Titus lesson 9 continued

We are hopefully going to finish lesson 9 today in the Titus book studies. I'd like to go through the verses that we've been covering, actually what Miles has covered, and then what we're covering today. So we're going to read Titus 2, 11 through 14, and then we've been looking at 13 and 14 for our study here at 9, but I'll read the whole passage. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly and righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good works. So, I think we are, and this is going to drive me nuts, I forgot my mouse today, so I've got to do it with a pad or actually have a touch screen so I can do it that way. I think we got through, did we get through, let me see, I think we are starting on question nine. I think we have nine, ten, and eleven to go today.

The question nine, is lawlessness an indication of sin? It's in verse 14, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works or good deeds. So first, what are your thoughts? Is Paul speaking directly of sins or the results of sinning? The lawless deeds. To redeem us from every lawless deed. Is that directly about sins or the result of sinning?

Or is that a crazy question? Stunned silence. Either a bad question or you have no clue. Okay, so the Greek word here is anomia. That means anomia. Don't get me. I'll try to get better on the Greek pronunciation. Like I said, I need Hal back to help me with all the Greek pronunciations of this. Lawlessness.

In most cases in the New Testament, it means not the absence of the law, but the violation of the law, i.e. transgression or lawlessness. In the New Testament, it places stress, not in the subjective law that we ourselves create for our own convenience, but chiefly in the divinely instituted law. So, again from Zodiates, for as you have yielded your members, servants, to uncleanliness and to iniquity, anomia, onto iniquity. Anomian means you are obedient to depraved desires so as to work iniquity.

There may not be a specific law against depraved or lustful desires, but nevertheless they are sins. So, what do you think this is? Is this sins or the results of sin that you do lawless deeds? Yeah. Isn't the word deeds used for both good deeds and lawless deeds and evil deeds? Yeah. And so the deeds themselves are actions where they're then either actions that are associated with the Lord and in our case, the law of life, which is Christ, right? versus the law of Moses, which condemns a man, and in this case they are sins according to the law. Yeah.

Is that right? The law or law? I think this is in a Jewish context, so it's not the law, is it? So it is, it's a larger principle of law. Right. Yeah. Basically. I worked that out for a second. Go back, go back real quick. Yeah, it's not violating the law, a law.

It's doing, as it said, it may not be a specific law against depraved or lustful desires, but nevertheless, they're sin. You're missing the mark. You're not violating the law. You're just doing things that, as a believer in Christ, should not Not good. I don't know how to say it other than kind of like the way this was. There's not a specific law against the prayed or lustful desires, but nevertheless they're sin. It's missing the mark.

Did you have? Yeah. I think it ties good with Romans 7. And there it is the law that the principle is there. It says, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. Yeah, you know, actually, you know, this brings me back a little bit with Ingrid and the CBS ladies, when they were going through, are we under law? You know, not the, you know, a lot of the Ten Commandments and everything. But when you look at the, and I'm just in my daily readings, I come across more.

What is the power of sin? Law. What enrages sin? Law. And so, this is kind of the flip sides. The lawless or bad deeds are sins. It's kind of the flip to what we're talking about here a little bit, but it's still the same. If you're sinning, you're doing something that isn't appropriate or isn't in your life of Christ.

The other one I had besides the seven was 2 Corinthians 6.14.

Do not be bound together with unbelievers, for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? So, again, the two don't go together. The lawless deeds or the things that you're doing shouldn't be associated with a believer. You shouldn't be doing those. Light and dark shouldn't be righteousness and lawlessness shouldn't be together. And again, it's not a specific law. It's just the things that you as a believer shouldn't be doing or thinking or whatever.

The rest of that verse in 7, Psalm 70, Paul says, I wouldn't, and I don't like the word they use because it doesn't, in our language in 2023, it doesn't help us. I would not have known coming such a loss that we wouldn't come. I don't really know what that word is. I would not have known that I was a desirer of earth unless Paul said, you can't desire.

