Book of Titus - Ch. 2, vv. 14-15

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Pastor Ben Mitchell

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Well, we're doing an out -of -cycle Sunday school lesson today because Dave has been out with some kind of bad sickness
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So I'm covering for him today, which Worked out. Okay, as far as this study is concerned because it'll give us the opportunity to finish chapter 2 today of Titus while Everything we just completed is still somewhat fresh on our minds
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And then once we do our next swap here in four or five weeks, we will be able to start fresh with chapter 3 so That's not too bad so if you want to go ahead and turn to Titus chapter 2 we will just kind of be brought up to speed briefly and then
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See if we can finish out the chapter today We're going to primarily be looking at verses 14 and 15 we looked at 14 the last time we were together in the context of our brief study on the deity of Jesus as Proven in Verse 13, but we saw how the context they carried into verse 14 supported that We're going to look at 14 a little bit more today.
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Just a couple of other thoughts and then like I said verse 15 as well but first if you wouldn't mind starting at verse 11 mainly because Paul has one
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Complete thought from verses 11 through 14. It's one sentence Divided into four verses there, but it is one thought so let's read that together just to re
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Become reacclimated with the context and then we'll move forward It says in verse 11 for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men
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Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. We should live soberly
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Righteously and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope in the glorious appearing of the great
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God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify into himself a peculiar people zealous of good works
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So again, that's one Full sentence there and as we've noted previously the language of verse 14
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Which we honed in on just a little bit last time The language that the Apostle Paul uses here is just saturated with Old Testament allusions and even some paraphrasing of some of the most well -known verses of the
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Old Testament with regard to God Jehovah as Redeemer and so he borrows very specific language that again is used in the
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Old Testament of Jehovah as The Savior of his people and he takes that language and he applies it to Jesus Christ.
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So We have verse 13, which we looked at a detail last time where we have the
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Apostle Paul just emphatically stating Jesus is our God and Savior But even in verse 14, he continues this amazing demonstration of the reality that Jesus is
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God by saying he is Jehovah that was talked about in the Old Testament now we have
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Passages in the Old Testament as well that refer to the Father using the name Jehovah or Yahweh either one and We have passages where it is the
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Son and what's amazing about it is what we learn is it's essentially The singular name that refers to the being of God his essence his character his attributes
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That which makes God God and that is what the name Jehovah is Referencing the self -existent one and it is applied to again all three persons of the
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Godhead in Different contexts in the Old Testament. Sometimes it is the Father. Sometimes it's the
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Son we see the Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of Jehovah and so for Jesus for the
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Apostles to apply this divine name to Jesus is one of the greatest Testaments we have
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Again to the reality that Jesus is God When Jesus tells us at the end of Matthew to baptize and disciple the nations in the name
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Singular of the Father Son and Holy Spirit Dramatically speaking. He should have said the names but he said the name and he put it in the singular tense and then he goes on to name individually the three persons of the
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Godhead All three of which share the the divine name Jehovah so when you see
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Paul here borrowing this language of the Old Testament language that is specifically and Uniquely applied to Jehovah in the
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Old Testament. He says this is this is for this man Jesus Again, we have a really beautiful demonstration of the deity of our
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Lord So That is kind of what we looked at last time and we looked at verse 14 parts of verse 14 as it supported that idea in Verse 13 as well.
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But for today, I want to take another look at this verse though and hone in on the part that we play in our salvation experience and To demonstrate that I'd like you guys to turn to Romans chapter 6 and I think you guys will spot this
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Pretty quickly. I want to look at a pretty amazing passage that again demonstrates Paul's point here
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That he's making in verse 14, but he expands it a little bit more in Romans chapter 6 now
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I think I'm gonna read just this whole chapter. It's 23 verses. I'll just read through it somewhat briskly
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There's a couple of key verses that I want to pop out Especially but it's an amazing chapter.
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Just read this with me What shall we say then shall we continue in sin that that grace may abound?
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God forbid how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know you not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death
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Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death That like his
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Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father Even so we also should walk in newness of life
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For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death We also we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection
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Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth
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We should not serve sin for he that is dead is freed from sin
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Now if we be dead with Christ We believe that we shall also live with him knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth
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No more death hath no more dominion over him for in that he died He died unto sin once but in that he liveth he liveth unto
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God Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
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God Through Jesus Christ our Lord Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lusts thereof
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Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin But yield yourselves unto
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God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace
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What then shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace God forbid
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Know you not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey his servants
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You are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness
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But God be thanked that you were the slaves of sin But you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you
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Being then made free from sin you became the slaves of righteousness I speak into the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh
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For as you have yielded your members slaves to uncleanness into iniquity unto iniquity
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Even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness
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For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness What fruit had ye then and those things whereof ye now are ashamed for the end of those things is death
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But now being free, excuse me being made free from sin and become slaves to God Ye have your fruit and holiness in the end
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Everlasting life for the wages of sin is death But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
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Lord so one of the greatest ways in Paul does a beautiful job of weaving together two different things in this chapter number one is reminding us of the danger and The enslavement that we experienced to sin
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Prior to our salvation experience and even the death grip that it can still hold to us even after salvation
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He does that but he does so while simultaneously Weaving in the reality that that doesn't actually have to be a reality for us anymore
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It doesn't have to be and so one of the greatest ways for us to appreciate and really to even understand
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What this gift that we call eternal life even is when we hear this phrase we get used to it we we get
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Almost desensitized to certain phrases that pop up so many times throughout the New Testament Not that we just ignore it, but we can lose sight of just how glorious it really is
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When we look at all of this and in order to really understand a phrase or a reality like eternal life a gift like eternal life is
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For us to first remember What our previous condition was our previous condition before?
