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THE MESSAGE OF HOPE - III
Titus 3:5b-7
Bob Bonner
May 17, 2009
I don’t know how many of you got the paper last night, but I woke up this morning and my wife had set out the comics for me, as she always does. I looked at the Peanuts comic and found that it was right at the level we are this morning.
The first scene has Charlie Brown sitting outside a bowling alley holding a trophy in his hand, and he is just ecstatic. He says, “I won a bowling trophy! All my life I’ve wanted a trophy, any kind of trophy, and now I’ve got one. Can you believe it?” Then he sees Lucy. “Hey, Lucy, look what I won. I won a trophy. I bowled 101. Isn’t that great!”
Lucy says, “Yeah, but they spelled your name wrong.”
“They what?”
“They spelled your name wrong. See, it says Charlie Braun, not Brown. He finally wins a trophy and they spell his name wrong.” Lucy walks away.
“I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it,” says Charlie.
And that’s where we are. We want approval. We want to know we’ve made it somehow, that we have reached the standard where we can say, “You know what, I count. My life is worth something.” And that is exactly where we are in our study of the book of Titus. In a way, we are kind of taking an elongated look at some terms that we started to look at last week.
Last week in our study of Titus 3:5b-7 we covered a great deal of very important and challenging information about the Gospel. But due to time constraints, we could not in one message demonstrate how important it is for Christians living in this world to understand the practical implications these truths have in our lives today. In other words, the truth about the Gospel is not important just because it concerns our eternal destiny, but also because these truths can positively impact our lives in this age.
Personally, I can tell you that when I first realized what a significant difference the Gospel has made in my life here on earth, I have not lived or been the same since. Therefore, to help you better grasp the advantages that God wants you to experience as a Christian, that come as of the result of the Gospel, for the next two messages we are going to take a closer, more practical look at what Paul says in Titus 3:4-7.
Robert S. McGee has written an excellent book entitled Search for Significance. In this text, he cites four false beliefs that are typical among all people. These false beliefs reflect our desire and need to be forgiven, loved, accepted, approved of, and valued.
But typically, we look in all the wrong places for our true sense of worth and identity. Rather than looking to God and what He says is true about us in His Word, we turn to these false beliefs. When people base their lives on these false beliefs, serious emotional, physical, and relational consequences occur. The author of these false beliefs is none other than Satan himself, whose goal it is to destroy or ruin every human being’s life. Praise God that through the finished work of Jesus Christ, God has provided for us in His Word the truth and the solution to becoming untangled from the consequences of these false beliefs.
This morning before we return to our study of Titus 3, I want to first point to these false beliefs and their consequences and then return to our passage of study and show you how God’s solution, His message of hope, the Gospel, can make a life-changing difference in your life.
The first false belief is, “I must meet certain standards to feel good about myself.”These can be standards of religion (the day of the week you should worship, your style of dress, what you can eat or not eat), what parents set out for you to live up to (table manners, how often you bathe, how to keep your room, home, or yard in order), expectations of teachers, coaches, or mentors, or maybe just standards that you for some reason have set up for yourself.
For instance, maybe you have set up a workout or diet program that makes you feel good about yourself as long as you remain faithful to the program. But what happens if you get sick or something interrupts your schedule and you can’t perform the way you think is necessary? You become irritated, depressed, frustrated, and maybe a little angry. Typically, these kinds of irritations spill over into our relationships with others.
The following are just a few of the negative consequences of this false belief: the fear of failure, anger and resentment when one fails, depression due to failure, withdrawal from healthy risks for fear of failure, a drive to succeed, perfectionism, manipulation of others to achieve your goals, pride due to success. This fear of failure and the consequences that go with it not only eat away at you emotionally, but, over time, will damage your relationships with others.
A second false belief is, “I must be approved by certain others to feel good about myself.” The others’ approval could be that of parents, spiritual mentors, teachers, coaches, bosses, fellow employees, or friends. Listen to what God’s Word says about basing one’s sense of worth upon the approval of others. In Proverbs 29:25 we read, “The fear of man brings a snare.” A “snare” is a trap that entangles and won’t let one loose to be free. This “snare” is when we concern ourselves with what others think of us or base our sense of worth on their evaluations of who we are or what we want to do. It is a trap. Or as the Message puts it, “The fear of human opinion disables.”
