A Church Shaped by the Gospel (Titus 2:11-15)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
In 1985, the movie Back to the Future came out. In the movie you have Doc Brown and Marty McFly learning and experiencing time travel, particularly in the case of this first movie, with Marty accidentally travelling 30 years into the past and running into his parents before they even met.
As the movie plot progresses, Marty learns something, that the happenings there in the past will change life for him when he returns to the Future, to his present time. That the past, the present, and the future are all effect life as he knows it.
Obviously we are not here this morning though to talk about the movie Back to the Future, even though that could be fun. No, we are here this morning though to talk about how the past, present, and future are rightly intertwined and to affect how we live the Christian life. Particularly how the past and the hope of the future affects how we live in the present. Therefore at this time, I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Titus 2:11-15. Titus 2:11-15. If you need to, please feel free to use the table of contents, or if you are using one of the Red Pew Bibles there in front of you, well you can find our passage in those Bibles on page #1184.
By chance if you are unfamiliar with the Bible, you would be helped in knowing that first number I mentioned, the 2 is what we call chapter numbers. The chapter numbers are the big numbers there on the page. The second set of numbers, the 11-15 are what we call verse numbers, these are the smaller numbers there on the page. This will be helpful for you as we go this morning, that way when I say look with me there at verse 11, you know where I am talking about.
Now, as we continue to work our way through the book of Titus, it is important for us to remember that Paul is writing here to his young protege Titus, instructing him to put things in order in the Church of Crete. Order that is to be in the establishing of godly, qualified men as elders, the warning and rebuking of false teachers who profess to know God, but deny him by his works. Titus is to set in order the church by instructing the church to live accordingly with godly character. To this point in the letter though, it might seem a bit daunting, a bit impossible to live up to these standards, maybe even a bit confusing for some in thinking that isn’t Christianity to be grace filled. YES and YES! What separates Christianity from other religions is that our hope is not based on our works, but on the grace of God that comes to us in Jesus. And it is that grace that fuels our call to godliness.
Main Idea: The grace of God that has appeared to us teaches us to live in the present age as we wait with hope for future glory. Four points: (1) The Grace of God and the Past, (2) The Grace of God and the Present, and (3) The Grace of God and the Future, and (4) The Grace of God and our Ministry.
I. The Grace of God and the Past
I. The Grace of God and the Past
Look with me again at verse 11. We read, (v.11).
The grace of God has already appeared, and in its appearance it has brought salvation for all people. Now, before any get the strange notion that Titus 2:11 is arguing that every person throughout history is now already saved because the grace of God has already appeared, friend that is not at all what this passage is teaching.
In saying that the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people, it is emphasizing that by the grace of God, salvation is being offered to all people without distinction. That salvation is offered to the young, the old, the free, the slave, the man, the woman, Jew, and Gentile. It is offered to the ungodly, even those in Crete who have always been liars, evil brutes, and lazy gluttons (1:12). Salvation is offered to all people without distinction.
For this salvation comes not as something earned but by God’s grace. Grace by very definition means unmerited favor. Grace is not earned or deserved, but is offered freely by God as a gift. And this gift has already appeared. For it has appeared in God’s beloved Son, Jesus.
God’s grace has appeared to the world in the person and work of Jesus Christ. For he who was in the beginning as the Word, who was with God, and was God was sent into the world to bring light. And that word took on human flesh to dwell among us as God the Son Incarnate, the Person of Jesus (John 1:1-4, 9, 14). And he came to bring grace and truth (John 1:17). And this Jesus came to save us.
One might ask the question save us from what? Well I’m glad you asked friend. Jesus came to save us from our sins. For despite our very good beginning, having been created by God and in the image of God and all being good in the garden at creation, sin entered into the world.
You see, as all was good, there was one who hated God, because he wanted to be God. He took the form of a serpent and slithered his tongue to Eve, and Adam through Eve, that God was holding out on them in forbidding them to not eat of the forbidden tree. He injected doubt into them in causing them to doubt God’s goodness. And the poison sank into their hearts and produced death in them, the death of sin and rebellion. Adam and Eve rejected the rule of God and therefore attempted to usurp themselves to the throne of God. They committed treason against their God and their creator.
Because of this rebellion, because of their sin, the curse of sin entered the world, death. God’s very good creation was overturned, death began to work its way into the world. Man was no more allowed to live in the presence of God and they were forced out. Man would no longer live forever, but would die. Marriage would now be in jeopardy of strife, the ground would be difficult to work, and to be fruitful and multiply would be difficult, for child bearing would be difficult.
This curse not being just for Adam and Eve, but a curse that would be passed down through them to all the ages. For all born in their father Adam would be born in sin. They would have the same poison running through them that was put into their first parents, the poison that doubts and rejects God and his right rule. The poison leaving for dead. For the wages of sin is death.
