Let us turn over a little to the portion of script we read together from the Epistle of Paul to Titus, the third chapter. We can read again at verse 4. That when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out in His abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that having been justified by His grace become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. As we can see from the opening verses of this chapter, the apostle Paul is here instructing believers as to how they ought to conduct themselves and what attitude they ought to have both to civil authorities and even to men in general. He of course so characteristically bases these exhortations to holiness of life and conduct on all that has taken place in their own experience with regard to the saving grace of God. He provides the strongest motivation for them. to live lives that will commend the gospel to their fellows. That is surely an exhortation that is relevant to ourselves at all times. As I said, he is providing the strongest motivation for them by providing us, as one author has put it, with one of the finest summaries of the Trinitarian Gospel message anywhere in the New Testament. It is with that summary that we will look this evening and consider it under the term of the Gospel of Salvation. Note first of all the need for that salvation. That surely is set out for us in verse 3 where he says, We ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. What a catalogue! What a description! mankind of, man's nature, how corrupt and how defiled that nature is. And that is the nature that you and I, every one of us, have must be committed to this world. A foreign nature, a corrupt nature, and it manifests itself in ever so many ways. Paul says, it starts off with a description of it when he says, we ourselves, he includes himself there, were also once foolish. Foolish, not weak in mind, not weak in intelligence, but foolish through the deceitfulness, that sin, brought into our hearts, blinding us so that we don't reason properly, we deceive ourselves, foolish deceiving ourselves, serving various lusts and pleasures. We don't judge things, we don't weigh things, as we ought to do it, certainly don't do that in accordance with the light that is given to us in the scriptures. The light of the mind and the will of God that should be our guide in all things, in what we think and in what we do. Oh foolish! And that body manifests itself in our disobedience, wanting our own way, wanting our own will, disobedience to authority in ever so many forms. We are such rebellious creatures, deceiving ourselves and being deceived, thinking that The way we choose, that's the way to live, that's real life, despite the fact that the way we choose is the very contradiction of the way commended to us in the scriptures. Just as the scriptures tell us that there is a way that appears to man to be life, but the end thereof is death for the wages of sin. his death. And then we so got up with the pleasure of life, the temporary pleasures, the pleasure of sin that is but for a moment and yet it brings to us the spiritual death not only in this life but if we persisted in the life to come as well. or deceiving ourselves and being deceived. Being deceived by the way in which the world presents itself to us. We regard it as the ways of the world that are so attractive, so worthwhile to adopt them. not realising and not recognising that the ways of this world are indeed spiritual death. He speaks of serving various lusts and pleasures, thinking that when we throw ourselves into the world, have this licence to do as we please, just indulging our own sinful inclinations and our own sinful desires, we think that's liberty, whereas in reality it is bondage. Sin has such a mass over us and only the grace of God can break that bondage. Serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice, and envy, or ill will, how easily that manifests itself in our hearts and in our lives. Giving place to envy, envying what others are or what others have. and we may not be and do not have ourselves. A discontentedness with ourselves and discontented with, oh God, hating even, hateful conducting ourselves so that others are offended with us and offended by us. Hateful and hating. one another. What a picture it gives of human nature. It's not one that we are ready to accept. We may be ready to say, oh well that's true of such and such, perhaps even true of a certain section of men and women. But to always accept ourselves, oh we We are so biased in favour of ourselves that we put a gloss on our own shortcomings. What evidence we find there then of man's need of being saved, man's need of the grace of God, man's need of the power of God that is unto salvation. Well, then Paul moves on to show us the soul of that sin. Is there salvation for people in such an awful situation? Is there salvation for such people, these kinds of people? Oh, I'm sure we would be ready to turn away from them, not to associate with them, even though these sins are characterized our own lives. One way or another, doesn't mean to say that all of them, although the seed of every sin is in our heart. Every sin. We cannot say, oh I would never do that. There but, for the grace of God, go I is what we have to say in every situation and in view of every sin. And how thankful we ought to be, friends, for the common grace of God. If it weren't for the common grace of God that restrains the evil propensities and inclinations of human nature, we couldn't live as a society with one another. And how we ought to see the value of having the Gospel, and the witness of the Gospel, and the power of the Gospel. As that power, the power of the Gospel is receding in this nation. It's being rejected. What are we seeing? We're seeing how the population, men and women, sin is rearing its head. What a testimony we are giving to the evil of sin as a nation. There doesn't seem to be any depths of depravity