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Have to agree with Tom, I've
been excited all week to sing these hymns with you. I always
love singing, worshiping together as a church family, but the theme
today on the high priesthood of Christ has been beautiful.
Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free. For God, the just was satisfied
to look on him and pardon me. amazing truth. Let's bow in prayer
and you offer in your own words, quietly, your praise to God. Let's adore him. After you pray
quietly for a few moments, I will speak on our behalf together. Heavenly Father, thank you for
our high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever lives to intercede
for us. He prays for us just as he prayed
for Peter that when we fall we would not be utterly cast down,
that we would be restored. He represents us as our advocate,
our defense attorney, and he certainly doesn't plead that
we are innocent, for we are guilty. But he pleads his own blood,
which was shed on our behalf. He is our advocate and the propitiation
for our sins. Thank you for Jesus. We have
enjoyed singing of his ministry, his sacrifice, his resurrection,
his session, where right now he is at the right hand of the
Father. And we claim not our own righteousness,
for we have none. But we claim the righteousness
of Jesus, which you have imputed to us in spite of us because
you imputed our sins to him. We're amazed. So we're not the
good people. We're not smug. We're not self-congratulatory
today. We're humble. Thank you for your
mercy. Thank you for your condescension
in loving us, in pursuing us, in sending Jesus to be our Savior.
Thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit, who continues to
minister in us, comfort us, to transform us into your image.
Thank you for the gift of the church. We know, Lord, that the
church is flawed because it includes humans. But we know that the
church is the apple of your eye. That is your body, your building,
your bride, the family of God, the household of faith. We love
the church. We pray for your continued blessing
on this local church. Thank you for Killian Hill. Thank
you for establishing it four decades ago. Thank you for sustaining
it since then. Thank you for allowing it to
have such a large reach beyond our area. really around the world. Thank you that this humble body
of people is able to have such an extensive ministry for the
glory of the gospel, for the glory of Jesus Christ. I pray
for your continued blessing on this church. Thank you for your
grace in calling me to be here. Thank you that you are adding
to your church. We would pray that you would continue that
Bring like-minded people here who are ready to serve and co-labor
together Especially Lord. We love to see growth through
conversions and I pray that you would continue to Allow sinners
to hear the gospel and open their eyes and save them and add them
to your church Allow them to become disciples who are worshipers
and servants and evangelists We're asking for you to have
your hand on this church We know the Satan hates this church But
I pray that he would be entirely frustrated. I Pray that you would
fulfill your promise and I know you will Lord Jesus build your
church and Don't let the gates of hell prevail against that
we pray We're asking you to do what is far beyond us do something
here. That is supernatural. It's not
attributed to any strategies of men but it's just a show of
the power of God and Now, Lord, as we open your word, I pray
for you to instruct us and teach us. We open the Bible because
we believe it is absolutely true. It is the authoritative word
of God. It's your message to us. And we believe it is therefore
useful. It's profitable for us. I pray
today you would teach us from it and rebuke us as necessary
and correct us and train us. Specifically, Lord, train us
so that we will be more godly in our character and in our lifestyle,
so that we will please you, not only because we stand in Christ,
but we will please you because we are becoming more and more
like Christ. So do these things for your own
glory, we pray. Confidently because of Jesus
Christ our Savior. Amen. Take your Bibles, please, and
turn to the Book of Titus. While you do that, I'm going
to take a moment and make a few introductions. I don't mean to
do this every week, but we've had a number of guests that I've
wanted to introduce. Last week, greeted Katie Longacre,
who is here to teach and has been getting settled in this
week. And this week, Megan Keeney is here for the first time. Megan
is part of our school faculty now and welcome home. It's got
to be a weird thing to be visiting your home church for the first
time. We're glad you decided to attend Kaelin Hill Baptist
Church. We are glad you're here, Megan. We've been praying for
you and I believe we have just one more teacher that will be
moving in and that's David Eilert and he should arrive tomorrow.
Pray for them as they get settled in. Glad that the Lord has brought
you here. We have a missionary family with
us today. We get the privilege of having
Missionaries kind of in and out of here as it's a hub for various
reasons but friends of the Cassis family Fabian and Erica Lopez
are here and they are missionaries Chile and We're so glad that
you can be with us today and pray that the service to be a
blessing to you I think I'm right in saying that these two people
have never been here before and Madeline Custer has never been
here before. Madeline, too, has spent her
life here, but Madeline Custer has never been here. Am I right?
Okay, you weren't here when I was absent for a few weeks. So, welcome.
And then, also, I think John Alidi is here for the first time. Is that true, or has John been
here another time? John Alidi, are you first timer?
Your second time. Well, welcome back. Love to see
the Lord blessing our young people and sending them out of here
to serve him in other places with new names. Oftentimes, but
welcome home. Let me make one other announcement.
