have just crushed us, and they're all over us. And it could be Christians thinking, yes, the Romans, they're pagans. We've got to defy them. Paul to Titus says, remind them, remind them to be subject. They know better, and we do know better. When we hear the truth, we know the truth. We might have forgotten the truth, and it might at first shock us and remind us of something that we want to almost oppose. But then we think, oh, that's right. That's right. Oh, thank God. Thank God that he loves me enough not to let me go on in this rise in imperial impulse. So remind them. But Paul has something else to say about that that we find in Timothy's letter. He says, pray for them. Pray for the governing authorities. We think that we are a democratic society. It's becoming increasingly evident that we're not. We think that we have a vibrant, functioning government. We don't. Not to have your head in a hole in the ground, to still believe this stuff. Everybody's holding their breath day after day, day from day to day. Are we going to go up in a nuclear holocaust today? Is the economy going to crash because of terrorists? What are we going to do? And we get all excited and upset and try and figure out things to do. And we talk about it. So what? Not one of us. has anything but a vestige, even a vestige, of civil power remaining. Everybody knows the last election was rigged. Everybody knows that. It's just a question of how they did it and how we can prove it. The whole process is under suspicion. But even if it wasn't, what does a good citizen get to do? You go and vote. You can vote every four years for the highest office, president, vice president. You can vote for senators, congressmen. You could vote for local authorities. So OK, a couple of days. How many days out of every year are you out voting? Maybe one, maybe two days in a given year. And there are lots of years that go by you don't vote for anybody. So we vote. And then that vote goes through all this stuff, the electoral college and all that stuff, and somehow comes out and so somebody's there. You can write. You can write to your congressman. When's the last time it? Do I dare say raise your hands if you've written to your congressman? How many here have ever written to the president? President? Other than me. No, I don't think you did. I'll talk to you later about that. Okay, some have written to the president. Did you get an answer? Yeah, yeah. Did things change? Not really. But we get ourselves up and agitated about all this. It's got to be this way. It's got to be that way. This party, that party, the other party. You know, the parties themselves don't know what they're doing. It's obvious to everybody. What do we do? What do we do? Pray. Pray. That's what Paul tells Timothy to do and to teach the people to do. Pray for these governing authorities. Don't get sucked into thinking, which one is the good guy? There are no good guys. They're all nasty. They're all guilty. They're all sinners. There are no good people. There are no good governors. There are no godly people. They're all sinners. All sinners. You say, well, are there no Christians in these offices? Oh, sure. Sure there are. And who else would we pray for? If we can identify them, pray for them especially. But most of it truly is a nasty, use the term if you want to, swamp. So how are we going to be subject to these governing authorities? We pray. We live our lives of loving servants of God. When it comes time to vote, we have no other choice than to kind of pick the lesser of the array of evils before us. And then if we find out afterwards, some of us as Christians have voted for this candidate and others for that candidate, just say, Thank God that we both have one father. Because you and I don't have the skill set, really, to pick the best candidate. Ronald Reagan stacked the Supreme Court with conservatives, and they all moved to the middle. You just don't know how they're going to turn out once they get into the office. But he does. And he, by telling us to pray, is telling us that we can have an influence by asking him in a way we never could have, by getting wrapped up in all the brawling of politics. Politics. Be ready for every good deed. And you and I know it's not a good deed when we get arguing over politics. The more we argue, the more that impulse comes up. I'm right, you're wrong. I'm right, you're wrong. I can prove you're wrong. I can prove you're wrong. And you need to vote the way I did because I did the right thing and you've done the wrong thing. No, every good deed. Are you hungry? Can I give you something to eat? You look a little sad, do you want to talk about it? That's pathetic, you say. That actually changes people's lives in a way politics can't even begin to touch people's lives. So, we go on from that to what the scripture spends more time defining for us. Because right now, some of you are giving me looks like, he's an anarchist. I'm just trying to deflate the mythology a little bit here, you know. The mythology that we're the greatest nation on earth and all that stuff. Are you going to say you're the greatest Christian on earth? Anybody want to say that? I'm the