that we can't descend. All that we need, the power of the gospel, And though the gospel is being set aside, the Christian faith being set aside, discounted, people are not realising what are the consequences of departing, of setting aside the gospel in that way. We will reap what we are sowing, and we are doing that. Then Paul goes on to tell us that despite this awful catalogue of sin, the characterisation that he gives us of human nature, there is hope that such can be changed. Oh, the grace of God, friends, and the transformation that that grace can and does effect. in ruined sinners such as we are. What is the source of salvation? What is the hope of salvation? Oh, it is found. Where else would you find it? Where else can you find it? But in God, the God of grace, the God of mercy. Oh, the God who has so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish. but have everlasting life. Here we have not just, grammarians will talk about this, but a grammatical advertisement. We don't leave it at that level, the level of grammar. It is a divine advertisement. But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appealed, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy. He saved us. Oh, how we ought to marvel at the grace, the kindness, as Paul describes it here, the kindness and love of God. of Adam. But our Lord, our God, is gracious and He is merciful. That when the kindness, here is the source of salvation, here is, oh here is, grounds for hope. That despite the illusion that sin has effected upon human nature, upon your nature and upon mine, oh God is able to redeem us. There is a gospel, good news, good news even for the very chief of sinners. No matter how hell deserving. But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. Oh, the emphasis of the Word of God, the emphasis of the Gospel is on the sovereign grace of God. He wasn't indebted to us. He wasn't under no obligation. He is under no obligation to make any provision for our salvation. It would be justice on His part to condemn the whole of mankind to a lost eternity. But blessed be His name, He hasn't done that. His kindness. His love. Towards us. Towards people like this. People of a character like this. Oh, the love of God our Savior toward man. Man who has been painted in these awful dark colors. His love. Imagine the Holy God. the one whose light, in whom there is no darkness at all, who dwells in light. Oh, that he should condescend, that he should ever entertain any disposition of grace towards such human beings. that you should ever love. The kindness and the love of God, I would say, toward man. So difficult, perhaps, for people to believe that, especially when they are aware of how ruined they are by nature. If they are aware at all of the ill-desired of their sins, love a ruined, hell-be-serving sinner like myself or yourself. It's difficult. It's difficult. But this is the clear testimony of the Word of God. And not only testimony of the Word of God, God has given the greatest proof, the greatest evidence, the strongest argument and assurance that you could possibly ask for. Where? in sending His Son into this world. God commands His love toward us in that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Oh, how we ought to marvel at the love, speak of the love of God. It doesn't seem to really It's marvellous, it's wonderful, it's unbelievable, but it's true. God commends His love towards us, and if He does not, who are you and who am I to refuse to believe that He loves us? We have the warrant of Scripture, we have the evidence of the Incarnation, yes? the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. God manifest in the world. God manifest in the flesh. We are trying to say a little of that. It was last Thursday evening. What a marvel it is that God should condescend, sending his own Son into this world. Not to condemn, not to condemn sinners. but to seek them out and to save them. Not to condemn the world, but that the world, this kind of, the use of, the Apostle John's use of the word world is quite special. When the Apostle John is using that word, he's thinking of the cosmos, an organisation, as if the world, the universe was all in an organisation and in an organised opposition to himself. And yet he has lived, he has loved people of that kind and of that nature, and a world of that kind and of that nature. For God commends His love toward us in that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Oh friend, you may be here this evening and you know yourself as a non-worthy sinner and you nevertheless believe, accept what God's Word says is what is true. not your own feelings, not your own reasonings. You must bring your reasoning and your feelings into subjection to the clear testimony of the Word of God. This is what is truth, not your feelings and not your own reasonings. Oh friend, don't reject. it. But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, oh what marvellous love that is. Not that was, but that is. It's still true of Him. It's still true of Him. And don't fall into the mistake of thinking that it is Christ's suffering, shall we say, that it is Christ that has somehow, by his death, by his atoning death, made God to love us? It is out of the love of God, not the whole the cross is the evidence of his love has preceded the crucifixion. And notice how he emphasizes that it's not by works of righteousness which we have done. Oh blessed be God that it is not on the basis of our work. When could we ever hope to performed to fulfill one act that you could call a righteous act. All our righteousnesses are as a filthy rag in his person and his sight. But blessed be God that it isn't our salvation is not based upon works of righteousness, even if we could do them, which we can't, which we can't. not by works of righteousness which we have done. Friend, if you are here and you know not Christ, stop trying and stop thinking that somehow or another you can earn