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Where like every page of scripture,
if we're arrogant, if we're more full of ourselves than full of
God's word, we might find it somewhat offensive. There's a
great preface for Sunday morning. The word of God is about to be
offensive. But we find it's in the household code where we're
studying Titus two, where Paul, just like in Ephesians and just
like in Colossians is saying, there's a right way to conduct
yourself in the household. Part of the Roman household and
their culture involved household slaves. And so Paul is now going
to address the slaves in Titus two, beginning in verse nine. Now we've heard a lot last week
about how, uh, Now Titus, we did a deep dive on two, six through
eight on how Titus is supposed to be an example for the young
men of good work in his teaching and how that is to basically
put Christians in a posture showing themselves an example. And therefore
we live kind of in a fishbowl. That was the deep dive in Titus
two, six through eight. Now we're going to survey mode
again and go through hopefully verses nine through 15 today.
Paul says, urge bond slaves to be subject to their own masters
and everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering,
but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine
of God our Savior in every respect. And then he summarizes what all
this household code teaching is supposed to accomplish. We
had, remember, older men in verse two, are supposed to be temperate,
dignified, sensible, sound in faith and love and perseverance.
Older women are supposed to be the same thing. They're supposed
to be that. But then they also have, Paul gives Titus instruction
that they have a teaching responsibility and it's to teach the younger
women to be sound minded women, good wives, obedient, but also
lovers of their husbands, lovers of their children. I'll read
it so they don't get in trouble going beyond what the text says.
You have to be teachers of the good in verse three, so that
the older may encourage the younger women to love their husbands,
love their children, be sensible, pure workers at home, kind, subject
to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
And we say, wait a second. He's not, I know it's not up
to you. He's not saying, he's not saying that I want you to,
just do this because it's the right thing. It is true. He's
saying older women need to help the younger women have a sound
mind to be sensible about this part of life because the word
of God is on display. It's so the word won't be spoken
against. In other words, it's not just that your marriage is
for you, your marriage and everything about your life is about God
and about his work. And that means that it no longer
has temporary, transitory insignificance. That means that your marriage,
your life, your choices, your relationships have eternal significance
because God is saying these are part of your witness for Christ.
See what happens if you hang on to your life? Jesus says you
lose it. If for his sake you lose your
life, then you find it. What's this mean? This means
that go to Ecclesiastes. Everything's going away. It's
like a vapor. It's very short. Time is ticking. It's very short,
this life, however long you get. And so if all there is, is this
transitory moment of my experience, that's not good enough. But when
God says your choices matter to me eternally, now we see infinite
significance because God is saying, I consider this important. I
consider it significant. So now your marriage is your
mission and Older women should be sound minding literally. So
for needs though to cause to have a sound mind, they should
be training the younger women in this in the sense of encouragement.
And then Paul, again, goes after the young men. He says, Titus,
you urge the young men, encourage them to be sensible, and all
things show yourself to be an example of good deeds with purity
and doctrine, dignified sound and speech, which is beyond reproach,
so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing
bad to say about us. Again, the young men, often a
cause. Listen, the young men, often
a cause for the scandal. Young men are angry and all the
things, and they're responsible to know everything, and they
know very little. And all, you know, think about marriage. You
make the biggest decision about how your life is going to turn
out when you're young and clueless. And we pray that you have wise
people around you to help you with this. But for the most part,
we know what, how that goes, especially in the culture we
live in. That's our, that's, that's the old people culture.
We're the young people culture we've separated. And so we're
going to just do what we feel like doing because we think it's
right. And we can all attest as we get a little bit of gray
hair that, um, you will pierce yourselves. Let me borrow something
out of context. You'll pierce yourselves through with many
griefs, like the person who wants to get rich in this life now.
The apostle has encouraged Titus to take the young men at hand.
They're Cretans, literally, they live on Crete, and he needs to
train them by his example to be pure and doctrinally dignified,
sound in speech and beyond reproach, and so that the opponent will
be put to shame. And again, we're on display. Pay no attention to us testing
our speakers as we figure this out. All right, let's get into
Titus 2.9 and sink down a little bit into what Paul says about
slaves. First of all, he starts off with slaves, doulos. It's the stock word for somebody
that is owned by another in the Roman system, a doulos. It's
just a Greek word. It means slave. If you soften
it by saying bondservant, then you're missing the point, I think,
very often because, It means that you, even if it's just for
a period of time, a seven year bond, you still are owned by
that person and you're still their property. And so to our
sensibilities, Americans really, because of our founding, if you
think about history, because of the founding, not in spite
of the founding, because of the founding where we said all men
are created equal because of our sensibilities as Americans
and our desire for freedom and that heart cry to not be owned
by others. And that's really the whole argument
in the war for independence. We're English citizens, but they're
treating us like slaves. This is unthinkable to us, but
that's our sensibility based on our history, and it isn't
what the scripture says. The scripture says, if you find
somebody that's a slave, and I argue that very likely the
majority of the early church in Paul's day was enslaved. This is the lowest caste of society. These are the people, James says,
that are rich in faith, rich in faith and marked out to be
heirs of the kingdom. And so what Paul says about the
slaves is important. He says, live your life for the
Lord in your situation. And we've called this your temporal
mission context, YTMC, your temporal mission context. And that's,
in my understanding, how to think about slaves. Paul is even stronger
in 1 Timothy, as we saw on this topic, by saying, if you don't
endure these sound words, the words of Jesus, then you're arrogant.
