God and Sin

Morning. This morning we're going to be talking about salvation. We've been in a series and we're in the first few books of the Bible, the first few chapters actually, and we're skipping far ahead to Titus. And as I think about salvation, my mind went to a favorite movie scene of mine from O Brother, Where Art Thou? There's a baptism scene, and this is a significant turning point in the movie. I won't get into all that, but there's a song in the background. Oh, brother, come, let's go down, let's go down to the river to pray, studying about that good old way. And there's folks just flocking down through the woods in white robes to the river, and then they're lining up. There's a pastor there, a preacher, and they're in lines, and they're taking their turn, and then as Everett, That's George Clooney, for those of you who don't love the movie. Everett starts talking about how this depression, it's really hurting, it's hit people hard, and those who are chumps, it's broken them, and so they're looking for religion. As he's pontificating in his cynicism, Everett just starts running. He skips in front of everybody. He doesn't have the white robe on, but he jumps in line. He looks in front of the preacher in the eye, and the preacher turns him, puts him in the water, and he comes up. And he starts running back to his friends, saying, that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher man has done, washed all my sins and transgressions. It's straight and narrow for me from here on out, and heaven everlasting is my reward." Well, Everett discourages them. They go back and forth, and finally, Delmer declares, come on in, boys. The water is fine. What an invitation, right? So, this is a good opportunity here to think. So, Everett's a cynic. Delmer, he believes he's just received something great, and he's inviting his friends to come in. The weird thing is, they don't come. That sounded like really good news. You run down, you get dunked in the water, the preacher says you're absolved, and then you run out and you live a good life and your reward is heaven. Why would someone resist such an opportunity? That is a kind of salvation. That is a message of salvation, but it is not a Christian message of salvation. No, the good news we actually believe is much better than what they just professed. You see, we don't go to a preacher man who washes away our sins and transgressions. God is our Savior. God takes upon Himself our flesh so that He can wash away. That's a much greater promise. And more than that, heaven's not a reward for living a good life after being baptized. Heaven's a gift. It's all given to us by God, our Savior. So I want to say that the gospel of salvation we're going to study today is better than that of, quite frankly, I think that's just a typical American way of viewing Christianity. Go down to the preacher, he'll wash you, and then live a good life, you get heaven. The good news we have is better. But it's also harder to believe. To believe I just need to go to a man who's gonna do some kind of ceremonial act to me to wash me, that isn't that difficult. But to believe my sins are so filthy and gross The father had to punish a perfectly righteous man with his wrath so that I can be saved. That's harder to believe. That's harder to understand that I'm that bad. I need that much. The other reason I believe the gospel of Christianity is so much harder to believe is your works. They don't earn you anything. Heaven's not a reward for living a good life. Everything we receive is a gift from God because He's gracious. So this morning, we're gonna meditate upon the gospel. We've looked at Genesis 2 the way it's supposed to be. We understood God and man and their right relationship, man and woman together. We look at Genesis 3, the loss of everything. Man seeking to gain that which was out of his grasp, lost what God had put in his possession. Man is now ashamed, distant, corrupt, dirty, gross. He's living in that glorious ruin. And remember, the amazing thing about Genesis 3 is we reject His Word, and yet God keeps speaking. We reject what God says. That's our sin. And yet He keeps speaking, and He gives And we're skipping far ahead. We're in Titus, page 999 in your pew Bible if you're using one. We go from page three to page 999. We're skipping a whole lot of the story, but we wanna make sure we understand God created man, we sinned, and now God takes care of our sin. And so we're in Titus chapter three here The word of the Lord, I begin in verse three. 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. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. If you look at our passage, there are three main parts. Verse three, we'll look at sin, who we were. Notice that past tense, we ourselves were once foolish. Who we were apart from the grace of God. We'll think about sin. Next is salvation. That's four through seven. Most of our time will be spent there, what God has done. Who we were, what God has done, sin and salvation. And then finally, verse eight, sanctification, what we do now. Sin, salvation, sanctification. