Sermon: Saving Grace Instructs

The Context of Titus 2 and the Call to Sound Doctrine

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Paul's epistle to Titus, Titus chapter 2, Titus chapter 2 for our exhortation today. If I can find enough room up here in the pulpit for everything I need.

There we go.

I have given up and go ahead and grabbed my old man glasses, so hopefully I'll be able to see what we're looking at this evening. Titus chapter 2, let's ask the Lord to bless our time together. Father, now, in these few moments we have, speak through your word, conform your servants to the image of Christ.

We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Here is...

Wow, that works. Wow, it's amazing. It really is. In Titus chapter 2, we have more than enough material where I could go for weeks and weeks on end, but we're not going to do that. And so we're going to go through the first 10 verses very, very quickly.

Please do not take that as an indication of a lack of importance. It's simply a matter of time. I want to focus primarily upon verses 11 through 14. But while the problem is, I think that the best interpretation of verse, especially verse 11, requires us to have a solid grasp on what came before that.

We need to remember that these epistles were meant to be read for Titus as an individual. Then he probably would have shared these with the churches there in Crete where he was ministering, other places where he would have gone.

And so the context is always vitally, vitally important. And so let's read through it and then make application and ask the Lord to truly change us through his word. But as for you, speaking to Titus, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine, sound teaching.

Older men, please notice the groups. Verse 2, older men. Then verse 3, older women. Verse 6, younger men. And then you have slaves in verse 9. And then a few other people sort of mixed in. So we have a number of different groups.

That's why I said before in the prayer, everyone is addressed in the next few verses, all of you, individually. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance.

Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may instruct the young men, I'm sorry, young women in sensibility, to love their husbands, to love their children.

To be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be slandered. Likewise, urge the younger men to be sensible. In all things, show yourself to be a model of good works with purity and doctrine, dignified.

When was the last time you heard that? Dignified, sound in word which is irreproachable, so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us. Urge slaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be pleasing, not contradicting, not pilfering, but demonstrating all good faith, so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in everything.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.

These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Isn't it interesting that Paul says to Titus at the beginning and the end of this section, this is what you need to be teaching in the church.

And yet how often do we hear this being taught? We hear it in our church all the time, I realize that. But in the church in general, there isn't anything entertaining in Titus chapter 2. There is direct, sensible, sound exhortation to all of us.

To all of us. So again, briefly and quickly, to the older men. Now, who are the older men? That's not one of them. Who are the older men? Well, obviously, our congregation is a younger congregation. I've been in congregations where I was one of the younger people.

And so we have to look at our congregation and say, well, probably amongst us, the older men that cut off would be a little bit farther down. I'm certainly one of the older men in our congregation, to be sure.

There are a few of you that have a few years on me. Older men are to be temperate. I know the temptation for older men is, look, I'm at the age, I don't care what you think about me anymore.

Okay?

But what does it mean to be temperate? The terms that are used here, it's interesting, because the apostle uses some of these words more than once with these groups. And so there is sort of a consistent theme when you put them all together.

Look at verse 2. Temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, and in perseverance. There's a description for us older men of how we should be living, and that means for you younger men what you should be looking forward to and developing the skills to live in that way, because I'm going to tell you, you're going to be at my age before you know it.

In a blink of an eye. So temperate. Pretty much everything you're going to see, men, ladies, is the opposite of what you will be taught by the world around you. If I were to wrap it all up, it would be wise and disciplined.

Isn't that what we're seeing in Proverbs? Same thing here. Temperate, not given to the flights of the world. Dignified. Dignified. That particular term can be translated a number of ways, but it's not just dignified and, well, I'm wearing my bow tie today.

That's not even what it means.

It means disciplined and self-controlled. Disciplined and self-controlled. Sensible. That means you're in control of your emotions. That's the exact opposite of what's happening in our society today.

We are becoming a society of infants. We're becoming a society of people who are ruled by their emotions and hence are so easily controlled, so easily made to do whatever the people above us want us to do.

All you have to do is make people offended. Did you see this past week? Dr. Jordan Peterson. Most of us know Dr. Peterson. Summer knew Dr. Peterson before me. I'm not sure where Summer went, but she was over there someplace.

