“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”
I would like to begin today approaching our study in a different fashion than which is normal for us. I want to read this letter to you, from chapter one verse one up through our text verses, chapter 2 verses 11-14.
I’d like for you to look up from your Bibles and hear it in a translation that is probably not familiar to your ears, so that you will be hearing it in a sense, for the first time – so that you will hear it afresh, as it were.
My purpose in doing this will be made clear as we go.
CHAPTER 1
1:1-4 - Paul, servant of God and messenger of Jesus Christ in the faith God gives to his chosen, in the knowledge of the truth that comes from a God-fearing life, and in the hope of the everlasting life which God, who cannot lie, promised before the beginning of time - (at the right moment he made his Word known in the declaration which has been entrusted to me by his command) to Titus, my true son in our common faith, be grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
Men who are appointed to the ministry must be of the highest character
1:5-9 - I left you in Crete to set right matters which needed attention, and gave you instructions to appoint elders in every city. They were to be men of unquestioned integrity with only one wife, and with children brought up as Christians and not likely to be accused of loose living or law-breaking.
To exercise spiritual oversight a man must be of unimpeachable virtue, for he is God’s agent in the affairs of his household. He must not be aggressive or hot-tempered or over-fond of wine; nor must he be violent or greedy for financial gain. On the contrary, he must be hospitable, a genuine lover of what is good, a man who is discreet, fair-minded, holy and self-controlled: a man who takes his stand on the orthodox faith, so that he can by sound teaching both stimulate faith and confute opposition.
Be on your guard against counterfeit Christians
1:10-16 - But there are many, especially among the Jews, who will not recognize authority, who talk nonsense and yet in so doing have managed to deceive men’s minds. They must be silenced, for they upset the faith of whole households, teaching what they have no business to teach for the sake of what they can get. One of them, yes, one of their prophets, has said: "Men of Crete are always liars, evil and beastly, lazy and greedy." There is truth in this testimonial of theirs! Don’t hesitate to reprimand them sharply for you want them to be sound and healthy Christians, with a proper contempt for Jewish fairy tales and orders issued by men who have forsaken the path of truth. Everything is wholesome to those who are themselves wholesome. But nothing is wholesome to those who are themselves unwholesome and who have no faith in God - their very minds and consciences are diseased. They profess to know God, but their actual behavior denies their profession, for they are obviously vile and rebellious and when it comes to doing any real good they are palpable frauds.
CHAPTER 2
Good character should follow good teaching
2:1-8 - Now you must tell them the sort of character which should spring from sound teaching. The old men should be temperate, serious, wise - spiritually healthy through their faith and love and patience. Similarly the old women should be reverent in their behavior, should not make unfounded complaints and should not be over-fond of wine. They should be examples of the good life, so that the younger women may learn to love their husbands and their children, to be sensible and chaste, home-lovers, kind-hearted and willing to adapt themselves to their husbands - a good advertisement for the Christian faith. The young men, too, you should urge to take life seriously, letting your own life stand as a pattern of good living. In all your teaching show the strictest regard for truth, and show that you appreciate the seriousness of the matters you are dealing with. Your speech should be unaffected and logical, so that your opponent may feel ashamed at finding nothing in which to pick holes.
The duty of slaves - and of us all
2:9-10 - Slaves should be told that it is their duty as Christians to obey their masters and to give them satisfactory service in every way. They are not to "answer back" or to be light-fingered, but they are to show themselves utterly trustworthy, a living testimonial to the teaching of God our Savior.
2:11-14 - For the grace of God, which can save every man, has now become known, and it teaches us to have no more to do with godlessness or the desires of this world but to live, here and now, responsible, honorable and God-fearing lives. And while we live this life we hope and wait for the glorious dénouement of the Great God and of Jesus Christ our Savior. For he gave himself for us all, that he might rescue us from all our evil ways and make for himself a people of his own, clean and pure, with our hearts set upon living a life that is good. Titus 1:1 – 2:14, J.B. Phillips New Testament
Now if you were paying attention (and this is why I wanted you to hear it in different terminology than you are accustomed to) you may have observed as I read that Paul was calling to the attention of Titus something of which Titus probably had very little need of reminder.