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that we will get to look at this great declaration of what you have done for us. May it stir in our hearts a desire to worship you because you're worthy, to love you because you've loved us, to do good works not thinking we can add anything to Christ, but because you are now worthy of us living a life that's dedicated to Christ and His glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So who we were in sin. Now, I wanna go back to sin, even though we meditated on this mostly last week, right? Genesis 3 is about sin. But Genesis 3 also had that great promise of salvation, the Genesis 3.15. Here, we need to think about sin before salvation, because if you don't know what you're saved from, you won't embrace the salvation. To say I am saved means you are saying there was something I needed saved from. So here, Paul is telling us some of the things that we've been saved from. And if you're not a Christian this morning, this is important for you. You will never look to a Savior until you're convinced you're a sinner. Don't check out here. Everyone in this room was like this. Everyone in this room still has aspects of these sins. We're not better people. We didn't please God because we were somehow better and therefore God gave us grace. No, we are all sinners worthy of wrath. And then we'll look at but God in verse four. But what we need to see here is what is sin? So I'm just going to walk through these words quickly and then I'll take some more time on each one. We were once foolish. A foolish person, they don't make the right decision. A foolish person typically does not know how to discern what is excellent. They're always choosing something less glorious. A foolish person rejects God and His Word, which is truly excellent. Disobedient. Well, I'm using the word kind of to define it. It's a refusal to obey. Someone who does not listen to God. Someone who rejects wisdom. Led astray. This is someone who's being deceived or is wrapped up in their own self-deception. Slaves of various passions and pleasures. Someone who is controlled by their gut, their feelings, their lusts. Someone who has perverse desires and are seeking to live those out. Someone who simply has pleasures and says, I want to live for my pleasure. And then notice passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others, and hating one another. This is the end conclusion of a foolish life that's disobedient, being led astray, enslaved. We're angry because we're striving for happiness apart from the will of God, and it never ends with someone being happy. It ends with malice, envy, hating others, and hating one another. It says there's a shift, right? We were like this, but God, I also want to make sure we go back to Genesis 2 and 3. God did not make us. He did not create us as sinners. God is not responsible for sin, we are. It's important as we look at our problem, God is the solution. We caused the problem when we said, God, I don't want to hear your word. Our affections, our lives, our worship, they're all out of order because we've refused God who brings order. So let's look at this word once more, foolish. Remember what Adam and Eve were promised last week? If you reject God, you'll become wise. Then their eyes were opened and they did not like what they saw. They sought wisdom outside of God's will. They sought wisdom without reverence, and that never accomplishes wisdom. A fool is someone who does not live according to God's word, and someone who does not worship. Wisdom says, God, what you say is right and good. This actually reminds me of my conversion. I was converted my freshman year of college. I started to read the Bible because I realized that living in my slaves and my passions, they weren't really satisfying the way I thought they would, so God ordained it that my drinking buddies were pastor's kids. And so they told me, you know, here's how you should read the Bible. You should read a proverb a day and read the Gospel of Matthew. All right, well, whatever you say. And when I read Matthew and the Proverbs, it struck me that living in that rebellious life, when the Bible talked about a fool, that it just matched me. My life, apart from God, was a fool. When God described the fool, it was just so obvious. I fit that, and it was crushing. And then when I would read the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, He was wise. See, first God had to convince me I was a fool. He then had to show me that his way was right, and then he showed me that Christ, the wise one, died for me, the fool, so that I can be forgiven. See, a fool builds his life on the wrong foundation. He thinks whatever I feel must be right. Whatever I desire, it must be good. No, the Bible says the exact opposite. Whatever God says is right. Whatever God declares is good. And so we seek to correct our lives, build it upon the word, and trust it. Children, youth, do not be foolish. Do not take for granted how you're hearing the Word of God. Let that soak in. Let us teach you from our failures to not forsake the Word of God. It will lead to malice, envy, hating others and hating one another. Living after sin only leads to frustration. The second declaration in verse 3, you're foolish, you're disobedient, This is just rejecting God's Word where we're going to do what we want to do. Interestingly, it says, lead astray. We can think about Satan, right? He leads Adam and Eve astray. We also lead ourselves astray. We wrap ourselves in self-deception. I think one of the most difficult truths in Scripture for us to come to grasp with is this. You're always being led. You're never some lone ranger just blazing your own trail. You're being led by someone. You're actually following someone and you don't know it usually. And there's only really two options. You're either following God and his way to righteousness