And so that's what the sin nature does. It desires. And here comes a law. And the law says you can't do that. And as soon as it says that, there comes a desire of every kind. Thank you. There comes a desire of every kind that there is. And what happens is, then I have violated statutes not statutes, laws. In other words, I'm sinning. So that I think if I'm lawless, yeah, it is an indicator that I'm sinning. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think the other way, you know, you brought memory, I think it was in James about the progression where, you know, I look, I desire that and it falls down and then you get into sin. Take the bait. So, you know, what I was thinking about was this, and it was in the desire. What does the desire mean? The one thing, if I'm desiring, well, I guess, how do I say that?

And we use this word in the beginning of one of the other lessons. What am I doing if I take my eyes off Christ and I desire something else? And that's where the progression comes down in James, is I take my eyes off the Lord And then I start, oh, and then I go down this slippery slope. And James, I forget the exact progression, but you start basically with looking and desiring something else.

And that's where I think this lawlessness is. I'm desiring something else besides Christ. And, you know, and I still, it's one of those verses I still struggle with a little bit. Everything that is not a faith is sin. I'd struggle with that. It's like, so if I'm not 24 seven, in faith in my sinning that whole time. So I need that verse reinforced in me somehow that it's not 24-7 how that verse means.

But the same principle is if I take my eyes off Christ and I start going down this road, where does it lead? Sin, ultimately sin. If you take lawless and then you start going over here and your desires start focusing over here and not on Christ, the James path is it ultimately leads in sin or the lawless deed. And it's not the sin like thou shalt not murder. That if the law comes in and says, no, you're not supposed to do that, it gets worse. Well, we use example and you use example too.

It's like, you know, don't touch wet paint. What is your first inclination? You got to try it. Is it really wet? You know, and that's just, I always, I think of that as just a totally expression of the sinful man, sinful flesh is, you know, it's hot. Don't touch it. It's really hot.

You know, the don't, when he, as soon as you put a law, this, the, the flesh wants to go after it. And that's where all those verses that say sin empowers, or is empowered by law. You put something out there that says don't, the flesh says I'm going after it.

Yeah. Yeah, I was looking at 2 Corinthians 6, there's a contrast here that might be helpful. It says, do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, for what fellowship has light with darkness. Yeah, that's what I was just reading. Oh, you just read it? Yeah. I'm sorry. Now, 614? Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. Righteousness and law. Do they go together? Right. So as a believer, should that be our modus operandi? Mixing lawlessness with righteousness?

And we're all sin. I mean, you know, I look at the Roman 7 and Paul gives us a great example. Here's a guy who gives us everything about who we are in Christ, and yet he struggles with it. It's not to say that nobody's sinless perfection. So we all go down this road. And it's not that anybody's perfect about it, but you should recognize it.

As your eyes are off and you start going here, when you start doing something, what have you done? When you realize you're going down this road is I've taken my eyes off Christ and that something is desiring and pulling me away and then so You know getting getting back to the verse that he redeemed us from those lawless deeds Again, I look back at the it. What does what does that mean who redeemed us from those lawless deeds? Redeem is to buy out buy out right we've gone through that.

So what's he saying? He's saying, you know, this is where If you're a believer, and like I said, we all still sin. He's redeemed us from that. He's brought us out of that. Even if we go down, He's redeemed us from those stupid things we do. And that's, I think, the important thing about this is not only that we... I don't know how to put this. We still will do that, but He's redeemed us from it.

He's paid for all those sins. And that's what I tell with believers that beat themselves up on sinning. I mean, if you're continually sinning in a direction, then I think the Lord's going to work on you. But when you beat yourself up and pound yourself down for that sin, did He pay for that sin? He did. And it's like, confess that, you know, 1 John 1, 9, confess Him. It's not who I am in Christ. That's not who I should be or what I'm doing. Confess and move on because He's already paid for it.

And that's why I think the important part of this, we're talking about the lawless deeds, but I think the more important part of that is that He's redeemed us from those. Yeah. You know, in answer to your issue about faith, what's interesting here is that what faith allows us to do is to take God at His word and say, I've been redeemed. The cross did what God said it did. And so I'm going to rest in that. rather than not do this because I'm told not to. Right, right.

And so that living by faith is just sort of understanding what God has done and believing Him. Yeah, faith is believing. Believing is Word. So, you know, so that, you know, the broader context is not believing in His sins. Yeah, it is. So, what do you mean that, you know? You didn't pay for that for me. unbelief. Well, that's the greatest line did God really say. Yeah, yeah.