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Inheriting such a thing as eternal life not in such a way as to bury ourselves in self -shame
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Not at all that is never the goal of the Apostles is that they wrote and reminded us of our depravity
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They never did so in a way to bring shame on the new man Rather what they did was they did it to magnify the glory of the new man in our salvation by Jesus Christ and So it's not to bury ourselves in false guilt guilt of previous sin shame of our past lives but rather to rejoice and Remembering where we were going and how we were snatched out of that.
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We had one trajectory It was devastating, but we were snatched out of that trajectory and put on a new path
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That is the purpose of mentioning things like our previous condition our depravity our natural man
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So one of the key phrases in this really lengthy passage we just read and really the main thing I wanted to hone in on even though I just I really wanted to read the whole chapter is
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The verse that says in its verse 17, but God bethanked that you were servants of sin
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That you were slaves. It's the Greek term for slave You were slaves of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you
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Does that sound kind of familiar kind of like a parallel with the entire? Second chapter of Titus that we've been reading that form of doctrine that was delivered to you
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And it has been obeyed and lived out and therefore as a result of our obedience
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And of course our initial obedience was what? Believing that Jesus was the Son of God Yes, it is the calling of the
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Father It is the drawing of the Holy Spirit's the regeneration that we're going to be reading about in Titus chapter 3
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That gave us the desire to call upon his name But in the
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New Testament because we are human beings we aren't eternal and we don't live outside of time there is a particular tone throughout really the whole
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Bible, but certainly the New Testament that Emphasizes the reality of belief in Jesus is the
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Son of God and so you could if you want to think about it that way It's the ultimate obedience it begins there is
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Believing that he is your Savior that he is your Lord and continuing to believe that because remember even as believers
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We could you could be a Christian for 30 years and find yourselves in a time of such acute tribulation
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That you may have doubts not necessarily that Jesus is God or anything like that But maybe you have doubts that his promises are going to be fulfilled in your life all that could happen to any of us
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Because we live in a world with three distinct enemies constantly bombarding us with fiery darts, and we are human after all we're fallible
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This is one of the reasons why Peter the Apostle Peter tells us to make our calling in election sure it's not that we seal our election
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God never has to be made sure of our calling in our election. He's infallible He can see all of it, but sometimes we have to be made sure of it
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Not that it wasn't there, but because we need to be reminded that it is in fact there so We have this idea of obedience to God throughout the
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New Testament and so here we are Here's doctrine that was delivered to you, and it was obeyed and Therefore we are no longer slaves to sin
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And so when you think about it, and you look at that verse right there There are many denominations many different cults in some cases many false religions that of course emphasizes the part that we play quote -unquote in our salvation experience and as As Good old -fashioned
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Baptists of course we would refute that and we would Reaffirm that salvation is by grace through faith alone, but when you look at the
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New Testament what we find is That there was a very important part that we played there was absolutely a part
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That we played in our salvation experience, and it was a pretty significant one, too Because in order for Christ to be that Redeemer That Paul brings into focus if we go back to Titus chapter 2 now in verse 14 in order for Jesus to be this
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Redeemer That is brought into focus in Titus 2 14 and Romans chapter 6 and all throughout the
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Bible there had to be something to redeem his people from and Of course that thing is our own sin
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And I don't remember which Puritan it was is probably dozens of Puritans but many of them talked about I think
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John Owen was the one that had the really the more famous phrase of The thing that we contributed to our salvation was our sin and that is true.
