So please wrap it up. All right, AV team, can you match the slide? All right. Hope you guys have had some fruitful discussion. Was this an easy passage or very difficult? It was dense, right? So if I get to this-- I'm now at the end of chapter 2. And there are some internal objections and questions that I might have.

And I put them on there for you. It's calling us to not be argumentative, not pilfering if we're a bond slave. If I'm a man, an older man, I'm supposed to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in love and faith and perseverance. If I'm a young woman, I'm supposed to be subject to my own husband.

Like, there's all of these things. So the natural question, if you didn't grow up in the church, would be, why? Why should I live like this? I'm my own boss. Why should I live like this? And if I did grow up in the church, I'm a cynic because I've tried it all.

And then I fall short, right? Is it possible to live like this, to be sensible, to be holy, because I have strong desires for different things. Is it possible for me to live like this? And then there's some snarky people that might say, well, what happens if we don't live like this?

How far do we-- can I be a Christian and not be zealous for good deeds? Can a true Christian still be worldly? Those are objections that will come up. And then some people who are really hardworking, overachievers, will be like, what is the reward for living like this? If a thief on the cross did nothing, he got the same reward as someone who spends 50 years serving the Lord and sacrificing on the mission field, the same reward.

There might as well be the thief on the cross. These are some human thoughts that we have. So these are the objections that are going to be there. And today's section is the second one that is full of theology. The first one was very brief in chapter 1 in the beginning.

And then two weeks from now, we're actually going to look at chapter 3 that give you the motivation. So we've gone over this slide before. And I'm going to start with verse 15. With all authority-- and you'll see, hopefully, why I'm doing this. These things speak and exhort and reprove.

With all authority, let no one disregard you. This almost seems very like it's a license for me to abuse my authority in some ways, right? So here are some questions. What are these things? And this is very common of the Pauline epistles. And it includes what was said and then what is going to be said.

And then what are the things that are to be spoken? What are the things that need to be exhorted and reproved? So what are these things? And what is the source of the authority for the servant of God? And these are three of the questions that I came up with for myself.

And it's something similar that comes up in Titus 3.8. This is a trustworthy statement. And concerning these things, I want you to speak confidently so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. So there's a similar theme that's a common. These things are good and profitable for men.

So what's my authority? Would you say for me, is it my education and my degrees that give me my authority? How about my experiences? Is that what gives me my authority or my age? Hey, I was a CEO in my former life. Now I'm a pastor. So I know how to manage people.

Listen to me. Maybe my age. It's weird that now I'm on the older side of our church. And I'm still young. So is it my age? Because you're 20 years younger than me. Listen to what I have to say. You don't know what you're talking about, freshly bam. So if I'm talking to-- Emily's looking at me right here.

So let's say I'm talking to Emily's mom. Do I say, I am younger than you, so I'm more hip. Listen to me. Is that my authority? So what is my authority? Is it my size? I'm fatter than most. Listen, or I'll sit on you. You will die. Is that my authority?

So here it is. Paul says something similar to Timothy. And I'm going to read this for you. "Evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." These are false prophets. And remember, I've mentioned this in the past. A false prophet usually doesn't even know he's a false prophet.

It's dangerous. So deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you've learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them. Because remember, Timothy, from an early age, from a child, he learned the Holy Scriptures. And that from childhood, you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you wisdom.

That leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. And here's a very strong command. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, lest you be damned, Timothy, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. Why are we so high on Scripture? Because my authority does not come from my education, my degree, how articulate I can be. It doesn't come from my experience. It doesn't come from my worldview.

My authority comes from how in line what I say is with the Scriptures. Does that make sense? That's why it's important for you to have leaders who love the Scriptures, who don't love a theological paradigm or a framework, but who really love the Scriptures, because that's where our authority comes from.

All right? So why do I start with that? Because there are theological consequences to some of the verses that we looked at today. You may end up an Arminian if you leap off a verse the wrong way. You're a Calvinist if you leap off it a different way. So there are different things that can happen when you dive deep into these verses.

So I'm going to try to do things a little bit differently tonight, because we're doing another theological dance section two weeks from now. But I'm going to look at bringing salvation to all men first. "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men." So what is the grace of God?

