AMAZED BY GOD
TITUS 3:3-7
1. AMAZED BY GOD’S LOVE
* The Love note.
Dearest Jimmy, No words could ever express the great unhappiness I've felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you'll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Marie.
P.S., And congratulations on winning the state lottery.
** My wife, Lana, tells me she loves me and I respond with “Why?” Then she starts to lists the reasons why she loves me. It’s a funny game we play.
But, what I should really want is to be loved unconditionally. It’s like I’m asking her “Please love me unconditionally, but tell me why you do.”
Titus 3:3-4 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared
What amazes me about God’s love is that he loves us in spite of who and what we are. Titus describes what we kind of qualities we had before knowing Christ.
Foolish- ignorant/without understanding
Disobedient- rebellious
Deceived- led by Satan to believe lies
Lust/Pleasure- no control
Malice-desire to injure/spite/hostility
Envy-coveting what others have
Hateful- mean-spirited, always mean Hating one another- no love at all
What Paul describes here is a person or people that are unlovable.
* To think that the God of the Universe, perfect in every way, chose to love us in spite of ourselves. He loves us completely/unconditionally. No matter how bad we were or are, He still loves us.
2. AMAZED BY GOD’S GRACE
Titus 3:5a He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness
* God gives us the gift of eternal life by His Grace. Grace is when you get something that is awesome that you absolutely don’t deserve.
What is God’s grace like? Billy Graham told this true story:
Billy Graham was driving through a small southern town, he was stopped by a policeman and charged with speeding. Graham admitted his guilt, but was told by the officer that he would have to appear in court.
The judge asked, "Guilty, or not guilty?" When Graham pleaded guilty, the judge replied, "That'll be ten dollars -- a dollar for every mile you went over the limit."
Suddenly the judge recognized the famous minister. "You have violated the law," he said. "The fine must be paid--but I am going to pay it for you." He took a ten dollar bill from his own wallet, attached it to the ticket, and then took Graham out and bought him a steak dinner! "That," said Billy Graham, "is how God treats repentant sinners!"
** God’s love FOR us compels Him to pour His grace out ON us.
Reasons we can’t work and earn our way to Heaven:
1. Jesus has already paid the price for our redemption/forgiveness.
2. God already owns everything. There is nothing you can offer Him that He actually needs.
3. AMAZED BY GOD’S MERCY
Titus 3:5b He saved us.... but according to His mercy
Mercy is when you don’t get something bad that you do deserve!
** A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death.
"But I don't ask for justice," the mother explained. "I plead for mercy."
"But your son does not deserve mercy," Napoleon replied.
"Sir," the woman cried, "it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for."
"Well, then," the emperor said, "I will have mercy." And he spared the woman's son.
Because we are sinners, we deserve death and Hell, but because God loves us, He offers mercy to us.
Eph 2:4-5 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ
4. AMAZED BY GOD’S GIFT
Titus 3:5c-6 by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior
With salvation, comes the greatest gift that God could give us. The Holy Spirit of God comes to live within us. I’m amazed by that!
Though men may strive to go Beyond the reap of space
To walk beyond the distant shining stars
This world's but a small room Within my master's house
The open sky's but a portion of his yard.
How big is God, how big and wide is His domain!
To try to tell these lips can only start.
He's big enough to rule His mighty universe,
Yet small enough to live within my heart
5. AMAZED BY GOD’S SALVATION
Salvation- To be rescued from harm, destruction, danger, death...
That is exactly what God did for us.
Notice in verses 5 & 6 what Salvation through Christ did for us:
a) We were lost “He saved us”
b) We were defiled “He washed us”
c) We were dead “He caused us to be Born Again”
d) We were empty - He filled us with His Spirit “ the renewing of the Holy Ghost”
Titus 3:7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
And, here is vs 7, we see that we were made “heirs”. In other words, God adopts us into His family and we become His child. And all the blessings of Heaven become ours.
* I am amazed that the God of the Universe even knows who I am.
I am further amazed that He knows who I am and loves me anyway.
I am even further amazed at the price He chose to pay to save me.
And I am completely amazed that He allowed me to experience the privilege of becoming HIS CHILD.
Me– Once a lost sinner, now, a child of the King!!
