Titus 3.4-7 copy

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Evangelism Unto Regeneration Titus 3:4-7 Pastor Duane Smets August 12th, 2018

I. Converting To Christ II. Communicating Christ Good morning. What a beautiful day it is in our neighborhood. I’m so glad you’ve joined us today neighbors. You’re looking good today. If you weren’t here last week or haven’t caught on yet we’re in a new, special summer sermon series for four weeks called “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” based on the beloved children’s show that ran for thirty-three years, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” What we’re doing or attempting to do is to take that theme and see how it connects to the mission of God. Here at The Resolved Church we are convinced that God cares about people and loves them and that His mission to draw people to Himself is really what drives the entire story of the Bible from beginning to end. The core belief of Mr. Rogers and his TV show was that every person has value and needs to experience the love of God. He got that from Jesus who said the entire Bible could be summarized as saying, love God and love your neighbor. Some of you might be new today, new neighbors and I’d love to meet you. My name is Duane, I’m the preaching pastor here, so make sure you come to say hi after the service. For the next half hour or so, what I’m doing in this portion of our service during this series is each week taking a key doctrine of the Bible, seeing how it is connected to mission and then looking at how that is meant to play out practically in our lives. Last week we did election, learning that our confidence to reach out to others ultimately comes from knowing and believing the teaching of the Bible which says before the foundation of the world God elected or chose people who would come to know Him. When we really believe that we can confidence that some people will respond and that their response isn’t based on us doing and saying everything just right. That frees us to just put ourselves out there and see what happens! This week we’re doing regeneration. Regeneration is a fancy Christian word for conversion, becoming born again. It describes the change or new life that happens in a person when they experience the love of Christ and become a Christian.

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Last week we also learned about the word “evangelism”, the particular kind of mission which attempts to share Jesus with others. In the practical portion, we mainly talked about starting and building relationships with people who don’t know God and His love. Kind of pre-evangelism if you will. This week we’re going to learn about the next step, how we introduce Jesus to the people we’ve built relationships with in hopes that they come to know Him. So this week I titled my sermon, “Evangelism Unto Regeneration.” The main text we’re going to look at, though we’ll kind of bounce around to different passages in the Bible, is Titus 3:4-7, one of the passages of the Bible that best explains all the stuff involved in someone becoming a Christian. So why don’t you stand with me in honor of God’s words of love given in the Bible through His men?

Titus 3:4-7 “4 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, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Evangelism Unto Regeneration. Each week during this series I’m doing just two sermon points. One that’s theological, explaining the doctrine or belief behind what we do, and then one that’s practical, unpacking what it looks like to apply that doctrine in our lives. So this week my two points are, “Converting To Christ” and “Communicating Christ.”

I.

Converting To Christ

For this first point, I want to start by looking at a couple things from this Titus passage. We’re cutting into the middle of the chapter and the middle of the book, which is important to recognize because of one of the primary rules of knowing how to read the Bible correctly and not end up with wacky ideas is to understand the context of any given verse or verses. In our case, for today, the context of this passage is what we might call “outsiders” or “unbelievers”, people who have not come to know and experience the love of Christ yet, people who are not yet Christians. The beginning of chapter three talks about how Christians are to conduct themselves “toward all people” (Titus 3:2) and essentially lays out what it looks like to develop healthy and good relationships with others…that pre-evangelism we talked about last week. And then in the even larger context, the entire book starts out by saying that it is written, “for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of truth…in the hope of eternal life (Titus 1:1-2).” So really, the picture and the vision of our passage, what it’s couched in, is mission. God’s elect, those who are destined to come to know and experience the goodness of God might do so. What the 2

passage we’re looking at today unpacks is what happens when they do, which is our goal, that people might come to that point. So let’s walk through it. There’s a lot of big fancy Christian words in it so hold on to your seat. The first thing it mentions is the goodness of God. “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared…” The only reason anyone ever converts or becomes a Christian is because God is good and His goodness moved Him to loving action. You may be here today and maybe you’ve experienced some hard things in life and the biggest question in the back of your brain is wondering whether God really is good, because things haven’t been so good in your life. If that’s you I want you to hear me tell you today, God is good and He loves you. God is good and He loves you. 