If you've grown up in the church, you've heard this a lot, so it might have lost its meaning. The grace of God-- in other words, the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, it's appeared. OK? Now, if you guys have heard the words justice, mercy, and grace, you kind of know what they mean.

But you don't always feel what they mean, right? So here's what justice is. It's a paying out a deserved retribution or reward. A paying out deserved retribution or reward. It's an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth-- justice. Mercy is a withholding of retribution. OK? And grace is applying generous kindness in the place where retribution was deserved.

And it's unmerited favor for the wicked. All right? So in order to help you emotionally feel this, I'm going to bring out a friend. Some of you guys have already met him. I call him Amos Quito. His name is Amos. All right? I hate Amos and his kind. You guys hate Amos and his kind, too?

OK? If there was a mosquito this big, how many of you would leave it alive? Every single one of you would kill it, especially if I said, he has dengue. He has Zika. He has malaria. First one to kill it gets $100. Kill it. And if we killed Amos, you would think nothing of it.

OK? In a sense, justice-- let's say Amos killed someone at our church. OK? He killed someone. Justice is be gone, Amos, in all your kind. OK? Mercy is this. I take him out, and I let him go. You guys following me? Justice is splat. Mercy is, oh, poor thing.

Let it go. Grace is, I know you can't help yourself, Amos. Maybe you live such a lonely life. Everybody hates you. You have been one of the worst recipients of the curse of sin. In the Garden of Eden, you probably ate no blood. I adopt you. I will give you a name.

You shall be called Amos. You will be the younger brother to Matthias and Karis Chung. They go to Orange County Classical Academy. I will enroll you in their school. We have 529 savings accounts for them. I will open one up for you. You shall sit at our table as an equal, Amos.

I love you so much, my son. That's grace. And we mentioned this about four weeks ago. The distance between me and the mosquito, the distance between me and God, which is the greater distance. It's the distance between me and God is an infinitely greater chasm than me and this silly mosquito.

When the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, that's very, very, very, very absurd. So we think that's not fair that some people, because they're elected of God, they go to heaven. And some people, they get their reprobate. Reprobation means God willingly chooses not to save.

Emotionally and instinctively, we say, that sucks. How could a good God, loving God, send people to hell? Even if we understand this theologically, emotionally, there's a discomfort. Agree or disagree? Because we don't understand the word grace. The distance between me and this mosquito is a lot smaller than God and me.

The fact that he chose to save some in and of itself is an absurdity. So I wanted to hedge our theological discussion first with that emotion. Because there are books upon books written about what's covered in each verse. Would you guys agree with that? I can't explain all of that in 15 minutes.

So I'm not going to even try. So I'm going to do tonight, just set some hedges around. All right? And all men does not mean universal salvation for everybody. You guys, if you've grown up in the church, you already know that. But that's what it doesn't mean. It's a universal opportunity for salvation.

But then the emotional, like-- the little bit of attention arises when you're saying, if it's a universal opportunity, but you just said there's people who are reprobate, right? How do we reconcile that? It's difficult. So I'm not going to try tonight. OK? But I want to explain to you what is called the ordo salutis.

In Latin, that means the order of salvation. And this is what we would ascribe to theologically of what salvation is. The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men. Depending on who you are and what your Christian background was, the word salvation, the understanding of it might vary.

But this is what salvation in complete package form is. All right? The first one is election, call, regeneration, conversion, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, death, and glorification. There's 10. And they're pretty standard across the board of just the Protestant faith, OK? Or the Calvinistic faith. So it's pretty standard. These are the 10.

And I'm going to try to give you a little mental formula to try to remember the order. All right? If you look at the bottom, every Christian reveres Christ Jesus. Repeat. Go. Every Christian reveres Christ Jesus. Again, every Christian reveres Christ Jesus. One more time. Every Christian reveres Christ Jesus.

The second one is similar. OK, the second five. All saints preach Deo gloria. OK, you want to put the soli in there, but sorry, there's no s. OK? All saints preach Deo gloria. Go. All saints preach Deo gloria. OK, first one. Every Christian reveres Christ Jesus. Every Christian reveres Christ Jesus.

