Titus 2:12b

Titus chapter 2, verses 11 and 12, our focus is on the second part of verse 12 tonight. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appear to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteousness, and godly in this present world. May God bless to us. the reading of a sacred and holy word this evening. A number of years ago, a John Hopkins University professor decided to give his graduate students a project. And the project was to locate 200 boys between the ages of 16, or 12 to 16, for research purposes. They were to research their backgrounds. The assignment then was to predict the future of these boys based upon their backgrounds. Well, the students were sent to the slum area of the city to find the boys. The conclusion reached by the graduate students was that 90% of those researched would spend time in jail. So 25 years later, John Hopkins University sent researchers into the slum area again, and their goal this time was to find out what happened. to the 200 boys. They were able to find information on 180 of the original 200. And then they found something that amazed them. Only four of them ended up in jail. When the researchers began to ask questions about the situation, they kept getting the same answer. Well, there was this teacher, and we find that it seems that she had remarkable influence over these boys who appeared to be headed for a life of crime and deterred, evidently, a lot of them away into an education that would help them. In the spiritual realm, grace is a remarkable teacher. God’s grace takes those who are living sinfully and brings them to salvation, and then it proceeds. needs to change your life by instruction and discipline as a schoolmaster, as we said, the term teacher implied here, so that what you once delighted in, you now denounce. And not only does the grace of God train you to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, as we saw in our previous study. but it also produces holiness of life, as we see in the second part of verse 12. No one touched by the grace of God can possibly be the same person. Thus the scripture always talks about us being new creatures in Christ. We’re different than we used to be. Last week we talked about what grace teaches negatively. Tonight I’d like to teach about what God teaches us by his grace positively. Let me begin by saying this. The grace of God teaches you to live biblically with regard to yourself. You’ll notice he says here, we are to live soberly. Soberly. Self-controlled. Temperate. Existing, exercising self-constraintraintraint. You see how many times in this chapter the word sober comes up? It seems to be a constant application to the people of God here. He keeps that phrase or that thought in mind, that one to be sober-minded. This is a vital interest for you as a believer. He can’t do without being sober-minded. Your natural, unconverted state is such. that you find yourself being driven by various lust of the flesh and of the mind, sin dominates you by these powerful lust. But God’s grace comes, it brings salvation, and it begins to change all this. Because now you have the spirit of God within you. And he’s directing your thinking. He is curbing your fleshly appetites. Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, is the flesh. the teaching of Scripture. So the Holy Spirit teaches you self-restraint. Or as we read us in the book of Galatians, temperance. Temperance. Now sometimes you do fail to be self-controlled, and then grace brings chastening into your life. God is training you to restrain desires, especially here we have to deal with. any sinful desires. But do you live soberly in all your thinking, all your speaking, all your speaking, and all your acting? There is to be a sobriety about all worldly pursuits. Here are the ideas you to have yourself well in hand with regard to your eating, with regard to your drinking, with regard to your drinking, with regard to your spending. with regard to your sexual desires and so forth. Sadly, there are those who are, we might say, dunces in God’s school of grace, and he must use the rod. He’s going to teach you, but he may use the rod. But the idea is to make you self-controlled one way or the other. First, God would have you like a… the reins on a horse to pull back on the reins of the horse and control the horse, control those desires. But if that doesn’t work, if that isn’t what you do, then God will use a discipline of some sort in order to teach you to control your desires. So either way, you’re going to be taught to control your desires. There’s the hard way, and there’s the more easier way, but either way, it is grace teaches. There are times when some believers appear to have no reason, no moderation, no sound judgment. They’re all gas and no breaks when it comes to their desires. Are you someone who, right or wrong, must have with your heart sets itself upon? One who does not estimate calmly and weigh carefully whether this is a good thing for your soul? God said this about wayward Israel in the book of Jose. behold, I will hedge up by way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not find her pass. Here God is telling us that if we’re not going to follow his path, if you’re seeking out your own way, then God here has a way to stop you. Grace stops you. And how does he stop you? Haven’t you found at times God’s thorns hedging up your way? Have you ever gone through a thorn bush? Have you ever had to deal with the thorns? Not a pleasant experience is it? Therefore, God is going to slow you down. He’s going to, you know, he’s going to prick you, so to speak. Stop you. He hinders you. And if you make it through the roadblock of the thorns, you find something more formidable, a wall. You have a few people, sometimes I hit a brick wall. Well, spiritually, sometimes God puts up a wall. He completely stops you. You can’t go any