book of Titus, Titus chapter two. Paul is instructing, Paul's the
one that wrote the letter, to Titus, he's instructing Titus.
He calls him his son in the faith. And it's interesting, well, Titus
is a Gentile, and it's interesting, he's the pastor to the Cretes,
is what the scripture says, but his name means nurse. His name
means nurse, I found that interesting. A nurse, as you all know, is
someone who cares for the sick and those that are infirm. Therefore,
all God's pastors are nurses. All God's preachers are nurses.
That's what we do. We tend to the flock. The Lord told Peter,
if you love me, feed my sheep. That's whatever your needs are
is my top priority as your pastor. It's my responsibility. And what's
your top need? The Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we try to
declare clearly. That's what will give us what
we need. That's what heals the soul, isn't
it? He's the only one that heals the soul. He's the great physician.
That's what strengthens the fallen. That's what comforts the heart
is hearing over and over. It is finished. It is finished.
That's what mends our broken heart. Nothing can mend the broken
heart but the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's pastors are
all a bunch of Tituses. I thought that was a I say ironic,
that's the wrong word. I just find that glorious to
know that we are all tending to one another. And I said pastor,
but each one of us, we tend to one another's needs, don't we?
And how do we do that? We point each other to Christ. That's
our, that's the only thing that can help. We see as we look through
the New Testament and all the letters that Paul wrote, that
there's different needs in every single church that he's writing
to, there's specific needs. But there's only one glorious
solution, and it's the Lord's gospel. He declares as an apostle,
he had the authority to set things in order, to set things straight
and say, don't do this, that's contrary to what thus saith the
Lord. And now we have all of these things before us to see
what Paul was doing to the church of Corinth. They were immoral.
They were taking the Lord's table and turning it into a feast rather
than observing his body and blood. And so he said, no, that's for
this purpose. And he would set that forth.
And now he's dealing with Titus. He's dealing with specific needs
as well as Titus is ministering unto the Cretes. There's always
different issues in every church, isn't there? You know that I
get picked on sometimes by the other pastors of being north
of the Mason-Dixon line. They call us a bunch of Yankees,
and I say us because I'm part of you now. I mean, I have a
Tennessee accent, but it's a viewpoint, whether or not you are or you're
not. In my opinion, you're not. Kentucky it's not really Pennsylvania
Yankee part you would think of but. Anyways, the point i'm making
is is every church has specific needs and paul's addressing the
specific needs each and every church but what's the one solution,
no matter what church you go to that preaches the truth, it
is the truth that's our one thing needful. whether it was the Jews
he was writing to who were dealing with the law, as we're going
to be in Hebrews here in the next couple of Sundays, the book
of Hebrews was written because they're all, they were law mongerers. They thought that that was their
righteousness is in the law. And it's not, it wasn't, but
he had to address the issue that they were facing with the gospel. That was the solution. And that's,
what's glorious about the truth is that that's the solution for
whatever, whatever issue, whether it's morality or whatever else. There's only one ultimate solution,
and it's to preach Christ and his finished work. It's to point
the Lord's sheep to him. Point the Lord's sheep to him.
Feed the sheep. That's what he told Peter to
do. Feed the sheep. Message never changes. Now, with that in mind. We have a message here that the
Lord's given me in this letter to Titus, and it's found in chapter
two. This message that the Lord showed
me is very misconstrued in religion, and I'm thankful that the Lord
gave me clarity on this, and I hope he delivers us this morning
to understand what these words mean. The title of the message
is, How God's People Live. how God's people live. Now let's
read our text here, Titus chapter two, verse 11, through the end
of the chapter. 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. That's how we should live. looking
for that blessed hope in 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. Let no man despise thee. The
first thing Paul points out here in our text is that the grace
of our Lord hath appeared unto all men. But it hasn't appeared
unto all men as an offer of salvation. Salvation was never an offer
to man. It was an offer on the cross
of Calvary from the Lord Jesus Christ to his father. And his
father was well pleased with his son and therefore salvation
was accomplished on the cross. We know that the father was satisfied
because he was resurrected. The Lord was pleased, therefore
declaring unto us that all who were in Christ when he died are
declared as righteous, are declared as justified. When he was risen,
that is our evidence that the Lord was pleased with whatever
the Lord Jesus Christ had done on the cross of Calvary, God
was well pleased with. So what does he mean, the grace
of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men? Well,
very simply, it rains on the just as well as the unjust. The rain that comes forth from
the sky falls down upon those who are justified in the Lord
Jesus Christ and those who are not justified. Those that are
outside of the Lord Jesus Christ eat food every day, don't they?