or you're following Satan and his lies and the way of the world and it's leading to destruction. You're not blazing some kind of trail. You're being led. You're either following God or you're following the one who's seeking to destroy you in the way of the world. There are only two ways to live. This next one, slaves to passions and pleasures. This is a hard one because it makes us do a little more self-inspection. Here's just a rule. We always do what we want to do. If you think about what you do, you're doing what you want to do. You either disobey while you're doing this, which you want to do, or you obey. We always are seeking to do what we want to do, and last week, this should terrify us. We sang together, there's a poison that corrupts all my love. This is just reflecting upon the words of Jesus. When Jesus said, what defiles you, it's not something from outside. What defiles you comes from inside it. It's the thoughts and the lust that come from our own hearts. What defiles us comes from within. This is why seeking a solution is not seeking to find something deeper in your gut. The deeper we do a self-inspection, the deeper we understand sin and see how sick we are with sin. Help must come from the outside. Help doesn't come from seeking farther deeper strength. No, what comes from within is sickness, corruption, destruction, and enslaving. We're enslaved. That's how the Bible describes us. Jesus says, when you choose sin, you choose to let it master you. When you make the choice to sin, you're saying, this sin, I'm going to let it master me. And we're always deceiving ourselves. This is the problem. We think, I'm in control. I know how much I can handle. I know how far I'm going to take it. I know what I'm doing. I can handle this. No. You choose sin and it takes control. You choose Christ and He takes control. And He frees you. What we have to see is the primary problem is within us. The solution comes from outside. And now at the end, when we're pursuing our lust, there's only one outcome. It's malice, envy, and anger. Look at the end of verse 3. Passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. This is a typical pattern. You see, when we pursue our lust, there's one outcome in two different ways. We can pursue our lust and we actually get what we want. We're so unsatisfied, we're angry. Or we pursue our lust and God keeps us from getting that lust and then we're angry. Sometimes God gives us over to our lust and it's dissatisfying. Sometimes God saves us and protects us from our lust. And then we still look and we say, we wish we had more. We envy others when we're not happy. We envy them. We're not content with God. The picture the Bible paints of us is that we're messed up without grace. We're messed up. Our hearts are disordered. Our loves are out of order. Our worship is something other than God. And so we must look for salvation, not looking more inward, but looking to how it comes from outside. Let's turn to point two. Salvation. But, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us. Notice, the goodness and loving kindness of God, it appears. Praise God, we were in need, we were hateful, we hated God. The good God, he came and he intruded. God's intrusive. God interferes. He breaks in and messes things up that we've planned. And praise God for that. Because sometimes God intrudes and he stops you and he turns you the other direction. This is grace. Because what we need to realize is this. Apart from grace, we are running full speed ahead straight into hell and destruction. And God has to come in and stop us. And sometimes he trips us. And when we fall, it hurts. Sometimes we're running so fast he's got to clothesline us. And praise God that that can hurt because what he's doing is he's stopping us from running full speed ahead into destruction. That's good. That's kind. That's mercy. While we rush into death, he comes down to give us goodness and kindness. There's few things better than a friend who's going to insist on interfering into your life to make sure you are corrected with goodness and kindness. And God is more than a good friend. He's a good father. What we need to see here is that help comes from outside. God appears in our present predicament of perversity. God appears to fix what we've corrupted. And as we think about this, I wanna ask a few questions as we walk through this passage. What, who, how, and why? What, who, how, and why? Notice here in verse five the primary action. He saved us. That's your controlling verb for this section. That's the simple action that everything else is qualified. He, the good and loving God, our Savior, saved us, the foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to passions, passing our days in malice, envy, hated by others, and hating one another. He saved us. So what does it mean to be saved? Well, I'm saved. It means I'm rescued. This word has a sense of deliverance, rescue. It means we were in danger, and God rescues us. Well, rescues us from what? First, death. Adam was told, you will surely die if you disobey my word, and so God comes to rescue us from death by Christ dying for our sins. Death is defeated in the death of Christ. What else did we save from? Satan. He was the abusive master that we chose, and Christ came to crush him, to disarm him, so that we are no longer under his rule. What else are we saved from? Sin. That empowering, that enslaving power that overwhelms us. Christian, you're saved from the power of sin. You