We come into the middle of this, not to overlook the great things that are in the totality of this book, but to focus upon one particular thing and theme of these verses 11 through 14. And that is that we see here this idea of the appearing of Christ. It shows up twice in this text. It shows up in verse 11, and it shows up again in the 13th verse. In the 11th verse, you'll notice it's in the past tense. So from the Apostle's vantage point, he's speaking about something that's already happened. And then by the time we get to the 13th verse, it's spoken of in the appearing, as though it hasn't happened yet, but we're anticipating it, we're expecting it. And that, of course, would be what we would call today the second coming of Christ, or the second advent. So you have the first appearing happened when Christ came, and there, for that matter, we see the application of that to the totality of Christ's life, not just Jesus born in a manger, a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, but this would be really the emphasis of the end of His life, which is the exclamation point to the totality of His life, that He would die for sinners. He would be the righteous substitute for unrighteous, believing souls. And then we would see his emphasis there in the 13th verse is to think about something that is still yet to come and appearing that is like the first, but is different than the first. The similarities and the differences are worth considering and thinking about. So let's do this in this manner. We look at the 11th verse. So this is God's grace. As it's written, for the grace of God has appeared. It's a finished thing. It's a certain thing. And so whenever we come to this kind of language, we don't have to wonder, was that Jesus of Bethlehem? Jesus of Nazareth? Was that the appearing that the Apostle Paul is speaking of? And it is. He's confident of this and he's attaching his appearing as the one bringing salvation. So this appearing of Jesus is to the benefit of the souls of men. So in that 11th verse we see God's grace toward us is based solely on His love. It's not based on man's independent intellect. It's God's love that appears to him that excites his intellect, that causes his mind and quickens his heart to look to Christ, to look to this appeared Christ and believe. So it is God's grace toward us. It is based solely on His love. And from that vantage point, our complete inability to meet His righteous standards. This is a grace we do not deserve. This is a grace we cannot earn. This is a grace you do not deserve. This is not easy to take. To the proud man, he thinks he deserves the grace of God. He thinks he's been good enough. He's been righteous on his own account, and so he deserves the grace of God. This is not the gospel. This is not the message of the Bible. Man does not deserve the grace of God. Man rightly deserves the wrath of God, the judgment of God. And so what a mercy of God that He would come and that the grace of God would appear to us, exciting our interest and exciting our desire then to abandon our old man and for the new man to take over. And that new man is empowered by the deposited, imputed righteousness of Christ upon our life. So the grace of God that brings salvation. He has. He did not. So here's a couple of important things. He did not appear in secret. So history records, not just the Bible, but historians record of this Jesus being born in the city of David, the city of Bethlehem. It's a well-known fact. There are rare exceptions of anybody who doesn't want to give credit or credence to the reality of this Jesus that the apostle is speaking of in the book of Titus, that the Gospels bore witness of, that the prophets prophesied of, that the whole of God's Word directs us and points us toward. Nearly every religion in the world has some kind of an affectionate attachment to this Jesus, or at least to their form of a Jesus who was born in the city of Bethlehem in the city of David. So This is not a private appearing that only a few select people were chosen to see. Now we can see in the nativity that the angel will first come to the shepherds out in the field watching their sheep and tending to them out in the field. We'll see that He will govern the journey of the wise men who will eventually come to the house where Mary and Joseph have moved from the stable where Jesus was born to the place where He was residing as a small child. By the time the Magi show up, there has been widespread discussion about this Messiah. Herod himself bothered and disturbed that somebody is going to come and overcome Him, overshadow Him. So this would be no private appearing. This wouldn't be something that only those with enough money got to come and view this. This was not that those with proper political power would have the privilege to see. This first appearing of Christ was to display the glory of God to all of the world. So, this was what we would read in accordance with Luke 1, verse 79, which there, Luke is largely quoting from Isaiah 9, verse 2, that there is a darkness of the world and that there is a light that has come. And so we would know this, the principles and the laws of light is that darkness cannot exist when light appears. And what we know about the time when Jesus had come is that there was a season of darkness, there was a season of quietness from God. From the last of the prophets to the last Old Testament prophet, John the Baptist, there was a season of silence from God to the people. And when God is silent, you should expect you're in a dark day. And so comes forth Jesus, and what is He but to bring light. And so His appearing is that all would see. Now, not all will believe, will they? But all will see. And that the glory of God would be upon display. This is what we'll learn from Romans 1. The Apostle Paul, when he speaks to the church in Rome, he'll speak about that not everyone has been