Adorning the Gospel | Titus 2:7-15 (Mark Evans: 8-6-2023)

The speaker is continuing their series on the book of Titus. They discuss the importance of living a life that reflects good works and integrity, especially for church leaders and servants. They emphasize the need for sound speech and the importance of adorning the doctrine of God through righteous living. The speaker encourages the audience to live in a way that brings honor to God and exposes the foolishness of those who oppose the gospel. The Christian life is meant to adorn and display the grace of God. Well, if you do have your Bibles, feel free to grab them as you make your way to the book of Titus, as we continue our series through this wonderful epistle. And this morning, we'll be in Titus chapter 2, verses 7 through 15, Titus 2, verses 7 through 15. And these are the words of the God who dwells in unapproachable light. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. And in your teaching, show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, who are zealous for good works. Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, and let no one disregard you. When the grass withers and the flower fades, let us pray. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we do praise You that Your Word endures forever. We pray now that Your Word would bear fruit in our lives, that You would open our eyes to behold the wonders of this grace that has appeared, of this glory that shall appear in the Lord Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, amen. Many may be seated. My guess is that as you are getting dressed this morning and preparing to head to church, you probably put something on that, strictly speaking, is not necessary. That is to say, you probably put something on that is extra or additional, like an accessory. So maybe, for instance, you put on a necklace or some earrings. Maybe you put on a belt or a tie. Kids, I'm sure your parents probably made sure that you set your hair in a particular way, or maybe they straightened out your collar for you. And what these things all have in common is that they share in the purpose of adornment. There's something in the human condition that cannot help but to beautify, to enhance, to enrich. Edith Schaeffer once said that dinner is not served unless there is a vase of flowers put on the table. And obviously, the purpose of such flowers is not to eat them, but to adorn and decorate the table setting. And this is just what we do as humans. It's hardwired into us. The great Augustine once said, do we love anything save what is beautiful? And what we'll get to see this morning is that the Christian life as a whole is meant to adorn, that Christians themselves are actually like the vase of flowers that are put on the table, because what we see this morning is that the Christian life is meant to adorn and to display the grace of God in our lives. And so, just as last week we looked at how various men and various women are called to live, today we look at the last two groups, church leaders and bond servants. And they all have this in common, that as sound doctrine leads to sound living, sound living adorns and accentuates the grace of God. So perhaps you did not wake up this morning and say to yourself, I am a living, breathing, walking ornament meant to display the grace of God. What did our Lord Jesus say to His disciples? Let your light shine before men, and they will see your good works and glorify God. And so with that, let's pick back up Titus. Let's see this address for these two groups, beginning with the church leader. So verse 7, Paul tells Titus that he must show himself to be a type of good works. My two sons enjoy making model rockets, and so to build a model rocket, they look first at the diagram, and then they build. Then they look back at the diagram, and then they build a little bit more. And so verse 7 is just simply saying church leaders are to be a kind of living diagram, that their lives hold out a model of good works. The elder cannot merely talk the talk, he must walk the walk, such that one could imitate his life and be following a pattern of sound godliness. As Paul tells to Timothy, this is why God has given you two eyeballs. Keep one eyeball on your life. Use the other eyeball and keep a close watch on your doctrine. And doctrine is right where Paul goes next in verses 7 and 8, as Titus' teaching is to be characterized by these three attributes, integrity, dignity, and sound speech. So firstly, integrity or soundness, it would just mean teaching that does not compromise. Teaching that does not shrink back from declaring the whole counsel of God's Word, including the hard parts, the uncomfortable parts. Teaching that is not aiming at pleasing men, or tickling ears, or making God's Word more marketable, more palatable. Instead, it would be teaching that aims to rightly handle the truth of God's Word with faithfulness as the highest aspiration. Secondly, you see, dignity, this would mean teaching that's marked by an appropriate seriousness, a kind of gravity. How does it mean that teaching has to be always glum and gloomy? Anyone can put on a long face and feign godliness. So teaching doesn't need to be gloomy. But in our day, of course, the more common pitfall is for it to be frivolous and frothy, for teaching to be light and airy. I remember I attended a wedding ceremony once. And the officiator of the wedding ceremony made endless jokes, endless jabs, even made up vows that lacked all sanctity when it came to covenant commitments. And yes, while the overall effect was that it succeeded in its entertainment, it