January 18, 2004 Titus 3:4-7
When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
The whole message of Christianity is meant to give us hope. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “everything that was written in the past was to teach us, so that through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4) Hope has to do with looking forward for something good to happen. For instance, think about the way that you Chiefs fans felt last week after church. You hoped that the Chiefs would win. When kickoff came around, your hearts may have started beating quickly, in eager expectation for what would come to be. It’s kind of strange, but once the game actually begins, some of the fun is gone, because you don’t have anything to look forward to in a sense.
That’s the way God wants us to live every day - in eager expectation - looking forward to something. I don’t believe we live with the kind of hope that God had planned for us. As you entered into church, I didn’t see that look, feel that excitement, of people who were eager - hopeful - waiting for something to happen. All too often I see Christians who are tired, angry, sad and depressed.
Why is that? Why do we - even as Christians - get so down? I believe a majority of the problem is that we get too wrapped up in the here and now, so that we lose our focus on the future. When all you can concern yourself with is getting jobs done, bills paid, diapers changed, and meals made - something is wrong. That’s not what God wants for us - it’s not what God wants for you.
Here again, in today’s message to Titus, Paul reiterates that you are heirs of HOPE. This isn’t something that you will inherit in the future. It’s something God wants you to have now.
You Are an Heir of Hope
I. Because of who God is
About two weeks ago my wife and I were awakened to the crying of our daughter at 5:00 in the morning. After we managed to calm her down, we were both wide awake. So we went downstairs and started watching TV when one of those infomercials came on. It was a Tony Robbins one. He was selling a group of videos on how to improve your life. They showed videos of him running into rooms, slapping five with people, walking along the beaches of California, and promising to give us the power to change our lives - to be successful. He lost a bunch of weight and made something of himself, and YOU can do it too! Presidents, lawyers, and doctors were all energetically telling me that I could have a wonderful future if I just bought his tapes and shaped myself to act like he told me to. My heart started pumping, my eyes then widened - maybe I could dye my hair black, grow about five inches, deepen my voice, and become someone famous! So I grabbed the remote to the TV, turned it off, and started cleaning our storage room with my wife. Tony Robbins encouraged me to turn off the TV and do something constructive besides watch another infomercial. Thank you, Tony.
Hope has to do with the future. Tony Robbins, like most self help gurus - point us to the future - in what we can do to - WE have to do - to change our futures. This is completely logical. But God’s Word is not. In order to give us hope, instead of pointing us to the future, it points us to the past. And instead of pointing to what we can do or should do to help improve our futures, Paul points us to God.
Why does Paul point us to God? God once said through Jeremiah - “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the LORD, “and not a God far away? Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the LORD. (Je 23:23-24) He introduced Himself to Abraham as God Almighty. (Genesis 17:1) As Christians, we therefore believe that God is eternal, all-powerful, and that He exists everywhere. Meanwhile, Paul reminded Titus what WE are. He said, At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. (Tit 3:3) Even though we can send men to the moon and rovers to Mars, deep inside, God’s Word says that all we are is a bunch of out of control and weak people - unable to really control ourselves or our futures in any way whatsoever. This is what God’s Word says.
So, if we’re going to call ourselves Christians - and really BELIEVE what God’s Word says - there is only one place to find hope. It can’t be in ourselves. We’ve got to go to the One in charge of the FUTURE - and that’s God - and believe in Him. There’s more to it than that, though. The Scriptures show that even those who talked with God and even had God talk with them - didn’t always live in eager expectation of the future - in hope. For instance, listen to the feelings that Jeremiah had in chapter 20 - O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. . . . the word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long. At first Jeremiah was probably excited about being the spokesman for God - His prophet. But when the words God gave him were causing him to be poked fun of, threatened, abused, and ridiculed. So he spoke an interesting phrase to God - “you DECEIVED me.” He felt that God had used trickery on him - that God wasn’t completely truthful with Him. For that reason, he speaks the words of a man in depression, not of a man in hope. In the same way, as Job was laying in pain with painful sores from the boils he had been given, he said, Even if I summoned him and he responded, I do not believe he would give me a hearing. He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason. (Job 9:16-17) For a time Job lost hope, because even though he knew God was in charge of the future, he was tormented with the thought that God really was not JUST - not FAIR - that God just was letting him suffer for no reason at all.
