churches over the years. So we look forward to that continuing. I do invite you to turn in your Bibles to Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2. We'll be looking at verses 11 through 15. And while you're turning there, there was a episode of Planet Earth 2 that I had the privilege of watching with my family not too long ago. The first episode of this series has one of the most intense chase scenes you've ever witnessed in nature. Baby iguanas hatch along the beach and they open their eyes and they see this just vast empty beach. And they have rocks on their right and the beach on their left. And it just looks incredible. It's this beautiful picture of what life has in store for these baby iguanas. And everyone thinks it's so precious and delightful until they realize that there are hundreds and thousands of snakes hiding in these rocks. And I'm not talking little baby garter snakes. Massive snakes coming down from the rocks as soon as these iguanas start to move. And they've got to get above these snakes, over these rocks. And the snakes begin to come down after they see the initial movement. And if the baby iguana stands still, the snakes don't have great vision. So they can't see the iguana. But of course, once the iguana notices the snake, they start to move. And then oftentimes, they don't make it. out of there alive. But the fast and the brave survive, and they go through, and as this little iguana starts to run, and they're faster than the snakes, it's not just one snake, but dozens are now surrounding it from all sides. It runs smack into a pack of about three of them, and it gets wrapped up right away. And then the scene goes into slow motion, and the narrator's talking still, and you think, oh, this poor baby iguana. You've really come to know him, you've come to feel for him, and then all of a sudden he gets free. He escapes through some hole, and the snake didn't constrict fast enough. And it gets away and it starts to climb up these rocks. And there's no joke, a snake that jumps, that leaps over the rocks at it and its foot, this baby iguana's foot, pushes the mouth down and keeps scrambling up the rocks and makes it to safety where there's another iguana that kind of pats him on the back, gives him a high five and says congratulations. But it's an impressive scene. You really should take some time to see it. But oftentimes our lives can feel like that little naive hatchling, right, just sitting there looking around at the great expanse in front of us, and we have no idea about what lurks inside the rocks outside of our view. It's actually much worse than that, however, because we have no idea how to save ourselves. We can't save ourselves. In fact, our plight is worse than that because even if we could be saved, we cannot train ourselves. We're not capable of growing and maturing on our own. And I think that is ultimately what Titus is expressing here. I mean, what Paul is expressing to Titus in verses 11 through 15 here. He's wanting us to see that we need to be saved as well as trained by grace. We need to be saved and trained by grace. Grace radically transforms those who understand it and receive it. And it's written at a crucial time in the early church. Many were unfamiliar with the scriptures in Crete. This is written to Titus who Paul has left on the island of Crete. And he's encouraged him to go around to the various cities on the island where there's a people of God and to establish elders there and to train them up and to give them sound doctrine with which they would proclaim and would result in sound living. And that's where we come to this section in verses 11 through 15. So before we read it, let's ask the Lord for his help in understanding it. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for this letter that Paul's written to Titus to instruct us. And we ask that you would help us to see this truth. Soften our hearts to respond to this appropriately. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear this truth. And may we be transformed by your grace, that you might be glorified, and that each one present may be edified. It's in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. We'll read with me, Titus 2, 11 through 15. 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 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. Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Amen, this is God's holy word. Well, this passage begins with an important word for, and it acknowledges or it reveals that this is the indicative that grounds the imperative that preceded this in chapter two. Now, what that means is it is who we are in Christ that grounds, that serves as the foundation for how we are to live, for the characteristics that are to define followers of Christ. And typically, Paul has the order different, right? He starts with the indicative and then follows into the imperative. He starts with who we are. in the first three chapters of Ephesians, and then the last three chapters are how we then should live. But here he reverses it, and there's only one other letter of Paul's where he does this. But in either case, the point is, this serves as the foundation. It serves as the foundation for everything that preceded, right? That four links these verses to one through 10. And we'll begin with this first section, training by grace for the present age. Verses 11 and 12. In verse 11, it says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. That word appeared, it refers to Christ's first coming. It implies everything that happened in his first coming, his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, even his ascension, all of it can be contained in that phrase or in that word appeared. And what did he appear? First of all, he appeared to bring salvation