God’s Plan for His People

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But we’ve been busy at work around the house and like I said, cut down cedar trees, put up a flagpole, cut brush, a bunch of stuff I wanted to do outside. One of the things Charla had me do though was she said, I cannot stand the faucet in the downstairs bathroom because it’s one of those where it’s just one knob and you have to pull on it or push on it. And she said, the kids, she said, I’m not sure the kids are washing their hands because that knob is hard to operate.

So I went like a good husband and I bought a new faucet. And first thing or last thing Friday night, I said, OK, I’ll tear that old faucet out. Well, I get in there and once I’ve got the old faucet to where it’s never going to be operable again, I realized that the connections were probably put in when Eisenhower was president and they’re not going to work on the new faucet.

And now Ace and Lowe’s are closed. So I got up first thing Saturday morning and made a trip to Lowe’s because I wanted to make sure. I’m making one trip and I knew they would have everything under the sun.

So I got the connections, got the new faucet put in while she’s somewhere else in the house working on things. And I went and asked her, I said, do you want to come see the new faucet? It works and everything.

You want to come see the new faucet? Yeah, I’ll be down there in just a little bit. So I, okay, I wanted to show you the new faucet now.

I was proud of myself. Plumbing is not my spiritual gift. So later on, a couple hours later, I think we finally saw each other again at lunchtime.

We were all working on projects. And I said, have you been to look at the new faucet? No.

Are you sure glad I rushed around to get this faucet fixed for you? I wanted her to see the transformation of the faucet once I had completely removed all the innards and redone it. I could not wait to share with my wife the changes in the bathroom that I had made at her behest. And as Christians, we ought to be eager to demonstrate the change that has taken place within us.

I could not wait for her to see what had taken place in the bathroom. And then some of the other projects, too. Look at the trees.

Are they cut low enough for you? She didn’t want visible stumps from the street. You know, I couldn’t wait to show her all these changes that had been made.

We as Christians should be eager to demonstrate the change that God has made within us. Tonight, we’re going to continue on with our study of the book of Titus, but we’re going to go in a little bit different direction with it, because at this point, partway through chapter 2, where we are tonight, Paul sort of shifted directions in his focus through the book of Titus. The beginning part of the book of Titus deals a lot with the need for a strong church and what it was going to take for the believers in Crete to have a strong church.

Some of the things that they were going to have to work on for their church to be stronger. At this point, he shifts his focus, however, into the way the church ought to witness for Christ in the world, what we ought to demonstrate to the world. And so it kind of shifts focus from the internal things that we need to work on to the external reality that we need to demonstrate to the world around us.

And so if you would, turn with me to Titus chapter 2 this evening. Titus chapter 2, and we’re going to start in verse 11. If you’ll stand with me, if you’re able to.

We’re going to look at starting in verse 11 and go through the end of the chapter in verse 15. It says, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. Speak these things.

Exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you. And you may be seated.

Now he does, as I said, shift gears here. And where he’s talked in the beginning part of it, the beginning part of the book of Titus, about what we need to do to be strong as a church, he now from here goes on to this is what we need to represent out in the world. As the church grows stronger, here’s the face we need to portray to the world.

And portray is probably not the best word there because it’s not an act we’re putting on. It’s not a mask we’re wearing. It’s the face of who God has made us to be that we then turn and show in a noticeable way to the world around us.

And the first thing I want you to see tonight is that as incredible as the forgiveness of God is, as incredible as it is, there’s more to the gospel than that. As incredible as salvation is in terms of forgiveness that we’ve received, The gospel accomplishes more than just our forgiveness. And I realize as I say that, it feels wrong to say just our forgiveness, as though that’s some little thing.

But I realized several years ago that a lot of times when we talk to people about salvation, we talk to them about heaven. We talk to them about going to heaven when we die. Or I can’t wait to, because of my salvation, I can’t wait to be in heaven with Jesus.

Heaven is no small matter. I don’t want to minimize it. I don’t want to trivialize it.

I don’t want to treat it like it’s unimportant. Heaven and the opportunity to spend eternity with God in heaven when we die is an incredible thing. It is a gift far beyond anything we could have ever earned or deserved.

