Titus chapter 2, and I just want
to read two verses, verse 13 and verse 14. We really want
to look at the context because these two verses, really, you
can just break right into the context and everything we need
to know about these two verses, we can find out here by looking
at them this morning. Titus chapter 2 and verse 13
and verse 14. 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. Now, I want to read this to you
in the Greek. And don't anybody raise their
eyebrows, because you know as well as I do, I don't speak a
word of Greek. Someone said about me one time,
I have butchered the English language. And I don't doubt it.
I don't deny it. And I'm not about to learn Greek
so I can reap butchery upon that language. But I have a little
book that's been given to me literally gives the literal word-for-word
interpretation of the Greek, what it means. It is not too
readable, but here is what it says. Here is the literal Greek
rendering of this verse. Expecting the blessed hope and
the appearance of the glory of the great God and Savior of us,
Jesus Christ. who gave himself on behalf of
us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and cleanse for
himself a people special, zealous of good works." And there is
another version that says it like this, awaiting and looking
for the fulfillment, the realization of our blessed hope, even the
appearing of the glory of the great God even our Savior, Jesus
Christ. Now I wanted to read that translation
because some people have looked at our translation and they've
tried to make a distinction between God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The appearing of God and Jesus
Christ, our Savior. But you and I believe the Scripture
teaches everywhere. that there's no distinction to
be made in verse 13 in the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our God. Jesus Christ is our Savior. And I think the literal rendering
of this verse teaches that as well as this passage here teaches
us that. It leaves no doubt about it.
Jesus Christ is God. And notice here what he says. He uses these two words, the
God. The God. He does that to distinguish
this God from all other gods. There are gods many, you know.
There are little gods. There are created gods. So many
people have their gods. And the Apostle Paul himself
even said there are gods many. But to us, to us who believe,
to us who have had our hearts open to us, there is just one
God. And He is the Father, of whom
are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ. Thy whom are all
things, and we Thy Him. Here, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord. He is one God. And who is this
God? He's Jesus Christ, our Savior. So he does that here to distinguish
between this God and all other gods. One God manifested in three
persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But he does
something else here. He describes this God. He describes His being to us. Notice how he does that. He calls
Him the Great God. and our Savior. He's the great
God. That word, I looked at that word,
and you know when you look at the meaning of these words, you're
almost always amazed at it. Because you might think you know
the meaning of great until you begin to look at these words,
and it had several things attached to it. It means big or large. This large God. This big God. Well, He is big, isn't He? The
Bible says, Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord. Now,
brothers and sisters, have you looked up lately? I mean, just
consider this universe that we live in. I mean, they can't measure
it. They haven't found the bounds
of it. They've never got up to heaven yet. And yet this God
says of Himself, Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord.
Why? Because He's huge. He's large. He's a great God. The word means
high. Well, He's that too, isn't He?
He's higher than the heavens. He's so high above the heavens
that He has to humble Himself to behold the things that's in
heaven. The word also means mighty. The Lord appears to Abraham and
He said, Abraham, I'm the Almighty. And you know you can just have
one Almighty. I mean, you can have people that you say, what
a mighty man, what a mighty woman, but you can just have one almighty. And he appeared to Abraham and
said, Abraham, that's who I am. I'm the great God, the Almighty. It also means strong. And listen
to this passage in Psalms. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your eyes on high. And
who's created these things, He said, that brings out their hosts
by number? He calls them all by their name,
by the greatness of His might. He is strong in power. Not one fails. Who is this God? He's this great God. The word
also means loud, l-o-u-d, loud. There's power in His voice. That's what He means. He's loud.
