The beginning of a New Year is a good time to look back and reflect on where we have been. It is a time to look forward to where are we going in the year ahead.
It is a time when, like the two-headed Roman god Janus (after which they named “January”) we do well to look both ways at once.
We teach our children to look both ways, crossing the road:
– first to the right,
– then to the left,
– then to the right again.
Then walk; no one will walk for them.
“Look both ways, and walk,” we tell them.
The Christian “walk” is also like that.
To walk safely:
– look to the right,
– look to the left,
– then look to the right again.
Then walk.
“Look both ways, and live,”
Live
In his immensely practical letter, written to his young protégé Titus, Paul talks a lot about how a Christian is to live.
In chapter 2 he gives very specific instructions for Titus to pass on to six specific groups of people:
- Older men (v 2)
- Older women (v 3)
- Young women, in the advice that older women are to give them (vv 4-5)
- Young men (v 6)
- Then to Titus himself (vv 7-8)
- And, finally, to bondservants, slaves (vv 9-10)
It doesn’t matter who you are in life, whatever your station in life, there is a God-honouring way you are to live out that life, if you are a Christian.
But, why should I live this way?
The “Because” of Living
1.“Because”
In v 11 Paul gives the reason: “Because the grace of God…”
Older men, be sober…
Older women, be reverent…
Young women, love your husbands, love your children…
Young men, to be sober-minded…
Titus, yourself, be a pattern of good works…
Bondservants, be obedient and well pleasing…
…because
… then Paul goes on to give the reason for living like this.
And essentially, it boils down to this: You must live like this because of what you believe.
Paul often does this throughout his epistles. Only, usually, the order is reversed.
Usually Paul begins with stating what we believe; then he follows on from that to say, “Well, if this is what you believe, this is how you should live.”
Paul ties how you “walk”, how you live, to what you profess to believe.
You get it in:
– Romans ch 12 (after 11 chapters laying a foundation in the gospel): “Therefore I beseech you to present your bodies a living sacrifice…”
– Ephesians ch 4 (after 3 chapters laying a similar foundation in the gospel): “Therefore, I beseech you to walk worthy…”
2. “Appearing”
In Titus ch 2, Paul tells us a Christian’s conduct is to be shaped by our faith in two “appearing’s”.
– First we look back (“look to the right”): “Because the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men…” (v 11)
– Then we look forward (“look to the left”): “…looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ…” (v 13)
– Then (at least by implication) we look to the right again, we look back to that first “appearing”, when Jesus “gave Himself for us…” (v 14)
That is how a Christian is to live; that is why a Christian is to live this way.
It is bound up with those two “appearing’s”.
In the Bible, the word “appearing” (“epiphany”) refers to what was previously hidden, suddenly comes into view.
It doesn’t mean it wasn’t there before; it just wasn’t visible before – as (in the only secular use of the word in the Bible) when the “sun and stars” had not “appeared for many days” in Acts 27:20.
Apart from this reference in Acts 27, every other use (9 times) of the word “epiphany” in the Bible refers either to the first coming, or the second coming, of Christ.
It’s not that Christ isn’t/wasn’t “there”.
It’s just that, apart from His first or second coming, we do not see him.
He has not “appeared”.
1) The first coming is there in v 11:“the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared”.
This refers not only to Christ’s work for us on the cross, but also to the appearing of the grace of the love of God the Father, and the grace of the Holy Spirit – all of which “appeared” at that time.
2) The second “appearing” looks forward, specifically, to the second coming of “our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (v 13, note the explicit reference to the deity of Christ!)
3) Then Paul turns our eyes back to what Christ accomplished, again at His first appearing, when “He gave Himself for us” (v 14)
We are bound to live this way because of these two “appearing’s”.
How are we to live?
What does God’s grace (that “appeared” in the past, and will “appear” again in the future) teach us about how we are to live now?
Paul says that grace like does indeed “teach” us, where the word “teach” there refers specifically to training a “child” in self-discipline.
How does such grace train us?
1. Negatively
“The grace of God trains us to lead a disciplined life in which we deny ungodliness and worldly lusts” (v 12)
Note that grace does not teach us we can live however we like; i.e. “After all, if we are ‘saved by grace’ what does it matter how we live: God will always forgive us anyway.”
Nor does grace mean we don’t have to exert ourselves to live a godly life; i.e. “After all, if it is ‘all of God’, there is nothing we can do.”
No!
It is true, left to ourselves, we would be no match for sin and temptation.
We need the mighty influence of God’s grace in our lives, if we are to constantly and consistently say ‘No’, rather than ‘Yes’, to yielding to all kinds of temptations.
But by God’s grace, we will, we must, say ‘No’ to yielding to all kinds of temptations.