further. He’s not going to let you go any further. And so God does these things to teach us. Think about how often has God’s providence restrained you from your own foolishness? And when you see that happening in your life, this is God’s grace at work. Teaching you, you need temperance. need self-control. And if you’re not going to do it, I will do it for you. But you’re going to learn self-control. The wealthy farmer, Nabal, during a time of rejoicing and feasting, refused to provide a little food for David and his men, who were really good to Nabal’s shepherds and their sheep, sort of were a protective wall about them when they were out in the fields and so forth. David’s messengers endured various insults. aimed at their leader. All this, despite how good David and his men were to Nabol. Now, when David hears the report of the messengers about what Nabal has said, he has had enough. He says, okay, guys, strap on your swords. There’s going to be some bloodshed tonight. And he has all the intention of destroying the whole household of Nabol, all the males in the household. of Nabol. So he’s on his way. And what does God do? Well, God sends Naibal’s wife to stop him. He puts up a hedge for him to stop him. And she comes with all this food, and she hurries after hearing what her husband had said and done. And then with very sound and godly wisdom, she talks to David about what he’s doing. You need to think about what you’re doing here because you’re going to regret this when you become king, that you took this revenge. And here’s what David said to Abigail. He said, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me. And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which has kept me this day from coming to shed blood and from avenging myself with my own hand. Wasn’t God’s grace teaching, David’s self-control here? Isn’t he admitting the Lord sent you? God sent you to stop me from doing this. The person who is disciplined by God’s grace becomes thoughtful, self-contained, is not constantly tossed about by all the passions of the flesh. So grace teaches you to live biblically with regard to yourself soberly. Secondly, the grace of God teaches you to live. live biblically with regard to your neighbor. You’re to live righteously. Now, what does it mean for you to live righteously? Word righteously here means justly. Agreeable to what is right, what is upright. Grace teaches you to give every person what is right according to God’s Word. And here we could talk about the second table of the law of God. and what the second table says about your neighbor. Now, in Adam, every one of us is sort of a Jacob. We’re a sub-planter. Remember, he grabbed his brother by the heel, one coming out of the womb. He’s an underminer. We’re born cheats. We’re born those who would lie or deceive or to steal to get what we want. You’re born with, with totally self-centered interest with the idea that underhanded tactics are okay despite the harm they do to others as long as you come out of head. Many years ago, there was a Saturday evening post cover with a painting by Norman Rockwell. Well, it showed a woman who was buying a Thanksgiving turkey. And the turkey was on the scale and the butcher was behind their counter and she was in front of it. Each had a pleased look. And at first glance, the painting appears to be a normal, friendly purchase. Here’s a woman of about 60. She’s getting her turkey. She’s smiling. The butcher is smiling because he’s selling the turkey to her and making some money. But then, if you look very closely at the cover, it’s interesting because he shows you the hands of the butcher and the 60-year-old woman. In the hand of the butcher, you notice his thumb is pushing down on the scale, adding weight to it. And when you look at the 60-year-old woman, she has her finger underneath pushing up on the scale, trying to prevent it from going down. No, neither one of them would be, you know, one would be called a thief. You know, they’re upright citizens and so forth. But the truth of the matter is that’s the way man is. If he has to cheat a little bit to get ahead, you know, do this or that of the other, cut the corners. That’s the way. That’s not the way you and I are to live, you see. That’s not living righteously. That’s the way the unsaved people will live. But grace trains you to be just in all your dealings with others. You’re led by the spirit to do what is fair, what is honest, what is right towards your neighbor. Now, how are you trained to live righteously? Well, the first rule that grace teaches you is what Jesus said was a primary rule, a summary of the whole law and the prophets. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men do to you, do ye also to them. For this is the law and the prophets, Matthew 7, 12. How you treat your neighbor? Well, treat your neighbor as you treat yourself. if you don’t want to be subjected to misrepresentation, to deceit, to underhanded dealings, then you don’t do that to others because the principle of scriptures, you reap what you sell. You’re to consider the good of others. Avoid the common worldly thinking every man for himself. You’ll love your neighbor as yourself, the scripture says. Craftiness and cunning and dishonesty are instruments. that we cast from our hand. They’re not instruments that we can use. People will tell you you have to use these tricks in order to succeed in business. Everybody does it in order to get ahead. But if you look at these things as tools of the devil, you can’t use them. You may be poor as a Christian, but you ought to live righteously. Grace makes you think about how you’re treating your neighbor. Grace trains you not. to lie to your neighbor, not to covet the things of your neighbor, not to steal his things, not to violate his marriage relationship and so forth. There was a small boy that was called up to the witness stand in