Titus 2:14b

Titus chapter 2 reading verses 11 through 14, our focus on the latter part of verse 14. 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 the present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great, God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. God bless to us His sacred and holy word this evening. There is a dainty, bright blue butterfly. whose wingspan is less than an inch that has jewel-like gold spots on its wings. This little butterfly is lovely to behold, and you thank to yourself, what a beautiful little creature. However, this colorful and dainty butterfly has a disgusting habit and diet, it does not flutter about from flower to flower, as most butterflies. Instead, it descends to light upon filthy dung and feed there. Such a habit seems so out of place for such a beautiful butterfly. When God’s grace appears and brings salvation, as verse 11 indicates to us, and we’ve talked about in the past, it teaches you to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. The people for whom Christ died are to be a special people unto the Lord. How out of place then? It would be for the people of God to wallow in the dung of this world. How can one, who is a new creature in Christ, continue the feed upon the putrid ways of sin. Paul has taught that Jesus Christ gave himself for his people upon the cross, as our last study indicated. No one took his life from him. He laid it down of his own will. He died to redeem us from all iniquity. We talked about the word redeem, how that we were enslaved to sin and Satan and how this was broken by Christ. He bought us back from this state, and he has freed us from the bondage that we once were in. I want to talk tonight about being a peculiar or a special people. Now, you should realize that Christ’s sacrifice purifies. who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify. Now, friends, we need to be freed from the pollution of sin. The penalty of sin, redemption takes care. But the pollution of sin we also need to be freed from. The word iniquity speaks of lawlessness. It’s to act in. disregard with regard to the law of God, being a transgressor of the divine commandments. Christ’s death redeems from all lawlessness. You need to be absolved of the guilt, the punishment, due unto your violation of the law. So we talk about justification, being declared righteous. But Christ also frees you from. the pollution and the filth of sinful practices when we act without regard for God’s law. And so we hear the word purify here, which applies to the idea of sanctification in our life. In fact, the Bible talks about this double effect of Christ’s work in 1.1.30. But of Him are ye in Christ, Jesus? who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Redemption and sanctification then are inseparable companions. They go hand in hand together. No one is redeemed by the blood of Christ who is not also purified from their sinful ways. The pollution of sin has to be dealt with. Purify means here to purge, to cleanse, to be made for. free from admixture. We know what a water purifier is used for. I have a reverse osmosis on my, one of the faucets in my kitchen. It goes through, the water goes from the line goes through four filters before we use it. And so it takes out all the impurities that are there. Mankind is spiritually filthy and polluted by nature. nature, we saw that in one verse, in verse 15 of chapter one, that those who are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, even in their mind and their conscience is defiled. Nothing is pure to that. Everything is corrupted that they touch. Sin stains and defiles everything you do and you say and you think. Christ provides an inward purity of heart, which they then produces an outward purity of life. While you still have the remnants of spiritual corruption within you and plaguing you as a believer, and you certainly are imperfect with regard to your obedience to the Lord, there is a progressive change of life. There’s a purifying effect that takes place in your life. The story of the Mutiny on the bounty is a well-known story. And it does contain a wonderful witness to the purifying effect of the blood of Jesus Christ. In 1787, Captain Bly left Tahiti, an island paradise in the Pacific to return to England with his crew. But one morning, he woke to find him. self-facing a mutiny on the ship. It seems that the crew had little in England to go back to. And they loved the sin and the leisure of being on that Pacific Island, and so they wanted to go back. The officers were cut adrift in a small boat, and the rest of the crew under Fletcher Christian returned to the island of Tahiti, where they managed to persuade some of the island girls there to go with them, and they sought out another place to go, and they ended up landing on an unknown island Pitcairn. This island seemed like another earthly paradise. They took all they could from the ship, set it on fire, and then sank it, so no one would find the ship, and would not, people wouldn’t know that they were on the island. Then they let loose all their sinful patterns. and lust. They were free to do whatever they wished, and there were no restraints. Their sinful hearts turned the next 10 years on the island into a virtual hell on earth. They began to make alcohol from the island plants, and men spent weeks completely drunk. Soon fighting and killing broke out. The crew were like wild animals, and there were behavior, lawlessness, rain. Eventually, only two of them were left. One man named Edward Young and the other