Yet we sell the gospel short when we treat it as though that’s all there is. Now, even that is incredible. Don’t get me wrong.

But if I were a salesman, I’d tell you, but wait, there’s more, right? That’s incredible enough as it is, but there’s more. Salvation means that we get to experience the forgiveness of God now.

We don’t have to wait until later on when we get to heaven to experience anything. We get to experience the forgiveness of God now. We get to have a relationship with the Father now.

We get to experience the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in our lives now. There is so much to the gospel that takes place now that I think we do a disservice to those we talk to when we talk about the gospel merely in terms of going to heaven. It is so much more.

As a matter of fact, I’ve gotten to the point where I probably ought to talk about heaven more when I’m sharing the gospel with somebody or I’m giving an invitation. But a lot of times I focus on the relationship with God that we get to have. That’s incredible to me.

And I realized that just a few years ago. I mean, I think I knew it in the back of my mind all this time, but I grew up thinking about salvation as I want to be with God in heaven. I get to be with God now, which is just as incredible.

The gospel accomplishes more than just forgiveness in the future. It accomplishes more than just us spending time with God in heaven in the future. Because he says in verse 11, the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

He’s talking about this grace. He’s talking about salvation that we can experience now. Now, we have to understand it that way because when he says, the grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared, he is not saying that everyone is going to be saved or that everybody is automatically saved.

We know that because the Bible is too clear in too many places that the opposite is true. Jesus said that broad is the way that leads to destruction and many there will be that find it. He says, straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to everlasting life, and there will be few that find it.

Now, I don’t know what the proportions are there. I don’t know how many is many. I can’t say, you know, it’s 73% of the people that have ever lived.

I don’t know. But I know one person dying and going to hell is one way too many. It’s far too many.

But there’ll be many that find that way that leads to destruction. We know that he’s not talking about when he says, the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. He’s not saying that all are going to be saved as a result, because some people are just going to flat out reject the gospel.

But what he’s talking about here is it being broadcast to all men, being available, being made available to everyone. The grace of God that brings salvation is now on display where the world can see it and the world can partake of it. And that grace that brings salvation is on display, that God reaches out and offers us a relationship with Him now.

And you and I, can we show the world empirical proof of heaven? No. Can we make an argument that nobody can ever say, well, what about this?

Where we can 100% prove that heaven’s there? No, we can’t make that argument. But what we can show them is the relationship that we have now.

We can show them what Jesus Christ has done. And by the way, at some point, I’ll talk to you about the evidence for the resurrection because it’s overwhelming. One of my favorite things to talk about.

but we can tell them what Jesus Christ has done, which is absolute historical certainty. And we can point them to the relationship we have with God now and the transformation that he’s done in us that can’t be explained by, by mere human behavioral change. That grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

And he says in verse 12 of that grace, he said, teaching us. And just those two words there, when it says the grace of God that brings this salvation has appeared, teaching us. Those two words there, teaching us, tell me that the gospel has implications beyond salvation.

It has implications beyond heaven. It teaches us something. The gospel that God has given instructs us on how we’re to live and where we’re to go from here.

The gospel is not just sign on the dotted line here and you’ll get to go to heaven. The gospel has real implications for the way we live our daily lives. And he talks about what those implications are.

we have been called out by God’s grace to glorify Him through the change that He makes in us. Because as we look at the remainder of verse 12, he says that what it’s teaching us is denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age.

And then into verse 13, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let’s start first with this phrase, denying ungodly and worldly lusts. what he’s saying here is that as God transforms us, He’s going to enable us to leave the old way of living behind. He’s going to enable us, He’s going to give us His power to be able to leave some of the old things behind that characterized who we were before we came to Jesus Christ. You know, I don’t have a dramatic conversion story.

I came to Christ as a five-year-old child who I will say was scared of my parents in a healthy way. My parents were not abusive, but my parents were very clear about what they expected. And my parents followed through on consequences.

They were old school. We got whoopings. And so I have to remind them of that now when they get their feelings hurt when we whoop the grandkids.