And we, whenever we were dead in trespasses and in sin, not
having knowledge of the Lord, how gracious was he to us even
then by not, well, not sending us to hell. I mean, that's what
we deserve. It's what we all deserve by nature, just because
we're born sinners. But we see that he is gracious
to all. How about the tree that buds
and brings forth fruit? Do not all on the earth enjoy
that fruit? What grace there is in that,
that he doesn't just open the earth up and swallow every bit
of it, every one of us up. What grace there is in that.
So the grace that has appeared is just that. It rains on the
just as well as the unjust. Those who are not found in Christ,
they have a garden that grows just like the believer has a
garden that grows. And it's the Lord that gives increase. It's
the Lord that feeds. It's the Lord that does all things
according to his will. It's this grace that he's speaking
of that We were chosen by and saved and called by. It's all
of grace. It's all of grace. It's grace
that we are begotten by through faith, but not of ourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works less than he mentioned boast. Next, Paul tells us this, that
grace teaches us something. This grace that the Lord has
given doesn't teach everybody something. It only teaches the
Lord's people because it's only revealed to the Lord's people.
In your life, whenever you were You didn't know who the Lord
was it would have been impossible to describe what grace truly
is but when you see the example I used I believe last Sunday
is as a blind man doesn't know what the sunshine looks like
until he's been given sight. The dead man has no life or consciousness
whatsoever until he is made alive. The lame man can look around
and see people walking, but really doesn't know what it means to
experience walking until he finally is given strength to walk. This
is salvation. That's what the Lord does is
he gives life. He gives sight. He gives strength to our legs,
which we are born lame with according to birth. It's all by grace. that we are begotten and we are
taught. Well, what are we taught by grace?
Well, let's read this again, verse 11. For the grace of God
that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us. So he doesn't say it teaches
all men, he says it teaches us that denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world. Paul is not declaring he didn't
start out on the train of grace and then jump on another train
and say, well, it's grace plus this now. No, it's all of grace. But that grace teaches the Lord's
people something. And as your pastor, I was excited
to see this. And I hope I can declare this
to you the way that the Lord's revealed it to me. Paul's not
saying you better live right. Oh, you better live soberly,
righteously, and godly. You better straighten up your
life. You better do this. You better do that. No, that's
not what Paul is saying. The believer does live right.
Why? We live and move and have our being in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's living right. Nobody else lives right but the
Lord's people. We live, move, and have our being
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no confidence in our
flesh. Now Paul's not starting out declaring Christ as all and
then saying you have to do your part. No, men have the cause
and effect backwards. It's not that you must do this
and you must do that. No, it's a cause and effect that's
different. We do live soberly. We do live
righteously. We do live godly. Why? Because
we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in him. We've been taught
of grace. That's what the grace has taught
us. We live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil
world. Why? We live and move and have our
being in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we deny ungodliness
and worldly lust, don't we? We deny ungodliness and worldly
lust. Well, how is that accomplished
in us? Verse 13 tells us, looking. Looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior,
Jesus Christ. That's how it's accomplished
in the Lord's people, looking, looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of faith. That's how it's accomplished.
How do believers live is the question I have for us this morning,
and the answer is we live looking. We live looking with earnest
expectation of our Savior's return. He said, I'm coming back for
you. And He cannot lie. We live looking unto Him with
anticipation of His return. If we are taught of His grace,
we are taught to live looking. If we are taught of His grace,
truly, we are taught to live looking in all things, in all
things. What did the Lord say? They all
should be taught of me. They all should be taught of
me. Who did the teaching? He did. He did. I didn't learn this
on my own. You didn't learn this on your
own. This is what the Lord does when he gives grace. It teaches
us that we must be found in Christ, having his righteousness, looking
to him alone, not looking to ourself, not examining ourselves,
saying, am I living righteously? Am I living godly? Well, that's
an impossibility because everything about the flesh is ungodly. Everything
about the flesh is unholy. There's no way we can live in
and of ourself in the flesh in a manner where the Lord says,
I am well pleased with you unless we are found in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's who the father is well
pleased with. How does the Lord's people live? We live looking.