had people laughing. It, of course, failed to uphold the sanctity of marriage. It's exactly that kind of showmanship that the minister must avoid. Instead, he must put forward teaching that reveres the Word of God and awes at the majesty of God. And thirdly, verse 8, he calls for sound speech. Now, we've already covered the word sound, it just means hygienic, healthy teaching that accords with godliness. And so you see the net effect of these three things, of Titus' words and his walk in verse is that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say, not only about Titus, but about us, the whole covenant community. And now that's an odd statement because, let's make it clear, Paul had many opponents. Paul was a walking punching bag in the first century, right? Many mocked and ridiculed him and spoke evil, not just against him, but against the church at large. But his point here is that such allegations will have no legitimacy if Titus and the church community can live an upright life. You don't need me to tell you, it's no secret the world loves a good church scandal. Satan relishes in church scandals and hypocrisies as it's an opportunity for him to mercilessly slander the gospel and castigate God's reputation. A scandal only further sears the conscience of the man, of the woman, who seizes that opportunity to say, why would I go to church? A church is just full of hypocrisies. It's full of frauds and phonies who say one thing and they do another. And so Paul counsels young Titus and the church by extension, have your lips and have your lives rightly ordered so as to adorn the gospel. You've got to notice here that Paul simply assumes there will be opponents. This is not a matter of if, this is a matter of when. And you see the net effect of this adornment is that not only would God's Word not be put to shame, but you see it's actually the reverse situation in verse 8. It's actually the opponents to God's Word that they are the ones who are put to shame. In other words, when the church is a godly and upright life, when the church adorns the gospel, the shamers become the shamed. They are exposed that such slanders have no basis in reality. There's no just cause to their accusations. They are breathing out lies. They're exposed as fools, talking nonsense. As the psalmist says, may my enemies be turned back and those disappointed who devise evil against me. And one wonders, does Paul speak of such shame of his own personal experience? For who was a more hateful opponent to the church of Christ than Paul himself, himself a persecutor of Christians, he a ravager of the church, Paul one who dragged men and women off to prison? And yet God did to Paul what he so often does to his opponents, that God silenced his mouth. God blinded his eyes only to open them up once again to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have to draw much courage from this truth to be sure in this present age, as in many ages, the church is castigated for being bigoted and backwards. The church's teachings on sex and marriage, masculinity and femininity, on creation, on morality, on children, on and on we go. Subject the church to the shame of the world, but as 1 Timothy says, God just may well perhaps lead such opponents to repentance, to a knowledge of the truth. He did so for Paul and he still does it today. What it's ours to do is to live a self-controlled, godly, upright life. So there's a word to that first group, to the minister, to church leaders. Now we come lastly in this string of groups to this final group of people, the servants. Now this may seem a little scatterbrained that Paul's just hopping from group to group, but you see there at the end of verse 10, it's that main thought we're considering today and even last week, of how the Christian life adorns the doctrine of God. Now kids, I'm sure that you've decorated an art, a craft before, and maybe you put decals on it, or color, or glitter. What you are doing is you're adorning it, you're adding beauty to it. And kids, did you know that your very life does that? When you obey your parents, when you memorize a Bible verse, you are showing forth, you are showing off God's goodness in your life. Even your life adorns the doctrine of God. And same idea here. Paul now addressed his servants with a behavior that adorns the gospel. Firstly, he says, verse 9, adorn God's doctrine by submitting to your own masters in everything. So similar to the wife and to her husband, such submission adorns the gospel because it ultimately shows submission to God Himself. That in obeying an earthly master, the servant is ultimately obeying and entrusting himself to God's care. And so the Christian is to be reminded that when you head off to work tomorrow on Monday morning to a so-called secular company, Christ Himself is Lord of that company. He is at the top of the org chart, as it were. And so our most natural application of the bond servant to the master is the employee-employer dynamic that calls for the Christian employee to not just submit in the workplace, but even to be a delight in the workplace. You see that word there, well-pleasing, in verse 9. I'll tell you, if you really want to be counter-cultural, if you really want to stand out, then just show up to work and be well-pleasing, not argumentative, and instead be a delight. I can tell you what you surely already know from my many years in the workplace, how common it was to have an employee complaining, grumbling, argumentative unto their bosses. A recent Forbes Business article was entitled, A Culture of Complainers. This is us. You see even this