Changes I; What We Were

CHANGES I; WHAT WE WERE

TITUS 3:3

There was once a billionaire who was getting up in years. He was upset at the thought of leaving all his possessions behind. So he figured the best thing was to pray to God. Now he asked God if he could bring his money with him. To which God replied flatly, "No, you can't take it with you."

The billionaire, who never took no for an answer, persisted asking. So every day, 50 times a day, the man pleaded and begged God to take his wealth with him.

Finally God, grew tired of hearing the man so He relented and agreed to allow the man to bring one suitcase with him. The man was very excited he hurried to decide what to pack. First he filled the bag with cash. But decided that perhaps the exchange rates might not benefit him. Then he filled it with stocks but didn't know how they would perform over eternity. Finally he decided to fill the bag with gold bullion and congratulated himself on his clever planning.

When the day finally came that he passed away, he was happily standing in line at the pearly gates when St. Peter saw him and asked about the suitcase. "You'll have to leave that behind," said St. Peter. "No way" said the man, "I have special permission from God." He told me I could bring one suitcase filled with anything I wanted."

"This is highly unusual," said St. Peter, "but let me see what's inside." He opened the suitcase and scratched his head as he pondered the contents. "I don't get it. God said you could bring anything at all with you ... and you brought PAVEMENT?"

Like that man most people have their thoughts fixed on things of the world. But for the believer that ought to be different. And that is a key word “different”. Christian’s ought to be distinct from the world. Everyone here who is born again of the Spirit of God, ought to be noticeably different from those who are not. But such is usually not the case, this is especially true in the USA. We have many who claim to have trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation, yet there do not act any different then those who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus. And that really ought to bother us. I am afraid that there will be a lot of surprised people on Judgment day, those who thought they were saved, yet never were.

Now I bring this up because today I want to begin a two part message on changes. In other words for there to be a true conversion, for a person to be a true believer the Word of God states there must be changes, changes in that persons life.

Might I be so bold to say, that if you have claimed to profess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, yet your live is no different then before, then I believe that the Bible teaches that you are in fact not saved. The Bible teaches that there WILL be a change. But that is getting too far ahead.

Please turn with me to our passage in Titus chapter 3 verse 3. There Paul writes to Titus about things that once were, that should be no more.

Titus 3:3 “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.”

It is interesting to note that against the seven virtues Paul mentions in verses 1 & 2, (what we should be), Paul list seven vices in verse 3, showing what we once were. In other words Paul is teaching that there must be changes in the live of a true believer.

Now I am going to expand on that theme next week, but for today I want us to look at these vises that Paul list here. These are things that should no longer be present in our lives.

These are things that we must say go bye to when we profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, when we place our faith in His cleansing blood for the forgiveness of sins.

Notice the first one, Paul states that we were once foolish, that we were once fools.

This word basically means “senseless, without understanding” . In the context of the way Paul is using it here I believe He is referring to Spiritual things.

Paul of course is not saying that becoming a Christian is going to make you smarter in intellectual way. (It obviously did not work for me). But we will attain spiritual insight that we never had before.

The word of God tell us in 2 Cor. 2:14; “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”