Here are just a few of the negative consequences or traps that can be the result of living your life based upon this false belief: the fear of rejection, attempts to please others at all costs, and failure to fulfill your responsibilities to family, work, or school because you feel the need to please or earn the approval of someone else significant to you. This is quite typical of those who are in love and who fear that the one they love may dump them if they don’t continually do those things that please them. So instead of going home to study for finals, staying at work to finish their job, or staying at home to fulfill a family obligation, they choose to be in the presence of the one whose approval they have become addicted to.
Some who invest much of their sense of worth on what others think of them despise their appearance, and as a result of wanting to appear successful or to be one of the “beautiful people,” they become overly attentive to their physical appearance. We are talking of being a clothes horse or of over-emphasizing physical workouts and extreme diet programs, spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on multiple cosmetic surgeries, and so on. As a result of this fear of rejection and the need of the approval of others, these individuals become easily manipulated and overly sensitive to others’ criticism of them. This can lead to anger, resentment, hostility, and depression. Sometimes, in order to avoid criticism, we are so vigilant that we try to anticipate others’ thoughts about us or their reactions to what we do. In an effort to avoid being hurt, we withdraw from others to avoid their possible disapproval.
A third false belief is, “Those who fail (including me) are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.” This false belief can lead to the following negative consequences: the fear of punishment, the propensity to punish others, blaming self and others for personal failure, withdrawing from God and fellow believers in order to avoid punishment, or blaming God for not punishing others quickly or harshly enough. This false belief tends to view God as the accuser of the brethren, when the Bible says Satan is the accuser of the brethren.
The fourth false belief is common among Christians who struggle with habits, hang ups, and hurts in their lives, and after years of trying to change themselves, give up with the cry of, “I am what I am. I cannot change. I am hopeless.” The negative consequences of this are feelings of shame, hopelessness, inferiority, addictions, giving up and allowing destructive behavior to control one’s life, seeing oneself as a victim, feeling sorry for oneself, loss of creativity (we tend to become so preoccupied with our own issues that we are unable to come up with new ideas), isolation, and withdrawal from others.
When we understand the basic theological truths that make up the Gospel, the message of hope, we then will see God’s solution to meeting our need for knowing who we really are--that as Christians, we are deeply loved and have great worth and value.
Last time, as we were studying the different ingredients of the Gospel in Titus 3:5b-7, we touched on three very important theological terms mentioned in these verses. I say “touched” on these three terms, because we never really dug deep into the present day significance of them, due to lack of time. This morning, we are going to return to those verses and the three terms “justification,” “regeneration,” and “renewing,” and a few more closely related biblical terms that will better help us understand the practical implications of the gospel.
First, let’s return to Titus 3:4 and read once more the entire sentence which concerns the subject of how it is that God saved us, and what happened to us when He did. Paul writes,
4But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind
appeared, 5He 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, 6whom He poured out
upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that being justified
by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal
life.
Last time, we noted that the “washing” that Paul refers to in verse 5 was a reference to our spiritual baptism. We explained that baptism, or being “washed,” has many aspects to it. Our passage includes three key terms that point to what happens to us when we put our confidence in what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. The first term we looked at was the term “justification.”
We defined “justification” this way: God declares one righteous, forgiven, and thus forever acceptable and approved of by God, based upon what Jesus Christ has done for the sinner.
When someone is justified, God imputes or transfers the very righteousness of Christ to the sinner, thus making him forever forgiven, accepted, and approved of by God. Please note: our forgiveness, acceptance, and approval by God is never based upon or maintained by us or by our ability to make God happy with us. Our righteous position before God and our acceptance and approval by God rests solely upon the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross for sinners. Therefore, we can’t change God’s opinion of us by our poor behavior, since God’s opinion of us was never based upon our behavior.
I remember my late mentor, Ray Stedman, defining this term “righteous” in simpler terms. He said that to be declared righteous is “to be made right with God, and thus to be given worth or value in His eyes.” That means that because of what Christ has done for us, we will always be in a right and valued standing before God, regardless of our past or future sins, mistakes, or failures. I may fail, but because Christ has justified me, God does not view me as a failure but views me through the lens of Christ’s righteousness put to my account.