God's favour by something you can do. If our salvation is to depend on anything that we can do, it will never be. It will never be. We can never do anything. that can possibly satisfy God's standards or meet God's standards. But blessed be his name that it is one who fulfilled all righteousness in our own and in our step, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has fulfilled all righteousness. But he says it's not based on works of righteousness. which we have done but according to his mercy. According to his mercy as opposed to our misery, which is there to be left to experience, to wallow in all the miseries of this life, to death itself and even to the pigs of hell forever. But he is merciful. He is merciful. He in whom compassions flow, the very God who condemns us for our sins and our shortcomings, nevertheless is absolutely compassionate toward us. Is that compassion not proved by His sending His own Son into this world and sending Him to the cross to suffer and die? to know our misery and what is the greatest misery that we could possibly endure or surely it is to be forsaken by God, to be shut, imprisoned forever under His displeasure and that is what Christ endured in our womb and in our skin so that we wouldn't have to endure it, so that we would be delivered from it. That is what Christ has accomplished by his death on the cross when he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But he says, according and according to his measure. Who can start measuring his measure? Oh, you see your sins? That's such great sins. huge sins. But friend, over against the greatness of your sins, put the mercy of God which cannot be measured. He is infinite and infinite in all of his attributes and one of his attributes is his mercy. And who can put limits to that? He doesn't put it. So don't you be putting it either. He is merciful and so therefore He can come over your sins, come over all your unworthiness. The Lord our God is merciful and He is gracious. And He has given ample proof of that in His own Son whom He sent into this world. According to His mercy, He saved us. He saved us. How did He do that? Through the washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Spirit, and which He has poured out abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternity. He saved us. And He has done that when and where? He has done that in Christ. That is the meaning, that is what is taking place. That is how we ought to understand all that is taking place in the life and in the death and in the resurrection and in the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is where He saved us. And that salvation is complete. That salvation is perfect. That salvation is full and certain. But you see, that's how we were in the past. But here we are now in the 21st century. How can something have happened over 2,000 years ago? How can that come into my experience? All it is applied, what Christ accomplished, what Christ effected, what God effected in Christ and through Christ is applied to us now by the Spirit, the work of the Spirit. Oh, we don't appreciate the work of the Spirit as we ought. We don't appreciate the passion of the Spirit, the third passion of the God. It's not some power like the power you see in the light there, you switch on. He's a person! And the Word of God tells us concerning that wonderful, that glorious person of the Godhead that he takes of the things that are Christ's and reveals them to us and applies them to us. He takes what is in Christ and applies it to us. And we see how he begins that work through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. It is on the basis of what Christ has accomplished by his death, his life and by his death and resurrection. So on that basis, that salvation that is applied to us by the Spirit. And He begins by changing our nature, dealing with our nature. That's what is all wrong. This heart, this nature that shows its corruption, its defilement, its fallenness in various lusts and pleasures, malice, envy, hatred and so on. or the Spirit deals with that kind of nature and changes it. Just as the Lord teaches and taught Nicodemus that except a man be born of water and the Spirit he can't enter the Kingdom of God. But blessed be his name that though changing ourselves is beyond our competence by His Spirit. No matter how malformed, and no matter our malfunction, our inability and incapacity to do any works of righteousness, oh, the Spirit of God can change. He did the washing, of course, the washing there refers to the defilement, the dirt. Have you ever felt that? Felt as if you were dirty from Ah, but that filth, that dirt is washed away by the washing of regeneration, the power of the Spirit in applying to us the efficacy, the power of the blood to cleanse us, to make us whiter than snow. of the Holy Spirit through the washing of regeneration. But you see, not only does he remove the defilement, the pollution, he actually transforms the very nature, makes us new creatures, gives us, well, gives us a new will, gives us a new heart. Or should I say, enables the one will to act differently to the way it acted prior to the power of the Spirit working in our hearts. It makes us new. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Or it could be translated, a new creation. Here is God's creative power by the ministry of the Spirit changing us, making us new. Oh, blessed be his name. Renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Saviour. And he then goes on to say, not only does he regenerate us, but he also justifies us, that having been justified by his grace, justified Justification as opposed to condemnation. In our sinful, lost, corrupt, defiled condition, we are condemned. But by being cleansed by the blood, being regenerated by the Spirit, we are enabled to put our trust in Christ. as a righteousness, so that the righteousness of Christ, the right doings, the righteous life that Christ led, oh imagine it, the perfect life, the perfect life, the perfect obedience, Christ's obedience is put to my credit, as if I had done all that Christ did. It's put to my credit. And on that basis, God declares me just, righteous, free from condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, all having been justified by His grace. And that justification is truly of grace. It's not something we've earned. It's not something that we've fulfilled. It is a gift that is given to us. This is His good pleasure. This is a divine favour to those who are utterly unworthy of it, ill-deserving, or justified by His grace, not by any works of righteousness that we have done. We don't get it. on the basis of our works, not on the basis of our repenting, our confession of our sin, our sorrow over our sin, or not on the basis of our praying, not on the basis of any sort of reformation that we may try to do. No, it's all of grace. not on the basis of anything that you and I can do, justified freely by His grace, as Paul puts it, and justified, of course, by faith. It is through faith in Jesus Christ, accepting Christ as my righteousness. I don't have it of myself, but I have it in Christ, because God, as Paul says, that Christ has been made unto us wisdom, he's been made unto us righteousness, he's been made unto us sanctification, and he's been made unto us redemption. Everything that is necessary for our salvation is in Christ. If we have Christ, we have everything. You can't harm redemption, you can't harm sanctification. You can't have justification, you can't have the wisdom that is unto salvation apart from Christ. So, as you are empty, bereft of all that, you embrace Christ as your wisdom, your righteousness, your sanctification, your redemption, as he is freely offered in the Gospel by faith. That having been justified in our life, that we should become heirs. And Paul in the Epistle to the Romans in the 8th chapter of Romans speaks of, if sons, then heirs. We become heirs because we become, first of all, we become, we make children. You see, that of course brings adoption, we are adopted into his family. He accepts us and deals with us as sons, as his own children. And of course, the children are heirs to what their parents, the inheritance of their parents. And what an inheritance is ours. We are heirs of God. Stop there. Heirs of God. God is of my inheritance and cup the portion. What inheritance can possibly, possibly compare to that? The world, not just the world, but the universe and all its riches cannot begin to compare with having God as your inheritance, the very creator. and cap the portion. We are heirs according to the hope of eternal life. We are members of his family, heirs of God, joined heirs with Christ. Who can begin to compute? Who can begin to compute? work out, to work out the riches of our inheritance. I have not seen or heard, neither has it come into the heart of man. You can't even, you can't even, you can't take it in. The things that God has prepared for them that love. Oh, what a glory awaits those who know this regeneration, who know this justification, who know this adoption, what a glory awaits us, the best is yet to be. We only have a foretaste of it in this world, in this life. The hope of eternal That is the motivation that the Apostle Paul brings to believers upon the church in order to persuade them, to encourage them, to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one. How we ought to feel our obligation. to live lives of conformity with this wonderful salvation that is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely we ought to, first of all perhaps, remember, for it says, for we ourselves were also once foolish, often ought to humble us. We are what we are by the grace of God. No thanks to us. No thanks to us. It is He, dear Lord, who has transformed us, made us new creatures in Christ. To Him be the glory. We ought to feel humble and also ought to make us patient, compassionate, with those as yet dead in trespasses and in sins. We're so ready, friends, to forget what we ourselves were once, for we would be still but for His grace. And so ready, then, to be hard on sinners who are ignorant and out of the way. And it ought to give us hope. If He changed me, Why would He change them by the sinner? It ought to fill us with hope concerning others, not to give up on them, or to build them on our hearts to the throne of grace. By the grace of God, the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes and how we ought to. grace and graciousness toward us. And let us all of course take Paul's exhortation that our own lives should be lives that commend the gospel. conduct, our dealings even, with our fellow sinners. May the Lord bless it to His name. His own word. Let us conclude singing to God's praise from Psalm 116. Psalm 116. Verse 13. And let's really sing it under meaning. I love salvation. Take the cup. On God's name will I call. I'll pay my vows now to the Lord before his people all. Dear in God's sight is his saint's death. Thy servant, Lord, am I. Thy servant, sure, thy handmaid's son, my bands, how distant I. Thank offerings I to thee will give, done God's name will call, I'll pay my vows now to the Lord before his people all. Within the courts of God's own house, within the midst of thee, O city of Jerusalem, praise to the Lord give ye. Let us sing these four stanzas in conclusion to God's praise and we stand to sing. I love salvation, take the cap, God's name will I call. May thy words now to the Lord be poured within the home. Here in God's light is this, this day. Thy servant, Lord, am I. Thy servant, sure, I am this time. Sarveshwaraya And God's praise now I to thee will give, And on God's name will call, I pay my vows now to the Lord. O say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming Now may grace, mercy, and peace to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest on you all now and forevermore. Amen. Hmm.