Thank you for downloading this sermon brought to you by the Preaching Ministry of Liberty Baptist Church of Las Vegas, Nevada, Dr. David Tice. For more sermons in both audio and video format, we encourage you to visit experienceliberty.com. Also, for a word of encouragement, insight, and biblical inspiration, follow Pastor David Tice's blog at davidtice.com. So without further ado, let's open our hearts to the Word of God. to Titus chapter two, if you would, Titus chapter two, we're gonna be talking about maximizing your life. And I just love the theme about, I mean, it's like we want the most out of life, don't we? And so, well, one person does, that's great. And as you're looking there, I want you to just know something, what does the Bible say that is the most effective form of government? Don't worry, I'm not gonna get political. And I talk about this at my church, and I tell my church that I'm not being political, it's that politicians are being spiritual. They have entered into our lane. And so now I have to address things in my church that they have overstepped. But God did create government. It's in the Bible. In fact, I mean, you read throughout the entire, from Genesis to Revelation, Christians have always dealt with government, and government is an institution that God created. So there's other governments, though. There's family government, there's civil government, there is church government, and there's another form of government that I wanna talk about tonight that's most important, and that's self-governing, self-government, self-control. sanctification, being set apart, being peculiar, girding up the loins of your mind, and being the type of person that's different than the world. The word government's interesting because it's found in the Old Testament. It says, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Wasn't that good? I mean, I don't wanna brag, but thank you, Matt, thank you. I was in the choir one time. I was in the choir one time. I never had been in a choir. I was sitting in the choir, and the choir director, we're practicing, and we're all singing. He stopped the whole thing. He goes, it sounds bad over here. I was like, man, some guy. And then he started the choir again. We started singing. He goes, no, no, I still hear it. It's right over here. So the next time, I lip synced it. And he goes, and as he was conducting, he goes, much better. I'm not a really good singer. I told my wife if I was a good singer, I don't know if I would have been a preacher. I like singing a lot, but I'm horrible at it. But the most important form of ruling is to rule yourself. It's self-governing. People get caught up in word games. They talk about religion. Religion is man's attempt to earn God's favor through their good works, but a relationship is God sending his son, Jesus Christ, to restore a relationship with him. How many of you guys are thankful for biblical relationship with our Savior? And politics is a really interesting word, too, because it's made up of two words, poly meaning many, and tics, blood-sucking varmints. And it's kind of what the government's like, is it not? Poly, many tics. Government was first mentioned in the Bible when God made one rule. And this was a theocracy. This was a theocratic governing rule by God himself. And in the rules department, there was one rule. Don't eat of the fruit of knowledge and of good and evil. And three affirmative commands were given to Adam and Eve, and that was to become one, raise children, and take care of the garden. Life was so simple. Wouldn't it be great if life was like that? One rule, three affirmative commands, and then we're done. Oh, but life is so complicated now. That sin has been involved. So why government? Why do we have civil government? Well, we have it because people lack self-control. We have God formed civil government because families aren't raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And so if there's a breakdown in the family governing, there's a breakdown in the church governing, and there's a breakdown in self-governing, the last line of defense that God created was civil governance. And so I like the preamble to our constitution. By the way, if you want to know who the sovereign is in our country, it's not our president or your governor or any of your elected officials. The sovereign in our country is the first three words of the preamble, we the people. And we have to understand that about our country, but I love that it says we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, By the way, that's a biblical principle, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, which are among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So government's lane in our life is just to protect our God-given rights and to recognize those. But if we lack self-governance or sanctification or self-control, government has to get involved. And this is so important. It's like we can complain about the government, we can complain about civil government, but until Christians learn sanctification and maximize the Christian life, they're gonna be in your face. Government, just so you guys know what their lane is, doesn't choose what is right, just, or God-honoring. They're