David said, The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The
God of glory thunders. Have you ever been out when it
thundered and it shook your chest? That's the way the voice of God
is. When He speaks, He's able to get your attention. When He
speaks, He speaks irresistible. You hear His voice because He
is loud. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full
of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks
the cedars, yea, those mighty cedars of Lebanon. Sometimes
the Lord speaks in the Scripture as a roaring lion. Sometimes
He speaks as the rolling thunder. Sometimes He speaks as a still,
small voice. But when He speaks with the intention
of being heard, I tell you, it's loud. It's loud to your heart. It's loud to your mind. And He
gets your attention and you hear Him because He's this great God. And who is He? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is this great God. And David said, Thou art great,
O Lord, and Thou doest wondrous things. Thou art God alone. Thou art God alone. And this
great God is our Savior. Ain't that amazing? Isn't it
a pleasant thing when you and I think that that same voice
that back there in the beginning said, let there be and there
was. That just spake and it was. He just commanded and it stood
fast. And that's the same God who we
hear standing and speaking and says, if any man thirst, let
him come to me and drink. Isn't that amazing? This mighty
God is the same God whose hands spread out the starry heavens
as a tent for the inhabitants of this world to dwell in? And
that is the same God who wretched forth His hand and touched the
bleeding, wounded sores of a dying leper and cleansed him? Isn't that amazing? This eternal
God who, we are told, has these everlasting arms underneath all
things to gird and uphold all things is the same God who took
infants up in His arms and blessed them? Isn't that amazing? You say, Bruce, how do you know
that? Because this is God our Savior. This is Jesus Christ,
this same God whose eyes run to and fro through all the earth,
whose eyes before everything is naked and open? That's the
same God who looked upon Peter in Peter's fallen state and broke
Peter's heart. It's the same eyes that were
filled with tears at Lazarus' tomb. It is the same eyes that
gush with tears as He wept over fallen Jerusalem. Isn't that
amazing? Not another God, just one God,
Jesus Christ our Savior. And with this verse freshly in
our minds, we can go even farther than that. Listen to this. This great God, this God who
is eternal, sufficient, and full in and of himself who could know
no need." Have you ever known the eternal God to need anything? If He did, who could supply that
need? If I was hungry, He said, I wouldn't
ask you. Is He dependent upon anybody?
And yet this great God is now dependent upon His Mother to
nourish Him and clothe Him and feed Him and protect Him. Isn't that amazing? Oh, don't
we begin to see here the condescension of this great God. Don't we begin
to see when we read that He is indeed our Savior, that He stooped
from His high heaven to this earth and took to Himself our
humanity. The same God who owns the cattle
on a thousand hills, who sends rain upon the just and the unjust,
now He has hunger pain. Now his mouth is dry and he thirsts
as the heart paints after the water brook. He is hungry himself
and he is thirsty himself. This great God who gives power
to the faint and strength to those who have no might now becomes
weary himself and sets down upon Jacob's well to rest himself
because he is weary. Brothers and sisters, do you
see a mystery here? Oh, this is our great God. But He's become our Savior. And
this same God who had never slumbered and never slept, neither could
He, now lays on a pillow in the midst of the storm. And what
does He do? He sleeps. Oh, what a mystery
then. God is our Savior, Jesus Christ. And with this word freshly in
our minds, we can go even farther than that, can't we? The same
Creator before whom all the inhabitants of this world are as grasshoppers,
and the same God before whom the nations are nothing and counted
less than nothing, now hangs before the eyes of His mocking
creatures. And he that was clothed with
majesty now is clothed with shame and nakedness. And he that was
strong and mighty now hangs in weakness nailed to the cross
of Calvary. Oh, what a mystery. What a mystery. The one of whom no man could
lay their hands now hangs nailed with spikes through His feet
and through His hands, with a beard plucked from His face, and furrows
made long upon His side. And this great God who cannot
die has now taken our humanity, our likeness, with a real soul
and a real body, and He hangs dead upon the cross. Oh, what a mystery! And this
verse tells us all of that. Because this great God is our
Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was Emmanuel when
He came into this world. God with us. And when He arose
from the dead, He was addressed as our Lord and our God by those
who knew Him best. And He was worshipped as that.
And you know something, brothers and sisters, He did not cease
to be God when He hung upon the cross. He was God when He was
born. He was God when He walked upon
this world. He was God after His resurrection. And He was God when He hung upon
the cross. He never ceased to be God. Neither could He cease to be
God. Therefore, Paul can say with
the fullest of confidence, this is our great God and Savior,
Jesus Christ. And all He did in the days of
His humanity, He not only did it as a man, but He did it as
God. He veiled His deity. But I tell you, brothers and
sisters, He never laid it aside. Sometimes He manifests it in
the stilling of the storms, and the commanding of the winds,
and the raising of the dead. But He never ceased to be what
He was when He came into this world. And who was He? God, our
Savior. And the Scripture says here,
He gave Himself. The Word was with God, and the
Word was God, and the Word became flesh, and He gave Himself. How much of Himself? How much
of Himself did He give? We know that He gave His body.
