th th th th That's a prop. Instead of Kleenex, we'll give you one of these. Your nose will drop off. Okay. Thank you. Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Aren't you glad it's not of the jury? You're sequestered. Just thinking of that, you ought to be praying for it. What's his name? Daniel Penny? Isn't it Daniel Penny? The Marine that stopped the crazy man from hurting people on the subway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's full of drugs. But yeah. But you try to help people out and you get stung. Like they say, if that goes bad, People aren't going to want to help other people, you know, because who wants to go to jail, especially in New York? OK, well, we're looking at kind of a flip side of that. Instead of evil actions, we're talking about godliness in action. And we're going to be looking at Titus chapter 3 here today. All right. Lot crammed in that we'll see if we can talk fast and make it through. Yeah Prayer requests one case. I'll try to remember it in a morning service, but pray for Bonnie and Mike as they head south All the way to Houston, Texas area on Wednesday And we've already asked do you have any other extra room, but they're full ups. I We need one of those 14-passenger vans. We had a lot of other people who wanted to come. OK. Yeah, Mark. Yeah, please pray for the spiritual growth of my mom, Christy, Jen, John, and June, and for my sister's changing heart. How's she doing physically? I haven't heard since the last time, but I'm just going to say she's stable right now. She has been seeing the situation, but I guess I am where I am because of my family. So there's a guilt emotion coming over her now. She seems to be more interested in me because her life is Yeah. That does make you think a little harder on it. Okay. Others going once, twice. Yes. I wonder if that keeps him awake at night, thinking, okay, who do I nominate for this job? There's a lot of them, right? So, yeah. Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for each one here today. Pray for our time to look at your word here in Titus, that we can learn and profit from it. We thank you, Lord, for the way that you do hear and answer prayer. And we do pray you'll continue to work in Mark's mother's life, for Christi, June, Ben, and Jenny. I had the J. Pray that you'll continue to work in their lives, bring other people into their life that would cause them to realize it's not just Mark that believes this way, but others do, and that they might see that truth from your word. I pray you'll continue to work in Sister Sue's life, both physically, but also spiritually, that you'll help her to be looking to the Lord for the help and strength that she needs to meet this addiction that she's had for some time now. Pray, too, for our president-to-be, Trump, that you will cause him to be looking to you for wisdom and guidance, choices he makes for all these different appointments, but also in policy and, you know, everybody wants their pet project fixed the first day. And we just pray too for the confirmation hearings, other things that will take place yet in the future. We just pray for protection too, for him and and Vice President Vance, others that could potentially be in danger, people that want to take them out for one reason or another. We pray, too, for Bonnie and Mike. You give them safety down to Texas and back, a good time visiting with family. And we ask that you guide us in our study here today as we think about the matter of good works and the part that that ought to play in our lives as believers in Jesus name, amen. Okay, so key verse today is we're looking at Titus 3. Key verses there in verse 8, this is a faithful saying, and these things that I will affirm constantly that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. Okay, we'll talk about maintaining here in a little bit, but, oh, let's see, what do we hope that sometimes takes place? I hope that they will maintain the roads when the sun, or sun, we can only hope it's sun, right? Snow and ice and all the rest of that. What are we hoping that they'll do when they maintain the roads? Clean them off, okay? every first every month or always we want we want it regularly done don't we okay well the lord and i'm giving you the the end result here lord wants us to maintain good works he wants us to be regularly involved in it not Not like a light switch, we're just on or off. We do our good deed and then we go for weeks or months before we get around to doing another one. But we see here the Lord's involved in good works. And we'll see what some of those are as we go along here today. Here's a quote for you, Henry Ward Beecher. That rings a bell, but I can't remember why. Was he a poet? Anyway, it doesn't matter. It says, as a flower always wears their own colors and gives forth their own fragrance every day alike, so Christians maintain their character at all times and under all circumstances. So, you know, God wants us to be a 24-7 Christian, okay? Not just when we pull into the driveway here, you know, we gotta adjust our halo and behave ourself for an hour or two, and then go back and be something else otherwise. You know, the Lord wants us to live a holy life. Let me see. He tells us there in 1 Peter that we are to be holy because what? Yeah, God's holy. We're to be like a reflection, an image, if you will, of the Lord. He set the example, okay? And we need to follow through with that. So we'll talk here to begin with on godly actions. We're picking this up in Titus 3, verse four through seven. And we see here, when God acts, he does so differently than we do, okay? We might have several different responses to something, and we say, well, that's right, and that's wrong, God doesn't have to choose between right and wrong, okay? He's always gonna do the right thing, all right? However, we do at times have to make choices, but it's because of God's attributes, his character, he's infinitely perfect. There's never a time where God goes, oh man, I really messed up this time. I wish I'd get a do-over. Well, God doesn't have to do that. Sometimes we, have