or he appeared bringing salvation. This isn't that he came to offer salvation. It's not that he came to make salvation possible. He brought salvation. But that creates a little bit of a dilemma for us because it says bringing salvation for all people. There's only two ways to consider that verse. Either he's talking about universalism, that everyone, whether they're in church or out of church, whether they believe or don't believe, everyone will be saved. That's one way of interpreting this verse. The other one is to consider the fact that he is writing to groups of people. And it's the fact that the gospel is breaking down this separation between those groups. And if you look back at verses one through 10 of this chapter, you see that's precisely what he's doing. He's writing to older women, verse three there, he's writing to sorry, older men in verse two, then writing to older women. That's followed by instruction for younger women and younger men. And finally, in verse nine, bond servants. These are groups of people, and he's saying that the gospel is no longer restricted. It reaches beyond just one group, one ethnic group, one kind of person, and beyond status, beyond social class, beyond age, beyond gender. Christ brought salvation for all kinds of people. But not only does he bring salvation, he trains us. Verse 12, he's training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. This language training us in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, speaks of discipline or chastisement. In the New Testament, it's always attached to education. But it implies what the Old Testament contained, this idea of discipline. It's a training that is not necessarily fun. It's hard work, but Christ is the one training us by his grace. It's a bit of a paradox. It's a bit of a mystery, but it's Christ working in us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And this training involves, first of all, a renouncing or a denial of old ways, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and secondly, to live, first of all, rightly for ourselves, living self-controlled, and then towards or before others, living upright, and then before God, living godly lives in the present age. So it implies in this one verse, this idea of a private faith, a public faith, and a faith before God. That's what this training by grace involves. And that Paul would recognize this training is occurring under the hand of grace would have been absolutely revolutionary for him. If you recall what Paul has said in the past, in Philippians chapter 3, verses five and six, he talks about the fact that he was a blameless Pharisee. Listen to this. He was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. So he was blameless. That's how he viewed himself before. He goes on in Philippians to talk about how he considered all of it trash or rubbish once he came to know Christ and his grace. This resume that he had been building up trying to earn favor with God was rubbish. So once he met Christ, in fact, on his way to persecute the church, is when he recognized his desperate need for salvation. See, prior to that, he was self-righteous. Now he sees his need. And from that point on, he understood that he couldn't earn God's favor through righteous deeds. But in fact, he was already clothed by faith in the righteousness of Christ. At that moment, from that moment forward, he would walk by faith. And so here's the point I want to make from this first section. The same grace that saved us in the past also trains us how to live in the present. The same grace that saved us in the past also trains us how to live in the present. And so we must be saved and trained by the grace of Christ. Grace doesn't free us to live however we want to live. you know, continue to follow the desires of our flesh or the temptations of the world or the devil. But the grace of Christ begins to transform our desires, begins to change what it is we want. So that worldly passions are now replaced by a craving for something that is pure and lovely and good. Sin's fleeting pleasures are replaced by what is superior, the superior reward of grace. And so Paul transitions now from this idea of training by grace for the present age to a waiting for hope, a waiting with hope for the future age. Look at verse 13. Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So Jesus is the personification of grace, and he's also the culmination of our hope. Stott says it like this, John Stott, he says, the grace that has appeared will reappear in glory. We've received this grace that is appearing, and now we look forward to his reappearing. And it transitions then from grace to glory. And we do have a taste of that glory now as well, but what he's really referring to is this future hope, a blessed hope of an appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So the question is, do you anticipate the future with hope? Or does the future oftentimes scare you? Do you oftentimes think about the future with anxious thoughts, fearing death even? If you were diagnosed with a terminal disease and given a short time to live, would it fill you with fear? Or would your only comfort in life and death be Jesus Christ? Christ alone is both God and Savior. And so that's a theological statement. What Paul is saying here is important. He says, waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. There's a bit of a debate here among commentators of whether he's talking about two people or one. But there's a couple of reasons why I think it's one, that he's not talking about God the Father and Jesus Christ, he's talking about God who is our Savior, Jesus Christ. that Jesus Christ is our God and Savior. First of all, grammatically, there's a rule called the Granville-Sharpe rule in Greek, in the Greek New Testament. And as it's defined, whenever there is a phrase that includes an article, the, followed by a substantive, and then a conjunction or chi in the Greek, which is and in your English Bible, and then another substantive. So article, substantive, Conjunction, substantive. Whenever you find that kind of phrase in your Greek New Testament, it's always referring to one person. 