The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia

Toledo Reformed Theological Conference
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Preconference Afternoon Session
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Don Kistler
A Passion for Obedience
Titus 2: 11-15

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Christ came to do the will of the Father. Compliance removes the charge of force. He agreed to be crucified to make propitiation for the sins of His people. He knew full well what awaited Him, nothing in His earthly ministry was a surprise to Him, and still He said “yes”.

Infinite suffering in a finite amount of time.

You do not believe because you are not of My sheep.
We obey His voice in His Word, and if we are His sheep we obey Him. (John 10)
When our hard hearts are softened, we hear His voice and do what He says for no other reason other than He said so.

We gather together if we are His sheep because He says to. Anyone who regularly forsakes sitting under the ministry of His Word casts doubt on that persons claims to be a Christian. If they do not hear His voice with regularity, they will forget what His voice sounds like and follow other voices.

If we keep His commandments. If we are not keeping His commandments we cannot know that we are following Him, and then casts doubt on whether we are His sheep at all.

Titus 2:11
God gave Christ and Christ gave Himself. He is both the giver and the gift. Gave Himself to God and for us.

Justification
There are only two things we need to be saved from:
- Sin. His name is Jesus because He came to save His people from their sins.
- The wrath to come. If we deal with 1, we don’t have to deal with 2.

Sanctification (v. 14)
He is purifying us for Himself.
He didn’t purify us so He can redeem us, that is Roman Catholicism.
He redeemed us so that He could purify us.
He gave Himself for us so He could redeem us, so that He could purify us for Himself, so that we would be zealous for Him.

Three damnable heresies
1. We must add our faith to be saved. Faith is not a meritorious work. We are not saved by faith, we are saved by Him. Our sin is removed, His righteousness is added.
Hell without God would be heaven to a sinner.
2. Repentance is a work, and therefore repentance is not necessary for salvation. We must obey, but our obedience has no merit.
3. We don’t have to do good works. A faith without good works is dead.

We are saved from something to something else, from sin to good works. No one saved from this without that.