Titus 2:11-14
Hear God’s Word. For the grace
of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training
us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live
self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of
our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for
us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people
for his own possession who are zealous for good works. And then
in chapter three, beginning at verse three, for we ourselves
were once foolish. Disobedience led astray, slaves
to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and
envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness
and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us,
not because of the works done by us in righteousness, but according
to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal
of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus
Christ our Savior. so that being justified by his
grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal
life. Amen. This is God’s holy and
inspired word. Pause with me and pray and let’s
ask for God’s help. We pray, oh Lord, that you would
speak loudly into our ears, into our minds and into our hearts
so that we will know who you are and who we are. so that the
way of salvation in Jesus Christ will be clear and so that we
may worship you and love you and thank you for the grace of
God in Christ. but also so that we may obey
you in this world and keep our eye on the heavens awaiting your
wondrous and glorious return, whereupon you will take us to
be with you forever in heaven. And we will live in the light
of your glory. Help us in these moments to hear
and to believe and to live. And we pray it in Jesus name.
Amen. I was thinking this week a little
about What would the triumphal entry of Jesus look like today? What would it look like in 2018? Years ago, as a kid, we went
to Israel and to Jordan and to Egypt. We saw a lot of the holy
places. And when you travel anywhere
with my dad, you get your bang for your buck because he doesn’t
go to bed at seven and get up at nine. He takes you on these
extra little side trips. And so one of the little side
trips we did was to walk the way of the cross. And as you
walk the way of the cross through the streets of Jerusalem, it’s
an ordinary walk. And as a little band of people
in 1989 or 90 or whenever that was, as we walked through the
streets, nobody really noticed us. I mean, we were Americans,
but they were used to it. Americans come to the Holy Land.
We think there’s something special about it. And if we go there,
something’s going to rub off on us and we’ll be more sanctified.
Many of us sometimes will get baptized in the Jordan River
thinking if Jesus can’t do it, at least the waters of the Jordan
can. And so we make these little pilgrimages. Well, as we walk
through the streets, Nobody really noticed us. Nobody took a moment
to say, who are you and where are you from and what are you
doing? We just passed through the streets. And I wonder if
today, the triumphal entry of Jesus would be something like
our little walk through Jerusalem. Nobody really noticed, nobody
really cared, but something great, something monumental, Was taking
place. I have in mind maybe the area
downtown Front Street. You know, it’s a new place of
life in our little town. There’s the ice cream shop. There’s
the consignment stores, the coffee shop, all the haunts of downtown
Burlington. And just imagine, if you will,
if a handful of ragtag automobiles passed through the downtown streets
of Burlington. Not a motorcade of black Cadillacs. Not a motorcade of official looking
vehicles, but ordinary vehicles. And if your vehicle makes it
in, pardon me. But I can see Jesus riding in
the back of about a 1980 something Chevrolet pickup truck. And you
can see the remnants of a Reagan 84 sticker on there. No farms,
no food. Maybe the remnants of some hay
bales sticking out the back. It’s a borrowed vehicle, nothing
special. And Jesus and some of his disciples
riding in the back, a few scooters or other vehicles riding down
the street, honking their horns. What would we think of? What
would we notice? Would we even think of anything
of it? Maybe the noise would attract
our attention. Isn’t it interesting how Jesus,
the Messiah, can enter a city and nobody knows? Nobody cares. Nobody seems to think much of
it except the few, the happy few who knew about Jesus, who’d
read the word of God in the Old Testament, who knew that there
was something special about him. Well, friends, as we give witness
to Jesus in the world today, you’ve probably noticed not many
people Not many people take note of what is going on in the Christian
world. Not many people take note of
Jesus having entered the world, Jesus having done something in
this world. We’re busy. We rush. We go on
with life. And maybe some of the reason
is it’s because Christians have gotten that way. Christians have
gotten busy. Christians have not reflected
the realities of the gospel. And I want us to think from Titus
today about this question, why did Jesus come into the world? I mean, twice in our passage,
if we limit ourselves today to verses 11 through 14 of chapter
two, twice, you’ll see the word appearing. Maybe if you’ve been
in a liturgical church or a church that that uses special words,
you know, the word epiphany. The word epiphany means appearance.