He was among a difficult people. The Cretans had a history of piracy around the Mediterranean, and of the evil habits that historically accompanied that lifestyle.
Paul even quotes one of their own prophets here in his letter and there is an interesting side point to be made from that.
The line in verse 12 of chapter 1, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons’, is from an ode to Zeus written by one, Epimenides.
There is much to say about this so-called prophet also; I can’t take time to go into it today but the curious student can ‘Google’ that name and come up with a number of websites that will tell the sketchy information we have on this character.
There are four lines from this poem that may interest you, as you will hear not only the line quoted here by Paul, but also one he used with the philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens, recorded in Acts 17. The lines go like this:
(Remember, this is to Zeus)
“They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one –
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead; thou livest and abidest forever,
For in thee we live and move and have our being.”
The important point for us to note from this is that Paul affirms the words of the poet, saying to Titus, ‘This testimony is true.’ And then says, ‘for this reason reprove them severely that they may be sound in the faith’.
From the beginning of the letter up to our text verses, this entire correspondence is about good behavior, Godly character, sound teaching of sound doctrine, and Paul addresses every group of society.
He has left Titus with silly, self-indulgent people and he wants to impress upon them that the Christian is supposed to be different; that behaviors change, that beliefs change, that basic thinking changes, in the one who has been saved by the appearing of God’s grace through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Now the wording changes slightly from translation to translation, but in the NASB we find the word ‘sensible’ numerous times, indicating that the Apostle from what he knew of the people on this island, felt the need to stress it.
The social and religious order in which the admonition comes is also noteworthy.
In verse 8 of chapter 1 he begins with the leaders, the overseers of the church, it always begins with the leadership, and says, among other things, that they are to be sensible.
He goes from the overseers specifically to the older men, in chapter 2 verse 2, and exhorts that they too must be sensible.
Then we see in verse 5 that the younger women should be sensible, and on to the young men in verse 6, and finally, in verse 12 this admonition is given generally to the church, as the witness of Christ to the world, ‘live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age’.
Now in case no one noticed, he did not use this term with the older women when they were mentioned in verse 3. Perhaps we should infer from this omission that elderly women are the only ones who don’t need to be reminded to be sensible; they are generally busy themselves, telling the men and kids around them to stop acting like fools.
Anyway…
Paul has used half of his letter to admonish Christians in this island society that as believers and representatives of Christ they are to be self-controlled, temperate, curbing their desires and impulses, seeking Godliness and holiness in their lives and in the church.
Warren Wiersbe, in his expository outline of the New Testament, pointed out in passing that the grace of the Gospel of Christ redeems, reforms and rewards the believer, and I chose to use his words as my simple outline for our study today.
REDEEMING GRACE
When Paul begins this portion of his letter with ‘For’, ‘For the grace of God has appeared’, he is referring back to everything he has said to now. This is what marks the Christian, this is how the Christian must now conduct himself, these are the things for the Christian to avoid in his life, ‘for’, because, the grace of God has appeared, been made manifest, entered into the affairs of men, bringing salvation.
The first and foremost work of grace in humankind is that it redeems. This is absolutely necessary because there is no reconciliation between God and men apart from the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
This is something that the world and the Christ-less church will never comprehend.
When they speak of redemption they are speaking of something fundamentally different than what is meant by the Biblical application of the term.
I recently watched a television program in which the disappearance of a preacher was being investigated. This was not an unusual depiction of how the world views the church, but as I say, it is a recent example.
The preacher turned out to be a charlatan who had absconded with the church’s money so he could get a sex change operation and disappear.
