[Read Titus 2:11-14]
A few years ago, Rachel and I sat in a teaching session, listening to someone talk about the work they are doing in foreign countries. They spoke about how their primary work in many of the small villages was helping husbands treat their wives with respect and dignity. They worked to empower the women to earn their own money. They held teaching sessions on how to treat your wife with respect and dignity. Yet, after an hour of listening to this person talk, Rachel and I noticed they never mentioned the gospel…not even once. And this was a Christian organization.
So, Rachel raised her hand to ask a question: “How does the gospel affect your work in these poor villages?” The leader responded by saying something like, “Well, we don’t push the gospel on these people. We aren’t there for that. We are simply there to help these women have dignity and respect.” So, Rachel raised her hand again: “Why would the husbands treat their wives any differently if they don’t know Jesus?” There was no response and the subject was changed.
Of course, we help people whether they believe in Jesus or reject Jesus. We are called to love our neighbors. Yet, the reality is that we are not truly loving our neighbors if we don’t get to the heart of the matter and share the gospel. Husbands will not truly love their wives unless they know and experience Christ’s love for the church—until their hearts have been changed by the Spirit of God. And, more importantly, what does it profit a man to treat his wife better and lose his soul?
Listen to the beautiful power of the gospel in this morning’s passage. “…our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” (Titus 2:13-14, NIV). Jesus Christ gave himself for us. He gave his life for us in order to redeem us and purify us.
So, here’s the picture that is painted of us before Christ saved us. There’s a scene in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress that paints the picture well. Christian and Hopeful have disobeyed and wandered into a place they were told not to go. They end up being captured by a giant and locked in a dark, dingy dungeon. The giant walks down into the dungeon and beats them with a bat repeatedly, within inches of their life. After beating them, he tells them that they might as well take their own lives since it's not going to get any better. The next day be beats them again and continues to tell them their only option is to take their own life.
People of God, this is the picture of our life in sin. Scripture repeatedly tells us that we are slaves to sin, trapped in a deep, dingy dungeon, enslaved to Satan who is a cruel master, repeatedly beating us and driving us to despair—giving us no hope.
Yet, Christ gave himself for us to redeem us and purify us. He came breaking into the dungeon, kicked the giant in the teeth—mortally wounded him—broke us free from our chains—redeeming us—cleaned us up—purifying us—and said, “The giant no longer owns you. I do and I’m a good master”—making us his own. This happens when we turn to Christ in faith, giving our lives to him, asking him to forgive our sins, cleanse us, and adopt us into his family.
What also happens, after this is accomplished—after Christ has purified us, redeemed us, and made us his own—is that he then makes us “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14, ESV). I love how the Heidelberg Catechism says this too. It says, “Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him” (Q&A 1).
This is so extremely important for us to understand. It truly affects every, single day of our lives and every aspect of this church. People only truly obey when they obey from the heart—when Christ has replaced their heart of stone with a heart of flesh and filled them with his spirit. It does us no good to try to get people to do the right things simply by using guilt. True obedience comes from a heart that has been transformed by Jesus Christ. It does us no good to force people to obedience by heavily wielding our authority over them. True obedience only comes from a heart that has been transformed by Jesus Christ. Anything else is not in line with the gospel. Anything else is simply creating a bunch of moralistic pharisees—and we know what Jesus had to say about them.
Yet, we also know that when we give our lives to Jesus Christ, set free from our sin and receive forgiveness, that doesn’t mean we automatically live a perfect life. He gives us a heart to follow him and live our lives for him, yet we still mess up. Our sinful nature is still fighting to pull us away from Christ and our Spirit is fighting back, pulling us closer to Christ. That’s why this passage says, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us…” (Titus 2:11–12, NIV). I actually like the ESV translation better because it uses the word “training” instead of “teach.” The grace of God appeared in Jesus Christ and through the preaching of the gospel. That grace of God brings salvation. It also brings training. It frees us from sin and death, but it also trains us to walk in newness of life. Actually, a better translation of the word “train” is “parent,” because that’s actually the root of the word—raising children. So, after we’ve been set free from sin and death, we are adopted into Christ’s family and then are parented into newness of life—taught by the Father, Son, and Spirit how to live in this new family—how to walk in newness of life.