He gave it to men to be beat, and lashed, and mocked, and spit
upon. He gave it. He gave His soul
because His soul was made an offering for sin. How much of
Himself in His humanity did He give? He gave all of His humanity. But here is a question to meditate
upon. How much of Himself did He give
in His deity? For He was God hanging upon the
cross. He gave all that He was in His
deity. For he gave himself, both as
God and as man." What a mystery! Is that not a mystery? Oh, Brother
Luther, Martin Luther was looking at Psalms 22. My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? And it was said that he sat for
four hours looking at that verse. My God, my God. Why hast Thou
forsaken Me? And finally He stands up and
He says, My soul, who can understand this? God forsaken God. That's the mystery, isn't it?
Who is Jesus Christ? He's the great God who gave Himself,
all of Himself, in His deity and in His blessed and holy humanity. Oh, what a mystery. What a gift. And notice here in verse 14,
notice what an undeserving gift. Notice what an unmerited gift
it must have been. You say, Bruce, why do you say
that? Notice who He gave Himself for. For us. For us. Who gave Himself for
us. What is that, brothers and sisters?
But the Creator giving Himself for the creature? Have you ever
heard of such a thing? The King laying down His life
for the peasants? Here the slave is in bondage
and the Master comes and gives Himself for the slave? The wandering
sheep And the shepherd gives himself for them. If he'd have told us he gave
himself for the fallen angels, oh, that would have been an unmerited
gift. But he didn't give himself for
the angels. He didn't lift one finger to redeem the angels.
He never shed one tear for the angels. He never groaned a single
time for the angels. He didn't take to Himself the
nature of angels, but He took on Himself the seed and nature
of Abraham. He took our likeness, and He
gave Himself for us. He never gave Himself for earth
and all its fruits, or the universe and all its vastness, or heaven
and all its beauty, but He gave Himself for us. Oh, who am I? No wonder they
wrote that song, Who Am I? That a king would bleed and die
for her. Die he for me who caused his
pain? Me who him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that
thou, my God, hast died for me? Oh, read this verse, dear child
of God. Get it into your heart. God,
the Son, died for me. He died for me. Get that in your
heart. The sweetness of it will drive
out all the bitterness of sin and fear. And you will never
have to doubt again whether God loves you or not. Here is the
full evidence of it. You never have to doubt. He proved
it. He died for us. Hell-deserving, undeserving sinners
as we are, this great God and our Savior died for us. How could we profess any marriage?
How could we profess to be able to do anything? How could we
ever doubt His love for us again when we are told so plainly?
He gave Himself for us. And look at the reason right
quickly. Look back in verse 14 again. He gave Himself for us,
that He might redeem us from all iniquity. Oh, why would He
give Himself for us? Oh, if you ask some people, they
may come up with many, many reasons. Oh, look at man, they tell us.
Look what a noble creature that he is. Well, he is that. He is
that. He still retains something of
the image of his Creator, though it's been defaced by sin. Man
is still a noble creature in his own right. And look how smart
he is. I tell you, we'll give man his
due, won't we? He's smart. It seems like whatever he sets
his mind to, he can do it in the natural realm. They can open
your chest up and operate on your heart. If your heart's too
bad, they can put in another one. You see them all the time
flying up in the air, 30 and 40,000 feet up in the air, flying
with their jets. They can go straight up to the
moon, and when they get there, they can walk on it. Man has
developed medicines to heal and relieve his ills. What is it
man cannot do? I'll give him that. He's a brilliant
mind when he sets his head to something. But I tell you over
and above everything else, you know what man is? He's a servant
of sin and the devil. And he must be redeemed. He must
be ransomed. He must be purchased. He is in
bondage and he cannot deliver himself. And justice refused
mercy's request to let him go until a ransom price had been
paid for his deliverance. And you know something, brothers
and sisters? All that blood of bulls and goats shed upon the
Jewish altars, that can't redeem him. And all the money of the
riches of this world cannot purchase that ransom. One thing can ransom
a sinner from his slave and bondage to sin and satan. And you know
what that is? It is this great God and Savior
Jesus Christ giving Himself. That is it. Oh, how bad is sin! What a master is sin! How strict
is justice that a man is so bound that he cannot be saved, he cannot
be redeemed unless a price is paid that God will accept? And
where will God find such a price? He paid it Himself. He paid it
Himself. What God demanded, God had to
supply. But thank God what He supplied.
