Titus 3:4-7

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. Amen. (Psalm 118:1)

It’s not uncommon to hear the word “miracle” tossed around when referring to childbirth and children in general. In the delivery room, a new father or mother might refer to their newborn child as “our miracle.” A couple of an older, perhaps unplanned child, proud of the way that child turned out, might refer to him or her as the unexpected miracle in their lives. But, in actuality, childbirth is not a miracle. Make no mistake, it’s a wondrous occurrence. It’s an incredible blessing from God. But technically speaking, it is not a miracle. By definition, a miracle is an event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature. God beautifully programmed the phenomenon of childbirth into the laws of nature. I would never be so insensitive to point it out to a young mother in the hospital, but physical birth, amazing as it is, is not a miracle. Nearly a decade ago, in 1997, you may recall that one of the largest news stories of the year was coming out of Scotland. Scottish scientists at a facility called the Roslin Institute claimed they were the first ones to successfully complete a process called nuclear transfer—that they had created the first successful clone, a sheep which they called Dolly. It was improbable and supposedly a major step forward in science, but still, this birth of a new sheep was not a miracle. It still came about as a result of the confines of the laws of nature and science which God himself created. Birth is not a miracle. A second birth, however, would in fact be a miracle. It is unnatural. A living being cannot by the laws of physics be born again. But what about spiritually? Spiritually, not only is it possible, but God tells us to do it. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3-5, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Then, while Nicodemus was puzzling over the impossible sounding notion of being ‘born again,’ Jesus explains, “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.”

Today we will take a look at this miraculous regeneration by studying the words of Titus 3:4-7. We will see

“The Miracle of 2nd Birth”
I. Our Savior Appeared
II. Our Savior Brought Us to Life

Based on evidence from within the letter which our lesson is taken from today, the Apostle Paul’s letter to Titus, we find that Titus was introduced to Christianity by Paul and subsequently joined Paul on his third missionary journey. After Paul’s first imprisonment (60-62 AD), Paul and Titus joined up, working on the Island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea, just southeast of Greece. Paul, needing to attend to other business, then left Titus on the island of Crete to serve as a “troubleshooter” or “problem solver” for the congregation there. When Titus had served there alone for awhile, Paul wrote to Titus to give him advice 1) on the administration of the church and 2) how to handle false teachers. These were some problematic areas for the church in Crete. Equally as large an issue though was the fact that these people Titus was witnessing to lived in the culture of the island of Crete. The name of the inhabitants of Crete, Cretans, over time has simply become an expression referring to anyone of low intelligence and questionable character. In the letter, Paul actually quotes a 6th century BC poet, Epimenides, a Cretan himself, who said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” (Titus 1:12). In NT times life in Crete had sunk to an even more deplorable moral level.

But as we analyze a culture that was somewhat of a laughing stock of civilization in New Testament times, we note the similarity between Cretan and American culture and it’s pretty embarrassing. Anyone who has been to a foreign culture has probably encountered the negative opinions that many people hold of our country. They see a country whose President can openly lie in court and the country is seemingly indifferent about it. They see a country that seemingly possesses such an arrogance that it refuses to accept the universal measurements of the world, but insists that everyone cater to us and speak our language. They see a country where, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly two-thirds of all its adults (64%) are considered overweight, and it isn’t for lack of exercise equipment, gym memberships, and fad diets, at which we as a country casually throw billions of dollars per year. Likely related is the fact that the average American watches nearly 4 hours of TV per day and spends somewhere close to an hour of their free time on the Internet, not including the non work-related time they spend on it at the office. “Always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons”—Epimenedes may as well write for USA Today. And if we think that we are just nominally part of America in these areas, we are mistaken. I realize that some behaviors may be difficult to determine as sin. For instance, how much TV per day do we consider laziness? We cannot arbitrarily throw a number out there and say, “There, that’s laziness.” Nonetheless, we know that wherever the line is for these things, at times we have crossed it. Like it or not, everyone is a product of their environment and influenced by it. We face the same temptations that all Americans face. We have a sinful nature like everyone. But here is the particularly sad thing–despite the revealed knowledge of God’s Word prevalent in our lives, a luxury that not all have, we have fallen victim to sin just like everyone else. In the verse prior to our lesson for today, Paul says, “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.” We had every opportunity not to sin, but we did it anyway, because, regardless of our ethnic background, we all were born as Cretans.

But, we are not to fear, because “the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared”. It takes a couple times reading this verse, verse 4, to realize it, but “God our Savior” here refers to God the Father. This is the clearest time in the New Testament where we see the person of the Father described specifically as the Savior. I mentioned briefly in my sermon on Christmas day that we aren’t always accurate in concisely describing the Father as Creator, the Son as Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as Sanctifier. It separates and limits the persons of the Trinity too much. Here, for example, we see the Father as the Savior. The Son is referred to here also, as the embodiment of “the kindness and love” of the Father.

Having just come through the Advent and Christmas season, there is no doubt in our minds that indeed the Our Savior, Appeared in the form of Jesus Christ. But why? Whenever anyone of importance makes a special appearance, it usually is for good reason. What prompted Christ to make the trip? Well, we’re first told what is NOT the reason he came—“because of righteous things we had done”. Despite what our pride would like us to believe, none of us is inherently good. Whether we are talking about the conversion process or eternal life, none of us by ourselves could come to God, so he came to us.

