We're in the book of Titus, chapter number two. We are doing a verse-by-verse study. Yes, ma'am. All right, amen. Pastor in Pakistan, amen. All right, we'll pray for that. If he's a gospel witness preaching the gospel, he sure needs prayer in those areas, that's for sure. It's a challenge, but we're calling it the four to one series. Every book in the Bible, four chapters to one chapter. We are going through it verse by verse best we can. And we are now at Titus chapter number two. We're finishing up verses. We're gonna kinda just take last part of verse 10 and use a little nugget of that and move on. Because we've been talking about the conduct among believers. Paul challenged Titus as he called out these elders of this church in the island of Crete. to call out and elect these elders and these deacons. And then also he talked about the interaction of believers, the elders, the older ladies, the elder ladies, the young ladies, the young men. and also challenging to him. And in verse 10, I mentioned to you there's like verse 11, 12, 13, 14 in here. These are powerful verses that to me seem to be the key to the book. And it kinda is the hinge that holds the first and third chapters together. But in verse 10 it says, the last part there, that they may adorn the doctrine of God. He's talking, of course, about servants. We closed out with the ideas of slavery and masters and servants. and how culturally that still exists in our world, but obviously in our own country, in America and other countries around the world, if they would have simply followed the word of God, that master and servant were one and the same through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, that in itself, in quick time, would have abolished slavery many, many centuries before. But it's obvious we did not follow that. Christian as our nation was in its basis and is supposedly compared to other nations. But as we don't deal with that on a daily basis, it's a good application to take some of these things, I think, to apply them in your relationship between your boss, your manager, and you as the servant. Now, the word slave is a strong word. It has many connotations to it. So servant seems to be a little different, but it is what the word is used in here in the King James Version of the Bible, the word servant. And Jesus Christ was a servant to his own disciples. He taught us to be a servant, have a servant's heart, to do the will of God from the heart. And then he goes on, as he talked to these servants, he said that they may adorn the doctrine of God. What a beautiful phrase. Sound doctrine has been used in this book many times. the place of stability, foundation to stand on of your faith that does not change, amen? It's good to have a place to stand that doctrine. We know cultures change and other things can change, countries change, conditions change. Many ways, fashions come and go. I'm sure some of you are glad you're not wearing the big beehive things that you might have wore years ago. Some of those things change, but the sound doctrine of the word of God does not change. You can stand on it, you can have your faith in it. Adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior, in all things. Verse 11, for the grace of God that bringing salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. And that present world phrase applies to us today. We can still live by these things because of sound doctrine, amen. We can adorn these things in our lives as many applications Paul gave to put on the armor of God, put on certain things in Christianity, put it on, put it on in your life, wear it, take up that cross and we'll look at some more of that in just a minute. But as we read these verses, and it says, verse 13, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God, our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, purifying himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. So we look at this thought of these verses here. I want to use this phrase in verse 11, the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. The grace that he's talking about transforms our lives. the grace transforms. When people loosely throw out, I'm a Christian, or I got saved, or I got baptized, and people will say that because that's what they associate with that event in their life. Well, if they got saved by faith, and then they got to baptism, and they're mixing some of these things together, still the grace of God that has appeared to them and saved them will change their lives. The Bible tells us, 2 Corinthians 5, 17, that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. This is doctrine and it's sound. And if a person does not show new creature change in their life, God's word's not wrong, they're stating something that's not true. Now, We don't want to judge unless we judge righteous judgment, and righteous judgment will probably leave most of our other 99% of judgment out. but still righteously judging, seeing fruit born of those who are believers. We can see many times the fruit of Christianity in a person's life because of the transformation power that the word of God teaches, that is what his salvation does in a person's life. And so this grace transforms us. Those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. When we get saved, the Bible tells us that we are a new creature and that the old things are passed away. That phraseology there is like Virginia's son passed away. We understand what that means. There was a death. There was a burial. We know a resurrection's coming for a believer. We're passed away, the old man is supposed to be passed away. Yet the Bible also teaches doctrinally that we still live in this flesh. So therefore we have to deny it, daily crucify it. but that grace transforms us, saves us, so we're safe from