Introduction

Over the past two weeks we have considered exhortations given to Christian men and women to live lives of self-control in order to glorify God and to extend a clear witness to unbelievers. To some extent we have looked at the details of the words of Titus 2:2-5 which is good, but we also need to look at this cluster of verses and see the bigger picture of the teaching given in that portion of Scripture. Considering this portion of Scripture as a whole we can draw three extremely important lessons concerning the impact of the Gospel on those called by God's grace.

1. The impact of the Gospel on your sense of value and worth.

1. How do you determine what has value and what does not? On the farm Zandfontein, near Hopetown in South Africa, a Griqua witch doctor, named "Swartbooi", picked up a glittering stone and added it to the objects he used to foretell the future. He had no idea that he had found an 83.5 carat diamond worth a fortune in London. Diamonds had little value among the Griqua but immense value among the British Aristocracy. What determined the value? On the fourth of August 2007 the following was reported in the news - ‘It would once have sold for millions, but the National Gallery of Victoria's portrait Head of a Man may be virtually worthless after the revelation it was not painted by Vincent van Gogh after all.' What determined the value? Ostrich feathers were once worth a fortune, today they are used to make cheap feather dusters. What determined the value? Do feathers, diamonds or oil paintings have an intrinsic value? The value attributed to these objects is determined by the desire men and women to own them. What is and is not desirable to own, is largely determined by your culture. Remember culture constantly changes, it is never static and so values change frequently.
   
   
2. Why do you have value? According to our culture your value or worth is determined by five things: Wealth, if you are rich you are more valuable than somebody who is poor. Intellect, if you are a genius you have more value than if you were a bit slow. Physical dexterity, if you are good at sport you are worth more than a person who is clumsy and awkward. Physical appearance, if you are slim and beautiful you have more value than if you are a plain Jane. Age, if you are twenty four you are more valuable than you would be if you were sixty five. These value adding attributes reveal the very shallow and superficial nature of the culture we live in. If you seek your sense of value in these things you will constantly struggle with what is called self-worth or self-esteem. You can cripple your personality by constantly wishing that you were richer, smarter, prettier, younger and physically more coordinated. You can make yourself very miserable by constantly thinking that you would be happy if you could attain these attributes. There are billion dollar industries promising to make you richer, smarter, younger, and more beautiful. What gives you worth and value? If you look to the world to give you a sense of value and worth you will always be disappointed and depressed by the answers, as they are usually tied to performance and economic assets. The Gospel gives you a sense of value and worth that the world cannot compete with. The Gospel declares the value and worth God set upon you.
   
   
3. A Christian needs to know that the Lord Jesus who is God incarnate, your creator loved you before the foundation of the world and died on the cross to deal with your sin in order to make you his very own. The only true and living God has declared your value and worth to him by saving you and by preparing a place for you in his Father's house that you might be with him forever. How could you not be precious to the Lord who bought you with his own blood? God created you exactly as he wanted you to be in every detail. God gave you your every ability and skill. He determined your race, sex, class, economic status and lineage. God created you to have great value and worth to him, therefore he created you in his own image and likeness. There is no doubt that sin sought to destroy your value and worth by marring the image and the likeness of God in you. No doubt sin has sought to destroy your value and worth by making you self-centred and self-seeking, rather than God centred and God glorifying. God created you to fulfil his purposes not to be self absorbed. You can only find your true value and worth when you find it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who can restore your image and likeness to God and satisfy your sense of purpose in being God centred. The Holy Spirit abides within you, and as Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, you are the Temple of God. The very fact that God has redeemed you by the work of Christ's atonement ought to fill you with a sense of value and worth that is not a product of your pride. That your name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life ought to tell you that from the very beginning you had value and worth in the eyes of God. The impact of the Gospel ought to make you think of yourself very differently to the way your culture taught you.
   
