Please remain standing for the reading of God's word. Turning to our Old Testament lesson, Deuteronomy chapter seven, we will read the first 11 verses. Pay careful heed to the words of God's law. When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites, the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you. When the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them, nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. So the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. but thus you shall deal with them. You shall destroy their altars, break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples, because the Lord loves you. and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers. The Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, he is God. The faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments, and he repays those who hate him to their face. To destroy them, he will not be slack with him who hates him. He will repay him to his face, therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today to observe them. This is the law of God. We'll turn now to our New Testament lesson and our sermon text, the fifth of five faithful sayings. In the letters of Paul, I had said this would be the last sermon in this series of five messages, but in part, because of a conversation I had with Mr. Ben-Doran, I decided to add a new sermon to this series, going beyond the Apostle Paul to John's apocalypse, where we learn of Jesus, who is the faithful and true witness. Indeed, he is the word of God. So one final bonus sermon in this series, but tonight we'll turn to Titus chapter 3, verses 1 to 8. Pay careful attention to the reading of God's word. Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, He saved us. Through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying. And these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of God stands forever. Amen. You may be seated. Are we saved by grace or are we saved by works? This is a basic question in the Christian life, but it's good to go back to basics. Peter says he wants to put you in remembrance of certain things, so we need reminders. Saved by grace, saved by works. Some people today and throughout history have tried to argue that it's both grace and works. Grace plus works, grace infused works, grace mixed with works. For instance, in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox organizations, you find an admixture of grace and works in our salvation. Another way of putting this question is, what is the role of good works in our salvation? To answer that question, I want to draw from an unusual and unexpected source. It's not Martin Luther. It's not John Calvin. It's not Ulrich Zwingli or Heinrich Bollinger. No, it's Cyril Lucaris. Has anyone ever heard of Cyril Lucaris? Okay, well tonight's the night. Cyril Lucaris, during the early 1600s, Cyril was the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, that's modern day Istanbul, in Turkey. He's not exactly the eastern equivalent of the papacy, but he's the highest you can get in eastern orthodoxy. In fact, he's one of the most important Eastern Church leaders, from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, all the way to the Senate of Jerusalem in 1672. Even today, he is remembered in the Orthodox Church as a martyr and as a saint, being canonized in 2009. You say, How could someone in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Cyril, give a helpful answer to the question I raised at the beginning? There's something you need to know about Cyril. It's one of these surprises in church history. Despite being an ecumenical patriarch in the East, his theology, if you look at his personal confession, and if you look at his letters, his correspondences, his theology was essentially Protestant. More than that, he was a self-described Calvinist, who sought to reform the Orthodox Church along Protestant lines. Now the Orthodox Church has gotten around all this by denying his authorship of certain key statements in the face of unassailable evidence that they actually do come from his pen. And so they try to deny that he taught these things. So they're stuck with an Orthodox saint and martyr who was also a Calvinist reformer. You say, I don't know if I believe you. This seems like a stretch. You're telling me a tall tale. Well, I want you to listen to his confession of faith. And I quote, we believe that the most merciful God has predestined his elect unto glory before the beginning of the world without any respect of their works, and that there was no other impulsive cause to this election, but only the good will and mercy of God. It sounds like Deuteronomy 7. I love you because I love you, because I made a promise to your fathers. He claimed, and I quote again, that he was in doctrine evangelical, which is in conformity with the Belgic confession, my own confession and other such confessions of evangelical churches which are conformable. I abhor the errors of the papists and even the superstition of the Greeks. I approve and adopt the doctrine of the most worthy doctor, John Calvin, and all who with him agree. And he didn't just write this down, he also put it into action. His theology came out at his fingertips. He befriended Anglican Calvinists and Dutch Reformed theologians on the continent. He sent a copy of Codex Alexandrinus, which is a complete Greek text of the scripture, to King James in England. That's the same King James of the King James Bible. He had dealings with the Protestant monarch. in England. He championed scriptural authority over church authority, insisted the church may err, affirmed the distinction between the visible and invisible church, acknowledged only two sacraments, and rejected transubstantiation, purgatory, which he called a fiction, praying to the saints, and this is really important