From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Christians tend to be forgetful on things that we're supposed to remember. God understands that we're forgetful as human beings. So God built in days of remembrance and festivals and things that his Old Testament people were to remember. And then in Paul's letter to Titus, he tells Titus, remind the people of these things.

Preaching and teaching and coming to church, a lot of times it's just a reminder. It's like, oh yeah, I knew that, but I forgot. We want to talk about the forgetful Christian and the things that God wants us to remember.

Larry Nobles: Are you forgetful? Maybe you've even invented little tricks to help you compensate, making lists, tying a string around your finger, or dropping breadcrumbs when you park your car and go into the store. Whatever it is, if that kind of describes you, you'll be encouraged as Pastor Jeff reveals the Lord's list of reminders for every Christian. A list that'll help us all remember the great gift of grace given to us in Christ, and how that shapes our attitude about everything we do.

This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today for the message, The Forgetful Christian. It's from the series that we've been in most of this month called Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus. If you missed any of these lessons, you can revisit them when you go to fromhisheart.org, click the listen link.

Right now, open your Bible to the book of Titus chapter 3, as Pastor Jeff shares how we can find real joy, real peace, and grace in this life by avoiding being the forgetful Christian.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Titus chapter 3, verses 1 and 2. Paul says to Titus, remind them, remind the people in the church to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be uncontentious, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. Three essentials that we need to remember. Essential number one, remember how we are to live in this world.

Titus chapter 2 talked a lot about how Christians are to be in the church. The older women are to teach the younger women and how things were supposed to go in the church. Then Titus chapter 3 talks about how we as Christians are to live in the world. Remind them, Titus.

Remind them what they're supposed to do and what they're supposed to be. Verses 1 and 2, there's seven virtues that are to be present in a Christian's life and the way we're supposed to live, and it has to do with lifestyle evangelism. It has to do with letting your light so shine among men. It's not so much that you're knocking on doors sharing the gospel, that's a good thing, but it's just the way you live among unbelievers.

And so look at it again, remind them to be, first one he mentions, subject to rulers, to authorities. The word subject, hupotasso, is a Greek word that's a military term that means to rank yourself under.

That's what a Christian is supposed to do. There is great power and a great testimony and great witnessing when you submit yourself to the authorities that God placed over you. When you submit yourself as a child to your parents, because you're supposed to obey your parents in the Lord.

And so you support authority and you teach your kids to support authority. You've heard me say this, it bears repeating. That's one of the problems in our country. There's no respect for authority.

And so when that breaks down, the whole thing starts to break down. God says, hey, you obey your authorities, you obey the people I put over you, and you show respect for those people.

It says in chapter 2, verse 5, about older women teaching younger women. They were to teach them to be sensible, pure, workers at home, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored.

Now, for a wife to subject yourself and to be under, to rank yourself under your husband. That can be hard to do. That takes faith. That takes, God, I'm believing you, I'm going to do this.

That's why it says in 1 Peter chapter 3, you wives be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. And if you have a husband who's disobedient to the word, you can win him without a word, without a sermon, if you'll just rank yourself under and you submit yourself to him.

Because God just works in that environment. How do you win your husband who's not walking with God, who's not right with God? You don't do it by preaching a sermon, you do it by submitting yourself. There's power in that. There's power in that in our witness in the community when we obey rulers and authorities.

And the only time we don't do that is when the rulers or authorities ask us to do something that violates our commitment to God. But when the authorities aren't asking you to do something that disobeys God's word, then you obey them and you rank yourself under.

He says in verse 2, to malign no one, to be uncontentious, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. That's how we're supposed to live in this world. We're not supposed to be maligning people and talking bad about people and railing on people.

That word malign is the word that literally is blaspheme. And it means to defame and revile and vilify. We're not supposed to do that. And we're not supposed to be contentious people, argumentative people, always looking for a fight and trying to get into an argument with people.

You're to be gentle. And you're to show every consideration for all men. You're to be polite and kind.