just there to recognize that. Christ followers have a responsibility to discern what God wants. And so, let's talk about self-governing here in Titus chapter two, or sanctification. Like, what does this involve? Well, it involves individual salvation. Look at verse 11. It says, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to what? How many people? All men. His grace, his salvation has appeared to all men, like everybody. I've heard people say, you mean in South America too, like in the jungle? Yes, you guys would not, I'm not charismatic at all. I was in Guyana, South America, just a couple of months ago, and I met a lady. And I said, when did you get saved? I said, how'd you get saved? She said, I was being beaten by my husband, she was pregnant, and she cried out to God. She didn't know who God was. And she said, I cried out to whoever was out there to tell me who you are. And she said, she never had, literally, in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of South America, And she said, God, if you're there, I wanna know you. And that night she dreamt and Jesus told her who he was and gave the gospel to her. She goes, that's how I got saved. I said, no way. And I talked to her pastor, I talked to all, and that's exactly how she got saved. I believe this with all my heart that if somebody feels after God, as the book of Acts says, he will reveal himself to them. I'm so thankful that anybody in this world feels after God, God will reveal himself to them. He's appeared, his grace has appeared to all men. How many of you guys are thankful for that? It would be much better if we sent missionaries down there, but God will want anybody who feels after him to be saved. So his grace has been shown to all men. I'm so glad somebody shared the gospel with me. How about you? Aren't you glad, a parent, a soul winner, you just showed up at church, you're like, I'll try church, and you heard the gospel, it's a great thing. And many of you have experienced a radical change or growth in your life as a result of your salvation. I want you to imagine you live in a house and you rent this house, and it's a dumpster fire. And your landlord's the devil. And he's a horrible landlord. and the toilet's broken, the sink's broke, there's holes in the wall, the place is falling apart, and he comes over and collects rent, and it's so expensive, and you're like, could you please fix this? And he goes, I ain't fixing nothing. In fact, I'm raising your rent. And that's exactly what life is like for people who aren't saved. Then imagine this, you get saved, and you get a new landlord. His name's Jesus, and he kicks the devil out. And you're like, man, this is great. I hope you're better than him. He goes, listen, can you fix up what's going on in this house? He goes, absolutely. I'll fix everything. I'll fix everything in your house. And he fixes it. And not only that, he doesn't charge you a dime. You'd be like, what? That's what God does to us. He fixes us up. And we don't have to pay rent. It's his grace. It's free. How awesome is that? Now how ridiculous would it be after experiencing his grace and freedom and sanctification and cleansing for us to invite the devil back. Could you imagine if the devil came back to your house and knocked on the door and was like, hey, it's me, the devil, your old landlord, remember me? I'm like, get out of here, I'm under new management, my friend. I have a new owner, his name is Jesus, and he's cleaned this house up, and I'm so thankful for that. And that should be your story, should it not? It's like, man, I have invited Christ into my life, he's my savior, he's cleaning up my life, and I hope that's what your story is. So what's interesting about civil government is it's not in the business of legislating heart transformation. It never does and it never will. Only God can transform your heart. Only God can do that. Even churches, we can create an environment of behavior modification, we can manipulate you as pastors and force you and guilt you into doing things, but I think God would much rather you change your behavior because God is transforming your heart. It's like, man, I wanna change because of his love for me, out of his grace for me. And that's a wonderful message to have, and that's what your pastor, Pastor Matt Tice and Pastor Dave Tice, preaches to you. Aren't they great pastors? I'm telling you what. So Abraham was set up to be the leader of Israel, and the first five books of the Bible were written as a description of a form of governance, like what they're supposed to eat, what they're supposed to wear, and et cetera. But Israel was the only country that was run by someone they couldn't see. That's why you read in 1 Samuel that they wanted a king, somebody they could see. In Exodus 9.15, God says to the children of Israel, now therefore, if you will obey my voice and deed and keep my covenant, this is before they had a king. Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And they were led by a ruler they couldn't see, and that's what made them peculiar. And we as sanctified, born again, redeemed believers are led by a God we don't see. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So it's not like it's this blind faith without evidence. How many guys know there's plenty of evidence of God? I love when people say, show me evidence of God. I'm like, where do you want to start? Like human beings, the universe, the earth, like animals, you know, plants, like where do you, there's plenty of evidence. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. And so we're led by a ruler that we don't even see, and that's what makes us peculiar. When I talk about peculiar, I don't mean weird. The gospel light already tracks a lot of strange bugs already, as it is. Every church has them, am I right? And I'm one of them. Grace has appeared. The Bible says here, grace has appeared to all men. Grace is God's free favor and spontaneous action towards needy sinners to deliver and transform them. So Paul could not think of biblical truth or holy conduct or sanctification being set apart, apart from the grace of God. Grace is not a license to do what you want. Grace is a license to do what you ought. It's power to do what you ought. And so that's why it says in verse number 12, teaching us, what does God's grace teach us? That denying what? Ungodliness. So we're talking about, like, if you wanna maximize your life, we have to understand what grace is in our life and what that means about self-governance, what it means about self-control. It teaches us to deny, it doesn't, look, when you get saved and you experience God's grace, we don't frustrate the grace of God by our sin. It's like, wow, God's grace. We should send more so we can get more of God's grace. God forbid. Why would you want to do that to God's grace and God's love? Wouldn't you want to express your love through obedience? And to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that we might be redeemed He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a what? A peculiar people, zealous of good works. There's that peculiar people that's, we're being led, it was close, we're being led. He knows, he's probably forgotten more of the Bible than I know and I love Dr. Tice. But here we are, we're being led by somebody we don't see, which makes us peculiar. Which, by the way, you guys know that's really strange to people who are unbelievers. You're just following some sky daddy. They call your God a sky daddy. Can you believe that? The disrespect is so unbelievable with an unsaved crowd. But you're peculiar, zealous of good works. I love that. It's like, we're zealous to impact our community. Look, church isn't about having a holy huddle together and singing kumbaya. This is about leaving this room and being zealous of doing good in our community, doing good to our neighbor and sharing the gospel with people who need to be saved. So these are the manifestations of God's grace at work in our hearts. Godly works. So denying ungodliness or self-control. The Bible tells us in the last days perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, Incontinent, I'll get back to that one in just a second. Fierce, despisers of those that are good. Having the form of godliness but denying the power thereof. But he uses the word here, which is a sign of the end times. How many of you guys believe we're getting close? Like we are getting, you read that list and you're like, wow, sounds like my kids, you know? It's like, I'm kidding. It sounds like what's going on in culture. But the word incontinence is a really interesting word because it means to lack self-control. I didn't know what that meant when I was living in Grand Rapids and I was getting some protein bars at Meijer, Meijer's like Smith's. And I was at Meijer getting some protein bars and I look over and I see a sign poking out of the, it said incontinence. I'm like hey, that's in the Bible. Incontinence, that's in the Bible. So I walked down, I wanted to know what's under that word. So I go over there and I look down, I'm like, oh, okay. It's a whole section of depends diapers. Incontinence means you lack self-control. Those are the times of the last days, I guess, incontinence. In other words, people just lack self-control. They just can't control themselves. They have an urge, they just give into it. They feel after something, if it feels good, I just do it. And that's their God, that's what drives them. You know when the Bible says the truth will set you free? I've always wondered, what's it setting me free from? It's setting me free from the idea of being led by my feelings. So now, therefore, I'm being led by the truth. And that's a wonderful, wonderful deliverance from my sin because How I feel is so deceptive, is it not? Like the heart is deceitful and what? Wicked, desperately wicked. Who can know it? Why would we wanna follow our own heart if it's desperately wicked and I don't even know it? Like I don't even know my own heart, why would I wanna follow that? I love the song, it's like follow your heart. It's like no, that's horrible advice. Follow the word of God. Follow God's word, that's so important. And worldly lusts. You say, okay, so if I follow this to its logical conclusion, and I follow worldly lust, what does this lead me to? James says, when lust hath conceived, it brings forth sin, and when sin is finished, it brings forth what? Death, and Pastor Tyson and I have