You already have a problem. You're already rejecting God.
and his word. But this is what the Word of
God says. Encourage slaves to be to their own masters, to their
own despots, master the word despota, to their own masters,
to be submissive or subordinate to hupotasa, to put themselves
under. And this is the problem of every
human being in life, is that we have authority over us and
we have arrogance in us. And our arrogance in us looks
at the authority over us and says, I don't like that. And
then we say, I don't want to have authority over me in any
form, slavery or otherwise. And so I will reject and oppose
that authority. And what the Holy Spirit comes
in our hearts to do is to restrain We walk by the Spirit. We cannot
fulfill the lust of the flesh in Galatians 5.16. So we don't
resist authority. We submit to the Lord, who is
the author of all authority. And so that's the idea here,
is if you find yourself enslaved, this is your lot as a believer
in Jesus Christ, under the ministry of God, the Holy Spirit, to subordinate
yourself in everything, in all things huerestos, to be pleasing,
and not talking back. Now, we're not dealing in a culture
that has legal slavery, so you don't have to apply this directly
to your situation. But that's its own testament
to the wonders of what God has done for us in our history. The world is enslaved. The world
knows nothing but mistreatment of human beings. Only those who
recognize God's image in the other human are going to think
like we tend to. It's interesting that the godless
in our culture are using our ethic to destroy the freedoms
that have given us our ethic. But I don't want to be a political
commentator today. I want to be a Bible teacher. So we're
not talking back to our authority. Now, is that a hard thing for
some of us to do? Yeah, it's hard to restrain our
tongue, especially when we think the boss is dumb and we think
we're smart and we know so much better. And, but I said, but
I thought, but, but, but, but, but, and this is a problem for
all human beings because of their sin nature. And Paul is saying
the work of the spirit and the life of the Christian slaves
should look like this. You're that good servant that
isn't putting up a bunch of opposition. You should be rolling with it
and working under the, Now, where would we go in the Bible to see
God working in someone's life despite being enslaved? Where
is that taught in the Bible as a central story, a central message
that really helps us understand God is in it and God is working? Where in the Bible would you
go to understand the way God is working despite someone being
unfairly enslaved? Yeah, you go to Genesis, the
last 10 chapters, you study the life of Joseph. 10, 11 chapters,
but then chapter 38 isn't really about Joseph. So 38 and then
40 through 50 is Joseph and God using the unfairness of slavery,
promoting Joseph through it to become the top of economic status
in that society. And the difference between being
a slave or being in prison or being the prime minister of Egypt
for Joseph, is the context. His mission didn't change. God's
plan for him didn't change. His relationship with God didn't
change. His eternal status with God didn't change. And so that's
why I call these discussions of slavery and submission to
authority, this is helping us to recognize our temporal mission
context. All right, in verse 10. What
else are they supposed to do? Not stealing by taking a little
at a time. This is a specialized word for
stealing, but it's been translated pilfering, and that's good. If
you understand, this is the little mouse that just grabs one piece
at a time and swirls it away. It's the guy that works at the,
I heard a silly song once about a guy who worked at a car manufacturer
and he took one bolt at a time home and then 13 years later
he built a 1972, four, five, six, eight, and nine Cadillac
because he had all the parts. that he took home over time.
This is pilfering by stealing a little bit at a time. And so
this is, see, these are problems that servants will run into,
but what's the application for us? One, God doesn't think that
if you find yourself enslaved, that your job is to tear down
society. It's not a Bible thing. It's
not God's view. Second, the next and more indirect
application is that if you are under authority, even unfair
authority in your work, because that's a slave, that's his labor,
it's his employment. If you find yourself under a
boss, you can see how morally you should function in your work. And so we'll talk about management
and labor. Showing all good faith. But showing all good faith, that's
the idea of somebody that's faithful and dependable who is, again,
showing just like we heard from Titus needs to show himself an
example of good works. You need to be on display even
for your master. And here's the way this works.