greatest Christian on earth. Why wouldn't you say that? Because even if it's true, you know the greatest Christian is supposed to be humble. So see how we get sucked into my nation, right or wrong? And that's not Christian. Paul spends far more time talking about how we're to live with our neighbors in this passage than how we're to deal with our government. Simply obey the laws that don't violate right and wrong or your conscience. Obey them, exercise whatever, you know, vestiges of delusional power you think you still have, exercise that and pray. But here Paul goes on to speak in verse 2 about duty to our neighbor, not just duty to our government. And it's supposed to be respectful, considerate, ever gracious, and loving to all, to all, to all. Let's read it. I don't want you to think in your mind that I'm wrong here because I know I'm right. To malign no one. Malign means to speak badly of them and what you're saying is not true. To speak the truth, not in love, is not a good thing, but it still is the truth. To malign a person, you're speaking something that's not true about them and it's injurious to them. You're maligning someone's character. Don't malign anyone, anyone. Now, there's plenty of rotten stuff in all of us. And if you want to kind of accentuate that, you could do that. But that's not what Paul is saying. And it's to be understood that that's not even what we're supposed to do, but certainly not to malign one. The problem here is that none of us here want to hear this, because I can guarantee you Every one of us in this room has maligned somebody this week. I can guarantee it. If you have begun to argue with your wife, your husband, your children, or children with their parents, or brothers and sisters with each other, and you start getting the agitation and pointing to, it's this, but you, but you this, but you this. No, but you that. The argument will always carry us away into maligning the other person. Because we're losing the argument, we've got to start hitting below the belt. Because an argument, by definition, is a precursor to aggression. And aggression is not concerned with playing fair. It's just concerned with overpowering. That is antithetical. what a Christian is. It's antithetical to what a Christian is because a Christian by faith is united to Christ and Christ doesn't overpower the world. He so gently and wonderfully and graciously ever lives to intercede for his people in the world and is gracious with common grace to the wickedest people on earth every day. So, malign? No one. No one deserves to be maligned. If you hate Adolf Hitler, you have an obligation to ground that hatred in truth. If you want to speak badly about Hitler and use him as a curse word, you might be able to do that. But you can't do it fairly unless you've done the research and you find out where he's gone wrong. Because if not everything about Hitler was wrong, you probably don't want to hear that. But people are much more complex than we think. Malign no one. Be uncontentious. Oh, man. Now we're going to get hit again. Have you been uncontentious this week? I haven't. But I'm not the measure of all things. You probably haven't. We've contended. We've disagreed. probably would have a harder time counting the number of times we've disagreed. Because see, we're skewed not to count our failings. That hampers our fighting ability. We've got to ignore all of our faults and concentrate on the enemy who's, what TV channel do you want to watch tonight? No, you're going to watch my channel because my channel is right and you're wrong. So, uncontentious. Contend earnestly for the faith, though the Bible says. No, that doesn't mean to be contentious. Contentiousness means that you're kind of spoiling for a fight, you're looking for it. Again, this is the impulse, the imperial impulse. Oh, I'm right. My parents corrected me and told me I was wrong, but I know I'm right. And now I'm married and my wife is telling me I'm wrong. I know I'm right. And my kids are telling me I'm wrong. I know I'm right. And people in the church are telling me I'm wrong. And that Bible's telling me I'm right. I'm just waiting to prove that I'm right. That's what he's telling me. Die to that. Die to that. But people are maligning me. Oh, gosh, I'm glad to hear that. You're in great company. You're in company with your Lord. And he tells you to count yourself blessed when people say all sorts of false things against you for his sake. We don't want to hear that. But this is what Paul's telling us to do. Don't be so contentious. We kind of think it's a mark of vibrant Christianity. We've got to be contentious. Everything's wrong. We got to go and search and destroy missions all over the world. The whole world's going down the toilet and we're standing there watching and doing nothing but praying. But actually we're doing nothing. If we were praying more, things would change more. But we want to do something we want to do. We don't want to use God's tools. So I'll get myself all contentious and, you know, gather all the ammunition and we can debate. Ah, but be gentle, gentle, gentle. Is there Anything in this list that we can escape? Let's