changed by this light, but there is no denial. They know the truth. They suppress the truth, he writes in Romans chapter 1. John Gill, the English Baptist preacher in the 1600s, the late 1600s and 1700s, he compares this coming of Christ in Titus, this appearing in Titus chapter 2 verse 11, he compares it to the difference of a candle that is written in an isolated place. To the to the influence that all of the land has when the sun is in the sky, he says, speaking of the grace of God who who brings salvation, he has appeared to all. So on a on a cloudless day, there is no way for you to deny the fact that there is a sun in the sky. As a matter of fact, even with the principles of nature, we would even know at night the moon that God fashioned in the sky to govern the night, that it too would be a reflection of the sun. That there would be no moment, even in darkness, that we would still know that there is a light. There are rare times every month when there is no bright light. even in the sky. This would be akin to what it was like in the first appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Gil goes on and he speaks more about what it was like before Christ appeared. He compares salvation to that of a candle. And in that he says that there was a candle in Jerusalem and that it would be occasionally seen by travelers who would come by There he's speaking about the temple and the practice of God's people and the worship of God. They would see the smoke from the sacrifices. They would smell the aroma of the incenses. But it would be isolated. It wouldn't be that of all the people. But he says now that Christ has appeared, it is no longer like a candle. It is like the light of the sun. And there he concludes by the impact of this is that not all are changed by this light or by this grace of God, but none are without excuse. So again, in Titus chapter 2 and verse 11, we're seeing the announcement of the first appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that appearing is to bring salvation to all men. Verse 12, there's some more information here that's helpful for us. We won't spend much time examining this this morning, but it's here in the context. So let's let it lay influence upon us as we go forward this week and this month, remembering, commemorating the first appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 12, he says, this great light or this salvation, the grace that God has brought and as a peer to all, it's instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in this present age. Now, this is true of the people in Paul's day. And because we're in the same age as the Apostle Paul, this is true of us as well. the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ bringing grace, the impact is upon us. Now notice the pronoun us there. The word us here has to make a distinction between the difference between those who are believers and those who are not. So certainly to the believers, those who have seen the grace of God, have tasted the goodness of God, have been converted by the grace of God, their intellect has been awakened, their eyes have been opened, their ears are unplugged, they now know that Christ is the Messiah. He is God in the flesh. He's the incarnate God. So this appearing to us stands as an instruction to us. So here's where I would encourage your participation in home devotions and home worship this week. And many of you already are in the practice of practicing and keeping an Advent calendar and I certainly want to encourage your ongoing practice of that. my inserting here a devotional for you is not to substitute for what you're already doing, but as much as anything, if you're not doing anything, at least do this this week. There's something every day for you to meditate and give devotion to, to help give instruction to us, and that the Word of God, that the grace of God would be instructing us to deny ungodliness. So even to those who have been saved by the grace of God, there's an instruction for us that we deny ungodliness. Right now, you don't need me to give you a list of what ungodliness is. As you even hear the word ungodliness, you know the power of the Holy Spirit immediately is bringing to your mind the ungodly deeds and the ungodly acts that you're actively participating in. And where do you do that? But in darkness. But the Son has appeared. The Lord Jesus Christ has appeared. And He's appeared like the Son of the sky. Why run to darkness? Because the only thing that you're going to do in darkness is those ungodly, worldly desires that do not display the glory of God. So rather than living in ungodliness and satisfying your worldly desires, The contrast to that is that we were to live sensibly. What is the right thing for those who make claim to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ? They live sensibly. They know that their business transactions need to reflect the glory of God, not ungodliness and not worldliness. They know that their habits at the workhouse, what must they do? They must be, because of the grace of God, The grace of God is instructing us to not live like that, but to look like this. And to live like this. Let our steps be governed by the lamp of Scripture. To live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. And then verse 13, he turns his attention from that which has already appeared and he speaks about the second coming of Christ. And he words it like this, verse 13, looking for the blessed hope. This is so beautiful. It's easy to overlook this word hope. Because in a temporal day, we know what disappointment's all about, don't we? We've hoped for something. And listen, when it happens, it's pretty exciting. But when it doesn't happen, you know what it's like, don't you? You know how hard it is to overcome. You've wanted to do this. You've wanted to go on a trip there. You've wanted to take a vacation here. You've wanted