All saints preach Deo gloria. Can you cover your eyes? Just try it, all right? Every Christian reveres Christ Jesus. All saints preach Deo gloria. You're going to have to review that at home a little bit. OK? Now, election is God's choosing before the creation of the world to save.

OK? The second one is the gospel call that goes out. The regeneration is when someone's heart is changed instantaneously because of the grace of God. And that person then is converted. And once that person is converted and there's a profession of faith in Christ, legally, he's justified, innocent. And then he doesn't just leave it at innocent.

There's an adoption process. And then after a child of God is adopted, the spirit of God starts doing work. And whether he dies at 40 or 60 or 80, there's a sanctification process. And then Hebrews 9 27, just as all-- what will happen to all of us? We will physically die.

And then we're glorified. That's the order salutis. All right? Every Christian reveres Christ Jesus. All saints preach Deo gloria. So just try to remember that. Hopefully that helps some. OK? A little quiz. Election, what's the C? Call, what's R? Regeneration, what's the other C? Conversion, J. Justification, A. Adoption, S.

Sanctification, P. Perseverance, D. Death. And then the G is glorification. All right? Why is this all important? Because it's all in Titus. You see that? Election, call, regeneration, conversion, justification, and adoption are all covered in each of those little theologically rich sections in chapter 1 verses 2 to 4, chapter 2 verses 11 to 14, chapter 3.

In two weeks, we're going to look at verse 4 and on. So 1 through 6, election, call, regeneration, conversion, justification, adoption, are all described as the reason why we should be holy people. Because he didn't just show us mercy and let us go. He said, you know what? Hell is a sucky place.

My wrath is there. So bypass hell and just be gone. He didn't just do that. He said, I adopt you as my child raised you up as a fellow heir with Christ, according to Romans 8. Sonship. OK? So that should cause you to be sanctified, not out of duty, although it is a duty, but out of praise and worship and reverence.

That should be so sweet, to live sensibly, righteously, devoutly in the present age until you die. And then the death and glorification are also mentioned, because in the hope of eternal life, which is God who cannot lie, promised long ages ago. Coincidentally, eternal life has already started if you're a Christian.

John 17 3, now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Do you know Jesus Christ? Not just if you do. Yeah, you know him in part right now. You don't know him quite yet in full, but that'll happen, 1 Corinthians 13, when you get to heaven.

Eternal life has already started, but there is a future hope. And according to Titus 2, verse 13, we look forward to it, right? OK? So one more time. Every Christian reveres Christ Jesus. All saints preach Deo gloria. Election, call, regeneration, conversion, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, death, and glorification. I'm going to provide-- these slides are going to be there for you, so you can practice this at home.

All right? Now, I'm going to look at the theological dense question, or this section. And I'm just going to put it in an outline. And as I follow the outline of this section, I see that there is a means. I see that there is a result. I see that there is an application on our end and a motivation.

And I look at it as an engagement. And I talked about this in a sermon about a couple months ago. So I started memorizing Titus back in June, just meditating on it almost every day, a few times a day, as the verses are cycling through my head. And I kept thinking of a wedding and an engagement.

OK? So there's a means. That's a proposal. The epiphany of God, appearing of God, has come. He's said, I invite you into an eternal relationship with me. There's a proposal. And the result is now we're engaged. And right now, in the engagement process, we're supposed to prepare, make ourselves all pretty, lose some weight, get the invites out.

Right? There's work to be done. Engagement is not a time where you just go, I can't wait to be married. I wonder when the wedding is. You don't do that. Engaged people, their lives suck. They're tired all the time. Are you engaged? Nod your heads if that's the truth.

Yeah. You're always tired. OK? But it's a good tired. Because the motivation is the wedding's coming. No one wants to stay engaged forever. If you want to stay engaged forever, there's something wrong with your relationship. If someone were to tell you, I want to stay engaged forever, I would tell the other person, leave.

OK? So a natural engaged person's affections are, I can't wait till this relationship is permanent. So that's how 11 to 14 is organized. And the engagement stuff, it's not theological. It just helps you remember. OK? So here. What's the means? The grace of God has appeared. Christ Jesus. You guys see that?

