I have a question. I'm not doing it. So The car probably didn't even warm up, did it, before you got here? Thank you. Well, good morning, folks. It's all sunny and bright. Notice I didn't say warm. Oh, yeah. Well, we're going to look here at lesson number five here. Today, looking at Titus two, and into end of chapter three a minute, where godliness comes from. We'll take some prayer requests here today. We got a number that are traveling. Let's see if I can get them all down here. Okay, Chris and Patty came home early yesterday. To try to get ahead of the lake effect snow But so they got home. Okay, but now Patty's not feeling too good. So Might be praying that she gets feeling better here soon But we got alley Houston heading back to Michigan They got snow over there I think they said Patty said something about they're supposed to get, I think, was it 10? 10 inches between Thursday and Tuesday or something. So yeah. And Tyler coming back from Minnesota. Dalton coming in from Kansas. So people traveling. Yes, sir. Yeah, please. Praises to the Lord about how things are working out with Christi, but also please pray for her heart to be unhardened, and for the spiritual growth. and the man in the trailer, he continually shows me and listening to me see why. So a guy that had such an action-packed life where he lived, you know, he seems to be keeping his eyes, he says he loves what I send him. OK. OK. All right. Anybody else? Oh, yeah. Yeah. No update on that. So yeah. Okay. I don't break at the text on that one. Okay. All right. Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your ability to watch over and care for us no matter where we're at and what we're doing. As Mark mentioned here for Matthew, you know his circumstances and those that are with him and need your protection. Pray that they would be able to be set free here soon. and be able to do your work. We think of those that are traveling, for Allie and Tyler and Lindsey and the kids, for Dalton and his family. Pray that you give them safety as they travel, that cars would run well, and that they'd have just an enjoyable trip back home again. We thank you for getting Chris and Patty back home. Pray that you help her to be feeling better here soon. Thank you that things are working out with Christy living with him now and that you might continue to soften her heart towards spiritual things and she'd be open and receptive to it. Pray you'll continue to work in the heart and life of Rick and Tammy, Madeline, Amanda, Mark's mom, and pray that you'd draw them to yourself. You bring other people into their lives that would be telling them the same thing Mark has, and they'd realize that they're a sinner and need to be saved. Pray too for his brother that you'll continue to work things out between him and Mark and other members of the family. There might be a peace restored there, understanding. Pray you'll guide us in our study here today. And we thank you for it now in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so we're looking at Titus chapter two, verse 11 and following, we get a little ways into chapter three, and talking about where godliness comes from. This is lesson number five. And just kind of get the wheels moving here a little bit. Your alarm clock wakes you up. I'd love to be able to sleep until the alarm goes off, but here lately I'm not needing that. But what motivates you to bounce, crawl, stumble out of bed in the morning instead of hitting the snooze button? Or are your best friends coming in at the airport in about an hour and you've got to get yourself together, get over there so that you can pick them up and bring them back to your house. What motivates you to get there on time? And we think about this. What motivates us to do what we do? Oftentimes it's a relationship that we have with somebody else. If it's a close friend, that needs help, we might be more motivated than somebody we don't know very well. And so we're looking at here today to be motivated to live godly lives. And we, We recognize the birth of Christ, which we'll be talking about kind of all month. And we realize that he ultimately came to seek and to save those that were lost, which we're a part of, come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And he tells us that we become new creatures in Christ. But we also need to be motivated. It's not, okay, Christ did all that. We're saved, we're headed for heaven. We can kind of just sit back and wait till the trumpet blows. Now, we see here that the Lord wants us to be motivated to seek to live a godly life. He saved us to serve, but it's not through self-improvement. It's not, you know, self-help books. I've got some, you probably got some of those laying around too, you know. something on the computer, Excel for dummies or something, or used to have some books around. I may have gotten rid of those by now, but handyman books tell you how to build stuff. Well, it's not, how would that work out if we just decide, okay, I'm really gonna get with it now. I am gonna seek to live a