Join us sundays at 9am and 10:30AM

Grace-Trained Zeal for Good Works

October 27, 2024 Preacher: Jeff Griffis Series: Titus

Scripture: Titus 2:11–15

Grace-Trained Zeal for Good Works – Titus 2:11–15

PRAY & INTRO: Do Christians have to change their behavior when they come to faith in Christ? - Must a soldier learn to behave like a soldier? Must a citizen of a new kingdom learn to behave like a faithful citizen? Must an adopted child learn to behave according to what represents that family well? Must a person made spiritually alive behave now like someone who is no longer spiritually dead? Or as I used to say to young people, does someone who has become a Ninja Turtle act like a normal turtle?

The gospel of Jesus Christ necessarily changes people.

Paul is making it clear in this letter to Titus for the young churches in Crete that on the one hand it is not ok for Christians to go on living according to the sinful elements of what is acceptable and promoted in the culture (where lying and cheating is normalized, a mercenary mentality to get ahead of others and line our pockets, promiscuity and drunkenness and gluttony are glamorized), while on the other hand some cultural values are not so far from God’s good desire and design for what is best and healthiest, even what promotes the gospel to those around us. The difference is what God says is good, not what the world is saying: “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1).

Add to the licentious rot of the culture in Crete, that there are also Judaizing false teachers who promote observation of Jewish religious ritual as if these will somehow inoculate people. Will circumcision really make a man clean? Will avoiding certain meats or blood or food sacrificed to idols really keep a man pure, undefiled? Have these practices even made the false teachers clean and pure? No, they are proving by their own lifestyle AND in this teaching that they are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

So after telling Titus to teach the Christians how they should live for the health of their churches and for the health of their households and even for their own health as individuals, he gives the theological grounds for how the gospel of grace accomplishes this change of life in us.

If sin is attractive to us in the flesh, and if religious ritual is easier, why do we really change instead? What motivates us to true godly living (a life that pleases God)?

It is the gospel of God’s grace and glory in Jesus Christ by which God enacts the change in us that produces a zeal for good works.

… the kind of works that reflect his glory and grace. - The more fully we grasp the gospel of God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus—what he accomplished in the past on our behalf (at his first appearing) and that he is our assured hope of future fulfillment (at his next, glorious appearing)—the more we will be trained to live for him in the present.

Behavior befitting the gospel arises from the gospel. (or more properly, from the God of the gospel) It is God’s work in us. … We must come to understand how God’s grace and glory through Jesus are remaking us in order to be faithful to him in our present lives. 

Titus 2:11 ESV

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,

“For the grace of God has appeared.” “Appeared” is the language of epiphany, the tangible breaking in of what is divine & invisible into human history. In what particular form and event did God’s grace already appear? To Paul’s listeners, the answer is meant to be obvious.  This is the appearance of Christ in human history, referring to the whole saving event of his person and work. Just in case, though, he circles back to this person and particular event which manifested God’s grace. (It’s in the part you have labeled for you as v. 14 in your Bible.) V. 13 ends with our great God and Savior Jesus Christ… who gave himself for us (that’s the sacrifice of himself for our sins on a Roman cross), so that by his death and resurrection he might redeem a people out of their captivity and make them a pure people who are his very own.

In this appearing of God in human form, Paul makes a deliberate contrast with a Cretan view of Zeus, who rose from humanity to deity because of his benefactions to other humans, who then elevated him in status because of it. To the contrary, the true God is always above and beyond us, and his incursion into the world is from above and beyond, where he always has been. Instead of man-become-god, the truth is a story of God-become-man.

The same would be true of the broader narrative of emperor worship in the Roman world. Rather than elevating a human savior from among us, even the emperor, what we have needed all along, and God has provided, is an appearance of God becoming man and making provision for our salvation and a complete change of our present lives for all eternity.

-Such remains radiantly true to this day: “salvation is found in no one else” (Acts 4:12), and it is God’s grace through Christ alone that can affect true change in the world by remaking men into spiritual beings, set free for a life of loving and serving God.

“Bringing salvation for all people” cannot be a kind of universal salvation, a statement that everyone will be saved, since the Scriptures indicate unequivocally that only those who have true faith in Jesus will be saved (Acts 16:31, Rom 10:9-10, Mark 16:15-16, Jn 11:25-26, etc.) - However, this is a deliberate contradiction to Jewish exclusivism, demonstrating that this salvation (restoration to God in Christ) is available to all mankind. It is equally contrary to any thinking in the culture that distinctions of race, gender, or social status might make someone more worthy or likely. No, it is by God’s grace and offered to all—God’s grace through Jesus made available to all the peoples of the world.