to, on Christmas morning, there's those romantic ideas of unwrapping the perfect gift. And you unwrap a package of unmentionables. And there I've just mentioned it by not mentioning it. It's hard to show the same kind of excitement for fruit of the loom as you would if it were that favorite anticipated thing that you've always wanted. And in all reality, well, I'm just going to leave it there. Hope. This isn't looking for the blessed hope. This isn't like that kind of hope. This hope is like the first hope. The first hope was that Christ came. It's done. It's settled. You can't deny it. Well, you can, but you're denying truth. You can't refute it. It happened. And it's a sure thing. It cannot be taken away, the reality that His first coming happened. And what the Apostle Paul is doing here in the 13th verse is he's saying, as sure as that was, this is, this will be, this will happen. So this isn't the same kind of hope. This is a blessed hope. This would be the kind of hope that the Apostle Paul would write about when he writes to the church in Corinth. And he writes to them, faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love. This will be the same kind of hope that Peter will speak of when he'll speak of that hope. The hope that we have in Christ is in this fixed place. Unmoved. This would be the writer of Hebrews will speak about our faith based upon a hope that doesn't disappoint. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. So it's impossible to have faith if you don't have hope. It's impossible to have an expression of love if we've not been filled with the hope, the confident hope of the Lord's appearing. And this is a certainty. So the Apostle Paul in the 13th verse, he's turning the attention of the believer Listen, don't get all wrapped up in all of the excitement around the first appearing that had happened. And now what do we have left to hope for? We have this to hope for. The appearing of the glory of the great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. And He's going to point back to that first appearing in v. 14, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. Christ gave himself for us. He gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed. He's already told us. Hey, those of you who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, Hey, abandon your ungodliness. Verse 12, right? Stop, stop exciting your worldly desires and live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age. So he's redeemed us from every lawless deed. And in doing so, he's purifying for himself a people for his own purpose. Not for our purposes, but for His purpose. For His own possession. A people who will be zealous for good deeds. Now this is unfortunately something even sometimes I shy away from speaking too much about good deeds because it's easy for us to conflate living in faith as the result of our faith is naturally doing good deeds, as opposed to the idea and the false, the heretical ideas of doing good deeds in order for God to save us. But we cannot separate good deeds, doing righteousness, from the work that Christ has done in our lives. Otherwise, why bring the light to us? Why not just let us do whatever we're going to do, and then at the end let him sort it all out? No, he brings a light. And then all throughout the New Testament, the apostles through the power of the Holy Spirit are constantly telling us that the work of the church is like that of a bright light. We are a light to the world. And how can we be such if we rarely do good deeds for others? This is what God is doing. He's He's possessed the people for His own glory and in doing so that in the temporal day until His second appearing we ought to find ourselves doing good for each other and for the world. Now, that's quite beautiful and quite important. Let's think of it like this. In Matthew chapter 11 verse 6 Jesus said, blessed is he who does not take offense at me. Everyone, think of it like this, everyone loves a baby Jesus, don't they? I can't think of anybody who doesn't love baby Jesus. So long as you don't define who that baby Jesus is, everybody loves a baby Jesus. What does it mean Well, but we have to ask some question, what does it mean if Jesus is the son of God? Now, I'm not presenting that as a plausible conclusion. I'm coming to it from the vantage point. It is it is it is a finished conclusion. He is the son of God. But what does it mean if he's not the son of God? And then we should follow it up, but what does it mean if he is the son of God? We would further press with questions. Listen, as long as this baby Jesus is like a sherpa with his llamas alone in the Andes Mountains in Peru, then I can like that Jesus. I can get along with that kind of Jesus so long as He's isolated and nowhere in sight. So long as He's a Jewish rabbi, I can get along with that. He's a Jewish rabbi offering sage advice to a band of misfit teenagers. I can get along with that kind of Jesus, the world would say. And it's true, they love that kind of Jesus, don't they? Hey, so long as he is an itinerant preacher, moving from town to town, fixing everyone's broken lives, and healing their sicknesses, and giving financial advice so they can get rich. Everyone loves that Jesus. Who doesn't want to come and gather around that kind of Jesus? So long as He shows up at the soup kitchen with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. Because you know you're going to eat well when that Jesus shows up, right? Yeah, the world loves that kind of Jesus. But what about this Jesus who appeared for, looking back at our text here, who appeared bringing salvation, instructing us to deny ungodliness. Now, wait a minute. Now, preacher, I'm not so sure I want that Jesus who's telling us we must deny ungodliness. And we must deny worldly desires. That Jesus who's telling us to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present age. I