If you find yourself enslaved and you are free in Christ to
do God's work and not subject to your sinful nature. If that's
your person and your experience, then who is your audience is
the only question you'd be asking about how to live out the gospel,
how to represent Christ as an excellent beneficiary of his
grace, who's received all the things of Ephesians 1, 3 through
14. You have the Holy Spirit in you. Yeah, you're enslaved.
That's your temporal mission context. The point is, other
slaves around you can come to Christ because of your example.
The masters can come to Christ through your example. The owner,
the house owner, and then the subordinates under them can all
watch and observe, and they do, and they will. And as you are
promoted, the people under you will see it. And so it doesn't
matter, for God's perspective, for Paul's teaching, it doesn't
matter your economic circumstance, because the real economics is
the judgment seat of Christ. The real payday is the recompense
for the works done in the body in 2 Corinthians 5.10. So we're
not worried about the temporal. And that's hard to get a hold
of. And again, Marx knew that. And that's why he, in a paraphrase,
said that the religion is the opiate of the masses. You won't
worry about your temporal circumstance because you're looking for your
reward in heaven. storing up treasures in heaven.
And that's not to put us out of excellence in our work. It's
not to say we shouldn't be making a living or providing for our
families or even making money. It has nothing to do with the
rejection of that wonderful goal of having, as Paul says, working
hard with your hands so you have something to share with others.
What this means though, is that it's not your life. Your life
is the ministry that God has commended to you. And so these
people are to show all good faith. And then this is why, and this
is why I'm preaching this, so that they may cosmeo. Cosmeo. K-O-S-M. Do you see the K-O-S
and then the upside down, the little U thing? That's really
an M. Cosmosin is the contextual form for cosmeo, K-O-S-M-E-O. It's where you get the word cosmetics.
And it doesn't mean that you're putting makeup on something,
but it does mean you're adorning it. You're making it attractive.
That's the idea. Adorning the doctrine of God
our Savior in everything. But I'm not a pastor, so I don't
have any role. I'm just a lowly slave. Well,
Paul says you are adorning the doctrine, the teaching of God
our Savior in your work if you're doing it this way. And so again,
the summary of the New Testament teaching, whether it's Ephesians
5 or Colossians 3, or Titus 2, or 1 Timothy 2, or Titus 2, the
summary teaching on slavery is if you find yourself enslaved,
then you need to recognize that you're God's free man. And if
you're free and you're not enslaved, recognize you're God's bondservant.
And the point is that your life isn't about your 70 or 80 or
90 years of temporal experience and your job. It's hard to accept. And for some of us, it'll be
hard to get up in the morning on Monday and go do a good job
at work because we're workaholics and we just want to work for
the work's sake. this is a little bit of a switch.
It's a little, it's a little bit of a change of attitude that
I'm working for God's sake and I'm thanking him for the work
and I'm thanking him for the enjoyment I get from it. And
you just bring God into that. If you're a worker, if you're
not a worker, if you struggle with work, if work is a, is an
affirm, it's a four letter word to you. Again, God helped me
with this. You've put me in this life to
be a laborer, a workman that needs not be ashamed. So help
me, help me enjoy it. Help me find the joy of my salvation
in the work you've given me. It's about God. So let me put
it together. Encourage slaves to their own
masters to be subordinate and all things to be pleasing, not
talking back, not stealing, but showing all good faith so that
they may adorn the doctrine of God, our savior and everything.
I just solved the problem of slavery. See, the secular project is to
eradicate all the evils from the world. so that then we can
finally be free. But if every human being was
fully autonomous, fully funded, fully capable of living every
day without worry of want or opposition or oppression from
other humans, if every human being just lived in a bubble
and it wasn't isolated, you were able to be around other human
beings, but there was no oppression, There was no warfare. There was
no famine. There was no lack. If you lived
in that Star Trek, the next generation utopian society that the sci-fi
people want there to be. The Bible shows us that you would
still be struggling with your own sin nature. Your sin nature
would rub up against other people's sinful natures. And unless there
was some sort of overpowering despot to force the peace with
a rod of iron, breaking the nations like earthenware, it would go
to war and hell on earth very quickly. And that's the millennial
kingdom that we're looking for. the next phase, okay, after the
conclusion of this age. and the seven years of Jacob's
trouble, there is the coming of Christ to set up his kingdom.
And for a thousand years, humans with sinful natures will be ruled
by Jesus in perfect environment with no warfare, no damage from
the nature. There won't be, I contend poison
ivy will have run its course, right? The earth is no longer
attacking us, it's just us. And this thousand year reign
of Christ in Revelation 20 ends in rebellion against the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that rebellion is quickly
put down and will then usher in the great white throne judgment.