We know that “grace” is God’s unmerited favor bestowed upon the object of his kindness. - Such grace will not have the value to you that is placed on it here in the Bible, unless you recognize who Jesus is, repent of your life of sin, which is the just cause for God’s wrath, and by faith submit to Jesus as Lord because of his sacrificial death and victorious resurrection.

Now, from this past person and event of God’s grace, received by faith, Paul gets to the heart of why he says this for his overall argument of behavior befitting the gospel. The more fully we grasp the gospel of God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus, and his assured future return in glory, the more we will be trained to live for him in the present.

Titus 2:12 ESV

12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

And everything that follows in the rest of this long sentence, including vv. 13-14, hinges on the participle “training” (instructing, teaching): that God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus (which has already appeared) is training us to live for him in the present. We are talking about how the grace and glory of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ trains us in the present for godliness and good works.

So this training/education results in a new way of living in the present age (which is tied first to renunciation of another way of living and is later tied to assured hope in a future fulfillment) - There must be a kind of education here which sets our minds to properly align our present living with what has already taken place and what will be fulfilled in us: Rom 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. - This is above all a battle for our minds and hearts.

- Training is a good translation of this verb, bc paideuo means both to discipline and instruct. [You know from parenting & coaching that we must correct and discipline and well as give positive instruction what is best.]

- Paul often uses this dual picture of what is necessary in the Christian life: put off the old things and put on the new (like a garment, Col. 3:8-14), and put to death versus bring to life (Rom 6:5-14), and the works of the flesh versus the works of the Spirit (Gal 5:16-26).

So God’s grace through Christ Jesus (based upon a past event, and further motivated by future assurance) presently trains us to…

Renounce - to deny, repudiate, disown - so then to refuse and refrain and restrain [For your health in all areas, how much do you have to learn to refuse and refrain and restrain? Ex. physical health from eating junk, mental and spiritual health to limit mindless entertainment and screen time]

- Renounce what, deny what (here in this verse)?

ungodliness - to be unrighteous because of not properly respecting God and his instructions

earthly desires - intense desires, cravings and lusts that are tied to the anti-god worldliness present in our flesh and world system because of sin and Satan - Notice how the ungodliness and wordly passions are interconnected. God gave us passions and desires and cravings, but to use them within the framework for which he created them.

And then here is the central positive thrust that God’s grace is training us for in the present, governed by a main verb…

- To live - to be alive, and to lead a certain kind of life. The emphasis here is clearly on the way we behave and conduct ourselves in our daily living because of our relationship to God. This living is modified with three adverbs:

temperately - moderately, with self-control (Here is this word again for a prudence that leads to temperance and self-control)

uprightly - righteously, justly - This seems most connected to our behavior in relationships to other people, but of course in the sight of God.

godly - with sincere reverence toward God. In Christian parlance godly means the whole of life (an entire way of living) that comes from being vitally united with God. It is the way we behave because through Christ we have become the people of the living God in his own household (1 Tim 3:15-16).

Now v. 13 adds the future focus to the past act and present way of living: the sure hope of fulfillment at the Lord’s next appearing (by which Paul further reinforces what motivates godliness and good works).

Titus 2:13 ESV

13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

The more fully we grasp the gospel of God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus, and fix our eyes and hearts on his assured future manifestation in full glory, the more we will be trained to live for him in the present.

Paul describes this posture as God’s people presently “waiting for our blessed hope,” and not idly waiting, but looking forward in the sense of eager and active expectation. And what is our blessed hope? That the grace of God enacted in the past is what ensures the ultimate blessing for us when Christ reappears in glory. Christian hope is far more than wishful thinking; Christian hope is the deep-seated conviction that the best is yet to come because all God’s promises will necessarily find their ultimate culminating fulfillment at the return of Jesus. And we have no doubts about this because of the accomplishment of his first coming!

So this second appearing that we look forward to with great assurance, anticipation, and longing, is the manifestation “of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Although other translations of the grammatical structure here can be offered, the simplest and most obvious one is in fact that the grammar intends to elevate Jesus to be glorified as our great God and Savior. One commentator on the text explains: “the single definite article before great God is best understood as controlling both nouns together, [… and] nowhere else is God the Father understood to be joining the Son in the Second Coming. [… This phrase] thus becomes one of the few unambiguous statements in the Pauline corpus that Jesus is God.” -Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 196.