And that's how we are to live in this world. See, a Christian is to be an example of godliness.

Jesus didn't malign people. Jesus was uncontentious. Jesus was gentle. You know, the Bible tells us that blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who are gentle.

It doesn't mean you're weak when you're gentle. It means you have power under control. That's a fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.

Be an example of godliness. God says, that's how I want you to remember. That's how you're supposed to live in this world. The Lord says, that's a great way to witness.

Second thing to remember. Second essential. Remember what we were before coming to Christ.

Now, he closes out verse 2 by saying, showing every consideration, every politeness, every kindness for all men.

We deal with people like that. Showing kindness and consideration for every man, because he says in verse 3, 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.

What an awful picture of humanity. What an awful picture of what life is like before Christ and without Christ. That's the way the world is around us, people who don't know Jesus. That's the way we were before we met Christ.

Now, some of you don't remember much because if you got saved when you were young, there's not a lot of before Christ in your life. But we need to always remember, what is life like without Christ? Why do I show kindness and politeness to these people and give men every consideration that don't know Christ? Because you remember, well, what would I be like without Jesus? I'd be just like that.

Look at it again in verse 3. For we once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived. The devil deceives us and says, you're okay. You're okay just the way you are because you go to church every now and then. You're religious and that's enough. We're deceived.

Enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. That word for pleasures is the word where we get our English word hedonism. It's the pursuit of sensual pleasure, spending our life in malice, in wickedness, in envy, ill will. And I love this, it says hateful. That word literally means odious. Odious. It means you're just walking around. They just have a hateful heart. It's just kind of around them. That describes people without Christ.

You know, when we talk about people are depraved. That's true. The depravity of man. That doesn't mean you're as bad as you can be. It means you're as bad as you can be before God, because you're a sinner.

You have to remember that. Man, where where did I come from? I came from verse 3. I was just like that. I was foolish and deceived and like a sheep just wandering astray and doing my own thing.

So we were totally sinful before God and we were rightly condemned before God.

You know, when God gave Moses the 10 Commandments, the very first thing he says in Exodus chapter 20, the Lord spoke to Moses and said this, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and I delivered you from that.

Don't forget where you came from. Egypt's a picture of sin. Coming out of Egypt is a picture of salvation. Passover, which they celebrate every year, and they did ever since they came out of Egypt. Passover is a symbol, the Passover lamb is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And coming out of Egypt is like being lost and trusting Christ and coming through the blood of Jesus into the promised land. It's a whole picture of salvation. And the Lord says, remember that. Don't forget it.

Remember what we were before coming to Christ. And thirdly, remember what Jesus did for us. Not just where you were, verse 3, but what the Lord did.

Verse 4, but when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared. He saved us. Not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The kindness of God comes. You and I, we're pigpen, full of sin, doing our own thing, deceived, enslaved to lust and all sorts of things like that, disobedient and wicked. And God is kind to us.

But see, God would be just to condemn us and cast us all into hell, but he doesn't. He's kind.

You have somebody in your life that's far from God and you want the Lord to reach that person. Oftentimes we pray, God, bring disaster in that person's life, calamity in that person's life, whatever you need to do to get their attention, because it's the kindness of God that brings men to repentance.

Also calamity can bring men to repentance. But it's better to pray over your loved ones, your friends, your neighbors, people at work. God, overwhelm them with your kindness, because that brings them to repentance. And God's kindness came, and his love for us, and then he saved us.

And it says, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness. It's not as a result of works. God didn't save you because you're good. You're not good. You're verse 3. You're bad and disobedient and deceived. It's not according to your deeds, but it's according to his mercy.

Larry Nobles: God's mercy, compassion, and grace is with all those who call him their Lord and Savior. What a powerful lesson today from Pastor Jeff on From His Heart. And in just a moment, he'll conclude the lesson, The Forgetful Christian.

Today is the last day of the month and it'll be the last time that we'll be telling you about a special resource we're offering this month, as our thanks for your support to From His Heart. It's Pastor Jeff's five-lesson series, Soul on Fire, God's Plan for Revival.