There’s something similar with both these men. They were basing their view of God on what they were experiencing - what they were going through. Everything they had felt was telling them, “God doesn’t care. He’s a liar. He has no reason to His ruling.” That’s why we don’t live with hope very often. When we look at our lives and our world, we see drug addicts, perverts, false prophets, and immorality running rampant. When we look at ourselves, we see weaknesses, anger, hatred, lust, and many other sins. It makes us wonder, “if God is really in charge, why isn’t he making me feel better? Why isn’t he taking care of my health problems? Why isn’t he giving me a spouse? Why did he make me this way?” We start to really wonder if God is as good as we’d like Him to be. We might even utter an angry, “God hates me.”
Paul would like a word with you this morning. He says to you, “stop looking at this world and yourself for God - and look at God Himself! God has given me - through inspiration of the Holy Spirit - a beautiful vision of God!” There are four adjectives he then uses to describe God. He says, “the God I see is a God of kindness. He is like the friend you have who just likes to show up at your door with a gift from time to time - who just likes to do nice things for people. The God I see is a philanthropist. He has a natural love for people.” Some of you might have seen the movie called Citizen Kane. It was about this filthy rich man who lived as a recluse - living in a rich mansion and pinching every penny he had - who ended up dying completely alone. That’s the way some people are. They just don’t like people. That’s not the way God is. He loves people. Paul said, “the God I see is a God of mercy. What I mean by that, is that He doesn’t want to punish people when they sin. He wants to save them, forgive them - He’s for them - not against them. He’s willing to stick with them and stay faithful to them, even when they aren’t always faithful to Him. And the God I know is a God of grace - a God who likes to give things to people who don’t deserve it and who can’t help themselves. When I look at God, that’s the kind of God I see. That’s how I want you to look at God.”
In the parable that the children had for Sunday School had, Jesus illustrated wonderfully what kind of a God we have in Matthew 22. A King held a banquet, slaughtered some oxen, and even provided wedding garments for his guests. He wasn’t picky about who wanted to come. He invited the good and the bad. He told his servants to go and get whoever they could find! That’s the kind of God we have! That’s how God wants you to look at Him. So if you back is telling you, “God doesn’t care,” and your bank account is screaming, “where is God!”, you’ve got to go back to what God says about Himself. He says - this is who I AM.
When David’s son was condemned to die because of his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and murder of her husband - David said to himself - “Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.” Even though God never promised him his son would live, in this time of sorrow and sadness, he tenaciously held to the belief that God is gracious. Even though it didn’t turn out how he wanted, he still believed it. That my friends, is true faith. You need to believe that even when you’re going through terrible problems - God is who HE SAYS His is. He is still good. Even when you’re suffering for a sin you committed, God is still merciful. Even if you’re future looks lonely and miserable - God still is a God of grace. Even if God sends you to hell - He is still righteous. That’s what God calls Himself. True faith takes God at His Word - even when there is no proof. That’s where true hope comes from. You can only eagerly look forward to the future - when you believe God is who he claims to be - whether there is any proof or not.
II. Because of what God did
But the amazing thing is that there is proof - clear proof. The problem is that we aren’t looking in the right places. We aren’t supposed to look in the mud and muck of this world for God. Where’s the next place you would tend to look? At the heavens, right? When the wise men were searching for God - they looked at the star up in the sky. When the shepherds were in the fields, an angel of the Lord appeared to them in the sky. It seems like the natural place to look for him. Even Peter and Joel said, I will show wonders in the heaven above. (Acts 2:19) You can see proof of God every time you see a thunderstorm - when the clouds come rolling in and the boom of thunder shakes the pictures on your walls - you know there’s a God - and a very powerful One at that.
