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TRU-15

120610AM

God has declared that each of us have been forever set free. Starting in Titus 2:11 we are looking at the third and final word, that God chose to describe the wonders of redemption.

Redemption, as we’ve seen, is what God wants to motivate us to lives that glorify God, because we were bought at a price.

Redemption is also what fills our hearts, and pours forth around the Throne in the songs of our worship in Heaven.

But as we open to Titus 2, we see that redemption was not only that we were: bought “at” the slave market of sin, & bought “out of” the slave market of sin; it is also shown by:

Word # 3: We are Forever Freed From Slavery to Sin

Please stand with me, and as we read these words, listen to God declare the great truth of our salvation: we are redeemed from every lawless deed in Titus 2:11-14 (NKJV):

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

Pray

When Paul sat to write to the missionary church-planting pastor named Titus, he was just applying previously taught doctrines. Paul wanted Titus to teach on Crete in his pioneering, church-planting missionary work, what God had already deeply explained by Paul in his Epistle written to the Romans.

For almost six years, the deep truths of the doctrine of redemption explained in Romans, had been circulating through the house churches of the Roman Empire.

Think for a moment of the scope of that powerful Gospel message. What had started in Judea, as Jesus Christ taught God’s truths that liberated people one-by-one from the shackles of sin: had just continued.

Those who had sat in darkness all their lives saw the light of salvation dawn upon their sin-darkened minds. Israel from north to south had been shaken by the itinerant ministry of Christ.

Then, after His resurrection, Jesus had sent forth His disciples to take this message to Jerusalem first, then to Judea, and then to Samaria. The Apostles faithfully preached; and God powerfully worked.

Multitudes of Jews were saved, and then multitudes Samaritans were converted, and finally countless Gentiles were also being born-again. Each person had been taught that:

The Gospel Unleashed Them from Sin’s Chains

The Gospel was now at work, unleashing men and women, from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth. But what the early believers found as they went out preaching the Word was, that these gentiles who came to Christ, were often from nearly unbroken generations of darkness.

The Gospel was dawning across the lives of pagans. And, unlike the Jews and those around them who witnessed all the Light of God’s Word that Judaism had: these were now converts with former lives filled, with the most soiled pages of life possible.

These gentiles were heathen, pagans, and slaves to the most vile and heinous corruptions imaginable.

What was God’s plan for them? The same as His plan was for the similarly sinful Jews, and Samaritans; and as His plan is for each of us today: redemption.

Paul had already written down the doctrine of salvation in Romans, which Titus was going to use to train an entire generation of believers.

Always remember that the Redemption-driven life works in any life no matter how mixed-up, messed-up, scarred and soiled it may be.

Applying the Doctrines of Redemption

Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, as we began to see last week, sets forth the great doctrines of the Gospel of Salvation:

• The Justifying-Death of Jesus was what God performed through Christ on the Cross.

• The Sanctifying-Life of Jesus is what God wants to unleash into each day in our lives.

• The Adopting-Love of Jesus is what redemption revealed.

• The Grace-Prompted Forgiveness of Jesus is patiently upon all who are justified, sanctified, adopted, and redeemed.

• The Redeeming-Cross of Jesus provides us with salvation, and our new redemption-driven purpose to live for the Glory of the One who gave His blood to purchase us from the slave-market of sin.

How does all that work, what did God accomplish on the Cross through Christ