I got to meet Dr. Peterson briefly in 2017 at a conference where Summer and I were speaking. She had the joy of getting to speak right before him. Nothing like pressure, especially when it was her first public speaking opportunity.

And I will... There she is now. Hi, Summer, we're talking about you.

Welcome.

Actually, we're talking about Dr. Peterson. Talking about 2017. And I just confess that you knew about Dr. Peterson before I did. You were under a little bit of pressure to have him in the audience while you were speaking.

He did quote you, I think, three times. He said as the... Four times. Oh, see, someone remembered better than I did. Four times. As the speaker before me said, he's a brilliant man. I hope you saw this week that he is a psychologist, and so the people that are in charge of licensing and things like that in Canada,.

Ottawa, I think it is,.

Have decided that he needs to be re-educated because he says things that have offended people. He's hurt people's feelings.

That's the world we live in. That's the world we live in.

No society can long survive when the vast majority of its people are infants. And if you see anything in these words, temperate, dignified, disciplined, this is what maturity looks like. And I don't know how my parents did it.

And they're gone now, so I did ask. They weren't really sure. Maybe it was just simply the million in which I was born. But at a young age, I had it drilled into me that when I turned 18, I was responsible for my own life.

I needed to take care of myself. And I needed to think toward that time period. I was married at 19. Kelly was 18. That doesn't happen anymore. Almost. Never.

Very rare.

And instead, we have people that are just all wrapped up in emotion and feeling, and my feeling is the most important thing in the world. An adult is a person who has their feelings and emotions under control.

And it takes discipline. It takes discipline. Daily discipline. On all of our parts. We're to be sound in faith. We're to be sound in love. There's to be perseverance, patience, steadfastness. Older women likewise.

So those things are all true for the older women as well. They're to be reverent in their behavior. Not malicious gossips. Not malicious gossips. Nor enslaved to much wine. You wouldn't have to say that if the New Testament teaching was that you're not ever supposed to touch wine.

But there is to be discipline. There is to be a wise recognition of the foolishness and the sinfulness of drunkenness. Teaching what is good. Oh, older women teach. Yes, who? So they may instruct the young women in sensibility.

Again, it's that term. Translated in the LSB as sensibility. But it's the term for disciplined. Being disciplined. Being orderly. Self-controlled. And so there is to be teaching in the body. From the older women to the younger women.

Instruct the young women in self-control, in sensibility. Teach them to love their husbands. To love their children. To be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands.

Why?

See, we could expand on every single one of those. That's why I said at the beginning, it doesn't mean these are unimportant. I'm going by them quickly. But notice, so that the word of God will not be slandered.

Oh my goodness. How often have we seen that? How often have we seen? The world could care less when its people violate all these things. But when we say we believe these things and then we don't live according to it.

Oh, you don't hear the end of it. That's not fair. It's not supposed to be. It's not supposed to be. That's hypocrisy. That's right. But we're the ones that have the light of God's word. So it can't be an excuse.

When we are seeking to be disciplined in our personal lives, the word of God will not be slandered. Does it ever strike any of us when we think of our greatest priorities in life?

Oh God,.

When was the last time you prayed this?

Oh God,.

May I live in such a way that the word of God will not be slandered.

In my life.

This day, Holy Spirit, work in me such a sensitivity that I will not bring rebuke and dishonor upon the name of Christ.

And upon the word of God.

You see,.

Our church has a rather wide reputation of preaching and teaching the word of God. You know what comes with that? This responsibility. This responsibility. So that the word of God will not be slandered.

Likewise, urge the younger men, it's the same term, it's used over and over and over again.

In this text,.

To be sensible, self-disciplined. Sophronismos, it's one of my favorite terms in the New Testament. Urge the younger men. The term paraclete, parakaleo,.

To urge,.

To exhort. It's something that has to be done over and over again because the world focuses its attention. They want you as young men to destroy your life now. So you'll always have those scars. You'll always have those things that will stumble and cause problems for you.

The world wants our young people. Men and women. But we need to have godly leaders. And so we are to urge the young men to be disciplined, sensible. In all things, show yourself to be a model of good works.

A model.

How many of us say, I don't want anybody looking at me as a model. Scripture says you should. It should be your goal. Doing good works. I know our fellowship does a tremendous job at this. We really do.