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That's the part we played So we did play a part in our salvation because Jesus couldn't be a
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Redeemer if there was not something to redeem his people from So that's the part we played was our sin
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Now here's the thing though is It wasn't just sin is this thing that comes and goes and we would occasionally take part in it whenever we wanted to I think that is kind of the perception of sin and really if you think about it
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And I'm not going to get into this because you know the weeds really really easily But if you think about it the belief that that's how sin works is really just another way of emphasizing man's free will
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Just think about it for a second if we view sin as this thing That and think about it more in the context of prior to salvation just to make things easy for a second
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You could maybe if we get into talking about the new man old man Dichotomy as a believer. That's an interesting discussion, too but pretend like you're not saved or think back to prior to when you were saved if we convince ourselves that the unregenerate world around us is just kind of choosing what sins they want to take part in and Doing this it really and they are to a degree but really what that is is it's an emphasis more on free will than it is on the higher powers at play and the reason we can and and that's mainly with regard to influence by the way, not necessarily a forced hand but a very subtle influence and the reason why we know this is
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Because what's rather happening is it's not that people are choosing and kind of coming in and out
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Oscillating between being good people and then maybe they're little getting in some sin over here. And then they're they're fine over here is because What sin really is is it is not a neutral thing that people come in and out of it is a slave master
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The slave that sin is a brutal Slave master and it seeks to slowly run his slave into a pretty agonizing death
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But now here's where it gets really interesting He's a very subtle slave master.
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Don't think about a slave master like the Egyptian that was brutal toward the Hebrews slapping them on the back with the whip and all of these types of things because that You know that obviously would be pretty obvious if that's how it worked
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Think of the slave master if you remember in the film Pinocchio the
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Disney film Pinocchio Where you had these guys going around and they were tricking these little boys into what they were tricking them into a perception of pleasure and they took them where they took them to Pleasure Island and they gathered them all up and they put them on the wagon and There were mules that were cute that were pulling the wagon with the boys up on and they had their beers and they had their cigars and we're talking like little boys
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Pinocchio was one of them and they're just having a good time puffing away their cigars and getting a little tipsy and Talking about how great
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Pleasure Island is going to be and they get there and it's pretty fantastic You've got carnival rides.
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You've got they're shooting up pool in the tavern and again cigars and liquor just at their disposal for free and They're just having the best time ever and Then eventually they realized what was actually happening and they were evil slave masters that were actually slave driving them the whole time
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Even when they didn't realize it It was very subtle to get to the point where they eventually became the mules that were pulling the wagons
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To go get the next round of little boys and those mules were then divided the ones that couldn't talk were sold into Perpetual slavery as donkeys for the rest of their lives the ones that could talk they had to be divided because We can't sell donkeys that talk or they'll be able to tell them what happened.
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And so The story of Pinocchio is a really good example of what the slave master of sin looks like it's more subtle It's not like the
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Egyptian slave driver It's more like the one that is tricking you in the pleasures of unrighteousness
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And telling you how great it's going to be and showing you how great it is in in certain moments Until you get to the point of no return
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And so when Paul works his way and by the way in 2nd Thessalonians 2 12
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The Apostle Paul tells us this straight on and he says that prior to what he's talking about the unregenerate
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But this would be true for us to prior to our salvation experience. We had pleasure and unrighteousness
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What does that tell you it tells you that there is a choice there is will so I'm not saying that we're puppet masters
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That wasn't the point. I was trying to make The point I'm trying to make is that we have higher powers at be the
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Principalities of powers of high places that are influencing us prior to salvation
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Leading us down a very subtle road to pleasure Island that will eventually take us to the point of no return
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And the Apostle Paul tells us that prior to salvation we had pleasure in those same things We were on that same path on that same trajectory
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And just as Paul tells us in that passage in Romans we started with but God be thanked
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God be thanked that you were slaves of sin We were like the little boys on the wagon being hauled straight for pleasure
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Island. We were slaves of sin But you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you
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And so again when Paul is working his way to reminding Titus back to Titus 2
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Verse 14 When Paul works his way to reminding Titus of what he's been redeemed from What he's been redeemed from his own iniquities his own sin
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Which was a slave master He's bringing this reality of our freedom from sin and everlasting servitude to whom?
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No longer to sin, but to whom? Jesus Christ He is bringing all of this to the forefront he's bringing it all to the foreground
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I'll read the verse one more time Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify into himself a peculiar people zealous of good works
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What were we saved from we were saved we were redeemed from the slave master of sin and we now have the ability
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We now have claim to being a special people set apart zealous of good works
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Serving now this perfect slave master and listen here's the thing about the dynamic of slave and Matt the the slave master dynamic that we
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That human beings because of the fall and because of sin have utterly Contorted that that dynamic and one of the reasons why we as believers can and why the
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Apostle set the foundation for what would eventually become the abolition of slavery and why we as Christians can
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Emphatically deny that it is a good thing in this world is because of sin It's because of sin that we can say that should not be anything any sort of institution
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That human beings should be engaging in because of how corrupt we really are But the thing is is that the institution of slavery is not evil in and of itself
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In and of itself what makes it evil is the people the institution itself isn't how do I know that?
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Because we are now made slaves of God we are now made slaves of Jesus Christ We see that all throughout the
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New Testament in slow and so that the key Isn't the fact that the institution is bad.