I don't think it's in the bulletin, and I'll give you some more information
about it this week, but the College and Career class often has a
lunch at the Simpsons' house the first Sunday of the month.
And next Sunday, my family is crashing that party. And we had
had an idea of hosting the College and Career group at our home,
and they said they already had something planned at their house.
I said, that's even better. You do all the work and we'll
just join you. And our intention, we just want to spend some time
with that important group in our church. And there are some
of you that are here all year round. There are some of you
that as students, you're about to return to college and we wanted
to schedule it at a time where you would still be here before
you leave. I hope you'll make plans to be with us next week.
And then also we have some people that are just moving to the area,
especially because of their involvement with school. Whoever you are,
whether, even some of you that just graduated from high school,
now you're part of that group and we're just anxious to spend
some time with you next Sunday afternoon. I hope you plan to
be there. Really, however many people come, it doesn't matter.
Invite your friends because it's not my house. So, fill the Simpsons
house and we'll look forward to a good fellowship together. This is the third week of a brief
series we're doing on the topic of godliness. We've talked about
taking aim at godliness. And the idea is that our spiritual
growth is not an accident. It's something that we should
be pursuing and laboring toward, training ourselves for. I can
summarize the last two weeks in the following two points.
First, spiritual growth requires intentional effort and personal
responsibility. That's coming from 1 Timothy
4, verses 7 and 8, where Paul tells Timothy to train himself,
to discipline, to exercise himself, to be godly. You have to do it
yourself, right? Your parents, your pastor, your
spouse can't make you godly. It's something you need to own
as your own responsibility, enabled by the Spirit, but you need to
be working at it. Last week, we studied the topic
of godliness, particularly from the pastoral epistles, and learned
that godliness is a God-centered attitude, what we call fearing
God, that results in God-pleasing actions, and that is obeying
God. To some degree, this series has
been a good reminder for me and maybe even a little bit of a
corrective. And we'll talk about this through the message today.
But, you know, from when I preach and when I pray that I am perpetually
saying, God, I have no righteousness. I don't claim because I'm good.
I'm not praying because I'm good. I'm praying because Jesus Christ,
the righteous one, has had his righteousness imputed to me.
And there's this clothing in his robes and his righteousness.
So, God, I approach you on his merit. That is so vitally true. My standing with God is not because
of my performance. It's because of what Jesus has
already done and completed. But if we're not careful, We
can almost say it doesn't matter if we are striving to please
God since God is pleased with me because of Jesus imputed righteousness. I guess I don't need to worry
about my own conduct. I don't need to worry about my
own righteous deeds. That's not true. OK, I am accepted
by God because of Jesus. And yet in my daily life, I can
please or displease him. Think of it this way. My daughters
are related to me. And when they fail, I don't get
rid of them. I have a relationship that is
permanent with them. But do they ever displease me? Do I ever get frustrated with
them? Do I ever have to discipline them? Yes. The Father accepts
me as His beloved because of Jesus. But when I displease Him,
when I disobey Him, He can chasten me. He can get frustrated with
me. I can come under His fatherly
chastisement. And I don't want to be so focused
on imputed righteousness that we deemphasize the necessity
of righteous living, of righteous conduct, of transforming into
the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we want to have a
God-centered attitude that results in God-pleasing actions, not
because that makes me acceptable to God for my salvation, but
because now that I'm accepted through Christ, I want to please
Him because I love Him. This will be the third time that
you've seen these concepts presented. What we're saying is, That your
justification was instantaneous and monergistic. Fancy word that
means God did it all by himself. Without your assistance, when
you repented and trusted Christ, God justified you. You were not
an active participant. You were a passive recipient. Sanctification is not that way.
Your sanctification is progressive, not instantaneous. And it's synergistic,
meaning there are there's more than one power at work. God is
working and I am working in cooperation with him. We cooperate with God
in our growth as he enables us by his spirit. The point is.
We get saved, if you want to say justification as a gift from
God. but we grow in Christ-likeness
in cooperative effort with God. It's not something that just
happens to us in answer to prayer or by accident. Today we're talking
about godliness again, and I want to see specifically the role
that grace plays in godliness. I would say there's two ditches.
Imagine we're driving down the road, and if we're not careful,
we can go into one ditch. If we're not careful, we can
go into the other ditch. One ditch is this idea. It's wrong.
Some people would say we are justified and sanctified by grace
alone. In other words, you don't work.
It's not by works. It's all grace. OK, we would say we're justified
by grace alone. It's not true that we're sanctified
by grace alone. OK, that's antinomianism. You
say that's a big, fancy word. Yeah, it just means that that
is lawlessness. The word namas in Greek is law.