regrets, we wish that we'd have done things differently. But Hosea 14.9 talks about that. It says, the way of the Lord is right. Okay? It's not sometimes right, or every once in a while he gets it right, but it's right all the time. And the reason why it's rooted in God's character, his attributes, and it talks about some of those attributes there in Titus 3, verse 4 and 5. He says, after that, the kindness and love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared. not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, or the Holy Spirit. And so it talks here about God's kindness, his love, his mercy. It talks about kindness first, and it's described different ways In the Old Testament, some other words that were used to describe His kindness, and I won't read all the references for it, but it said God's kindness was marvelous, it was merciful, it was great, it was everlasting. In the New Testament, it talks about Christ and His kindness. Christ demonstrated the Father's kindness towards us, And it comes from within, okay? It's kind of like, well, you've heard the illustration. Okay, so you're walking around with a cup of coffee. You ever fill it too full, okay? There's just a little bit left in the pot, you know, oh, I'll just drink, oh, and it's all the way up, oh, and be careful here, because if I stumble a little bit or whatever, it's gonna slush out, right? And what slushes out is coffee. Well, We can be full to the brim of other things that if we get bumped a little bit, something comes out. Maybe it's anger or whatever may not be good. If it's something good, if we're full of kindness, that's what's going to come out. It's kind of whatever's within us. That's part of our attributes, our character. But, you know, we see here the example that he sets is that of kindness. And next he talks about love. Well, we know of God's great love for us. He demonstrated, he didn't just talk, some people talk a lot about love. And yet you're looking and going, I don't see it. I'm hearing it, but I'm not seeing it. But he demonstrated his love. It tells us there in Romans 5, 8, God demonstrated his love towards us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Okay, so he showed his love. He didn't look around heaven thinking, okay, kind of like when we're, I don't even know if it's still around, Purple Heart. Used to get a call from Purple Heart. We're gonna be in your neighborhood. Is there any clothing or anything that you would like to give away? Set it on your doorstep. We'll come by and pick it up. I don't get those calls. Maybe they didn't like what I was putting out. I don't know. But yeah, we see here that God loves us and he demonstrates it towards us. He gives us his very best, his own son, the Lord Jesus. And so God demonstrates kindness towards us. He demonstrates love towards us. A couple words you're probably familiar with through the years that you've heard talked about that, I mean, it's always just translated love in our scripture. I woke you up, didn't I? Agape and phileo. Agape is God's kind of love, all right? And the definition that I've drummed into my head is seeking the other person's good without expecting anything in return. You're going to do something good for somebody else, not to make them indebted to you so that sometime later they'll help you out or do something good for you. No strings attached. And that's what God did for us. I mean, what can we give back to God? But he loved us. He had caring concern about us. He didn't want us to go to hell. It tells us that God desires that none would perish and end up in the pits of hell, okay? And so he provides a way of salvation. He provides a way of dodging hell and the lake of fire, if you will. And it's through his son. And the other word, phileo, again, it's more talking about emotions that motivate us to action. And we see here that he's talking about that phileo love here in Titus 3, 4. But God has concern about us. He's concerned about our well-being. not just on our birthday or Christmas time. He's concerned about us each and every day of our lives. And he also has affection for us. It's time to think about all the things that God could have affection for. What do we love? Well, I love sunshine. Cars at start, chocolate, whatever. We say we love all kinds of things. But here we have the creator, sustainer of the universe says he loves us. We're a mighty small cog in the overall wheel. I don't know how many people there are in this world. And just at this time, let alone the last 4,000 years, God said he loved all of us. And he's looking for his best to be accomplished in our lives. And so it says, a question is asked, how do you feel when someone says that he or she loves you, but their actions scream that they don't? You ever find people kind of faking it? They say the right thing at the right time, but you kind of wonder, is that for real? Can I believe it? We see here, God, again, He didn't just talk about His love. He demonstrated. He followed through with it. He loves us. And He's demonstrating an action. We are to follow His example. God desires that those same three things, you know, kindness, His love, and we see here, needs to be demonstrated towards other people. Okay, here's another question. Why is it wrong to determine whether or not God loves us based on whether or not he brings about beneficial circumstances in your life? In other words, is everything going just fine and dandy for you that shows that God loves you? And if there's a wrench kind of thrown in the middle of it, that he doesn't love you? What if you went out this morning and you're all dressed, you got your nice clothes on, you're ready to go, you really kind of need to go, get there on time, and you got a flat tire? Guess God doesn't love me. Is that what he's telling us? No, no. I mean, we don't always know. God doesn't, you know, we look up in the sky and see in the clouds, you know, the reason why, or there's a letter in the mail that explains it all. But maybe God just needed to delay us enough time so that, you know, 20 minutes down the road before we got to church, we