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It has to do with who is the slave master? Is it one that wants to kill you and that hates you and that will abuse you and that once?
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nothing, but your demise or Is he a slave master that is perfect and that is just and that has no partiality and that Rewards and recognizes based upon obedience to his word and that is who we have now that is our
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Master at this point. I'm gonna read you a quick passage.
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Tell me if this sounds familiar It says this is the Apostle Paul in another place who hath delivered us that's the father the who there's the father who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and Hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
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Son In whom we have redemption Through his blood even the forgiveness of sins
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That's in Colossians chapter 1. Of course dad spent a number of weeks on those two beautiful verses there
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And so again, we see this exact same theme we see highlighted in Titus 2 chapter
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Excuse me chapter 2 verse 14. We see redemption. We see salvation We see being pulled from the power of darkness in the in the wording of Colossians 1 13 we are translated then in the kingdom of Jesus Christ and then verse 14 ends with even the forgiveness of sins the forgiveness of sins
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It's really hard to really grasp the implications of that statement
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And I don't know if that has anything to do with just the day and time we live in maybe it does maybe not
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Maybe if you go back for 2 ,000 years, it would be hard for any of our brothers and sisters to fully grasp
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The implications of that statement the forgiveness of sins Because what it is is it is hopelessness that has been turned into The hope of eternal glory it turns hopelessness into the hope of eternal glory.
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It turns unworthiness To stand before God and it turns it into the washing that will allow us to stand before him and worship forever
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So again, this is these are antithetical realities, it's not just one, you know, there's no middle ground here
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You don't go from being unworthy to maybe a little unworthy. Maybe a little worthy It's one or the other and so when you read a statement like this in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins this is a
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Absolute transformation that takes place. It takes a person that has is an absolute hopeless situation
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And gives them hope of eternal glory it takes a person that is absolutely unworthy of ever even coming close to standing before the holiness of God and It makes and it washes them and it makes them not just worthy but a joint heir of everything and Allows him to actually worship for all of eternity that Holy God When Paul says at the beginning of the verse who gave himself for us and again
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Titus 2 14 who gave himself for us he's talking about something that You know, we call and many theologians call substitutionary atonement and that's a couple of big words
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Both are biblical not necessarily you don't necessarily see a verse with them together but both terms are biblical and it's important to remember that little phrase because it has been
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Used by again our brothers and sisters for two millennia the substitutionary atonement of Jesus it is one of the
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Most important References one of the most important aspects of the gospel message is the reality
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That Jesus voluntarily offered himself on our behalf. That's the substitution
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So there had to be atonement for sins or else It's just again that path straight to pleasure
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Island that leads from then straight to eternal slavery you had to have atonement from someone to fix that problem and so Jesus came he humbled himself and was obedient to all the way to the death on the cross so that he could be our substitute our substitutionary atonement and that is what
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Paul is talking about. He's paying he's Giving reference to this idea when he says that he gave himself for us.
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He voluntarily offered himself on our behalf To buy us back from the enslavement to the devil because there are other places where we are told we were we were captive to his
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Will so there's the principalities and powers in high places and we were enslaved to our own sin so it was again a very hopeless situation that we were pulled from and So it's an amazing phrase there who gave himself for us.
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And why did he offer himself? Why did he become our substitute? If you read the rest of the verse there is one very important reason it wasn't the only reason
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But it was one very important one and it's one that Paul chose to emphasize here in our Titus chapter our
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Titus passage And that was he offered himself as a substitutionary atonement
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He offered himself for us to purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works
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Zealous of good deeds a people who live out Good doctrine good works so that others can see the demonstration of God's saving power
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Which of course is something that we've talked about for a number of weeks at this point How do you see something that is immaterial such as regeneration?
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You see it by living a life that proves that that generation happened in the first place.
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And that's what Paul is talking about He gave himself for us he died on the cross to give us salvation from hell
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But also to purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works the word zealous here
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Means that he wants his people to be passionate about the good works that he instructs us to live out so when we read the
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New Testament and we read beautiful passages like Titus chapter 2 where he is telling us the character traits and The godly living that is pleasing in the sight of the
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Lord Paul is now telling us. Okay, here it is I've delivered it to you in the spoken word maybe or the written word because it was a letter and of course whether Paul knew it or not the
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Holy Spirit certainly knew that this would be The written word now passed down for all
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Christians for the rest of time here. It is delivered in the written form Now what
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I'm telling you to do with it Titus and all people that read it thereafter is to be passionate about it is to have zeal
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Toward it to passionately live out these godly works these
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Instructions these things that Paul is telling us to live out not cherry -picking our favorites and leaving out the rest
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But rather to joyfully submit to all of them and then passionately live them out
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That's what the Greek is referring to there when he says to have zeal zealous of Good works.