can say no. That's new news. That's the good news taking effect. You can now say no. And finally, what are we saved from? God's judgment. We have to realize the wrath of God, the righteous wrath of God, was on us because we refused him. So he saves us from our enemies, death, Satan, and sin. He saves us from his own wrath. So that's what it means to be saved. That's the saving action. Now let's ask, who does this? Who saves us? Well, there's a couple descriptions of his character. the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior. We see there also he does so according to his own mercy. I think we can take from this that the he who saves, he's good, he has loving kindness, he's merciful. Now his goodness, that's opposed to us who are full of malice and envy. He's a good God. He doesn't keep good things from his people. He's a good God who gives good gifts. He's a good God who can be trusted, because everything He does is good. Secondly, we see He has lovingkindness. And this is a unique declaration of love. It's the only time this word is used in the New Testament for God's lovingkindness. This is where we get the word philanthropy from. He loves man. He loves humanity. He has compassion. He looks at us in our predicament of being lost, of being foolish, of being full of hate, and He has passion. He has compassion upon us. The next word, merciful, I think the root of this word goes back to that covenant love that we know from the Old Testament. God made promises, and He keeps those promises. So who, we can see some character there. He's good, He's kind. He's merciful. He's a promise keeper. But we also see the very personal nature of God. I believe we see here the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In verse 4, that declaration, God our Savior, I believe that should be read primarily as the Father, our Savior, He saved us. The reason I believe that's necessary is that God here is put over against the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. Whenever God is referenced next to the Son or the Spirit, it's usually a reference directly to the Father. So we actually see all three persons of the Trinity here. The Father, our Savior, He saved us whenever we were renewed and regenerated by the power of the Spirit, whom He, the Father, poured out on us through Jesus Christ. You see here, we see all three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And I want us to stop here and realize all of God is all for us. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They all are committed to the same act of salvation, the same act of love, the same act of mercy, the same act of goodness. The Father declares, His children need to be saved. The Son comes down to become like us, to save us, and the Holy Spirit applies His salvation. It's perfect. I want you to see that the way they even commit or complete the salvation, it's in relationship to one another. The Father saves us by sending His Son, and then the Spirit comes through the Son. They are active all together. All of God is all for us, and so we can be encouraged. Our salvation is secure. I also want us to notice here the Father. The Father is the Savior who saves. The Father is not distant. The Father is not abstract. The Father is the Savior who saves. He is active. He is pursuing us. He's relational. He's desiring to know us and be known by us. And this truth is difficult for many. This truth is difficult for many who have had abusive fathers. I want to speak to us here and help us all realize every father fails to live up to that name, father. Every father fails to live up to that name, father. God, our father, is the perfect father. who perfectly loves and never fails. So we all know of a failing father because every father fails at some level. But this father, he's God. Don't let a bad man take the title father and ruin the opportunity for you to know the good God who wants you to know him as father, good, loving, and merciful. He is the Savior who saves. Now I want you to look at verse 7. Well, first verse 6. So Jesus, we primarily focus on Him because, well, He came down to become like us. That's Christmas. God took on flesh, he lived that perfect life that we refuse to live, then he died on the cross for sins he did not commit, that's Easter, that's Good Friday. He rose again. The Son is the one who comes to be like us, to be judged for our sin, to be judged as if a sinner so that we can now be declared righteous. Look at verse seven, being justified. This is the heart and soul of salvation. We are guilty. We should be declared guilty. We should be treated as guilty. We should receive the wrath of God. But the goodness and the loving kindness of God appeared. The Father sent His Son. He lived the life we refuse to live. He died on the cross as being treated like a sinner. He suffered the wrath of God so that when we believe in Him, the Father no longer looks at us as sinners worthy of wrath. He looks at us as sons to be loved because we've been forgiven. The Son has come to accomplish the Father's will, being crushed for our transgressions so that we can be forgiven. And now the Spirit. The Spirit is hard at work in verse five. Father, our Savior, He saves us, not because of works, but by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Spirit. There's three main actions the Spirit does. He washes us. He regenerates us. He renews us. Now the thing about this reaction is it actually tells us something about ourselves. The Spirit