in an Eastern context, the worship of images, including the veneration of icons. You say, that sounds amazing. This is spectacular. This guy was the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople in the 1600s. But what about the formal principle of the Reformation? Did he really teach justification by faith alone? That we are pardoned and that we are reckoned righteous and we are accepted in God's sight through the alone instrument of faith in Jesus. Eastern church, like the Roman church, has historically gotten this doctrine dead wrong. Can Cyril really explain the role of good works in our salvation? Well, there's a reason why some people have called Cyril the Luther of the East. Here's what he had to say on justification, and I quote, we believe that man is justified by faith and not by works. This we say without any prejudice to good works, for truth itself teaches us that works must not be neglected, that they are necessary means to testify to our faith and confirm our calling. There you go. Man is not justified by works, but works must not be neglected. As Luther said, justification is by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone. Works are not the instrument of justification. but rather the evidence of justifying faith. And that brings us to our fifth faithful saying, which concerns the relationship between grace and works, and specifically the role of good works in our salvation. To paraphrase Cyril, we can say this. You are not saved by good works. but you are saved for good works. First truth statement, you are not saved by good works. This whole passage in Titus 3 is about salvation. In fact, if you do a grammatical study of the Greek, and even this is reflected beautifully in our English translation, the kernel of this whole section in verse five is this verb, he saved us. And all around that statement, He saved us, we find all sorts of modifying, adverbial statements that hover around that verb, like so many planets orbiting the sun, or to change the illustration, this is like a diamond of salvation. He saved us, and you hold it up to the light, and you turn it this way and that, and you see different angles, different perspectives on that salvation. I want us to look at four aspects of salvation from Titus 3. Again, with the truth in mind, we are not saved by good works. The need, the time, the means, and the ground of salvation. First of all, this passage tells us something of the need for salvation. From what did God save us? And this is scandalous to the modern man. He thinks that people are basically good. He thinks that we could all just get along if we embraced secular humanism. But we know that's not true. Look at verse three. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. You see, Calvinists don't just believe in total depravity, they practice it too. We recognize that we are sinners, that we fall short of the glory of God, and we are in desperate need of salvation. Before you get to the good news, you need the bad news, and the bad news is we're all sinners, and we need a Savior. We need Jesus. That's the need. What about the time of salvation? When did God save us? We're accustomed in our circles often to point to a specific date or hour when you first became conscious of sin and put your faith in Jesus, but it's interesting that Paul does not begin with the subjective reality of salvation, but rather with the objective. He doesn't begin with redemption applied to individuals. He begins with redemption accomplished in history. Look at verse four. But when the kindness and the love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared, skip ahead, he saved us. That's when he saved us. When the kindness and the love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared. What event is Paul referring? We get a clue in the word appeared. That's the Greek word from which we get the term epiphany. Epiphany. This is the same word used in Titus 2.11, which clearly refers to the first coming or advent of Christ to save sinners. In other words, God saved us. He accomplished redemption in the person and work of his Son 2,000 years ago. The incarnation of God the Son. Jesus is the embodiment of divine kindness and love. love toward all toward man. It's actually all one word in the Greek, and it teaches God's general benevolence toward all humanity, his genuine desire for all men to be saved. That's when. God saved us, though he converts us individually with the mysterious working of the spirit, sometimes even from infancy. Yet, when it comes to redemption accomplished, he saved us 2,000 years ago at Calvary, when Jesus, the God-man, laid down his life for sinners and purchased his church by his blood. You say, that's true, but salvation, as I just mentioned, does need to be applied to every elect individual, and that brings us to the means of salvation. How did God save us? Look at verse five. It says, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Notice the word through, that speaks to means, how he did it. God saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the work of the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, and then that work as it is signed and sealed for us in baptism. Now, this happened in history, in the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost, and we see that described in verse six, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, and just in passing, notice the beautiful Trinitarian theology. The Father pours out the Spirit through the Son. This is one work of the one God. This also happens each time a sinner comes to know the Lord at conversion. At conversion, God the Father sends the Spirit through the Son to grant dead sinners new life, to spiritually raise them from the dead, to give them the expulsive power of a new affection. I love how our Shorter Catechism describes the work of the Holy Spirit in our salvation. I'll read several questions and answers in a row. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us. by His Holy Spirit. Well, how doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ? The Spirit applyeth to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling. Well, what's effectual calling? Effectual calling is the work of God's spirit whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel. We're not just talking about a faith that is knowledge, though it has knowledge. We're not even just talking about a faith that involves assent, that involves assent. When the Holy Spirit does a work in your heart and in your mind, as He did with Lydia when He opened her heart to hear what the Apostle Paul preached to her by the riverside. When God does that to you, He gives you trust in Christ. Reliance upon Christ. Dependence upon Christ. Reception of Christ. But as many as received him, gave he power to become the sons of God. As many as believed on his name. Indeed, this is an earnest desiring for Christ. Petrus van Maastricht says this is bridal and conjugal as the bride of Christ gives herself up to the bridegroom as she surrenders herself to him fully. That, nothing short of that is involved in saving faith. As we give ourselves up to Jesus, surrender everything to Him, and earnestly desire Him, and embrace Him, realizing that He first embraced us. That's how God saves us. Through the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit, He's like the wind. We don't know when He comes, we don't know when He goes, but we see the effects. There's a final planet revolving around this salvation sun. There's a final facet of this gospel diamond, and it's the ground of salvation. And this gets us to our original question. Why did God save us? Why did God save us, and specifically the role of good works in our salvation? As I've already said, negatively, this passage teaches that you are not saved by good works. Basically, go to any other religion in the world, any other religion in the world, whether it's Hinduism, Islam. Any kind of pagan religion, look at modern day Judaism, go to any religion in the world, and at root, even if they use words like grace and mercy, it is fundamentally a works-based religion. There's a reason for that. Thomas Boston said that the natural bent of man is the covenant of works. In our fallenness, we always go back to wanting to somehow earn merit with God, to work our way into the kingdom, to think, if I only do enough good works, if I pay enough alms, if I tithe enough money, if I walk up enough steps, if I make enough pilgrimages, if I bow down to enough icons, if I do enough, then maybe, just maybe on the last day, God will look at me and say, you're accepted, but I don't know, which means I can never have assurance because I never know I've done enough to be saved. Well, I have good news for you. If you've labored under that kind of burden of works, righteousness, and performance-based religion, what does verse five say? Not by works of righteousness, which we have done. not by works of righteousness, which we have done. It's not human performance or works of merit that gains you access to the kingdom of God. As Augustus Toplety said, not the labor of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands. Could my zeal no rest but know? Could my tears forever flow? All for sin cannot atone, thou must save, and thou alone. Because you realize if you've sinned against God, you've committed an act of cosmic treason, you've committed an offense against an infinitely holy God, and you can't pay back that kind of debt. Indeed, how can you, not just a creature of the dust, but a fallen man, woman, or child, how could you produce righteousness that could withstand the scan of God's judgment? How could you well up enough holiness that it would be found worthy according to the standard of his strict justice? That's a fantasy world. It's not gonna happen. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us have been weighed in the scale and found wanting. You're not saved by works of righteousness. There's a positive side to this. Why did God save us? You are saved by God's mercy and grace. That's the foundation. It's not your works, but it's his mercy and grace. His just mercy. His holy grace. Look at the rest of verse five. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. His compassion upon us, His covenant love and faithfulness to us. We get the same idea in verse seven, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Paul, it's interesting, speaks here of divine mercy. And this is one of the few letters where he does not open with grace to you and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Savior. Instead, he opens with grace, mercy, and peace. And here we get mercy again. God's compassion, God's loyal love to his people. So whether it's mercy or it's grace, it's all of God. It's all of God. The Reformation Heritage Study Bible calls Titus a textbook of the doctrines of grace, and I hope that you can see in verses five through six why that is the case. As Machen said, the gospel begins with a triumphant indicative. For those of you who have spent a long time out of grammar class, an imperative is when you do something, an indicative is a statement of fact. Well, before God even calls you to repent and believe the gospel, he declares to you that Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures. The gospel begins not with you must do this, but rather Jesus has done that. As we read in the communion service this morning, it is finished. or I think of Cyril Lucaris' stand, even in the Eastern Church, we believe that man is justified by faith and not by works. Now, if you live, preach, and share this message, you're gonna get the question. Well, if it's all of God and it's all of grace, and it's His mercy