the penalty of sin. It's paid through the Lord Jesus Christ, but that grace also teaches us something, teaches us about our living in this body, living in this present world. I'm glad we're not left without instructions on how to do that. The Bible teaches us sober living. as we've seen that statement many times in this same book already. I wanna be under the right influence, and that is the Holy Spirit and his holy scriptures. I wanna be sober-minded as the scripture tells us to be. It says in verse number 10, teaching us that denying ungodliness, ungodlikeness of things, denying it. resisting it, pushing away from that. Not a lot of that's happening in our world where a lot of giving in and yielding takes place. He says, worldly lust. And I got to thinking about that phrase especially. And I got to thinking. You know, that transcends generations. That goes through different countries that have ruled the earth at different times, different empires. It just goes through the space of time. But there's always a factor and a fight. Worldly lust. It's a reality. It might, listen, I know the world at lust can maybe look different in some ways or another, but it's still there. This present world is ever-changing, its culture changes, the current atmosphere we're living in is changing. Some of you would have never believed in a billion years some of the things going on in this current, present world. You would have never believed it was happening to us, that there would be a debate over some of the things that are going on in our world today. but that is what sin has done. It has done its own transforming power. It has taught and it has reprogrammed people's mind. But we that are believers, we embrace and embody the grace of God that has transformed us. that is teaching us that we can do this, live this way, in this present world, we will have to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, and the Bible commands us here, we should live soberly. As I said this before, I think it's earlier in this chapter, maybe, yeah, verse four, qualifications there. This does not mean you're somber and you're so serious that you become the laugh police. Nobody can have humor. Nobody can cut up at all. I'm just giving you an example. And if this is you, I'm sorry. You can get mad at me. But I'm not going to fall out with you. You can fall out with me. I won't be on the fallen end. But there's some people that when Brother Robert a while ago was talking about that mint and I talked about that gum, they'd have cut us off being disrespectful in the house of God. And when all we were doing was just cutting up, because we got that personality where we just kind of, I would rather do that than go through 5,000 years of silence on the radio. and so we just kind of move through it. But some people say everything's so serious. That sober mindedness is not taught. It means to be serious and under the right influence of the Holy Spirit and be serious about, as he's teaching here about being grave, well be serious and grave about what you need to be serious and grave about. Don't disrespect those things that are serious and grave. But I don't believe God doesn't laugh and he doesn't, Maybe chuckle sometimes. We don't know all the proof of that. But my mom gave me a great example here. I'm going to go ahead and chase this zebra. My mama said, I believe God had a sense of humor because he made a zebra. He strapped that old horse up, and it's like two different colors. And he can't hide no matter what he tries. What kind of camouflage is that? Anyhow, he said, what are we going to make today? A striped horse. So she always taught that to me. And I thought, you know, Mama, maybe you've got a good point there. Amen? But in the thought of living soberly and being under the influence of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures and the conflict and the contention and the battle that it is when we know that ungodliness is all around us, worldly lusts are always trying to lure us and try tempt us and we should do this we are commanded to do this and therefore if we are commanded to do this then we can do this and when we fail to do it we ask God for forgiveness and we get back up the Bible says a righteous man follows seven times but he rises again you get back up you get back embrace what direction do you go when you feel like your head's spinning Well, sound doctrine's always true. Always points to Christ. You always know what direction you can walk in. Walk or live soberly, righteously, godly in this present world. I would have never. imagine some of the things we're seeing in this world today. But you know what? I'm not going to be Mr. Doom and Gloom and say, well, you shouldn't have children and raise them in this environment. No. If that would have been the mentality, then they would have not done that 2,000 years ago. Because this was the challenge to him in the midst of the time he lived in. And before we start thinking it's much worse, it's worse to us. But they were sacrificing babies. They were, there was adultery and adultery, there was fornication of so many different levels, and yet it was culturally accepted, and the gospel had the conflict there every time they preached, and every time somebody got saved, they had to say, no, you can't keep living like that, you're not supposed to live, oh, I'm not, no, the Bible says you should live this way, you should live this way, okay, I'm gonna put that on, I'm gonna adore my, I'm gonna start walking that way. and the Word of God transforms, the grace of God transforms our life, teaches us these things. Luke 9, 23, he said to them, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself. Boy, the world today is programming us to put ourself first, promote ourself foremost, amen? Focus on us. When the