When people need things to get done, we're pretty good at getting stuff done. Even in our growing phase. But for young men, I said for a long, long time, I haven't been bored since 1978. I haven't been bored since 1978.

And it concerns me when I hear people say, I'm so bored. A Christian should never say that. There is lots for us to be doing. There is so much for us to be doing. So much for us to be learning. And doing.

And young men, in the prime of your life, with all that energy, you just show yourself to be a model of good works. I know you're sitting there, down, and it's not fair because I'm standing up, and so I can shoot straight at you.

Let me just say something. Your high score in your best video game is not a good work before God. How many good works have you not done because of the hours you've wasted in front of things that will have no difference in eternity at all?

Ouch.

As Wody Baucom says, if you can't say amen, at least say ouch. A model of good works with purity in doctrine. That doesn't mean you're running around checking everybody else out in your doctrine. Everybody can do that on Facebook, right?

Purity in doctrine means you want to know what God has revealed in His Word. You don't want the traditions of men. You want what God has to say. And then, there it is again,.

Dignified.

Man, that is not what the world teaches us.

When you're young, you can do whatever you want.

It's time to have fun. Word of God says you're to be dignified. Well, that's different in different cultures. Okay, within certain limits, certain ranges, yeah. But what does it mean? When you get up in the morning, it's part of your prayer, Lord.

May I be dignified today. May I behave in such a fashion that when people look at me, they go, there is someone who's not following after the ways of the world. There is a dignity in how they speak, how they act, and yes, how they dress.

Oh,.

It doesn't mean that you have to be, you know, collecting bow ties. I can tell you where to get them if you want.

That's not what I'm saying.

We got one applause down there on the bow ties, good. But we all know what it means to be dignified and what it means to be self-absorbed, to not care. Are you the kind of person that if someone's having a problem, they will come to you to ask?

Or do they consider you too flippant to even bother? It's the questions we have to ask.

Dignified.

Sound in word.

In speech.

If you want to see what that looks like, read the book of James. The tongue. It's so powerful. And in our days, it's not just the tongue. Right? It's not just the tongue. It's how we communicate with others.

Are we sound in our speech? Jesus said we will be judged for every word.

Oh my.

Oh my.

Oh my.

Sound in word, which is irreproachable.

You're taking away all our fun.

Not if you love the Lord. It's encouraging others to live in this way that is fun in the spirit. Encouraging godliness. And why again? So that the opponent will be put to shame having nothing bad to say about us.

Oh my.

Oh my.

There it is again.

How...

I've told you this story before, but I asked my dad when Kelly was pregnant with Josh, I asked my dad one night at work.

At the radio station.

We worked at.

And I was recording some music and I said, I'm thinking about becoming a father. And I knew that somehow,.

Some way,.

My parents had instilled in me.

A fear.

There was something in the back of my mind in all those teen years when all of a sudden you've got that freedom and I had a vehicle and you're away from their sight and you're doing things on your own.

There's all those temptations and all those opportunities. And I asked him, I said, how did you instill in me that fear of what you and mom's face would look like if I did so many of those things that teenagers.

Do?

You know? And I was really looking for some kind of deep answer. My dad looked at me and said, I have no idea, son. We just tried to teach you the word of God.

And.

Trust that the Lord would work in your heart from there. Oh, thanks. Found out pretty early on, kids do not come with an owner's manual. You have to apply principles. And that's how you grow as well.

Along the way.

Urge slaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be pleasing, not contradicting, not pilfering, but demonstrating all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior, and everything.

Generally at this point is where modern people just read that, are embarrassed by it, and move on. Or, well, today this would be employees. I hope you don't view your job that way, but in many ways it may be that.

Bad.

But the fact of the matter is slavery existed.

In Rome.

Slavery existed in the Old Testament. It was confined and defined and limited by God's law. The Romans and the Greeks didn't care about that. And so the Greeks, especially Alexander the Great, enslaved over a million people.

He murdered over a million people too. You may go, why is he called the Great? Well, he expanded his empire over most of the known globe at that time. That's why he's called the Great. Rome had actually, from a Christian perspective,.

Improved.