He will accept. And He has accepted. He gave
Himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity. You were not redeemed
with corruptible things of silver and gold, but with the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister and give His life a ransom. That's that Word. redeemed a
ransom. I imagine these people knew here
that Paul was writing to. He was writing here in the second
chapter to slaves. Told them to be obedient to their
masters. They knew something about being
enslaved. They ran away and they'd send
them and bring them back and beat them. They were their slaves
to their masters. They knew something about being
ransomed. They knew something about being purchased. And when
Paul wrote to them and said, you're ransomed, you're redeemed
by this great God and Savior laying down His life, they understood
that. They never had the price. And
nobody else would pay the price to deliver them from their earthly
masters. But now Paul writes to them and
says, there has been a price paid to redeem you from sin and
the curse of the law. Jesus Christ was made a curse
for us to redeem us from the curse of the law. No, it wasn't. It wasn't that God gave Himself
for us in the person of His dear Son because He saw what noble
people we were, or what some potential we had, or how smart
we were, or even how valuable we were. That wasn't why. He gave Himself
to redeem us from all iniquity. All of it? From the curse of
the law? The whole law? I heard a preacher a few days
ago poking fun at the song that you and I love, Free From the
Law. Oh, happy condition. He's making
fun of that. He said that just wasn't true. Are you redeemed from the law? Maybe he didn't feel a need to
be redeemed from the law. Maybe he wants to be under it.
I talked with two men last week about being under the law. They
want to know my view about being under the law. And that's why
you don't want to know my view. My view means nothing. I can
tell you what the Bible says. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law. being made a curse for us. Romans
6.14, you are not under the law, but under grace. And I told these
men this. I said, if you put yourself under
the law, if you're still there in any sense, as a covenant or
as a rule of life, if you're under the law, you're staring
death in the face. We must be redeemed. And to say a poor man is under
the law, that's not to honor the law or
Jesus Christ. If I say I'm under the law as
a rule of life, what am I saying? That I can do it now? I can fulfill
it now? What does that say about the
law? It's not as strict as it used to be? Has it lost some
of its justice? It's to do discredit to the law
of God, to say, I can now keep it. And what does it do to this
great atonement that was made to redeem us from the curse of
the law? Brothers and sisters, I know
this. I've experienced this in my own heart. A man will never
love the law of God. A man will never delight in the
law of God until he sees that he has absolutely been redeemed
from it in every sense, not only as a curse, but as an obligation
to keep it. Some men said we're delivered
from the curse of it, but we're under obligation to keep it.
What's the difference? We're bound to keep it, he said. Then we're cursed because we
can't. You're not under the law. I think
some people have the secret resentment and this quarrel with God down
deep inside their heart who profess to be under the law. They're somewhat angry with God
about it all because they try to keep the law. But the more
they do, the more they know that God requires of them. And the
more they do, the more God requires of them. And it's this secret
frustration that builds up in their heart, and they begin to
resent God. And it's all because they think
He's not satisfied with what He Himself has done upon the
cross. He requires more of me, and I can't provide it. So I
get angry with Him and resent Him. The more I do, the more
He requires. And the only remedy for that
guilt and the only remedy for that resentment is to see that
God and His Son has redeemed us from the law in every sense
of the word, brothers and sisters. Old Luther used to say, I hate
God. He said, I hate God. And one
of the priests asked him, he said, why do you hate God? He
said, because God hates me. And God's just up there demanding
of me. And He's watching over me to
see every move that I make so He can condemn me. God hates
me and He requires of me what I can't do and can't perform.
