THE MESSAGE OF HOPE - IV

Titus 3:5b-7
Bob Bonner
May 24, 2009

Several years ago, I was at a party with some friends playing a game called Taboo. The object of this game is to identify as many words that relate to a subject given on a card, with the hopes that you will guess the right word that accompanies the more general subject matter on the card. Each team listens to one of their team members give clues concerning the subject matter in hopes that the team members might guess the correct word. 

During our game, a member on my team called out a wrong word that had nothing to do with the subject category that was chosen. Everyone in the room laughed at this person's blunder, and the person next to me teasingly said, “Boy, you have to be pretty retarded to come up with that answer!”  Only too late, however, he recalled that the woman sitting just across from him had only weeks before been informed that her only child was diagnosed with mental retardation. Their two eyes met, and my partner immediately apologized. For a while he just sat there, absorbed in the internal heat of his own full blown embarrassment. Later he confided in me, “What a cruel thing to say. I should be shot!” He went on to vent and verbally beat up himself for being so insensitive. 

When you fail in some way, do you ever think or call yourself names out loud? What are some of the things that you have said to yourself at those times? What are some of the names you hear yourself call yourself? Why do we do that? Why do we hammer ourselves and others when we or they do something wrong? Why do we berate ourselves and others when they fail? I think I have the answer. Every human being has or has had at some point in time a very strong sense of justice. And along with that sense of justice has come the belief that people should be punished for doing wrong or at least pay for their mistakes. We don't like to see others get away with something that they should be punished for. We don't like it when others live irresponsibly and suffer no consequences for it. There is a deep-seated belief that wrong doings deserve punishment. And that includes the feeling that, as Christians, we deserve punishment when we do something wrong before God.

In a twisted form of motivation, some think that if we condemn ourselves enough, deal harshly with others for errors and wrong choices, or condemn our children enough times for their mistakes, then perhaps we or others won't fail again. Some operate on the subtle theory that if we are hard enough on ourselves, if we punish ourselves enough, then maybe God or others won't have to. It's a warped idea, yet we function under it. Doing penance neither changes one's behavior nor does it make one more acceptable to others. And least of all, doing penance does not make us more acceptable to God. 

This morning we want to look at what God’s Word has to say about how God deals with our failures, our sins, and our mistakes, so that we don’t mistakenly do any damage to ourselves, that from God’s perspective is not necessary for our emotional health or stability. Furthermore, we are going to see how it is that God is able to love us and how we are able to receive that love, even when we have wronged and angered Him. 

By way of review, let me remind you how it is that we have come to this subject. We are in the midst of studying the Apostle Paul’s letter to Titus. In Titus 3:4-7, Paul writes one sentence that is one of the most condensed set of verses found in Scripture. It gives many of the basics of the Gospel. For the past few weeks and for the next few to come, we are looking at some of the key terms in these verses that define the gospel, as well as several other Biblical terms, to more fully explain the truths of the gospel. Our purpose in doing so is that I hope for us to understand how the Gospel, once truly understood, can transform how we live our lives today. And for sure, in this letter to Titus, Paul wanted the Christians on Crete to live lives transformed by the Good News, the message of hope that comes in Christ.

Last week, I introduced to you four typical lies that even Christians have come to accept as true. These lies lead to emotional instability, which in turn leads to trouble in our relationships with others. 

The first false belief is, “I must meet certain standards to feel good about myself.” This false belief has, among other consequences, the power to cause us to live our lives in the shadow of the fear of failure. Failure is like a plague to be avoided at all costs.

A second false belief is, “I must be approved by certain others to feel good about myself.” This false belief has, among other consequences, the effect of causing us to live our lives in the shadow of the fear of rejection. As a result of this fear, we will make every attempt to please significant others at all costs, just to not lose their approval. We can become “approval addicts.”

A third false belief is, “Those who fail (including me) are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.” When a person is living in the shadow of this false belief, they tend to live under the fear of punishment, and they tend to be quick to condemn, criticize, or demand that others be punished.

The fourth false belief is very common among Christians who have struggled unsuccessfully for a long time with their bad habits, hang ups, and hurts. So after years of trying to change themselves, they give up with the cry of, “I am what I am. I cannot change. I am hopeless.” Because of living in the shadow of this false belief, their life feels like it is lived under an umbrella of continual shame over their inability to change.

Last time, we touched on only the first of these two false beliefs and their counterparts, the truth from God’s Word based on the finished work of Jesus Christ in our lives.

