So Lord, may you graciously help
me, I will turn your prayerful attention to Titus, the epistle
of Paul to Titus, chapter 2, and reading verses 11 to 14 as
a text. Titus, chapter 2, verses 11 to
14. for the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world. looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour,
Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem
us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works. So we have in this epistle of
Paul to Titus, he has been explaining to Titus the need to preach sound
doctrine, that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in the hearts
of the people will have an effect on the life. And that is what
Paul is driving at here, and so that grace Sometimes people
say, well, it's the grace of God and what we do, our works,
that's nothing. It's all about the grace of God.
But here, Paul is saying it is the grace of God, but the grace
of God will affect the life. There will be an effect. There
will be a changed life as a result of the grace of God. Indeed,
we read, by their fruits shall he know them. So looking firstly
at verse 11, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath
appeared to all men. What Paul is saying here is that
the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared, it's
come, it's been manifest. In other words, the first advent
of Christ, the Lord Jesus has come. He didn't just appear to
the Jews, He has appeared to all men, to all people. Jews
and Gentiles both were involved in putting Christ to death. The
Jews and the Gentiles were both involved in his death. And indeed
his death was for both. Jews and Gentiles, those called
out of every kindred, nation, tribe, and tongue, for the grace
of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. There's been a revelation of
Christ. Christ has come, and he has revealed the way of salvation. He has shown that he is the Lamb
of God, the one that has come to save his people from their
sins. So really verse 11 is Paul stating
the first advent of the Lord Jesus coming, and that it's been
manifest, it's been shown clearly, Paul said, when he was being
questioned by those at Rome and so forth, that these things were
not done in a corner. It was not secretly done. The
Lord Jesus was put to death in a very, very public way. Many
times earlier he could have been put to death by the people as
they tried to do so, but we read that his time had not yet come. So the grace of God that bringeth
salvation, so it brings salvation to his church. The coming of
Christ did this. brought salvation to his people.
He shall save his people from their sins. Not he might, but
he will. He shall save his people from
their sins. But then in verse 12, we learn,
you see, that this grace of God does something. teaching us. It instructs us. So this grace
is not just something that justifies us and makes us righteous in
the sight of God and then leaves us. No, it's something that instructs
us. It's something that means that
we're now in the school of Christ. We're to be instructed and taught
by God. This is what Paul is saying.
Teach the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all
men, teaching us, the people of God. Those who have been heirs
together of the grace of life, those who have known something
of this salvation in their hearts, are going to be taught. and they're
going to be instructed. And here we have three things,
three different parts of the instruction in verse 11, sorry,
in verse 12 and then also in verse 13. The first of that is
denying. The second is that we should,
in living, how we, so we should deny things and then how we should
live And then in verse 13, what we should be looking forward
to. So this is what grace teaches. As I say, grace is not just something,
well, the Lord has given us the grace of the Lord and therefore
we just live the rest of our lives as tickles our fancy. No,
grace teaches people. to adorn, you see, the grace
of God. And we had this earlier, you
see, in the various instructions that he's given to different
people groups in the church, the elder, the aged men and the
young men, the aged women and the young women, the different
people groups that Paul is told Titus to address. And there is
this instruction, you see, and the purpose of it is, if you
look in verse 5, at the end of verse 5, that the word of God
be not blasphemed. In other words, if Christians
say that they have received the grace of God and then live separate
from that, they are bringing shame and dishonour on the name
of Christ. That's clear from this in verse
8. That they, of the contrary part,
may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. The idea
is that there's going to be those that are looking for ways of
criticising Christians. They're looking for chinks in
the armour. They're looking for reasons why
they can discredit the Christian faith. And therefore Paul is
saying to Titus, God's people need to be instructed
to be taught as to how they should live. So many would say, you
see, in some Christian circles, well, this is just the law. But
no, you see, this is where Paul is teaching, talking about the
grace of God and showing that that is linked. with behaviour,
linked with teaching. So let us look first then at
this first category, teaching us that denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts. So here we have something negative. It's something that the Christian
must turn away from, something that the Christian must say no
to. So a Christian is one that needs
to embrace Christ, but he's also one that needs to stop embracing
the world. To stop embracing those things
which are against Christ. teaching us that denying ungodliness. Well what is, let's think first
of all what godliness is. Godliness is our desire to reverence
God, to fear God, to obey his voice, to serve him, to have
true belief in His name, to do things that honour Him, to speak
respectfully about Him, to give our lives in devotion to Him. That is a godly person, one who
fears God, who honours God, who seeks to love God and seeks to
obey His commandments. That is a godly person. That's
the definition of being godly. Well, teaching us that denying
ungodliness. So it's the opposite of all those
things. It's ungodliness. That's when
we seek to mock God. And the world is doing this,
isn't it? It's seeking to ridicule God. It's seeking to take his
honour. away in creation. It's seeking
to say that it's all millions of years, it's nothing to do
with a great creator who majestically holds all things by the power
of his might. No, it's all random chance. They
seek to deny that it's the hand of God in anything. They seek
to deny that God has a right to say who should marry who. They deny that God has a right
to do these things. They are denying God his way
and his will in their lives. They fight against it. When God
says, thou shalt not kill, they go ahead. And if they feel that
that's right, they want to do, they will go ahead and be rid
of those babies that they don't want in the womb. They go ahead
and do that. They don't care what God says,
they don't care what he thinks, they will do their own way, denying
ungodliness. Do we? Is this characteristic
of us? This is, you see, what Paul writes
to Titus that this is the effect that the grace of God will have.