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It is carrying the connotation of passion, which is an amazing thing You think about the passion that David had he was
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David was an incredibly religious person of course he was the one that was literally mocked by his own wife because of his zeal and That didn't turn out too well for her because it was it was a genuine religion.
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It wasn't Charismatic stuff. It wasn't it wasn't just a showboating it was the spirit moving within David that led him to in a particular context dance and Sing and to look almost like at least from the point of Michael.
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I don't know what she was thinking She it says that she despised him. I believe is the term it uses whatever it was she was embarrassed by it and When when she told
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David that reality It made him so upset because he knew that he was being pleasing in the sight of God and the fact that he wasn't pleasing the side of his wife made him very upset and Again, she remained barren for the rest of her life because David Didn't give her the attention that he would have
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Had it not been for that moment very interesting stuff there a little bit of a rabbit trail But the point is David had zeal
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David had zeal by the way that zeal manifests itself in different ways So that's not to say that we need to get up and start dancing
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Some people will use you know it's really interesting when you look at the way charismatics kind of argue their way into the types of theatrics that Come to the worship service is they use very
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Obscure passages in the reason they're obscure isn't because we don't know what it means but rather because the context itself is
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Very unique and that would be one of them because that was only one instance that we saw that happen And what was it?
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It was the Ark of the Covenant returning to the city of David I mean this was this is an event that was like once in a lifetime
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In all of human history, so no wonder David had outward zeal like he had it was a very peculiar situation and so The way that God works is he created all of these different Ethnicities he created all of these different types of people that all can glorify him in worship in different ways and so is it more pleasing to God when you go into a church of our brother of our
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African -american brothers and sisters that are far more lively than we have ever been here. Is it more
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Glorifying to God when you see that over against The hymns and the songs that we sing here
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Well, the answer is not necessarily the only reason it would ever be less glorifying to God is if we did it from a place of irreverence if we did it from a place of just going through the motions and not actually
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Caring about what we were doing If it doesn't matter if you're the loudest group of the bunch if you are doing it out of just pure emotion and Fun or in what you know, whatever you want to throw in there
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Then that isn't pleasing him either and then you go to the little Baptist Church with five people in it Singing amazing grace and that is pleasing to him you get the point
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So he has all of these diverse Of Cultural heritages we saw one of them the wedding of our great friends
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Devin and Tina recently you have all you have this cultural heritage that is very foreign to Those of us that have grown up and our ancestors have been living in this area this geographic region for ever
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It's foreign to us, but that doesn't make it wrong It just makes it distinct to their cultural heritage
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And so we get to worship in a way that is consistent with ours we have brothers and sisters all over the world that worship in different ways than we do and As long as it is consistent with Scripture and as long as it is from a place of genuine worship in zeal
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Then it's pleasing to God. He has given himself To purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works
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Good works in worship good works in Christian living Now, let's look at the last verse here and then we'll finish up this chapter
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After all of this ten verses of Paul setting the stage of What?
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Godly living in the church not just from the pastors, but by every individual Congregant every individual member should look like he spent
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Most of chapter 1 telling the pastors the leaders what they should look like how they should live He spent the majority of chapter 2
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Telling the congregation all members how they should be living their lives in a way that is
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God -pleasing Then he spends four verses reminding us of the power of the gospel
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And he ends with this phrase these things speak and Exhort and rebuke with all authority
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Let no man despise thee now He's talking directly to Titus the spiritual leader of the churches of Crete at the time
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As he is going out and duplicating and delegating himself What are these things that Paul is telling
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Titus to speak with all authority? well It kind of goes without saying
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But it's the preceding passages that we just finished studying From chapter 1 all the way through chapter 2 and certainly all of the things that were emphasized in chapter 2 from the standards of godly
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Living that Paul laid out in verses 1 through 10 to the gospel message Like I said a second ago from verses 11 through 14
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These are the things that Titus is to speak. And so this final thought from Paul Before entering the next phase of his letter
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Which we'll get to next time chapter 3 it's just amazing Because first he's letting us know that there is a transcendent authority behind the preaching of God's Word That was a little bit of a mouthful, but think about it for a second.
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He says do this with all authority Well, is that authority derived from Titus in and of himself?
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Is that authority even from Paul? The answer here is no there are times when
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Paul makes an apostolic appeal to his authority But that's not what he's talking about here
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Here what he is talking about is an authority that supersedes the earthly realm
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It is transcendent from the dimensions that we live within at this point there is an authority that lives outside of time that entered into time and delivered these things and That is where the authority comes from that is why the words that Paul is writing to Titus have authority within them in and of themselves
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Not from Paul not because of Titus, but because of where they came from There is a transcendent authority behind the preaching of God's Word as long as it is biblical preaching
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I mean you you can define preaching really loosely and just Umbrella the whole thing and just every person that is behind a pulpit today.