just cut to the chase. Anything in this list that you're deluded and arrogant enough to think you have missed this week? Please come and talk to me if you do think that. Because we need to talk. We, you and I, need desperately to talk. Because you are either so far gone in delusion that I will pull every magic trick I can. I will even hug you and kiss you to make you think I love you. to get you to listen to me, or you're an angel and I desperately need you. I need you to impart to me your secret. We don't, this is all counterintuitive, but it's consistent with our new natures as we're going to see. We don't want to be gentle. We want to be heavy handed. We want to win the argument because it's for righteousness sake. Righteousness sake. But be gentle. Showing every consideration for all men. This, brothers and sisters, is the killer. This is where we fail more than anywhere else. Because we pick and choose what to believe in the Bible. And the Bible talks about sinners and God hating sin. And we think, okay, you've told me enough. I don't need to hear any more. God hates sinners. God hates sinners. God sends sinners to hell. Of course, I'm not a sinner because I'm a Christian. I'm going to heaven. God hates sinners. I hate sinners. Right? Isn't that godly? Hate them? oppose them, they're ruining the world, they're destroying our culture, hate them, stand against them, call them out, argue with them, be contentious. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean, if you want to rewrite Titus, go ahead and do it. I'm paid to bring out what's in this book. I'm not paid to bring out what's pleasing to any of us, and this is not pleasing to me any more than it is to you. We gotta go through this, though. We're in a gymnasium, we're not in a war here. We're being taught by our Heavenly Father, through His Holy Spirit, by His Word. And it exercises us. It hurts, it causes pain, but it will bring blessing, ultimately. Show every consideration for all men. Now, I'll put this quickly, and you take it with you. If you're wise, this is a word sufficient. If you're not, I could speak for 20 years and you'll never change. What does it mean to be considerate for all men? And that means not just men, but women, too. That means people. That's the Greek word that encompasses people. All people, all people, every consideration. Take the Canaanite woman with Jesus. She showed him every consideration, even though he was a mannerless lout to her. He was not a nice man to that Canaanite woman. Jesus wasn't. He's not a nice man. It's impolite to ignore somebody when they're calling upon you for mercy. And it's unkind to say it's this isn't for you, this is for somebody else and so on. But at every turn she saw through, she saw through that and she saw the goodness, she saw the mercy of Jesus. And a lot of times what we do is we teach ourselves and anybody else who we can have influence over that we've got to kind of patch up Jesus to make him always look good and godly and holy, never like the bad guy, never. And he's always got to look strong too, never weak. Because we can only worship a God that's like that. He's strong and he'll punch us up if we don't. That Canaanite woman showed him every consideration, respect, persistence, humility. She was looking beyond the appearance. And all of that was part of the holy, loving exercise of our Lord that he plays in our lives from time to time, too. don't do as well as the Canaanite woman. We're put off by the seeming offense, and we don't look through to the treasure. So what has this got to do with me giving every consideration to all men? My neighbor's not a Christian. He's playing loud music. It bugs the daylights out of me. Every time I see him, I'm going to spit at him, at least ignore him. And I'm just not going to talk to him. And when I walk by, I'm going to see his trash can is not right. It's not where it should be. He's got it turned around the wrong way. They tell you in the city manual to turn it this way. He doesn't cut his grass right. He's spoken to me. I'm not going to speak back to him. How could in person live that way? If you're a blind self-righteous prig you can live that way but that's a universe away from what Jesus is. Every consideration. OK, so you're a sinner. You curse. You swear. You're a drunkard and all of that. But you're not just a drunkard. You're not just a drug addict. You're a person. You have emotions. You have a mind. You're a person made in the image of God. I'm despising the image of God in you. You're doing your best to destroy it, but I'm adding fuel to that fire. You're a person. How can I be kind to you? Just break one, you don't have to break the whole chain at once, just break one link. I'm going to speak to him tomorrow. I've walked by him every day, my next door neighbor. I've seen him and I've just ignored him. And he knows that I'm not happy with him. And he needs to know because he's not a Christian and I am. He knows you're a self-righteous prig. That's what he knows. He knows what you don't know. Turn to him and say, good morning, Ben. Good morning. Suddenly, you hit him with a gut punch. And things are going to change. And