Say, well, how do you think we turned out so well? It’s because of your parenting and we learned from that. So I didn’t get into a whole lot of trouble.

I don’t have a dramatic conversion story. I just understood that I’d sinned against God and that I was destined for hell, except that Christ died to pay for my sins. I understood that.

But I can still look back and say, even though there’s no road to Damascus experience, there’s no, oh, I was headed, you know, down a road of all sorts of sinful lifestyles, and then God called me, and it was a 180 degree turn. I can still look at my life and see how He has changed me. I’ll tell you, He’s made me more patient.

He’s made me more gentle, more gracious. Not necessarily that I have those things perfectly worked out and I demonstrate them perfectly all the time, but I can see the change He’s made in me over time. You know, I used to, you know, last Sunday night it was, I think I talked about losing your temper.

I used to do that a lot. And now I’m not sure I would yell if I was on fire. You know, I’ve just, and that’s a change that He’s made in me.

That’s not my goodness. And so we can see that some of these things that characterize what we are before Jesus Christ, that characterize the sin nature in us, He begins to change and He begins to transform. I have friends who do have more dramatic conversion stories than that.

I have a friend who talks about being in the military in his younger days. And so that people that knew him back in the. .

. It has nothing to do with being in the military. That’s just where he was.

at the time, but he says, you know, military friends that knew him back then and know him now don’t even recognize him from who he used to be. He talks about cussing like a sailor, even though he was arming. I guess you can cuss like an infantryman, I don’t know.

But he talks about that kind of language that would just spill out of him, and the heart that caused that language to spill out. And he said, I trusted Jesus as my Savior, It was just gone. It was just gone.

And I know we come to Christ and we don’t become perfect overnight. Some of you are saying, man, I wish it had been that easy for me. But here’s the thing, whether it’s just gone like that or whether it becomes easier over time to leave that behind, when we come to Christ, God begins to work in us.

And that gospel teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, He enables us to leave behind those things that characterized who we were before. Look at where you are now. And I talked about this a little bit this morning that you may think, well, I’m not a great Christian.

I’m not a great role model. Stop for a minute because I have those feelings at times too. I look at where I should be and I get down on myself thinking I’m not where I ought to be.

But look at where you are now and look at who you were before Christ. Or if you’ve been a Christian many years, look at who you were 10 years ago. Look at who you were 20 years ago, and hopefully you’ll see that the trajectory of your life is heading away from those things that characterized who you were before. That’s the transforming power of the gospel.

Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, being able to leave those things behind. He said we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. You see, God creates in us a way of living that is not always going to make sense to the world around us.

Brother Jeff prayed a few minutes ago about some of the things going on in our country. And we could probably sit down and make a list if we were so inclined of all the ungodly things that are going on in our country, not just in the highest halls of government, but just in the way the culture has deteriorated over the last 50 years. We could make a list of the things that have become normal nowadays.

In reality, society has always been sinful. We were a lot better at covering it up with social niceties.

But look at the things that have become normal. and what the world thinks is the normal way to live and what the world says is the expected way to live and then when we live in a godly way when we live it not not in a self-righteous way but when we live in a way that says you know what I’m not perfect but I love god and I’m going to try to do things his way we are going to end up doing things that are counter-cultural we are going to end up doing things that do not make sense to the world around us folks we have become the counter-culture we have become the the culture that that stands out that is different that the prevailing culture you know in the 60s it was the hippies the establishment said we don’t understand why you do the things you do now we are the ones that the establishment that the cultural powers that be look at and say I don’t understand why you do the things you do and we could make a list of a lot of those things I don’t understand why you would feel the need to be honest even when it’s difficult I don’t know why you would feel the need to tell the cashier they didn’t charge you enough But as Christians, we ought to do that sort of thing.

I don’t know why you stopped hanging out with us and going drinking every night. I don’t know why you’re so hung up on faithfulness to your spouse. We can go down the list of all the things that culture says are normal and acceptable and maybe even preferable that we as Christians don’t participate in because we know there’s a better way.

God’s way is better. And the culture looks at it and says, that’s weird. You know what?