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You could say they're preaching It'd be a very loose use of the term Because there are I would say perhaps the majority of people behind pulpits around the world today that aren't actually preaching
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Biblically speaking but those that are those that do There is a there's an authority behind it that comes from a place.
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That's not even really a place So that's the first thing there is a transcendent authority behind the preaching of God's Word, but secondly that if you don't handle his word well if you don't take that authority and Handle it accurately and well as you proclaim it before the people of God in the household of God You're gonna be disregarded
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You will be despised There is no preacher actually standing behind the pulpit when one shirks away from The hard truths of Scripture if you have a person that does that if you have a person that isn't willing to preach the whole counsel of God Every verse of the
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Bible not saying they can in a lifetime. That would be an amazing accomplishment but Whether or not they are willing to do that even the most uncomfortable toughest hard truths
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That are within it unless you have a person that's willing to do that. They're not actually preaching at all
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These things speak exhort rebuke three different terms that Paul uses here
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He's saying to use everything I just gave you and do these three different things using all of them speak them
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Exhort with them rebuke with them and if you look at every single one of those words, they're all three in the imperative
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What does that mean it means that Paul is commanding
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Titus He is commanding Titus and by extension every minister that would follow
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Titus for all the rest of church history To do this. It's not optional
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Paul is not delivering these doctrines to Titus so that he can decide whether or not he uses them or not.
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I Said that twice He is saying he's commanding him you will speak you will exhort you will rebuke
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Using these things that I just delivered to you. I'm commanding you Titus to do so Ministers don't have the choice
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To not teach these truths that we've just spent the last number of weeks going through in this chapter
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And of course, this isn't the only this is the only chapter of the Bible that is somewhat difficult for the modern age
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Not very palatable anymore for our new social norms you know when you start reading verses talking about women being obedient to their husbands and being keepers of the home and in men being sober and patient and All all of the things that they should be all of the godly character traits that Christian should exhibit these aren't fun to hear even for genuine
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Christians across the country and Paul anticipated this 2 ,000 years ago because really humans don't change that much people on the island of Crete, they didn't want to hear this stuff either and so He commands
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Titus speak it exhort it rebuke with it Sometimes when a pastor speaks about things that the human nature just frankly doesn't really want to hear
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Maybe it's because of the old man or maybe it's because we're so new in the faith We're still kind of climbing out of our old habits and things like that The Bible tells us that the sins of our youth are a pretty potent thing for a reason.
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It can be hard to Change over time. That's what sanctification is all about is it it's that process.
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That's how God ordained it He wanted it to be like that on purpose by the way so that we would be growing closer to him over time
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But when the pastor speaks about things that again the human nature just really doesn't want to hear
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It's important for him to remember that the authority is not his own and this can give him the boldness to not let anyone disregard him to not
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Fumble it around in such a way that people would despise him Which is what Paul ends the whole chapter with don't let that happen.
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Don't let that happen Titus. Let no man despise you and So that ends this amazing portion of Scripture again just filled with not only standards godly standards of Christian living but The gospel itself the foundation for all
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Christian living. It's nothing we could do in and of ourselves It requires grace and grace alone Many people
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I'll end with this thought if y 'all have any thoughts you can share them, but many people Especially Roman Catholics, which kind of makes sense, but really even some
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Protestant denominations Methodists Church of our Church of Christ brothers and sisters Lutherans just to a degree a lesser degree than Methodists and and maybe some other weird
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Baptist Groups who knows many of them have the false perception that yet justification is by grace
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We can't we can't justify ourselves, but sanctification is the part that we play. That's kind of the that's an oversimplification
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But it's kind of the idea that many Christians That's how they approach the sanctification process process and that's a big issue and We talked about this a little bit on Wednesday night because we are now we began a new series on the fruit of the spirit and one thing we have to remember is
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We'll hone in so much on the fruit. Sometimes we forget the source of the fruit, which is the next word the spirit
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It's all of God. It is all of grace sanctification is equally by grace as justification and So what that means is that if we enter into this
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Christian walk with the idea that we can somehow Work through it fight through it
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Conduct ourselves in such a way That's going to get us to the finish line by ourselves
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It's going to be a it's going to be a roller coaster ride in the bad sense It's going to be a bad roller coaster ride very bumpy ride
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It doesn't mean we'll lose our salvation But what it means is that we will go through times of turmoil that we didn't have to experience from the human viewpoint
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But rather when we remember the fact that so that sanctification is equally by grace Then we can enter this walk with boldness with confidence and with a fresh desire
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To go back to God's Word and remember. Yes, there's a lot here I mean we ten verses worth of godly character traits
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It can be hard to remember one or to hone in on one sometimes let alone more than that But we can go to those passages
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We can look at passages like Galatians 5 where he talks about the fruit of the spirit
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We can go to passages like Romans 6 that we started with and we can look at all of these things and it begins with Gratitude and joy in the
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Lord that we are saved in the first place and that joy leads to the desire to obey his word and so Again, amazing passage.