godly life. Can we do it by just sheer willpower? I'm, you know, I'm, you know, it's kind of like a New Year's resolution. Boy, I'm gonna go for it. Well, it might work for a little while, but we're kind of limited on how much we can change. And, you know, sometimes we need that attitude adjustment now and again. And the Holy Spirit's a whole lot better at that than we are, you know, because oftentimes we can kind of look at look at ourselves in the mirror and thinking, well, I'm okay. I'm better than so-and-so. I don't have their problem. But we look at this portion of scripture, and it really lays out for us what the Lord wants to take place in our lives. We look here in Titus 2, verse 11, It says, for the grace of God, okay, so grace, God's undeserved favor, over the grace of God that bring us salvation hath appeared to all men. And okay, so we, salvation is made available to anybody and everybody, okay? Now we know that not everybody receives it or wants it, But it's made available to us. Some talk about it as unlimited atonement or different things, different titles that they might go by. But ultimately, the Lord has provided salvation. It's available to all who will receive, all who choose to believe. And we're motivated by God's grace. He says, again, God's demonstrated grace towards us, favor towards us. He provided for our greatest need, that of a savior. Not something we work for, not something we can earn, but it's available. And Christ was motivated to come to this earth ultimately to be born and to die and demonstrating. God's grace as he laid his life down there on Calvary. And some said, you know, we could even really refer to Jesus as the grace of God. He has come, he demonstrated, you know. In fact, Jesus kind of went the extra mile in the sense the religious leaders in his day tended to kind of work with the upper crust, if you will. Jesus went to a lot of the outcasts, the lepers and, you know, sick, lame, the ones that religious leaders didn't seem to have a whole lot of time for, and he reached out to them. And so he provided salvation and made it available to them. Now, again, we know not everybody chooses to receive it, But it's there for him. And so that's one of the things he provided there. Secondly, we see here, talking about God's grace, is that he provides, really, blessings on all people. Not salvation on all people, but different types of blessing. Scripture talks about it. It was Matthew 5, 45, where it says, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. You drive down the street in August. It's not just the Christians who have a nice green lawn that they get the rain and the other guys don't. No, it rains on everybody. And as we'll see later on this month, it snows on everybody. But the thing is, also in demonstrating God's grace, you know, when we sin, God isn't just kind of walking behind us with a big hammer or a ball bat. saying, just waiting for us to sin. You know, kind of like you do with a fly and you got the fly swatter, you're just waiting for him to land so you can whack one, right? God doesn't do that. It tells us that God is long-suffering. Why does God kind of delay judgment? You know, it isn't like you sin, to hell you go, you know? Why does he wait? Right. Pardon? Right. Gives us an opportunity, gives us time to repent. He wants, you know, not everybody responds to the gospel the first time that they hear it. Oftentimes it's over and over again before it finally sinks in. But we see here that He desires, as Mark said, that men would perish. So he gives us opportunities, probably, again, to hear the gospel a number of different times, time to think it through, time to respond to it. Well, what happens, though, for the unsaved person, and he's continually sinning, And what does he conclude, might think about? Does he think God's long-suffering? Is he thinking about that at all? Or, you know, if you continue to do wrong and nothing happens, what do you kind of think? Pardon? Yeah, you just keep on doing what you're doing, all right? And there's no, what? Repercussions, consequences. I mean, that's kind of what this, what is it, no bail that some of these, New York and some of these places have. The guy robs something, beats up somebody, you know, they fill out the paperwork and he's out the door before the ink's dry, you know. There's no consequences. Well, I know I've mentioned this before, but it's hard to believe. There was some guy running around New York there for a while. He probably still is. He had been arrested 70 times, and he's still out on the street. It's like, duh. Anybody want to go to New York City? I don't. I saw somebody the other day. It was, I'm sure, just a cartoon kind of thing, but shows a guy filling his car up with gas, and he's got a pistol in his other hand, filling up, getting gas in New York City. It's like, be ready to defend yourself. They're going to steal your car, or you, or whatever. But the hammer doesn't fall immediately. You know, we got up until the point of death. I mean, you hear about death