Titus 3:4-5 How Salvation Works Pt. 1: Grace is a Gift

But here’s the temptation for every Christian. The gospel is so fundamental, so foundational for every aspect of our life, we talk about it so much that the gospel can actually become something familiar to us.

And not in the good way.

What happens as we try to live out the gospel is that it becomes just another piece of theology.

All of our thoughts, discussion, study, application becomes a forensic exercise.

At some point we stop seeing the gospel with joy and wonder, and our hearts start to grow cold.

And before we know it we are just drifting along practicing wrote religion.

Without an intentional effort to keep the truths of the gospel married to the glory of the gospel, the good news we love so much just becomes old news.

We grow numb to God’s glory and grace in the good news that Jesus died and rose again to forgive our sins.

And all of that is especially true when you’re contending for the faith and defending the gospel from false teaching like we’ve been doing for the past year.

We get so focused on the errors, dangers, and perversions of all those false gospels that we forget to celebrate the true gospel. To savor it. To joyfully treasure God and glorify him for the good news of his salvation.

And that’s my prayer for us today.

My hope in this sermon is to hit a reset. To go back to our foundation, hold it up, and look at it with wonder.

To take the gospel that we all love and cherish, and refocus our attention on the reason we are all here in the first place.

I don’t want our church to have a faith that can treat the gospel like something common.

I want to our have a faith that, by God’s grace, treasures God for all he’s worth in Jesus Christ.

To look at the gospel and instead of just looking at the different parts of God’s grace and what that grace accomplishes on our behalf, and go beyond that to see who this God is that gives this amazing grace in the first place.

The gospel is good news. And first and foremost, the gospel should drive in all of us, a white hot worship and love for the God who saves.

So how do we do that?

How do we keep the gospel from being common and glorify God for all he’s worth?

I think the way to do that is by going deeper than answering the question what is the gospel?

We’ll answer that, but here’s the question that I think will help us frame this whole sermon in a way that leads to heart felt joy, love and gratitude for God our Savior.

Here it is.

The answer to this question is rooted in who God is. What’s He like. What we are asking God to do in this sermon is, “Show us your glory.”

But before we get there, before we can answer why does God save sinners, we need to understand why God doesn’t save sinners. What doesn’t move or motivate God to give grace.

Because even that is part of the good news. So lets start with point number 1 out of Titus 3:4-5...

I. Salvation is not a Reward for Our Good Works

Titus 3:4-5 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

This is gospel 101. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And like I said earlier the temptation here is to say, “Got it. Check. What’s next?”

To assume we get the gospel, and move on to the next thing.

But I don’t want to do that. That’s dangerous.

When we skim over the gospel. When we satisfy ourselves with a surface level understanding of God’s amazing grace, we miss out on the whole point of the gospel in the first place.

To glorify God and celebrate his goodness and grace in Jesus Christ.

What can happen with Christians is that we can take the good news of Jesus Christ and treat it like a math formula.

Sin + Christ + Faith = Forgiveness.

The gospel becomes a cold calculation of eternal truths instead of an awesome display of the glory of God and his amazing love for us in Christ Jesus.

But I don’t want to brush over this. I want to chew on this, to celebrate this and ask what does the gospel tell us about who God is and what is it about the gospel that makes God so glorious and worthy of all our love, worship, and devotion?

So to start answering that, the first thing we need to focus on is the striking, in your face contrast Paul makes in verse 5.

And this strong contrast is found in two little words. Not and but.

Verse 5 God saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to, but because of his own mercy.

God’s Word could not be more clear. Salvation is not a reward for our good works. It is not earned by human effort, striving, and achievement. The only thing that saves us is God’s merciful grace.

This is an assault on human pride and self glory. There is no greater offense of the Christian faith than to look at the world square in the eye and say, You are a sinner. And there is nothing you can do to save yourself. You are vile, wicked, rebellious and your eternity is at the mercy of a perfectly Holy, Righteous, and Just God.

Sinful man hates that message. Its like nails on a chalkboard to the natural man. I’m not that bad. I’m a good person. Who are you to say I’m a sinner? Who are you to tell me how to live my life? Surely I don’t deserve God’s judgment when there are people so much worse than me!

But this was all of us. All of us, before Christ, were vile wretched sinners.

Don’t forget the backdrop of Paul’s gospel proclamation that we are saved solely, by God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ.