word there in verse 10 of pilfering. That would be the notion of the employee cheating the system, gaming the system, right? Not giving in on his day's work, billing the company hours, but not actually working those hours and so on. By contrast, instead, the Christian employee shows, you see that word, good faith in verse 10. He or she can be trusted implicitly. It's not even a debate when the question arises. Can we trust that so-and-so is working even though no one's watching? Can we trust this territory, this project? Can we depend on him to follow through on his word when he said he was going to do X or Y? A diligent, honest, respectful employee is a breath of fresh air in the workplace. Just a word to our younger members who are preparing for a lifetime of work in the workplace. You have a huge advantage on your side if you can embody what is known as the Protestant work ethic. Now yes, things like cancel culture and leftism will work against you, no doubt about it. So certainly you want to be careful where you work. But believe me, employers, even non-Christian employers, they will eventually recognize good work and a good employee when they see it. As Proverbs says, behold the man who is excellent in his work, he will stand before kings. So there's our word to the church leader and to the bondservant and it rounds out this whole section on how sound doctrine leads to sound living, all of which adorn the gospel of God. But once again, if we stopped at this point with this list of do's and don'ts, this itinerary of morals and virtues, we might be tempted to head out into the world with the words of Benjamin Franklin, God helps those who help themselves. That it really falls to us to modify our behavior, change a few habits, shore up our will to succeed our grit, maybe burn some incense to the God of self-improvement. This would be to run on bad fuel. This is to run the engine without oil. Let us be reminded, the very opening words of Titus begin, grace and peace to you. Grace and peace to you, that our lives are meant to show off the transformative power of God's grace, not the transformative power of the will and strength of man. And this is right where Paul goes next, as if he goes on to say, as your lives are meant to adorn the gospel, the power to live out the gospel will come from above. It's all grace from start to finish. The finished product is grace and the fuel to get there is by grace. I think we sometimes slip into thinking, well, God's job is to get me started, as it were, and then I finish the job. God gives me a nudge in the right direction and then I finish strong. No, no, no, no. It's all grace from start to finish. And so Titus is going to wonderfully outline that truth for us in this next section. And so we're going to look at grace, but we're going to look at it in three aspects. Plentiful grace. Second, powerful grace. And lastly, the promise of grace. And so firstly, plentiful grace. Verse 11, you see Paul connects this section with the previous section with that little word for, as in, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. And now that phrase, salvation for all people, it might have a kind of universalist ring to it at first. As if Paul is saying, everyone, every single person is saved. But as always, know that taking Scripture in context is one of the most important things you can do in interpreting Scripture. Anytime you're stumped on a verse, wondering, what does this verse mean? It's always wise to pause, stop, consider the surrounding context. And so here in context, it's clear that Paul means all kinds of people. Older men, older women, grace to you. Ministers, bond servants, grace to you. Younger women, younger men, grace to you. And really, even more broadly in Titus, we're meant to hear him say, yes, God's grace is even for the Cretans. You can imagine someone saying there, wait a minute, Paul, you don't mean to say those people who are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. You mean to say God's grace even extends to these depraved Cretans, these evil beasts. It's, yes, grace to them. It's plentiful grace for all, whether barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free. There is nothing stingy about God's grace. It is as far as it is wide. And so if you're here this morning and not a Christian, hear this good news. This is grace to you. It is rightly called grace because it is free. It is undeserved. It is ill-deserved. It is just what sinners need. It is the only thing that sinners need who have sinned against a holy God. Nothing else can save sinners. No amount of works, no amount of doing good, no amount of moral scrubbing. Instead, salvation is the free gift of God. In verse 11, we can see why this grace is for all. It's because it has, quote, appeared. The curtain has been pulled back to reveal grace, as it were. And so what is the nature of this appearance? After all, our God has always been gracious. So that is not new. What's new, though, is that grace has supremely appeared in the person of Jesus Christ. That from Jesus Christ comes grace upon grace, that Christ is the fountain of overflowing grace. And so just as we read and opened with Acts, in the former times, God winked at sin. But now, now, God commands all men everywhere to repent. And so what's the change? Why does God now command all people to repent? Well, the nowness is that Christ has come. Christ has died. Christ has risen. The nowness is that Christ has come for the Jew, and Christ has come for the Gentile, for every tribe, every tongue, every nation. This is why Titus was left on Crete, and this is