an important trial. The prosecuting attorney cross-examined, and he wished to discredit the little boy who gave eyewitness testimony. He delivered what he thought would prove a crushing blow to the entire testimony of the young boy. He said this, your father has been telling you how to testify, hasn’t he? And the boy immediately answered, yes, he has. Now, said the lawyer triumphantly, just tell us how your father told you how to testify. Well, said the boy modestly, father told me the lawyers would try to entangle me in my testimony. But if I would just be careful to tell the truth, I could repeat the same thing every time. And that stymied the lawyer completely. This is the way we should be. You know, David said at one point in his haste, all men are liars. Well, that’s a general statement. All men are not liars. There are the righteous who do not lie, who speak the truth to their own heart. And that’s the way we should be. The grace of God teaches you to live biblically with regard to your neighbor, righteously. The third thing, he says, is this. The grace of God. of God teaches you to live biblically with regard to God. You to live godly. Now, last week, we talked about denying ungodliness. Now we have the opposite. Living godly. This means with reverence toward God, that God is to be rightly worshipped, feared, feared, honored. That his name and his word are highly respected. Now we look at the first table of the law. In the words, you’re to live in a sense in awe of the Lord God. His thoughts are to be your thoughts. His thinking on how a person is to live or what you are to follow. He’s your sovereign creator. All things have been made by him. You’ve been made by him. And therefore, you owe him obedience to what he has said you were to do as his servant. you know, grace trains you to acknowledge your absolute dependence upon God as you go through this life. That he is your owner and your master. He has the right to set the rules and regulations. And therefore, we don’t choose our own way. We seek to have God guide us with regard to our way. He has saved you through Jesus Christ from your sins, and eternal punishment. So grace teaches you to love and to be devoted to him. Grace teaches you about God’s absolute holiness and humbles you regarding your own sinfulness. You learn to know God as he has revealed himself in his word. You acknowledge his sovereign right to show mercy to some and withhold it from others, he’s the sovereign potter. You don’t rail against the sovereignty of God. You embrace it. You don’t say, why do God find fault with a man? For who hath resisted his will? You think, who am I? That I should question what God is doing. You humbly accept his wisdom. That he has the power of the clay of the same lump to make a vessel on honor and make another on the dishonor. grace teaches you to rejoice in God’s election and reprobation. Grace teaches you to keep silent as a mere creature and not question his authority and right as the potter. To thank God for his election to salvation, we are bound to give thanks all the way to God for you, brethren, beloved the Lord, because God hath for beginning chosen you salvation. You walk in the light as he is in the light. and have fellowship with the Lord. You faithfully keep the set times of God’s worship, both public and private. Now today, church attendance is often treated quite lightly. The Lord’s Day is neglected. In fact, we have what I would call convenient Christianity today. So we have the Saturday night service. This is an option for you, see. So you don’t have to keep the Lord’s Day. You can do whatever you want on the Lord’s Day. If it’s, It’s not convenient for you to be there on the Lord’s that you can go on Saturday night service. Instead of the church services being one where God is honored and his word is exalted, we have all kinds of entertainment on the guise of worship. This is a sad fact. We live in such a situation. Private devotions are not very often taken seriously. Many simply claim they don’t have time for Bible reading and prayer every day. Family worship is a rare thing in many cases. Grace teaches you otherwise. Grace teaches you to worship the Lord every day. Grace teaches you to respect the Sabbath day and keep it holy. To set it aside for public worship. You are careful with regard to use of God’s name so that you don’t take it in vain. You know, I I find it troublesome that people use phrases like, oh my God, or oh Lord, or they use Jesus Christ’s name, and they use it in vain. They use it frivolously. David declares thine enemies, take thy name in vain. You want to put yourself in the bad, that’s a bad company as a believer to place yourself in, and yet there are believers who are always saying, oh my G, all the time. they use that as a throwaway phrase where they tell a joke where God’s name is in the joke. My friends, we shouldn’t be using this kind of line. This is using God’s name light. That’s not a reverence for the name of the Lord. We should be careful about using God’s name in vain. I remind you of the story during Israel’s journey through the wilderness to the promised land. There was an occasion where two men got into a fight with one another in the camp of Israel. One blasphing the name of the Lord and cursed. Leviticus 24 verse 11. And they put him in a ward and they sought the mind of God, what should we do about this? Now, what do you think people would do today? I’ll tell you what God told them to do. Take the young man outside the camp and stone him to death. Whoever curseth his God, shall bear his sin. Now that’s pretty serious. If you take God’s name in vain, you could be put to death for it. And yet God’s name today is so freely thrown about without thought. Some people don’t even realize they’re taking God’s name in vain because they’re so used to saying these phrases, they don’t really think about