Titus 2:11-12

Our first passage tonight, Titus chapter 2, verses 11 and 12, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteousness, and godly in this present world. And then, if you would, in the Old Testament to the Book of Exodus, chapter 20, very familiar passage of scripture, and the first eight verses of chapter 20 of the book of Exodus. And the Lord spake all these words saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any likeness of any that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children under the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. God blessed to us this evening is sacred and holy word. In Greek legend Narcissus, the son of the river god was incredibly good looking and was passionately loved by the nymph. echo. However, narcissus spurned her love because he was so infatuated with himself and his own reflection mirrored in a pull of water. The consequence was that both he and and Echo pined away in frustration over their unfulfilled devotion. Hers to him and his to his to his own reflection which disappeared whenever he touched it. Narcissus provides an appropriate example of the idolatry of our present-day culture. Worship of self predominates Western culture and society. We have a me-centered generation. Pleasing oneself is the chief method of worship of worship of this God. Is any wonder, then, that people end up like Narcissus. this fruitlessly frustrated in life. Paul has spoken here of the grace of God that bringeth salvation. This grace has appeared to all categories of people, bestowing a salvation upon them. It is a life-changing grace. Salvation in Christ leads you away from a self-centered life, which is a life-changing grace. once dominated every aspect of your life and it leads you and calls you to a loving, self-denying, godly life. The problem of too many Christians is that they’re still preoccupied with the ways of the world. But Paul emphasizes here that the gospel demands change. This should, there should not be a gap between what you should be as a follower of Christ and what you actually are. And yet, often the world rubs off on you. Tonight I want to talk about what grace teaches you negatively. And Lord willing, in our next study, what grace teaches you positively. Let me begin by saying this, that the grace of God trains you to live in a manner pleasing to the Lord. You’ll notice here that this grace that has appeared unto all men, that is the grace that brings salvation, teaches us something. Now the Greek word here that is used for teach is the word for tutor, the word for schoolmaster. So there’s a sense in which grace is your schoolmaster. The word means to train children, to teach, instruct, to discipline. Someone who is a schoolmaster, step by step, brings children through the education process. Not only does this schoolmaster impart knowledge, but also it is something that brings discipline, we see. So the schoolmaster would discipline the children. And the grace here also is a discipline. disciplining thing. So the word is used in the context of chastening. So this grace of God, which brings salvation, instructs and disciplines you in order that you may deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Now normally, you might say, well, I thought the law, and so forth. Now, normally, you might say, well, I thought the law was our schoolmaster. Doesn’t Galatians say that the law is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ? But a grace is also a schoolmaster, according to this text of Scripture. What the law has no power to do, grace actually can do. The law can teach and command, but grace can instill the power to obey God. Grace provides a new holy disposition. It suggests new thought. to you. It creates a love for the things of God. The law can’t do those things. But the law can condemn, but grace doesn’t condemn, but it chastens and restores. It brings us back to where we should be. Makes us right in our standing of the Lord. So what we see here is that grace has a wonderful training. power associated with it, even to disciplining us, if necessary, for whom the Lord love if he chasens and scourges every son he receives. You know, one of the great achievements in teaching has been the marvelous manner in which Helen Keller, the blind and deaf girl, was trained. A seemingly hopeless case when you think about it. was rendered able to take her place in classes at Radcliffe College at Harvard University and went a distinguished place for scholarship. This was only possible because of the faithful instruction and patience of her teacher, Ms. Sullivan. Ms. Sullivan found Helen a little girl who was utterly unable to comprehend life around her, only unable to make create only able to use the crudest communications and these some kind of signs with regard to her family her family miss all of them by patient persistence using all sorts of objects with infinite pains taught the little girl sign language by touch step by step she educated Helen Kelman. it. Spiritually this is what grace does. It takes us, we’re blind and deaf to the things of God. And it takes you, it changes you, it teaches you, it trains you in righteousness, until we become mature in the things of the Lord. It takes time, it takes steady oversight as we progress along the way. But this is what grace is doing. We are to grow in grace, in grace, the by Bible tells us. And so we see this occurring. Grace is your schoolmaster. Now grace does