things are going to change if for no other reason you say, well, he's not responding to my love. That's not the point of the exercise. The point of the exercise is that you learn to love. And you could practice on anybody. God set them all around us. Your neighbor, love your neighbor. When are you going to run out of them? They're everywhere. That's what that means. That's what this means. Consider it. Be helpful. Go as far as you can. Lord, I want to go. Don't let me go too far. I don't want to. I don't want to confirm them in evil. But oh, Lord, I know. I know you were patient with me. Help me to be patient. And that's where we get after this. All of this bad news. This is bad news for us, friends. This is written to Christians. And we've all agreed. Your silence I'm taking as assent, but you're going to come to me if you don't agree. We've all failed in all of these points this week. So what are we going to do if we all fail? It can't be attainable. They're just useless platitudes. No, they're not. 4, verse 3 says, we also were once foolish ourselves. There you go. When have I failed to be kind to somebody? Oh, if I see them being foolish, I think they're stupid idiots. They don't deserve even common courtesy. I mean, I'll be contributing to the disintegration of society if I'm kind to a fool. We once were all foolish. We once also were foolish. We were like that. And God didn't say, the sun is going to dim for Bill Harreld. He's out stealing stuff today. He's out doing bad things today. The sun is going to go dim for him. He's doing an illegal activity. And I'm sovereign. I'm holy. I know where the cops are. I know what he's doing. I'm going to send the cops and he's going to get caught. Never once. Never once. What, was God asleep? Is he like Baal? He goes off in the cave and takes a nap? No. No. He was kind. He was patient with me. He was showing me every consideration. Me. When I was busy trying to ruin my own life, he just gently cushioned me. I was a fish on the line from before I was born, from before the foundation of the world. So he wasn't insecure enough to do desperate, lurching things with me. He just waited till his perfect time. when I was looking for one of these Christians to get him off my back. And I was looking for one to argue doctrine with. And I ran into a little old lady, spent 55 years as a missionary in Japan, stayed through the whole of World War II there. That was it. I didn't know what to make of that. I didn't know what to make. They were our enemies. She was there teaching them Bibles and having firebombs come over her head. What in the world kind of person is this? We were foolish ourselves. Disobedient. You have disobedient children, you're disobedient. God is mad at you. Hey, we've just established you're disobedient in these things. Is God mad at you? If it was, if he was, he wouldn't be speaking to you. And he's speaking to us all today. Change, change, change. That's the point. Change. Become like this. Disobedient. Deceived. If I am friendly to a person living in deceit, it'll only confirm him in that. Sure. That's a Bible verse, isn't it? I read another Bible verse that says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding. If I give this guy some money, if I give this guy a sandwich or something like that, or if somebody comes to the church and needs help and, you know, we'd look at him and we say, you got a job? No, I don't have a job. Have you been trying to get a job? Well, not lately. Why not? Well, because I'm addicted to drugs. Man, your whole life is spiraled out of control, and you've brought it all on yourself, and you deserve it all. We can't help you. Go away. No. Is that how we were treated by God? No. Enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. You see, this is not leaving anything out. Lust and pleasures. For adults, it means go to the extreme limit of what you can conceive of as being some kind of lustful, perverse pleasure. And even that doesn't make a person exempt from having the commandment of God for them to be loved by you if you're their neighbor. It doesn't make them exempt from that, and it doesn't exempt you or me from loving them. spending our life in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. This, we were, we were, we were, we were, everybody here, we were, we were all these things. I look back on how God dealt to you, dealt in your life. Punish, rejection, broken, everything, harsh treatment. Well, that might have caught your attention. You might think, what's going wrong with my life? And begin to ask the right question. But it's the gentleness of God that makes anybody exalted, makes anybody change. And Paul goes on to close with that. He saved us when the kindness, verse four, of God, our Savior. That's what God met all this with. Not righteous, furious wrath, but kindness. When the kindness of God, our Savior, and his love for mankind appeared. If an unbeliever ever asks you, does God love me? What would you be inclined to say? I'm an unbeliever. In fact, I'm an atheist. But does God, if he does exist, does he love me? What would you say? Well, he'll love you if you pray the sinner's prayer and Jesus lives