Look up at Verse 3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

Every single person is dead in their trespasses and sin. Every single person is under God’s judgment and in desperate need of God’s merciful grace.

Notice this list in verse 3 charges every single person with breaking both parts of the Great Commandment.

We were foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures. Another way to say that is We did not love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

And not only did we fail to love God, we failed to love our neighbor. God’s Word says passed our days in malice and envy, hating one another.

Who can raise a hand and say not me? Who can say I’ve loved God and loved my neighbor perfectly? There’s only one, and his name is Jesus Christ.

For everyone else, All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And because of that we are all under God’s judgment and wrath.

The way the Bible talks about sin, is that sin is a debt we owe to God.

God is our Creator. Genesis 1:1, maybe the most important verse in the Bible, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And because God is the Creator and we are his creatures, we owe all of our life to him. All of our love, affection, worship, devotion, obedience. You name it, its his.

But in our sin, we take the worship we owed to God, and we give that worship, devotion, and love to something else.

That’s all sin really is. Its false worship. If obeying God is one of the ways we worship God, than disobeying God is still an act of worship.

When we worship comfort, we give into gluttony. When we worship security we horde money in our bank accounts. When we worship pleasure we sell ourselves into the slavery of pornography.

Sin is the sacred act of idolatrous worship. And so every act of sin points the finger at God and says you are not Holy, you are not Good, you are not Life. You are not worthy of all my love and devotion.

So what is this debt we owe to God? Romans 6:23: For the wages of sin is death.

We deserve God’s judgment and wrath, and the payment for that is physical, spiritual, and eternal death.

We die physically. We die spiritually where we are separated from the God of life, enslaved to sin and death, enemies of the Most High God.

And we die eternally. The Bible calls this the second death. Its the lake of fire. The place of outer darkness. The place of weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

It is eternal, conscious torment in Hell where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched Mk 9:48.

And this is the debt we all deserve to pay. And why is it eternal? Because God’s justice demands the punishment fits the crime.

And even the smallest of sins is committed against an infinitely holy God.

This is bad news. And every single person knows it. That’s why they have guilt and shame and an innate desire to justify themselves by being a good person. Or as Paul would say, works done by us in righteousness.

The natural man looks at the mountain of debt in his life, and foolishly says I can pay this off.

As long as my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, God will save me in the end.

So they work, and they work, and they work.

They try to be kind. Give to charity. Support and volunteer for noble causes like serving the poor. They might even try to get extra points by being religious.

But here’s the folly on relying on our good works to save us. Who could ever amount enough good works to put God into their debt?

The Bible says Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? (Rom. 11:35).

God doesn’t owe anyone salvation. Every act of obedience, every good work, God already deserves. That’s baked into the Creator-created relationship.

Every single good work we could possibly do, should have already been given to God in the first place. So you see good works don’t earn us any merit before God.

Not only that, we owe God perfect righteousness. And even a single sin falls short of God’s glory and condemns us under God’s justice.

No amount of good works or human effort can wash away even one sin. Our sin is an infinite debt we could never pay on our own.

Psalm 130:3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

That. of course, is a rhetorical question, because if God counted even one sin against us no one could stand, but would fall under his just and righteous judgment.

Like I said, this is bad news. There is no hope for salvation in good works. No amount of works done by us in righteousness will move God to pity us or save us.

Our only hope is God’s mercy.

What is mercy? God is called the Father of mercies. Mercy is an attribute of God. Its a part of his nature and character.

And as we are going to see in the second half of this sermon it is an outflow, an expression, a manifestation of God’s steadfast, unending love for his people.

The word mercy means pity, compassion, or clemency. It is seeing someone in a sorry state, and helping them even though they don’t deserve it.

Its the same word Jesus used in the parable of the Good Samaritan who was beaten, robbed, and left naked on the side of the road. The one who helped him, healed him, restored, was the one who showed mercy.

That is God with us. In our sin we are as good as dead laying in the street, until God comes along, binds us up, and makes us whole.

And because works contribute nothing to our salvation the mercy of God is our only hope.

Now, to our modern ears, when we hear the word mercy, we usually think of it in the context of a courtroom. We plea to the judge for mercy.

Now that tells us something. Mercy isn’t owed. Its never deserved. Its a desperate cry, when we have no other option.

