Our scripture reading this morning is Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers' lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after the kindness and love of God our Savior toward men appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men, but avoid foolish questions, and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself. When I shall send Artemis unto thee, or Tychicus be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis, for I have determined there to winter, bring Zenos the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto them. And let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they may be not unfruitful. All that are with me salute thee, greet them that love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen. So far we read God's holy word. The text for the sermon is verse five. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the text we consider this morning answers the very important question, why are you saved? When there are billions of people in this world who are living ungodly lives and rushing pell-mell to their destruction in hell. Why is it that there are certain groups here or there, certain families, certain individuals who are not, who are not living that kind of a life, who are not on the broad way to destruction? They've been saved. Why is it that two people who grow up in the same area, the same cultural experiences, same education, maybe even the same family, that one of them is on his way to heaven, clearly living a life of good works, and another is immersed in all the iniquity of the world on the way to destruction. Why are you saved? when billions are not? You face a similar question as you approach the Lord's table. What gives you and me the right to come to the table of the Lord? We have examined ourselves. Have we seen our sins? And you still believe you may come to the table? Paul describes what we are by nature in verse three of this chapter. For we ourselves also were sometimes, that is at one time, we were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, that is despicable, and hating one another. That's what we are by nature. He says, what we ought to be, as in the first two verses, put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. So, you looked at yourself and you saw these sins in your nature, and you still say, Lord's Supper is coming Sunday. and I'm going to go to the table of the Lord. How do we answer the questions? If there is a hint in your thinking that somehow you've earned either your salvation or the right to come to the table of the Lord, then I say to you this morning, do not come. Do not come. You don't belong there. If your answer is, well, I've done a good enough job of self-examination because I did it thoroughly, therefore I may come. Then I say, do not partake. If you say, well, my walk, after all, is considerably better than the walk of those who are on that path of destruction. I don't blaspheme God. I'm not living in adultery. I'm not stealing from anyone. I'm not lying. If that's why you think you may come to the table of the Lord, I say again, stay away, stay away. The only answer is the answer of the text. not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. This is really a remarkable text in the book of the epistle to Titus. Titus was a minister. Paul's writing to this minister, giving him instruction on how he needs to instruct the people of Crete. And throughout this book, There is a huge emphasis on doing good works. You notice that even in the chapter? It's already in the previous two chapters. But in this one, verse 1, be ready to every good work. Verse 8, that they might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. He concludes in the verse just before he ends, and let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful. So a strong emphasis on good works, and that was apparently necessary because the people among whom Titus is working. The Cretans are not known for their good lifestyle. Their morals are rather of a low sort. And Paul writes of that in chapter one. One of themselves, even one of the prophet of their own said the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. And then Paul says, this witness is true. So they needed an exhortation to live a life of good works but in that book that emphasizes the importance of good works Paul writes not by works which we have done the word we is emphasized but according to his mercy he saved us so let's look at this text under the theme saved according to his mercy Notice in the first place, the fact that we are saved according to his mercy. Secondly, the manner, and that would be especially the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. And then thirdly, the assurance. The fact is that we are saved not by works. of righteousness which we have done. That is, literally, it's not out of works of righteousness. The source of our salvation is not out of our works. That's what Paul is writing here. Works of righteousness, what are these things? Well, righteousness, as we all know, immediately brings us before the law, and it has to do with what is your status before the law. What is your status and what is the status of any activity that you're involved in? To be righteous is to be right with the law. If an activity is right with the law and someone would accuse you of breaking the law, you can say, no, this is in harmony with the law. You can go in front of a judge and he would look at what you have done and say, no, that's in harmony with the law. You've not broken the law, you are righteous. That activity was righteous. Works