We live looking, looking to Christ, looking for his coming, looking
to his finished work alone, not our works, his works, looking
to his righteousness, looking by faith, not by sight. God's
elect have one singular object that we look to one singular
desire one singular hope to be found in Christ that I may be
found in him having his righteousness. It's not that we live looking
with one eye on him and one eye on circumstances. I love the
fact that most, and I know there's exceptions and I'm not picking
on anybody that has a lazy eye, I don't think that, but our eyes
move together, don't they? Typically, most people's eyes
move together. We're focused on, I can't look
both ways and I can't see two things at one time. That's how
the Lord designed that, isn't it? There may be an exception
to that, but you understand what I'm saying. It's impossible to
look at circumstances and look to Christ at the same time. That's
the point. Either you're looking at one
or we're looking at the other. It's impossible to examine self and have our
eyes fixed on Christ as our righteousness at the same time. It can't do
it. Either we're looking to ourself for some evidence of salvation,
or we're looking to ourself for some righteousness of some kind,
or we're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no and
in that, are there? No. Now there is something to
say about the new man and the old man. The new man's always
looking to Christ and the old man never looks to Christ. We
know that's true, but we're talking about the eyes of faith. Faith
looks to Christ. That's how the believer lives,
is looking, looking unto Jesus. Both eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Well, here's something that Paul
mentions also, two things that go hand in hand. Look in verse
12. teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust. These two, how do we, how do
we, how are we taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lust? Well, these two are taking away
or adding to the finished work of Christ. That's what these
two things are. Ungodliness and worldly lust are adding to or
taking away from the finished work of Christ. Paul's not giving
responsibility to make salvation effectual. Paul is declaring
facts. He's not saying do. He says you've
been taught already by God, by grace, to deny ungodliness and
worldly lust. Well, how can that be? Well,
what is ungodliness? Anything that's not godly. We
look to Christ. We no longer look to ourself
to find salvation or hope thereby in what we've done, do we? That's
denying ungodliness. That's what it means to deny
ungodliness. Not looking at our circumstances, not looking for
evidence, not looking to self, looking to Christ. We now deny
all ungodliness. We look to Christ alone. Well,
what about worldly lust? Well, Paul tells us in another
portion of scripture that The world and all that is therein
is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride
of life. That's power, popularity, and pleasure. So how do we deny
those three? We look to Christ. We no longer
need the power to be God. We no longer desire the popularity
of our peers over the Lord Jesus Christ. We desire Christ. We
no longer look to the pleasurable things of this world as our comfort
for our soul. We look to Christ knowing he's
the only comfort. That's how the believer denies
ungodliness and worldly lust. The most amazing part is we don't
even mean to do it. We just do it in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He does it through us. Isn't that glorious? We don't
wake up every day like some and say, okay, today I'm going to
deny ungodliness. I'm going to crucify this flesh
and deny the world lust that my heart desires. No. No, the
Lord did that. We can't do that. The Lord did
that. So therefore, because of his grace being shed abroad in
our heart, because of us being born again, we're having a new
nature that looks to him being born of his spirit. We therefore
deny ungodliness and worldly loss. Paul's not saying stop
sinning so much. Paul's saying you've been taught
You've been taught of grace and therefore you deny. ungodliness
and worldly lust. Don't you love the Lord's gospel
whenever it's declared that clearly, where it's not, you have a responsibility
unto God to do this, and you have a responsibility unto God,
or he's not pleased with you. No, Paul said, you've been taught
of grace. Therefore, in the light of that one special glorious
message, you've been taught of grace, you've been begotten by
grace, you've been saved by grace through faith because of that,
You deny ungodliness and you deny worldly lusts. There's no way we could do it
in our own self because everything about our nature, everything
about our flesh is ungodly. We know that's true, don't we?
We know that that's true. Every time we wake up and look
in the mirror, is it not true that that's our worst enemy we're
staring at? Oh Lord, how am I going to deny ungodliness when all
I am is ungodly? Lord said, if you're in Christ,
you're not ungodly, you're as holy as he is. You're never gonna,
I think I was talking to Steve about this, and I'm not gonna
take credit for this, it was glorious when he told me, Tim
James made this statement, he said, you're not gonna be any
more holy than you are right now. Think about that. Right
now, you're not gonna become any more holy than you are right
now in the Lord Jesus Christ. I can't understand that, but
that's what the scripture teaches us. Therefore, you deny ungodliness
and worldly lust. That's how it's accomplished.