This is against the idea that we have law, that we have to
obey, that we have to actually exert ourselves. We don't believe
that. But the ditch on the other side is that we are justified
by grace and sanctified by works. Isn't that what we're saying?
That's not what we're saying. That is legalism. Aren't you
glad God justified you? Now it's up to you. Good luck.
Work hard. And many churches will teach
that kind of thing. You get justified by faith in
Christ and then roll up your sleeves. Get to work, big boy.
And that's hopelessness. It's rule keeping. It's legalism. Well, where is where is the truth,
then? The truth is this. Grace teaches us to be godly. Instructing us and enabling us
to fight on godliness and pursue godliness, there you have that
idea of synergism. God's grace is at work in me. And I'm not
a passive recipient. God's grace makes me able to
participate in my growth in godliness. God's grace is my teacher, my
instructor. But I have to fight, I have to
pursue. I think we'll see that specifically
in the text we're studying today, Titus 2, 11 through 14. Beautiful passage. It's probably
a passage, if you know the Bible at all, you probably know this
fairly well. I want you to consider it with fresh eyes today. Page
998, if you're using a pew Bible, let's read together this. This
in Greek is one run on sentence. It just kind of keeps on going
from the beginning of 11 to the end of 14. Let's read the Word
of God together. Here's our text. For the grace
of God has appeared. Bringing salvation for all people. Training us to renounce ungodliness
and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and
godly lives in the present age. Waiting, we're used to the word
looking. for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of
our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for
us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people
for His own possession who are zealous for good works. Verse 15, he underlines this.
He says, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. The grace of God has appeared.
The grace of God is teaching us to renounce ungodliness. And in this present age, the
grace of God is teaching us to live lives that are distinctly
different from what we were before we met the Lord Jesus Christ. We have backstory. We're jumping
into chapter two of the book of Titus. The book of Titus. We read about
the Cretans. All right. Cretans. What's that
mean? They lived on the island of Crete. OK, there's a church
plant on the island of Crete. Titus is a young pastor of that
congregation. The Cretans are known for being
particularly sinful. We read in Titus 1 and verse
12, it says one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, described
them this way. Cretans are always liars, evil
beasts, lazy gluttons. So Paul quotes from literature
of his day and he says this is a true witness. The Cretans are
notoriously sinful. Paul is now pressing the believers
to live like Christians, not like Cretans, OK? You grew up
in this environment. This is what you were like. You
were gluttonous. You were lazy. You were liars.
You were sinful. But now you've come to Christ,
you can't live the same way. You might work at the same place,
you might have the same relationships, but you're different by nature
and by conduct, you're supposed to be Christ like, not Cretan
like. And throughout the book, he's
going to urge again and again, That you're different and your
works should be different. It's going to emphasize works
again and again and again. He's going to say that your life
should be consistent with your profession. Paul undergirds his ethical orders,
his instructions, his commands with Christ, hence. The word
for to start this run on sentence, look again at Titus 2, 11 for
or because the grace of God has appeared. What precedes that? Well, in chapter two, we have
10 verses saying, here's how you're supposed to live. We've
talked about often in Paul's epistles, we have several chapters
explaining the work of Christ, and then we have therefore and
then we have a bunch of commands. So we go from indicatives for
word nerds, English people out there. We have indicative statements
of fact about Jesus. And then we have imperatives,
commands about how we're supposed to live. All right, this time
it's actually reversed. We have 10 verses in chapter
two that says, here's the way you should live. Older men should
live this way. Older women should live this
way. Younger men should live this way. And he goes through
all of these relationships and says we should be adorning the
gospel by the way we live. We should make the gospel look
good. The way I live should make the
gospel look good to my neighbors. And then he says, here's the
reason for that. Because verse 11, the grace of
God has appeared. So he says, I'm going to give
you commands, but I'm going to to focus your attention back
on Christ, back on his first coming. And as we'll see, looking
ahead to his second coming. So it's important to understand
the context where this paragraph is coming from. I think that
will suffice to kind of get the back story. Let me read to you a statement
from Kevin D. Young. He's a pastor in Michigan,
a younger guy, a really gifted preacher and writer, reading
a book that he has written called The Hole in Our Holiness. And he's writing, ironically,
he's speaking on behalf of church members, and he's not saying
this is true, but he's saying this is the way we think. He says,
we are all hopeless sinners. Is that true? That's true. We can do nothing to please God.