My point is, our job in this life is not to rearrange the
economic furniture. There's nothing wrong with telling
slaves to be good at their job. But it will be hate speech to
say that now because of our myopic, ahistorical approach to life
and whatever I want is moral and the way our culture is today.
But you have to basically stand in judgment of the culture when
it rejects the Word of God. And my point is not that slavery
is good. Paul says, seek freedom if you
can. My point is that slavery or a freedom or economic circumstance,
these are not your life. Your life is your savior. For me to live is Christ and
to die is gain. And so in this life, you're going to have trouble.
Paul says that about marriage. In this life, you're going to
have trouble. But the point is you have work
to do. That's what your time is for.
And so reckoning that And part of what I'm showing you in saying
this is Paul is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. The same
things Jesus said about treasure in Matthew 6, Paul is instructing
here by saying it's not about getting economically free, it's
about being excellent in your work for God's sake. Now, why
would I say that there are economics to being a good slave? Why would
I say there's an economic recompense for the slave doing good work
as unto the Lord? Well, I would say it because
I read it from the Apostle Paul in Colossians chapter three and
verse 24, which I'll just grab real quick. The slaves are to
obey those of their masters, in verse 22, but in verse 24,
knowing that from the Lord, you'll receive the reward, the misthos,
of the inheritance, the cleronimia. You'll receive the reward of
the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you
serve. It is economically to the slaves' greatest advantage
eternally to do what God is saying toward his authority for the
gospel's sake. Well, I'm not Paul and I'm not
Apollos, so I really can't be part of this building project
of making disciples that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians
3, when he says the building project is Apollos watered. I planted Apollos watered, but
God was causing the growth and we're building with these materials.
I can't be part of the building project. I'm not a builder. Right
here, even the lowly slave is a builder. by what he says that
they're adorning the doctrine of God, our Savior. They're the
finished carpenters on the project, right? They're adorning the teaching. So what? In verses 11 through
15, Paul says, the new American standard for the grace of God
has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to
deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly,
righteously, and godly in the present age. looking for the
blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God
and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem
us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people
for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. These things,
Titus, you speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let
no one disregard you." So we've had basically a third household
code from Paul, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, now Titus 2. This
is the household of the church family. It's the church household. So like in 1 Peter 1 Timothy
3. And he says that the gospel and the word of God is the bigger
context for these instructions. For, literally, it has appeared. We start with a passive verb,
it has appeared. And then we have the subject
of what has appeared, the grace of God. And then we have an interesting
second position, attributive adjective, the soteria, the salvific. to all mankind. And this is a
hard verse, and there are basically two ways it's been translated,
and I'll show them to you. If you're looking at a King James
or a New King James, and this is not an instance of different
manuscript backgrounds, like Texas Receptus versus Alexandria. It's not that. It's a difference
in philosophy of translation, really. Now watch this. It has
appeared, that's the verb, the grace of God has appeared, and
then an adjective describing the grace of God, the saving,
and then possine, to all mankind. Now, one way to take that is the saving
to all mankind grace of God has appeared, and that's how all
the modern, the more recent translations take it. New American Standard,
Darby did it, New King, or not New King James, ESV, Holman Christian
Standard, the updated Christian Standard Bible, everyone does
it this way. They say that the word saving
is an adjective describing grace, but it is also describing the
accusative, I'm sorry, the dative to all mankind. To all mankind
is in the dative case, and you may not know what that means,
but that's okay. And so they're saying that it's a double adjective.
It's describing the grace of God, and then it's also describing
who it's for, for all mankind. And so the saving to all mankind
grace of God has appeared. And it has, and that's true,
but I don't think that's what Paul's saying. The reason they do it
is because, watch right here, because these two words, to all
mankind, follow the word saving or salvific. These two words
follow it. And so they think by the position
in the sentence that that makes it what is connected. But that's
really not always necessarily how Greek works. Here's the other
way, for the saving grace of God has appeared to all mankind.
Here's what I think it is. I think it is the saving grace
has appeared to all mankind. And it's obviously that the word
to all mankind is talking about the word appeared, to whom it
has appeared. Meaning the gospel offer is universal. It's to everyone. And that seems
to be Paul's emphasis. It has appeared. He puts it in
the front of the sentence. The recipients of this appearing
are all people. How? The great commission to
all mankind. And this is God's saving grace
that has appeared to all mankind. This is my translation. For the
saving grace of God has appeared to all mankind. Which by the
way, people have tried the other way. They say it makes for universalism,
that all people are saved whether they believe or not. And that's
not even an argument because it's not even what he says. It's
not the saving of all mankind grace has appeared. It's that
the saving grace of God has appeared to all mankind. And the reason
I think that is because what comes next in verse 12, training
us, you have to interpret the participle, but it starts with
training us so that, what is the grace of God? Train us. It
trains us so that after denying impiety and the worldly lusts,
a lot of people think Christianity is what we don't do. Well, what
we don't do is a paragraph in the question of what is Christianity.