On the Greek concept of slavery. There were slaves that had some status in the Roman Empire. Some slaves that actually had power, but they were still slaves. And there's no way around the fact that Paul urges slaves to be subject to their own masters and everything.

There's nothing in the New Testament about rising up in the middle of the night and killing your masters and doing all the rest of that kind of fun stuff. That would have resulted in massive amounts of death.

Well, it had. It already had in the Roman Empire. There had been slave rebellions. And the Romans were really, really good at crucifying all those people. But it also would have resulted in all sorts of other kinds of degradation and death.

We don't have time to go through the subject of slavery in the Bible. It is an important subject, let alone the reality of its existence down through history and the fact that it still exists in the world today.

But what's amazing here, and this is what was so offensive to the Romans, is Christians embraced as brothers and sisters,.

Everyone.

Of any social level, including slaves,.

As part.

Of the body of Christ. And if you can't see it, this is actually what laid the foundation for the end of slavery, then you're just not looking. This was a stumbling block for any good Roman. To say to slaves, be subject to your own masters and everything, to be pleasing, not contradicting, not pilfering, not stealing, but demonstrating all good faith that they will adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior, in everything.

Wow! Even in your slavery, you could adorn the doctrine of God by your behavior.

We can make.

That application to employees today, sure, but this was to slaves. That was the original application. And God was their Savior in the exact same way as every older man, every older woman, every young man, every young woman, Jews, Greeks, there's no bond, there's no slave.

This was the radical and frightening nature for the Romans, of what the gospel is all about. That without embarrassment, without calling for armed insurrection, the apostle could say, exhort slaves to be the best servants these people have ever had.

And they are absolutely equal with everyone else in the kingdom. You had, as we know in Colossians, you had masters and slaves coming to the same table. You don't think that doesn't break stuff down over time?

You better believe it does. You better believe it does. That laid the foundation. That laid the foundation. Much more could be said about that, but like I said, we had to be brief. And you're going, oh, that was brief, huh?

Okay. But here's why. Sometimes people just jump into Titus 2 .11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. And immediately you get into arguments about, see, the grace of God brings salvation to all men.

And you start having the arguments, right? Well, that means that the grace of God's given to everyone equally, and God's trying to save everybody equally. And you immediately start running off and start having all the debates that we have on Twitter and Facebook every day.

It's always been that way. But hopefully, if you read the first ten.

Verses,.

As soon as you see all men, you go, well, in the previous verses, we've been talking about what?

Older.

Men, older women, younger men, younger women, slaves. What are those? They're kinds of people. They're classes. They're.

Groups.

And verse 11 is obvious. If all these people in the church, that means the grace of God has appeared, bring the salvation to all kinds.

Of men.

Older, younger men, women, slaves, bond, free. They're all in the body together. And it's the grace of God that has appeared that has brought salvation to all these different kinds of people and has formed the body of Christ.

It is the grace.

Of God.

That has appeared. Now, we talk about grace all the time. We're Reformed, right? You know all about grace. But please note something, and this is, you want the key to today's sermon? You want the thing that I want you to remember?

I want you to remember everything that came before, especially if, and I hope God did, use the preceding words to bring conviction to all of us. But please see.

The first word.

Both in Greek and English of verse 12. Instructing.

Teaching.

It's.

The term that is used of instructing children. And hence there is a practical level to it. There's an ongoing level. It's not just the professor standing in the PhD seminar putting out reams of data.

No.

There is, the very term child is in the word. And so it is an instruction. It is the reality that when you instruct your children, you know you're going to have to instruct them tomorrow again. Probably on the exact same thing.

And we all are like that. But what's doing the.

Teaching?

The grace that saves. See for a lot of people grace is just the means by which I'm saved, right? By grace you have been saved. Sola gratia. Grace alone. Yes. But the grace that saves has a purpose and a power.

And it is God's.

Intention.

That every single.

Unworthy.

Recipient.

Of that grace be taught by that grace. Be instructed by that grace.

You see.

The only way that we will ever have true balance in understanding what the New Testament teaches is to recognize salvation is all of God and it is his purpose and intention to conform us to the image.

Of Christ.

All of the debates about works and merit and all that stuff are solved if we will allow all of Scripture to speak. And here Scripture says the grace that brings salvation is a grace that instructs.

Us.