of righteousness, therefore, are deeds, thoughts, motives, activities that are declared to be in harmony with the law of God. They are righteous. They're not contrary to the law. They've not broken the law. Works of righteousness then would be any attempt of someone to think that they can earn some righteousness with God, or that their works are some of the cause of their salvation or a blessing of salvation. That would be the sentence. The emphasis is on the we, as I said. That's emphasized in the original, not works that we have done. Paul has run into this over and again. with the Judaizers who tried to establish their own righteousness with God, thinking that their work somehow would contribute to their salvation. By keeping the law, God would be pleased with them. God would notice them, how diligent they are in trying to keep the law. And maybe they earned the full salvation by their righteousness. They are perfectly righteous and deserve to go to heaven. Or maybe it's just that they're living such an outstanding godly life, not perfect, but such an outstanding life that God would say, well, there's a person worth saving. That somehow the works are What is saving someone or the cause of their salvation? The text says, this is absolutely not. It's not coming out of our works in no way. To be specific about that, Romans chapter three treats this. Paul specifically in Romans is addressing this matter. In Romans chapter three, verse 20, we read this. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin, not getting justified. Verse 10, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one, not one, So no one can do any work that would be completely righteous, and anything that would be brought before God, any of your very best works that you would bring before God, he would look at them, he would find imperfection in them, and he would say, there's not righteousness there. The imperfection thoroughly pollutes it, it's unrighteous. I declare it to be a violation of my law. Sitting here in church, worshiping, loving your wife, taking care of your children, no matter what you're doing, And you think, well, that's a pretty good thing I'm doing. God would still look at it and say, condemned. Unrighteous. Even if you could, of course. Do a perfectly righteous thing, your salvation, says the text, would not come out of that. It would not. God in saving us did not take into account any kind of righteousness. He did not look ahead and say, well, these are the kinds of people they will be. They will be a righteous people. No, it's not anything to do with our righteousness. That's not the reason why he saved us. And in Titus chapter three, immediately after the text, it points out that we were already justified. being justified by His grace. So that comes before the text. We were justified. So we're not looking at works that will somehow add to our righteousness or be a part of our righteousness before God. We were justified by grace. So our works have absolutely nothing to do with getting us saved or getting God's attention or in any way becoming the source of our salvation, not out of works of righteousness, which we have done. But according to his mercy, he saved us according to his mercy. God's mercy is one of his attributes, something that God is. He is mercy. And that reveals the goodness of God. When you think of the goodness of God, you think of things like love and grace and mercy, those three things especially. So part of that that makes us to see the goodness of God is his mercy. Mercy is closely related to love. Love we saw last week is a spiritual bond that God creates, that draws us unto himself, and that he delights in blessing us, delights in fellowship. They are closely related so that if God loves someone, he will have mercy on them. If God does not love someone, he cannot have mercy, and that's obviously true even in our life. You can have mercy on someone, you will, if you love them and you see them in suffering, but if you don't love that person, you don't particularly care if they're suffering. Love and mercy go together. Mercy is that attribute of God in which God delights, determines to bless. To lift someone up out of their misery, and to make them to be blessed. Mercy is something that God had always within himself between the three persons of the Trinity, always delighting in each other and willing the blessedness of each other. But now, when God looks at sinful man, there's another aspect of that mercy that comes out, and that is, first of all, pity, that God looks at someone in misery And he has pity on that person. And even compassion, which means to suffer with, to suffer with a certain sense in which God is moved by our suffering. He's actually feeling something as he sees us in our misery. Mercy of God is toward the creature is looking upon someone in their misery. having compassion, and then the mercy will lift that person out of the misery to make him to be blessed, to be happy. This is a very beautiful thing for an elect child of God to think of God's mercy upon him. When we recognize what we were, foolish, disobedient, deceived, deserving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. And we realize that that brings the wrath of God upon us. A terrible, terrible judgment of God upon sin. God is too holy to live with iniquity. His wrath comes upon all sin. It brings the curse. It brings physical death. It brings The experience of God's wrath and even eternal death awaits a person living in this life. That's the misery in which God sees His chosen people. They are in misery, and God has mercy upon