There is what we don't do. And piety is basically the opposite
of godly. It's bad worship, not worshipful
toward God. Piety or godliness is a reference
to worshiping God appropriately, living a life of worship and
the worldly lust. This is the sin nature in man
and the world's system calling to it. attracting us to disobey
our creator. But these things, the grace of
God trains us so that after denying impiety and the worldly lusts,
sound-mindedly, adverb first, and righteously, and worshipfully,
what? So that we may live in this present
age. Now I've put it in Greek order, and that makes it hard
to read because we don't read things in this kind of order,
but the Greek person has no problem reading it this way. But I just
wanna show you what's highlighted. The word or the grace of God,
as it appeared to all men, trains us so that we may live in this
present age the way God wants us to. Now, the grace of God
is training us so that we may live in this present age sound-mindedly,
righteously, worshipfully, having put away in piety and worldly
lusts, the way God wants us to. The grace of God trains us so
that we can live the way God wants us to. This is the opposite
of the sacramental view of grace, that grace is occasioned on you
doing pious things. that you do what's right, what's
the good thing, and then God dispenses a measure of grace,
the seven hoops. I'm sorry, that's somewhat offensive. The seven sacraments and the
sacramental systems that say you have to do these things that
impart measures of grace to you. And by doing the pious thing,
you get grace. the grace. And so once you have
enough grace accrued, there's a line. And once you get above
the line, you don't have to go to purgatory. You go, you get
right in because grace has been accrued to you. It's the opposite
where in that view, in that frame, grace has become merit for work
performed. Now the grace of God that we've
received, which is Jesus died for your sins without you doing
anything about your sins. The grace of God has appeared
for us and it trains us Because of the grace we've received,
you have it. It trains you to walk as you
should. Because you already have the
grace of God, there is the obvious reciprocation of how you live
in gratitude. In fact, we get the word gratitude
from the same word, we get the word grace. Someone gives you
something, so being the recipient, you are grateful, and that's
what grace does. When God heaps his wondrous blessing
of his son on you, and you live your life where, irrelevant,
eventually, You will either just end up with a seared conscience
and the sin unto death, or you will catch for a second and say,
wait a second, what has God done for me? And what does that call
out in me in my response of love to him? That's what he's saying
that the grace of God trains you to do. Because after denying
impiety and worldly lusts, we live in this present age, sound
minded, righteous, and worshipful. So for the saving grace of God
has appeared to all mankind with the result that it's training
us. And by the way, verses 11 through 15 are a long sentence.
It's very challenging. And I know it's involved, but
that's Paul. And that's what we signed up
for. We wanted to read the Bible. With the result that this grace
of God is training us so that after denying impiety and the
worldly lusts, we may live so that we may live sound-mindedly,
righteously, and worshipfully in the present age. That is a big bite of doctrine
to chew on, but we're surveying, so let's keep going. In verse
13, he continues the participles. He says, while we're looking
forward, this word, prostechemi, is to look forward to, to anticipate,
almost to live on your tiptoes. I'm welcoming this. Come on,
let's have it. Even so, come Lord Jesus. While
we're looking forward to, with anticipation, the blessed hope,
the blessed hope and appearing, Do you see this word? Epiphaneia,
epiphany, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Now, what all doctrines are addressed
here, just let's catalog them. The coming of Christ, that it
is our only hope, it is our blessed hope, so we're future-oriented
believers in our hope. Remember the three things that
have to be there for there to be hope. It has to be an expectation.