One thought that kind of comes to mind from our Monday Night Studies is the difference between, as a believer, emulating Christ for righteous deeds versus beholding Him and He producing those righteous deeds. Right. And so when we're walking by faith, we're not saying, what's the right thing to do here? I mean, there may be that consideration, but ultimately, as a believer, we have the privilege of not simply emulating that deed once we know what that deed might be, but actually beholding Him as He works through us to do that deed.

And I think that's part of spiritual growth. I think early on we do things because of... Yeah, we follow a rule. We follow it. But as you become more intimately acquainted with Christ, then it's becoming a life and a manifestation of that life rather than a rule that I'm following. But that's predicated on the fact that you're knowing Christ. You're getting to that point. Because He's conforming you to His Son, and then that life is manifest.

It's not that switch going back and forth between, is it right, is it wrong? It's a life. And we'll always still struggle with that until we get rid of these bodies. It's not that somebody's going to get to the point where I'm 100%. It's never going to be that way. But as you get your knowledge of Christ, then the life is manifested. It's not a judgment system of right and wrong. Any other thoughts? Okay.

Who are the people, question 10, who are the people of his own possession? So again out of that one for he gave himself to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession zealous for good deeds Pretty easy question. So who? Who is the people for his possession his own possession? We are believers. Thank you, Cheryl Yeah, it's us he redeemed us the ones who he gave himself up for it at the cross that's who he his possession is, a people for his own possession, is us. And then, you know, I think I got into this. Yeah, I did.

So, from Zodiatus, the word for possession is, and I'm not going to do it because Mike will probably correct me on it, perusios, whatever, which means abundant, costly, select, used only in Titus 2.14. and translated peculiar. It refers to God's chosen people in whom he has a special interest, one which exceeds his common concern for mankind in general.

Thus, the phrase should better be translated, his treasured people, the same as purchased people referred to in 1 Peter 2.9.

I thought that was really good, you know, and it's kind of interesting when you think about that. He has a special interest, one which exceeds his common concern for mankind in general. What do you think about that statement translated? Do you think that's right? It's interesting. He has a special interest, one which exceeds his common concern for mankind in general. I kind of took that and was like, I really like that, but then God so loved the world. He loves everyone. He desires everyone to come to know his son and have a life in his son. But we are for his own possessions, desired for.

You think that's different than general mankind? He also desires to purify for himself us, which is different from those who do not believe. Right. So that care in purifying to himself is unique to a believer. Yeah. Maybe he cares for us. That's kind of an interesting thought. You know, and when I read this, and we'll get down a little bit about his own possession, he desires for his own possession.

Does he lift us up above general mankind? The non-believers? Sets us apart and that's what I was trying to he sets us apart and it's a different a different love God still loves all of mankind those he's still to the day they end The Holy Spirit will be working on them to bring them into into life in Christ But for us we're separated and I think he has a special love for us That's in and above what for mankind, he still desires them, but were his own possessions.

I thought that was pretty cool. And actually said, remember from question one, we discussed the looking and what it meant. You know, he's looking and quickly go back there. Sorry, I don't have my mouse. Looking for the blessed hope in the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior. We lifted that word looking and Back down here It was an intense readiness or expectancy for the Lord's return The reason the Lord the reason is the Lord is coming back for his treasured people us his possession so as we touched on in previous answer and Is God selfish that he wants a people for his own possession? We touched on it a little bit last week and I thought about that over the week.

Is God selfish that he wants a people for his own possession? He desires that all he saves is different. This is different. Is he selfish? I thought about this all week. I don't think so because God is love. God still loves the world. That he made provision for everyone to come to him to be one of these. But he doesn't want anybody with him who doesn't want to be there.

Is he selfish in the possession? I haven't thought. This has just been ricocheting in my mind because we talked about it a little last week. So, I'd be curious. Selfishness from God's perspective, right? Meaning, I want for myself a people. I want to purify those people unto myself.

That is a godly, quote-unquote, selfishness. The finite version of that is a different function. Like, we do not have entire attributes of God in order to function with what we want. So, we end up usually operating based on our flesh, right? So, we selfishly want things. However, I do think that the Lord desires to himself a people who will trust him for what he has done on the cross.