It will teach us to deny ungodliness, to deny the ungodly world, the
world that ridicules God, the world that ridicules his day,
the world that doesn't keep his day, doesn't seek the knowledge
of his ways, doesn't seek to be found in his house, doesn't
seek these things. We're to deny this ungodliness. We're to stop it in our lives,
but we're to be against it. We're not to be neutral. He doesn't
say, look, you've got all these people out here that are walking
ungodly. I just want you to be neutral.
No, he says you are to deny it. We're to actively deny ungodliness. That's a mark that we read here,
teaching us that denying ungodliness. And then the next category he
has that we are to deny is worldly lusts. That's the desire you
see for forbidden things. God has said do this and thou
shalt not do the other. And thou shalt not commit adultery,
for example. And our hearts and the world
would say, well, just go ahead, it's good. It's not a problem. The law in our land has nothing
to say about it, sadly. And how devastating that is for
families. How devastating such wicked laws
are. but denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts. But this lust can be a lusting
for pride, lusting for power, lusting for importance, lusting
to be great in the eyes of the world. That's what the world
loves. that they want constantly to be somebody, to be something. And we're the same by nature.
But you see, this is what we've got to deny. This is what we've
got to turn away from. We've got to deny ungodliness
and worldly lusts. We've got to put the sword through
them. We've got to not encourage them, not feed them, but say,
no, this is not what we should be doing. This is what Paul is
telling Titus to instruct the people of God. This is not something
that is against the gospel. This is something that flows
from the gospel. It flows from the gospel. And
as we see later, you'll see that the whole Emphasis here is we
normally perhaps think of the death of Christ to do with justification,
but here it's very clearly linked with sanctification. In other
words, to change the way that we live, to have an outworking
in our practical lives as a result of being redeemed. Teaching us
that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. So that's the
negative. They're the things that we should
deny. You see, we can't say yes to everything. We can't be for
everything. You see, Christ said, if you're
for me, you must be against the world. Or if you're for the world,
you must be against me. You can't be both. You must be
one or the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men. All types, all races, all
statuses, but this is what it, when the grace of God comes,
this is what Paul says to Titus will be the effect. It teaches
us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts We should live. Now here comes the positive. This is what we should do if
we should deny ungodliness, we should deny worldly lusts, we
should turn away from them and we would say that these are not
what we should be living for. They're what we did live for
and what we would live for if we were left to ourselves, but
they're not what we should be living for. But we should live
soberly. You see, perhaps some people
would, this word sober is sometimes related to, is somebody sober
or not? And they mean, basically, are
they not drunk? And, well, that is one thought about it. If we're
drunk, you see, we don't know quite what we're doing. We often
make very bad decisions. We can't drive properly. We often
get into fights and things like that because we're not really
understanding facts as they truly should be understood. We're not
really in grasp of ourselves. We haven't got that self-control.
And you see the people of God are not to live like that. It's
not just that we're not to drink lots of wine, but we are to live
in sobriety. That means with a not giving
way to our lusts and our temper and all the passions of our heart,
but that we may live soberly. I was thinking in our Sunday
school that we did this morning, the subject was Job. And Job,
you see, he had much possessions and family that was all taken
away from him. And then when his health was
taken away from him as well, his wife said, curse God and
die. That was her advice. And you
see Job here, in his sobriety at that time, he said, Thou speakest
as one of the foolish women speaketh. He grasped the difficult situation
he was in and soberly realised that the Lord gave, the Lord
hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. He was sober.