And under normal circumstances, if your only hope is the mercy of a judge, that is not a position you want to be in.

Let’s use the example of a human Courtroom. God is a Judge. We are told that when Christ returns he will judge every person that has ever lived because the Father has given all judgment to him.

Spoiler alert. This is a great hope for a Christian because our judge is the one who paid our sentence for us in full.

Now say you are in this courtroom, and you were on trial for murder. Not only that, but the court had you dead to rights.

I think murder is a helpful example for this illustration because our sin murdered Christ. God laid on him the iniquity of us all (Is. 53:6).

And in our judicial system, just like God’s heavenly judicial system, the wages of murder is death.

So you are a murderer, and the evidence against you is clear as day. You know you’re guilty. The jury knows you’re guilty. The judge knows you’re guilty. There is no question about it.

And as you walk into the court room, and stand before the judge whose sole purpose is to carry out justice, and with a weak and trembling voice, you plea for mercy.

How confident are you that that judge will show you kindness. How sure are you that you are walking out of that room a free man or free woman?

At best its a toss up.

If you’re only hope of escaping judgment is mercy, that is sinking sand.

That is not solid ground, and you would rightly have every expectation to fall under judgment.

But here’s the good news. When we place our hope on the mercy of God we have a sure hope for salvation.

Because mercy is part of who God is. He wants to give mercy because it flows from his love.

Lamentations 3:22-24 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

And how does Jeremiah respond to God’s great promise of mercy?

24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

He puts all of his hope in the Lord.

Because Jeremiah knew there is no surer hope than the mercy of God because there is no greater mercy than God’s mercy.

It is in God’s character, his glory, to be merciful, give grace, and save everyone who pleas, “Mercy! Mercy! I can’t save myself. I have no other hope. Nowhere left to turn. I have no righteousness of my own, I only have the righteousness of Christ!”

And God’s promise is to save everyone who cries out to him because God loves to give mercy in Jesus Christ.

This is where we start to make a turn and see how the good news of the gospel tells us something glorious about God Himself.

Because what we’ve seen so far is that salvation is not a reward for good works. It can’t be. Our debt is too great to bear.

But the good news of the gospel says salvation isn’t by works. It is a gift of God’s great love.

II. Salvation is a Gift of God’s Great Love

Titus 3:4-5 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

Why is the mercy of God such a sure hope for the believer and everyone who would call upon the name of Christ?

The answer is rooted in God’s character. His love. Who God is is what moves him to save sinners.

This tells us something amazing about God because God doesn’t save us out of any obligation. He doesn’t save us because his hand was forced to do something he didn’t really want to do.

God saved us because that’s who God is. It is his good pleasure to save sinners because God is love and his desire is to love his people even though they did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

I want to draw your attention to the word appeared. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.

That’s not the first time Paul has used that word in this letter. Look at Titus 2:11.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

So earlier Paul said, God’s grace appeared, and here in Titus 3:4 he says God’s goodness and loving kindness appeared, saving us. What does that tell us?

It tells us something very important about God’s grace. Specifically it tells us, for lack of a better word, what makes up God’s grace. What motivates God’s grace. Why does God give unimaginable, unmerited grace to sinners?

Because of his goodness and loving kindness. So you see, what Paul’s arguing is works don’t drive God’s grace. God only gives grace because God is merciful.

And God is gracious and merciful because God is good and overflowing with loving kindness.

The word Paul uses for goodness can also mean kindness. Generosity. Benevolence or unmerited gracious concern to reach down to us and help us in our need.

In the Psalms, this goodness of God is often tied to God’s steadfast, covenantal, faithful and gracious love.

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. Ps 100:5.

Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Ps 106:1.

That’s likely why Paul immediately ties God’s goodness to His God’s loving kindness.

In Greek, this is single word. But its a compound word.

One of the words in this compound word means “to love or have affection for.” The other is the word for “man or mankind.”

So literally this means God’s love for mankind. It’s translated as loving kindness because it carries the idea of compassion with an eagerness to do something and deliver someone from trouble or danger.

But more than that, God’s loving kindness is not just an emotion or disposition God has towards sinful man. It’s a loving kindness that actually does something. That takes what is broken and does all that it can to put all the pieces back together.

So God’s grace is the outflow of his goodness, benevolence, generosity and his compassionate love for mankind.

This is why the Bible says God is love. This is what it means.