washes us. We needed to be washed. Without the mercy of God, we are filthy in sin. Secondly, He regenerates us. We were dead in our sin, but the Holy Spirit comes to give us new life. We're renewed. That old self that was running hell-bound to destruction, it's taken away, and we receive a new identity. You see, the Spirit comes down from the Father through the Son to wash us with the blood of Christ. He regenerates us with a new life of Christ. He renews us with a new identity we have in Christ. See, the Spirit, He's not doing anything unique or extra. He's simply taking what Christ has accomplished, what the Father has declared, and He's applying it directly to us. He cannot be the forgotten member of the Trinity. He's the one who is right now hard at work making you a new person. We've discussed the what, we've discussed the who. Important is how. Let's go back to verse five. How? He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy. We are saved not by our own works, but by the washing and regenerating and renewing power of the Spirit that justifies us, that's mercy. This is one of the hardest things about Christianity. We don't contribute much. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they're the ones hard at work. They're the ones doing what needs to be done. We have to trust what they do. This requires us to believe. We simply put our trust in what God has said and what God has done. And this is important because even if you're a Christian, right now, you can be overwhelmed with guilt. Right now, you might be overrun with guilt because you've been thick in sin. But here's what God says about you if you have believed in Christ and he has died for your sins. He says not guilty. You've been running thick in a sin, you're overwhelmed with guilt, but you have to believe that word of God that says not guilty. You have to believe that word of God is more powerful than your feeling of guilt. Trust him. Or you may be overwhelmed with a sense of meaninglessness. You may feel like your life doesn't matter. God says, I made you in my image. You were created with the greatest power and the greatest responsibility in all creation to worship Of course, your life matters. You've been created to worship, and I've sent down my Son and my Spirit to renew you in worship, and beyond that, I've called you my own child. If you believe in Christ, your life isn't meaningless. Your life has been redeemed in love for worship. Or maybe this morning you're overwhelmed with temptation. You haven't been watchful. God says you're not enslaved to that temptation. God says you're free. God says you can say no. But you have to believe Him. You have to see that the Spirit has given you the freedom of Christ to say no to that master who tries to abuse you. If you're not a Christian this morning, your works will not speak for you on that final day. They will only speak against you. It is not by our works we are saved. It is by faith in the mercy of God who works for us. It is by faith in Christ and His death for our sin. That is how you can cry out to God, our Savior, save me. I believe I'm a sinner. I believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. I believe He's risen again. Give me that new life. Do not leave here today without talking to somebody about that. Our last question for these verses comes from the last verse. Why? Look at verse 7. It's a clear declaration. So that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Now, the most basic part of this sentence I want us to see, verse five, the Father saves us, the purpose, so that we will become heirs. Everything in the middle is very important as to how he does this and who it is that does this, but that's the basic message. God saves us to be heirs. That intentionality, that purpose, the why is so important. God saves us to receive the inheritance of his own Son, eternal life, eternal love. Let's first think about this in relation to eternal life. God saves us so that we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Friends, Christ rose. He conquered death. We now will receive an indestructible life in Christ. We do not fear death. One of the things that's interesting here about the call to worship or the call to being an heir is, is it a call to a new life? See, all of eternal, the eternal life we receive is eternal life with God. To worship Him, to know Him, to love Him. What we have to realize is that that old self that was foolish, led astray, disobedient, That's an old self. It's dead. We've been turned to a new life, eternal life, and that eternal life is one that enjoys God, loves God, and wants to live life with God. I fear a lot of folks believe they've gotten a ticket punched to heaven and decided they're gonna still enjoy all the pleasures of hell. Friend, there's no such ticket that exists like that. We have the hope of eternal life. And we set ourselves to persevere, pursuing that eternal life, but we know this, our good works do not in any way reward us with eternal life. Eternal life is ours only because Christ said, I am giving you my eternal life. So we persevere in hope, trust in that promise. We grieve with hope. When we lose loved ones who have called upon the name of Christ, we grieve, but with hope. We long for heaven. The second thing I want us to see about being an heir is that it changes our relationship. When you become an heir, you have a relationship change. The most amazing truth that we take for granted as Christians is that we get