He was viewing things with sobriety, not just letting go and saying,
well, throw it all in, as his wife suggested. No, he was sober. He was thinking clearly. He was
thinking of eternity. He was thinking that God is on
the throne. He was thinking godly rather than anti-God, and there
is no God, and we can despise him and reject him. So there's
three things here that is spoken of in the category of our living,
that we should live soberly. And that is really to do then
with the self-control, that we ourselves are controlled not
by the passions of the world, the fashions of the world, what
the world think is the best thing to be doing with our time, but
we are sober. We are thinking, what does God
want? You see, the fear of the Lord
is to seek, to esteem the smiles and frowns of God more than the
smiles and frowns of the world. That is what we are, to live
soberly, to think, what does God want? How does God want me
to spend my time? How does God want me to live?
What is the best decision in the fear of the Lord? To live
soberly. And then the next category in
this living is righteously. That is much more to do with
how we live before other men. We are living in the world. We
have interactions every day with many of us, with many people,
many telephone calls, many emails, many conversations, many transactions
with people. We're constantly interacting
with people in business, in our families, in all those situations. And Paul is saying to Titus,
we are to live righteously, justly, fairly. Think of what the Lord
Jesus said as part of his Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7 verse
12, Therefore in all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them. For this is the law. and the
profits. And if you think of your business
transactions, you think of your things that you buy and sell,
the way you interact in your family, that's a pretty good
standard. It's a pretty clear rule, is
it not? Do to others as you would that
they do to you. If you switch in every transaction,
in every relationship, in every position you're in, switch it
round the other way, And how would you like to be treated
by the other person? And that is a, we have to go
from the word of God as well, it is the word of God, but that's
a pretty good touchstone as to how we should act towards them.
Because we know how we like to be treated, but often perhaps
we don't treat others in that way, left to ourselves, because
it's more convenient for us not to. But you see here, we are
to live righteously. Not just, we are to live soberly,
that's if you like more internal, how our thoughts are, how our
affections are. But righteously, in all our dealings,
in all our transactions, in all our things that we buy and sell
and all the conversations we have, are we fair? Are we just? Are we honest? Would we like
all the transactions to go exactly the opposite way round, and would
we be happy with those transactions? Or would we say, right, that
was a pretty bad deal, that was pretty unfair, I'm glad I wasn't
that person on the other end of that receiving of that deal,
that wouldn't have been much good. Paul is saying to Titus, the
grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly. with a grasp of the situation,
a grasp that eternity is before us, a grasp of the fact that
our lives are short, are frail, are in the hand of a mighty God,
and we need to be prepared for eternity. But not just internal,
you see. Christianity is to have an effect,
and this is so clear in this chapter, that we are to adorn
the gospel of grace. We're to show to others by the
way we live that we are honest people, that our word is our
bond, and even if that goes right against us, the fact that we've
made a statement a few weeks ago and to fulfil that statement
now costs us a lot of money and is very inconvenient for us,
we still carry on and do it. Why? Because we're living righteously,
rightly, justly before men. And then the third category in
this living is godly. That is, we've spoken already
of what ungodliness was and godliness, so we are to live with our affections
set on things above. We opened with our first hymn,
indulgent God, how kind are all thy ways to me, whose dark benighted
mind was enmity with thee, but now, subdued by sovereign grace,
my spirit longs for thy embrace. That's godliness. It's devotion
to God. It's devotion to his house. It's
devotion to reading his word. It's devotion to prayer. It's
devotion to seek his honour and his glory. We're not worried
so much about the honour and glory of the things of this life,
but we're more worried about the honour and glory of God.
What is this? You think of Moses, when some
of the things happened that God said he was going to punish Israel
and destroy them, Moses' first reaction was, what is the surrounding
nations going to say? How is this going to redound
to God's glory in the eyes of the heathen? And that was a concern
to Moses. And it should be to us that we
may live godly. Our affections set on things
above. So there's a denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts. There's a living soberly, righteously
and godly. in this present world. So godly,
devotion to God, seek his house becomes the most important place
to be. It's not number five in the list, it's the most important
place to be. To be in the house of God, to
be worshipping with his people, to be seeking his face, to be
reading his word, to be gathering together for family worship.
These are top priorities in the life of somebody who is In these
terms, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared
to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this
present world. So those are the things that
we've had the denying, we've had the current living, And then
we have Paul then turns us to the expectation, and really this
is more looking in one sense at the second coming of Christ.