Furthermore, when it comes to mental sanity, who is one to believe? The fickle words you tell yourself or the equally fickle words of other depraved, deceived, and foolish humans? Or am I to believe the God of truth, who knows all and who is, in the end, the final judge of all that is worthwhile and righteous? Obviously, I am to believe what God says about me in His Word. Therefore, even though I don’t like to fail, I am free to risk and do things for God, knowing that even if I blow it, He still loves me, considers me to be worthy, and will even use that failure for my own good in the end. To Him, I am not nor will I ever be a failure. I am completely forgiven and fully pleasing to God.
So when I go back to believing the lie that “I must meet certain standards to feel good about myself” and become irritated, depressed, frustrated, and angry with my not living up to those standards, or when I do the best I can and it isn’t good enough, I now stop and remind myself of the truth about me, a saint, one whom God justified. I have lost no value before God. I have not and will not be rejected by Him. I stand approved of and loved before Him. My failure or my perceived failure is not the end of my world.
And in turn, I am freer now than I have ever been to risk failure and to try to do something for God or even something good for myself. If I fail, so what! I have lost nothing of any true value in the end, because God still loves me. God still accepts me. God still forgives me. God still approves of me.
I wish I could tell you that I never forget this truth, but sometimes I don’t remember it as quickly as I would like. Sometimes I lose sight of it entirely, and when I do, my dear wife or a friend who knows the truths of God’s Word and the importance of the gospel will remind me. They will simply say, “Hey, Bob, what does that failure mean in the bigger scheme of God’s picture? Aren’t you still deeply loved and valued by God? Can you do anything to improve upon how much He already loves you?” No, I can’t. And when I realize that, I come to my senses and find peace rather than anger and frustration.
Closely connected to the idea of justification is another Biblical term not listed in Titus 3:4-7 but, nonetheless, important to mention. This is the term “reconciliation.” Reconciliation simply means to bring back together two things that were once together but somehow became separated. Before the Fall, God and Adam and Eve enjoyed intimate fellowship together. But after sin entered the picture, that fellowship was broken. Because of Christ’s death on the cross and Christ’s payment for our sin, that barrier to reconciliation with God was once and for all removed, making it possible for us to be brought back to God so that we could enjoy permanent, eternal communion with Him that would never be broken again. The Apostle Paul writes about this in Romans 5:11. There he tells us, “And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
So, how does this help us with our fear of rejection and desperately wanting to receive or maintain the approval of others? Well, let me illustrate with two recent true stories. The first involves a friend of mine who lives in the area. We were talking about people’s hunger for the approval of others as witnessed through the common game of “name dropping.” This is a game where one person tries to establish their rank in the pecking order based on the powerful or beautiful people they associate with. For instance, in a passing conversation, someone might throw in their tidbit, “Oh, I couldn’t attend the ladies tea last week, because Michelle Obama and I were busy having lunch together.”
Because both my dear friend and I grew up in Southern California around many “celebrities,” we have a whole host of cards to play in that futile and silly game. But more often than not, when we talk about our lives growing up and we throw out a name of someone significant, it really isn’t an attempt to name drop, it is just part of the story, and we are both aware of that. Well, as we were talking about people’s needs to find approval through the company they keep, she told this “name dropper” story.
Because of her volunteer work as a leader in the Civil Air Patrol and a pilot and instructor of young people wanting to enter the Air Force, while President Reagan was in the White House, she received the rare invitation and privilege to meet him. Standing in his presence, she asked the then most powerful man in the world this question: “Mr. President, who has been the most important person you have ever met?” She then emphatically told me that without a moment’s hesitation and not having any idea of her faith, President Reagan said, “Jesus Christ is the most important person I know!” Wow! Talk about name dropping!
When it comes to wanting the approval of someone important, my friend, even a President of the United States understood that there is no other being more important in the whole world than Jesus Christ. And if you know Him and He recognizes you and approves of you and calls you His friend or brother or sister, then you don’t need anybody else’s approval. He is the sovereign Lord of the universe and you don’t get any more important than Him.
Here’s the second recent story that emphasizes the difference it makes, in the face of the possible rejection of those around you, to know that your approval by Christ is the only thing that matters. Even though you may want to be accepted by others and you would like for others to approve of you, the only person’s approval you need is Jesus Christ’s. When you have His forever approval, no one else’s approval really matters.