But there’s an even better place to look for God - the God of kindness, mercy - the God who loves humans. When the wise men and shepherds looked to the skies, where did the skies turn their eyes to - not a king’s palace or a thunder cloud or a mountain, but a little manger with a baby wrapped in cloths. Any reasonable person would expect this King to rule on a throne, but God put him on a cross. He looks at us and says, “you want to find a MERCIFUL God - then look at that cross! It’s where I put YOUR sins. It’s where I punished YOU. It’s where I gave you forgiveness and righteousness - by putting my Son on the cross for you.” You won’t clearly see my love in your sins and the problems of this world. But you will see it in the suffering and death of my Son! That’s where you’ll find my mercy.” It’s not what anyone would have expected.
In the same way, instead of pointing us to the heavens to find a merciful God - Paul points us to another strange place to find proof of a MERCIFUL and GRACIOUS God - by pointing us to a seemingly simple ritual called baptism. Baptism is where someone has water poured on him and the words are spoken, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” At first glance, there would seem to be no mercy or grace of God displayed in this washing. Yet what does Paul say about it? He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. Paul says that in baptism God actually SAVED us.
How? Through the “washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Paul says that baptism literally is a washing of “paliggeneseas” - from palin which means “again” and genesis - which means beginning or existence. When Peter told the Jews they had crucified the Christ, he then told them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ FOR THE FORGIVENESS of sins, and they would receive the gift of the HOLY SPIRIT.” Somehow, in some way, throughout the Scriptures God connects baptism with the gift of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit. When water is poured on you and those words are spoken, somehow God promises to wash sins away and give faith through the gift of the Holy Spirit. This then achieves what Paul says is - a return to Genesis -a renewal of our souls and bodies - where they are made clean and holy again - as Adam was created.
The only difference is that the righteousness and holiness does not come from ourselves - as Adam had it - but from the second Adam - Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:12) It is poured on us THROUGH Jesus Christ our Savior. So the picture that God is drawing is that Jesus died for the sins of the world - providing plenty of righteousness to cover it a million times over. Baptism, then is the means by which God puts Christ in our heart - gives us faith in Christ - and makes His righteousness ours - by giving us the Holy Spirit. It’s as if I had a huge bucket of paint here - ready to completely cover a thousand run down barns. Baptism is the paint brush which puts the paint on the barn - the blood on the sinner - the Spirit in the sinner - making him a saint.
Paul says to you this morning, “if you want to see a merciful God - look at your baptism! You had done nothing to earn God’s love or forgiveness. All you did was disobey his commands and earn hell. But when you look at your baptism, here you see a holy God take you, a lost and condemned sinner, and give you the gift of the Holy Spirit. He turned you from being an unbeliever on the way to hell, and gave you faith to believe in Jesus Christ. Through that faith, He gave you credit for all of what Jesus did - took your sins on the cross - and nailed your sins on them. In exchange He put all of Jesus’ righteousness on you! That’s where you’ll find a merciful God - one who is gracious - who loves mankind - not in the heavens - but in baptism - in the washing of rebirth!” This is exactly what Paul told the Galatians also when he said in chapter 3, You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Imagine that! Whenever you start wondering if God loves you - instead of looking at your bank account, your physical health, or your love life - look at your baptism! Put your baptismal certificate on your wall. Remember what that is - it is God’s love letter to you - promising you and proving to you that he does love you! Who else do you know that would send His Son to die for you! Who else do you know that would give you forgiveness - faith - salvation and peace free of charge! Your baptism is the proof that God is merciful, loving and kind.
When you left church last Sunday, some of you may have hoped that the Chiefs would win against the Colts. Your hope was somewhat tentative and fearful, however, realizing that the Chiefs defense was terrible. I had the same concerns for my beloved Packers. Both of us had our hopes dashed to the ground when our teams lost in close games.
Faith is different from that kind of hope. Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That’s the kind of hope that God wants you to have - being sure of what you hope for. God wants you to EAGERLY LOOK FORWARD to the future. Now, God doesn’t promise great things in our immediate futures. He actually says that things will get worse before they get better in this world. But he does promise that all things work out for our spiritual good. He promises us that HE is in charge of the future. He promises us that He is good. He shows us that He is good - because He died for us and gave us faith to believe in that at our baptisms. If God would go through all of that work to save you - then why shouldn’t you live with hope? He has a proven track record. Why shouldn’t you be optimistic to and look forward to the future. You, my friends are HEIRS of HOPE. Isn’t it about time we lived like it? Amen.