Let them say that. It’s okay that we’re a little weird. God called us to be a peculiar people, didn’t He?

Living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, I’d say emphasizes that we do that in contrast to what’s dominant in this present age. God enables us to swim against the current. God enables us to go against the flow of where the culture’s going and live in a way that’s pleasing to Him.

And it says in verse 13, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing. I know I talked about this a little bit last week, but we recognize we’re living for Him and we await for Him to return. We anticipate His return.

We anticipate the culmination of all His promises to us. And if we live with the mindset that Jesus could come back at any moment, if we live with the mindset that we are eager for Him to come back at any moment, and that we want to be found pleasing to Him should He return at any moment, doesn’t it change our list of priorities? If you knew that Jesus was coming back Monday morning, what would you want to be found doing and emphasizing and spending your time and your money and your energy on?

See, if we live with the anticipation that He could come back at any moment, and we’ve got just a limited amount of time here on earth to do the best we can to glorify Him, to do the best we can to please Him, that sort of perspective changes and reorders everything else in our lives. And Paul said that’s what’s supposed to happen here. But we also need to remember that this change is based entirely on the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross.

Sometimes we get it backwards and we think Christianity is about our good works. And what’s going to make the difference is our good works. When in reality, what makes the difference is the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross.

And anything we do is just a response to that. That everything is dependent on what He did for us on the cross. It says in verse 14, He gave Himself for us.

Jesus offered Himself on the cross as the one and only acceptable sacrifice for our sins. And this morning when I was talking about the Passover lamb, I kind of hit on this a little bit, the idea of the sacrifice. And there had to be a blood sacrifice.

I know people have asked at times, why did it have to be a blood sacrifice? Because the precedent was set way back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve finally were honest with God about their sin, and God took the animal skins and made clothing for them to cover them. We sometimes forget that skin came from a living animal. God set the precedent back then that the innocent would die to cover the sins of the guilty.

And there was a system all throughout the Old Testament of blood sacrifice where a lamb or some other animal, according to the Old Testament law, would be offered. Their blood would be spilt. And that blood would be sort of a temporary covering.

It really wasn’t effective. It didn’t change anything. More than anything, it was just a reflection of their faith that just like with Abraham, God was going to provide the ultimate sacrifice.

That God was going to provide the sacrifice that actually would do something. The blood of bulls and goats and lambs didn’t do anything to cleanse anybody’s sin. It demonstrated their faith that God was going to provide a sacrifice.

So he gave himself as the only acceptable sacrifice for our sins. Because a lamb wasn’t enough, a bull wasn’t enough, a goat wasn’t enough, doves weren’t enough, all the things that were offered in the temple were not enough. And you know how I know that?

Because they had to keep doing it. Over and over and over again, they had to keep doing it. where the book of Hebrews says that Jesus was offered once for all.

That His sacrifice accomplished in one act what could never be accomplished by all the sacrifices and all the religious rituals offered by all the priests throughout all the world, throughout all time. Jesus accomplished what they could not. His sacrifice was acceptable to God as a payment for all of our sins.

He offered Himself so that we could be forgiven. And he says in verse 14 that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. He offered himself, Jesus offered himself, so that we could be forgiven, so that we could be saved.

Met a lady one time, talked to her a few times about this, but she was convinced that Jesus was a good man. He was even sent by God. But that he got himself crucified by the things he taught.

And God said, kind of as an afterthought, well, I can use this. The idea had never entered into God’s mind, apparently, that He would do this on purpose, that it would be His plan. I tried many times to explain to her that this is God’s plan from eternity past. That God had one plan.

God had plan A and nothing else for mankind’s salvation. That was for Jesus to come and offer Himself as the sacrifice for our sins. He didn’t get himself killed by accident.

It wasn’t a situation where God woke up one morning and said, well, I didn’t see that coming, but maybe I can make some lemonade out of these lemons. Jesus did this so that you and I could be forgiven, so that we could be saved. It was God’s plan all along, and it was the only way to accomplish it.

He did it so that we could be saved, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. But then verse 14 goes on to say, and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. And this is where I say there’s more to the gospel than just forgiveness.