And those people are his people. Okay. Yeah. Does that have anything to do with him manifesting his glory? There you go. There's the answer right there. Okay. Explain that. If he's selfish, it's because It allows him to manifest his glory in a special way that might not be able to be done without a special influence. Interesting. Okay.

I think the answer is that God does everything for his own glory. So when you think about what is God's glory? It's for you. What is God's glory? Well, it's a manifestation of who He is, His attributes. Well, He's love, joy, peace. There's no selfishness in that. For Him to even consider that He would manifest His glory to and through a human being, one of His creatures, is the height of There couldn't be anything selfish about that. Can't be. Because he's God and he says to you, I'm going to make you like me if you trust me.

Okay. Any other thoughts? So maybe I didn't take it as much. I think it's more, JD, kind of what you said. The reason is because Last week after we said something that was selfish, I thought, wow, our earthly or our thing, selfish is a bad thing. It's part of the sin nature. Is it a bad thing for God to be selfish? No. I don't think you can ascribe the word to Him. I don't know if you can or you can't. But it, you know, we said that last week, almost, I think you said it was kind of, oh, it's not, you know, selfish. It kind of was a bad connotation.

I thought, the way I put this, and I have it in bold letters, this is the God of the universe who wants us so badly that he sent his son to earth to die and pay for all the sins of the world so he could offer salvation to everyone who believes. Are we rejecting even if he is selfish? He wants us so bad that he gave us his son, paid for all the sins that we've done. I don't care if he's selfish. It's a great thing that God is so desirous of us to be in his son that he sent his son to die for us.

I would think that the word selfish has to do with me. What God has done is for his creatures. In other words, it isn't about, I get everything. I'm flipping it around, not us, I'm not talking about us, from God's perspective. The reason that selfishness doesn't fit with God is because he's done all this things for his own glory, but his glory isn't, the basic core of who God is, is he's a lover. Yeah, God is a lover. that finds extremely high value in the one who's loved. There's nothing selfish about it.

And that's what I'm saying. From my perspective, it's great that he was so selfish, if that's a word that you're going to attribute to him, that he loved me so much that he gave me his son. And it's more, I just thought it was kind of an interesting thing, and maybe we can't even ascribe selfishness to God. It just was, we kind of said it last week, it was kind of like, oh, he can't do that. Well, I thought, well, I kind of like it because I'm the recipient of that selfishness, if it is. If you can attribute to that, he's saying he loves us so much he gave us his son. That's how, quote, if you can attribute it, selfish, that he desired us so much that he gave us his son, paid for all the sins that we did, And we're the recipient of that love and whether, you know, selfishness or not.

But it was kind of the connotation we ended, I think, in the class last week. And I thought, I really don't care if he's selfish, that he desired me so much that he gave his son. I don't care whatever that word is. He desired us so much. He gave us his son. That's how much he loved us. And so it was just a thought, you know, about kind of selfishness was a kind of a pejorative against God. And I thought, no, it's not. And maybe it's not the right word. Again, we kind of touched on it.

So, as I said, I'm overjoyed by the fact that God loves me so much that he selfishly wants me to fellowship with him throughout eternity. And whether it's selfish or not, it's the process that he loved us so much he gave us his son. He desired us that much.

So, all right. That was just something that was ricocheting around in my brain most of last week after, like I said, some of the comments. Question 11. What makes them zealous for good works? Remember, so again, who gave himself first to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession. Zealous for good deeds. Just remember we started this section, 11-14, it started with, For the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. with that as a basis and then looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus who gave himself up to redeem us from every lawless deed to purify for himself a people for his own possession. How can we not be zealous for good deeds?

Define good. good, as opposed to lawless. The flip side of lawless. It's not an instruction book of good things. It's the manifestation of Christ. That's the good deeds. The lawless is focused off of Christ. The good deeds are the things in Christ. So, as I said, I mean, well, any thoughts before I I mean, why wouldn't you be zealous to do good things after what we've just read about how God loved us so much, He gave His Son for us, He's purifying us, He's drawn us into His family, and then we're kind of, eh, that's okay.

