According to God’s Mercy

“But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 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; Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”  Titus 3:4-7

Paul had urged Titus, a young preacher whom Paul had mentored, to speak evil of no one (Titus 3:2) and not be someone who stirs up trouble, acts in selfish ways, or lives with envy and hatred.  That’s how we all were before we knew Christ as Lord and Savior, maybe not quite to those extremes, but still sinners, just the same.  There is an old saying which likely came from the verse that tells us to not speak evil of anyone:  “If you can’t say something nice about someone, then say nothing at all”.  The way things are going in our world these days, to follow this admonition, we just about have to keep our mouths shut most of the time.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:1 to “Judge not, that you be not judged”.  Humans are prone to judge others without having all the facts.  Believers are not to judge sinners because sinners do not have the Holy Spirit to guide them.  Sinners sin because they are sinners.  However, neither are believers to condone their sin.  What about believers judging other believers?  If we know for certain that a fellow brother or sister in Christ is caught up in sin, then, as the Holy Spirit directs, we should confront them in order to hopefully encourage them to repent.  Jesus gave us a pattern to follow– first, approach the person in private.  If that doesn’t work, then take two or three others with you.  If that doesn’t convince him to turn from his sin, then inform the entire church.  If he still refuses to listen, he is to be shunned.  The loneliness and isolation could bring him around to repentance (Matthew 18:15-17).  It is a merciful thing to do to try and bring a fellow believer back into the fold.

Paul pointed out that every person has at some time displayed foolishness because of a lack of spiritual knowledge.  We were disobedient because we wanted to go our own way, and we followed our lusts and pleasures because we lived in the flesh.  Shunning the love of God, we were guilty of malice, envy, and hate.  But thanks be to God, our holy, merciful, and righteous Savior, that He displayed His love and kindness toward His wayward creation, not because we were righteous, but because we weren’t righteous.  God desired that we be righteous for that is the only way He could accept us into His family.  Our sin had cut our family ties.  When Adam and Eve disobeyed the one and only rule that God had given them, God basically disowned His created beings which includes every person that has ever been born (Isaiah 59:2).  We didn’t deserve His mercy, but because He took pity on us, He made a way of reconciliation whereby we could be regenerated into a people He could receive unto Himself through the washing away of our sins and by giving us the Holy Spirit to keep reminding us that we are the children of the Most High God through His grace.

Water baptism is an outward manifestation of what has taken place inwardly as the blood of Christ is applied to the heart of the sinner.  Jesus shed His blood on the cross to pay the penalty for man’s sin.  The only way we could be justified before our righteous God is by His grace.  No matter what we do, we cannot justify ourselves because we can’t meet God’s standard on our own.  Once we have been accepted by God though repentance of our sin and our faith in Christ, we are justified, and we become heirs of eternal life.  We have that hope to which to cling and on which to base our present and future.  That person of whom we are about to speak evil, we were just like him, lost in sin without hope, but Christ shined His light on us, revealing the truth of the gospel to us according to the mercy of God.  Jesus didn’t speak evil of us, and neither should we speak evil of others.