His son, who had been coming up in public ministry behind him, seeing the hypocrisy of his father’s work, left to start a street ministry of his own, out of the spotlight and in service to people in need.
The problem was – and this, as I said, is how the world sees the church – church was depicted as a therapy group, the name of Jesus was never mentioned in the program (although there was a cross on the front of the preacher’s very large Bible) and when the young preacher asked the investigator if he believed in redemption, and the investigator affirmed that he did indeed believe in redemption, neither one had a clue what he was talking about.
To the Ephesians, Paul wrote that ‘in Him (meaning Jesus) we have redemption through His blood’. (1:7)
Redemption is not a reclamation, it is not a restoration, it is a new creature, regenerated and made God’s own possession to the praise of His glory, through the shed blood and death of Christ our Savior.
Charles Wesley understood this inseparable link between the death of Christ and salvation when he wrote:
“Love’s redeeming work is done; fought, the fight, the battle won”.
The redemption of the Bible, my friends, is not won through making right the wrongs we’ve done; it is not earned by payment of penance or public display of remorse. It is not by soul-searching or ‘finding ourselves’ after much introspection and attendance of group therapy with other lost souls.
So when Paul, several times in this letter to Titus, says things of this nature; that the hope of eternal life has at the proper time been manifested, in chapter 1 verses 2 and 3, and the grace of God has appeared in chapter 2 verse 11, and that the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared in chapter 3 verse 4, he is speaking of nothing other than the culmination of the plan determined before the world was, when Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
The grace of God appeared bringing salvation to all men.
Now that does not mean all will be saved; it means salvation was brought to all who believe.
This is what we preach and this is what you must understand and believe. There is redemption, by God’s grace, through the blood of Christ Jesus our Savior. This is sound doctrine that must be taught and clung to.
Again, look back at the previous verses of this letter to Titus, and see how Paul stressed the necessity for teaching of the truth.
1:9, in reference to the overseer, ‘holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict’.
2:1, to preachers, ‘speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine’.
2:7, to young men, ‘with purity in doctrine’
2:10, even to slaves, ‘adorn the doctrine of God our Savior’. By that term he meant that their Godly behavior would, as it were, embellish the Gospel of God with honor. Or as it says in the translation I read to you, their lives will be a living testimony to the teaching of God our Savior.
Listen to these scripture references:
“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Jn 1:14
” for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; Rom 3:23-24
God’s grace alone redeems, through the finished work of Christ alone by faith alone. It is only then that grace begins its reforming work.
REFORMING GRACE
“For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” 1 Cor 15:9-10
When Paul wrote these words of himself to the Corinthians he was presenting himself as the ultimate example of the reforming and restoring, sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit of God.
Paul was, by his own declaration, a violent man, a blasphemer and a persecutor of the church. Then in an instant, on the road to Damascus, the risen Christ redeemed Paul and performed such a drastic work of reformation in this man’s heart that he came up off the ground a new person.
Christians, all these things he has written to Titus and all the things he says in the following and final chapter of this letter regarding obedience to authorities, living peaceably with fellow men, engaging in good deeds in the name and power of God, all these things are only possible through the redeeming and reforming work of the Holy Spirit.
When we talk of grace we are most often thinking of our salvation. We are thinking of the welcome we are now extended, to enter into the presence of God because He has justified us through Christ and now makes us sons and daughters.
But perhaps the greatest miracle of God’s grace, lavished upon us, is the miracle of the changed human heart.
That God can give a man or a woman a new heart and continue throughout the course of our days to shape and mould and conform that heart into one fit for Heaven is the greatest grace of all.
For we did not deserve it, and even as His saved ones we so often fight it, resist it, turn away from it, determined to continue in our silliness and our self-indulgence – yet He is full of grace and He continues to reform us anyway.
“Wonderful grace of Jesus; greater than all my sin!” wrote the songwriter.
This is what Paul understood and taught. That the grace that appeared to save now allows the believer to ‘deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age’.
