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.