Word of God says, you're gonna come after me, you're gonna follow me, you're gonna deny yourself. That's a challenge. Let him deny himself, take up his cross daily. You don't just put it on Sunday and, boy, it works forever, or Sunday works from Sunday to Sunday. Sunday, you'll have to do it again Monday. if you're going to follow him. Take up your cross, follow me. Colossians 3, 5, mortify therefore your members, which talking about your body, your mind, your being, your fingers, your legs, your arms, everything about your flesh, your human being, this as they say, whatever that is, mortify your members, Colossians 3, 5, which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, which is idolatry. It all bases, the idea here, all it bases is we are taking God off of his throne, putting our own flesh, our own self, and we worship ourselves and technically really worshiping Satan, the god of this world. It is idolatry. Romans 8, 13, for if you live after the flesh, you shall die. But if you, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of your body, you shall live. Some people, they're saved but they're not happy about it. And they mortify their bodies and they wanna kill you in the process of it. They want you to be miserable with them. But the Bible says if I crucify myself, there's certain things I'm not gonna be able to do. There's certain things in this world I've gotta shake off. I'm not gonna be able to party on Saturday night and drink myself, blow my brain out with all kinds of drugs and stuff. There's certain things I've gotta abstain from. There is a righteous wall. I'm supposed to abide in him. But when I do that, I'm gonna have life. I'm gonna live, and we'll find out if he came to give us life, he even goes on to say, and that, more abundantly. It's more abundant than what this world can offer us. And it was alluded to tonight a little bit with our multiple testimonies tonight. We have the joy of God in our lives. When we obey him and we have some victories, as small as they are, I say give them to me, amen? And we have joy of the Lord being our strength. Righteously means right living after Christ. Godly, God-likeness. Think about this phrase here, this little part here. He says soberly, righteously, and godly. Relation to ourself is the soberness. Relation to others is the righteousness. As we walk in the right way out in the world, the darkness of this world, the light that we are called to be, the light that we contain in our life, it shines in the darkness and then it says, godly, which is towards God. So much of the three point facet of this is, part of it is how I conduct in my own self and I'm trying to watch my own self and keep up with my own self. Listen, you're not my biggest problem, I'm my biggest problem. And I'm not your biggest problem. Before you say, the preacher, you're right, no, I'm not. You go look in the mirror. I might be behind you on the second, on the most wanted list, but you're your biggest problem. So we've got the soberness, the right life that we should live, that that's the battle within me all the time, and righteously the battle trying to live in this world in a right manner, when the world is corrupt and trying fight us all the time, trying to tear us down, the devil's always trying to get us to say a bad word or do something wrong, lose our cool, or somebody could pull out, you lost your temper, I thought you were a Christian. There's a battle all the time, and then this truth, simple godliness, as complex as it simply is, is towards God. You know, when you use that thought, that word devotion, I'm gonna do my devotions, you're sitting down in the word of God, You need to slow down in that word of God. And you need to soak it in. And you need to seek him. And read that scripture. And just be holy as he is holy. And draw closer to him. And ask God, that word's like a mirror. It'll reveal all that's not right. And you get it right, get closer to him. Let him clean your life up. And just try to be like him and walk and abide in him and walk in the light. The power of sin is real. When we get saved, if somebody, use this little outline, when you get saved, you're saved from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, but one thing you're not saved from until you go to heaven is the presence of sin. That presence of sin lives in this present world that we're living in. And so, in this present world that we're having to deal with, I'm gonna tell you we should live the same way as they lived then, standing upon the sound doctrine. Those things are true. I mean, I know they didn't have automobiles back then, and I know there's a lot of different things they didn't have back then. But when you're talking about living a sober life, a righteous life, and a godly life, when all the dust settles, you stand on the sound doctrine of the word of God. My printer prints on both sides now. So I flipped my page over. I meant to print two, but I forgot to change it, brother. Brother Robert helped me get a printer. He got me another printer, so I'm uptown now, but I'm not used to it. So I want you all to talk about the living, but now the looking, the presence of sin. He says in the midst of all this, we need to be looking for our blessed hope. Because if we didn't, we would get real depressed and discouraged. We'd feel like it's not even worth it. I'd rather quit and go be a monk, be a hermit. Why not live somewhere by yourself and don't even speak? Make a vow of silence and go live on the mountain for 50 years. Yeah, you probably could get along pretty good for a little while until you got in a fight with yourself. But God didn't call us to live like that. He called us to live in this present world soberly, righteously, and godly. But one thing that brings a hope to us, as he says, looking, I'm looking for that blessed hope. We've talked about a lot of stuff that's serious going on around us right now. And the Lord's leading my heart. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna preach on the life equation or the equation of life. I'm not sure I've settled on the title. But the abortion thing, the Roe versus Wade thing, it was leaked on purpose to stir people. People are being, judges are being threatened. People are being attacked. And it's gonna be pretty, the line's gonna be very clearly drawn. And if you are pro-life or pro-choice, that's gonna be where the Civil War's probably gonna have its biggest battle line drawn. But we're living in this present world around us. Somebody said you could be too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. I don't believe that at all. Because the Bible tells us here, I'm looking for that blessed hope. Otherwise, I'd be pretty, it'd be hard. It'd be so discouraging, so depressing. He said, he's not coming back. You got no hope, you just gotta keep doing this. Well, I don't know that there's much reason to keep doing it then. But when I realized there's a blessed hope coming, what is it about? The glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. He gives us that thought that we, I need to be looking for his appearing and thinking about my disappearing. I'm going to disappear one day. Not a magic trick. The Bible says in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, you'll be changed. This corrupt, immortal, sorry, no good preacher Brian that I deal with every day is gonna be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. I'm gonna get a glorified body, fashioned, form-fitted, just like the Lord Jesus Christ. Won't have to deal with this present world, the sin around it, myself, amen, and I'll be absent from this body, present with the Lord, no longer singing about going to heaven, preaching about going to heaven, I'll be in heaven. Praise the Lord. Get a heavenly body. And that's when you and I will be delivered from the presence of sin. Not one person's gonna say anything out of order when you get in heaven. Churches are a funny culture sometimes. People get hurt over little things that are said. And when it happens, all you can do is try to get it right with each other. But in heaven ain't nobody, I ain't, preacher Bang on, never heard nobody's feelings in heaven. And I won't say one, I won't ever put my foot in my mouth in heaven, hallelujah. And old Peter even is gonna keep it straight in heaven, amen? It'll all be glorious up there. No presence of sin, there'll be no skid row, there'll be no drugs, there'll be no needle marks, there's not gonna be any kind of sin or wickedness or any kind of sad things. You hear so much wicked things going on in this world around us. All that suffering about that and our corrupt bodies in this corrupt world, it'll be passed away. The former things are passed away. So that's that blessed hope I'm looking for. That helps me, that encourages me. Keeps me going, amen. It's better than a quarter zone shot. I mean, it gets me going sometimes. Sometimes you feel like, is it worth it? Is it worth continuing to go on? Is this all worth it? Well, he endured the cross, despised the shame, and he went to that cross for you and I. And he encourages us, you and I, as he looked unto the author and finisher of our faith, we are to look unto the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. That encourages us. You know, these gas prices are past the threshold I never thought in my life I'd ever see. Ever. And there ain't really much hope, hope of it getting better down here. So my affections need to be set on things that are above. And one of these days, amidst of all the bad political decisions that are made, and the wars, and the rumors of wars, and all that's going on, and if you're hurting from head to toe, and you may be laying on the gurney getting ready to go to have surgery, what a glorious thought. that the Lord may call us out in the midst of all these troubles and trials. Verse 15, well, I skipped verse 14. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, purify himself unto himself, unto himself. We belong to him. Our body's not our own, it's his. He redeemed us, he paid for us with his blood. And he redeemed us from all that iniquity, the penalty of all that sin. He wants us to be delivered from that power of that sin. And the present of it one day. And to purify in himself a peculiar people. And he's done that before through Israel, calling out a peculiar people. creating as he I would be your God and you'd worship me you build a tabernacle in the wilderness and you you shed the blood and you you laid on the mercy seat and you you atone for those sins and many times God would answer by fire consume the sacrifices of peculiar people that the world had to take notice of and he did it again and he did it really greater when he did it when he died on the cross and And we don't have the Holy Spirit moving outwardly upon us as Old Testament doctrine teaches, but the Holy Spirit, he decided to move inside and abide and dwell inside of the believers in the New Testament covenant. And we're a peculiar people. We're supposed to be zealous. Now the word zealot has a negative connotation today. You're just a zealot, you know, you're some crazy religious nut. but zealous has the thought of passion. and intensity and what you're believing and what you're doing. We are very peculiar people in this world especially. Here we are wasting time on Wednesday night. You've heard everything before. Why would you even come to hear me preach? You've heard it all before. You can read it yourself. There's something peculiar because when we preach it and maybe the Lord just uses it somehow to refeed us again, to revive