them. It is according to that mercy that He saves us from sin and corruption. according to that mercy. What does that mean? When God determined eternally, now we know, of course, there is an eternity election. God chooses His people eternally in Jesus Christ. He chooses them in love. But now the text is bringing out something a little bit more of the mind of God. And that is when He chose His people. It was not only love that motivated him, but it was mercy, a determination to lift up out of sin and death. And when God determined then to save some people out of the corruption, it was his mercy that was his motivation, his infinite mercy. That's what moved God. to save his people, his mercy. It was not something in man. It was not something in man's works. It was his own mercy, mercy that determined to lift out of the misery of sin and death and to make them to be blessed, to enjoy life with God, to enjoy the blessings of eternal life and glory. That mercy of God is clearly a sovereign mercy. In the context of election and reprobation in Romans chapter nine, he says, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. It's his sovereign determination, whether or not to have mercy or not to have mercy. It is a sovereign mercy. It is secondly, a boundless. It isn't a mercy without limits. There's no end to the mercy of God. When you think of what that mercy does, lifting from the absolute pit of hell, of an eternity of enduring the wrath of God, an eternity of pain and anguish to the height of heaven. There is no limit to that mercy. And there isn't any limit either as God looks upon us in our sin and we turn back into sin and we bring more misery on ourselves. And it doesn't run out. He doesn't say, well, I'm not enough. I've had enough mercy on you. You keep running in your sin. You better just live there. There's no limit. To the mercy of God, it never runs out. It's absolutely sovereign. It is limitless. And it is powerful. It's powerful. It does what God determines when he determines to lift someone out of misery. It doesn't fail. It isn't that God tried, but it didn't work. It's a powerful mercy. It always blesses. You see that mercy in the cross of Jesus Christ. That God. for the sake of his mercy toward you, was willing to take his son, the son of his love, so close, so intimate, the relationship between God and his son, and to plunge his own son into the pit of hell, that he might have mercy on you. Because his mercy and justice are always in perfect harmony. He had to satisfy his justice. in order to have mercy on you and on me. This is the reason why you are saved. According to his mercy, he saved you. But that brings us to the manner. How does God save? by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. The washing of regeneration, what does that mean? Well, you know what regeneration is. Regeneration means a new birth, a new birth, a new life is given. And that's necessary because the first life that we have is from our parents and it's corrupt. And it will only lead finally to the grave and it will only lead to hell. That's our first life. We need a new life. Ephesians 2 says we were dead in sin. Absolutely dead in sin. So we need to be made alive. That's regeneration. Regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit in an elect sinner. Giving the life. of Jesus Christ, the resurrection life of Jesus. That's a new life. It's a life from heaven. It's a life which is absolutely therefore sinless and perfect. Every regenerated person has within him or her that life from heaven which cannot sin, cannot sin. It is pure. It is holy. That work of the Holy Spirit plants us into Jesus Christ so that His righteousness and holiness and His perfect obedience is given to us. That work of the Spirit is a sanctifying work because the life is holy and so the work the Spirit does in us is a holy work, a sanctifying work. The power of sin is officially broken, not removed yet, but it's officially broken. The power of the devil and his chains are broken. We are not ruled by sin and we are cleansed. That's why the text says the washing of regeneration. There's a cleansing that goes on here. Justification means our guilt is removed. And that, of course, because we are in Jesus Christ by faith, justified by faith. But now this is another step in the work of God's saving power, sanctifying us, cleansing us, making us to be holy. The washing of regeneration is something pictured in baptism. In Romans chapter 6, teaches us that we are baptized into Jesus Christ. So the picture now is pointing to the reality, and the reality is we are baptized into Jesus Christ. Paul writes in Romans chapter 6, when that happens, we are first of all baptized into His death, which means the old man of sin is put to death. In principle, he's dead, no longer ruling over us. Secondly, says Paul, we are baptized into his life, into his resurrection. Unto newness of life. Unto newness of life. That's why Paul writes in Romans 6, we are not any longer in bondage to sin. We are now alive unto righteousness. We're dead to sin. It doesn't rule over us. Don't let it. You can go back to that, but he says don't let it, because that power has been broken. When you were baptized into Jesus Christ, the power of sin no longer dominates. Jesus used that figure in John 3, when Nicodemus came to Him in the middle of the night. And Jesus said in John 3, verse 3, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And then he followed that up in verse 5 with this, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. This is a necessary part of the work of God. The water