It's a series of lessons designed to warn us about the danger that we can get into when we start growing distant from the Lord. It happens gradually, and so it's really hard to spot in the moment. Before we know it, though, our faith has grown stale, our prayers have no vibrancy, and we're left going through the motions and accept this as the norm.

That's why we know that this month's series offer from Pastor Jeff, called Soul on Fire, God's Plan for Revival, can help you reignite your faith and light your soul on fire again. It's our gift to say thank you for your support this month of any amount to From His Heart.

To get your copy, just make your gift online at fromhisheart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE. Again, you can go to fromhisheart.org and request it in the format of your choice.

Now, let's conclude the series, Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus in this message, The Forgetful Christian. Here again is Pastor Jeff.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Now, remember this. People who say that you can lose your salvation. You don't get salvation by good works. You don't keep salvation by good works. It's all by his mercy and it's all by his grace.

When you hear someone say, well, you Baptists, you guys believe in once saved, always saved. If I believed in once saved, always saved, then I'd just sin all I want to. Well, a true Christian sins all he wants to, because he doesn't want to.

Deep down in his heart, in her heart, if you've really been saved, there's a change that's taken place in you and there's a desire in your heart that you didn't have before to please God. It doesn't mean you do it perfectly, but it's there.

And when you displease God, you feel it. It's like the song says, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love, and I don't want to, but yet I'm pulled towards sin, but there's a difference inside of me that wasn't there before.

If any of us were kept by our good works, we'd all go to hell. Illustration I heard years and years ago about Noah's ark. You know, Noah's ark is a picture of salvation. And God had him build that thing, and God had him cover the ark inside and out with pitch, with tar, black sticky tar, so that the water wouldn't get in. And that word for pitch is the word that's also translated atonement.

That pitch is going to be a covering, atonement is covering, an atonement for you, a covering for you. The water was God's judgment. God's judgment fell upon the whole earth, but Noah was in the ark, covered with pitch. And not one drop of judgment got into that ark, because God had protected him and God had sealed him.

Now, just think how crazy it would have been if God had said, okay, Noah, you made the ark, and the animals are going to be in the ark, but now this is what I want you to do. I want you to get a just a peg, kind of like a dowel rod, and I want you to hammer it in there on the side, outside of the ark, and hammer it in there, one for you, one for Mrs. Noah, one for your three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and their three wives, and all eight of you, you just, when I give the signal, you just go hang on to that pole, that little, that little peg, and then if you can hang on for all those days and through all the rain and through all the storm, then you'll be saved.

Well, there's no way he could do that. He wouldn't have lasted 20 minutes. But God didn't do that. He put him inside the ark, and Noah may have fallen down many times in the ark, but he never fell out. Right? You can fall in your Christian life, but if you're truly a Christian, you can never fall out of salvation. You didn't do anything to get it. You can't do anything to lose it. It's by his mercy.

He saved us not based on the deeds which we have done as righteousness, but by his mercy. And then it says, he washed us. The washing of regeneration, by renewing of the Holy Spirit. And then the Lord poured out his Spirit upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Lord. We've been justified by grace, and we're heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

You know, it's cool to know that somebody's putting you in their will. The Lord put us in his will, and we're heirs of eternal life. And when it says the hope in verse 7, made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Hope doesn't mean like, well, I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow. It's a confident expectation that that's going to happen. Our citizenship is in heaven, and our hope is in heaven, and God has something, what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man. All that God has prepared for those who love him. And that's what we have to look forward to.

And all that took place when we were in verse 3. Wow, the kindness of God. Kindness of God. You and I need to remember where we were before coming to Christ and what Jesus did for us, and it's good to relive your salvation experience on a regular basis.

To remember, you know, I talked about the BC and the AD, to remember, okay, this was my life before Christ, and this is how I came to know him, to relive that. Is that something that you can remember in your head?