That’s what this passage speaks about. Why did Jesus come? Why
did he appear? Why was there an epiphany of
the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, he appeared as the grace
of God that brings salvation. Jesus entered this world. He
entered this world in real space and time as a baby. We speak
in our creed of Jesus being conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the
Virgin Mary, and then we skip very quickly to he was crucified
under Pontius Pilate. But a whole lot happened in between
his birth and his suffering. Grew up as an ordinary kid. He
had parents. He was a carpenter’s son. He was a Galilean. He was from
Nazareth. He lived a life probably a lot like many of us have in
our childhoods. He played in the streets. He
ate and he drank and he slept. He grew in wisdom and stature.
He was an extraordinary kid in other ways. We read some of the
stories. But why did he come? Why was
he humiliated in his birth? Why was he humiliated in his
sufferings? Why was he humiliated in his death and his being laid
in a grave? Why was Jesus exalted? Why was
he raised from the dead? Why was he proclaimed king? Why
did he ascend into heaven before the sight of his disciples? Why
his humiliation? Why his exaltation? It’s because
of this. God is a God who shows himself
to be a saving God. And we have a little shift, we
have a little transition that we must make. As we think today
a little bit about the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem for his
earthly and kingly and his high priestly ministry, we understand
that he appeared. But how does he appear now as
the risen and ascended Lord? Well, he appears on earth through
you. Christ is in heaven. He has ascended
to the throne. He sits down at the right hand
of the majesty of God, the father almighty, but he has left us
the church together corporately, but also you as individuals. You as families, he has left
us on earth to show that God is a saving God. And so in the
last several weeks, as we’ve made our way through Titus, we
have understood that men and women, young and old, slaves
are those who are employed, as well as those who are employed
in the gospel ministry. Those are the people and the
age groups and the categories that Paul has given to Titus
to minister to in a certain way on the island of Crete. And so
we’ve heard those things ourselves. Why is it that we as men and
women and boys and girls, young and old, slave or free, ministers
or not ministers? Why is it that we are called
to live a certain way? It is so that the reality of
the gospel is shown forth in you. In some places, the Apostle
Paul calls Christians trophies of grace. In other places, he
calls us new creations in Christ Jesus. If anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation. His old self is gone and the
new has come. And so the best way for the Christian
church to bear witness to the saving work of Almighty God. is through our living to show
forth that there is a God who saves. Jesus tells us in his
gospel, he says, you are the light of the world. He says to
let our light so shine before men. that people may see our
good works and give praise to our father in heaven. And so
how is it that people out in the world will see what God is
like, what salvation means and what it can do? Well, that happens
through us. But one of the things that we
have to get straight as the people of God who are to go into the
world and proclaim the word of God, the gospel of God, is we
have to be able to articulate our faith. And so we’ve heard
a lot over the last weeks of how to live. We’ve heard a lot
over the last weeks of what to be like out in the world. And
the answer was simply obey the word of God. live in the character
of Almighty God. And so today we’ll learn a couple
of things, four or five things that we should be able to articulate
when someone comes to us and says, Who are you and where have
you come from? And you say, I am a Christian. I’m a citizen of heaven. I have
was once dead and now alive. I was once in darkness and I’m
now in light. I was once an enemy of God and
now because of the grace of God in Christ, I am now a friend
of God. And there are four or five things
from this passage that we ought to be able to articulate as representatives
of God who show the world that Christ has come and that he is
coming again. The first thing we find in verse
11, Jesus comes to save sinners. Verse 11 says, the grace of God
has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. Sometimes you’ll
drive down the highway and you’ll see in crude spray painted letters,
Jesus saves. Sometimes you see it in the end
zone at a football game on television. Sometimes you see it on the side
of an old building, but we simply put words like that, Jesus saves.
In the inquiring mind, the inquisitive person says, Jesus saves from
what? And as Christians, we understand
that Jesus saves us from God’s wrath, the wrath of God due to
us for sin. God also saves us for something. He uses us to make his gospel
known in the world. We’re saved from his wrath, but
we’re saved for a holy purpose, a holy end. And those purposes
are the good works, as Ephesians chapter two tells us, that God
prepared for us before the foundation of the world. So God has saved
us from his wrath. He saved us for good works. but
he saved us that we might worship him and glorify him and enjoy
him. And so God has saved we who were
sinners, we who fell short of his glory, we who transgressed
his law, we who were born in Adam’s transgression were lost
and without hope. And Jesus has entered this world.
