In Titus chapter 2, if you'd
like to turn there with us, we've probably got a couple of
more studies on this chapter, possibly one or two more, but
we'll begin reading here in verse 11 of Titus chapter 2. Titus
chapter 2 and verse 11. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lust, 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 Savior,
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. These things speak and exhort
and rebuke with all authority, that no man despise thee." I want us to look tonight at
the context of these verses, first of all. And the reason
I say we want to look at the context is because this verse
in our text, verse 11 here, begins with this word, For, and that
gives us a reason for something going before this. For, and it
points us back to what Paul has been saying and what you and
I have been studying on now for several weeks. And you could
even go all the way back to verse 1 of this chapter, Speak thou
the things which become sound doctrine. And then he goes on
in verse 2 through verse 10 and he gives instruction for all
these different classes of people. He begins there in verse 2. He
gave instructions for the aged men, their behavior, how they
should act, their faith, their love. And then he went on to
the aged women in verse 3 and then the young women with children. And he goes all the way down
to verse 10 and where he even deals with the slaves, instructing
slaves and exhorting slaves to be obedient to their own masters.
And then he comes here to verse 11 and he gives the reason for
such behavior of all these different classes of people. For this reason,
he says, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared
to all classes of men. The grace of God has appeared
to all different kinds of men. The grace of God has appeared
to aged men and to aged women, young women and young men and
even slaves. Therefore, all of these different
classes, they need instruction. They need instructions. If the
grace of God has appeared to you, it doesn't matter what class
you are in, what standing you are in this life, what occupation
you have, you need instruction. Now, Paul wasn't writing to Titus
to get him to instruct lost people in these Christian principles.
It just doesn't work, does it? I can't never stress that enough.
There's no use of teaching lost men Christian principles. Now, I'm not saying they're not
good for unbelievers. Sometimes, especially when the
church is revived, it seems that it has an effect upon lost people,
doesn't it? Even they adapt Christian principles. But you can't teach unbelievers
Christian principles. But he's saying here to all of
these different classes of people, if the grace of God has appeared
to them, then they need instructions. They need instructions. And you
know, I don't know of any class of people that the grace of God
hasn't reached. I mean, it reaches all class
of people, doesn't it? The poor, the rich, the masters,
the slaves, kings and queens. David was a king, and the grace
of God appeared to him. Hezekiah was a great king, the
grace of God appeared to him. Esther was a queen, and we have
slaves. We just looked at this, maybe
it's last week or the week before last, where this Onesimus, he
was a slave. But the grace of God appeared
to him and saved him. And his master, Philemon, the
grace of God appeared to him. So this far is here because it
refers us back up to these different classes of people that the grace
of God had appeared to and had saved them. And Paul said, now,
since the grace of God has appeared to them, instruct them. They
need Christian instruction. But we come here to our text
and He says some things concerning the grace of God, and that is
what I want us to concentrate on just a little bit tonight,
and we will look at it maybe verse-by-verse next week. We
will take it apart just a little bit more. But notice what He
says in the study of all these verses tonight concerning the
grace of God. The first thing He says about
it here in verse 11 is this, that it brings salvation. That is wonderful, isn't it?
The grace of God brings salvation. You know men aren't saved by
chance. God never saved a man by chance. There used to be that
old, I don't ever hear it anymore because I don't see much of these
people, but do you ever hear that old saying that you hear
among free will a lot? God owes everybody a chance.
God owes you one chance and that's all He owes you. Well, if it's
by chance, it's not by grace, is it? Salvation is not by chance. It's by grace. And if the Lord
just owed a man a chance and He gave a man a chance and saved
him, He just paid him what He owed him. Salvation is not by
chance. It's by grace. Grace brought
salvation. It brings salvation. And when
we think of salvation, one of the first things we think about
being saved is being saved from the past, isn't it? Boy, that's
one of the best things about salvation. It saves you from
your past. All your past is gone. Salvation
is not turning over a new leaf. Salvation is getting a whole
new book. It's gone. It's washed away.
Think of your past. A past of rebellion. Can't you
identify with that? Past of sin. Past of ignorance,
past of darkness, past of enmity with God. Just
an awful, awful, disgraceful past. He hath delivered us from
the power of darkness. That's the past. That's what
we used to be, darkness. But now it's gone. It's all gone. When you look back upon your
past, aren't you ashamed of it? I tell you, when I look back
upon my past, when I was in nature, when I was in the flesh, I'm
so ashamed of everything. I didn't do one good thing to
please God. Until the Lord saved me, not
one good thing. Everything that I did before
the Lord saved me, before God's grace brought salvation to me,
I'm ashamed of. And I regret it. And you know,
I even fear it. We could have still been there,
Wayne, if the free grace of God had not brought to us salvation. Now all of our sin is gone, isn't
it? All of our guilt is gone. It's
washed away. Now God is our Father. Now we're
reconciled to God. Now we're new creatures in Christ.