No one is really humble or pure or obedient. The pursuit of holiness
is just bound to make us feel guilty. So we figure all we can
really do is cling to Christ. We are loved because of the imputed
righteousness of Christ. But personal obedience that pleases
God is simply not possible. The truly super spiritual do
not pursue holiness. They celebrate their failures
as opportunities to magnify the grace of God. Right, can you
see how it's easy to fall into that trap where we were humble
and we say, man, I'm so sinful. God, I'm not approaching you
as a good person. I'm a sinner. Is that true? It's true. God,
I'm so sinful. But if we're not careful, we
can we can overemphasize that and say, God, I'm so sinful,
I just give up. And my only hope is Jesus imputed
righteousness. Now, you know, I love Jesus imputed
righteousness. But I can't be so excited about
that that I neglect my responsibility to be pursuing holiness. I can't
just give up. And every time I fail, I say,
man, I am a worse sinner than ever. Thank you, Jesus. At some
point. I need to say thank you, God,
for forgiveness. But do you remember? Do you remember the balance even
of the Lord's Prayer? He taught us to pray, forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And then what's the next statement? Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. All right, Jesus, you're my high
priest. And I sin and you forgive me
because of your shed blood. Thank you. But Jesus, you're
also my high priest that can pray for me to obey. I want to pray and ask you to
help me obey, not just pray after I sin and thank you for forgiveness.
I want to do some preventative maintenance. I don't only want
to appeal to God in prayer when I've blown it. I want to appeal
to God ahead of time to say, God, keep me from that thing
that I hate, the thing that costs you so dearly. That's why I'm
burdened about this idea. Don't be so excited about your
standing that you neglect your walking. Your act of obedience
in response to the gospel. There's four verses and we're
going to unpack them in four points. The start of them is
just beautiful. It's a beautiful text. Christ
is the incarnation of grace for the grace of God has appeared. What do you mean the grace of
God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people? What event in
history is he talking about when he says the grace of God has
appeared, bringing salvation to all people? Well, who appeared
bringing salvation that's offered to all? Who appeared? Christ. What he's saying is at Christ's
first coming, grace appeared. Grace came on the scene. Jesus'
first advent. When we when we speak of the
incarnation, we're speaking of his birth, that God has become
flesh and lived among us. Jesus first advent was the appearance
or epiphany of grace. The reason I use the word epiphany
verse 11 says the grace of God has appeared. OK, the Greek word. Not all Greek words are helpful.
This one really is helpful in helping our understanding. It's
the word apophane or the idea we have a transliteration of
that into English. It's the epiphany, the appearance
of grace. All right. The grace of God has
broken into humanity. It's appeared. OK, now, now we
have to understand that. Was grace active in the Old Testament?
I mean, are we saying that until Jesus' birth, the rest of human
history was graceless? Did God extend grace in the Old
Testament? Of course he did. I mean, anyone that ever walked
with God, walked with God because of his grace, because of his
condescension, because of his provision of a way of forgiveness.
OK, and we'll read text even in the book of Genesis that Noah
found grace in the eyes of the Lord and we'll praise God that
he is so gracious, so merciful, so compassionate. We're not saying
that grace was inactive in the Old Testament. We're saying the
grace climax. Grace climaxed at the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ. OK, sometimes we'll say we'll
say poetically that at the birth of Jesus, we'll say love came
down to earth or love was born at Christmas. What do you mean
love was born at Christmas? Love wasn't born. Jesus was born.
But Jesus is the personification, the perfection of God's love. And it's not incorrect to say
that that love incarnate arrived at the first coming of Jesus.
Well, in this text, Paul is saying that grace has broken into the
scene. Grace has appeared. When did
grace appear? It appeared at the first coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at John 1 and verse 17. In this prologue to the book
of John, we have a description of the Word that is the perfect
revelation from God. He's the creator of all things.
We read in John 1.14, the Word became flesh and lived among
us. We have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father,
full of grace and truth. Look at verse 17. It talks about
how grace has been heaped on us through Jesus. Verse 17, For
the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth come through
Jesus Christ. Now, Moses experienced God's
grace. The law had provisions of grace,
but not like the Lord Jesus. In the Old Covenant, we had the
Law with its regulation and with its condemnation. But grace and
truth were personified in Jesus. God has heaped grace upon grace
on us through the coming of His Son. We might borrow the language
from John 1.14 and say, God's grace became flesh and lived
among us. That's what Titus 2.11 is saying.
The grace of God has appeared in the birth, the life, the death,
The person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He goes on, he says,
the coming of grace. In the Lord Jesus brings salvation
for all people. So that saving grace arrived
with Jesus and it is available to all men, all right, to all
people, men, women, child, Jew, Gentile, it's available to everyone. The Bible is clear, this is not
teaching that everyone is saved. Some people that want to argue
for universalism say, oh, salvation has come to all people. Salvation
is offered, it's provided, it's available to all people. It's
a universal offer of salvation, it's not universal salvation
even for those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ, obviously.