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We just finished in chapter 2 that talks about all of this kind of stuff as we get into chapter 3
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Next time we're together It's certainly Paul doesn't stop talking about Christian living and the foundations of it
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But he does get into some really interesting and what we could say deep
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Doctrinal truths that once again supports this reality It gives us the foundation the underpinnings that we need to have confidence in our
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Christian walk. So He zooms in he zooms out. He zooms back in he zooms back out
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Chapter 3 is going to be amazing and by the way Chapter 3 of Titus is and I've alluded to this several times is where we get the doctrine of regeneration from it comes from Titus Chapter 3 so we'll get to that the next time we're together, which will be in a few weeks again today
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Of course was supposed to be Dave's Class, but he's been sick. So we did an out -of -cycle
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Sunday school lesson here Y 'all have any thoughts or anything y 'all like to share before we dismiss?
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And this is why in the story of Pinocchio Pinocchio is approached by the good fairy fairy that changes
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Pinocchio into a little boy and she does that because she recognizes traits in him as selflessness and truthfulness and His compassion for Geppetto But those things that's the way the world sees it in that God chooses us because of our good traits
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But that's not what it is. God chooses us because of his grace and then he gives us the good traits so it
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Pinocchio Just depicts how the world sees salvation. Sure.
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No, that's a great point and Following you know Pinocchio following his conscience Yeah, and The world is fairytale, it's very well the world the human race has been on this journey of discovering the source of morality for all of human history and when you are
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When you deny that there is a creator now, of course We have paganism and things like that where the source of morality comes from the gods
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But when you get to the point of like the Enlightenment for example, and you and you have the philosopher even ancient
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Greek philosophers But all the way through the Enlightenment to present day where you have this pursuit of the source of morality With the assumption that there is no
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God that there is no transcendent or metaphysical reality Then what the conclusion comes back to is the in air the inherent goodness of man
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Which of course is what Pinocchio is is picturing there to your point he has these intrinsic traits in and of himself that the fairy recognizes and he has his conscience and The Christian view of the conscience is incredibly important because the conscience isn't the spirit
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But the conscience is also useless without the spirit because it eventually becomes a seared tool
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Unless you have the spirit that is teaching it what to be bothered by So every human being has a conscience not every human being has the spirit and those that don't eventually sear that tool that is the conscience and then it's no more and so if human morality if morality is based upon the human conscience and then the inherent intrinsic quality of the human being
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You can come up with beautiful fairy stories like Pinocchio but in the real life when you actually practically apply that it ends in devastation every time because the law of Depravity of man will bear its ugly head every time now so I like all that Mimi and you're obviously correct the main one of the reasons why
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I thought of Pinocchio with regard to the example of slave driver
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That kind of parallels the way sin works in our hearts is because Gemma just finished Pinocchio, but another another really good just allegory
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That you could use is the Pilgrims Progress where Christian and hopeful come upon this thing called
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Vanity Fair and Just like in Pinocchio. It's literally a fair It literally has the rides and the carnival rides and the games and people that are just absolutely reveling in their sin and of course, it is a very
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Colorful display in the book. It is even it even in the cartoon. It's a pretty colorful scene of The way that people feel they are liberated
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It's it's a it's a scene that shows the human perception of what liberation looks like Separate from God and you have a
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Polly on that is just above the Vanity Fair Overseeing it the whole time that is eventually getting these people to the point of no return
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And so you I could have used that as well as a parallel of what the slave master of sin looks like and how he works
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It's very subtle. It's not like the guy whipping someone else on the back. It is more you are slowly
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Influencing them into a pigeonhole until they can't get out They're It's really selfish because they are
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They are They don't have to submit to anyone they're good enough themselves
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Like I don't know. So there's long period away But Well, you know
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It's just like it's still underneath that it is a
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Selfishness that it's very highly basically a preacher well, the irony of it is that that selfishness is actually a tenant of Of a naturalistic viewpoint of humanity and they may not recognize it
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Just your everyday out on the street atheist that maybe has heard some of these ideas and they're like, oh, no morality
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You know, we can be moral. What is morality? Well, it is the general well -being of citizenry cooperation in these types of things, but what they don't realize is that the very atheistic philosophers that tried to delineate all of this and to figure out where morality comes from is they hone in on the evolution of Darwinistic survival of the fittest idea and they say what happened what because if you take that to its natural conclusion then
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Obviously selfishness is king because it's survival of the fittest. It is doing what you need to do to perpetuate your own
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Offspring and your life and Your little conquering circle or whatever and what they say is well
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We have evolved beyond that to the point where we no longer have to do the survival of the fittest thing rather now
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It is a matter of cooperation but what they don't realize if you and if you read some of the more
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Philosophical atheists is they they talk about what is the purpose of cooperation? Why?