We won't ever forget in this life what we used to be, but
thank God it's gone. It's washed away. Why? Because
the grace of God brings salvation. It brings salvation. And nothing
else will. Nothing else can bring salvation.
There's no merit in man, no chance, no worth, no works that he can
do. Only one thing that can save
a poor sinner from his past, and that's the grace of God,
the free grace of God. So that's what he says in verse
11. for the grace of God that bringeth salvation at the period
to all men. In verse 12, here's something
else that the grace of God does with our life. Salvation concerns the present.
Notice what he says in verse 12 again, teaching us. It brings
salvation and it teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly
lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly, look at
this, in this present world. God just doesn't save us and
let us live on our own strength and according to our own understanding. He doesn't just turn us loose
and hope that we can make it. He teaches us. The same grace
that brought salvation to us and got rid of our past now teaches
us day from day. And this word here, teaches,
teach us, the grace of God teaches us, it means to train, to educate,
to instruct, to discipline, and to chasten. God's grace teaches
us, first of all, look at this, denying ungodliness. Now this has to do with everything
concerning God, the wrong worship of God, serving Him out of bad
motives, sinful motives, everything, our attitude towards God, teaching
us that denying, disavowing, rejecting, and refusing that
which is against God are contrary to His Word. We reject that,
don't we? I've had some of you say one
of the reasons you appreciate our service is this. It's because
we come here and we worship according to God's Word. We take out His
Bible and we worship Him according to His Word. Now, why do we do
that? Well, everything that's contrary
to the Word is not true worship, is it? It's idolatry. Why do the Catholics have the
rosary? Why do they light their silly
candles? Why do they pray to saints? They say these things
help in their worship of God. I say they don't help at all.
I say it's contrary to the Word of God and therefore ungodliness. And somebody says, why do you
reject those? Why are you so negative towards
those? Because it's ungodly. It's ungodly. And we're told
here that the grace of God that saves us teaches us to disavow,
to refuse ungodliness. This is why we worship God the
way we do. And this is why we open the Bible
to see what we should do and how we should serve God. We serve
Him according to His Word. Everything apart from that is
ungodly, isn't it? And His grace teaches us to deny
that. We seek to have a conscience
void of offense before God. And you know, it used to scare
me to death when I thought that God was watching every move I
made. When I knew that He was looking
right into my heart, that used to scare me to death. But don't
you want to live there now? Don't you want to say with the
prophet, Lord, search me and know me? Try my heart and see
if there's something in me that's against you. that grieves you,
and cleanse me from it." That's the way we live now, with God's
eye upon us, and we love it. We deny ungodliness. And secondly,
he says here in our text, not only denying ungodliness, but
denying worldly lust. Worldly lust. You know, was it
John that said, all that's in the world is just the lust of
the flesh? the lust of the eye and the pride
of life." And he said, these things aren't of the Father,
these are of the world. And don't love the world and
the things that are in this world, the lust of the eye, the lust
of the flesh, and the pride of life. Don't serve these things.
Don't give yourself up to these things, because he said, if we
do, it's just evident that the love of God is not in us. Flesh,
flesh. This present life has a lot to
do with self-denial, doesn't it? We wouldn't have near as
much trouble with it if we weren't still sinners like we are. If
we were as holy as the Lord was, we didn't have this old sinful
nature to contend with, He would never have to write these instructions
to us to deny this world in us. But He has to because we have
to take up our cross daily and follow Him, don't we? That's
what He said for us to do. Take up your cross daily and
follow Me. Something else He tells us here,
the grace of God teaches us that the attitude we should have in
this present world is to live soberly. Teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly. This
has to do with our inward self. soberly, our inward self. When
you think of being sober, when you see this word sober in the
Scripture, here's one way to think of it. What's the opposite
of being sober? It's being drunk, isn't it? That's
the best way to look at this word. It differs a little bit
in some of the definitions, but that's basically the way it is.
Be sober-minded. When a person is drunk, he's
not sober-minded, is he? He thinks crazy. He's light-hearted. He does silly things. He's not
temperate. He's not sober. And you know
when people usually get drunk? What time of day do people usually
get drunk? Of the night, don't they? They get drunk of the night.