We've had the first coming of Christ in verse 11, but now we
have the second coming of Christ looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ. So we're not looking for the
latest fashion, not looking for the approval of this world, not
looking for what this world calls good or great, but we're looking
for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great
God. This is what we're concerned
about, his kingdom. Jesus in his prayer, didn't he
say, thy kingdom come? Thy will be done. This was central
to his prayer that he left as a pattern prayer for his people
to pray. That thy kingdom come, thy will be done, looking for
that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God. This is what the people of God
should be doing. But they need to be living in
this world. And you see there's a great practicality,
isn't there, about godliness. It's not just to be something
internal, it is to be internal, but it's to have an external
effect. As that internal working of godliness, sobriety, outward
living in righteousness, so every transaction that we have, we
know if it was switched the other way, we would have no problem
with that. We would be content with that because we've been
fair, we've been righteous, we've been honest, we've been open. looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour,
Jesus Christ. So here, this word looking is
an expectation. There's a waiting, waiting for
the coming of the Lord till he come. You think of those words
at the Lord's Supper. As often as you eat this bread
and drink this blood, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. You see, there's an end point. We won't always be remembering
his death at the Lord's Supper. There's an end point. He's coming
again. Jesus is coming again. There's
going to be a time when time will be no longer and we will
be, or everything here below, those that have lived ungodly
and those that have lived godly, their lives will come to an end.
And then this great judgment will be looking for that blessed
hope. You see, the Lord's people have
something to look forward to. And we need to realize that.
That there can be this idea that the world, they have their pleasures.
They have their delights. They have their things that tickle
their fancy. They have the good life. And
the people of God, they live with sobriety. They live somber,
boring lives. But no, Paul say no. They're
looking with lives of anticipation. They're looking for the blessed
hope and the glorious appearing. They're looking for an inheritance
incorruptible and defiled and that fadeth not away. They are
the ones that we should be desiring to be. Moses, you see, as he
despised the good of the land of Egypt with all that it had
to offer, and chose rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God, he is not disappointed with his choice tonight? No,
he's not disappointed at all. He was the winner. He now is
with Christ, which is far better. Pharaoh and his army and all
the riches of the land of Egypt are perished and gone. Looking
for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great
God, the people of God have an inheritance incorruptible and
undefiled and that fadeth not away. You see, none of the investments
of today that is true of the classic things of this world
that people save up for and keep, they're not incorruptible. They
will pass away. They can be stolen. They're investments in this world's
terms, but they're not an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away. No, they're something substantial.
And you see, Paul is telling Titus, talk to the people of
God. Show them. that they're not to
be like the world. They're to turn away from what
the world calls good or great. They have something far better.
They're not to try and think, well, oh, wouldn't it be nice
if we could act as the world? No, they're to say that the world
in comparison, has nothing to offer. Looking for that blessed
hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ. They're looking for the second
coming of Christ. And then in verse 14 you see,
who gave himself for us. You see here, it's the very heart
of the gospel, isn't it? This is the very heart of the
Gospel. Paul is saying that the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself
for his people. But what are these people to
be? Just like the world? Just living like the world? Just
having the same ambitions as the world? Having the same affections
as the world? Having the same aspirations as
the world? Having the same goals as the world? No. He gave himself for us. that he
might redeem us. You see, by nature we're in slavery
to sin. We're slaves of Satan, and he
holds us fast. He keeps us as those slaves to
lust, to pride, to selfishness, and all these things. That's
what we are, and that's how we live by nature. And we're all
like that by nature, the children of wrath, even as others, who
gave himself for us that he might redeem us, that he might buy
us back. He's laid down his life so that
his church, his peculiar treasure, it's said here, it's spoken of
here as a peculiar people. That doesn't mean they're an
odd people. It's not using the word peculiar as we might use
it sometimes. It's saying it's a purchased
people. It's a special people. It's a very, very precious people.