Tomorrow's Monday. I was reading a thing this week from Harry Ironside. Sometimes he can be pretty bold. He said the reason that people won't come to Christ is because they love their sin more than anything else. Boy, you know that. It's me or him. It's what I want. It's my sinfulness. I love that. Self-focused. Yeah. I just lost the thought. You say it all the time. There's never been a sin you didn't want to do. No. It's kind of a weird thought when, as a believer, even the same.

But what do we do when we do that? Just what we said about the lawless deeds, what do we do? We look over here. What happens when we focus on Christ? Our life in Christ? Our unity with Christ? What happens with that? Walk in the Spirit? Those things are manifest? If you're looking at Christ, knowing that's your life, that's who you are, that's what becomes manifest. Those are the good deeds. Yeah. Where does it start? God is love. God so loved. And then what? We, we loved him because he first loved us. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, when, but versus the lawless deeds versus the good deeds, what does it make?

I guess the thing is when you focus on that, you're focusing on Christ and you're thinking about Christ God. The manifestation is coming out because you're focusing on who your life is. And that's the good deed. And it is the flip side of the lawless because we're off Christ and we're doing this and we're going off on our own desires and lusts and different things. The good deeds are manifest when we focus on Christ and who we are in Christ and our unity with Christ, our life with Christ. and how well you know him. And that's again the spiritual maturity part of it.

The more you know him, the less the world becomes attractive. And those desires diminish as you focus more on a daily, minute-by-minute focus of who you are in Christ and who Christ is. And then the good deeds, you'll be zealous to do them. You want to do them because that's who you are.

You know, I just, and it was, I just looked at it as first quarantine something. And it was, it's, and I have to, oh, I just looked at it. It's a verse that says, It's kind of like, you are who you are associated with. There's a verse in there that, and it's in Corinthians. No, it's in Corinthians, because that's my daily reading right now. It's in Corinthians. I highlight it in my Bible, unfortunately. I didn't do it in my... But there's a verse that says, you know, that you're covered by the people who you hang around with. Is that generally the gist of the verse? Well, if you hang around with Christ, who are you going to emulate?

You know, your parents always said, don't hang out with him. He's bad. He's a bad influence on you. Stay away from him. You know, stay away. Well, because you're colored by or influenced by that bad influence. Well, the beautiful side of Christ is if we hang out with him, we're colored by him. Our life is now his life, our life. We get to see who we are. It's who you hang out with. I have to find that verse. I think it's in the end of 1 Corinthians. It's something about how you hang out with people. If you hang out with the Lord, that's who you're going to be colored by. The last one is from Constable. I like the way he put this.

Verse 11 through 14 are notable for their perfect balance of doctrine with living. Beginning with the incarnation, the grace of God hath appeared, verse 11, they related this doctrine to a life that denies evil practices, practices good here, and now verse 12, that sees in the return of Christ the incentive for godly conduct, looking for that blessed hope. Verse 13, that realizes in personal holiness and good works the purpose of the atonement. Verse 14, the passage is one of the most concise summations in the entire New Testament of the relationship of the gospel truth to life.

You know, it's just Again, our focus on Christ, the glorious, we're going to summarize, the looking, we're looking expectantly for his return, of his glory, not the glorious appearing, as we said, but of his glory. And then how that colors us. Not to do lawless deeds, he's purifying us. And then we are zealous to do good works, good deeds. which is just a result of the manifestation of life in us. So it's a really, I mean, we've spent a lot of time on these few verses, but it's a real summarization of Christ in us. So, any other final thoughts? Otherwise, what time are we? Oh, we're there, I think. Any other thoughts before we close? Again, a very important passage for us as believers. All right, let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you. Thank you again for this section of your Word.

It seems like the overriding thought throughout all of this is your love for us and your desire for us. And it's for us to know you in such a way that we'll manifest Christ and the good deeds and to live righteously, sensibly. All the things that are called out here, that's only a result of the indwelling spirit convincing us and convicting us of these truths, and then the manifestation of your Son through us. And again, we thank you for that. We thank you, just your desire to have us as your possessions. And we just relish that fact, that you love us so much that you sent us your Son. to pay for all the sins that we did in order for you to graciously offer us salvation through that completed work. So we thank you and again just pray for the remainder of this day that all that we say and do will honor and glorify you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.