why you and I are here right now. And so for us, we're always to be a ministry of grace. Always preaching, always bragging, always boasting in the grace of Jesus Christ, and to boast in anything else is a lie. So we've seen plentiful grace. Next let's look at powerful grace, how it is that grace equips us and trains us. Now even that phrase that grace trains us, just pause for a minute and consider, does that challenge, does that refine your idea of grace? My experience has been that some Christians tend to limit. They tend to shrink God's grace for the occasions of when we screw up, that God's grace only operates in the realm of forgiveness, and God's grace is our safety net for when we fall down. And so when we fall down, in rides God's grace, picks us up, puts us back on our feet. In one sense, yes and amen, all right, it is solely by God's grace that we are forgiven. We ought never to diminish that truth. But if you look at verse 12, you see that the grace of God is far stronger, it's far deeper than that, because our God saves us not merely from the penalty of sin. Our God saves us from the power of sin. You see it in verse 12, God's grace trains us. You could even say educates us, nurtures us. It's the same word in Ephesians six, fathers, train up your children in the discipline of the Lord. Same word there applied to grace. And we see that God's grace trains us to resist and to renounce. So now the Christian possesses a power to renounce ungodliness, whereas before Christ we were utterly powerless, right, unable to resist all sin all the time. Now the Christian has a power to resist, as Romans six says, sin shall not have dominion over you. Let's see, the simple truth is when you become a Christian, the stranglehold that sin once had over you is removed. Now to be sure, we will still be battling sin till our dying day. But sin's mastery, sin's dominion has been overpowered by the grace of God and God's grace empowers the Christian to fight the good fight. And friends, this truth is the highest of motivations for the Christian life. The young man tempted with the lust of eyes, the young woman tempted by the enticements of the world, the older woman tempted to gossip, the minister tempted to not hold fast to God's word. Where does these strengths come from? To renounce ungodliness, when it seems the whole world is caving in, when Satan is sifting you like wheat. You see here, the Christian is trained, empowered by the grace of God. Secondly, God's grace not only empowers us to resist and renounce, as awesome as that is, God's grace also positively shapes us to be who God has called us to be, right? As Christians, we don't just play defense, we play offense. We're not to be known merely by our avoidances, but also by our affections. And you see that in the second half of verse 12. God's grace still training us to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. In a word, everything we looked at this week and last week, a reverent life, a godly life, a loving life, a steadfast life, a faithful life. Where does that come from? Not from within, but from the grace of God maturing us into Christ-likeness. And so once again, take heart if you find yourself saying, I don't possess the godliness that I desire. That's way up there, and I'm frankly way down here. Well, take heart from this truth, all the sanctifying, powerful grace that you will ever need is found right here in Jesus Christ. And so we've seen plentiful grace, powerful grace. Next you see Christians even have the promise of grace. You see it at the end of verse 12. As we live in this present age, we are also waiting for our blessed hope. And now a lot of people have hope, but do they have a blessed hope? I know a lot of people, as I'm sure you do, who talk about hope. They have hope for today. They have hope for tomorrow. They are hoping in hope, but the question is, is it a blessed hope? Because it is this hope that has been blessed by God. It is this hope that will never be put to shame. It is this hope that is never in vain. It is this hope that just by merely possessing it is favor from God. What are those who trust in the Lord? And Christian, do you see your blessing? Maybe you look around at your circumstances, your hardships, your past, and you say, yeah, I cannot find God's blessing in my life. Right here, God's word is telling you, if you have this hope, you have been blessed by God. Well, if you're still not convinced, fair enough, because we haven't even looked at what is the essence of this hope? What are we hoping in that makes it such a blessed hope? We see it unfold there in verse 13. It is the appearing of glory. Our God apparently likes to make appearances, right? We saw act one, his grace appeared in Jesus Christ. Act two, now his glory shall appear. And so we're right to ask, well, what is this glory? Verse 13 is going to tell us rather, who is this glory? This glory is personal, namely, Jesus Christ himself in all his glory will be manifested, a glory so great that neither sun nor moon will be needed, for the glory of Christ himself shall be our light. We shall see him as he is and so be like him. And whoever has this hope purifies himself. That is the blessed hope from God. And we learn two things more here about our Lord Jesus that show us why this hope is so blessed. We see who he is and what he has done. Firstly, verse 13, a most fundamental truth that Jesus Christ is God. Jesus is God. In him the fullness of deity dwells bodily. Jesus is fully God and as such the only one qualified to be our Savior. Let us make the connection right here, right now, that nothing