And again, understand what I mean by that when I say just forgiveness. There aren’t really good words in English to explain, to summarize the point I’m trying to make. I don’t mean to minimize the forgiveness of God.

It’s incredible. But again, if I were a salesman, I’d say, but wait, there’s more. As incredible as that is, as incredible as the forgiveness is, there’s more to it.

See, the gospel has the implication for our lives that God intends to change us. He doesn’t just save us so that He can forgive us but leave us in our sins. He saves us so that He can forgive us and then transform us into what He created us to be to begin with before we were marred by sin.

He can transform us to be able to walk with Him, to be able to love Him, to be able to serve Him, to be able to have that relationship and that fellowship with Him that we were created to have to begin with. He did it so He could be glorified by the fellowship of a people He had redeemed. I visited Linda Whittington’s Sunday school class this morning.

Really, really enjoyed it. She said at one point toward the end of the class, she was talking about how God could at any point just make all these things happen. God could just, I can’t remember exactly what she said, but I can’t remember her exact words, I mean, but she said something along the lines of God could just make us be saved if he wanted to be, if he wanted us to be.

God could do any of these things. I mean, he’s God. Who’s going to tell him no, right?

Pretty much does what he wants to. He could just make us be saved. He could just make us behave.

He could turn us into robots that just do his bidding. But God understands that it means more when we tell him, I love you, out of free choice. I can make my children obey to an extent.

Now, I can physically force them to do what they’re supposed to do. But anybody who’s ever raised children, you know it means so much more when they do what they’re supposed to by choice. Not because you’re standing over them with the paddle going, I’m going to get you.

They may know that that possibility is there. But when they choose to cooperate, it’s just better. I mean, I’m trying to get Charlie into the church earlier.

We’re going into the church one way or another. We’re coming in my way. Well, that’s pretty much the only option.

We’re coming in my way. You can walk in or you can be thrown in. Not literally.

But I can pick you up and I can drag you in there or you can come on your own. Tonight, he had to be dragged into class. As a matter of fact, this morning, he had to be dragged into class.

He went limp. And he’s pretty heavy for a little guy when he goes limp. You know what?

It’s so much better. It’s so much better on those days that He goes, cooperate, and just walks right in. God could make us do what we’re supposed to.

He absolutely could. God absolutely could make us be what we’re supposed to and do what we’re supposed to. But God wanted to redeem a people for Himself who would choose to love Him.

Who would choose to embrace Him. Who would cooperate. And I say that with full understanding that the Bible says He loved us first. We love Him because He first loved us.

When I say we would choose to love Him, I don’t mean that we took the first step here. I mean, you and I are not robots. We’re programmed by God to do and say certain things.

He’s given us free will. We also know that He’s sovereign. How those things work together perfectly, I don’t completely understand.

But they’re both taught in Scripture. And God wanted people who had the choice whether to love Him or not and chose to love Him. And He wanted those people who would be His special people because He would be glorified by the fellowship that He has with us.

He’d be glorified by the relationship that He has with us. He’d be glorified as we go out and demonstrate the change that He’s made in us. So we glorify God when we demonstrate the change that He’s made in us.

Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Not glorify you for how good you are, not glorify me for how good I am, but glorify the Father for what He’s done in us. And when God takes sinners like you and me, who have made ourselves His enemies, who could not save ourselves even if we wanted to, but we were hostile toward God, we were estranged from God when He takes sinners and He demonstrates His love and His grace and it just overwhelms us.

We throw up our hands and surrender and He plucks us up out of that sin and cleanses us with the blood of Jesus and puts His Holy Spirit in us to begin to work in us and begin to transform us. And then God takes these who were enemies and makes them into His sons and daughters and we walk with him and we love him and we praise him not because we have to but because we are driven to god is glorified in that so god’s plan for us is not simply that we would be saved and stay in our sins but god’s plan for us is that he would save us and he would transform us so we can walk with him and we can bring him the glory he deserves by being his people and it’s our job now to function as God’s people by joyfully, not because we have to but by joyfully glorifying Him in the way we were created to do