Uses the first person plural. Teaches us. Those of us who have received it. Teaches us to do what?

That.

Denying ungodliness and worldly desires we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. You want to know if someone has received saving grace? Do they have a desire to deny ungodliness and worldly desires?

I was in a church for a number of years. Huge focus on evangelism. That's great. But one thing we came to understand before long is the back door of the church was just as big as the front door. We had just as many people going out the back as we had coming in because they weren't being taught.

They weren't being grounded. They weren't being called by a gospel that really called them to repent of their sin and bow the knee to the lordship of Jesus Christ. And when you have an easy believism, when you have a message that does not take seriously the fact that scripture itself says there is a holiness without which you will not see God.

Now you can't produce it yourself. That's the work of the spirit within you. But there are those people who will say, as long as you shook the pastor's hand, filled out the commitment card. The hardest people when we would go out on outreach visits, we would go out and we'd visit with people and they came forward and they made a commitment but they hadn't showed up to church since.

We got them dunked too because we needed to get them dunked. They hadn't shown up since. And man, it was hard to get them to come back because they didn't see any reason why they needed to. They got their ticket punched.

They're done. The grace that actually brings salvation is a grace that teaches us in the church. And when it says denying ungodliness and world desires, that's just a given.

That's what we're.

Supposed to be doing. That's descriptive.

Of what.

It means to be a Christian is that we deny ungodliness. We don't want it in our lives.

We don't want it around us.

So can I just fire another salvo since we've already done enough of them today and you're all going to want me to leave anyhow. The psalmist said, I will place no worthless thing before.

My eyes.

Brothers and sisters, the word of God tells us that we are to deny ungodliness.

How often.

Do we willfully,.

Purposefully,.

Expose ourselves to that which promotes ungodliness and worldly desires in the way that sexuality is presented,.

In the way.

That language is used. Denying ungodliness and worldly desires and then positively, we should live. Oh, boy, here's this word again. Paul seemed to be really using it over and over and over again. It's the same term.

Sophronismos, discipline,.

Sensibility.

We are to live in a disciplined, righteous, godly fashion in this present age which is not righteous.

Or godly.

Which means we're going to stand out. Do we? Oh, I know there are certain groups that they do the artificial thing. We're going to stand out by doing some weird stuff. Believe me, when we live the way we should live, we're going to stand out.

We don't need to do anything more than that. When you respond.

To.

What happens in the world in a godly fashion, you're going to stand out.

When we.

Refuse to celebrate the things the world celebrates, we're going to stand out. And the grace that saves is a teaching grace. We should be praying, God, may your grace teach me this day. Instruct me. Show me how to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

It teaches us to look for the blessed hope in the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Deity of Christ and the Hope of His Appearing

Now,.

I only have time to cover just two major points here. I'm not doing too bad, unless my watch stopped.

Nah, okay, we're doing.

Alright.

So I want to make sure you get these. It was interesting, I was reading Calvin's commentaries recently. What a treasure they are, if you have not obtained them. They're available electronically, and that's normally how I have to access them too, but so useful.

So useful. And it's not just because he was Calvin. It was because he actually believed that the Word of God should be the foundation of all our beliefs. And so he dealt with the text on that level. They basically had to carry him out of the pulpit as he died, because he just kept teaching the Word, and teaching the Word, and teaching the Word.

He had a 27-year headache, did you know that? That's why all the pictures of him, he ain't smiling. There's ever wonder why Calvin looks so dour, if you had a 27-year headache. Nice to have Advil,.

Isn't it?

Right? They didn't have anything like that back then. Didn't have Nicoletta, I'm sorry. Nicoletta could have really done so much for John Calvin. Who knows what his commentaries would be? At least his pictures, he'd be smiling if Nicoletta had been there.

But no, not back then. And as I was reading, he made a comment. He said, it's uncertain how we should apply the words God and Savior. Because there are times in the New Testament where God is referring to the Father, and most of the time for Paul, when he uses the Greek term theos, it's reference to God the Father, and Savior of Jesus Christ.

And so even if you have the King James version, it says the glory of our great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ, separating the two. Now, we would know today that Calvin could have been certain about that.

Why? Well, because we have discovered through our study of the language something called Granville Sharpe's Rule. And you can probably take a wild guess that.