But it is what I call a decontextualization. OK, that word might not be common
jargon for you. There are a lot of people that
say we have to contextualize the gospel. OK, what they're
saying is we take the same gospel message, but we have to change
it depending on what kind of groups of people we're talking
to. There's some truth to that. And there's a lot of nonsense
that happens in the name of contextualization. But actually, what what Paul
is doing here is he says, I'm decontextualizing. There's not
a specific salvation for middle class Americans and a different
message to take to Africans. And there's not a different message
or even method for people in different parts of the world
or for people from different classes. He says salvation is
provided through Christ for all people. And instead of making
variations, he says, essentially, we're all the same male, female,
Whatever your ethnicity, Jew, Gentile, whether you're a noble,
whether you're a peasant, he says all people have the opportunity
of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. There is one way,
there's one salvation. And that has appeared through
the coming of Jesus. D. Edmund Hebert speaks about
this appearance. And we're making a big deal about
this because we're going to come back to it. It's going to appear again
in our text, the verb epiphany from which we derive our word
epiphany means to become visible, to make an appearance. It conveys
the image of grace suddenly breaking in on our moral darkness like
the rising sun. In fact, he says it's used of
the sun's appearance in Acts 27 and verse 20. Grace of God. that brings salvation to all
people has. Appeared, I don't think that's
difficult to understand, let's keep reading into verse 12, what
does that grace do? The grace of God that has appeared.
Verse 12 now is training us. We're teaching us to renounce
ungodliness and worldly passions, and it is training us To live
self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age. This really gets to the meat
of the message. The grace that saves you also
changes you. We can't just say, I'm glad I'm
saved by grace. You are being sanctified by grace. But not
by grace alone, that grace is enabling you and motivating you
and activating you. Sanctifying grace teaches us
to deny ungodliness and worldly passions. It teaches us to do
something. OK, in our text, if you're using
the ESV, I memorized this in King James. Grace of God that
brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that
denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly,
righteously and godly in this present world. It says we deny
ungodliness. The idea that is reflected more
clearly in the ESV is that we are renouncing it. OK, we're
not just saying no, I'm tempted to be ungodly and I say no, not
today. I'm renouncing it. It's the idea of a revolution.
OK. You Cretans. Have lived a life
from birth that is so sinful. And when your sinful impulses
told you to do something, you were at their beck and call and
you just went with it. You lived that way. Now that
you've come to the Lord Jesus Christ, you have a new master,
a new lord, a new king. You're not under that that old
tyrant, your flesh and worldly lusts anymore. And because of
the gospel, you now can have a coup, if you will. I mean,
in some sense, it's already been accomplished. But as you live
it out, the flesh is tempting you to sin. And you say, I'm
not going to listen to you anymore. I don't have to obey you anymore.
I'm not under bondage to sin anymore that I have to obey it.
Roman six says. So I'm not just denying it each time. I'm saying
you are not the operating factor in my life. I'm not under your
power anymore. The gospel has freed me. Gospel
has changed me. I wondered if this would be a
helpful description, it's flawed and I'll explain that. But if
you have if you have read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or
if you've seen the films, there's this point where Smeagol, you
know, Smeagol is Gollum and he's often talking to himself and
he's, I guess, schizophrenic or something, but there's a battle
in him. There's a point at which Smeagol
says to Gollum, to the tempter, he says, leave now and never
come back. I'm tired of listening to you.
I'm tired of doing what you say. You're a bad influence on me.
Leave now and never come back. Maybe you think, you know, yeah,
that's just that's just weird science fiction nonsense. There
is there is an insight. into us in literature like this. And actually, when I read it
and saw it, I identified with the struggle with sin where you
say, I am so sick of you. Old man, Chris, I'm so sick of
you. Leave. I'm done with you. I'm
not obeying you anymore. I'm sick of doing these sins.
And there's a fight. Sadly, The fight ends for a time, but
not forever. And I wonder if that's not the
experience of many people. They say, I'm resisting sin.
I'm resisting temptation. Leave. I'm fighting you. And
you think the battle's over. And unfortunately, it's not over.
OK, there's going to be another fight. The flesh is going to
come back again. But that idea, the desire. And now it's not
just the two of you fighting, but now the reality for us as
Christians is We're saying to ungodliness and worldly passions,
we're saying, I don't have to listen to you anymore. I'm I'm
renouncing you, you have no authority on me anymore because I am connected
to Christ. The grace of God trains us how
to deny ungodliness, how to deny These worldly passions and those
worldly passions, it may be lost, but it also may just be pride.
It may be sinful ambition and selflessness or selfishness.
And he says we fight it. There is no easy growth. There's
no easy growth. I'll tell you, I wish I could
say leave now and never come back. I wish it was that easy.