It’s so important for us to hear that and know that. It’s why Mr. Rogers said over and over again, “Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.” I want you to know today that you are loved. The next part of the passage in Titus says that the love of God moved Him to action, that His goodness and love appeared in a Savior. “The goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared.” The Christian religion is one that says love is not just an intangible idea, but a physical and relational one. God’s love took on a body in Jesus Christ, He appeared and came to earth to save us from all the unloving and evil things in our world. John, one of Jesus disciples wrote a book to help people understand the love of God too. He starts it out saying the love and life of God is that, “…which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands (1 John 1:1).” Then he ends his book by saying, “God is love (1 John 4:16).” So in Jesus, we see God and His love. If you want to see and know true love, simply look at Jesus. Which actually brings us to the next part of the Titus passage, that He shows us His love by saving us. Experiencing salvation is the ultimate experience of love. Jesus is the Savior and Christianity, as the late John Stott says it is essentially a religion of salvation. Jesus summarized His life and ministry saying He came, “to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).” But how? How does He save? What verse 5 of our passage says before it answers that question is that we can’t save ourselves. Most of us try. Well all of us do but we fail. Verse 5 says He saves “not because of works done by us in righteousness.” So we don’t do anything to earn salvation or to earn God’s love and our own good works are not enough to save us. This was a key belief of Mr. Rogers as well. 3

Mr. Rogers at different times got a lot of flak and received criticism for breeding a me generation of narcissistic entitled adults because he told children they were fine just the way they were. In 2002 Mr. Rogers gave the commencement address at Dartmouth University and he responded to that criticism. He explained that when he meant is, “You don’t ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you.” Now, some Christians have also criticized Mr. Rogers for not bringing up Jesus specifically, the Bible or even talking about God very much, especially as an ordained minister. Maybe some of that criticism is fair. However, he made it clear at the end of his life that he stood with Christ and I’m just speculating here but I think perhaps where Rogers was coming from was from reading passages in the Bible like our Titus passage. Rogers understood that us trying to do good and be good to earn God’s love was a failed project. Here are some of the other things he said about it: “Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we are not perfect. ” “It's a mistake to think that we have to be lovely to be loved by human beings or by God.” “Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are, gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people…I don't think anyone can grow unless he's loved exactly as he is now.” And this is exactly what the Bible teaches. Romans 5:8 says it this way, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” You see it’s coming to see and admit that we’re not perfect, that we have faults and failures that we can’t fix. We can’t save ourselves. We need someone to save us, to love us anyway and to do something about all the bad stuff around us and in us. So back to our Titus passage. God is good and loving. He sent physical love in Jesus. We can’t save ourselves only He can. So how does He do it? It’s at this point we get a flurry of words in verses 5-7. He has mercy, there a washing, a regeneration, a renewal, the Holy Spirit, a justification, grace and then heirs of life. Now we could spend a long time talking about each of these and getting into the thick of it. I could do a sermon on each one and then there’s the question of order and how each one connects together? But I’m not going to do that today. I actually did it a number of years ago when we actually went through the book of Titus as a church. So if you’re interested in that you can look it up. What I want to do instead is say, look, a lot of good stuff happens in you when you become a Christian. There’s a whole lot going on. There’s mercy. Mercy is experiencing love even when you know you don’t deserve it. 4