to call God Father. I think that's because there's a lot of impersonators out there that talk about God as Father. That's uniquely Christian language. That is precious language for the Christian, because he's God to be worshiped, but he comes close to us as Father. This is uniquely Christian. This is family language, and one of the greatest privileges that we have as Christians, we get to call upon God and Father in prayer. That's a privilege. Sadly, we treat that like a duty. We treat that like it's an obligation. Friends, you don't call upon Almighty God wondering if He's listening to you. You call upon God as Father in the name of Christ with absolute assurance that when you call upon Him as a Christian in the name of Christ, He is bending over longing to listen, longing to hear from you, longing to talk to you, longing for you to be known and know Him. What a privilege. I believe this is why Paul commands us, pray without ceasing. What else would you do without ceasing? Pray without ceasing as breathing into our life now, prayer is to the life of the Christian. We should be praying without ceasing because there's nothing more beneficial, there's no greater privilege than to call out to God. Let me speak to you. He's longing to speak with you. Finally, let's look at sanctification. What we do now. Who it is? He's a loving, merciful, good God. who saves us from our foolishness. So what do we do now? Look at verse eight. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. Now, Paul has this kind of phrase five different times through the pastoral epistles. This is a trustworthy saying. 1 Timothy 1.15. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 1 Timothy 3.1, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 1 Timothy 4, 8, and 9. Train yourself for godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 2 Timothy 2, 11. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will also deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. In our verse, Titus 3a, the saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. Now, Paul's not saying the one trustworthy thing I've said in all my letters is this one thing. He's drawing attention to Titus and Timothy. He's writing to pastors, and he's saying this should stand out. This is the pointed truth, and notice most of them are gospel declarations. One of them is making sure you have true gospel leaders. But most of these are gospel declarations. Christ came into the world to save sinners. Most of the things he refers to is he's saying, insist on proclaiming regularly, Pastor, the good news. That's because the church must always be defined by this good news, because we are always thinking there's something we're doing that must make us more valuable to God, more likable to God. No, Christ came to die for sinners. Pastors are called to constantly remind us of this truth, to insist upon it. Now, notice why they're to be insisted upon. So that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. Let's go to verse 5. He saved us not because of works done by us. Good works don't save you. However, you are saved so that you will commit your life to do good works. Most of the problems that Christianity has had to deal with within have come from people who have misunderstood the relationship of salvation and mercy with works. Works don't make you more easy to save. Works don't make you more likable to be saved. Works are the fruit of salvation. So there's two main problems that we typically wrestle with. One is licentiousness. This says, what I do doesn't matter. God saved me, now I can do whatever I want, I got a ticket to heaven, I'm gonna just live life wherever I want to, and my works don't matter. No, verse eight says, your works matter. God saved you for good works. The other problem is the legalist. What I do matters in a way that God says it doesn't matter. The legalist says I'm going to keep a reward for myself. I'm going to earn God's reward. I'm going to earn God's favor. No, we have God's favor because of his mercy. If we trust God, we're gonna recognize his works save us, and now our proper response to his saving work is to do good works that glorify him, that proclaim him, that make him known. Notice what Paul ends with. These things, and I believe he's referring to the whole Gospel passage, four to seven, these things are excellent and profitable for people. Friends, a fool does not recognize what's excellent or profitable. A fool invests himself in that which is not excellent and not profitable. The wise person says, what God tells me is excellent and profitable, I'm going to invest my life in. So I ask you, How much of your life is defined by what God has done and what God has called you to? Brothers and sisters, the Gospel, it changes us. It gives a new identity. It washes us. And it's all because of what God has done from outside to make us new. Let us close with that great declaration that Paul says elsewhere. He delivers us out of the darkness. and enter the kingdom of his beloved son. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that while we were walking away from you, resisting you, rejecting you, you remained faithful. You made a promise and you've kept that promise. You have done a mighty work to save us. We thank you. We pray that you would continue to do a mighty work within us so that we will be more faithful to the good works that will glorify you and bring you praise and honor. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.