And I hate Him. I resent Him for it. And the priest told him, he said,
you're not being honest. You're not being honest. He said,
God is not angry with you. Bind yourself to Jesus Christ
and there is where you will see God is not angry with you. What
was Luther's problem? He was looking to the law. He
was looking to the law. What can I do? What does God
require of me? And when he kept seeing himself
fail and fail, he said, God has required too much of me. But
that all left when he saw that Jesus Christ, who was God in
our humanity, satisfied His own law and bore its own penalty
for sin. No, God is not angry with me
anymore. God is satisfied. God is pleased. Now it is all done. And what
do I do now? I rest in what He has done. I
receive into my soul this great Savior who is my God, Jesus Christ. And I receive Him in all His
merits and all His finished work, and I rest with Him. He's seated
in heaven, and He's resting. He's sitting upon my heart, and
He's resting there, and I'm resting in Him. Brothers and sisters,
it's not until we see that that this guilt is gone. And this
resentment that we harbor against God is gone. It's then that we'll
say with David, Oh, how I love thy law. Oh, how I love thy law. What did Jesus Christ do? What
did this great God do? He gave Himself to redeem us. Redeem us absolutely? Absolutely. There is not one sin. It's gone. The cause of the offense, the
cause of the curse is gone. And if the cause is gone, There
is no more curse. Look back at our text again right
quickly, and I'm almost finished. Verse 14, "...who gave Himself
for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity," and look
at this, "...and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous
of good works." This word, purify, here it means purge. purge unto
himself a peculiar people. In the book of Hebrews, it is
used two ways. In chapter 1, verse 3, we are
told that Jesus Christ, upon the cross, purged our sins. Isn't it wonderful to think that
when He said it is finished, our sins were purged? Isn't that
difficult to understand? Here we fill them. We lived in
them. We were dead in them. And all
the time, the Bible says they were purged. Isn't that wonderful? We've really just come to find
out about it now. And in chapter 9 of Hebrews,
it's used in another sense. Shall not the blood of Jesus
Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God? There's another purge. The conscience. The conscience. Sin was purged
on the cross, and now it's purged from the conscience. The guilt
of it. The condemnation of it. By purging of the conscience,
we become His. We become His. This verse here
literally reads in the last portion, by purifying unto Himself, we
become His people. That's what that literally said.
By purging us, we become His people. It has to do with His
possession. It has to do with being unusual. They are unusual. They're unusual because they're
His. And they've been purged. How many people do you see that?
You don't find many people that have been purged, do you? That's
why they're so peculiar. But you know where He is. This
word peculiar, it means purchased. Possession. And purifying unto himself a
purchased people. I want you to look in a passage
with me right quickly. Look over in Ezekiel chapter
37. Ezekiel chapter 37. Look in verse 22. You know we belong to the Lord.
In chapter 27, verse 22, we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ in so
many different ways. We belong to Him by creation.
He made us. It's the Lord that made us and
not we ourselves. Everybody belongs to the Lord
by creation. Many belong to Him by election. He chose them to be His. And
all the elect become His by purchase. by purification, by cleansing.
Look what Ezekiel says here in Ezekiel 37. Look in verse 22
and 23. Ezekiel 37, verse 22 and 23. I will make them one nation in
the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be
king to them all, and they shall be no more two nations, neither
shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. Neither
shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor
with their distastable things, nor with any of their transgressions.
But I will save them out of all their dwelling places wherein
they have sinned, and will cleanse them." That's the word purify.
We just read it to you. Titus. I will cleanse them so
Shall they be my people, and I will be their God. I will cleanse
them, and when I have cleansed them, they will be mine. Thy cleansing. His possession.
Thy cleansing. Back to our text. One thing. This is the last thing, and we'll
close with this. Look in Titus chapter 2 again. I'm not going
to say anything about this much, We're going to come back tonight
and deal with good works. So I won't say much about this,
but look what he says lastly. He's not only purifying to himself
these people, but look at it, zealous, zealous of good works. You know what that word zealous
means? An uncompromising partisan. Well, we understand that more
in our day. than probably having any other day. Uncompromising
partisan. What is a partisan? Well, he's
a Democrat that says, I ain't yielding my position. He's a
partisan. He's a Republican that says,
no, I'm not going along with that. I ain't moving from where
I'm at. He's a partisan. Uncompromising partisan. That's
what this word zealous means. It means also to seek or desire
eagerly When the Lord cleanses us, when He saves us from our
sin, you know what happens within us? We love good works. We're zealous for them. Now,
zeal sometimes is a bad thing in the Scripture. Really, it's
used in a negative sense just as much as it's used in a positive
sense. You know good works can be a dangerous thing? Paul said the Jews were lost.
The whole Jewish nation as a whole was lost. Yet, he said, they
are zealous of God. They have a zeal of God. And
Paul said, I had so much zeal when I was lost, I persecuted
the church. I had a zeal for these traditions
of my father's. But you know, there is a good
zeal too, isn't there? Jesus Christ had a zeal, did He not?
The zeal of your house, the zeal for your house has eaten me up. Oh, a believer, a child of God,
he just loves good works. He's zealous. We'll come back this afternoon
if you're interested in what good works are. We'll come back
this afternoon and we'll look at Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
10. Let's pray.