And what did Paul say? We're not of the night, didn't
we? We're of the day. Let us be sober. Let us watch
and be sober. For they that be drunken are
drunken in the night. Be sober. Be sober. Be sound
in your mind. Be sober. It has to do with watching
over ourselves. And this word, righteous, that
we should, he said there in verse 12, live soberly and righteously,
and this word righteously has to do with justice, righteousness towards others. This is our relationship
one to another. One of the definitions that somebody
gave for this word righteous, equitable, it means equal in
regard to the rights of other persons. Distributing equal justice,
giving each his due, assigning to one or more what law or justice
demands, just impartial. It has to do with our attitude
towards one another. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. It means
we consider others in what we do, the decisions we make. Where
we go, what we do, what we say, we're always considering other
people. Cain said, Am I my brother's keeper? You better bet. You better bet. What did the
Lord Jesus say? What did Paul say about the law
of Christ? Bear ye one another's burdens. and so fulfill the law
of Christ. All of us that are saved are
members of the same body. If one member hurts, the other
member hurts, doesn't it? We look out one for another.
We pray one for another. We sympathize one for another.
We do justice one to another. We don't defraud one another.
This has to do with that. Righteous equity. And then he
says this, that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly. And this word has to do with
a whole attitude towards God. It's our attitude towards God,
even right down to our motives in worshiping Him and our motives
in serving Him. The Apostle said, whether you
eat or whether you drink or whatsoever you do, do it all to the glory
God. So here we have these three things,
and this is what I love about the Word of God. He can take
something and so quickly go in so many different directions.
Sober, be sober, that has to do with me within my own heart.
Righteously, justly has to do with my relationship to you and
your relationship to me. And godly has to do with our
reverent attitude towards God. So that quick He deals with our
attitude within, Our attitude without and our attitude towards
heaven. The grace of God teaches us in
all of these different things. It teaches us. Somebody would
say this, Bruce, that sounds a lot like work to me. It is. It's work. But it's a work of
God's grace. It's a work of God's grace. And
this tells us the kind of salvation that grace brings. It doesn't
just save us from our past and leave us alone. The grace that
saves us works in us in this present world. And if we profess
to be saved by grace, and this grace is not teaching us these
things, and we go on our own merry way and live as the flesh
wants to live, then I have serious doubt if this grace has appeared
to us at all. Because that grace that saves
us from the past saves us in the present and works in our
hearts in the present. See that? Grace in the past? Grace has
brought salvation. The past is gone. Grace in the
present? Teaching us how to live in this
evil world. Now grace, look what grace does
for us in the future. Look in verse 13. Looking for
that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and
our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace saves us. Grace saves us
in the future. If grace has saved you from your
past, grace is saving you now. I'm telling you what grace will
save you in that world that's to come. It ain't going to save
you from the past and quit saving you now. And it sure is not going
to let you fail and fall and be lost in the world that's to
come. Looking forward, one version
said, looking forward to that blessed hope. Another passage
in the scripture says, looking and hasting to the coming of
the day of God. And another passage says, those
who love His appearance. And another passage says, those
who look for Him. So we're looking, aren't we?
We're hasting, we're loving, longing the day of His coming. And this word, blessed hope,
it means extremely blessed, well-off, and happy. Well-off and happy. I like that, don't you? Happy. Happy. We talk a lot about this
hope around here, don't we? About having this good hope.
And the reason we do, and I can only speak for myself, and you
can probably say the same thing, the reason I like to think of
this blessed hope is because I'm sick. I'm sick of sin. I'm sick of myself. I'm sick
of the world. And if in this life only we had
hope in Christ, we're miserable. We're miserable. I'll be honest
with you. One dear friend of mine said,
the Christian life, even if there was no world to come, the Christian
life is the best life. That's probably so. But I tell
you this, I'd have let go a long time ago if I hadn't had this
hope in me, wouldn't you? Well, sure we would. But we've
got this good hope. We long to see the Savior, don't
we? and be completely like Him. Three things that would make
you happy. I heard Scott Richardson preach a message one time, what
would make you glad? What would make you happy? There's
three things that would make every child of God happy. Three
things. One would be this, to see Jesus
Christ with undimmed eyes. Wouldn't that make you happy?
How do you see Him now? Through a glass darkly, don't
you? Oh, you see Him in the Word, and your heart leaps, and He's
gone. He vanishes. Just for a thought,
you see Him. But still, you don't see Him
very plainly. What would make you happy? To
see Him with undimmed eyes. To see Him as He is? That would
make me happy. That's going to make me happy.
Tommy's happy. He's seeing Jesus Christ with
undimmed eyes. The second thing would be this,
to worship Him with an unsinning heart. Wouldn't it be wonderful? Wouldn't it make you happy to
get rid of the sense of sin and to worship the Lord without any
sin mixed with that worship? Oh, I'd love that one, you. I
have no idea what that's going to be like because I've never
experienced that. I've never in my saved life been without
a sense of sin. Never have. Everything I do,
every prayer I pray, every message I preach, every song I sing,
there's a sense of sin mixed with it. I long to be with Him
and worship Him without any sin. Wouldn't that make you happy?