Our lesson speaks of four things that prompted God to come: 1) Kindness: the good will God has toward us; 2) Love: here, specifically, the love of mankind (the word used here is the Greek word from which we get “philanthropy”; 3) Mercy: God looked with pity on our wretchedness and reacted to it. He had compassion on us; 4) Grace: God’s love is generous, undeserved, and unexplainable. These attributes of God all describe why he came. But it wasn’t enough that he merely showed up. He had to save us. He did so on the cross.

Paul reminds Titus, a called leader of the church in Crete, how God bestows his saving act on us. “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.” This washing done by the Holy Spirit is a specific reference to the sacred act of baptism. Baptism is an act instituted by God for rebirth and renewal. We are born again. The Greek word used here for “renewal” carries a special meaning. It does not refer to something being new in time, but rather new in nature, the implication being that it is now better. In baptism, our old sinful nature is drowned. We die and are buried with Christ to sin. But then, we are raised with Christ to a new life, with a new nature. Baptism brings us into a faith-relationship with Christ. By faith we now wear the perfect righteousness and holiness that our Savior prepared for us through his life, death and resurrection. In his letter to the Galatians 3:27, the Apostle Paul puts it this way, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Baptism is a miracle. God did not create the world with the intention of sin. But he had the foreknowledge that sin would occur, and so he made plans to send his Son to die and wash those sins away. He made plans as to how he would bestow the Son’s forgiveness on his people, which we call the Means of Grace—the Gospel in Word and Sacrament, one of these sacraments being Baptism and the other, Holy Communion, which we will celebrate shortly. These sacraments do not make scientific sense. In Baptism, God pushed aside his previously created laws of nature in order to perform a miraculous feat—Our Savior Brought Us to Life. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” This is the Miracle of 2nd Birth.

How can water and words really change us? How can they offer us gifts like the forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death and the devil, and eternal salvation, as the 6th-8th graders of the congregation have recently been learning in Catechism? Well, let me ask you this? How does physical generation begin? How does life begin? The natural response to that would be that a seed fertilizes an egg and life is born. But how? The most likely next response is??? It just does. God made it that way. Well, okay then, how does spiritual regeneration take place? Plain water is combined with the Word of God in baptism, assuring acceptance as a redeemed child of God. But how? Well, it just does. God made it that way. Why is physical generation (e.g. human birth) so easy for us to accept as fact and yet spiritual regeneration seems so complicated to so many despite the fact that ultimately we really cannot comprehend or explain either? I’d be willing to bet that Satan knows. He is constantly trying to cause us to fail to appreciate God’s gift of baptism. He would rather we never think about it during the day. He would rather get us to believe it’s merely a symbolic act with no real power and no real blessings. He would rather have us not even notice the baptismal font when we come to church or walk up to the Lord’s Supper. Why? Because the farther we are removed from our baptism, the farther we are taken from what makes us God’s beloved children. But the more fully aware of our baptism we are, the more we know where we stand with God—as ones “justified by his grace.”

We have just entered the season of Epiphany in the church year. In Epiphany we celebrate both the baptism of our Lord and the spreading of the gospel news to the Magi, which equates to the spreading of the gospel to the entire Gentile world. In our planning on the Board of Evangelism here at Messiah, we have decided to prepare for a “Baptism Sunday” in the near future, perhaps sometime around May to correspond with the lessons the children are being taught in the Child Care Center. At this time we will be inviting the families of children at the Child Care Center, as well as members of the community, to come, go through a law/gospel presentation, encouraging the adults into a Bible Information Class, and then be baptized. So tell everyone you know about what we are doing to see if they’re interested. But more importantly, tell them about the power of baptism—to forgive sins and grant eternal life. Tell them about the blessings of baptism—to be made a child of God forever. Let’s use this time to appreciate our own baptisms. And if for even a minute you think you’ve gotten to the point where your baptism does not mean all that much to you, come join us for the new Bible Information Class that we are starting on Tuesday evening. We will grow in our understanding and appreciation together. Don’t do it because Pastor and I would love to have a full class. Don’t do it because you’ll feel guilty if you don’t. Do it for yourself. Do it because you know that you will be edified by it. Do it because you are guaranteed to grow in your understanding of God’s will, love, and intimate involvement in your lives. We all need to feed our faith by means of Christian education. Here’s an opportunity. The New Year seems to be the time to make resolutions. Most are admittedly pretty self-centered. The ones I’ve made in the past have mostly been about self-improvement. Be selfish with this one. Do this for yourself. Say, “This year I am going to know my Savior better than I have ever known him before.” And if you pour yourself into understanding God’s Word and knowing your Savior through Christian Education and Worship and at the end of the year, you feel as though you have not valued your time spent or have not been edified by it, please, by all means, hold me personally responsible. I’m pretty confident that your time and energy will not return to you empty though. Because as we study God’s Word, we naturally grow in appreciation for what he has done for us and for what he has in store for us.

The final verse of our lesson informs us that we are “heirs having the hope of eternal life.” Understand the Biblical use of the word “hope.” It is not as we understand “hope” today. Someone might “hope” to win the lottery, or Miss America, or play in the NBA, but they know that the reality of it is quite slim. Biblical “hope,” though, is looking forward to something in confident expectation. We have the confident expectation of eternal life. Why? Because “When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” What we have as four verses in our lesson is just one sentence in Greek. It’s the Gospel—the Miracle of 2nd Birth. Amen.

The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)

–Vicar James Hein