Alexander Smith. Edward Young was quite elderly. He became ill, but the two persisted in their evil ways. It was so bad that the women seized the guns, while they were drunk, evidently, these guys were drunk, they seized the guns, took all the children, barricaded themselves on another part of the island. and said to the men, don’t come here. We’ll shoot you. They didn’t have anything more to do with these men. One day, Young found the old ship’s Bible that they had taken off of the bounty. Smith couldn’t read. And strangely, in one of their more sober moments, Young began to teach him how to read from the Bible. So they started reading the Bible through Genesis. started with Genesis. And soon they saw that God is holy, and they were sinners, and the conviction of sinned fell upon them and gripped them. And then they realized that their lives were an offense to God, and they tried to amend their ways and reform. The children on the island noticed the change first, but not too long afterwards, young died. But Smith, now having learned to read, kept reading the Bible and he got to the New Testament. And when he began to read the New Testament, something remarkable happened because he began to read about Jesus Christ. And this is what he wrote. I had been working like a mole for years. Suddenly, it was if the doors flew wide open and I saw the light, I met God and the burden of my sin rolled away and I found a new life. The blood of Jesus Christ. changed everything on Pitcairn Island from that moment. Smith began to read the scriptures to the women and the children. Interesting in love, in 18 years after the mutiny had taken place, a ship from Boston landed on Pitcairn Island. The captain came ashore, and there he found a community of people who were godly. They had a love and a person. peace about them which the captain of the ship said he never had seen before. When he got back to Boston, he reported that in all his travels, he had never met people who were so good and so gracious. If you claim to be a follower of Christ redeemed by his blood, there has to be a corresponding change in your life because that’s the way God works. If Christ is your Savior, you will be purified from the pollutions of sin. Sins will be broken off. God’s law will be respected and obey. Your life will be transformed. Examine yourself. Have you had such a spiritual change in your life? So you need to be freed from the pollution of sin. Now, the means by which Christ purifies you. The first thing we see is the law’s exposure of your sin. If you would turn with me to the book of James, just a few pages over here to James, to James chapter of. 1, verses 22 to 25, we said the law’s exposure of your sin. But be ye doers of the word, and not here is only deceiving your own selves. For any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he’s like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway, forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whosoever looketh into the perfect law of living, liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful here, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. James here speaks about the perfect law of liberty, and he’s talking about the word of God in particular, verse 25, and this law is further identified for us in chapter 2, verses 10 to 12, as the Ten Commandments. Now, the law is like, a glass or a mirror, the text tells us here. Since the law of God is perfect, there’s no distortion in this mirror. If you go to a amusement park or a fun house or something, they have funny mirrors. You’ve probably looked in them, you know, either they make you real thin and tall or they make you short and fat, one or the other. But God’s law is perfect reflection of who you really are. As you look in the mirror, you see yourself, as God sees you. God’s law reflects your natural face. Now, women, sometimes putting on their makeup or cosmetics, they call it putting on their face. Because they’re hiding all the blemishes or imperfections, so no one will see them. God’s law reveals you what you really are, unhidden, uncovered, your natural face. This is the picture that we have here before us. God’s word clearly. reflects what you are like. And then, of course, someone who takes heed to the law of God will change their ways. They’ll look and say, boy, I shouldn’t be doing this or I shouldn’t be doing that. And there’s a change because they are doers of the word. As a believer, you find the mirror of God’s word essential. Because it enables you to see what needs to be purged in your life. and it tells you what God expects you to do. So the Word of God convict you of sin and teaches you what God’s will is for your life. It exposes your blemishes. It shows you what pleases the Lord. The law’s exposure of your sin. That’s the first thing. The law of God, the Word of God, shows us what we need to do, what we really are like. The second thing is the Spirit. granting you a pure heart. Now look with me in the book of Ezekiel, if you would, and chapter 36, and beginning with verse 24. Ezekiel 36, beginning with verse 24, God says, herefore, I will take from among the heathen, take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your philethon, from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them. Now the Lord regenerates you. And in doing that, the Spirit of God, takes what the scripture calls here a heart of stone and grant you a heart of flush. You need a new heart. Before conversion, you have this hard, stony heart. Think of something that’s obstinate, it’s stubborn. With