The basis of that hope has to be something that we can expect
in, like the promises of God, and it is future-oriented. You
don't have it yet, it's future. That is what hope is in the Bible,
and the ultimate hope, our blessed hope, is the glory, the appearing
of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And
so again, let's look at the doctrines. You've got the doctrine of Christian
hope. You've got the doctrine of the appearing of Christ. You've
got the deity of Christ because he's called in Titus 2.13, our
great God and savior. I had a friend that doesn't believe
in the deity of Christ. Well, he's not of the same essence
as the father. He calls that philosopher's religion. And he'll
say, well, yeah, right there, he's God to me, our God. He's God to me, little g, but
he's not God of the same essence as the father. And so if you're
like me, that just rings really flat. How you got that from this was
wanting it. You had decided beforehand. But
Jesus Christ is the God who we worship, but we worship one God
in three persons. He's God the Son, the second
person of the Trinity. And so here he's called our great
God and Savior Jesus Christ. Titus 2.13 is one of those verses
you have to deal with when you're putting together the doctrine
of God, that somehow our Savior Jesus Christ is of the same essence
as the Father. And verse four, now we'll put
it together. For the saving grace of God has appeared to all mankind,
that's verse 11, with the result that it's training us so that
after denying impiety and the worldly lusts, we may live sound-mindedly
and righteously and worshipfully in this present age. while looking
forward to the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of
our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Y'all are seeing why
from Titus 2, 11 through 13. This is why systematic theology. This is why we break it into
pieces and figure out categories, because just think about this
pile of information he just gave us. It's beautifully arranged. And we've had to make some interpretive
decisions. You have to figure out how the participles are modifying
previous clauses. And I think this is a result
participle. I think this is a temporal participle. I think this is also temporal,
why we're looking for. But in doing this, there is a
book of doctrine to be written about the Christian life. based
on the grace of God. The grace of God has appeared
and it trains us to live like we should while we wait for our
savior. Now I can say something simple like that and put it in
a postage stamp. It's really simple, really short. But if
you, this is how the word of God works. If you meditate on
this, it changes your life. We can read through kind of as
we're doing, or we can work and think and reflect on it. And
this is a survey. But we're not done with the sentence
because now we have relative clause, so you would put comma
who in the next line, who gave himself as a substitute for us.
I've translated who pair plus the genitive of Hamon, of Hamas,
of Sioux, the first person pronoun. Huppert
plus the genitive translated here, us, is very often used
in the concept of substitution. And I think it's important to
bring that out because the biblical doctrine of the substitutionary
tone of Christ is under attack. What does it mean that he gave
himself for us? Well, it can't mean that he gave himself for
us as an example, unless he specifically says so. He gave us himself in
our place is what the grammar seems to say. He gave himself
for us in the sense of in our place. So that, what? He might do this word. He might
redeem us. So that he would redeem us. Another
consequence statement from what he did. He gave himself for us
so that he would redeem us from all anomia. Anomia, all lawlessness. All lawlessness defined as that
which contradicts the character of God here. And That's the negative,
he would redeem us from lawlessness, but on the positive, he would
cleanse himself. He would cleanse for himself.
He would katharizo, cleanse unto himself a people for himself, zealous for kolon, for beautiful
works, for works that are attractive. This is why he did it. Okay? He did this so that he would
redeem us from sin and that he would cleanse us for his possession,
a people zealous for good works. Now I think verse 14 recapitulates
what we have in verse 11, the grace of God has appeared. The
grace of God, the saving grace of God has appeared to all men.
And in verse 12, teaching us how to live in a way that pleases
him. In verse 13, waiting for Jesus for the blessed hope. So
now we get to verse 14, Jesus who gave himself as a substitute
so that we would, full circle, live that life that his grace
has set us up to live. Zealous for good works. In other
words, twice now in this paragraph, Titus has emphasized that grace
first works second. Grace first, the works that come
from that grace are a derivative of the grace. They're lived out
because of the grace. It's Philippians 2.13, work out
your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is working
in you both to want and to do what pleases him. He doesn't
say work up your salvation or work for your salvation. He says,
you have it, work it out, live it out. And so that's what this
grace is doing, it's grace first. It is the Red Sea Deliverance
first, and then it is the instructions of Mount Sinai that sanctify
them second. To give you a biblical example
of this pattern, it is the grace of God that trains us, we already
have it, and then it teaches us to live in accordance with
it. So in other words, Titus 2, 11 through 15, give us great
instruction on living out the grace of God. See, when you read
through this passage, you don't think about it, words jump out
at you. You're not putting together the
relationship of the clauses to one another in the reasoning
process like I'm trying to do with you. That's called exegesis.
You're not thinking that through necessarily. I mean, I pray that
you are, but a lot of times we're reading along and we're not kind
of grasping the full depth of what he's saying, but words will
jump out at us. And you get that last phrase, zealous for good
works. There you go. We're just supposed to be doing
good works. Well, yeah, we are. That's one description that Paul
gives of the life that God gave us. That we would walk in the
works he prepared for us. That's Ephesians 2.10. A description
of this life is works. But understanding the way our
works relate to our salvation is very important. And so I'm
thankful for the opportunity to bring that out today. If you
have Christ, then you have been made new in Christ as by God's
design, a workman specially equipped by God with special equipment,
special enablement to do his work. Now, it doesn't mean that
you are doing that work. That's why the New Testament
is constantly inducing us, encouraging us to be about our Father's business. So why did Jesus give himself
as a substitute for us in verse 14? He gives you two reasons.