less than a sacrifice of infinite worth, infinite value could pay for our sins. Now why is that? I sometimes ask the children during a communicant's interview, ask them, hey kids, why couldn't your mom or your dad die for you? After all, your mom and your dad, they love you, I'll speak for them. They would be willing to die for you, even upon a cross. Now why wouldn't that work? Why would that be insufficient? Why can't they save my life for yours? And because our God, an infinite God of perfect justice, of perfect holiness, and so nothing less than a perfect sacrifice will remove sin. You might remember from the law, it was only the unblemished animal that was a worthy sacrifice. And so it is upon the cross that only the unblemished lamb of God could take away the sins of the world. And so Christian, you're meant to see what good news that is for you today. There are no special sinners. What sin of yours is going to outstrip the sufficiency of a perfect sacrifice? What sin is left uncovered? What sin is greater than the greatness of this Savior? Do you see your imperfections will never overrule, will never overpower the perfections of Jesus Christ and His all-sufficient sacrifice? And we see next that who Christ is leads us to what Christ has done. You see it in verse 14, He gave Himself for us. Why would He give Himself for us? The only answer is grace. Search high and low. The only answer is grace. For God so loved the world that He gave. And as Paul says, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and who gave Himself up for me. Particularly, you see there that He gave to set free. As the verse says, He gave to redeem us from all lawlessness, in verse 14. And now we're meant to understand that that word lawlessness, of course it doesn't mean that we were in and out of the county jail as convicted felons from the law. No, of course, lawlessness refers to God's law, right? As John says, sin is lawlessness. You might be wondering, why do we read the Ten Commandments every month as we did this very morning? Well, one reason, among many, is that it reminds us this is God's law written upon the heart of man. This is the mirror that shows before us our blemishes and our brokenness. God's law silences the mouth of man, that if we stumble in just one part of it, we transgress all of it, just one impure thought, just one careless word, just one unloving action, just one angry outburst, and we are rightly called lawless and justly deserving of God's eternal wrath. And so into this good news, that Jesus Christ has redeemed us from such lawlessness by suffering the penalty of a lawbreaker. We must see that when our Lord Jesus died, he did not just die an ordinary death. No, he died the cursed death of a lawbreaker. He died as a condemned sinner, not for his, but for ours. As it says, that God made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we, you and I, might become the righteousness of God. And so the captives are indeed set free. Now, we need to see that means not just being set free from, that also means set free to. All right, we're not just freed from our law breaking, as great as that is, we are also set free towards law keeping. That's true freedom. True freedom is not just free from, it's free to. And you see that very thing in verse 14. It continues on and says that the goal of Calvary was to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works. We've rightly spoken so much this morning about what Christ has done for us, and indeed we should. But let's not dare overlook what is so often overlooked, and that is what Christ has done for himself. That at the cross, Christ purified a people for himself, that he was claiming his sheep, that he was purchasing his bride, that he set his face to Jerusalem knowing, I go to the cross for this definite purpose, to cleanse a people, to cleanse my people. As a most unfortunate, erroneous teaching, the death of our Lord upon the cross did little more than make salvation possible. The death of Christ did little more than create an opportunity, and maybe a potential, an open door, a bridge for man to walk across. Now, you see it right there in verse 14, that when our Lord Jesus went to the cross, he went with the names of his people written upon his chest to purify a people, saying, I know my sheep, and I lay down my life for my sheep. And friends, the more we understand that, the more we understand just how much the Lord Jesus Christ loves us. How far, how wide, how deep, how long is this love of Jesus Christ, that nothing would deter him, nothing would stop him, nothing would keep him from going up to that hill, saying, I know my sheep, and I lay my life down for them. And friends, that means you are washed, you are sanctified, you are a people belonging to him, zealous for good works. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we do praise you for these truths, that here we are, once a people, lawless, lost, ruined, and yet in your grace that has appeared, you gave us the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who loved us, who gave himself up for us, to purify for himself a people of his own possession, a people who would be zealous for good works. And so we do pray exactly for that, Father. We know our lives are meant to adorn the greatness of our God. And so we pray that your grace would do the very thing you say it does, that your grace would train us to renounce all ungodliness, that your grace would train us to live as you has called us to live, an upright and godly life, and that all of it would be to the glory of you, our great God. In your name we pray, amen.