This is sanctification. This is the work of reformation. This is on-going in the heart of the Christ-follower. Not God keeping a tally and keeping track so that at some fixed date He can parade it all before us to shame us. No! His grace reforms the redeemed, conforming us to the image of His Son who purchased us with His blood.
If godly behavior and good works were things that God expected us to churn up from within ourselves somehow, as if there were anything good in us to churn up, then He would be right in scrutinizing our thoughts and actions and holding our derelictions against us.
If we, holding to a form of religion only, expect that the way to be right with God is to live pure lives and do good deeds then He must hold us accountable to obeying our conscience and our religion is according to law, not grace.
But look once more at verse 14 of our text.
“who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”
By going to the cross Jesus redeemed us, and His redemption is complete. It includes reformation of the person. Calvary’s work redeems us from every lawless deed and it purifies the believer and makes him zealous to live pleasing to the Father.
This is the pattern that the New Testament makes clear, that when a person is regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit, which is the wording of Titus 3:5, regenerated and renewed, there is immediate change. There is on-going change, to be sure, and we would pray that every true believer will stay supple and teachable all of his or her days on earth as the Holy Spirit continues His work.
But by all recorded Biblical accounts, and seen countless times in the history of the church when the Spirit is moving on people’s hearts, when a person first believes there is always instant and obvious change in that person.
Now, I don’t mean that a halo appears over their head or they suddenly change physically in some spectacular way. But their values change, their desires change, their fundamental focus on life changes, and the immediate, observable change is usually manifest in praise to God and a desire to tell someone what has happened to them. They become zealous for good deeds and for sharing the good news.
They have gone from death to life, from blindness to seeing, from lost to found, believer, there HAS TO BE CHANGE! The cross has provided for it, the Spirit has wrought it, God’s grace has redeemed and reformed and the creature is brand new.
REWARDING GRACE
Well, grace redeems, reforms and rewards.
Wait just a second here. Rewards? Since when does any of us deserve a reward? If it is God’s grace alone that saves, and if salvation is from lawlessness, unrighteousness, spiritual death, how is it that we can deserve a reward?
That reminds me of the final lines from the song “How Great the Father’s Love For Us”, which says, “Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer”
And that answers my question, doesn’t it? We cannot give an answer.
But here, to Titus, Paul wrote, “…looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus”
Do we earn this reward? No! We cannot. What we look for, this blessed hope of eternal life and the final appearing of our Lord in all His glory will be the reward of our earnest longing – our watchfulness for the manifestation of the promise.
We will be rewarded in the way the young child is rewarded for his eager watchfulness, when he comes out of the bedroom on Christmas morning and finds that packages have been left under the tree bearing his name.
Our reward, believer in Christ, will simply be the sharing of His own reward by His grace and in His righteousness alone, imputed to us by the declaration of the Father who gave us to His Son as a gift.
“Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me” Heb 2:13
See chapter 3 verse 7 of Titus? “...that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
That is our reward, Christians; and it is a reward, not to repay our merit, but for His eternal glory.
Listen
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Eph 2:4-7
In the ages of eternity we will be living testimony of God’s grace, for His glory!
Friends and family – and also enemies and strangers, since this applies to all – we were no better than the Cretans, liars, evil beasts, gluttons grasping after every fleshly gratification. When Paul said ‘this testimony is true’, he may as well have added the words, ‘for all’.
Then, the grace of God appeared. The promise from ages past was made manifest in the Person and work of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who brought salvation to men. He redeems, praise His name forever, and His redemption provides reformation so that we might not stay the same but live godly, purified and zealous for good deeds, looking and watching all the while for the reward of our eager anticipation, which will be the return of our Lord in His glory and the fulfilling of our blessed hope, everlasting life with Jesus.
“Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer.
But this I know with all my heart, His wounds have paid my ransom!”
For grace appeared, bringing salvation to all men…