He says so that he would cleanse us, he would redeem us, buy us
out of slavery to all lawlessness. He would break the power of sin,
it's hold on us by dying for our sins. And that death applied
to us breaks the power of our sin nature over us. But then,
It's not just the negative. It's not just getting rid of
that problem. It's a positive. He would cleanse
for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good
works. Cleanse to set you apart. I will illustrate this idea with
Isaiah chapter six. In Isaiah six, you have the first
word of God to Isaiah portrayed in narrative. And you can say,
wait a second, Isaiah six comes after chapter one through five.
Isaiah chapter six is the throne room scene where Isaiah is commissioned
to be God's prophet who will speak for me, I'll go, says Isaiah. So how can you say Isaiah six
is the first word that God got hold of Isaiah with? I can say
that because of the arrangement of Isaiah chapters one through
12. It's a center seeking arrangement focusing on chapter six and arguably
chapter seven, Isaiah six, the throne room scene. When Isaiah
is commissioned to serve God, he benefits from God's grace.
First of all, in several ways, the first way is that he sees
the glory of God and it breaks him because he sees the difference
between God's righteousness and his sinfulness. And that's the
grace of God to him to see that. We can go about in our lives
with our little blinders on and never think about the righteousness
of God or about his expectations for us or how we differ from
these things. But if God tears those blinders
off, and as a heavenly surgeon does a wonder for us where we
see the difference between me and God, something of the difference,
that's grace to us. It hurts. It's surgery, but it's
grace. Because I didn't have that unless
he gave me that. So Isaiah sees the glory of God,
and he says, woe is me for I'm ruined, for I've seen the Holy
One of Israel. That's God's grace. But what
else is God's grace? Isaiah then, based on what he has observed,
has it in himself to confess his sin. I live among, I'm a
man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.
Isaiah functions almost as a priest there, interceding for the people,
confessing the sins of his people after confessing his own. And
then you know what happens? More grace. One of the angels
that's glorifying God goes to the heavenly throne room's incense
altar, grabs a coal from the altar with the tongs, comes and
sears it on Isaiah's lips. And that's the grace of God.
It's also a vision, it's a figure, but what is this, what's happening? The angel says to him, this has
touched your lips and you are cleansed. Isaiah confessed his
sins, an angel did something with Cole, and then he told him
he was cleansed from his sin. That's God's grace. Isaiah doesn't
deserve for his sins to be cleansed. He deserves to be wallowing in
his sin and separated from God, at least in his experience. But
the angel says, you've been cleaned, cleansed by this coal. So what? Obviously the picture is that
God is calling his prophet, one who will speak for him, the little
miniature Bible, 39 chapters of judgment, basically, and this
is an oversimplification, but 27 chapters of comfort. The little
miniature Bible, 66 chapters in Isaiah. He's gonna speak for
God, not as long as Jeremiah and Lamentations, but almost
as long. He's one of the great spokesmen for God. And now the
point at which he sinned that's been cleansed is fit for service
because he's cleansed, he's clean. And so then God says, who will
go for us? Who will be a messenger for us? And Isaiah says, I'll
go. Does he deserve to go speak for
God? No, no human being does except
Jesus Christ, the God-man, born of the virgin, without sin, never
having experienced personal sin. He's the only one who deserves.
what we receive in grace. He deserves it. It is his message
and it's his privilege to carry that message. But God makes Isaiah
fit for it. He doesn't deserve it, but he
is made able. This is the grace of God. Whether
it's seeing the difference and seeing your problem of sin and
being prompted to confess it, whether it's the cleansing you
receive from that or the commission to go and speak for God, It's
God's grace from beginning to end. And then Isaiah went through
a lifetime of ministry. And I believe Hebrews 11 says
he was sawn in half for his trouble. At the conclusion of Isaiah's
works, when his time on this life was done, he was sawn in
half according to Isaiah. the writer of Hebrews, at least
one of the prophets was, and this would have been under, I
believe, Manasseh. Very interesting the way God
can take what is broken and make something eternally significant
of it, like the life and ministry of Isaiah. I would use this as
an example for you to see why Jesus gave himself a substitute
for us. so that he would redeem us. Well, that's good. I'm not
sinful. At least I'm not in my sin anymore. I'm not identified
with my sin and it's penalty. That's right. But what else?
That he would cleanse you and you being his own possession,
you would be, because of this grace that's teaching you that
you've received, you would be zealous for beautiful work. You
would be desirous to do the work that God has for you to do in
the power of God, the Holy Spirit that he's provided for you to
do it. These things speak, laleo, speak,
and parakaleo, encourage or urge, come alongside. The main word
Paul uses for what we do in ministry for one another. It's what Jesus
said he was going to do to send another paraclete, the Holy Spirit,
that would walk alongside them. And this is now how Paul describes
the ministry we have for one another. We encourage, often
translated encourage or urge or comfort, to come alongside
and bring encouragement. Speak and encourage and elego. I translated this exposit, my
Bible says, reprove, because it could have a negative connotation.