God doesn’t say ‘No’ for you.
He gives you the power to say ‘No’, the power of grace.
But you are the one who actually says ‘No’.
2. Positively
“The grace of God trains us to lead a disciplined life soberly, righteously, and godly”. (v 12)
Commentators point out that those three terms sum up all our relationships in life:
– “soberly” refers to the way we are to live in ourselves
– “righteously” refers to how we are to relate to others
– “godly” refers to how we are to relate to God.
But in this, Paul is just summing up in general terms, the specific ways he has described how the six specific groups of people he referred to before are to behave.
1) Back there (in vv 1-10) Paul continually stressed the importance of living “soberly”, i.e. exercising self-control.
Throughout, the word for “sober”, “sober-minded”, “soberly”, (Greek: sōphrōn, sōphronōs) is variously translated in the NKJV, as:
– “temperate” (older men)
– “admonish”, (Greek: sōphronizō) i.e. teach self-control (older women to young women)
– “discreet” (young women)
– “sober-minded” (young men)
This obviously loomed large in Paul’s thinking.
In fact it is the only advice he gives to young men.
It is particularly sad, therefore, when an older man, or a leader in the church, makes life decisions indulging his emotions rather than thinking things through soberly for the good of others and the glory of God.
How different was Caleb, that I read about in my morning devotions today:
– thwarted from obtaining his inheritance at age 40 by the unbelief of his fellow (supposedly) “believers”
– suffering, because of their unbelief, through another 40 years in the wilderness
– fighting for their children’s inheritance for another five years
…yet never giving up on them, and eventually (at 85!) making request for the hardest-to-win portion of land in Canaan.
How did he persevere?
Because, all the time, he looked back to God’s promise, while looking ahead to obtain his promised inheritance. (Joshua 14:9,12)
Likewise, we are continually to be looking back to what Christ has accomplished for us on the cross, while looking ahead to our inheritance when Christ shall come again.
Only then will we lead a Caleb-like self-disciplined life that honours God.
2) You get something similar (in vv 1-10) when it comes to how we should relate to others (“righteously”).
Note: “love, “patience”,“not slanderers”,“love husbands”,“love children”,“obedient to masters” etc.
3) So, too “godly”: all that Paul told those six groups of people before includes godly behaviour.
Note: “reverent”,“reverent in behaviour”,“reverence”,“that the word of God may not be blasphemed”, etc
If we really believe what we profess (looking back to the work of Christ on the cross, looking forward to Christ coming again) we will live:
– soberly, self-controlled lives, disciplining the way we think,
– righteously, seeking to do the right thing by others,
– godly, focusing above all in a way that brings all glory to God.
Looking to the right again
Then Paul would have us take another look back to when Christ “gave Himself for us” (v 14)
What does that have to do with how we live now?
Everything!
Why did Christ go to the cross?
“…that He might (negatively) redeem us from every lawless deed and (positively) purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
That’s why Christ suffered and died on your behalf, and on my behalf.
Can I, can you, seriously claim Christ as our own, can we sing that we have “an interest in the Saviour’s blood”, and not live for what that Saviour’s blood was spilt for?
Think about what it would’ve meant for the bondservants, the slaves, in Paul’s audience to hear about “being redeemed.”
Because that’s what redemption means: it means you were a slave, then someone paid the enormous price to buy your freedom. It was what every slave dreamed about.
But here is Paul saying, “Look, we were all slaves: slaves to ungodliness and worldly lusts, slaves to sin, and self, and unrighteousness – the very opposite of the disciplined mind, and righteousness and godliness that we ought to be. But Christ laid down His life to buy our freedom from slavery to sin, and self, and unrighteousness.”
That being so, shall we return to living in bondage to sin?
Would a slave in Paul’s day, whose freedom was bought at so great a price, willingly return to a life of slavery?
Furthermore, we have been saved that we might be “enthusiastic to do good works.”
That’s what we were saved for.
Grace trains us to deny ourselves, and instead to be enthusiastic for good works.
A Faithful Saying
Notice you get the same reasoning in ch 3:4-7, one of the greatest summaries of the gospel in all the Bible:
When the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us,
through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that having been justified by His grace
…we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Here is the work of the three Persons of the Godhead in our salvation:
– the love of God the Father, our Saviour
– the washing and renewing of the Holy Spirit
– the justifying work of Christ for us by the cross…
But. for what purpose?
“…that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.”
Look both ways…
Look to the right; look back to when “the grace of God that brings salvation appeared to all men”
Look to the left; look forward to “that blessed hope, when our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ will appear in glory again”
Then look to the right; look back again to Christ “who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
…and, live!
– “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts”
– “soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age”