pointing to the washing away. Yes, the guilt first, but then the cleansing power of the Spirit. That too is necessary. You can't enter into heaven. We don't even enter into the kingdom here in this life until the Spirit regenerates, brings us into, translates us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus Christ with a new life. Regeneration is the work of the Spirit. But there's more to God's work, His saving work. It's the renewing of the Holy Spirit, the washing of regeneration and, says the text, renewing of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit renews. He renews something. That's related to the work of regeneration. That's really part of it. It's a continuation of that original work of putting faith there and connecting us to Christ, putting life there, a new and eternal life. There is a continual work of the Spirit, the renewing of the Holy Spirit in God's people. He changes us from being unholy to holy. from being thoroughly bent and crooked and unrighteous to being righteous, from being full of lies to being filled with the truth. He does this continually. 2 Corinthians 4 says, though our outward man perish, our inward man is renewed day by day. The outward man is this body and it's dying. It's going down toward the grave. It's full of disease and corruption and ultimately it will die. But the inward man, the new man in Jesus Christ is renewed day by day. There is a constant work of the Holy Spirit in you that is renewing you. Renewing you. That's a beautiful idea. The Holy Spirit continues to work. He is transforming us from our horrible, wicked, beginning into the very image of Jesus Christ. He's transforming us. This is a necessary part of our salvation. God's work of renewal. When God saves us, you understand, it is not that he takes someone who is dead, gives them life, and says, all right, you have life now. You're on your own. You've got the life of Jesus Christ, so go for it. You don't need any more work in you. I've done it. No. God's work is an ongoing work. He can't remove his spirit. He can't say, now you're on your own. You're self-sufficient. It's a continual work of God, unending. If He would take His Spirit away from us, we would thoroughly lose everything. We could not be believers. We could not walk in obedience. We would become what we were before. The Spirit must continue to work. renewing us in the grace of God, renewing that life, maintaining that bond of faith. So the flow of the life of Jesus Christ constantly is given to us. The Spirit's renewal. As I said, without that work, we would lose everything, but that's impossible. It's God's work. what he begins he finishes he never lets up he will save us to the end by the washing of regeneration the first part and then the constant renewal of the Holy Spirit to the end that's why we have such assurance because it's God's work and exactly because It's not by works of righteousness which we have done. It's exactly there. If there was something in us, we would not have any assurance at all. We fail in our best efforts, in our greatest efforts. We change our mind. We change our direction. We start off with a good motive. We end up doing something very different. If salvation were up to us, if it were up to the good works that we have done, then we would always be in doubt. We would not even dare to come to the table of the Lord today. We couldn't. If it depended on your living a good enough life this week, would you be here? Would you partake? No. But it's entirely on God. He's the rock. He never changes. His mercy is new unto us every morning. New mercies every day. His love stays with us unchanging from now into eternity. He is willing and he is able to save his people. No man can stop that. No man can prevent God. The devil himself cannot in any way impede the work of God in saving His people. So salvation is sure. And isn't that exactly what we get in the text? According to His mercy, He saved us. It's done. It's a finished work from a certain point of view. even though there's an ongoing work in us. He saved us. Not he will, he might. He did. He saved us. So if we return to the first question that we asked this morning. Why are you saved? Why are you saved from a life of ungodliness, and from destruction when millions, even billions, are not? And the answer is, not because of anything that I've done. Not because of any righteous works, but only of God in mercy, saving us. And so why do I come to the table of the Lord? It's not a show. It's not to have anybody think Look at me. I can come to the table of the Lord. My life is good enough. But it's coming to bow at the foot of the cross. That's what we do when we come to the table. To confess we are nothing. We have nothing to bring. Everything we have is given us by God. So come. Christ commands you to come. Come desiring the strengthening of that new life. You want it to be stronger. You want more holiness in your life. The form speaks of that. Desiring to have a more godly life and being renewed by the Holy Spirit. That's why we come to be strengthened in our souls. May God grant it. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy glorious salvation in Jesus Christ, in whom is everything for us. And for His Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ abundantly shed upon us, that by that same Spirit, the work of salvation never can be interrupted, never taken away, never failed. In all of this, because of Thy eternal mercy upon us, we can only thank Thee, and we do for Jesus' sake. Amen. We turn now to the form for the administration of the Lord's Supper, which is found on