I understand that when you had a king conquest, had a conquest
of a city, he might have a special area of treasure and he would
say, that's going to be mine. That's going to be my reward
for the spoil of war. This is going to be something
that's going to be particularly mine and I'm going to really
treasure that. That's the meaning of this peculiar people. A people
that are the special treasure of God. And why are they the
special treasure of God? Because he's going to call them
out. He has called them out. He will
call them out. Down to the end of time. He gave
himself for us that he might redeem us. from all iniquity. He's paid the price to buy us
back from a life of slavery to sin, to buy us back from spending
our lives serving the flesh and the devil, serving the lusts,
the pomp, and the pride of life. In John's epistle, we read in
1 John 2 verse 15, not the world, neither the things that are in
the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father
is not in him. For all that is in the world,
the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of
life is not of the Father, but is of the world. The world seemed to be driven
by pride. But John is saying, no, no. You've been purchased so that
you don't live like that. You don't live like that. You
have a different driving motive in your life. And it is not for
your glory anymore, but for the glory of God. It's a new motive. Stop being for your own glory. Stop being for your own kingdom
and your own great empire. But you're now citizens of an
empire which is eternally blessed, an everlasting kingdom. Looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God, our Saviour Jesus
Christ, who gave himself for us. He gave his life for his
church. that he might redeem us from
all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, a
purchased, a special possession, one's own possession, a peculiar
people. And what are these people going
to be like? How are they going to be living? Zealous. of good works. That's going to
be a hallmark of the children of God. They're zealous. They're
striving. They're not going to be beaten
into every good work. They're striving. They're zealous
of good works. They're seeking to serve the
Lord as the Lord helps them. They're seeking to see how to
glorify God in their lives. This is what Paul says is the
teaching of the grace of God. You see so far that the grace
of God leads to a lazy life, leads to just anything goes,
leads us to say, well, if we aren't saved by our works, then,
well, surely we'll live a sloppy life. No, Paul is saying you're
not saved by works. You are being purchased from
the slavery of sin so that you may serve a new master, and that
you may do it diligently, and that you may do it in the fear
of the Lord who gave himself for us, that he might redeem
us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works. You see, the Lord Jesus, in speaking
of the parable of the sower, He speaks of the Kingdom of God
being like that seed cast into the ground. And some fell on
the wayside, and some fell into shallow ground, and some grew
up for a time, and then the cares of this life choked it. And we
read that in all those three cases, there was really no fruit. There was really no fruit. There
was nothing really of true benefit. They were not truly godly people. But then there was this last
category, those who were sown, that seed that was sown on the
good ground. And then we read that there was
bringeth forth some 100, some 60, and some 30. We do not read
of any that fell on the good ground, that did not bring forth
fruit. That's why Jesus said, buy their fruits. Shall you know
them? It's clear. If there's no evidence
of this in our lives, if there's no denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, if there's no living soberly, righteously and godly, if there's
no evidence that we're looking for that blessed hope and the
glorious appearing of the great God, we need to question, are
we? on the right road. Have we received
this grace? Have we received? Because if
we've received it, why is it not teaching us? Why is it not
changing our life? Why doesn't it change our affections?
Why doesn't it change the things that we do? Now, that's not to
say that the Lord's people know what it is that the flesh lusteth
against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. There is to
be a battle, you see. This is an ongoing fight, denying
ungodliness. It's an ongoing process. Live
soberly is an ongoing process. Constantly we're trying to be
pushed one way or the other and we are to stay sober. We're to
think godly. We're to continue righteously
in a world that love unrighteousness, that love fiddling the books,
love changing the facts, love a deal that's unfair on the other
person, love to do to others as we'd hate them to do to us.
But as long as it's them that's receiving it and not us, that
seems fine in the eyes of the world, but not to one that's
taught by grace. You see, there's this godly walk. And so we have then in these
things the instructions from the Apostle Paul, who was one
that loved the Lord and one that sought the true good of the people
of God. And in writing to the Romans
and chapter 12, he writes this, I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. You see, Satan, The world around
us would tell you that serving God is an unreasonable service.
It's unreasonable to expect us to do this. It's unreasonable
to present our bodies a living sacrifice. It's unreasonable.
Paul says it's reasonable. And be not conformed to this
world. that ye but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. This is what we
have in the word of God. This is the way that salvation
manifests itself in our lives, that we are by God's grace separate
from the world. And of course, as we had in our
middle hymn, the discouragements of the believer and the fears
that often surround the believer, and those that feel themselves
often overcome, they need encouraging, because we are on a battlefield
and we do fail, we come short, and we often, you see, we realize
that we've been overcome. then we need to go back and we
need to ask for mercy. And we need to have a fresh look
at Christ and a fresh view of his finished work. And we need
then to go on and seek to glorify God again. We are to be amongst
those who seek the kingdom of God. But I think, I forget now
who it was, that when asked how he was getting on, he said, I'm
not what I once was. Sorry, I think they asked him
how he was spiritually. He said, he's not what he would
be. But by God's grace, he wasn't what he once was. And you see,
there's been a change then. No, Paul could say he wasn't
what he would be. Read Romans 7 and you'll realize
that. He wasn't what he wanted to be.
Oh, wretched man that I am. Daly found the conflict and Daly
was saddened with the fact that he was overcome. but he was the
one that said that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. Well, may we know this salvation
then in our hearts, this salvation of God, for the grace of God
that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live
soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking
for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that
he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good. works. May we be amongst those
that then render our lives a living sacrifice daily for the glory
of God as God gives us grace. Amen.