bed conversions and you hope that they're real and genuine, but sometimes people kick that can down the road about as long as they can before they finally, it's like, oh boy, I guess I better be getting ready here, okay? But we see here that salvation, he's made it available to us. He saves us from the penalty of sin. He saves us from being condemned. We're told there in Romans chapter eight, verse one, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. And so once we trust Christ, our sins are forgiven, There is no condemnation. Now that's not, as some think, oh, well, that's a license of sin. You're not condemned, so you can go out and live any way you want. If you really are saved, you're not gonna want to go out and live that way, okay? God changes our hearts, our minds, our motivations. And, but he also saves us from the enslaving power of sin. Sin gets a grip on people's life, you know? And these are not the only two sins out there. There's, because sometimes, you know, we pick on the sins that we're not doing. You know? But when I'm thinking about people getting enslaved to something, you think, well, sometimes it's some type of a drug. They just can't seem to give it up, you know? And some of this stuff, we've made it legal, you know? Or some are wanting to make some of it legal. But, you know, people that are addicted to smoking, You know, they've tried to quit. They've tried the patches, they've tried all kinds of different stuff, can't seem to beat it, okay? And, you know, it's, maybe it used to be people didn't know any better, but I think everybody knows, and now it's, you know, it's harmful to your body. You ought not to wait till you're coughing up a lung to realize, maybe I shouldn't have been doing that, okay? And, or addicted to alcohol, or something else. There's all kinds of addictions out there. that it starts out small, but pretty soon it's got a grip on your life and you can't seem to shake it loose. And we need God's help with that. Well, God wants us to, okay, he's forgiven us of our sin, but he doesn't want us to keep on going back to it. And it does have power over us. And who's behind it all? Satan, right? Okay. He's the prince of the power of the air. He's the God, the small G of this world. Okay. And most people unsaved don't realize that Satan's pulling the strings on them, but he nevertheless is. And they're enslaved to that. And it talks about that. Jumping over there a minute to Titus 3, verse 3, it says, for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy and hateful and hating one another. and they could probably keep on going, but we got the general idea. Satan sins, got a grip on our life, but we can be set free. It's not like, well, there's nothing I can do about it. We can be set free. We look at a few different passages here. One of them is in Romans. Romans chapter eight and verse 34. Hopefully I can read this. All of a sudden I got one of these ocular migraine things going on where things don't look quite right. Okay, Romans 8, 34. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. We see here that God's love continues to be poured out upon us. There's nothing that's gonna separate us from God's love. We see back another chapter or so here. You know, that didn't sound right. Just a minute. I'm reading out of John 8, or Romans 8, and it's supposed to be John 8. See, I can't blame it on the can't see right. Okay, let's try again. I'm looking for being free. Okay, here we go. This looks better. John 834. So Jesus answered them, verily, verily, or truly, truly, I say unto you, whosoever commit a sin is a servant of sin, okay? So whether we realize or not, we're serving sin, not serving the Lord, but we're serving sin. And verse 36, it says, if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. So Christ can set us free from the power of sin, the motivation to sin. We look here in, let's see. Let's go back here to Romans for a minute. Romans 6. Romans 6, 12. He says, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that which you should obey it and in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourself unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. for sin shall not have dominion or power over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace." And so we see here, we're not to yield our bodies, our instruments, hands, feet, eyes, whatever, over to unrighteousness, but to yield them to the Lord. to let him use them for something good. And he says, he tells us, don't let sin have power over you, dominion over you. And that can happen. We see here a little bit more in Romans 6, verse 18, it says, being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness, okay? So God releases us from sin, the power of sin, so that we can become servants of righteousness, so that we can effectively serve the Lord. Yeah, verse 22 here, it says, but now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. So again, free from sin so that we can become servants of the Lord. And, You know, God wants our lives to be changed. He