seen way too much death. We've seen the fallout of people who just give in to their lust, give in to sin, and all of a sudden their lives, their marriages, their hope, is totally destroyed in their life, and they just, they literally are like, I have nothing else to live for. And that's why I believe suicide is up in our day and age, is because people are just engulfed and enslaved to their sin, and it's causing literally physical death. So our lives should be characterized by three qualities, inward, That means we're sober, we're controlled in our mind, we have a sound mind, there's a peace in our heart. There's an outward quality as well. We're living righteously. This is an all conduct towards people, that we're an example to the believer in word, in conversation, and in deed. A conversation just doesn't mean what our words are, but what we represent, and we represent heaven. We're citizens of heaven, not this earth, and so we represent heaven. How awesome is that? And you give people a little heaven on earth when you live righteously. Watch this. Broken people desperately want to know righteous people. They wanna know you exist. There are people all over this valley, they don't even know you exist. They're like, I didn't even know there was good people around. I just thought everybody's evil and everybody's bad. They wanna know you and you have to make yourself known. And that's why this church is so absolutely vital in this city. I don't know if you guys understand the brevity of your existence and how important it is that you exist here in Las Vegas. And the work that your staff and your pastors put into this church so that you could be light and salt in this city is so vital. for the salvation of millions of souls in this city. And then there's this upward quality that we have is total devotion to God. If you want to maximize your life, you have to be all in like we talked about last night. And when you rule yourself well, we need less control from others in our lives. That's what parenting's all about, right? Isn't it? It's like your kids don't know self-control, right? If you give them a whole bag of M&Ms, they'll eat the whole bag, right? She's like, okay, that's enough. Some of you are like, I actually do that myself as an adult. You need a little self-control. But that's what you're teaching your kids is learning self-control so when we become adults, they are mature believers. And so when you rule yourself well, you need less control from other people. Did you know that, watch this, if everybody in this country ruled themselves well, the government, the civil government would become irrelevant. Like literally, like we wouldn't even need them at all. Wouldn't it be great if we were living in a society we didn't even need the government? We know that's never gonna happen, but that's a wonderful thing to think about. And you know what's so great is that when we live in the millennial reign, the thousand year reign, there is one that rules. His name is Jesus. He rules with a rod of iron and he's gonna be just and perfect and pure and it's gonna be amazing. But until then, we have to rule ourselves well. And then the last thought I have here is individual conviction. Look at verse 15. It says here, it says, these things speak and exhort and rebuke with all what? Authority, let no man despise thee. And a lot of people use it like, don't judge me. I love when people say that, don't judge me. But if I said you were handsome or you were beautiful or I said you're a hard worker, you'd be like, that's good judgment right there. We all judge, right? It's just we don't like when somebody judges us negatively. And we're allowed to judge in the Bible as long as we're not the ones violating what we're judging other people about. We can't be hypocritical with it. But I don't think that we have a right to speak into somebody's life and try to help them unless we actually care about that person. It's one thing to just point out sin in somebody's life because it bothers you. It's another thing to point out sin because you deeply care about that person. And that's when you have a right to speak into that person's life. As long as you're not struggling with it, you've overcome it with God's power, and then you're helping that person as well. And that's really important that you speak about these things with authority. What authority? What authority do we have to speak on these things, and truth, and sanctification? What authority does Dr. Tice have when he preaches, thus saith the Lord? What authority, is it his own opinion, his own will, or is it the word of God? It's God's word. So develop a life of conviction. In other words, I'm not gonna compromise these convictions. I'm gonna speak about them, I'm gonna exhort people, encourage them, I'm gonna rebuke with all authority, and I'm not gonna let people despise me. Convictions are beliefs that you own. And convictions are based on biblical principles. And standards are what I put in place to protect those convictions that are based on biblical principles. It's when a church becomes very legalistic is when they take those standards and make them biblical principles. But it's okay to have, it's not legalistic to have standards. You