5/6/46 10/12/08 Titus 3:1-7

Start:

1.   Entice: (read it) It's great to be saved. But what for? Heaven? Of course. But what about here and now?

2.   Engage: Are you a better person, are you better to be around in Christ that without?

3.   Excite: Better husbands and wives. Better employees and bosses. Better citizens. Better neighbors or friends. In Christ we have something to offer everyone around us.

4.   Expand: The Christian life is not just what we are getting in the end. It is who we are now and what we contribute to those around us.

Explore: God has released us from sin and enabled us to please Him and to bless others.

Explain: To encourage us Paul offers 3 quick reminders.

1.   Our Purpose: To be ready for every good deed.  1,2

1.   By Proper subordination and obedience to secular authority. 1

2.   By Showing proper consideration to everyone else. 2

                                i.        Not speaking badly of others

                              ii.        Being peaceable.

                            iii.        Gentle

2.   Our Past: Slaves to Self. 3

1.   Foolish

2.   Disobedient

3.   Deceived

4.   Enslaved to various lusts and pleasures.

5.   Spending out life as a hater.

3.   Our Present: Freed and filled with the Spirit! 4-7

1.   God's motive in saving us. 4

2.   God's material for saving us 5, 6

3.   God's means for saving us. 7

Shut Down:

1.   We have been saved by grace to be graceful to others. Freed from sin to show the effects of that freedom to others. Granted the purpose of showing the living Chris to those we encounter every day.

2.   It begins with the saving. The justification. The washing. Have you been? If you have, then show the world. If you are not yet His, today is the day to change that.