in your life. He'll love you. Is that what you're going to say? Sure it is. That's what your impulse is. That's what mine is. But that's not true. God doesn't tell us to love someone he doesn't love. God doesn't tell us to love our neighbor when he doesn't love them. And this is what we call his common grace, his common grace. We're violating God's common grace when we withhold love from a neighbor. Love from, and certainly from a neighbor, from a brother or sister who disappoints us or who even is wrestling with and succumbing to various sins. He saved us. He saved us. He didn't say, get yourself cleaned up, get a job, come back when you're serious, anything like that. He saved us. And not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness. Do a certain number of righteous deeds to prove that you're serious about this whole proposition of salvation. No, beat your chest and say, God be merciful to me. Beat your chest and say that. That's it. That's it. God, be merciful to me. You don't have to make long, eloquent prayers. Just say, God, be merciful to me. He'll hear that prayer, and he'll answer. He'll change your life. Might not change your circumstances, but he'll change your life. Be merciful. And if he tells us to be this way towards others, it's because he's been this way towards us. He saved us not because we were likely candidates, we were striving, we were trying to do good, we were trying to obey our parents and look nice and all that stuff. It was according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration. What about sins? What about the sins? Those are God's. Only God can take away a sin. You and I can't take away a sin. This is what trap the session falls in from time to time. Somebody comes before us, they're in sin, and we think, okay, here's what you do. Do this, don't do that, and if you don't do, and we want to kind of check up on these things, if we don't see these things happening, then we'll judge that you're not in sin. Keep coming to us, though, and listen to us, we'll get you out of the sin. We can't do that. We can't help anybody out of a single sin. We can't help. He saved us by the washing of regeneration. He made us a new creature in Christ. That's why Jesus could say to the woman caught in adultery, he doesn't see her first and foremost as an adulteress. He knew she was, because he said, go and sin no more. But he doesn't say, now, my dear, I'm going to have to put this kindly. These guys are rough handling you, but they're right. You're an adulteress, and you should be stoned to death. I'm sorry. I do love you, and I'll see you in heaven, but you must be put to death. He doesn't say anything like that. He gets rid of those Pharisaic legalists, and he says, open your eyes and look. Your life has changed. Look. No accusers. No accusers. And then, just to make certain, lest she misunderstand, no accusers because I'm standing before the supreme accuser, he says, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. He doesn't give her a list of rules and regulations and say, go and do these things. This will help you break the pattern of sexual addiction and blah, blah, blah. Go and sin no more, because he was a new creature. We're either dealing with new creatures in Christ or not. And we're to be gracious and loving in both cases. And by the renewing of the Holy Spirit, he makes us new, he changes us. And he did it not in a stingy way, verse six, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that being justified by his grace. See, the pain we feel when you're told today you're a maligner, does that feel good, like that? I've been facing this all week, and I got the head start on you. I got this list, and I started thinking, I'm going to concentrate on this, and I'm not going to do these things. I'm going to be conscious and intentional. I'm not going to do these things. And sometimes I thought I wasn't until I looked back, and I thought, I did it again. I did it again. And I tell them one thing. scrubbing out the insoles of my shoes in the bathroom sink. Debbie says, oh, please go use the utility sink for that. It's just my shoes. I wish you would do it. I mean, there are reasons. I want to give you the reasons. And here's where the sermon caught on. I said, baby, you don't need to give me reasons. I hear you. You don't want me to do it. I'm not going to do it. Back that up and rerun pre this passage preparation in May. Here are the reasons, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba, which I'm not paying any attention to. No, you want reasons? Here are my reasons, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba. And we would have gone like that for a day or two. This stuff really works. The stuff here really works. If we love another person and go to extraordinary lengths to do whatever they ask us to do because they're the master and the servant, suddenly you find out you don't have a master-servant situation. You've got equals. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. This is fun. He poured out his spirit richly, that being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life, which is to say, the best is yet to be. Amen.