have those standards to protect those principles that are based on biblical principles. And that's a really important thing that a church should have. But you should have those as well for your own life. I like the, I like what Psalm 51, it's one of the best chapters in all of Psalms. It's David's repentance prayer after he sinned with Bathsheba. It's so powerful. Because he says, before you, Lord, as I've sinned before you, I'm taking ownership of what I did. I'm taking ownership of what I did, and I sinned before you. And then he prays this, and he goes, restore the joy in my heart. Just restore that. And God does it. It's a wonderful prayer. I encourage you to read that when you get home. But why is it important to be saved? And why is it important to take personal responsibility for your actions and not blame your actions on other people? Because when you speak of individual conviction and you take ownership of your actions and you conduct yourself in this spirit of sanctification, you deliver yourself from the victimhood mentality. And this is a terrible place for people to be, I'm a victim. You're not a victim. The Bible teaches us that we're victors in Jesus Christ. You're actually an overcomer, and people need your leadership, and we cannot walk around making excuses for our behavior. It's like, well, it's how I was raised, and when I was young, somebody abused me, and I just didn't get the job or the promotion. It's like we can make so many excuses for our laziness or our bad behavior or our sin, and we need to start taking ownership of those things. and not take the victimhood mentality and say, you know what, through Christ, he'll strengthen me and I am more than a conqueror in him. And then you are able to help or mentor or disciple somebody else. Once you have ruled your own life well, you can begin encouraging righteousness in the life of others. So now that you're out of the victimhood mentality, you're able to disciple and mentor others and that's where God wants you to be. You have kids in your life that are depending on you. And you have a church family that looks to you for encouragement and leadership and for you to be here. Your presence here is so vital. I think some people are like, oh, they don't really need me. This church needs you. They need you here. It's so great to see this place so packed. It's wonderful. Your community needs you. And so, I think about this. You guys know the story of the talents. You know, you have the guy who was given five talents, right? And the owner of the talents in the story is Jesus, and he gives three men talents. He gives the first one five talents, and what does he do? He works, and he doubles those talents, and he has 10. And then the other guy, he gives him two, and he doubles those talents, and he has four. And when the owner comes back, he says, what'd you do with those? He goes, I doubled them. He goes, well done thou good and faithful what? Servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I'll make thee ruler over much. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. Then he gets to the guy who was given one talent. And what does he do with that talent? He buries it in the sand. He buries it in the dirt. And why is he buried? Because he was afraid. Fear is a terrible God, by the way. You cannot... You cannot function through life in the spirit of fear. You have to be like, God's gonna help me through this, I'm not making excuses, I'm going to move forward in the face of fear. And Jesus rebukes him, he says, thou wicked and slothful servant. You know what's so interesting about the story is that he was rebuked not for doing bad things, he was actually rebuked for doing nothing. And it's not enough for us to just not sin in our life, it's more than that, it's about living righteously. Because the broken in this world desperately want to know people who are whole. And that's why your sanctification, you maximizing your spiritual life, and you being all in for God is so important for the health and the life of those who know you. So if you wanna maximize your life, begin with self-governing, sanctification. His grace is sufficient for you to begin today. Lord, thank you so much for the time we got to spend in your word. I pray that we would grow in our sanctification. I pray that we would take to heart the importance of understanding why you gave us grace so that we could live a godly life, we could live a separated, peculiar life. so that we could stop making excuses for our behavior, we could stop making excuses and being a victim in our life, but in you, we're victorious, we're conquerors. You have freed us from that mentality and from our sin, and we're so thankful for that, and I pray we'd live that out, and I pray that broken people would find this church and find wholeness in your spirit, and I pray that you would help us in this. We desperately need you in Jesus' name, amen. We hope that message was an encouragement to your heart. Now, for weekly updates and for information about Liberty Baptist Church, be sure to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook at LBC of Las Vegas. Well, that's it for today. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, God bless.