   
4. Before you were redeemed by Christ your sense of sin was very shallow, you did things that were wrong, but you never saw yourself as a guilty criminal, whose law-breaking deserves nothing less than eternal damnation. When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, we see for the first time how greatly we have offended the Almighty. The same Holy Spirit who convicts you of sin and makes you feel like a worm before God, encourages you to look to Christ to save you from your sin. The same Holy Spirit urges you to recognise and take ownership of the fact that you have been adopted as a son and made a co-heir with Christ. Your sense of sin ought to wound and  grieve you, but not to the point of robbing you of the great sense of value and worth you have in being made an heir of God and joint heir with Christ (Romans 8:17). When someone tells you that you are useless and worthless and an oxygen thief, remember that they cannot be right because Almighty God is your Father, the Lord Jesus Christ died to save you, and the Holy Spirit dwells within you. God who is omniscient has given you eternal value and worth in Christ Jesus. The value your culture or others set on you is simply wrong. God who knows all things cannot be wrong and he has given you great value and worth in his Son. Seek your value and worth in the Lord, not from men who measure by the standard of their ever changing culture. The impact of the Gospel changes your sense of value and worth about yourself, others, the way you use your life, and the purposes you pursue.

2. The impact of the Gospel on your sense of commitment.

1. What is a commitment? In our consumer and disposable orientated society the concept of commitment has almost been lost. What does the word ‘commitment' mean in the context of a relationship? The concept of commitment has five parts: (i) It is a pledge, a promise, a vow, a covenant, an undertaking or an obligation. (ii) It carries a cost which you must be prepared to pay. (iii) It involves you physically, intellectually, emotionally, economically, and spiritually. (iv)It demands self-denial. (v) It urges a response of trust, belief, confidence, reliance, and dependence.
   
   If you leave out any one of these parts you have something less than commitment. In marriage husband and wife commit themselves to each other making their relationship under God the most important matter of life. The traditional words of the wedding vow proclaim the depths of the commitment that is being made - I take you to have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward until death do us part.' All five parts of commitment are in place in the vow.  This is a commitment that says it will stand through great changes in circumstance, in all kinds of situations and will only be broken by death. The commitment in the marriage vows is for the spouse's good and self-denial. The reason the concept of commitment has almost disappeared in our society is self-centredness which is promoted as the path to happiness. Can a self-centred person make a commitment? Obviously a self-centred person cannot make a commitment, because self-centredness and self-denial cannot coexist. 
   
   
2. The greatest example of commitment is found in the New Covenant, it is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about it from the perspective of commitment. It is clearly a promise, all who believe will be forgiven their sins, be reconciled to God and receive eternal life. It carried the cost, Jesus payed the supreme cost, he died as a sacrifice of atonement. It involved Jesus physically, intellectually, emotionally, economically, and spiritually. Jesus' life and work involved his whole being. It required self-denial, Jesus did the will of the Father even when it included dying on the cross. It urges a response - it calls you to trust, depend, rely and believe Jesus and to have faith in his person, life and work. Surely to proclaim the Gospel is to declare God's great and gracious commitment to his people? God made this commitment purely from his glorious grace. The Lord did not make this commitment because he had a need or lacked something. God made this commitment in love to you and I while we were his enemies - refusing to worship, believe, serve, obey or submit to him. The benefits that Christians receive from God's commitment are awesome.
   
   
3. When the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ to the life of the penitent sinner, conversion takes place. A converted person is not simply someone who has been forgiven his sins and reconciled to God. A converted person no longer lives according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Listen to Paul's statement in Romans 8:6, ‘For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.' Paul is talking about a great and glorious change. The change is not simply from death to life, but to life and peace. The life and the peace are both eternal and therefore permanent. What does Paul mean by life? Without a doubt he means eternal life, but we begin the enjoyment of eternal life the moment we are converted. We begin living eternal life not only in relationship to God, but also in our relationship to sin. The believer has no obligation to live according to the sinful nature as Christ's work has set him free from the dominion of Satan and the power of sin. You are able for the first time to obey God and say no to sin. You are free to do the will of God, free to submit to his commands, free to no longer be self-centred, as the flesh no longer dominates your life. Being dominated by sin has the consequence Paul describes in Romans 8:8, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. For the first time in your life you can please God. Conversion has made what was impossible because you lacked the ability not only possible but very desirable. It is simply preposterous to think that a person having received grace and mercy from God to save them from being condemned forever, would not from the heart desire to please God.
   
