Text Titus 2:11 – 15 The Gospel teaches saints to reject sin.

A. What is a Christian?

1. Paul says it is one who has received grace. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation” V. 11a.

a. A Christian is one who has received the grace of God. Grace means “gratuitous favor.

b. This gratuitous favor brings salvation. “that bringeth salvation” V. 11b

c. Let’s notice Romans 3:24 “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:” The word “freely” means - without a cause.

d. What Paul is saying here in Titus is, a Christian is one who has been justified (made righteous) by the gratuitous favor of God, and it is that grace that brought about salvation.

2. A Christian is one who the glorious light of salvation has shined on. “salvation hath appeared to all men,” V. 11c

a. The word “appeared” means - to shine upon, that is, to become visible or made to be known. It would be like turning on a light switch in a very dark room.

b. That light was turned on because God freely or without a cause by grace or as a gratuitous favor elected to do so.

c. Isaiah 9:2 “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”

d. Luke 1:79 “To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

3. To who was it revealed? “to all men,”

a. This is like John 3:16 and the word world. Never does God make salvation available to every single person nor does He have grace on every single person. Romans 9:22 “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:”

b. The words “to all men,” means – to all that it had been hidden. Just as the word world in John 3:16 means to the different races or Nations of people so does the wll men here mean to all different kinds of people for example: Romans 9:24 “Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” The word fitted means framed or prepared.

c. But here we see some that God by grace has blessed with the turning on of the light, and those are the ones referenced to here.

B. What are the results of salvation? “Teaching us that,” V. 12a

1. This same grace that saved our souls also teaches us. The word “teaching” means to train up a child. That is the teaching here, to teach us right from wrong. “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,”

a. 1^st Corinthians 11:32 “But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.”

b. Hebrews 12:6-7 “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. (7.) If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?”

c. In Brother Mink’s study in Ephesians, he is speaking about the purity of the church and he makes this statement; “The Lord loves His church, and provides for her every single need. If a true church lack in the least thing it is due to the church having not availed herself of the supply provided by her head, Jesus Christ. Everything the church needs for her welfare and happiness on this earth has been purchased by Christ for her, and is as close to the church as the finger tips of prayer. Many churches have not because they ask not.” The chastening of the Lord for the church is to withdraw needed things or blessings, to us as children it is also to withdraw blessings.

2. The child training of the Lord is “we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;”

a. The only way to keep pure the blessing that God has bestowed on us is to reject the temptations of the world.

b. This is a day by day work. Luke 9:23 “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

c. Just as we cannot without grace be saved, without grace we cannot reject sin. However the catch to it is “take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

C. It is because of this grace in our salvation and the teaching of the Lord by His grace that we look forward to, “Looking for that blessed hope,” V. 13a

1. That is expecting the grand object of our hope, eternal life.

a. The eternal life is not for our faithfulness but rather because of the grace.

b. The blessed hope is our eternal life with our Lord and Saviour. We should be ready to see Him. Are we? 1^st John 3:3 “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”

c. Just as the church is to make herself ready, we are to as Christians are to make ourselves ready.

2. But we are not only looking for our hope but also for our Saviour. “glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” V. 13b

a. This is summed up in 2^nd Timothy 4:8 “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” Will we be glad or ashamed?

b. Do we need more time to purify ourselves or are we ready?

3. He made us pure, “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

a. To make clean a chosen people. Why, So that they would be fervent of good works.

b. The same grace that saved our souls, teaches us, and that teaching is to shed the pleasures of this world and keep focused on Jesus Christ our Saviour, this same Jesus that shed His glorious blood to make us clean. This is what Paul is saying.

c. Hebrews 9:14 “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”