But God’s grace has come, it has appeared to overturn the curse of sin and death. It has come to bring salvation to all people. God’s grace has appeared in Jesus who came to save his people from their sin (Matthew 1:21). All who would turn and place their faith in Christ and Christ alone for their salvation.
It is this salvation that has come and been brought into the world. A salvation that is offered to all without distinction. Friend, it matters not who you are this morning or where you are at in life or how much evil you have done, it matters not the shame of your past, salvation has come by the grace of God if you will but turn from your sin and believe in the LORD Jesus. Friend, make today the day of your salvation. The day that the grace of God becomes visible to you as it points you to Jesus.
It is this salvation that has already come in Jesus. For he has already won salvation for all who would be united to him by their faith in him. This is the grace of God that has already appeared, it is already done. And it is the grace of God that has already appeared in Jesus that is the grounds for the high calling of Christians to live godly lives in this present age.
II. The Grace of God and the Present
II. The Grace of God and the Present
What has already come is to shape how we live in the present. And this is Paul’s point. All that he has been telling Titus to do, to teach, to set in order is the result of the already appearing of this grace, grace that has come through Christ.
For the same grace that has appeared and saved us, through our faith in Jesus, that same grace works to train us to live in the present day. A grace that is only capable to save us, but not change us is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightly calls:
A cheap grace. [2]
But the grace of God that has already appeared is not a cheap grace. It is a grace that has come to train us, to train us to live in the present with the hope of the future.
It trains us in the ways of educating us how to rightly live, just as a father brings up their children. For the training here is the same kind of training mentioned from Proverbs 22:6:
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Therefore the grace of God that has appeared in Christ saves us and then trains us, teaching us the ways of Christ. Charles Spurgeon would add that this grace is disciplining us. He writes:
The discipline of grace, according to the apostle, has three results—denying, living, looking. [1]
A. Trained to deny
A. Trained to deny
Therefore first, the grace of God trains us to deny. Or as another commentator says, to say no.
Part of the call to follow Christ is a call to deny ourselves and take up our cross. It is a call to die, to die to self and the old man. Therefore, upon the grace of God having appeared, of us having believed in the person of Christ, this grace then is working in us, disciplining us to say no to all the former ways in which we lived, the ways that denied God.
The grace of God is to teach us to deny every act of ungodliness. It disciplines those in Crete to deny the myths and empty talk that lead to ungodliness. It disciplined them to deny being liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. It disciplined them then to also deny the passions that lead to such evil desires.
Beloved, what ungodliness is still at work in our flesh and in our desires that we need the discipline of the grace of God to continue working in us? Maybe for some, you like the Cretes are caught up in myths and empty talk rather than the knowledge of truth.
Others, maybe you are so consumed with self that you have a great need to deny yourself in order to love and serve and prefer others over yourself. Or maybe your passions are all running counter to God, and though you profess to know God, you are in great need of being disciplined to bring your passions under control by the grace of God, enabling you to walk in godliness.
Beloved, we who are in Christ continue to need the grace of God to be at work in us, disciplining us to deny ourselves as we continue to grow in the obedience of faith, that is to follow Christ more fully and wholly.
B. The Grace of God Trains Us to Live
B. The Grace of God Trains Us to Live
However, the grace of God does not only discipline us to deny ourselves, to say no to wrong things, it disciplines us how to rightly live in light of our great salvation in Christ. For that is the main verb here in verse 12, to live. Everything else is modifying it.
The grace of God disciplines us to live as those who are self-controlled. Self-controlled is to define every Christian, if that hasn’t already been obvious to us in seeing the call for older men, older women, younger women, and especially in the qualifications for elders. Christians are to be a people who live self-controlled. For one who isn’t self-controlled is one who has already been conquered by another master, the master of sin. This is why we read in:
28 A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.
To live self-controlled is to live without being given to indulgence of any and all bodily appetites. Food, drink, and sexual desires. All are to be controlled in the Christian life. To be controlled with restraint and not give way to passion and prejudice. Beloved, let God’s discipline of grace be at work in us, disciplining us to grow more and more self-controlled in all of these and more!
God’s grace disciplines us and teaches us to live upright and godly lives as well. This means as Christians, we are to live as honest men and women. In business, we should work and operate with integrity, not as those who seek to swindle and cheat others so we can profit off of them. Students, this means living as those with integrity and care. Never cheating to get ahead, and never bullying to make yourself feel more superior than others. But even more so, treating others kindly as you yourself would want to be treated.
God’s discipline teaches us to live in such an upright and godly manner in all we do, in our hobbies, in our shopping, in our day to day living. May the God of grace continue to discipline us so that we increase in such godliness in our lives.
But one more thing here we must address. God’s discipline is teaching us to live by denial and living, but these are not for the future, they are for the present. God’s grace is not some past grace alone or some future grace alone, it is a very present grace for the here and the now.