The next little column is the result. We're engaged now. Salvation has been brung. OK? Instruction is now going on. Redeeming is a process that's going on. Purification is a process that's going on. And then what's the Christian application? Bond slave, young woman, old woman, young man, older man. What's the application?

Elders, all of you. Titus. What's the application? Now that you're engaged to be betrothed forever, deny. Live. Look. Be zealous. And the motivation is a wedding's a coming. So don't get lost in all the details of what is epiphany? Why is it used twice here? Is the first epiphany the same as a second epiphany appearance?

OK? What exactly is all men? And why is it all people in this translation? You guys have probably thought through all of that. But to put it simply, if you're a child of God, you should not be able to contain the excitement to be finally one. Amen? But the problem is we don't look forward to heaven because the worldly desires are running rampant.

Ungodliness is running rampant around us. So our minds get-- we get sidetracked. But if we were longing for heaven, chances are it's because we have gotten a distaste of this world. If you love the world, you're not going to long for heaven. You're going to want Jesus to come when you're 1,000 years old.

Actually, no, sorry, 95. When you have to wear a diaper, right? You want Jesus to come when you're like ready. You've lived-- no, but if your wholehearted desire is to just be with God, you won't care if he comes tomorrow. Okay? Zealous for good deeds, I just put a little quote in there.

This verse deals a death blow-- sorry, I typed wrong, death bow-- death blow to any theology that separates salvation from the demands of obedience to the lordship of Christ. If I am engaged to be married, there are some unspoken rules. I'm not supposed to be flirting with other ladies if I'm engaged to be married.

I'm supposed to be a good steward with my finances for our future family instead of being extravagant and reckless. I'm supposed to start treating her parents with honor and respect that is due of my own, even if I'm not quite yet married. Do you guys follow the logic? There are rules of engagement, okay?

So it's impossible to separate holiness in our life from the free gift of God. You can't. Does this make sense? Even if other church people call you legalistic, self-righteous, Bible-thumper, prude, backward Christian, Pharisee, don't divorce these two things. Amen? So illustrations I want to leave you with. Grace of God.

I mean, you understand what I'm saying. Grace of God. And that zeal to be done with the engagement. They are the two things I want to kind of emblazon into your heads. So here's the application questions that would be good to just talk through. How zealous are you for good deeds?

What are the hindrances to your godly zeal? Second, are you looking forward to the return of Christ? Or have you not thought much about it? What are some areas of ungodliness or worldly desires you need to say no to? Because it says it's possible now, right? Because the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires.

And to live, what? Sensibly, righteously, and godly. So it's possible to say yes to godliness. So what are the areas where you need the people around you to just come and aid you in your endeavor? So those are the things that I want to leave you with. Next week is only three verses.

Five is a lot, okay? Three verses, and it's going to be kind of meaty. So I would encourage you to study well. Because there are a lot of controversial applications today about what it means to subject ourselves to every rule and authority government, right? Can you guys see how that's going to be sensitive?

So prepare well, and don't say, "Well, I feel..." No, no, your feelings don't matter. What's the authority? It's the Word of God. So what does a whole scripture have to say if you can look through it to see our relationship to the government? What the saints of old, how they relate to the government.

So if you have time, look into that. Don't consult Facebook, that's not a good source. Don't consult CNN, Fox News, that's not a good source. Don't just go to the Word and see what the Word has to say. Ask inductive questions, and then we're going to see how all of that fits.

All right? So these are the applications, and the remainder of your time, let's just pray and discuss it together. Let me close for us in prayer, and then we'll end our night. Father, we are very short-sighted. We are very forgetful as just fallen humanity. And Lord, we need regular reminders of our new identity in Christ.

We need regular reminders that this earth is not our home, that engagement is not to be forever, but that our eternal life and our full and complete knowledge of you, sin-free, Lord, that's something that we should be longing for. And so I pray that you would just purge our hearts of worldly desires, fix our eyes on Christ, and Lord, as much as you've called us to be holy, we know that it's by your grace.

And so we ask for more grace to sustain us, to protect us, to guard, guide, and lead us. So we thank you for our evening together, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.