   
4. What does being converted have to do with your sense of commitment? Remember in a commitment you urged others to trust, believe, rely, depend and have confidence in you. Having been set free from the dominion of Satan and the power of sin, ought to make you more, much more trustworthy, reliable and dependable in every way. As a person living according to the Spirit your commitments have to be more sound and solid. The home is the place where the freedom from the dominion of Satan and sin has its first and greatest impact. The commitment between husbands and wives ought to be far more secure and thorough going than before conversion.  The parent's commitment to the children should be far greater in the believers than unbelievers. This ought to be the case not only because you have been set free, but also because the Holy Spirit dwells within you to promote living to please God. By the power of the Holy Spirit and the benefits secured for you in the death of Christ your sense of commitment has to be tangibly greater than it was when you were an unbeliever. Christians ought to be known as those whose commitments are sound and secure.

3. The impact of the Gospel on transforming our lives.

1. The great distinctive of the Lord's people was and is to be seen in their obedience to his commands. The importance of obedience in the New Testament is expressed by Jesus in John 14:15 when he says, ‘If you love me, keep my commandments.' Your obedience to the commands of Christ shows your love for him. Obedience is lived from the inside out as it flows from the heart's love for the Saviour. The knowledge of whether a person knows God or not is stated in 1 John 2:3-5, ‘Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.' Your obedience to God is the only visible evidence that you know God. The test of whether you are a child of God or not is given in 1 John 5:2-3, ‘By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.' It has been said, ‘Christ's sheep are marked in the ear and the foot; they hear his voice and they follow him.' Christian obedience is not slavery to domineering legalism, but a loving son pleasing his heavenly Father. Martin Luther said, ‘I would rather obey than work miracles.' The message of the Bible is very clear - God demands that his children obey. A.W. Tozer said of the church, ‘To escape the error of salvation by works we have fallen into the opposite error of salvation without obedience.' According to the Gospel, when Christ takes off your yoke of sin and guilt and puts it upon himself, he places his yoke of obedience upon your shoulders.
   
   
2. Your obedience is not done through the strength of your own will-power in overcoming the legacy of sin, but it is done in the power of the Holy Spirit. By the exercise of will-power a man may stop himself from stealing, lying, commuting adultery, and coveting his neighbours things, but no matter how hard he tries he will never by the exercise of will-power love God with all his heart, mind and soul. Biblical obedience requires love for God to be present and the motivation in every act of obedience. You obey because you love God too much not to obey him. Obedience requires you to engage your heart, mind, soul and strength to please and glorify God. Your obedience to God is the Biblical fruit that flows from being saved by the grace of God.
   
   
3. The commands of God in the Scriptures cover every aspect of your life - the objects of your love and desire, the use of your time, the way your earn a living, the pleasures you indulge in, the friends you make, the way you worship, the person you marry, the way you raise your children, the attitude you have towards tax and the government, and way you treat your enemies. Obedience transforms your life - your obedience makes you more Christlike. Obedience to the Lord transforms the old life-style that pandered to the sinful nature to a lifestyle that honours and glorifies God. A Christian life-style shows newness of life in Christ and is marked by righteousness and holiness.
   
   
4. Titus by teaching sound doctrine was to encourage, urge and demand believers to be more godly in every aspect of their lives. How can you grow in godliness without knowing the character of God, the majesty of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit? How can you be godly without knowing the depravity sin brought to mankind through the fall of Adam? How can you be godly without knowing that Christ has conquered sin, death and the devil? How can you be godly without understanding that you have been justified by faith? How can you be godly without knowing you are adopted as a son and made a co-heir with Christ? Doctrine and obedience are locked together. Wherever you find obedience lacking you will also find doctrine lacking. The impact of the Gospel on the individual is always detected by the obedience to Christ it generates. If we are to be like Christ, then doing the will of the Father must be a very high priority in your life.

Conclusion.