I wish I could go forward in a service. I wish I could raise
my hand, pray a certain prayer. And wow, I just don't struggle
with temptation. Wouldn't that be nice? It's not the way it
is. Grace is teaching us to keep
renouncing, to keep fighting, to keep struggling. It's also teaching us to pursue
godliness. It says we are to renounce the
old lifestyle and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives, and
then you might even underline, in this present age. It's teaching us to pursue godliness. We can live self-controlled,
self-mastered lives now. As long as you understand that
self-control is under the Spirit's control. But he's saying we can
live it this day, in this present age. Don't think that the benefits
of Christianity are all coming after you die. You know, I'm
the same old person, doing the same old things, but now I'm
going to heaven. A lot of people think of Christianity that way.
Jesus died for me and my life is unchanged, but at least I'm
going to heaven. He says, I want to talk about
how you're living in this present age. Jesus' work on your behalf
was not just for the future and for eternity. Jesus' work on
your behalf has strong implications for today. You can live a self-mastered
life today. You can live an upright, righteous
life today. You can live in a godly way today. This training and learning is
progressive. The verbs he's using, it doesn't
say that that has happened, says it is happening. Grace didn't
teach us this. It is teaching us this. And that's why we call it progressive
sanctification. The grace of God that saves you. Will change you. So he says,
I don't know if that's true, I mean, I've been saved and I'm
not changed at all, I'm the same person as ever. Then maybe you're not
genuinely saved is what first John would say. If there's no
transformation of your life, I'm not saying perfection, but
if there's no progress and when you sin, if there's no grief
and there's no chasing scripture would say, well, the reason you're
not being chastened is because you're lost. The gospel, the grace that
saves you will transform you. Again, DeYoung says when it comes
to growth and godliness, trusting does not put an end to trying. We're talking about spirit enabled
effort. It's work. It's hard. We rely on God, but we're not
just praying for him to do what he's commanded us to do. Bible
teaches us to deny ungodliness and pursue godliness. Spurgeon
comments on this passage. He says he does not talk about
a kind of grace that would leave men in sin and yet save them
from its punishment. No, his salvation is salvation
from sin. He does not talk about a free
grace which winks at iniquity and makes nothing of transgression,
but of greater grace by far, which denounces the iniquity,
condemns the transgression and then delivers the victim of it
from the habit which has brought him into bondage. He declares
that the grace of God has shown upon the world in the work of
Jesus in order that the darkness of its sin and ignorance may
disappear and the brightness of holiness and righteousness
and peace may rule the day. Scripture is saying that what
Christ has done dealt with the guilt of your sin, yes, but it
also dealt with the power of your sin. You don't have to be
Satan's whipping boy. You know, do you ever feel like,
man, I just. Every time he makes a suggestion,
I fall, you know, sometimes I felt growing up, I felt like if Satan
was having a bad day, you know, like he's just he's fishing and
he's getting no bites. He's like, well, at least I know
I can get this guy because he's easy. Yeah, I don't want to be
the favorite fishing hole for Satan. I don't have to be. The gospel teaches me and trains
me and provides for me. The grace enabled spirit empowered
ability to obey the scriptures. I love this look on a verse 13.
Waiting or looking, the idea is of expectancy, waiting for
our blessed hope. What is that blessed hope? The
appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, this is beautiful. You say,
Pastor, this sounds like so much hard work. Yeah, it is. Oh, but
there's beauty and there's hope. Our growth is bookended by Christ
to advents. We've talked about the epiphany
idea. OK, verse 11 said that the Christ has appeared in grace,
the grace of God has appeared. But verse 13 says we are looking
for and anticipating and waiting for our blessed hope. The appearance,
it's the same word. The second appearance. Of the
great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Says, I know it's
tough, I know you feel like you're tracking through the mud and
I know you get weary. But you're looking back to what
Christ did at His first coming, and you're looking ahead to what
Christ will do at His second coming, and it motivates you,
and it inspires you. Don't just look at the muck around
you. We look unto Jesus. He has appeared in grace. He
will appear in glory. And He said, this is our blessed
hope. What's that mean? Blessed means happy. The hope
is the expectation, the yearning, the longing. We're looking and
like John in the book of Revelation, we're saying, Lord Jesus, come,
come quickly. We read of death and disease
and destruction, and we say, I'm so, Lord, I'm so grieved
by this world, come fix it. He says, as we are fighting our
sin, as we're pursuing God and godliness, we keep an eye on
the Lord Jesus Christ and we yearn for His appearance. It's
a blessed hope. And this hope is not a maybe. This hope is a certainty. It
will happen. It's coming. It's a happy thing. Put a note there. This is pastoral
eschatology. Eschatology is the study of future
things, the study of end times. Eschatology is often something
that freaks people out. We either get scared by it. You
know, you read the left behind books or as a kid, I would watch
any of you watch a thief in the night or a distant thunder. I
got saved like 10 times watching those movies. I would think of