As Christians we are tempted to complain and lay verbal assault on society. We are tempted to try and hide from society in our holy huddles, but that is not what the discipline of God’s grace seeks to train us in. No, here these words from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon:
Society is the place in which Christianity is to exhibit the graces of Christ. You have to live soberly, godly, righteously in this world such as it is at present. It is of no use for you to scheme to escape from it. If the grace of God is in you, that grace is meant to be displayed, not in a select and secluded retreat, but in this present world. You are to shine in the darkness like a light. [3]
As Christians, we are to be living in this present world, in all its short-comings, in all its filth as those transformed by grace. We are to live godly lives today because of what Christ has done in saving us as a light to others. For though we may appear odd for a time and be persecuted for our strangeness, it will not last for long, glory is coming.
III. The Grace of God and the Future
III. The Grace of God and the Future
The past and the present are not isolated and alone, we are to live in the present in light of the past, with our eyes set on the future hope we have. The hope of the gospel, the hope of eternal life. V.13
This next week in our time of Vacation Bible School, the children in attendance will be hearing the story of redemption, three of the days looking at the anticipation of the first coming of Christ, then on Thursday, looking at the first arrival of Jesus Christ. And then on Friday at his death, burial, and resurrection. But the resurrection, not even Jesus ascension is the end of the story. We live between two comings of Jesus. The first coming has already happened, that is what we considered in our first point this morning, the grace of God has appeared. But now we await for the second coming.
Jesus will come again with great glory. The one who laid down his life for us will return and the fullness of the glory of our God and Savior Jesus will be revealed, it will bring about a time were all things are put under his feet and all bow down declaring him to be the LORD Almighty!
But we who have already believed and those who will believe before that day do not wait in fear, we wait with hope. We wait with hope because of the past, what Christ has already won for us on the cross. We wait with confidence because of what he has done, we have the hope of eternal, everlasting life! We wait with hope that he has and will purify us for that day to be with him, forever, in glory. V.14.
For in the appearing of God’s grace in Jesus, that grace came to redeem us. To redeem us not just from our sin, but death. To redeem us to restore us to live in the presence of God for all eternity. He came to redeem us as a people for his own possession. A possession he bought by the pouring out of his blood on the cross. And if he has purchased us already, how much more then will Christ work to keep us? To continue to work in us until all is completed? How much more will he ensure that all is accomplished to the point of his coming in glory?
Therefore, no matter where you are at in the process of your sanctification, dear brother or sister, hope in confidence that Christ is working to purify you by his grace. You who are discouraged, wait on the coming of the LORD. Waiting not with passivity, but expectant hope in the promises of God and the coming of glory that is drawing near. And let even the smallest increase of desire for the good works of God give us confidence of this saving work that has and is at work in us.
But beware any who sit here professing to be a Christian who has no desire for the good works of faith. Because lack of such desire proves that you have yet to taste of the grace of God, to see its appearing in Christ. And you friend, should repent and believe today.
For it is by grace and grace alone that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. Yet it is that same grace in light of the hope we have of salvation glory to come that will cause us to be a people zealous for good works. Zealous for the things of the one who has redeemed us. Our works are the overflow of God’s saving grace in us.
IV. The Grace of God and Our Ministry
IV. The Grace of God and Our Ministry
Because of the past appearing of God’s grace, the present discipline of God’s grace, and the future glory of God’s grace, we, beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, are to be a people who declare these things with confidence to a world in ruin who needs our aide. Verse 15.
As Christians, that is you, beloved, you are to declare these things to one another in discipleship. You are to proclaim these things to those who you pass by and build relationships with through the process of evangelism. This is the role of every Christian.
As elders, especially me who has the primary role to preach, this means us continuing to exhort and rebuke with all authority, all authority of Christ our King. For we are called to teach sound doctrine, right Christian living for all who would come and take up their cross and follow Christ. Rebuking those who profess to know God while denying him while they live in ungodliness. And we are to do this by letting no one disregard us as we faithfully labor to teach these truths. For our authority comes not from position or title, but the words of the Holy Scriptures. And this we seek to continue to proclaim.
We seek to continue to proclaim that Christ has already come as God the Son Incarnate, he who was both fully God and man, that he lived a sinless life, then he gave himself up for us to rescue us from the curse of sin and death so that we might live. This is the salvation that has come by God’s grace. And that same grace is at work in all who have believed, disciplining us to a life of godliness, sanctifying us, even if slower than we prefer. And it is all being done with the hope of what is to come in all that is wrong being finally undone and righted in new creation. This we proclaim now and forevermore.
Let’s pray…
Endnotes:
[1] Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: Titus, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Spurgeon Commentary Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 307.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller and Armgard Booth, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillian, 1959), 35-36.
[3] Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon Commentary: Titus, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Spurgeon Commentary Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 308–309.