There’s renewal. Renewal is being made new once again. Life damages us and those things get fixed and we get made into something new and better. The 2.0 version. There’s the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is everywhere but Jesus also sends Him to uniquely be with us all of the time, reminding us of God, His Word, and His love. And the Spirit is the active one who is doing all of this stuff all over the place. There’s justification. Justification is being judged right before God because Jesus, the good one stands in front of us in the courtroom of heaven. God sees Him and His goodness and declares us not guilty. There’s grace. Grace simply means gift, gift upon gift upon gift. There are heirs. Being an heir means we don’t just get to be friends and neighbors with God but actually family, receiving the same inheritance God gives to His Son Jesus. There’s a washing. Washing is a cleansing typically celebrated a baptism ceremony, where we publicly cross the line and testify of all this good stuff God does in us. So you see it’s just a lot and I think regeneration is at the heart of it all. Regeneration is sort of the huge thing that happens that connects to all the other stuff. Regeneration means new life. It’s the same word and idea as being “born again.” It’s a massive change that takes place in a person, where the result is they end up feeling different and thinking differently about God, life, others and everything else. It’s a complete re-orientation, where you come alive and you see and experience the eternal life of the future that God promises to all His children. Jesus explained regeneration better than I or anyone else ever could. It’s in the Bible in the Gospel According To John, chapter three. So let me just read to you what He said: Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” - John 3:3-8 So we’ve had a bunch of babies born in our church recently. For anyone who has had baby or works in that branch of the medical field, you know what happens. I’ve watched it three different times with each of my daughters.

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When the baby comes out of a mothers womb there is a bunch of water that comes out too, the amniotic fluid. Everyone in this womb has been born of water and when we came out we took our first breath of air and experienced new life. It’s an incredible moment. Jesus says, in a similar way that’s what needs to happen for us, we need to be born again. We need a brand new fresh start, a new life born from the Spirit of God. We need to be regenerated and that is what it is to become a Christian. That is conversion. Becoming a Christian and being a Christian is about a new life with God, experiencing His love and His Spirit’s work within us. It’s not about doing good or being good. Sure the Spirit of God does good stuff in us but that is not our aim, it’s just a byproduct. And this is my heart, my true heart as a pastor and an evangelist…to see real conversions, to see regeneration take place in people experiencing the love and goodness of God given to them through Jesus. And that’s what we should all want to see for every person in our city. Let me tell you a story. I was eighteen when I became a Christian and first began experiencing this new regenerated life. It was so good that shortly after I became a Christian, I discovered this passion and desire for other people to experience it too. So the next year I started getting involved in these college campus ministries and it wasn’t long before I started getting opportunities to preach at events. I had been to churches where the guy talks about Jesus and then does this altar call thing where people raise their hands or come forward and they pray this prayer to become Christians so that’s just what I did. In those first few years of preaching, I prayed with hundreds of people to become Christians. At one point a few years later while I was working on my first grad degree I even got a permit down at the Santa Monica promenade and did street preaching and there were people there I prayed with to receive Christ. But something always bothered me about it. What bothered me was I, like other preachers I heard, would say, “There’s nothing you can do to earn your salvation. Jesus saves.” Just like our passage in Titus says right? So I would say that “There’s nothing you can do to earn your salvation, so if you want to become a Christian, here’s what I want you to do. Raise your hand. Come forward. Pray this prayer.” What? It just didn’t make sense to me. And to be honest it wasn’t how I became a Christian either, I never did any of those things. So I began to think about regeneration. I began to read passages like the one we have today in Titus. I began to read Jesus words, that like the wind you see the effects of the Spirit’s work of rebirth or regeneration, it’s not something you produce. What I’ve come to realize is that conversion is most often a discovery and not so much a decision. It doesn’t mean we don’t make decisions and that there are decisions to make but rather those decisions are responses to the grace and goodness of God we discover at work in our heart. 6

For example, if you listen carefully, in almost every sermon at the end I’ll say something like, if you’ve found yourself realizing your need for Jesus and are discovering that you believe in Him then we invite you to be prayed for and then come to Jesus table with us. Salvation, being saved is something Jesus does in people when His Spirit regenerates them. And this is something that regularly happens in our church. It happened to a guy I’m going to call “Jeff" in the last class I taught here. As we were explaining that Christianity is not something you do, like do this, do this do this, and don’t do this, this and this and be like Jesus but is rather a discovery of the goodness of Jesus and what He did for us out of His love for us, Jeff said he had never heard that. He said he had thought he was a Christian but had never believed that and he said with this huge smile on his face, “This is so much better.” Now he’s all super passionate about the Bible, reading it with a whole new set of eyes and is just excited about God! Real conversion. Real regeneration. Real change. Real. This is what we’re after. This is the goal of evangelism, what we want to see happen in people. Evangelism unto regeneration. I hope now when we talk about conversion or regeneration, what it is for something to become a Christian, we’ve got a lot clearer idea of what that is theologically. Now let’s switch gears and talk about how we can bring people to that point. We can’t make that happen but how do we bring up this stuff with those we build relationships with? So let’s talk about “Communicating Christ” for a few minutes.