what's coming and I would get I would get sweaty palms. Revelation
is such a scary book. He says the culmination of the
age, the return of Christ, is not something we dread. It's
not something we fight about, we debate about. You know, you
make your chart and I'll make my chart and we'll fight over
who's right. It's not the way the Bible presents prophecy. It says this is happy. Why is
it happy? Because Jesus wins. I'm not sure
I have the chart all figured out. But Jesus wins. He's coming back. It's a happy
hope. And instead of this being something
that makes you nervous or makes you mad or, you know, we debate
over, can we cooperate together if we have little differences
on the on the hooks in our chart? At some point, you just say,
you know what? Some things in Scripture are abundantly clear. Some things I'm not absolutely
certain of all the details. But I know this, Jesus is coming
back for real, humanly. He wins. He'll bring judgment. And I'm happy about it. I had
a professor in school, Michael Barrett, who I quote a lot, I
recognize. He said, he said, if you put
a gun to my head and tell me to deny the virgin birth, I'll
tell you to pull the trigger. If you tell me to deny that salvation
is is through faith alone in Christ alone, you tell me to
deny that, I'll tell you to pull the trigger. He says, you put
a gun to my head and say, deny your understanding of the rapture
and its timing. He says, we'll put the gun down
and let's talk a little bit. All right. You say you're not
sure about what's coming. There are minutia that are debatable. What are we sure of? Christ is
coming and he wins. And we long for it. We say, Jesus,
come quickly. Prophecy shouldn't make you mad,
shouldn't make you scared, it should make you happy. And pastoral
eschatology means that you apply it to your life. As a pastor,
I want to preach prophecy in a way that doesn't spook you
or confuse you. It motivates you and you say,
Jesus, I can't wait. Help me live in light of your
coming. Help me apply it to my life today. It's a beautiful statement of
Jesus' deity. This passage is so full. Do you
notice what it says? It says, waiting for a blessed
hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior.
That's one person, not two. The great God and Savior. The
great God is our Savior, Jesus Christ. By the way, this is for free. But he says, what are we waiting
for? It's the glorious coming of Christ. For the longest time
I have used Titus 2.13, I would say, you know, the blessed hope
of the church is the rapture. And then I put in parentheses
Titus 2.13. Whatever's happening here. The description of this
return is not quiet and secretive, what is it? It's the coming in
glory, you know, we'll often say the return of Christ is coming
with power and great glory. All right. However, we work this
out in our chart, Titus 2, 13 is saying we long for the glorious
coming of Christ. He came in grace and humility
his first time. He's coming with power and glory
the second time. Jesus come win. Fix everything
we long for. You are the great God, your savior.
So the text would encourage us To be cross centered and crown
centered. OK, here's another error. I would say I'm prone to. I keep
telling you these things, you're just going to come and say, OK,
pastor's lying to us. I'm not lying to you. But we
all we all have a tendency to overemphasize some things and
deemphasize others. I talk about the centrality of
the cross and it's right. We need to be centered on the
cross. But we're also centered and focused on the crown. What
I mean is we're not just looking back at what Jesus did. We're
anticipating what he's going to do. And we don't just live
the cross centered life. We live the throne centered,
the crown centered life, not mine, but his. So we don't just
look back to Jesus death. We anticipate his coming. We're
focused on Christ, whether it's his humility or his glory. And I love this. We walk between
these two great lights. My Christian life, I'm fighting
my flesh. I'm fighting the temptation of
the world. The devil hates me. He wants to ruin me. Grace is
teaching me to slug it out. I deny ungodliness. I pursue
righteousness. And it's so hard sometimes and
so frustrating. But I am walking between two
great lights. It reminds me like of the Pilgrim's
Progress. We're on this journey and it's
wearisome and it's tiring. But you picture this journey
you're on for 60, 70, 80 years, as tough as it is, there is a
great light shining, an epiphany shining. from the first coming
of Christ. And there's a great light shining
from the second coming of Christ. And they motivate you. And they
light the way. They give you hope. They give
you an example. And you're perpetually looking
backward and forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so our spiritual
progress is Christ-focused. It doesn't mean, like some would
teach today, all you do to grow as a Christian is sit and ponder
Jesus. Just passively ponder Jesus. No, no. You fight. You walk. You resist. And as
you do those things, you ponder Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith, the one who began it at His gracious appearing,
the one who will conclude it at His glorious appearing. You
keep your eye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ must be always
ever before our eyes. We're actually going to be there
in second Corinthians next week. We are looking to Christ. We're
fixated. We're focused on him. Before I have to be very quickly,
verse 14, very quick here. says our God and Savior Jesus
Christ and get this keep keep thinking keep working with me
Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all
lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own
possession who are zealous for good works Verse 14 says Christ
gave himself to change our earthly lives. We've already talked about
this concept. I think I can hurry through it.