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Why be cooperative be cooperative in anything and it's because that is what provides the most optimal scenario for yourself so in other words in to to be working in cooperation with the rest of society and to be
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Selfless in the sense that you maybe you're generous or maybe you are taking part in humanitarian efforts or you support
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Humanitarian efforts and things like that is because they are trying to keep this Utopian idea alive because that is what gives them the
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Privilege of living in a pretty comfortable place but it all comes back to the the seed of selfishness because the reason you're cooperating is you don't want to lose that for yourself and again, if you read
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Sam Harris and What's the guy dad that you've listened to a lot of his debates? Hitchens if you read
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Harris if you read Hitchens if you read Dawkins if you read these guys They they will just bluntly talk about this as a reality the the fact that the the pursuit of That which is optimal for the individual is where the moral landscape is derived
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It's way too much getting into the weeds if you tried to break that down But the point is it to your point is it comes back to a sin the
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Bible talks about which is selfish selfishness so even when they think they're Doing something that is sinless.
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It is actually coming from a prideful haughty selfish place We're all
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And you know Right Right Well, that's where again that when we talk about the depravity of man
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It's an incredibly important doctrine and we should talk about it often But we don't need to talk about it in the sense of creating shame for the believers
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What it is is it you talk about it specifically to highlight to magnify
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The grace that saved us from that state of depravity But there's a second reason why it's important to talk about it, too
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And that's to understand that our friends out there that have not yet submitted to Jesus as their
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Lord and King as their Savior They're still in that state. And so that is why
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The Apostles were as evangelistic as they were and why? Paul emphasizes preaching as often as he does is because he wanted to be out there saving, you know savings
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He knew that he wasn't the one doing it, but he was the instrument that God was using to save his kinsmen And so that's another great reason for us to understand the depravity of man is because when we go out into the world and we say
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Hey, everyone's just kind of having a good time Well, if you understand that doctrine, you know that there is something deeper and darker happening within Even though the external looks all bright and happy in the moment
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Anything can look bright and happy it is as it erodes over time as entropy
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Takes place and things like that that we are all of the sudden kind of jolted and reminded of the reality of Things like depravity and why we need a
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Savior in the first place really crazy stuff. Yes, sir Say what she said, that's why forever.
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I've said that Arminianism is is You know religious humanism
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It's humanism in the church what Arminianism is because she was describing church that You know teaches you can't do this.
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You can't do that. You need to do this. You do that and They're basing it on human effort
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I Completely agree in one thing
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I've learned in recent in the last couple of years is there are certainly If you want to think about it as a spectrum or so, let's just use the
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Arminianism example There is to a degree a spectrum of it where we have some brothers and sisters that may be
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Arminians But believe in grace far closer to us than Many other
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Arminians you get my point. And so there are some Arminians that may never experience the
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Devastation of that humanistic foundation that dad just described But there are plenty that do and if you want a fantastic example of it
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Look no further than the Baptist Union that Spurgeon was a part of that His church was associated with the
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Metropolitan Tabernacle and the downgrade controversy and the different controversies He was associated with And it all stemmed from what we call
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What's the opposite of particular Baptist? General Baptist that it all stemmed from general
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Baptists coming in and becoming the majority of the Union and they were Arminian And by the time they became the majority that humanistic foothold was so strong that Spurgeon and he was someone that believed that You could you know, he had many
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Arminian brothers and sisters, but the humanistic foothold was so strong that he in sorrow
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Left that Union and it was one of the most devastating aspects of his life and unfortunately was near the end of his life
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It was a really sad time for him But he had to leave not just because they were Arminians there were had been general
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Baptists in the Union with him for decades He had to leave because they were moving away from scriptural truths
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Into more humanistic ones and it and it came from the Arminianism that dad was talking about So there are definitely degrees of it, but it can be just as bad as anything
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Which I think is the point you were trying to make It's really crazy. Alrighty guys. Well, we're a couple minutes past time now
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So let me go ahead and dismiss and we will move on Heavenly Father thank you so much for bringing us together and for giving us the opportunity to discuss your word and to Break into your truth in so many different ways there are so many intricacies and details and just interweaving doctrines and truths in your word
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Lord that it is just constantly thrilling For us to be able to open up the pages of your written word to look through them to see the harmony
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That they have within them but at the same time we also know and thank you that all of it regardless of how intricate it can get and regardless of how detailed and how
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Interwoven all of it gets it all comes back to a singular central message and that is salvation in your name
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Through your grace and you is our King and is our Lord and Lord We thank you so much for that reality in that we are able to sit here in week after week after week for an entire
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Lifespan learn new things from this word that has been with us for thousands of years.
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We thank you for that We ask you to continue to bless our time together bless our fellowship and bless the next service