not allow you to cast aside the law of God. You’ll notice he says here, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust and then teaching us how we should live. You see that word denying. Grace causes you to deny things. One of the most dangerous threats to the life of the church down through the centuries has been the error of antonomianism, which involves the casting off of the law of God. It teaches that one is saved by grace, but the law is unnecessary, that you no longer are under any obligation to keep the commandments of the law. You can live as you please. And after all, because you’re justified by faith, in Christ, heaven is secure to you. Supposedly, the doctrine of justification by grace through faith destroys the law. It makes it an obsolete factor. It makes it a non-factor in your life. Paul indicates you, that’s clearly wrong. Why, when grace comes into your life, what does it do? It teaches you to deny these things. Remember what Paul said in Romans 331? make void the law through faith, God forbid, yea, we establish the law. If grace that brings you to salvation comes to you, it trains you in godliness. It instructs you and discipline you to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. Now, if you were a student in the school of Christ, this means you cannot live just any way you please. The greatest that he talks about, which is saving grace here, there is only one kind, the saving grace of God, it’s impossible that it will not lead us to deny these things. By the law the Bible says is the knowledge of sin. And isn’t this the very thing you’re instructed to deny by grace? Thus grace, establishes the law. The cross of Christ teaches us that sin is no light matter in God’s sight. We see him punishing our sins as they are laid upon the Son of God on the cross and the wrath of God being poured out. So grace gives you an appreciation for the law. It makes us realize that the law is holy, just, and good, and it trains you in warfare against sin. It’s a guide by which to evaluate your conduct. So the grace of God trains you to live in a manner pleasing to the Lord. It’s your schoolmaster. It does not allow you, though, to cast aside the law of God. Now, secondly, the grace of God trains you to renounce ungodliness. What is ungodliness? Well, means a lack of reverence toward God. One who is ungodly lives with unconcern about honoring the Lord. I like the phrase that Paul uses, a person who is without God in the world. It’s not that this person always goes about scorning and blaspheming God’s name or something of this nature. An ungodly person is not necessarily the worst sinner on the face of the earth, but this person neglects the chief thing in life, and that is God. God who has created them, God who has commanded them to obey him, and they live as if God does not exist. Ungodliness is simply living without God in the world. And that means that the majority of people around you often live this way. They are just normal, maybe respect, nice neighbors. And yet their minds are far, far away from God. They have man-centered thinking. Living for and serving God is not in their mindset. Now, let me make these observations here. One is this. You must renounce ungodliness in respect to God himself. When God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel, he gave, first of all, a revelation of himself. Remember verse two, I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. As a believer, the first thing we have to remember is that God has freed us from the bondage of sin and Satan. He has redeemed us through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are not our own. We are his. We have an obligation to obey him. we can’t live in ignorance of the Lord God. You can’t go through life forgetting his existence, forgetting his claims upon you. And thus the Bible says in Proverbs 6, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not to thine own understanding, and all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy pass. Now think about this. When it tells us in all our ways, this means you can’t. can’t go through life without considering God. No matter what you are doing, all your ways, must take into account God. You once lived according to your own thinking and understanding. You set your own course. You did exactly what you pleased to do. But that kind of living has to be renounced. The worlding doesn’t care about God’s revealed will in Scripture, but you do. You must seek counsel for your life. You must seek his wisdom. Let his word be your God. I was reading this week about one of the kings of Judah, Asa. And he faced a serious dilemma. Basha, the king of Israel, was allied with Benhaddad, the king of Syria, and they were prepared to invade the land of Judah. the land of Judah. Asa decided he would take all the silver and gold in the treasuries of the temple and send them, sort of as a bribe, if you would, to Ben-Hadadad, the king of Syria, break off your treaty with Basha, the king of Israel. Break it off. And the ploy worked. Because we find here that Ben-Hadadad turned on Baysha, the king of Israel, invaded his land, captured some of his cities. You could imagine, Asa thought he was probably a genius. It came to international relations. He had brokered a deal that saved his land. He was pretty politically savvy. But then Henanai, the prophet of the Lord, paid him a visit and rebuked him for what he did. Why? because thou hast relied on the king