As we are being parented by the Triune God in how to live the life He’s created us to live, we are taught two basic things. We are taught to say NO and to say YES. The passage says, “It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,” (Titus 2:12, NIV). We are parented to say NO to those things that will lead us back to sin and death—back into captivity—and YES to the life God has created us to live—self-controlled, upright and godly lives. That’s really the essence of the Christian life.
However, it’s important to point out that the Christian life isn’t primarily characterized by saying NO. Some people want to paint the picture that way—that Christianity is all about what we DON’T do. Yet, the Christian is only saying NO to certain things so that they can say YES to things that are much greater and more glorious. NO is only a means to the YES.
We do this all the time in every aspect of our lives. When you wake up in the morning, feeling groggy and unmotivated, you have an option. You can say yes to your unmotivation and no to your job, or you can say no to your unmotivation and yes to your job. Yet, when you are someone who repeatedly says NO to you unmotivation and YES to our job, nobody comes to you and accuses you of being so negative: “Man, all you ever do is say no to things like being lazy or irresponsible.” Nobody does that because they all know that saying yes to Hard Work and Responsibility and Loyalty are all a greater YES. You are saying NO to certain things in order to say YES to something greater. That’s the Christian life.
One of my favorite examples of this from scripture is Moses. In Hebrews it says, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.” (Hebrews 11:24–26, NIV). By faith, Moses said NO to the power and pleasure and wealth of the Egyptian empire. Why? Because he had a greater YES. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ greater value than anything Egypt had to offer. He was able to say NO to all of these tempting things because he finally saw that saying YES to following Christ—even with the suffering and mocking and persecution—is better than saying YES to the world. He was able to do that because he was looking forward to his reward—looking past this life into the life to come.
This passage says the same thing. As we are being trained to say NO to the world and YES to Christ, we do that “while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,” (Titus 2:13, NIV). As we are saying NO to sinful destructive things and YES to godly life-giving things, we are waiting for our future hope—the coming Jesus Christ, the resurrection of our bodies, the new heavens and the new earth—our treasure in heaven. Another way to say it: Like Moses, we are living our life, looking forward to our reward—saying NO to anything that takes us away from that reward and YES to anything that brings us closer to that reward.
That means we need to spend time meditating on our heavenly reward. It’s so easy for us to get caught up in the day to day of life that we never lift our eyes to our future reward. It’s so easy to become enamored with the pleasures and rewards of this life that we forget that Christ has something greater waiting for us beyond the horizon—something that is worth more than anything this world has to offer.
And, we don’t meditate on our heavenly reward in order to remove ourselves from this life. No way. We live here in this world at this time. We only meditate on our heavenly reward in order to rightly live in this present world. We need to be reminded of the reward Christ has in store for us so that we can so NO when we are tempted to commit adultery, when we are tempted to lie and steal, when we are tempted to take vengeance on someone. In order for us to say NO to these things, and to say NO with joy, we need to constantly be reminding ourselves of the greater YES. When we say NO to adultery, we are saying YES to the life God has created us to live AND saying YES to the eternal reward he has waiting for us. When we say NO to taking vengeance on someone, we are saying YES to the beautiful life of the Christian and YES to our treasure in heaven. So, spend time meditating upon the treasure you have in heaven, the reward that is waiting just over the horizon, so that you can say NO to anything that takes you away from it and YES to anything that takes you closer.
This is the power of the gospel. Not only does it bring us forgiveness of sins, but it also brings us freedom from sin and training in righteousness. It’s powerful to take broken, messed up, angry, difficult sinners, break them from their chains, clean them up, and teach them how to live the life God has created them to live—a life that looks like Jesus Christ. We don’t help people look like Jesus Christ by forcing them or guilting them or yelling at them. People will only begin to look like Jesus Christ through the preaching of the gospel. That’s the power we have to bring about change and influence in our world and in our culture.
If you are tired of living in a messed up, corrupt culture, then start by preaching the gospel to yourself. Yes, even if you are a believer. Even as a believer you need the gospel to train you to say NO to sin and death and YES to righteousness and life. So, the change you want to see in the world needs to begin in you and that change requires the embrace of the gospel. Then, as you are more fully trained by the gospel, you enter the messed up, corrupt world with the only weapon we have—the most powerful weapon we have—the gospel. Because the gospel is the only thing that will truly change hearts, change lives, and change the world.