don't know if I if I want that kind of Jesus. But everyone loves them, a baby Jesus, don't they? Hey, even the city of Twin Falls loves a baby Jesus. Twin Falls City Park, the last week of Advent. There will be a baby, a plastic baby Jesus placed on the band show. I kind of like it. The only thing I'm really disturbed about is they have to put him behind a chain link fence. Kind of loses all the romance. But they'll give homage, they'll tip the hat to a baby Jesus. And it's my expectations they still anticipate to do that even again this year. But this baby Jesus in Twin Falls is under lock and key behind a chain link fence. Oh, well, I like that Jesus. Leave it to the brokenness of men to take all the joy of the coming of the baby who will take away the sins of the world. Listen, the moment you cross that line and say that Jesus is God incarnate. Well, wait a minute. I'm not so sure I love that Jesus. Everybody loves baby Jesus. But not everybody loves Jesus who is the second person of the Trinity. As long as you don't ascribe deity to this Jesus, the world likes Him. The world doesn't mind that light. But that's not this Jesus. If you looked at Luke 2, Matthew 26, Malachi 2, Matthew 11, you would see perpetually, constantly, and by the way, that's just a sliver of a few Scripture verses that you could find where the Scripture is ascribing deity to this Messiah. And the Apostle Paul, to his letter to young preacher Titus, is telling him the Messiah who came is coming again. This message of the prophets, it was all about the Messiah is coming. And then it wouldn't be long that as soon as the Messiah comes that they want to crucify Him. That's because He didn't remain a baby in a manger. He didn't remain a poor little child born in abject poverty. He overcame the Roman oppression of His day. I mean, that's a great little story. if that's all it is. But it's even greater because He is God in the flesh. He came to visit us. He came and dwelt among us. Luke, in chapter 2, verse 20, He addresses this from this vantage point to those who fear God. What are they to do? They're to repent of their perversion They're to repent of their treatment of the Christ as just a child. They are to repent. Repent and believe the gospel, is Luke's argument. It's the gospel. Repent and believe the gospel. To those who will take offense to Christ being deity, you should expect to be unsatisfied in their treatment of the birth of Christ. because they'll treat it in such a different way. They'll treat it the way society has been treating it. In John 20, verse 29, Jesus to Thomas tells him, because you've seen me, you have believed. And then Jesus says, blessed are they who will not see me, yet believed. This is referencing that the light of the Gospel is still present. It hasn't disappeared just because Christ ascended into the heavens. The same expectation of His first coming, the Apostle Paul is projecting toward His second coming. The hope that we have of the appearing of the glory of the great God, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus came to do what only God can do. Because God demands perfect righteousness from us, we can't do that. So we needed a Christ. We needed God to come in the flesh of man. Because we are not, nor are we capable of being perfectly righteous, it is required that we be justified. Justified by who? Not just a baby Jesus that everybody loves. We must be justified for our salvation. Christ is the one who is like us, who saved us. And this because we've known from all of the ages of humanity that none of us are righteous. No. Not even you. Not even me. On our own account, the only righteousness that we can stand in is the righteousness of Christ. So when we have Christ, now what are we able to do? We're able to deny ungodliness, we're able to deny worldly desires, we're able finally to live sensibly, to live righteously, and to live godly in the present age. Titus 2 verse 12. So we know that there is a problem for the sons of men. It's only a problem if you see Jesus as a baby born under Roman oppression, forced to be born in a manger or a barn. Great story if you like underdog stories, isn't it? But this isn't that. This is God humbling Himself to be born a man, submitting to be born of a humble servant and the Father imputing righteousness upon our account of the believing and repenting souls. Jesus in Matthew 11 verse 6, blessed is he who does not take offense of me. Nobody is offended by a baby in a manger, but oh my how the world is offended of a Messiah who is God. So as we spend the next several weeks with a lot of busyness, and much of it really, really good and beautiful and fun, pleasant, let us not treat the baby in a manger simply as a baby in a manger. May we remember He is coming back. And the same certainty of His first appearing is attached to His second. What have you done with this Jesus? Have you believed? Do you hold that He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God? If not, today you should repent and believe the gospel. If you have, Well, you should deny ungodliness. You should deny worldly pleasures. And you should start living sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present age. And in that, being zealous for good deeds. So let's give ourselves unto this Lord, unto this God, who put on the flesh of man to save us. Let's live our lives as a living sacrifice of worship unto God who saved us. Amen. Heavenly Father, what a joy to think here, not only of the first appearing, but especially now that we would live in the same confident hope of a second appearing. and this of the glory of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Bless the ears that have heard. Bless them with patience with each other, kindness toward all men, boldness of truth, and proclamation of the gospel. May your church rejoice today to be among those whom you've come to shine as a bright light.