Reprove means make a correction. But it could also mean to just
expose it, to make these things manifest. And so, He's using
synonyms for speak. Speak, encourage, reprove, or
exposit with all authority. This word epitage is related
to the word to command. You could translate it with all
command, with all dogmatic authoritative instruction. This is why we say
this is how it is and not this is how I think it is when we
teach the word of God. Now he doesn't say, and so you
have license to kick the pulpit over. to pound the pulpit until
people are scared, to scream them into submission. He doesn't
say any of that. He just says, this is the word of God, and
this is the way we need to live, and so you need to insist on
it. And this is how we should all be. We should all be insistent
that the grace of God is teaching us. The grace that we've received
through the gospel of Jesus Christ is teaching us to live the way
God wants us to live. And when it says godly, when
it says with all piety, when it says that, it's talking about
not being a good boy and making sure that you tuck your shirt
in or all the things that good boys do. It's saying you're relating
to him as he wants you to. It's talking about being in a
personal rapport with him. That's, I have to emphasize that
as we close. This is meaningless if it's a
set of rules. It's meaningless if it's a set
of I don't do's and I do do's. If it's a personal rapport with
him because he's opened the door to this relationship, and that's
his grace, and that opening of himself to you is teaching you
to live pleasing to him, then you're understanding the relationship
that the Apostle Paul, Apostle of Jesus Christ, is training
us to engage in. And then he gives a third person
imperative, peripheral to look down upon or to disdain or even
disregard. And it's, my English Bible says,
let no one disregard you. The difference between no one
is to disregard you and let no one disregard you is kind of
a difference between me being a little more hands-on or aggressive
with you or just saying, this is how it is. Now, this is what's
great about Preston City Bible Church. There's one reason that
you're here. It's the same reason that I'm
here and that those go together. It's because we believe that
God's word is the source material for our spiritual lives. We believe
that we know him because he's told us of himself and his word,
and that's where the power of our spiritual lives is. And we
want a relationship with God on God's terms, according to
what he's said. You've noticed, we talked about
seminary in the prayer time earlier. The seminary exists because the
Bible was written in Greek in the New Testament, including
the Gospel of Matthew. Without any question, the manuscript
evidence is settled throughout all of church history. The Gospel
of Matthew is in Greek. I know we had a guy say that
it was written in Hebrew. We don't have a good manuscript
evidence at all of a Hebrew Matthew. We don't. What we have is thousands
of Greek manuscripts that agree for Matthew. The Bible is written
in Greek in the New Testament and Hebrew in the Old Testament,
except for a very small handful of verses that you could take
someone through in just a few hours of translation that are
in Aramaic. If you do it in English, it's
just a couple of minutes. That's not 50 verses of the Old Testament
that are written in Aramaic, I think. It's, well, it's not
10 chapters, I'll say that. A chunk of Daniel, a little bit
of Ezekiel. The point is that the Bible's
hard. I haven't meant to make it hard this morning, but I hope
this long sentence and all these related participles that you
can see, this is involved. If you really want to dig in
this, if you really want to understand it, you have to dig. And so,
What are we doing here? We're studying the text to know
God, to worship him on his terms. And so what's our summary conclusion? Today, the summary of what we've
said is, the grace of God is our teacher. You've already received
it. And reflecting on it should constantly
be inducing you to this relationship that God called you to. Let goods
and kindred go, this mortal life also, the body they may kill,
Luther said, God's truth abides still. This is how to think about
your life. And if you will, by God's grace,
your moment by moment walk with him, your daily work at work,
your interactions with other people, these take on eternal
significance. They take on eternal significance
because they are representing, they are adorning the grace and
the doctrine of God. Our Father, we thank you for
this eternal life that we've enjoyed today by thinking through
some challenging material from the Apostle Paul and his reasoning
process where he has a long sentence with a lot of biblical doctrine
in it. We thank you that the grace of God is indeed our teacher. It's instructing us to live the
way you want us to. Father, there are entanglements,
there are the sin that so easily entangles us and all kinds of
distractions that drive away our joy. and our love for you
just by function of attention, just by taking our attention
away. And I pray that you will strengthen us to constantly draw
our attention back to the things above where Christ is seated
at your right hand. For we walk by faith, not by
sight in this life, and it's challenging because there's so
much to see. We recognize it's all part of
the playpen and it's many distractions. And we're looking for the blessed
hope, the glory, the appearing of our savior. We ask it in Jesus
name. Amen.
258 Titus 2 --Life of Paul
Series Christian Life of Paul
| Sermon ID | 8121133651767 |
| Duration | 52:15 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Titus 2 |
| Language | English |
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