He has appeared, he has appeared to conquer sin and death. and
to save us from the wrath of God. And what does it mean in
verse 11 when he says, the grace of God has appeared bringing
salvation for all people. Many of you have been participating
in our Sunday school class where we have looked at the study called
the whole Christ. And some of you have understood
that our denomination comes from the nation of Scotland and that
in the 1730s and 40s, there was a gospel controversy. The gospel
was not accurately preached and proclaimed in the Church of Scotland
in the 1700s. And so a group called the Associates
and another group called the Reformed came out of the Church
of Scotland. They eventually came to America
and united in Philadelphia in 1782. And that’s where we get
our denomination. But they wanted, because God wants, the gospel
freely offered to all people. And so when you read a verse
like verse 11, it says the grace of God has appeared, bringing
salvation for all people. We understand the Bible teaches
that God saves all kinds of people, men and women and boys and girls,
young and old and yellow and red and black and white people
who are rich, who are poor and somewhere in between. He saves
the educated, the uneducated, the over educated. He saves all
kinds of people, every nation, every tribe, every corner of
the planet. So we understand that Jesus comes
to save sinners. And so if you’re out in the world
living a faithful Christian life and somebody says, tell me about
your religion. Tell me about your Christianity.
That’s something you can say. Jesus has come into the world
to save sinners. Sinners who were under his wrath
because of sin, who were under his curse because the wages of
sin is death. And Jesus has come to make all
things new and to save those who are lost. There’s a second
thing this passage teaches us. Jesus comes to change our lives. In verse 12, we read of that
where it says he has trained us. The grace of God has appeared
to train us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live
self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present generation. Very early in my ministry, I
wrote a little article in our church newsletter. And the title
of that article I thought was really cute. I thought I’d done
such a good job. It was called Bus Ride Theology. And basically what I was finding
in my early days of ministry is that people think salvation
is simply this. I don’t wanna go to hell. I for
sure wanna go to heaven. And so if I just accept Jesus
or pray the sinner’s prayer, I’ve got my bus ticket. And when
Jesus comes and calls all aboard, I’ll just whip that ticket out
of my pocket and I’ll get on that bus and I’ll be whisked
away to heaven. And for some reason in our American
culture, we have reduced salvation in Jesus Christ to simply this. I ask this question all the time.
Y’all hear it. And it’s a joke, but it’s, it’s really not funny.
But our evangelism is this. You don’t want to go to hell
now, do you? And of course, the answer is
no. Who wants to go there? Well, I’ve bumped into some that
do. But we’ve reduced salvation to a ticket out of hell and friends,
brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, those who may not
know Jesus even in this room today. Salvation is so much more. Salvation is so much more. Jesus comes to change our lives. When we come to faith in Jesus,
recognizing our sin, Recognizing that he is the just judge of
the earth and that because of sin, we are under his wrath and
curse and without hope in the world except through Jesus. And
so we trust in Jesus alone for our salvation. It doesn’t stop
there. Salvation is so much more. God
is in the business of changing our lives. And so Jesus comes
to save sinners. But part of the way he saves
sinners is he comes to change our lives. The Bible tells us
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone
and the new has come. God changes our hearts. He trains
our minds. Our behavior before the watching
world is no longer profane, but now it is holy. And our witness
before the watching world is our new humanity, our new way
of life in Christ. Now, you know, because the Bible
teaches it, but also by your Christian experience, that the
Christian life is full of ups and downs. We sin, we daily break
God’s law and thought, word and deed. We read the Bible and we
say, we don’t measure up. We’re like the apostle Paul in
Romans 7, where he says, I know what I ought to do. I know what
I ought to do, but I don’t do it. And then he also says, I
know the thing that I ought not do. And that is the very thing
that I do. We know that sanctification,
we know that are being conformed into the image of Christ. It
is up and it is down. It is two steps forward and one
step backwards. Sometimes it’s a step forward
and five steps backwards. It is it is hard. We fail. We fall short. But that’s the
way God designed it. So that we will continually look
to him. And so if you’re finding the
Christian life difficult, don’t be discouraged. It’s supposed
to be that way. One great and wonderful way to
think about your sanctification, to think about this truth that
Jesus comes to change our lives, is to answer this question. Is
