I. Introduction
A. Titus 3:3—A picture
of man in his natural condition without God: educated and sophisticated,
perhaps, but still foolish and enslaved by sin.
B. Titus 3:4—Historically,
the kindness and love of God was revealed in Jesus
Christ,
making it possible for us to know God and thus to be different from what we
were before. God is love and until we know Him personally, there is a depth of
love we cannot conceive.
II. Salvation
A. Titus 3:5—Paul
explains how God saves us. “Salvation” is the Bible’s word for
God’s
all-inclusive provision for man through Jesus Christ, comprehending:
1. Forgiveness of sins
2. Gift of eternal
life
3. Physical healing
4. Power to live a
different life
5. Every provision
financially and materially for all time
6. Assurance of
eternity in the presence of Almighty God
B. God’s salvation is complete, perfect and entire and
never needs to be amended or improved. There must be a moment in our experience
where we enter into salvation in Jesus Christ, thus passing from:
1. Death to life
2. Condemnation to
forgiveness
3. Darkness to light
C. Noah’s Ark is an
example of God’s total provision for mankind, illustrating the three tenses in
which the verb “to save” is used:
1. Perfect tense:
a. By grace we have been saved (Eph.
2:8). It has been settled forever.
b. By grace God
provided the ark and everything that was needed for Noah and his family for all
the time they would be in it.
2. Simple past tense:
a. God saved us (Tit.
3:5). Through a specific event that happens at a given time and place, we have
the experience of “entering in” to God’s provision in Jesus Christ.
b. Noah and his family
had to “enter in” to the ark to receive God’s provision in it.
3. Continuous present
tense:
a. Unto us who are being saved the
“preaching of the cross is the power of
God”
(1 Cor. 1:8). This describes a continuous, ongoing experience.
b. The ark was
continually saving Noah and his family all the time they were in it.
D. We must understand
that we can do nothing to earn salvation.
1. The more we try to
improve ourselves, the worse we will get.
2. Grace cannot be
earned and no works of righteousness will avail to bring us salvation.
3. There will never
come a time that we will not need God’s mercy.
E. If we desire the
Holy Spirit to change us, there are eight
facts we need to acknowledge:
1. No one can
understand intellectually how the Holy Spirit works.
2. We do not command
the Holy Spirit, we submit to Him.
3. We need to be “washed”
for we are unclean—morally, mentally and
Spiritually—and
no man can change that condition.
4. We need to be “regenerated”
(born again) by receiving God’s Word into our heart by faith, where it is
quickened by the Holy Spirit and a new (spiritual) birth takes place within us.
5. Everything about us
becomes renewed (2 Cor. 5:16–18). A new life and a new personality are brought
into being in us.
6. Through the Holy
Spirit, every “born again” child of God is offered the privilege and the
opportunity to know Jesus more perfectly, more intimately and more accurately
than any of the apostles knew Him during his earthly ministry.
7. When we come to
know Jesus in this way, we encounter the eternal Christ, who was, and is, and is
to come, who has neither beginning of days nor end of life, the divine
unchanging Son of God.
8. The moment Christ
is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, we are a “new creation.”
III. How To Enter In To The Fullness Of The New Creation
(i.e. Salvation)
A. God has never
changed His program. It is still the same.
1. Repent
2. Be baptized
3. Receive the Holy
Spirit (see Acts 2:38). The cut-off point between the past and the “new life”
is the water.
B. Two Old Testament
patterns:
1. In
the ark, eight souls were separated from their old
life by the water.
2. Coming
out of Egypt, the Israelites were “immersed” in the
cloud and passed through the sea and were thus separated from the old life.
C. Likewise in the New
Testament, when we pass through the water (baptism) we are separated from our
old life and enter into a new one.
D. First we must:
1. Confess with our
mouths that Jesus is Lord
2. Believe in our
hearts God raised Him from the dead (see Rom 10:9)
E. Titus 3:6—Then the
Holy Spirit will be shed abundantly on us through Jesus
Christ
adapted from — Derek Prince Ministries–International