The Lord accomplishes it in us. So how do we, that's how we deny
ungodliness, isn't it? It's not cleaning up our life.
I saw a sign on the side of the road we were driving. It seemed
like it was in Iowa, but I can't remember if it was there or when
we were traveling to head to Iowa. But anyways, the airport,
but it says this, the end is near. You better stop sinning
and obey God. I thought, man, what a sign.
There's two impossibilities in that, number one. Number one,
we can't stop sinning because sin is what we are, not what
we do. And number two, we can't obey God in the flesh because
the flesh hates God. We have to have Christ Jesus
and his righteousness and be found in him, the only one that
could obey God and the only one that couldn't begin sinning because
he was perfect. So if what they meant by that
is you must be found in Christ, I'll say amen. But that is not
what they meant. The end is near. You better stop sinning and obey
God. Is that what denying ungodliness is? No. No, it's not stop sinning
and obeying God. We deny ungodliness by one way,
looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ. You want to deny ungodliness
and worldly lust? Look to Christ. Look to Christ
through the eyes of faith. And if you're looking to him,
you're denying ungodliness and worldly lust. It's that simple.
Do we get any glory in looking? Certainly not. He gave us the
life to look. He gave us the ability to look,
the faith to look. If he doesn't, we don't have
any hope, do we? He gets all the glory in it. Look to Christ.
Look to Christ. And in doing so, you deny ungodliness
and worldly lust. The Lord's people live denying
ungodliness because he has taught us by his grace that Christ is
all. Christ is all. Now, this was
ungodliness that we just mentioned. The second thing he says is worldly
lust. And I've gotten ahead of myself, and I don't mind to do
that sometimes, but I don't want to double talk what I've just
said, so just bear with me as we get through this. denying
worldly lust, and I wrote down the words, uh-oh, pastor's gonna
start talking about us crucifying our flesh, and not going after
pleasurable things, and taste not, touch not, handle not, you
better not drink that, you better not go there, you better not
do this. No, that's not what Paul's talking about in worldly
lust. It was the power of popularity and pleasure that our flesh desires
to be God, to have the praise of man, to have a righteousness
in and of ourself. Men desire in all religions,
all false religions, to have the approval of their peers,
to have the affirmation. You remember, if you've ever
been in false religion, you know this as well as I do, that men
will have to affirm one another. They'll say, well, we know that
you're a Christian. We know that you're a believer because you're
doing this and you're not doing that. I used to do this and I
don't do that anymore. That means there's been a change
in me. The Lord didn't come to save
the flesh. The flesh is going back to dust. The Lord came to
give a new nature that he's pleased with. Understand something. There
is nothing in this flesh that the Lord is pleased with, period. There is nothing in your flesh
or in my flesh that the Lord's pleased with. Not a choice that
you make, not a prayer that you pray, not attending a church,
not tithing, not sacrificial living, not taste, not touch,
not handle, not. Not one thing that God is pleased with in our
flesh. So what is our hope? to be found in Christ, not having
our own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. How do I be found in him? Well,
he's got to do it. He has to be the one that put
us in him. And what does the scripture tell
us about that? that He was the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world, that before time ever began,
He elected a people to save. And then He created time to carry
out this covenant of grace between the Father, Son, and the Holy
Spirit. And the Lord Jesus Christ came and redeemed those people.
And then the Spirit in time regenerates them by saying, live. See, He
does it all. And the only thing God is pleased
with is what God produces, what God provides. He's not pleased
with what we produce or what we provide. So when Paul's saying
the worldly lust, how do we deny the worldly lust? We no longer
look to power in ourself. We no longer look for popularity
or approval of our peers. We no longer look to the pleasures
of this life for comfort. Christ is all unto the believer. We live looking unto him. We
live in hope of him, not ourself, not what we do, but what he has
done. That's how we deny worldly lusts. You know what gives all three?
power, popularity, and pleasure. That's what Satan tempted Eve
with in the garden. You've heard me say this before.
He said, the day that you eat of this fruit, you shall not,
God knows you'll not die, but you'll be as God. That's what
he told her, you'll be God. She thought, huh, that's a lot
of power. I like this. Then she saw the fruit that it
was pleasing to the eye. Well, that's pleasure, isn't
it? And it was to make one wise.