tells us what, 2 Corinthians there, verse 17, we become new creatures in Christ, old things are passed away, behold, all things become new. He wants a change in our life, a change in our behavior. He wants it to affect our day-to-day life. And that the fruit that we're putting out is good fruit, not bad fruit. worldly fruit. And so he's talking here about our behavior. We look at Titus 2.12, it says, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. And so he's again, he's talking about God's Word, Christ seeking to teach us And he says there's two primary principles, okay, for the Christian living. One of them is deny things you don't do and things that you do do, how you live. And so we're to deny ungodliness, and instead we're to live soberly, righteously, and godly. And so he uses those three things here, which we'll touch on here in a minute. But denying ungodliness. We see pictures of Israel. And they get into that cycle of sin. How it generally worked was if there was a prophet, somebody that was kind of leading the people spiritually, They they do okay till he died and then they drift away from the Lord and they'd start following Baal or some other false God and they you know, they'd be drifting further and further away from the Lord and And so God would send in some trials some difficulties Maybe he'd send in the Philistines or somebody else to put pressure on him. Sometimes that lasted for 20-40 years and before they'd finally go Help. And they'd look to the Lord, cry out for help. God would send another prophet or somebody else in that would kind of get them back on track spiritually. And again, that would last until he died. And you'd just see that same circle going over and over and over again. Well, the same kind of thing can happen in our own life. we can say no to sin for a little while, and then we fall back into the same old rut. And how are we gonna break free from that? What's gonna help us to cause us to be better inoculated, if you will, that we might have a stronger immunity to sin? Right? I mean, it's out there. Satan tries to tempt us every which way, okay? You know, we kind of, I think of it with kids, all right? But it's not all that much different with adults. We, I don't know how we, we got them in the mail. Some little paper things advertising different toys. And Alex, I mean, you know, he's five. And he's looking through there. And he loves dinosaurs. So anything that has a dinosaur on it or something, he thinks that's pretty cool, you know. Or if there's some kind of commercial that comes on TV, you know, drag in, look at that, you know. And yeah, you know, there's all kinds of things that kind of draw us. Well, same kind of thing works in adults. What's it? Well, they used to say, what's the difference between men and boys? The size of their toys, right? Okay. So, but what do we, you know, I find in, you know, we get these flyers every week, you know, it's Ace Hardware. Fleet Farm, I don't know what else shows up, but I find if I don't look at those, I don't want anything. If I look at them, oh, that would be kind of nice. Not that I'm running out and buying it all the time, but yeah. So what's going to help us to say a no to sin, okay? Well, God's given it to us. He's given us his word. That's going to help to, if you will, inoculate us, help us to be stronger spiritually. So when the temptations come by, we can go, nah, I don't think so. And we have greater respect for the Lord, greater respect for God and his word, and it helps us to say no to sin. And it helps us to realize the kind of attitudes and character that God wants in our own lives. You decrease, well, okay, if we flip this over, I don't know how many of you take vitamin pills. And that's not a guarantee that you're not gonna get a cold or sick or something, but if you quit taking them, your immune system probably drops a notch or two. If that doesn't do it, take some chemo, that'll do it. Knocks your immune system. Well, what can we do to boost our immune system? Well again God's Word and You know, it's And for the most part, nobody's going to check on you to know if you're taking time to read it, to get some spiritual input, to strengthen yourself so that you can say no when sin comes along and Satan's dangling it in front of your eyes and making it look pretty exciting. I mean, we're surrounded. It talks about worldly lusts and desires, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, okay? It's out there. It's on billboards. I mean, it's on TV. It's everywhere you look, okay? We don't have to go out looking for it. It'll find you. And sometimes, you know, Usually it's short-term stuff short-term fix to a problem You know, sometimes I'm amazed this is getting off topic a tad bit But you know, they got they're always coming out with some kind of new drug You know something that's going to help you What's the hot one out there now? Ozempic, is that it? You know, and maybe it's going to help you to lose weight. And they start rattling off all the potential side effects. And when