And the third thing that would make me happy would be this,
to be made completely. like Him. To have the glorious
body that so resembles Him that they would say they look so much
alike. But all three of these things has to do with this hope,
this blessed hope. We don't have them now. What
a man has now, why does he yet hope for it? And if we hope for
it, what do we do? Patiently wait, don't we? And
that's what we're doing now. Waiting. We're waiting. but the
reality of this blessed hope. And I tell you this, grace begun
is heaven won. Grace begun is heaven won. Those
He saved from their past, He teaches and trains them in the
present. And He keeps for this future
glorious state. Not a one of those brothers and
sisters that He begins a work in will miss heaven at last. Not a one of them. You may get
cold. You may get indifferent. You
may get doubtful. You may get fearful. But I tell
you what, if the grace of God has brought salvation to you,
then heaven with Christ is your home at last. It's your home
at last. Our hope doesn't depend on our
feelings, does it? It's much more secure and firm
than that. It's God's decrees. It's where Christ is. He's taken
over that place for His children. And here in verse 14, He tells
us this, this grace that brings salvation and gives us this happy
hope can only come through this one glorious person. That's Jesus
Christ, who is God, our Savior. And it only comes through Him
upon the cross of Calvary. Look what He says, "...who gave
Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity,
and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
He gave Himself to redeem us. What does it take to redeem somebody
from iniquity? I mean from real sin, brothers
and sisters. I mean heart sins. What does it take to redeem us
from heart sins, secret sins? as well as open and profane sins,
sins against God, sins against the law of God, against the gospel
of God, sins against light, sins against one another. What does
it take to redeem a person from their sins? It takes no less
than Jesus Christ giving Himself. Nothing less than that will do.
Nothing more than that is required. Nothing more than that can be
given anyway. He's all. He's everything. He
gave Himself. When He came down from heaven,
you know what He did? He gave up Himself from that
holy place, didn't He? A place of freedom and a place
of rest. He gave that up. And He came
down to this world and took upon Him the form of a servant and
was made in the likeness of man. Not holy man. but in fallen man. He didn't take Adam's image when
Adam was still in the garden. He took our image when we had
all of these infirmities. He had no sin, but I tell you,
he had our weak infirmities. Did he not? He could grow weary. He could grow tired. He could
grow hungry. He could be grieved, tempted. He was in all points likened
to his brother. He gave up His meals. He used
all of His energy. He used all of His talent. He
used all of His skills. He honored God in everything
He did. He served man in everything He
did. He gave up Himself even when He lived in this life. And
on the cross, He gave up His blood. And on the cross, He gave
up His breath. And on the cross, He gave up
His life. What does it take to redeem a person from their sins?
Christ Himself. All of Himself. He gave all of
Himself. And you know He took all of Hisself.
With strength enough, but non-despair, the old Puritan said. Non-despair. What does it take to redeem a
sinner from sin? All the power that God has. all the blood in the body of
God's Son. He took Himself. Himself. This is why we can't atone for
any sins. We don't have any merit in us,
do we? We don't have any merit. When we try to atone for our
own sin, you know what it does? It just adds to our sin. What
does it take to redeem us from sin? It takes Christ Himself. The Son of God. The Son of Mary. to redeem us. The Son of Man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister and give His life a ransom for
many. And I'm telling you, He did a
good job at it, didn't He? He did a right well good job
at it. I tell you, He did such a good job at it that every one
for whom He died Everyone whose sins He bore and atoned for,
every last one, will stand yonder united in heaven and say, Glory
to the Lamb who redeemed us by His blood from every nation,
tongue, and people. You bruised every one of them?
Every one of them. Every one of them. So here we have the past that's
gone. We have the Lord working in our
hearts to will and to do in the present, and we have a good hope,
a blessed hope for the future. And it all rests upon this glorious
person and what he's done for us. He's made it sure for us.
And Paul said, These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all
authority. Speak these things. We'll start
here next week in verse 10, and we'll look at this in just a
little. in a different direction. And this is the way of my ministry,
you see. Let me brag on myself. I like to brag on myself. I can't
get nobody else to do it, but I love to brag. Will some of
these fellows stop? See, most preachers would have
stopped here tonight and said, boy, we've covered this. This
is where we'll just begin. We'll begin and we'll say, well,
we're going to get into it deep now. Now having said that, I'll
probably be sick in my soul next week. You'll say, Bruce, what
happened to that real deep teaching? Oh, that's where we begin next
week. And we'll look at this, the grace of God hath appeared
to all men. And we'll consider that. Okay?