100% of the time. It's referring to one person. Linguistically even, the way this language of appearing is always referencing to the Son. This idea of the appearing of God is always a reference to the Son, Jesus Christ. This would be a unique instance if it were the appearing of God the Father or the appearing of the glory of God the Father even. That would be a unique instance. The context here as well is talking about the Son. You saw back in verse 11, for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation. The appearance again is a reference there to Christ and we'll see it following very clearly in the reference to Jesus Christ in verse 14 saying, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness. And lastly, and I think maybe one of the more convincing points here is that the setting, the Cretans would have been very familiar with this phrase, God and Savior, because this phrase was used all of the time in reference to false gods, to Artemis, the god whose temple was in Ephesus. There was also a reference to the imperial, imperial worship, sorry, like Caesar. Caesar was referred to as our God and Savior, the God and Savior. And so clearly, as Paul is writing, he's, in the minds of the Cretans, he is arguing that Jesus Christ and Christ alone is the true God and Savior. He was confronting false religions with this statement. And even that was another paradigm shift for Paul to go through because to consider the Messiah, to consider that the Messiah was God was revolutionary. Paul affirms the deity of Jesus Christ here as clear as any other New Testament author. And he goes on to say in verse 14, 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. So he's talking about the future in verse 13, but he says the future now is secured by Christ's past act of redemption. So Christ fulfilled the Old Testament promises when he did three things, when he gave himself, when he redeemed us and when he cleanses us, right? So he gave himself, but then he redeemed us. And this is a reference to us individually, right? That we have to be individually redeemed. We're set free from the penalty and power of all past, present and future sin. It's a glorious reality for every believer. But then there's also a corporate aspect here because he says we are to be, he is cleansing us, purifying for himself a people for his own possession. Now he's talking about the corporate body of Christ that is being cleansed for his own possession. And that is why we had this reading from Ezekiel chapter 37 because in Ezekiel 37 verse 23, we read this, they shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things or with any of their transgressions, but I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned and will cleanse them. And they shall be my people and I will be their God. This whole section of Ezekiel is talking about God saving us, redeeming us. for himself as his own possession and cleansing us. And so here's the second point, that the same grace that saved us in the past also trains us how to live with hope for the future. As it relates to you, are you waiting for the glory of Christ? Are you waiting for his glory? It's a gift Jesus gave himself. He redeems us and he purifies us. All in preparation for his return. You can look at Ephesians 5 to see Paul saying the same thing there in reference to our marriage, that the husbands are to purify their wives as Christ purifies the church. That's to be our priority. So the question is, do you believe that when the Holy Spirit opens your eyes to this truth, of all that Christ has done in and for us and will do in the future, it is to fill us with an uncontainable zeal. A people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. I could have titled the sermon, Zealous for Good Works. And I think it might've made some of you cringe. Possibly. I think a lot of Christians cringe at this idea of good works. We're afraid of using this language. But I think if that is a bother, it's not genuine grace that you have in mind. Because the grace that comes through Christ is a grace that transforms. And Paul was praying beautifully about that. I love long pastoral prayers. It's good to hear that. But this idea that when grace comes, it's a call to live a new life, to have a new purpose, to live differently than we were before we came to Christ. We must, or it's not grace that we've received. Grace moves us, it compels us to be zealous for pleasing God. And the result is that we can't stop speaking about him. And that's where he concludes here, declare these things, verse 15. These things would be everything that precedes this verse in chapter two, right? It's the sound living that results from sound teaching of the gospel that transforms by grace. And that's the message that's to be declared continually. It involves exhorting Christians It involves rebuking false teachers with Paul's apostolic support, with his authority behind it. And that's probably one of the main reasons Paul is writing to Titus, because he needs something to give him this authority to say what he's saying, to establish leaders there in Crete, to give them the doctrine that he's teaching them. To tell them that this is something that Paul is giving to them and the result should be changed lives. And he says, don't let anyone disregard you, probably because there were people who were skeptical about what he was teaching them. I didn't, many