This year on April 19, the Miss USA 2009 pageant was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. During the Q&A portion of the contest, Perez Hilton, a homosexual activist, who was one of three homosexuals on the 12 judge panel, asked the Miss California representative, Carrie Prejean, whether she believed every state should legalize same-sex marriage. Carrie answered, “In my country and in my family, I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.” This was not the politically correct answer judge Hilton wanted to hear.
After the pageant, Judge Perez Hilton published a Youtube video in which he attacked Carrie, using profanity. He made other negative comments about the contestant and told ABC news, "She lost it because of that question. She was definitely the front-runner before that," leading some to believe that the answer directly had caused her to lose the competition. Carrie Prejean stated that Miss California USA officials had pressured her to apologize for her statement and "to not talk" about her Christian faith.
Carrie Prejean is sticking to her answer, however, saying,
It did cost me my crown. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I said what
I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself, and that’s all I can do. It is
a very touchy subject, and [Hilton] is a homosexual, and I see where he was
coming from, and I see the audience would’ve wanted me to be more
politically correct. But I was raised in a way that you can never compromise
your beliefs and your opinions for anything.
While you can’t say for sure whether or not Miss California’s Carrie Prejean would have won the Miss USA 2009 pageant if she answered Perez Hilton’s gay marriage question differently, one thing is for sure. Carrie Prejean demonstrated that her faith in Christ and His approval of her enables her to stand up against the severest and most unfair criticism and rejection few people will ever publically experience.
The bottom line is that because of Jesus Christ’s reconciling work on the cross, I am totally accepted by God, and I have no reason to fear the rejection of any human being, parent, spouse, kid, grandparent, boss, teacher, coach, or peer. They may reject me over something trivial, be impatient with me because I don’t meet their expectations, or break fellowship with me because I did something wrong. And that will hurt. But in the end, the one who counts the most will never reject me. Because of Christ’s justification and reconciling work, I forever stand securely approved of before God.
I am not immune to the sting of rejection. So, when I feel that sting from those who are significant in my life, I go back to the cross and remember that the One who counts hasn’t and never will reject me. As a result, I have discovered greater freedom to be open and vulnerable with all people. It is why I’m completely comfortable sharing with you blunders in my life that were necessary for my growth. It is why I am able to relax more around those who may not like me. It is why I am willing to hear criticism about areas in my life that I need to improve. It is why I find it easier to relax with the shortcomings of others! Because when you know that God approves of you as you are with all of your shortcomings, and that He will change you as He pleases and in His time, you can relax in His approval, realizing that it is okay that you and everyone else aren’t perfect.
Have you noticed that these first two false beliefs share something in common? The fear of rejection and the fear of failure have at their root the fear of others and what they may think or do to us. But when we focus on the truth of God’s Word, we find release from the snare of the fear of others, and that is just what God’s Word promises. Before, I only showed you the first half of Proverbs 29:25. Now let me show the whole verse. It reads, “The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted.” When we believe and trust in what God says about what He has done for us and how He perceives us, we are freed, lifted up by God from that snare. Rather than basing one’s value and worth on the fickle, temporal approval of others, stand firm in the love, acceptance, forgiveness, and approval of God, and He will exalt you. For in the end, it is His opinion, and only His opinion of you, that counts.
As long as you seek the approval and recognition of others through your successes, your looks, or your achievements, you will live in fear. But if you trust in what Jesus Christ has already done for you, you will experience a true freedom to live. It is a freedom from the performance trap. It is a freedom from the fear of the rejection of others.
If you struggle with your own sense of worth, I encourage you to look to God’s Word and discuss some of the questions I have prepared for you at the bottom of your outlines.
Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. As you do, replace the word “love” with “The Father,” realizing that God is love. As you read these verses with this in mind, see if there is any change in your perception of Who God is and how He views you.
Read Romans 5:1 and Colossians 1:21-22. What significant implications do the truths of these verses have on how God views you as one who has put your confidence in the finished work of Jesus Christ upon your behalf? Will personal failure change in any way your standing before God?
Can you think of a recent situation in which you felt rejected or in which someone disapproved of something you said or did? If so, explain the situation and describe your response. How would your response have been different if you had believed the truth of your total acceptance in Christ?
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