From our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, Paul returns full circle to the significance for us of the manifestation of God’s grace from v. 11, using that as a driving thrust for the how and why Christians are enabled and motivated for good works.

Titus 2:14 ESV

14 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.

We discussed at verse 11, with the grace of God appearing, that the central event of Christ’s coming was his sacrificial death and resurrection, when he gave himself for us.

Toward what purpose? To “redeem us from all lawlessness” (redeem is a payment to release us from captivity, in which we are enslaved to sin and this world system under Satan’s power) - Lawlessness should here probably be understood as living in a way that does not care about what God says is right and good.

And to purify a people of his very own. This means to cleanse, to make clean. Without his sacrifice we are held captive and without it we are unclean. But by the purchase of his blood and resurrection power we are redeemed from slavery and purified to be his people.

The meaning of “a people of his very own” is that we are his special possession, adapted to a particular purpose. And that purpose seems to be that God demonstrates in us the fulfillment of the new covenant, that we are his redeemed and purified people who are zealous for what God calls good.

Finally then, these redeemed and purified people are necessarily zealous for good works, because by his grace we are enabled and motivated to a new way of living that pleases God.

To the ones tempted to be worldly (godless): Those whom Christ has redeemed cannot be unimpassioned about living a life consistent with God’s grace to us. To the Judaizers: Good works and rituals cannot sufficiently gain God’s favor; instead, it is God’s grace already extended to us which remakes us and moves us to live up to the high calling of being his people.

-I’m convinced that Paul would also warn us that we can be deceived about our status in relationship to God. If your life is marked by patterns of worldly passions and mere religiosity so that you feel like you’re “good with the man upstairs,” beware. You are self-deceived. The God of all glory and grace is not content to have just your lip-service; God the Son gave his life to redeem us from all lawlessness and to consecrate a people who are quite evidently his very own. (We can’t just fit right in with the ways of thinking and practices of the worldly, because we aren’t those people any longer. We are, each one of us, entirely God’s redeemed and purified people.)

-I’m also convinced that if we are complacent in our Christian growth and behavior, our complacency is due to a lack of true understanding and appreciation for God’s grace and glory in Christ Jesus, and of what his intention is for us. - If the gospel of grace doesn’t grip you, if the theology of God in his word doesn’t enthrallyou, you’re not doing it right. There’s still too much of you and your will and your way of thinking and not enough of God and his character and his will and his way of thinking.

And what are the good works that we become zealous for when we see ourselves as God’s redeemed and purified possession? Good works are to recognize and to do all that God calls good. Will we call good what God says is good, and evil what God says is evil? And will we do good according to what God says is good, no matter what the culture and society around us is clamoring for, which is in fact not good?

- Here again is our application in preparation for actively participating in the election on November 5. In particular, will you embrace the opportunity to do good to others in Missouri, according what God says is good, and vote “no” on amendment 3 in order to protect protect babies, to protect women (yes, protect women), and to protect families and children from harm? If this bill should pass, may it not be because God’s people in MO didn’t make every effort to try to do good to others in spite of their own misguided blindness to what God calls good.

To close out this section on behavior befitting the gospel, culminating in the theological basis of grace-trained zeal for good works, Paul addresses Titus once more.

Titus 2:15 ESV

15 Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Titus, insist on this and don’t back down.

Say these things with all authority: the authority of Christ himself (Mt 28:18), the authority of his Apostles (here namely Paul), and the authority of God’s own word (what God calls good). Exhort and rebuke: the very same training instruction which requires both the negative warnings and corrections as well as the positive instruction and exhortation. Don’t back down from anyone who might oppose you in speaking this truth.

Titus, insist on teaching these things and don’t be intimidated by those who would pressure to stop speaking the truth that everyone needs to hear.

Which we have said today is this:

Between Christ’s first and second appearances, we live by the grace of God and for the glory of God, producing in us a zeal for what God calls good.

It is the gospel of the grace and glory of Jesus Christ by which God enacts the change in us that produces a present zeal for good works.

The more fully we grasp the gospel of God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus—what he accomplished in the past on our behalf (at his first appearing) and that he is therefore our assured hope of future fulfillment (at his next, glorious appearing)—the more we will be trained to live for him in the present.

The more fully we grasp the gospel of God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus, and the glory to be revealed in his reappearing, the more we will be trained to live for him in the present.

PRAY

———