The world wants to take God is love and define love by the world’s standards.

For the world, God is love means that God is always affirming. Always accepting. Non judgmental.

That God more than anything else wants us to be our true self, even though that true self is a wicked hater of God.

The world wants to twist love and say this is who God is.

But who does God say he is? Look at Exodus 34:5-7.

This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible.

Right before this, Moses had asked God to show him his glory. In other words, Moses was asking God who me who you really are. Let me see you. And here was God’s answer.

Exodus 34:5-7 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

The name of the Lord is important. This is God saying who he is.

Even today, when somebody asks, who are you? You say, my name is this.

So Moses asked God who are you? And God said here’s my name.

6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.

So who is God? Who is this God who is love?

He’s the Lord. He’s merciful. Gracious. Slow to anger.

Abounding. Overflowing in steadfast love and faithfulness.

He’s forgiving, and he’s just righteous and holy.

Here’s what I’m trying to get you to see. Salvation. God’s grace is a gift for underserving sinners. And God gives this gift to everyone who believes in Christ because God wants to. That’s who he is!

He is a good God who loves mankind. And his goodness and loving kindness, His amazing, unimaginable, unmerited grace appeared. Was manifested, revealed, made known in the life, death, and resurrection of the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ.

In Christ, God showed the depth of his love for every person who would repent of their sin and put their faith in Christ.

Gospel

Jesus was born of a virgin. The eternal Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity took on human flesh and became a man.

And as a man, he lived a perfect and sinless life. God’s Law demanded perfect righteousness, perfect obedience and Christ fulfilled it down to the smallest jot and tittle.

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane to prepare for the work he was about to do.

And Judas, one of his own disciples, came and betrayed him with a kiss. And before the night was over, every other disciple would abandon Christ leaving him to suffer all alone.

Wicked men took Jesus into custody and began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and said, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” and blasphemed him. (Luke 22:63-65).

They held an illegal trial under a kangaroo court and sentenced him to death.

They handed them over to the Romans who flogged and scourged him which meant they took a whip or cat of nine tails and carved rivers into Jesus body.

Then the Roman soldiers, an entire battalion, 600 men clothed him in a purple cloak, twisted a crown of thorns and placed it on his head, crying out “Hail, King of the Jews!”

And if that weren’t enough they would strike his head with a reed and spit on him, until it was finally time to crucify him.

They laid Jesus’ cross on his back and forced him to carry it all the way to his execution.

Once there, they laid him down and drove nails in his hands and his feet and raised him up to suffer to death.

On the cross Jesus cried out with a loud voice My God my God why have you forsaken me? The wrath of God was poured out on God the Son for the sins of everyone that would believe in him, and when it was done Jesus cried out, “It is finished” and gave up his spirit.

When the grace, goodness, and loving kindness of God appeared this is what it looked like. This is how God showered us with the riches of his mercy.

You see in Gethsemane when Jesus prayed, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me Lk 22:42. That cup is the cup of God’s wrath against sin.

Remember who God said he was. Merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.

In his justice God has to punish sin. Death, wrath, and judgment has to be dealt out. But God in his loving grace sent Jesus to drink that cup on our behalf because in that Garden, where the first Adam had failed and plunged the world under a curse, the perfect Adam said, Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done (Luke 22:42).

Jesus’ death reveals God’s love, grace, and mercy because Jesus death is the death we deserved to die.

In Christ we see the wrath we deserve for our sin and disobedience poured out. But the good news of the gospel is that we also see God’s provision, God’s sacrifice to pay for that sin.

Jesus paid our debt. In his death he offered his body as a perfect, sinless sacrifice. He was the perfect lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29) that all the Old Testament sacrifices looked forward to and in love for us, he willingly laid down his life for his sheep.

And God accepted his sacrifice.

He proved it by raising Jesus from the dead three days later. Because he had no sin of his own to die for, death could not hold him and Jesus rose from the grave conquering sin, Satan, and death on our behalf, saving us from the judgment we deserved.

And why did God give this grace? Why does God save sinners? Because of his goodness and love for mankind.

John 3:16-18 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Invitation

Salvation is in Christ and is in Christ alone.

There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved and no amount of good works or religious activity can make us right with God.

Our only hope is the mercy of God, and God generously gives that mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us (Eph 2:4), to every person who puts their faith in Christ.