Allow me to summarize what we learned in a way that we can all better understand. These two false beliefs make up what I call “The Big Lie.” This is one of the biggest and most damaging deceptions I believe our enemy, Satan, has ever perpetrated on the human race. It can be summed up in the following formula: My self worth = my performance (my ability to live up to certain standards) + the opinions of others.

If I score a touch down, if I never say a hurtful thing to another person, then I have worth. Furthermore, if I add to that that my successes earn me the approval of my parents, teachers, spouse, kids, employer, my fellow employees, and friends, then my self worth, my value, is even greater.

The problem with this formula is no one always hits a home run. We always fail. Furthermore, who says others’ opinions are correct all the time? If they are having a bad day, or if we have enough bad days in a row, suddenly our value or worth appears to change in our minds. One day we feel like our lives are of great worth and the next, we are worthless. That is a prescription for living an emotionally unstable life, which is just how Satan wants you to live.

Praise God that His Word has revealed a greater and larger truth that cancels out the “Big Lie” of Satan. The “Bigger Truth” can be demonstrated by this formula: My self worth = Christ’s performance on my behalf + God’s opinion of me based upon Christ’s performance.

As a result of Christ’s performance on the cross, his death for my sin, God has forgiven me and thus reconciled me to Himself. God and I are now in right relationship because of what Christ has done. Furthermore, because of what Christ has done on my behalf, God has put Christ’s righteousness to my account, thus making me right with God. Henceforth, I am forever acceptable and fully approved of by God. There is nothing I can do to improve upon Christ’s work on my behalf. Neither is there anything I can do to lessen His approval of me. I am fully acceptable, totally approved of by God, because of Christ’s work in my stead. And the two terms we studied last time that support this truth are the terms “justification” and “reconciliation.”

Now let’s look at God’s answer to the third false belief that leads to the fear of punishment. That false belief states: “Those who fail (including me) are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.” God’s Word gives us two truths based on other Biblical terms that are not in our passage, Titus 3:4-7, but are nonetheless a very important part of the message of hope, the Gospel, and are further results of God’s reconciling work on our behalf. Those two terms are “propitiation” and “redemption.” It will take more than just today for us to fully grasp the significance of just this first term, “propitiation,” so we will have to wait a few weeks to get to the second term, “redemption.” 

Let’s begin by setting the stage for why we need this thing called the “propitiating work of Christ.” When we turned our backs on our sovereign Creator God, when we ignored Him and violated the very conscience He gave us, our sin wronged God and rightfully stirred up His holy wrath against us. The wrath of God, when exercised against a person, ends up not just killing them but eternally separating them from God and all that is good, to live forever alone in hell. And make no mistake about it: all of us deserve hell. None of us on our own, regardless of all our good works, could prevent the outcome of our ending up in hell. 

And this raises a question: Most of us here understand that Jesus Christ died for our sin, and if we put our trust in Jesus Christ’s dying for our sin, we are forgiven and rescued from hell. But when Christ died for our sin, do we all understand what happened to God’s wrath against us? What happened to all of those angry emotions that God felt toward us? Even though He has forgiven me, isn't He still angry with me when I sin? Shouldn’t I be afraid of Him and His becoming angry with me all over again when I blow it in the future?

Whenever we sin, saved or not, God is always morally wronged and angered by that sin. It is the nature of justice to always demand that wrong doing be punished. This principle is ingrained in all people, whether you are religious or not, living in a sophisticated, technologically advanced culture or in a backward third-world country. The principle of justice is resident in all of us. Wrong doing deserves punishment. God’s wrath must be satisfied. This concept was obviously evident in Jesus’ mind when he told the story of the Pharisee and tax collector in Luke 18:10. 

For those of you who may not know, Pharisees were religious leaders among the Jews, and more often than not, they were self righteous, believing that because of their religious ways they were somehow more deserving and less evil in God’s eyes than others. In stark contrast to them were tax collectors. Tax collectors were Jews who were hired and paid well by Rome to collect taxes from their fellow Jews. They were considered extortionists and traitors. They were thought to be the worthless scum of the earth in their day. 

Jesus tells this story:

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the

other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to

himself, “God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people:

swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast

twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.”  But the tax-gatherer,

standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes

to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, “God, be merciful 

[propitiate] to me, the sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his

house justified [declared right with God, forgiven, accepted, and

approved] rather than the other [the Pharisee]; for everyone who

exalts himself [thinks he is hot stuff] shall be humbled, but he who

humbles himself shall be exalted."