it possible for me to become like Jesus? And the answer is
this. It is perfectly possible, but
painfully so. In that little statement, it
is perfectly possible to be like Jesus, but painfully so. It ought
to resonate with you because of your Christian experience,
but also because of what the word of God teaches us. We love
God. We love his word. We love his
worship. We love his church. We’re like King David in the
Psalms that says, I think about you day and night on my couch
and in the hours of the night. I love you, Lord. I think on
you. I love your word. I pray for you. Oh, but we know, we
know deep down what’s really in here. We know that that sin
has been canceled, it’s been pardoned, it’s been subdued,
but we know the ugliness. We know what comes out of our
hearts, our mouths, where our minds linger and dwell and run
to. But we must remember Jesus comes
to change our lives. Here’s a question for you. If
you were put on trial for your Christian witness, is there enough,
is there enough to convict you? Could you be put in jail for
it? Could you be found guilty of it? And I mean the ups and
the downs. I mean the backwards and the
forwards. I mean the good and the bad and
the ugly. I don’t mean be perfect. We’re coming to that part in
just a moment. But could you be found guilty of living for
Christ? Well, there’s a third thing this
passage teaches us. Jesus comes to save sinners.
Jesus comes to change our lives. The third is this. Jesus comes
to give us the hope of heaven. We find it in verse 13. We are
waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of
our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. I know every one of you
in this room has longings. I know of at least two of you
that are counting down, no three of you who are counting down
the days until retirement. Every week I hear 44 and 36 and
whatever number it is. Some of you are counting down
the days until you graduate high school. Some of you are counting
down the days until your beach trip. Some of you are counting
down the days until you see your children or your grandchildren
or your great-grandchildren. again until they visit. Some
of you are counting down the days until something. We all
have things that we are longing for. We have something that we
hope for. One of the greatest hopes of
the Christian is found in the Bible in that wonderful little
word, Maranatha, which simply means come, Lord Jesus. It’s the prayer of the saints.
We want Jesus to come and make all things new. We want him to
come and take away our pain, to dry our tears, to eradicate
our sorrows and our hardships and our burdens. We want him
to come and make all things new. It’s how the Bible ends. Amen,
come Lord Jesus. It’s how the revelation ends. And we remember and we recognize
that Jesus comes to give us the hope of heaven. There are a lot of epiphanies
in the Bible, a lot of comings. There’s the advent of Jesus.
There’s the coming of him as a baby. There’s also, though,
the second coming of Jesus, not as a little one, a wee one, but
as a victorious king, a conquering king, a king who will come and
gather his subjects, his royal subjects, bought with his own
blood to his own palace to heaven. And so dear brothers and sisters
of the Lord, Jesus Christ, Jesus comes to give us the hope of
heaven. Otherwise life is futile. Life
is difficult. We think it will never end. It’s
groundhogs day all day, every day, every week, Jesus comes
to give us the hope of heaven. And I would just venture a guess
that if you ever look to the sky in the night, it’s to see
if a comment is passing. It’s to see if one of those satellites
that’s gonna make its orbit around Burlington is there. It’s to
look at a jet. It’s to see the birds. It’s to see the colors.
But how many of us are looking at the sky and saying, is today
the day that Jesus will come? One of the big reasons he came
is to give us the hope of heaven. There’s a fourth thing from this
passage. We find it in verse 14. Jesus comes to purchase our
salvation. And here we get into the nitty
gritty, the nuts and bolts of the gospel when we read in verse
14 about Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us to redeem
us from all lawlessness. Now I would venture a guess,
because I know most of you pretty well, and I’ve heard a lot of
your stories, that none of you have ever been kidnapped and
held for ransom, nor have you been enslaved and not set free. Probably be true. But spiritually
speaking, spiritually speaking, you have been. You’ve been held
captive by Satan. You’ve been held captive by darkness
and by sin and death and held for ransom. You have been owned. You have been enslaved to sin
and to misery. And Jesus Christ has come into
this world to purchase you. To redeem you, to give you salvation,
to give you freedom, to give you manumission from these difficulties. Jesus has bought you with his
precious blood. He has given the ransom price
for your life. And so one of the things we must
understand as Christians who are living a faithful Christian
life and the watching world is looking at us and saying, who
are you and where you come from? We have to get the gospel right.