of Syria and not relied on the Lord thy God. Therefore, as the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand. You did this all on your own. You didn’t seek me. You didn’t seek my guidance. You didn’t see what I wanted you to do. Why, you could have had victory over the king of Syria. He could have been victorious. And then God says, herein, thou hast done foolishly. you left God out of the picture. And as a result, God would cause Asa to be constantly at warfare. This was ungodliness. Was it not? Did Asa learn his lesson from this? No. He throws the Lord’s prophet in jail. and he went on living according to his own understanding, leaving God out of the picture. For later, we read, he became diseased in his feet. And in my mind, have been an acute ailment, probably left him unable to walk. And what do we read? We read in his disease, he sought not the Lord, but the physicians. Again, he does not have God in his life. He’s looking at all of it from a human perspective. Now, we have to renounce such living. We should seek the Lord’s guide. and prayer and from his word. But don’t rely on our own understanding. We should acknowledge the Lord in all things. Even when you go to the doctor, when you have a physical ailment, it’s not that we can’t go to the doctor, but obviously we ought to be praying to the great physician, right, in conjunction with it, that God would be pleased to help us and acknowledge the Lord. So here’s what we’re talking about. when we call about renouncing ungodliness and respect to God himself, you can leave God out of the picture. Just live your life as if God did not exist. Secondly, you must renounce ungodliness in respect to God’s worship. The initial teaching of the Ten Commandments has to do specifically with the worship of God. I read the first table of the law for you tonight. and we find first you’re not to worship other gods because no other God exists but the true and living God. You shall worship the Lord in his prescribed manner. No graven images, no likenesses of the Lord. You must reverence the name of the Lord, not take it in vain. God is serious about his name and his worship. And you must remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. There is a time and a day. day prescribed for the worship of the Lord God. Ungodliness then would be a neglect of all these areas when it comes to the worship. We believers are told not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together for public worship. What does the worldling care about the Lord’s Day? Does he remember it? Or does he forget it? He forgets it. He treats it like every other day of the week. and basically we read what we find in Malachi 314 happening in today’s world too. It’s vain. It’s useless. It’s a waste of time to serve God. That seems to be the thinking a lot of people, religion is a bunch of bunk or foolishness. You can’t be like that. You must think that, you know, Sunday is the Lord’s Day. This is the day it’s set aside for the worship. of my Lord and Savior. Nothing must steal the honor due to the Lord. You must renounce any thought of worshiping God according to your own ideas. Well, the unbeliever, if he attends church at all, he’s going to seek out of a church that’s pleasing to him. He’ll go to a seeker-friendly church. Well, they’ll ask people, what would you like to do in worship? Well, this is what I’d like to do. I’d like to do this or I’d like to do this or that of the other. and they’ll accommodate it. Maybe you want to be entertained. Maybe you want to have a good time. That’s not seeking serious worship of the Lord God, as prescribed in Scripture. It’s not keeping to God’s prescribed manner. It’s offering strange fire before the Lord. Can we not see the similarities of the corruption that took place at the temple when all the false gods had their, all of a sudden they’d become encroaching in on the temple? temple worship so that they’re you know the sun god is being worshipped and you know some of god’s things are moved out to the side or often you know we get the more prominent place to to the you know bail or one of the other gods that they’re worshipping all the canaanite deities you can’t be like that that’s ungodliness that’s ungodliness when it comes to the worship our desire must be to please the lord by following his specific instructions when it comes to worship otherwise it’s ungodliness and of course your worship has to be sincere it has to be serious grace never contends itself with a form of godliness it’s not i should say it’s never content with a form of godliness it wants the real thing demands the real thing in the book of malachi you know god rebukes the Israelites for not honoring him and they say what are you talking about where in have we despise thy name Lord you’re mistaken we have faithfully worshipped you we show up at the temple we offer our sacrifices you’re wrong and what does Jehovah say he says you have polluted my altar where have we polluted your altar because they were sacrificing the sick the blind and the lame animals to the Lord. The law of God forbade the sacrificing of these animals because they were blemished. Remember these sacrifices were to portray the Lord Jesus Christ, our perfect Savior, without spot, or blemished upon him. It was thoughtless. It was almost as if we could offer God what doesn’t cost us anything. I don’t really want these animals anyhow, so I’ll just sacrifice them to God. a phony religion, hypocritical