There are a lot of new people here. And one of the worst things I could possibly do would be to assume you know the gospel. To tell you this good news and assume you know how this grace, this love, this forgiveness can be yours in Jesus Christ.

Maybe you’ve never been to church and today is the first Sunday you’ve ever heard God’s Word.

Or maybe you’ve been in church your entire life, but you’ve never actually heard the gospel like this. You thought going to church and being a good, upright, and moral person was enough.

Do not be deceived. God does not save us because of works done by us in righteousness. He saves us according to his own mercy.

You’re debt of sin is too great for you to bear, and if you try to carry it on your own, I promise you, you will drown under its weight in the lake of Fire.

But God has made a way to pay for your debt.

Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

All that sin. All that guilt. All that shame. All that weight and burden you carry day after day after day, can be canceled. How?

By nailing it to the cross through faith in Jesus Christ. Repent of your sin, believe in Christ and God will save you.

Come to Jesus with nothing but your sin. No works or self righteousness, nothing but all your debt and cry out Mercy! Mercy! Will you take all my sin and save me in Christ?

And if this is you today, come and talk to us. Find one of the pastors and we will pray with you and do all that we can to help you follow Christ.

Exhortation

What about for all the Christians?

Is the gospel been there done that? What does it look like to take this sermon to heart and let it feed your faith?

I think there’s two things.

Resting in Christ’s Righteousness

First, this reminds us to rest in Christ’s righteousness and not our own.

How many times do we base our relationship with God on how good we’ve been?

All of us at times fall into the lie that, yes, God saves us solely by his grace, but he loves us by our works.

The better Christian I am, the more I read my Bible, the more I pray, the more righteous I live, the more God loves me.

Now you might not think of it from that perspective but look at it like this. Do you ever feel like God is holding you at arms length, that He’s disappointed, or tired of you because you just keep stumbling and falling into sin?

Is that not just a more subtle way to say we are justified by works? That God loves us based on human effort and achievement and not what Christ has done?

Let me tell you something most of you need to hear. God loves you because of Christ. Full stop.

Here’s the beautiful thing about substitutionary atonement. Martin Luther called it the great exchange. On the one hand all of our sin is laid on Christ.

Our sinful life is credited to him, and he dies in our place for our sin.

But on the other hand, God takes Christ’s perfect, sinless righteousness, and credits it to us.

That means that when God sees you in Christ, he sees someone who is perfectly righteous, holy, obedient because of Christ.

That is why it is so important for you to have your identity in Christ. Because God accepts you, welcomes you, loves you, on the basis of Christ’s perfect work on your behalf.

So in a sense, we are saved by works, just not our works. We are saved by Christ and the work of his life, death, and resurrection.

So saint. Holy one. God loves you. And God will always love you. You’re not his least favorite child he wishes he never adopted.

You are a beloved son or daughter of the most high God.

And this ties into the second way this sermon should feed our faith.

Exulting in God and His Love

The gospel cannot become merely a theological interest.

What I mean by that is that we cannot afford to take the gospel, hold it up, and analyze all of its different parts, just to set it down, walk away thinking to ourselves “Well, wasn’t that interesting?,” while we saunter off humming Doxology to ourselves.

The goal of all good theology is the worship and celebration of God.

And the gospel more than anything else should drive a glorious, heart on fire, exultation.

My hope for this sermon was that we would celebrate God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.

Why does God save sinners? God saves us because God loves us.

But even that can be so familiar that it can float in one ear and out the other.

But think about it. God loves us.

What kind of God is like this? What kind of God loves like this?

What kind of God would take a bunch of sinful, rebellious people who hate him and hate one another, and say I love them so much, I’m going to make them a part of my family.

And how I’m going to do that is by sending my own beloved Son to suffer and die in their place.

That kind of love.......what can you even say about it?

How do you even use words to talk about it? There are no words that I have, to make you see God’s great love.

That has to be a work of the Spirit, because everything I could ever say would fall short.

And maybe that’s the answer we don’t have words. And that actually tells us how great God’s love is.

One of my favorite Hymns says it best.

The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star And reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled And pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure— The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made; Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.

We will have all eternity to celebrate the love of God, and maybe, by then, we will have some words fitting for the glory due to his name.

But on this side of heaven, maybe the best thing we could say, the only thing we can say is “God, Thank you, and I love you.”

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Luke 18:9-14 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

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