Well, that's popularity. It was all three. That's what
Satan tempted Christ with when he came down. He was hungry after
40 days and 40 nights of fasting. He said, if you're God, command
these stones to be made bread. That's pleasure. Well, the Lord
said you should not live by bread alone, but by every, every, uh,
every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. He, he rebuked
him with the word, didn't he? We took him up on a pinnacle
of the temple and he said, if you be God, cast yourself down,
does not the scripture say he'll give his angels charge over thee?
Well, that's, That's popularity, isn't it? Or that's power, isn't
it? I have power over these angels are going to come and rescue.
I have power. I'm going to make God do something for me. That's
what all religion is. Don't miss this. That's what
all religion says is I can do something to obligate God. I
have done my part. Now God must rescue me. That's the temptation that Satan
gave Christ there. And the Lord rebuked him again
with the word, didn't he? Well, the last one, he took him up on a mountain.
He said, you see all this, everything that your eye sees? When it was
really stupid of the devil to say it's already his anyways.
It was the, God had made it. The Lord Jesus Christ was the
one that made everything that he saw. He said, I'll give you
this. It's already his. That was not a temptation. But
anyways, you understand what I'm saying? That was popularity.
That was popularity. And that's what all religion
promises. It's power, popularity, and pleasure.
And this is what Paul's saying we have denied. We no longer
look to the physical. We look to the spiritual, don't
we? We no longer look to self. We look to Christ. We look to
Christ. That's how we live, looking unto
the Lord. Remember the publican? Remember the publican said, I
thank thee, O God, that I am not like this guy over here,
and I'm not like that woman over there, and I'm not like him.
I no longer do this and I don't do that. Thank you, God, that
I don't, I'm not like them. I tithe, I fast, I pray, I, I,
I, I. power, popularity, and pleasure.
He was just vomiting his pride right there in front of everybody.
The Lord sees through that, doesn't he? The Lord knows the heart.
He looks all the way down. He knows what's inside. He knows
if we're genuinely looking to Christ or we're looking to anything
but Christ. That's a fearful thing. That
makes the believer cry out and say, Lord, save me. Lord, cause
me to look to Christ alone. Because if you don't, I'm going
to start taking matters into my own hands. My flesh is going
to rear its ugly head. I'll be like that publican. I'll
be saying, Lord, I thank thee that I'm not like so-and-so and
I'm not like this person or that person. But what did the, that was the Pharisee. What did
the publican say? What did the publican say? He
beat upon his chest, beat upon his chest. It was a heart problem,
wasn't it? He needed a new heart. He said, have mercy on me, the
sinner wouldn't even look up to the Lord. And the Lord said,
whom do you believe went home justified? It was the publican,
wasn't it? The publican needed a righteousness
that wasn't his. He knew he had no hope of anything
he had done or anything he could do to save him. I've got to have
Christ. Lord, have mercy upon me. That's
our only hope. Have mercy on me, the sinner.
And the Lord says, justified, justified. If you can identify
as a sinner and you need a savior, that's the Lord's doing. Everybody
else will justify themselves and have a righteousness of their
own based upon what they do or don't do. Not the Lord's people. No, we're the worst bunch of
people you've ever been around, aren't we? Ask some, ask each other.
We don't go around flaunting it, bragging about our sin, but
if you, we are the chief of sinners. Every one of us can identify
with Paul when he said that, I am the chief. I am the top
number one sinner. I'm not proud of it, but that's
what I am. But by the grace of God, he saved me. He saved me all by his grace.
We're taught of that, aren't we? Therefore, we deny ungodliness
and worldly lust. How does God's people live? By
looking to Christ. That's how we deny. ungodliness
and worldly lust looking to is it really that simple? Yes, it's
really that simple. But it's also something we don't
produce. He must be the doer of it. We
have no glory in the flesh. The scripture tells us that but
listen to this. Galatians 524 gives us affirmation of everything
I've just said they that are Christ's have that's past tense. They that are Christ have crucified
the flesh with the affections and lusts. So does that mean
I need to crucify the flesh? No, you already have if you're
in Christ. Does that mean I need to do this or I need to do that?
No, Christ did all of that. Christ did everything right.