And there’s two things we have to get right in our telling of
the gospel. You’re in a predicament and there’s a provision. That
predicament is sin. All have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. But the free offer of the gospel,
is that Jesus Christ has come into the world to save sinners.
And how did he accomplish that redemption? He died. He paid
the price. He gave the ransom. He has bought
us at a precious price. Our Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus,
who knew no sin, he became sin for us. in order that we might
become the righteousness of Christ. He is the great high priest who
is the high priest at the cross, but he was also the offering,
the spotless lamb without blemish, acceptable in the sight of God
almighty. There’s a final thing this passage
teaches us. Jesus comes to purify a people
for himself. You see, isn’t salvation so much
richer than just that bus ticket we stick in our hip pocket? That
life insurance that some well-meaning gospel preacher tells us. Fire
insurance to keep you out of the fires of hell. There’s truth
to those things, but salvation is so much more. And it says
Jesus came to purify people for himself. That’s the end of verse
14. Christ Jesus gave himself for
us to redeem us from our lawlessness and to purify for himself a people
for his own possession who are zealous for good works. We read in Zechariah chapter
three about Joshua the high priest. And what was Joshua the high
priest problem? What was his problem? It wasn’t
that he couldn’t speak the words of the priesthood. It wasn’t
that he couldn’t do the work of the priesthood. It was that
he could not stand before the holy God of Israel because he
had filthy robes. And we understand from our reading
of the Bible, our study of the scripture, we understand that
the filthy robes, the dirty clothing, It’s representative of our sin.
And we cannot come into the presence of almighty God dirty, defiled,
stained, covered with sin. But we must be washed and made
presentable. And so God in Christ Jesus comes
into the world to purify a people for himself. These are Old Testament
words. These are words you’ll read of
in the Old Testament sacrificial system. What needs cleansing? What needs purification? It’s
everything that will be presented and used before the throne and
presence of almighty God. If you’re gonna be a people of
God, if you’re gonna be a Christian, if you’re gonna be in the family
of God, you have to be cleansed. And not just outwardly, but inwardly. And Christ has made that possible.
His blood washes us and makes us, it makes us clean. And by grace, we’ve been saved
for good works. And people who are saved are
motivated. They’re zealous for good works.
And so, dear brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, how
will the watching world know that our God is a God who saves? Well, it will happen this way.
As you recognize the call of God on your life, the great sacrifice
that was made for you to become a Christian, as you recognize
that and as you live out of that grace, you will show a dark and
dying world, a crooked and depraved generation, the gospel power. And yes, you will be rejected.
Yes, you’ll be a poor witness at times. Yes, it’ll be dark
and difficult and hard. We want the world to know that
there is a God and that there is a God who saves. And so as
you live your life, may you also take to heart these four or five
things and say, I want to be able to speak the gospel into
the lives of those who need it. And I want to speak it well.
And Paul, through his letter to Titus, gives us the words.
Let’s pray together. Our Lord and God, we thank you
for the word of God and how over and over in many ways and in
different ways, it tells us how to proclaim the excellencies
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Give us lives that reflect His
glory, but give us words that show the way to that glory and
help us to so love the gospel and to so love the lost that
we will proclaim these things to those who need to hear it.
Lord, preach it to us over and over so that we will never lose
the wonder and the love and praise that is due you for our salvation.
We ask all this in the name of Christ, our great savior, who
loved us and gave himself for us. Amen. Let us stand and respond
to God’s word. Our hymn is not number 172, it’s
173. All glory, laud, and honor. As you go, go with God’s blessing,
his benediction. Look up and receive it now. The
Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord cause his face to shine
upon you and be gracious to you. And the Lord lift up the light
of his face before you and give you peace in this life and the
life that is to come. And all God’s people said, amen.