it. Christians are taught to reverence God’s name. That’s living godly. When you’re reverence the name of God. You’re to subject yourself to the will of God. An attempt to walk in the way he has prescribed. As Jesus said, if you really love me, keep my commandments. You will seek God’s kingdom first. God will enter into your decision-making process, and you’ll consider what would God have me me to do. So grace teaches you to live biblically with regard to God. Notice something else here. Notice something else here. The grace of God teaches you to live biblically here and now in this present world, he says. Now, you must realize that this world is passing away. When Paul speaks about this present world, the indication of scripture is that there’s another world. There’s something coming that leads directly, of course, to verse 13. When we read about the blessed hope and the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and a new heaven and a new earth, where and dwell with righteousness and so forth. This present world is fleeting. It’s passing away. It’s present, but there’s a new and glorious world that’s coming. When Christ returns to this world, this world’s going to pass away with fervent heat, and the fire of God is going to purge it of all unrighteousness and evil. Now, by grace, therefore you are to count this present world as a passing world. You’re like a pilgrim traveling through it. Like Israel, going through the wilderness. That’s what it’s like. You’re on the way to the promised land. When you get the vanity fair of this world is something we’re just passing through on the way to the celestial city. As John Bunyan, or John Bunyan, Paul, yeah, John Bunyan would say. Sorry about that. So we hurry our way through Vanity Fair because there’s something better ahead. So this provides an incentive then for living, righteously, godly, and soberly now. You’re not of this world. Just as your Savior is not of this world. Come out from among them. Be you separate. Be different. Live differently. Touch not the unclean thing. Sin is like a foreign element that has entered into this world. It’s overturned everything. And there’s a danger, you see, of sin clinging to you, following up your life. So in this present world, you’re at a constant struggle against sin entwining itself around you. You’re going to keep yourself unentangled from the lust and corruptions of the world. So you must realize this world is passing away. Your faith, must be practiced in this lifetime. If you’ve been brought to salvation, grace teaches you to live for the Lord now in this present world. You’re to live soberly, righteous, and godly, now while you are in this present evil world. This is the expectant result of grace in your life. You can’t claim, well, I’m just a carnal Christian, you know, Christ isn’t the Lord of my life. I can live what I please and everything will be okay. That’s not the way grace works. If you do that, you really know nothing about the grace of God. It has not taught you a single thing. You’re not in the school of grace. The schoolmaster of grace teaches you otherwise. During the pioneer days in the United States, there was a preacher who was called to conduct a funeral service of a man who never entered a church building his entire life. So he gets called upon to do this. funeral service. As the pallbearers neared the meeting house door of the church, the old preacher stood in the doorway, and he beckoned to the Paul bearers, gentlemen, he said, I have never taken advantage of any living person. I’m not going to begin to imposing on the debt. If this man were living, he would not enter this building, put him down right here, and let him finish. his life as he lived it. So they sat the casket out on the lawn of the church property. He stood at the door of the church and preached to funeral service. And his point of the old pastor’s message was this. You better think about dying in eternity now because there’s no squaring with God after you die. Most people want to die the death of the righteous. You know, the scripture talks about dying the death of the But nobody wants to live the life of the righteous. Maybe that’s the problem. How can you die the death of the righteous if you don’t live the life of the righteous? If you’ve forgotten Almighty God and neglected to seek him in life, don’t expect to die prepared to enter the world to come. Don’t expect an abundant entrance into heaven. Never ceases to amaze me, no matter how many funeral services I go to, everybody seems to go to heaven. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? My friend, that’s not the teaching of Scripture. Those who despise the message of God’s grace and his salvation in this life are never going to partake of the glory of the heavens to come. If God’s grace hasn’t touched your life and changed your life so that you are a new creature in Christ, you can’t hope to be in heaven. As I always say, you wouldn’t be happy there anyhow. People sometimes sit in a church service and they squire them. They can’t wait. to the minister gets done and says the final amen so they can get out that door. They want to get out the door as fast as they can’t. Why would you want to go to heaven when worship is taking place all the time? What good would it do you? In this present world, God calls people to salvation and His grace teaches them to live holy lives. Those who live in sin die in their sin. And they will perish in their sin. I’ll close tonight with Cithes saying this. many students in the slum area were immensely helped by a school teacher who had a remarkable influence upon them. Grace is the Christian’s teacher. And grace teaches you positively to live soberly, regard to yourself, righteously with regard to your neighbor, godly with regard to the Lord himself, in this present world. Now, in this life. May God bless to his word this evening.