II.

Communicating Christ

Two main questions, who are we to talk to about Jesus and how are we to talk about Him or bring Him up. The answer to the first question is easy. It’s everyone. I kind of break it down into three categories. The first category, kids. I’m constantly talking to my kids about Jesus and teaching them to believe in Jesus. I pray for their regeneration. My kids were baptized when they were babies, but that doesn’t presume they are regenerate. They have an external holiness under my covering and are members of the church but I know they still need their own experience of Jesus saving them. Kids are important. Sharing Jesus with them is so important. Mr. Rogers realized the power of connecting with children. What children experience when they’re younger sets of the trajectory of the course of their life. The second category, church. I’m well aware that there are people here who don’t really believe in Jesus and who aren’t regenerate. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, I’m glad you’re here. I just realize there are people here who probably think they are Christians but really are not because when it comes down to it they’re believing and trusting in their own good works for salvation rather than trusting in Jesus and experiencing His new life.

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Lots of studies have been done about the significance of belonging. And there is a real way in which a lot of times what people need is to experience that belonging before they can believe. That’s is why it is so important for us a church to be a welcoming community, welcoming people into our lives, so that they might see and hear things that will bring them to believe. Then the third category, neighbors. I define a neighbor as my literal neighbors by my house and then anyone else I am able to befriend. Anyone I become friends with is my neighbor. And this is what we talked about last week, that it is our goal and mission, from God, to welcome into our lives as many neighbors as possible. Everywhere we go, every person we see and talk to is a potential neighbor. I’ll give you a couple more examples I didn’t last week. I have not only befriended each of my neighbors in the 360 degrees around my house but have become friends with each of the business owners in my neighborhood. Gabriel is the owner of Chiquita’s, one of the oldest and best Mexican restaurants in our city. It’s been in his family for multiple generations. A while back I made friends with Gabriel and since that time our two families have become friends. My kids love his daughter Emma, they love playing together. Gabriel has opened up to me a lot about his family, his struggles and even his need for God. Now he invites me to all kinds of things. He literally texted me last week inviting me to his high school alumni party. I introduced him to Ryan Leech, our worship director and now they’ve become friends and Ryan is redoing all of Chiquita’s branding and website and everything. Firratz owns and runs the little market and liquor store down the street from my house. His English isn’t great but he came here from Iraq seeking freedom and a good life. Like me he has three girls, loves running the store, loves San Diego and loves it every time I walk in the door, welcoming me with a big smile on his face. So you see, everywhere you go, look to befriend people. Try to get to know their names and their stories. That’s where you start. But then where do you go from there? That second question, how do you transition from making friends, welcoming people in as neighbors, to bringing up Jesus? I want to bring up two guides. One from the Bible. It’s one of my favorite verses. Pray that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” - Colossians 4:3-6 So first we pray and ask God because only He can save right? Second, we realize we’ve got to use words. St. Francis of Assisi is famous for saying, “Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary use words.” The problem is you can’t share the gospel without words because by definition is words about God and what He’s done for us in Jesus. Now I get what 8