Jesus was saying that this man realized that he could not earn God's approval, whereas the Pharisee thought he had. The tax collector knew that he had wronged God and that God was rightfully angry at him. He knew that he deserved to die and be separated from God forever. Because he humbled himself and called upon the Lord, the Lord’s anger against him was appeased or permanently calmed down to such a point that God lifted up or showed honor and approval to this tax collector.

Innately, many people know that God is angry at sin, and that somehow His anger needs to be appeased. That's one reason many religious people in Mexico City crawl on their hands and knees for miles to the "Our Lady of Guadalupe" up a long series of stairs, causing damage to their knees, hands, and feet. I’ve witnessed this sorry sight and it broke my heart. By the time these people had crawled for miles on their hands and knees, many of them were bleeding from their open wounds. Why would they do such a thing? Because they are trying to show God how sorry they are for their sins and to earn His forgiveness, in hopes that He will turn away His anger from them and begin to show His favor.

Similarly, many Christians today, who should know better, live by the theory that if we are hard enough on ourselves for our shortcomings and sins by calling ourselves names, hitting ourselves on the head, mentally berating ourselves, or sacrificially giving up something we like on a temporary basis, like for Lent, then God or others won't have to punish or reject us because they will see how sorry we are and maybe won’t be as angry.

Again, this brings up questions: “What happens to God’s anger toward sinners after they are forgiven?” “Is God still angry with us?” “Will He ever not be angry with us?” So, let’s take some time to look closely at what God’s Word says about this, because the ramifications of what we believe about God’s anger ultimately will affect the way we view God and the way we think of how He views us. It will also make a difference in how we treat each other when we wrong each other.

Let’s begin our study by looking at what God’s Word says in Hebrews 2:17. “Therefore, He [Jesus Christ] had to be made like His brethren [us] in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” In order to understand this verse, one must understand what the High Priest was doing when he sacrificed an animal before God, and why He was doing it. God said that only one person, the High Priest was allowed to sacrifice an animal as the atoning sacrifice for the people of Israel. An atoning sacrifice was a sacrifice that was designed to satisfy the wrathful anger of God toward His people, Israel. What the writer of Hebrews is telling us here is that Jesus, who was the last High Priest, made this atoning sacrifice for the Jews, His brethren. But wait, there’s more!

Look at 1 John 2:2, where we read, “And He Himself [Jesus Christ] is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” In other words, Jesus wasn’t just the last High Priest to offer this sacrifice, He was the sacrifice! And Jesus was the only perfect, wrath-appeasing sacrifice that could die for the sin of the entire human race, not only the Jews. His death potentially satisfied the anger of God toward all human beings.

This is why Jesus declared in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no on comes to the Father, but through me.” It isn’t because we Christians are intolerant and thus think all other faiths are wrong. It is because there can be and will be no other perfect sinless sacrifice besides the one God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, made to satisfy His own righteous anger against us. To reject God’s offer of forgiveness based on Christ’s work on the cross on our behalf and to declare another a better way is the height of arrogance and pride, and is the only unpardonable sin. From God’s point of view, there is no other solution to man’s sin and God’s wrath held against us and our sin.

But why would God become a man and die to pay the penalty for our sin? Why would Jesus become the propitiating sacrifice that would once and for all satisfy God’s anger against the human race? God goes on to tell us through the Apostle John in 1 John 4:10, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Jesus Christ, God the Son, became our only possible propitiation, because He loved us and wanted us to not be punished nor live under the fear of punishment, but to have everlasting life with Him. This life can begin right now, as we walk in a relationship with God that was founded upon His love and that casts out all fear of punishment. Because of the propitiating work of Christ, we will never face punishment at the hands of God. Not for the sins of our past nor for the sins of our future! 

The Apostle Paul, in agreement with the Apostle John, adds one more interesting element to John’s point. In referring to our Savior, he says in Romans 3:24-25, “Jesus Christ; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.” What does that mean? In context, Paul is saying that only those who put their trust in Christ, who put their confidence or faith in Christ’s propitiating work on the cross on their behalf will be able to claim God’s propitiation for themselves. So even though we will do wrong in the future, Christ’s death once and for all propitiated or satisfied God’s anger against those who put their trust in Christ. 