us again, to strengthen us again. and zealous to have zeal, excitement, and joy, energy, and passion about what we believe and put it to action in this world in the form of good works. And see, many times the mouth of the gainsayer is closed when the good works of a Bible-believing person does some kind thing, and when the world always is suspicious, and they're always wanting to take instead of give, and we go out and do good works in a zealous, peculiar manner, sometimes they don't know what to say about that. And it can be in many different forms in this world. It can be something as courteous as letting somebody go in front of you in line. I've been in line before with one thing. Men shop differently than women. I've been in the store. I knew where I was going. I knew what aisle it was on. I got it, and I went in line to get out. And the lady in front of me had two buggies full of stuff. And she let somebody else go in front, and I'm standing there and saying, you go. I said, no, that's OK. And I've let people in. And I go to eat at restaurants, and I see them coming out of workplaces, and they're coming out of work. I said, no, you guys go ahead. You're on break. I'm never working, right? I never am. I'm always on break. So I let them go forward, and they look at me weird and funny, but that's when you're considerate and kind and you think about others, because that's what Christ does in your life. He says, put yourself in the background and put others first, because in reality that begins to point people to Jesus, glorifies him. These things speak, exhort, rebuke with all authority. The word of God has such power and authority. As a young man as Timothy and Titus would have been, and going into a culture where this was all unusual doctrine and teaching, this was dynamically different than what they were raised around, he's coming in here and people are getting saved, putting people in positions of leadership, he's preaching and he's teaching to them, and some might despise it, some might attack him, Sometimes he might feel like he's, you know, who am I to declare these certain things? And God says, the authority is the word of God. Speak it with authority, amen? Rebuke with all longsuffering and doctrine as he told Timothy. He tells him here, exhort and rebuke with all authority. When I begin to preach all of my opinions, I'm not on any authority at all, not even my own. But when I preach the word of God, the unsearchable riches of Christ, when I preach the gospel and the doctrines, I have a sound platform. I have authority. And he says, let no man despise thee. I got to thinking about this as we close. You need to promote, proclaim, preach it, exhort, rebuke the word. But it's very important that we live it. You need to promote it through his life. He said, let no man despise you in this work of preaching. He was to live in a way that the preaching and the practice of his life went together and are not despised in his own actions or his own character, because they could have done that, and they could easily have done that. But when he preached with authority, they could not despise him as he was preaching the word of God, because the word of God was without, you couldn't despise it. They can say what they want to then, but it wouldn't matter. When you begin to point out our character flaws, or our faults, or all those failures in our life, that's one thing. But if he's trying to walk right, do right, and he was speaking and exhorting and rebuking with all authority, then don't let nobody despise you. He could stand courageously and say, no, listen, this is not my opinion, this is the word of God. This is the letter Paul sent to us that God gave him. And if you don't think God called Apostle Paul, then you take it up with God. That's what I would have said if I was Titus. We close out this chapter here and go into the next chapter. We won't do that tonight. I know y'all were relieved there. But for the time sake, obviously. But when we do that, we're going to look at, especially through verse 7, there's a lot of things he talks about in the way people live outside of Christ. There's a lot of references there. We'll look at that. And it's very important that we see the timeliness of this. It almost sounds like it was written just not too long ago. That's how relevant it is. Somebody says, well, we got relevant preaching down there. Well, you must be preaching the Bible then. It's not about the character or the personality of the man. It's the sound doctrine. That's what's relevant. You read those verses, you can say, man, this is just like living around here today. a way our world is shifting and changing and the sexual sins and the mentality of people, it was so prevalent then. And here it is, the last days, perilous time shall come. And they're here. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Pray you'll help us, God, to learn, to grow. Lord, in admonition and warning, help us, God, in correction. Help us, God, to take up the challenge here of sober, living, righteous in this world amongst the people in this world that are lost and godly towards you. Lord, help us to pray more, read our Bible more. Lord, may it affect our life more. Let us draw closer to you. Lord, help us to see prayers answered around here and see souls saved and see some of these off the list, Lord, that have been praying for, that have been out of church for years and years. God, that you get them back in. And pray, God, you'd help us as we go out of this world as the peculiar people you called us to be. Be zealous of good works as we live in this present world. Thank you for that blessed hope. Help us, God, to keep looking towards it, not hang our head in defeat, but be looking for your appearing. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.