regard to the ways of the Lord, you’re dead in trespasses. And now as a Christian, you have a soft, spiritually alive heart that we might say is pliable. It’s moved by God to comply with his will. It’s the Holy Spirit, we’re told, that produces a purity of heart. And once renewed, and we’ll see this in Titus, he calls it the washing of regeneration, the cleansing inwardly, once renewed, in the spirit, in the spirit of your mind, the members of your body become compliant with God’s commands. So a pure heart then will produce pure hands, pure eyes, pure feet, so to speak, and you will desire to continuously shed the pollution of sin which contaminates you. Did not Jesus teach us to pray to the Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil? That’s the Christian’s desire, to be delivered from evil. We confess our we seek God’s forgiveness that we might be cleansed of all unrighteousness. So you should realize Christ’s sacrifice purifies. Secondly tonight, you should realize that Christ’s sacrifice produces a special people. Our text back in the book of Titus here speaks of this. You’re one of God’s chosen people as a believer. And he purifies unto himself, the Bible says, a peculiar people. Now, peculiar means something that a man sets his heart upon. It’s something reserved for his special use. It’s his own possession. The idea is contained here in this idea of purify unto himself. Christ gave himself in order to purify, purify a people for his own possession, a special people. Now we could talk about election. We could talk about a people being given the Christ to redeem by the Father. Christ becomes the head and the Savior of the Church. Peter puts it this way, in 1. Peter 2.9, but you are chosen generation, a royal priest or the Holy Nation, a peculiar people. We’re all those things. But he starts out with our election, chosen generation. Our Lord came to give eternal life to as many as the Father had given him, according to John 17, verse 2. As we saw in our last study, the Bible clearly teaches particular redemption. The purchase of a people by Christ out of all mankind. And these people are special people because they’ve been given to Christ. They are his peculiar people. Believers are the most precious people. Among the masses of the world, the scriptures talk about him giving other nations and other peoples to spare his own people. They are the wheat among the tears. They are the sons of God. They are the brethren of Christ. They are the heirs of heaven. The people of God are the bride of Christ, the jewels of God. The people of God then stand out. They’re special. Bealem of old, said concerning Israel, they were a people dwelling alone, not numbered among other nations. Why, these people were distinct. They were different with regard to the people. laws with regard to their customs, with regard to their lifestyles. God says to these chosen one, thou art my people, and they say, back, thou art my God. Josea, chapter 2, verse 23. You’re one of God’s chosen people as a believer, and God will never forsake you as one of his chosen people. As one who is Christ’s own possession, unto himself, he purifies us. Then we’re special, and we’re precious to him. We’ve been paid for, so to speak, by Christ’s death on the cruel cross. We’re dear to him. Using a human comparison, God says that he cares for, he watches over, he protects his people. Here’s what Isaiah 49 tells us. Can a man forget her, can a woman, excuse me, forget her suckling child? that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb. Yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. Does that sound like someone that’s going to neglect and cast aside his people? Normally a mother doesn’t forget and forsake her children. Those children are precious, and mothers are very protective of their children. Yet there are times when you and mothers fail. In the Old Testament, times there were days when there were long sieges of the cities of Jerusalem and also Sumeria, and the mothers ate their children because of the famine. When I was growing up, we attended a church in which there was one family and had six children. Often they would drive to church with two different cars. Well, one day, one Sunday, their little daughter, was left behind after church. I guess mother thought dad had her and dad thought mother had her, and so there she was in the parking lot crying. She had been forgotten. Well, eventually, dad came back. They realized they were, they counted their peeps when they got home, I guess, and said, oh, there’s one missing. God says, I never forget my children. Even though at times human beings forget their children, God doesn’t. God’s chosen people are permanently engraved. he says in the palms of his hands. God’s people are the apple of his eye. His providence watches over them. This world may hate and despise you, but God is the one who counts you precious. I will never leave thee. I will never forsake you. That’s what he tells us. Not one of God’s elect will be abandoned and eternally perish. So you should realize Christ’s sacrifice procures a special people. We’re chosen unto the Lord, and certainly he’ll never forsake us. The third thought tonight is this. You should realize Christ’s sacrifice produces a people, zealous, we’re told here, of good works. Now let’s talk about the origin of your good works. Good works may be defined as things that are done in faith, in agreement with the Word of God, and for the glory of God. Since the Bible declares that whatsoever is not a faith is sin, it should be obvious then that only the believer can do good works. Augustine said this. He said, good works, as they are called in sinners, are nothing but splendid sins. I think that captures the right idea. Unless you are justified and sanctified by Jesus Christ, you cannot do a single good work. Again, I refer you back to chapter 1, verse 15. To those who are defiled, and unbelieving, there is nothing pure. Nothing that they do can be pleasing in the eyes of God. Isn’t that what our text indicates to us? Before Paul speaks of good works, he talks about a people redeemed from their iniquity and purified. Now he talks about good works. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. So if a person who is without Christ, how can they do anything that’s pleasing before God? The end result of Christ’s work is that his people produce good work. Good will work flow out of salvation. You can’t earn salvation by good works. But once we have salvation, good works flow out of it. We are his workmanship created unto good works. Ephesians 210. First you have to be a new creature. You have to be his workmanship. And then you produce good works. What is God who works in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure, the spirit of God produces whatever good you are enabled to do in this life. So the origin of good works comes from God. Now let’s talk about the usefulness of your good works. suppose you buy some property in the middle of the winter. And in the backyard, there is some type of tree, but you don’t know what kind of tree it is. When spring comes, you see this barren tree. All of a sudden, it begins to have leaves come out and then blossoms come out and then flowers from the buds and so forth. And as the summer rolls around, you. you see that there’s some kind of fruit that’s growing on the tree. And eventually discern their peaches. So you’ve now discovered what kind of tree that you have. You just had a weight, and eventually it would show itself. The budding of the fruit and the fruit that gives evidence of a live, healthy tree. Jesus said a good tree produces good fruit. If you don’t have a good tree, if a person isn’t brought to salvation in Christ, you can’t have good works. It’s impossible. Spiritual fruit, good works is the evidence of a changed heart by God. Did not our Lord declare, if any, abide in me, he shall bring forth fruit. Unless we’re in Christ, how can we bring forth good fruit? The fruit of righteousness is good worth. here speaks of our union with the Savior Jesus Christ. So don’t be deluded into thinking you can possess salvation and lack good works. There has to be evidence. There has to be fruit that comes out of salvation. That would mean Christ would be a failure in his redemptive purpose if no good fruit came out of your life. You can’t live like a worldling and claim you’re a saint. God’s people are different than the ungrateful. godly around them. People should see your good works and glorify the Father, which is in heaven. You can’t show your faith without your works, the Bible tells us. So the usefulness of your good works we touched on. God expects you to be zealous in good works, he says. Now when we speak today of those who are what you might call fanatics, some people were fanatics about sports. Some people are fanatics about politics. A zealous person is someone who’s devoted to, excessive about a cause. Well, Christ produces a people who are fanatics or excessive, if you would, about good works. Zeal excites diligence in the things that you do. It’s not that they’re indifferent about good works. They’re zeal. to produce good works. This doesn’t, text doesn’t allow us to be idle or to lay in doing it. Zeal motivates you to persevere in good and well-doing. Zeal for God’s glory causes your heart to burn with the desire to please the Lord. You see how this verse then shames your lack of zeal with regard to good works. I remind you once again in the lay deseeans who were lukewarm. They weren’t hot or cold. And what does God’s Christ say to them? Be zealous and repent. You’re not zealous? You’re kind of indifferent about this. Christians can be lazy about serving the Lord, but God demands diligence here, that we should have a true devotion to his cause and eagerness to honor the Lord with our lives and the way we live them. Do you remember David how he wanted to. to build the temple for the Lord and he was forbidden to do so. He had shed too much blood. He was a soldier and he was engaged and so God said your son Solomon will build the temple. Not you. Yet David is zealous to honor the Lord. He can’t build it himself, right? So what does he do? He diligently prepares plans and stockpiles gold silver materials. He gets things all ready to go so that Solomon can build it. He does all that he can do ahead of time. His zeal was contagious for throughout the land there was an excitement created, an eager anticipation of the temple being built. May the Lord grant you such a zeal for the building of his spiritual temple, the church of Jesus Christ, that we’d be like day. you know we’d be doing all that we can to see that his spiritual temple progresses on this end grows well that dainty beautiful bright blue butterfly dwelt among the dung had a disgusting habit a new creature in christ cannot dwell among the dung of the world christ sacrifice purifies you as one of his and people and produces this zeal for good works in your life. This is the message that we find from our text tonight, and I pray that God would enable us to be exactly as he commands us to be here in this text. Let us close.