they get down to the end, may cause thoughts of suicide and what have you. And I'm like, oh, well, that ought to help. You're not worried about your weight then, right? Yeah, there's usually a downside to some of this stuff, okay? But it, you know, it's the quick fix. Well, look at the other side though, okay? So there are certain things that we, and usually it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what's probably bad for us. certain things that we ought to deny, say no to, but then he says, we say no to that so that we might live and to live soberly, righteously, godly, soberly. It's not just not being drunk, but it's, I kind of have another adjective, have your head screwed on right. You've got correct thinking. You're thinking down the road, today, tomorrow, next week, next year. It's not just what's gonna happen in the next five minutes. Righteously, those things that are gonna be pleasing to God. And those things that are godly, kind of the opposite of the ungodliness of this world. And so he says, you know, that's what God wants for us. It's ultimately, we're gonna be better off for it. Excuse me. And he begins to talk about some of these behaviors that we'll get into chapter three here. And that we separate ourselves from from sinful practices and attitudes and values of the world, but then we need, it's not that we're, we have Christian commune and it's just, we just surround ourselves with Christians and we have nothing to do with the world. What are we missing if we do that? Right, you know, we still have our marching orders there in Matthew 28, when it tells us to go into all the world. Okay, it didn't say go and be like the world, but it says to go into the world and preach the gospel, to share about Christ. So we still have contact with the unsaved. It's just that we don't adopt their lifestyle, their desires, okay? And so, God's, he's left us here for a purpose. He could have just, you got saved, we're out of here, okay? What is it? This is Dr. Spock, beam me up Scotty or something, you know, we're out of here. But you know, no, he leaves us here so that we can talk to other people about the Lord. He says there in chapter three, verse one, And we've touched upon this here the other week when we talked about praying for those in positions of authority. But he says, put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready. to every good work. And so he says here, we're to be subject. We're to be voluntarily subject or submitting ourselves to the government to obey them. But he also tells us that we need to be praying for them. Now, if it gets to the point where they're asking us or telling us to do something that's against God's word, then we say no. But most of the time, what they're asking us, if it says 35 miles an hour, that's not against scripture. We may want to do 40 or 45, but we're supposed to obey. Then society, verse 2, he says, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing with all meekness unto all men. And so we're not to speak evil. Why shouldn't we speak evil of somebody else? Aren't there some evil people out there? And we should recognize them? Okay Right that's that's kind of what I was fishing for Yeah, they're made in God's image now. They may not look like it at the particular time depending on what they're doing and But he tells us that they're made in God's image, and we're really kind of slapping God around when we're knocking one of his creation. Ultimately, God is the judge. It's not our position to be everybody's judge and jury. But he tells us not to speak or evil of other people, or blaspheme would be another word to use against them. And so, yeah, we ought to let that one sink in. And that's for me, too, because Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Cause I've spoken evil or about certain people, you know, especially you get all revved up into politics, you know, you think, Oh, what they're doing? Oh, that's, you know, and yeah, well, give God an opportunity to work on them. All right. And you know, there's things that we can, we just come through Thanksgiving. What can we be thankful for? Let's say for an ungodly politician. Is there anything we can be thankful for? Well, how about that in two, four, six years, They're up for election, and we don't have to. They're not in there for life, OK? I think about the only thing that's for life is Supreme Court justices. Now, on the other hand, there are some, if you get into the government, you've got a job for life. But maybe that will change too. But he also tells us not to be brawlers, okay? We ought not to be physically pushing people around. But instead, he says, to be gentle. That's kind of the opposite of pushing people around, isn't it? But how did Jesus act? We see Jesus coming up to the scribes or rabbis or whoever and start pushing them around? No, I don't think so. But he says to show meekness unto all men. Now, meekness doesn't mean weakness, okay? What do they say? Strength under control, okay? All right. And Uh, then here too, he