don't think Titus was as young as Timothy, because in Timothy, you have several references to his age. In Titus, you only have this one section, let no one disregard you. And some think, well, maybe he was also young, and so he would have been disregarded for his age. But it doesn't say that. All we know is that people were prone to ignore him, prone to ignore his teaching there on Crete. He has this authority with which he could now proclaim boldly to believers and to the false teachers, to exhort and to rebuke. But what characterizes most public discourse today? What do we see whenever we turn on the television and witness someone speaking to an audience? It's oftentimes this ability to be elusive, to be non, to be wishy-washy in our thinking, to not say anything dogmatically. It seems like the unsettling goal of public speaking is to offend the fewest number of people. And if we can do that, then we've accomplished our task. And maybe you, like me, find it a little bit silly that universities have created places, right, these safe spaces for their students. So that if they walk by the free speech area and they hear something that offends them, they can quickly find a safe space where they won't be offended, where they'll be cuddled, where they'll be encouraged and comforted to just stay exactly as they are with the same beliefs they've always had. And yet in reality, many churches, right, the evangelical world across this nation has become one giant safe space where people are encouraged to come, to hear that they're good enough as they are, that they don't need to change anything about them or what they believe. And I'm not saying that everything from the pulpit needs to be thundered and demanded and filled with anger. But I do think it's time that pastors quit whispering, that we begin to speak boldly about our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, unashamedly proclaiming the gospel of our great God and Savior. It's not incompatible with speaking the truth in love. It's the most loving thing we can do. And as he said to the church, Church in Rome, Romans 116, we're not to be ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God. The message we are to boldly proclaim is that the same grace that saved us in the past also trains us how to live in the present with hope for the future. In other words, the salvation we proclaim has past, present, and future components to it. radical salvation, changes the way we view our past, the way we live in the presence, and the way we think about the future with hope. We're not to be ashamed when we speak of the gospel of Christ. And although Paul was here writing to Titus, and he had a specific purpose in mind, this would have been read to the church, the whole of Christ's church. It's a message for all of us, all of us who are being bombarded by the message of false teachers everywhere else we go. We need to be reminded that this is the message that the apostles proclaimed and that we then should speak with authority to others. So we're trained by grace for the present age, waiting with hope for the future age, speaking with authority about both ages. Remember, we're born under conditions that are hopeless. We cannot save ourselves, we cannot train ourselves, but Jesus Christ appeared, and he will appear again. And we pray it'll be soon. But those who turn to Christ as their God and Savior will find a blessed hope when they do. And the question is, are you being trained by the grace of Christ to wait for the glory of Christ, because when you're doing both, the result will be that you'll speak of the gospel of Christ with passion and authority. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this message that Paul has given to Titus, which then has been passed on to your church, and given to us now in this age, an age which is not all that dissimilar. We face much that is like those on the island of Crete, hearing false teachers being challenged and tempted by the world. And we need to be emboldened by a grace that not only changes our minds, but changes our will, gives us a new desire, transforms the things we talk about, the way we interact with our neighbors, even the way we worship, the way we're all created for worship and everyone, whether they're in church right now or not, is worshiping someone or something. We pray that they would be convicted that what they are worshiping cannot bring the satisfaction that this gospel we've proclaimed can bring. This gospel, the gospel of Christ alone satisfies your justice. It redeems us, a people for your own possession, calls us to a new way of life and gives us a hope and an eternity that we can't wait to be a part of. Lord, as we meditate upon this, may we think about our past in view of what Christ has done. May we think about our present in light of what the mission Christ has given us to go out and proclaim the gospel with boldness, with passion, with this apostolic authority. And may we look forward with hope for Christ's return. It's in his name that we ask it. Amen. Does someone else leave this portion? Oh, there you are, Paul. Turn to Psalm 96C, go ahead and stand up. This is 96C. 96C. O sing a new song to the Lord, let all the earth sing to the Lord. Sing to the Lord and bless his name, and his salvation loud proclaim. Proclaim His good news constantly, His glory and His majesty, His miracles to all declare throughout the nations everywhere. Behold the greatness of the Lord, so greatly should he be adored, and fit above all else by far from Gentile gods mere idols are. Not so, the Lord ye heaven make, and their joy for Him is displayed. All splendor, majesty, and grace, all strength dwells in His holy place. Well, here now the Lord's benediction, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Savior.