So what is the solution? Look to Christ. That's the solution. That's the solution. Look to
Christ. If you're in Christ, you've already crucified the
lust in your heart. We no longer look to self. We
no longer hope in self. We no longer seek salvation by
doing. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we do that? Well, he tells
us, let's read the rest of this, read this verse again, teaching
us the denying ungodliness and worldly lust. We should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. That word
soberly means with sound mind, sound mind. Righteously means
justly or justified. Have we not been justified freely
by His grace? Because of this, we have peace
with God. Righteously means we've been made the righteousness of
God in Him. Godly means reverencing God in
all things. Now, and I got excited when I
saw this. I don't mean to, I'm not being
emotional with you, but this excited me to see this. for me to declare unto you clearly,
the maniac at Gadara, when they came up to him, after, you know
the account, I'll recap briefly, we're gonna speak in depth on
it next hour, but he was possessed with demons, the Lord came to
him, he cast the demons out, and when they came, all the farmers
became angry, because the demons went into the herd of hogs or
swine close by, and they went into the sea, and they drowned
themselves. And the farmers were angry because the Lord had cast
out the demons from this man because he got rid of their hogs,
their livelihood. They were more important of having
the herds than they were this man's sanity, this man's salvation.
Well, they told the Lord to depart. But prior to doing that, they
come up on the scene to where the Lord is and where the maniac
is. And they found him in three ways. They found him clothed. They found him seated. And they
found him in his right mind, clothed, seated, and in his right
mind. Paul says this, I am crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life I now live in the
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me. What is the point? The point
is, is when they found that maniac, he was literally living. He was literally, I say living
because that's what Paul says, that's how we're supposed to
do is we're supposed to live. He was living soberly. They found
him sober. They found him righteous and they found him godly. He
was clothed in the righteousness. That's what it's a picture of.
Not having his own righteousness, he was naked for the longest
time, cutting himself in false religion. That's what that's
a picture of. Making all the promises to God with these chains
that he thought God would be pleased with him for. And they
just kept getting broken, didn't they? He couldn't keep the promises.
But whenever Christ came to him, the Lord caused him to be found
sober. And that word sober just means
a sound mind. He was sound minded. He was made
alive. He was clothed in the righteousness
of God. And he was seated. He was living
soberly, righteously, and godly. That's what those three are.
That's what you and I do, isn't it? We are now seated. We're not trying to work. We're
not trying to do something that pleases God. We are seated. We
see him as God. We are in reverence unto him.
We've been given godly fear that views him as God. That's how
we live godly. We are no longer going about
establishing our own righteousness, but we've been clothed in the
righteousness of the Lord. We no longer are trying to figure
it out, either are we. We're sober. We're sound-minded. Know Christ is all. That's a
sound mind. That's sober. That's sobriety.
That's what the Lord does for his people. He causes us to live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world, denying
ungodliness and worldly lust. And it's all by grace. It's all
by grace through faith. That's what all of that is a
picture of. The Lord did every bit of that for his people. We
live soberly, righteously and godly in Christ Jesus. How? Looking unto him. Looking unto
the Lord Jesus Christ alone. This is how we live. This is by him. This is for him. This is to him all for his glory.
That's why Paul said in Galatians 6 14, but God forbid that I should
glory. Save the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the
world, we have died. We have died to the things we
wanted to believe was our righteousness, haven't we? We no longer believe
that anymore. We died. We've been crucified
to that. We've been crucified to whenever
the Lord died, we were crucified with him and in him revealing
this. and giving us eternal life and
causing us to be born again. We have been crucified to the
things of the world as our hope for righteousness. We've been
crucified to the things of our flesh, believing that we have
hope of eternal life because of what we do. We no longer believe
that. That's what Paul's talking about.
I've been crucified to the world and the world to me, it's dead
to me. I have no hope outside of Christ, not in anything that
I do or anything that I say or anything I don't do or don't
say. We have to be found looking to
Christ, and in doing so, we live soberly, we live righteously,
we live godly in this present evil world. The Lord's destroyed
any hope in our flesh. The revelation of Jesus Christ
has done away with any desire to present ourself to God for
righteousness. No, look to the Lamb, don't look
to me. Don't look at my work. Don't look to my good deeds.
There's no such thing. Look to Christ and his finished
work. There's our hope. There's our hope. The Lord's
killed every interest we have in this world that we might find
hope and peace. We have hope in Christ, don't
we? He's fixed our eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
This is all his doing. This is marvelous in our eyes,
isn't it? This is marvelous. This is how we live. Same as
the maniac. Clothed and seated and in our
right mind. How does the Lord's people live?
They live clothed, seated, and in their right mind. They live
soberly, they live righteously, and they live godly, all by His
doing. We live looking. We live looking,
don't we? Amen.