You know, becoming a Christian is a lot like getting married. There has to come a point in time where you say, I do. Now, those of us in this room who are married, you can remember, hopefully, your wedding day. You can remember standing there. You can remember saying, I do. You were there. And you weren't three years old. You were old enough to remember, right?

Well, the same with salvation. You have to be old enough to understand and to know, this is when I said I do to the Lord's proposal to save me. And it's good to go back there. I was at my mom's house not too terribly long ago and I was in my room. That's the same room that I prayed to receive Christ. And I was just thinking about that. It's like, Lord, it was this place in January of 1980 that I got down on my knees and I asked you to save me, and you did.

To revisit that is so powerful and so important. Psalm 78 verse 42 says, they did not remember his power, the day when he redeemed them from the adversary. Remember that and thank God for that. The day that he came into your life.

And listen, if you can't remember when you said I do to the Lord. You know, I'm not one of those guys that say, hey, unless you can remember the date and time, you're not, you're not saved. You know, if you get on a plane and fly from Dallas to LA, you may not know the exact time that you cross into California. But you know when you landed LAX, you're in California, because Los Angeles is in California.

So you don't have to know the date and time exactly, but you need to know, I don't remember the date and time. It was some Monday in January. I don't know the exact date. But I know that this happened and it totally changed my life. If you can't remember any kind of season in your life where your life changed, then you got to wonder, have I really given my life to Christ? Because I should remember that.

And that's the greatest event in your whole life, coming to know Christ and being saved out of death and into life. To not remember that, to be fuzzy about that, that's not good. You need to know, this is when that happened. The Jews knew when they came out of Egypt, because they went through the Red Sea. That wasn't a fuzzy experience for them. That was, wow, he saved me.

Let me close out with verse 8. He tells Titus, this is a trustworthy statement and concerning these things. I want you to speak confidently so that those who have believed God may be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men. So that those who have believed God. He doesn't say, so that those who have believed in God.

You ask people in Texarkana, do you believe in God? Almost everybody will say yes. Very few atheists live here. But how many people believe God? It's a big difference. The devil believes in God. He doesn't believe God. He doesn't believe God's word. He doesn't believe what God says. If the devil believed God's word, he wouldn't go up against God, because he can read Revelation chapter 20 and know that he ends up in the lake of fire. He doesn't believe God. He believes in God here. He knows God's real.

Knowing God's real doesn't mean squat. You believe God is one? James chapter 2 verse 19. Good for you. Whoopdy do. The demons also believe and tremble. It's believing God, believing his word, believing his promises, believing when he says, this is you in verse 3, believing verse 4, that the kindness of God appeared and his love for me, and it's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy that he saved us.

Do you believe God or do you believe in God? If you believe God, then you can rejoice in the fact that, hey, the Lord really has saved me. He has done great things. If you just believe in God, you need to change that tonight. To say, I'm going to quit believing in him in my head, and I'm going to start believing him in my heart. And I'm going to receive Christ, and this is going to become real for me. Because the kindness of God has appeared. And he wants to save. And he wants us to remember what we're to do, how we're to live our life, to remember where we came from, and to remember what he's done for us. And the Holy Spirit of God has been poured out within us so that we can walk in victory and power.

Larry Nobles: Have you personally received Christ? Have you accepted the gift of grace that he freely offers to those who believe? If you long to experience God's forgiveness and be daily reminded of his unfailing love, the Bible shows us the way to know him personally. It begins with surrender, laying down our will and trusting him fully. And the scriptures tell us all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Are you ready to do that? Do you know it's a personal invitation that God is giving to you? If you desire to know more about this life-changing truth, we invite you to visit our special web pages under the Why Jesus banner. When you go to fromhisheart.org, there you'll find clear answers to the questions many have about who Jesus is and how you can make him Savior and Lord of your life.

Remember, Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship with God through his son, Jesus. Discover the truth, love and hope for which you were created. Go to fromhisheart.org, click the Why Jesus link.

Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, trusting that it was a blessing to you and that you'll be back next time, when again, Pastor Jeff will open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from his heart.