and it's His kindness to us, it's Jesus' cross work where He's just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus, well then, does it really matter how I live? What's the use of good works? The reformers got this question. Cyril Lucaris got this question. And the answer is this. You're not saved by good works, but you are saved for good works. See, prepositions are important. Not saved by them, but you are saved for them. Here again, Cyril's clarification. This we say without any prejudice to good works. For truth itself teaches us that works must not be neglected, that they are necessary means to testify to our faith and confirm our calling. I wonder where he got that idea. He got it from the Bible. If you remember our Ephesians studies back in chapter two of that letter, Paul says, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest anyone should boast. I told my kids before, if on Christmas Day you opened up a package, and I said, all right, now I want you to go outside and chop 100 pieces of wood to earn what I just gave you. They'd say, well, it's not a gift anymore, is it? If I have to earn it, then it's really wages that I need to earn to get it. But if I give them a gift that is no strings attached, should that not elicit in them a love for their father and a gratitude for what he's given so that they might say all sorts of things that they would love to do for me, not because they're trying to earn something or curry my favor, but rather because they're genuinely thankful grateful and have love because they're responding to a prior, an antecedent love. Even so, Paul continues, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. Not saved by them, but you are saved for them, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And here in Titus 3, the same apostle says something similar, where we're not saved by them, they contribute nothing to our justification yet. It would be wrong to neglect them. Verses one and two, remind them, Paul says to Titus, to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. And then he says, for, and he goes on to describe our sinful condition and God's salvation. And so what Paul is doing here is he's saying all of these imperatives, be subject, obey, be ready, speak evil of no one, be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men, it's all rooted and grounded in gospel soil. It's fueled by grace. He says something similar in verse eight. This is a faithful saying, pistos halagos, and these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. All of this is in the context of faith. He's saying those who have believed in God, who've trusted in the Lord. But note the strong language. Not only does he say this is a faithful saying, but one to be affirmed constantly, careful to maintain good works. It's not enough to begin the Christian life. You continue the Christian life. You go on with God. You maintain this pattern of good works. When you fall and you will sin, you repent. You turn from your sin. You look to Christ afresh for assurance of pardon and for sanctifying, enabling grace. This is good and profitable to men in general. Christianity, the unique genius of Christianity among the so-called religions of this world is that not only are we the only ones who are worshiping the true and living God, Jehovah, a God who is who he is, the Father through the Son by the Spirit. But in Christianity, there is a way for God to be just and a justifier of the one who believes in Jesus. And more than that, in addition to that, we can say that salvation is all of God, all of grace, full stop. and then turn around and say, and this is the most amazing motivation to live your entire life for God's glory. Not to earn anything in his heavenly account book, but rather as an expression of your love and gratitude to the Lord. So at the last day, he might look on you and say, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into my joy. Or as Cyril said, works must not be neglected. They are necessary means to testify to our faith and confirm our calling. When you really get a hold of the idea that you've been set free from sin, well now you're free to pursue righteousness. That's when the whole road to obedience is wide open. When you've been set free, when there's no condemnation, well now, God says, go for it. Now, walk with me all your days. Not saved by them, but you are saved for good works. I didn't mention this at the beginning, but I want to come back to Cyril Lucaris for a moment. Hopefully you guys will be more aware of him now. Cyril wasn't just a man who corresponded and wrote confessions and labored for reformation in the Eastern Church, which sadly did not have any lasting effect for the most part. Cyril was willing to suffer for this truth. He was willing to die for this truth. He was hounded by the Jesuits throughout his life. They hated him, were constantly trying to set traps for him, including Cardinal Richelieu of Three Musketeers fame. And he was deposed and then reinstated upwards of six times. Multiple times in his life, like Athanasius, he had to go into exile. And finally, by the order of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, he was strangled aboard a ship, and his body cast overboard. Most of his best manuscripts were later lost at sea. So Cyril died, even as he stood for the truth. The congregation, though his body drowned, his soul clung to the life preserver of full and free grace. Although the Eastern Church now sadly rejects his teachings, even they regard him as a faithful martyr for Jesus Christ. Let us Imitate those who have gone before us to the degree that they followed Jesus. Let us be inspired by this text and by the illustrations of God's work in church history to work for reformation and to pray for revival in our own day, in our own lands. This is a faithful saying. Amen. Let us pray.