Now, what does “propitiation” mean, and what did it accomplish? Let me demonstrate. The scene is a fast food restaurant. One day while at work, an employee washed the tile floor but didn't tell anyone that it was wet. A second employee came around the corner, slipped on the floor, fell down, and hit his head hard on the edge of one of those preparation tables, knocking him out. When the employee came to, weeks later, he had suffered some minor brain damage and permanent partial paralyzation of his right arm. Because the fast food restaurant had not provided its employees with signs that read “Caution Wet Floor,” the company is at fault. They were negligent in not providing safety equipment, thus endangering the lives of their employees. Therefore, the court awarded the injured employee a tremendous sum of money, to be paid by the company. 

When the money is paid, the company will have satisfied the demands of justice, according to the court. The company no longer has any responsibility toward this man. However, the court's “justice” does not say anything about how the employee feels, now that he is partially paralyzed. He may be filled with resentment, bitterness, or even hatred toward the company. 

The owner, on the other hand, as a result of this traumatic ordeal for this employee and himself, decided that he never wanted to see anything like this happen again to one of his employees. He felt so bad, that even after the award of the money, the owner sought out the injured employee, who was now essentially set financially for life. The owner asked the employee if he would come back to work on the payroll to oversee all of his fast food restaurants simply to supervise safety controls so that no more terrible accidents like this one would take place again. Furthermore, the owner knew that simply sitting around the rest of your life with no place to work makes a person feel useless, and he didn't want that for his ex-employee. He wanted him to know that his life was still productive and he could produce a worthwhile service to a company like his.

At this point, the injured employee, although he couldn't turn back the clock and change the fact that the accident happened, felt his anger subside and realized that his former boss really cared about him. His bitterness and hatred dissolved. As a result, he accepted the offer and went on to develop safety policies that protected and saved many future employees from unnecessary injury.

Likewise, Paul is saying that human sin has injured and angered God. Just as the employee was injured by the company's negligence, our sin has hurt and injured God and made Him rightfully angry. We wronged our creator. Justice, therefore, demands that we be punished for that sin in some way, so that God’s anger would be satisfied or appeased. In the death of Jesus, that punishment was accomplished and God’s anger was satisfied, or forever appeased. God's rightful anger toward us was so satisfied by Christ's death that God's love was awakened toward us, and now He is able to release all of His love toward all who put their trust in Christ.  For all who put their trust in Christ will never experience His anger again. That's propitiation!

Here are two definitions to this expression “propitiation.” I give them both to you in the hope that if one doesn’t register with you, then maybe the other will.

1. Propitiation = “To satisfy the anger of one (God) who has been unjustly wronged, and to release in Him (God) the power to freely love the one (us) who wronged Him.”  God's hostility has been soothed. His need for vengeance has been satisfied. All He wants to do with His saints, his forgiven sinners, is to pour out His love on them. Here’s the second definition.

2. Propitiation = “To satisfy the wrath of one (God) who was wronged to such an extent, that the one who was wronged reaches out to the one (us) who wronged him and wraps His arms of love around the one (us) who wronged him.”

Friends, when we base our worth on the Big Lie, we either live under the fear that when we make a mistake God is going to reject us or at least will get angry with us. That's a lie. God does not want us to live in the fear of His rejection or wrath. He wants you to have the freedom to live, to try, and to risk failure, knowing that He will always adore you. Never will you find the Bible state that God vents His wrath toward those whom He has saved. He still gets angry at sin, but not at the believer who sins. He may discipline us because of our wrong doing to educate us not to do that again, but not because He is angry at us.

Therefore, if you know Christ as your Savior and Lord, God is not angry with you, nor will He ever be. So when you make mistakes, don’t beat up on yourself. That won’t accomplish anything. And depending upon the mistake, learn to laugh at your human frailty and move on, knowing that you are secure in God's love. He will never be angry at you for your imperfection. He deeply loves you. God won’t beat up on you. He doesn't measure your worth on how well you perform. He bases His opinion of you on who Christ is and what Christ has done for you. Work hard at whatever you do out of a desire to honor the Lord, not to maintain his pleasure with you. And when you blow it, or sin, admit it to Him. God will take care of the rest. In the meantime, rest in His abiding love.

Now there is much more to say about the implications God’s propitiating work plays in our lives, but we will have to leave that for next time.

Can you point to a time recently where you failed or sinned and got angry with yourself? Describe how you worked through that anger. Based on what you have learned about “propitiation” this week, how would you respond if that same situation happened again?

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