religion. God makes them face this fact. I like what he says here with biting irony. God says, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you take these animals and want you offer them up to your governor? See if he would like them. See how that goes. See if your governor will accept this. If you have the nerve to do it, let’s see you do that. Can you picture a… Israelite bringing to the Persian governor, the blind, the limping lamb, maybe covered with sores on its body or something? You think that would go over big? Wouldn’t that be saying, I don’t respect you? So God’s insulted by thoughtless, second-rate worship. Worship isn’t according to what he has commanded. So you must renounce ungodliness and respect to God’s worship. You must also renounce ungodliness and respect to God’s worship. You must also renounce ungodliness and respect. respect to God’s word. Another aspect of the Ten Commandments is how you respond to God’s word, showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Pouring his wrath and judgment on those who do not. Sadly, the vast majority of our population don’t really care about the Word of God. Don’t read it. Don’t understand it. As far as their concern, it’s not important. Therefore, they say unto God depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. Job 2114. We don’t care. Ungodliness is a despising of the scriptures. A desire to be rid of the message which comes from God. I read in Jeremiah 44, 16, and 17. As for the word which thou has spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth. We don’t care what you say, God, we’re going to do whatever we want. Ungodly persons reject the counsel of the word of God in order to follow their own wicked direction in line. As a believer, you have to renounce such a spirit. You ought to highly value the word of God. It’s precious. Isn’t the blessed man the one who delights in the law of God and meditates in it day and night as Psalm? one tells us. You feed on the Word of God. It provides nourishment for your soul. You can’t live by bread alone. You find in the Word of God that which feeds the soul. So the grace of God teaches you to renounce ungodliness. Thirdly tonight, the grace of God trains you to renounce worldly lust. Here’s the second negative thing he mentions. Now, let us not have any confusion. The word lust here just simply means desire. Usually the word lust, though, is used in the negative sense of the desire. Those desires that are worldly are those desires, of course, that are connected with this present evil world. We’re talking about sinful, wicked desires. Worldly lust take on a variety of forms. Could be a sexual lust, such as we find with adultery or some type of fornication. It may be a carnal desire for the pleasures of sin. Maybe a love of money where it becomes the all-consuming passion in your life to become rich, a mass of fortune. It may be a craving for power and position in life. This present age is full of evil lust in which Paul says there, in which Paul lived, and John tells us the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Those kinds of things are, we’re battling, and they’re still with us today. There’s always a danger that God’s people might yield to these worldly lusts. Grace teaches you to fight against worldly lust. Here, when you have the Spirit of God, what does the scripture say? That we find when we have grace, and the spirit of God within us, there’s a battle with the flesh. The flesh would lead us astray into all these worldly lusts. But the spirit, by the grace of God, working in us, fights against the flesh. So whenever the grace of God comes, it cause you to the battle the flesh, and it causes the Christian who lust it after money. Now, of course, to call it. conquer his or her greediness. You see that money-hound Zach Keas? After he’s converted, he’s thinking about, I’ll give so much money to the poor to help them. It draws the proud person away from being ambitious. You see the proud self-righteous Paul calling all things he used to glory in? Dung. That’s a change. That’s a change. It trains the lazy idler to be diligent. It causes sound thinking in the person who only cared for all the frivolous things of this life beforehand. Now they’re thinking seriously. You have now abhor the things that you once delighted in. You are now a servant of righteousness rather than soon. So spiritually, you’re in war with worldly lust. You deny them. Right? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? The closer you are to the world, the more strength and pull that it has. The closer you are to the Lord, then that has a lesser effect upon you. And the Spirit of God will enable you and help you. This grace trains you to battle against the flesh. So let me close tonight by saying this. The handsome narcissus. was infatuated with himself. People are very much self-centered in our world today, but that leads to a very frustrating, fruitless type of life. The grace of God teaches you differently. You are trained to live in a manner that’s pleasing to the Lord. Grace never allows you to cast aside the law of God and live as you please. But, you know, mark that down. clear. It instructs you. It disciplines you in renouncing ungodliness and worldly lust. That’s what the scripture teaches us in this passage of scripture. This is what Grace trains us with regard in a negative way. And next week, Lord willing, we’ll look at what Grace teaches in a positive way.