But the concept is Christ didn't just give himself to get me to
heaven. He gave himself to change the
way I live in this present evil age. Christ gave himself to deliver
me from sin. He died to purchase us out of
lawlessness. He redeemed us. It goes on to
say he is purifying us for his own possession. The point of
this Christ gave himself so he could claim us as his own. This
is mine. These are my people. Not just
in heaven, they're my people now, they're serving me now,
they're working now. Galatians 1.4 similarly says
that he has ransomed us, not from hell, he's ransomed us from
sin, from iniquities. It says He died to purify us
for Himself. It deals with our present works,
not just our standing in Christ, not just our future in Heaven.
It says He gave Himself to purify for Himself a possession, a people,
a peculiar people who are zealous for good works. We're not like,
you know, take it or leave it. If I grow, I grow. If I don't,
I don't. Thank you, Jesus. You did it all. Well, you know,
I might evangelize maybe if I feel like it. Maybe not. Christ gave
His blood. He laid down His life to change
you now. So you'll be zealous for His
service. You'll be active and loving and
motivated. Think of it this way. When I
sin, I am working against the very purposes for which Christ
shed his blood. Again, it would be easy to say
when I sin. Thank you, Jesus. You're righteous,
I'm unrighteous. We know the drill. My standing is in Jesus Christ.
And when I sin, He is my advocate, the propitiation for my sins.
But my sin is a tragedy. It matters. I don't just shrug
it off. I say, Jesus, You gave Yourself
to change my life now. And I want that to be lived out.
And I thank You for forgiveness. But enable me to obey. Grace,
teach me to obey. Sanctification matters. It's
not legalism to say, I want to live in a way that pleases God.
That's not legalism. It's obedience. It's what grace
teaches you to strive for and yearn for. You say, Pastor, I
feel like I feel like I'm Smeagol, like I have these big hopes and
I keep blowing it. I know. The day will come when
you're with Jesus and all this fight will be gone. We'll be
like him because we see him as he is. And when I say come, Lord
Jesus, I don't mean just fix the world with all of its disasters
and wars and hardships and cancer. I mean, Jesus, come, because
I'm so sick of me and my flesh. Come. I can't wait till temptation's
gone. I yearn for that. But the fact
that my obedience isn't going to be perfect now doesn't mean
I just mail it in and say, you know, I'll just hang on. Jesus,
I'm just going to roll with it and then you'll fix me when you
come back. Jesus, help me to be like you now, not perfectly,
but progressively. We've said it many times. I know
I'm not going to be sinless, but oh, how I want to be sinning
less. I want to be growing. I want
to be progressing. stretching forward. This matters. Verse 15, Paul ends this. You think this is important?
Look at the end of the chapter. Do you think this is important?
Hey, Titus, declare these things, exhort people, rebuke with all
authority. Don't let anybody disregard you. I'm a pastor and here's my marching
orders. You better preach this. You better
do it with authority, with urgency. Don't let people ignore you.
OK, I don't know exactly how that works out. What was Titus
supposed to do? Take take this as a spiritual
shaking to say, pay attention. This really matters. Don't just
disregard it. You're going to leave here. We
have other things coming up. We have the team presentation.
You're going to go to lunch. But don't disregard the word of God.
This is important. It's life changing for us. Conclude
this way if you don't yet know Jesus as your Savior Scripture
makes a universal offer to all people if you will turn from
your sin and trust in Jesus today You will be saved grace has come
to save you today. You need to ask him Jesus save
me So I'm not sure exactly how all that works. I know he'll
take care of it. He's really good at that You repent of your sin you
trust in Jesus He'll take care of it You do know Jesus know
that he is very serious about your present purity now You've
been forgiven from sin, but you can be progressively freed from
its dominion and power. Grace is teaching this, Titus
2 tells you. Grace is teaching you. Now learn
what it's teaching and live it out as you take aim at godliness. Let's bow in prayer, please. Lord, this is a meaty text. And we haven't done it justice,
what it portrays about Jesus, what he's done in the past, what
he'll do in the future, his identity, not just as the Savior, but as
God. It's such a beautiful passage. I pray, Lord, that you'll help
us to keep learning the lessons that grace is teaching. I thank
you that we are saved in spite of ourselves, but, oh God, I
pray that we will be progressing in godliness, looking unto Jesus,
earnestly expecting your return. Jesus, come quickly. In the meantime,
change us, help us, grow us in godliness. I pray for Jesus'
sake. Amen.
Grace Teaches Godliness
| Sermon ID | 728141556251 |
| Duration | 1:00:00 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Titus 2:11-14 |
| Language | English |
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