he’s getting at, that we need to show love and care for others, and that’s good. It’s what gives weight to our words. But our loving acts, not the Gospel. Jesus loving act is the Gospel. Third, we look for an open door. I’m always looking for an open door with someone. Each person is different and what each person needs to hear is different, so I’m looking for a way in. Fourth, we want to be wise, being smart about it. I think that has to do with sensitivity and discernment. Sometimes it’s not the right time to speak and that’s okay. Sometimes we need to think before we speak, based on who we’re talking And then we want to be gracious with our words, sharing the goodness of Christ in a good, persuasive and winsome way when we talk to people. Someone asked me recently what I thought about doing protests at abortion clinics and street preaching. My answer was I didn’t know if it was the wisest and most gracious and winsome way to talk to people about Jesus. Typically having someone yell at you doesn’t help you hear and feel the love of God. So that’s the Scriptural guide on how to bring things up with people. It sort of gives general principles. Here’s the second guide. It’s just a sampling of some things my friend Harvey Turner says in one of my favorite books on evangelism called, “Friend of Sinners: An Approach To Evangelism.” First, pray and offer prayer. Harvey writes, “Evangelistic prayer is talking to God about the people in your life you are evangelizing. Prayer is the force and the fuel of evangelism.” So it’s important to pray for people on your own and if they’re open to it when you’re with them. I’ve found that very few people will reject prayer. Just this last week I was talking to my neighbor Judy and she was telling me she was considering retiring this next year and telling me some of the reasons why and what not. So I said, I’ll pray for you for that. And she said, “Would you?” And I said sure. When my neighbor Sue’s boyfriend hung himself in her garage she was understandably really sad and confused and I asked her if I could pray for her. I told her we believed in Jesus and that He is our God and that I believed He loved and cared for her. So my wife and I prayed for her right there on her porch. Prayer is a gift you can give to someone to let them know they are loved and that God cares about the things they care about. The second guide from Harvey’s book, be interested in people. He writes, “If we engage others with this canned approach, they’re going to see right through it. They’ll be able to tell that they’re just a project to you, not a person to be in relationship with. Be interested, and let the Holy Spirit fill you and open the doors to talk about the gospel. Make the conversation about them. Get to know them, their aspirations, dreams, disappointments, 9

and questions. I do this by asking lots of questions about who they are and what’s going on in their life.” You know what happens when you ask people about what they think about real life stuff? After they answer then they turn around and say, “What do you think?” And then there’s the opportunity to be real and to talk about our deepest fears and beliefs in Jesus the hope we have in Him. I do this all the time. It’s an easy trick! I was talking to one of my neighbor friends just the other week who recently went through a breakup and is now in a new relationship and I simply asked a bunch of questions about it, what they thought and how they were feeling. And they were just talking and then it happened. The girl of the couple who we had over to our house turned around and said, “I don’t know what do you think?” And I said, “Man, you’ve been through so much and I think God knows and He cares about you. Jesus knows pain and suffering and people cheating on Him and everything that’s happened isn’t on you. I think God loves you.” God’s at work there. I know it. Mr. Rogers was big on this one, being present with people. He said this, “The most important thing is that we are able to be one-to-one, you and I with each other at the moment. If we can be present to the moment with the person that we happen to be with, that's what's important…The greatest gift you ever give is your honest self.” One last one, one more guide from Harvey’s book. He has a lot in it, I’m just picking my favorites. I’d actually highly encourage you all to get a copy of this and read it. The last one is simple, invite people to church. Here’s what Harvey says, “Maybe the easiest way to introduce friends to God is to introduce them to God’s people. In other words, invite them to church. When we’re at church, we experience God’s presence as his people worship through the preaching of the word, through baptism and communion. Seeing how God reveals himself through broken and imperfect people seems to help put things into context and make ideas and concepts stick.” I think a lot of times we’re scared of inviting people to church thinking people are going to freak out or something. I’ve found that while people may not be interested, just inviting them opens up this whole door to talk about God because they start telling you their spiritual history and view of the church. And that’s the real stuff we want to talk about anyway. It’s a win-win! If they do come to church, we always make it a point to try and get lunch afterward or something and then ask, “Hey, so what’d you think? Did you enjoy it?” I had a conversation with someone recently. It was their first time and she said, “Yeah, I did. People were so friendly. I’ve only ever been to Catholic church so it was really different. But I loved the honesty and hearing about Jesus.” Sometimes I think we just don’t know how to talk and are afraid of conversation. If we’re just normal and act like ourselves, we’ll be fine. That’s what people want anyway. 10

Alright, so you guys feel like you kind of got an idea of how it works now? Fall is always typically a growth season for our church in the calendar year and I’m really praying that God uses this series to make us an army of evangelists, going out there building relationships, looking for those open doors and then speaking into them. And I know, I know, if we do that church…people are going to come to know Jesus.

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