might've been in that accident. that we drive by and we see the police and the fire or the, yeah, maybe a fire truck or a flatbed ready to haul one of them away, you know. I have to remind myself of that because sometimes I'm... I wanna go, you know, and something delays me. Okay, God's in charge of the goes and the stops, the delays, all right? And so it's not, everything has to be going great guns for God to be demonstrating his love towards us. And so we see here, the other one is that there in verse five, he says, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, Okay, we know that we don't gain our salvation by doing good works. There are some religions through the world that kind of camp on that one. You know, you keep doing a lot of good works and, you know, the old balance scale. If my good works outweigh my bad works, you know, then I get in. Well, that may make sense to us. You know, it may look good on your resume or, you know, impress people with all the plaques you got for all the good stuff you've done. But that doesn't get us into heaven. There's a divine order. What's first? Faith, salvation, then comes the works. The works are in there, but we got to get them in the right order. But he says, according to his mercy, he saved us. What's mercy? Pardon? Okay. Undeserved love. That sounds kind of like grace. Undeserved favor. Okay. What's mercy? Is there anything else involved in mercy? Okay. Because you were in a hurry to get to church, you were doing 45 in a 35. And you see the lights behind you. And they're not just decorations for Christmas. So you pull over and the policeman walks up, you know, and you're digging for your billfolds and license and all this stuff, you know, and he's, do you know why I pulled you over? Yeah, I was doing 45 in a 35. Okay. Where are you going? You're in such a hurry. Oh, I'm going to church. OK. So you're going to break the law to get to church on time. Because you've got to teach Sunday school, tell everybody how you need to be obedient, right? We get a little sermon. OK, because it's Sunday and it's a nice day out, I'm just going to give you a warning. That's mercy. He could have, in a sense, punished us for wrongdoing But he didn't. And God could have sent us all straight to hell. But because of his mercy, he didn't. He provided the Savior. And it says, by his mercy, he saved us. And I was going to make sure I was thinking right. I thought, OK. So I looked up mercy. And this is textbook definition. But it says, compassion and forgiveness shown towards someone who is within power to punish or to harm. So there is, there is reason that we could, you know, come after an individual, but because of mercy, we choose not to. Why should we demonstrate mercy towards others? Yeah, God's demonstrated mercy towards us, and we ought to pass it on, okay? God's going to be a merciful God. People aren't always, okay? But God will. And it tells us that His mercy endures forever, okay? It's not like the milk jug, you know, or your coupons you get in the mail with the expiration date. It says God's mercy is going to be there. all the way through. He saved us through his mercy. And again, demonstrated kindness, love, and mercy towards us. And so we read in Romans 8, 28, you know, all things work together. We all got that one down. But then we need to go on to 29 that says that we're conformed molded, shaped into the image of Christ, okay? So we're to demonstrate those same kinds of character qualities that we see, that God's demonstrating towards us, towards others, to pass it on, okay? And so here he says, in verses, the latter part of verse five and on through seven, Again, it talks about salvation. He said he saved us. And then he says, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Well, there's a lot of ministries that the Holy Spirit has. Part of that is providing the cleansing that takes place. It's like, They were saying sin is a, it's a kind of a permanent stain, okay? And there's only one kind of stain remover that removes the stain, and that's the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And he enables us to be born again. God wipes the slate clean, past, present, future, okay? It works 100%, and there's nothing else on earth that cleans like the shed blood of Jesus Christ. It's 100% effective. Now, there's other things that talk about that. I meant to bring the spray thing, but this kind of does the same thing. Kills cold and flu viruses. Good clean. Disinfectant wipes. Kills 99.9% of bacteria in 15 seconds. Okay, so I'll go down to ladies bathroom, men's bathroom. I probably should go in the men's bathroom, right? And I get one of these, in fact, I get several of these towels out and I wipe the floor down. Remember, 99.9%. And somebody, wouldn't you know, brought in cookies. And I'm still nibbling on that cookie when I walk into the bathroom and it falls on the floor. And it falls on the area that I cleaned that's 99.9% clean. You want to eat it? No, I don't think so. It's that 0.1 that might get you, right? But there is no leftovers when Christ cleanses us, all right? It's 100% effective. You know, it was like, what was it, talk about the flu virus, the shot, you know? I don't know what they got out today. Who knows? I just know I don't want to take it because I don't trust what's in it, but that's me. You can do what you want. But what do they say? Well, you know, it could, it could be 50% effective. So it might help you and it might not help you. I don't know what the percentage is this year, but God's cleansing is 100%. And it tells us that, and again, it doesn't say it all here, but it's a renewing of the Holy Spirit. He gives us His spirit. Once we trust Christ, He cleanses away our sin and He puts the Holy Spirit within us to remain there until He takes us home, okay? Holy Spirit's not on loan. He's not on a 90-day test period to see if it works out or not, okay? And we see here again, the Holy Spirit's involved in regenerating us, helping us to become what the Bible describes as born again. And we see that he did, well, it mentions, we won't take time to look at that.