says, uh, uh, there, there might be, you know, sometimes treating people gently might be kind of the opposite of what you might be tempted to, to do with them. Uh, but it's time to think, you know, you might just get exasperated with how people act or react to situations, but how did God treat us in our unsafe condition? Yeah. And he kind of wants to turn that around so we demonstrate patience or gentleness towards others. Okay. Whacking people upside the heads, probably not gonna change their thinking an awful lot, okay? It just causes them to want to strike back. And again, he says, here's some of the people that we're gonna be dealing with, but there on the other hand, maybe that described us in our unsaved condition, for we ourselves also were, okay, past tense, We were sometimes foolish, okay? Can you think back? Maybe some not so wise decisions that we've made in our lives. Disobedient, yeah, were we disobedient to the Lord? Well, yeah. Deceived, yeah, maybe we got tricked up. Serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy and hateful and hating one another. Wow, that kind of sounds like the world we live in, doesn't it? We're a couple thousand years removed from this, but we've got electric lights, air conditioning, central heating. But people are not all that much different. And they don't act all that much different. as refined as we might think we are, okay? Sounds like pretty rough characters there in verse three. That's how we used to be, but God's looking for us to change. He's looking for godly behavior, all right? Just because everybody else is doing it doesn't mean that, you know, that's an excuse for us. Somebody treats us rotten. This is not a license for us to turn around and treat them the same way. And we may be tempted to do that, but that's where, you know, it's where the Holy Spirit kind of comes in and goes, hey, flashing yellow light here, caution. Don't treat them the same way they're treating you. We see here, we've got just a couple verses here. We're backing up into chapter two. He says, verse 13, looking for that blessed hope. What is the blessed hope? The rapture. Okay. It's not Friday at 4.30. The week's done, you know, or whatever works out for you. Looking for that blessed hope. Yeah. It's the rapture. The glorious appearing of the great God and our savior, Jesus Christ. who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and to purify himself of peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no man despise thee." So he says, we have that hope, you know, and if, how much would our activities today change? And we don't, okay. But if we knew Jesus was coming back at noon, How much would our life change? You say, well, I'm still gonna be sitting here in a pew or decorating the tree. Okay, we'll say Monday at noon he's coming. How much would your Monday morning change? What you do on the rest of today and tonight and tomorrow morning? Well, it could happen. So that ought to be motivation. We want to please the Lord with our lives. And so he's saying we want to see Jesus. We don't want to be going, oh, my. OK. And it says here he gave us he gave himself for us to redeem us, OK, to set us free from all iniquity or all sin. And then it's not period and he also wants to purify us. Purify unto himself a peculiar people. It doesn't mean strange, weird, you know, it's kind of unique. And he wants to purify us. Why? So that we would be zealous of good works, doing the things that God wants us to do. And he says, you know, drive this point home, okay? Speak, talk about it, teach about it, exhort, rebuke. And so he's telling Timothy. And so, you know, again, save to serve. He wants us, he's saved us. and provided salvation for us, not just so we can go merrily on our way, but so that we can seek to be zealous of good works. We can be seeking to do what God would want us to do. He wants to purify us. Think about that, how the Lord might choose to do that even this week. All right, so let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, your challenge to us here today. We do pray that you might continue to help us to appreciate the grace of God, how you've demonstrated your grace towards us, the salvation that you've provided through your son, the Lord Jesus, and providing salvation for all who choose to believe. But not to stop there, but to realize that you want to purify us You want us to be freed from the power of sin over our lives, and in order that we might effectively serve you and do the works that you want us to do. We're not saved by those works, but once we are saved, you've got things you want us to do. We pray that you'd help us to be mindful of that, in Jesus' name, amen. All right. I'll mention this later, but if you're out there roaming around the foyer, there are Christmas tracks on the little table by the door and in the track rack. And then there's also some little daily breads that have to do with Christmas that you might use to give to other people. There's 10 days worth in there. All right. I don't know what you're talking about.