Motivations for Mission

Intro

Illustration about Patrick

One of the most interesting characters in early church history is Patrick. Patrick was born in AD 390 his father was a deacon named Calpurnius. They were from Britain while it was under Roman rule.

When Patrick was just 16 years old, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and made into a slave. For seven years, he lived as a slave. When he eventually managed to escape his imprisonment, he made it back home. This is when he met Jesus.

Patrick was so changed by the gospel that he devoted his life to mission. He wanted to take the gospel somewhere that really needed it. And he felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to go back to Ireland, to his former captors.

He spent the rest of his life in the same place to where he was held in captive for so long. He made disciples and planted churches. Patrick started a movement in Ireland.

How could someone go back to the land that they were a prisoner in? Why leave your home to go right back to where you were a slave? Patrick was compelled to live on mission because he knew that Grace appeared for all people, even the people that we would not normally expect would be saved.

The message of the gospel motivated Patrick to live on mission and just as Patrick’s life was driven by the conviction that God’s grace was for all people, Paul tells his disciple Titus that his motivation should be as he is making disciples and this is what I want to share with you today. Because we talk about mission all of the time here but what is it that motivates us to live on mission? How do we keep going to where we persevere to the end?

If you have your copy of God’s Word, go ahead and turn them to the epistle to Titus chapter 2. And while you are doing that, let me just give you a little background of what is going on in the life of Titus as Paul is penning this letter.

Background/Context

Titus is a church leader in Crete. Crete is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. Paul visited Crete on one of his missionary journeys. While there he preached the gospel and he planted churches. Paul left Crete to make more disciples in other places but when he left he instructed his companion, Titus, to stay there to support the churches that he helped plant by building them up and protecting them from false teachings and to establish biblical leadership.

The main reason that Paul left Titus in Crete was to establish churches by appointing Elders. And a major part of appointing Elders is the character of the person that is appointed. And then Paul transitions to how all Christians in the church should be living.

Because character is important for everyone in the church to have, not just the Elders.

So he is instructing Titus on the kinds of men that he needs to appoint as Elders and how they are to instruct their churches how to live. Paul is talking about good works and how important they are for disciples of Jesus.

Paul makes the point that good works don’t save you but they are still important. How we live in light of what we believe is important. This is exactly how James says in James 1 that we are supposed to live.

He says (James 1:22)

James 1:22 ESV

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

If we are only hearing the words of God but are not living in obedience to them, we are deceiving ourselves and we do not belong to Jesus. And this is exactly what Jesus meant when he said in the Sermon on the Mount that we will know them by their fruit.

Because Apple Trees do not produce oranges. If we are actually believers in Jesus the Messiah and if we have truly been changed by him, this will be made evident in how we live our lives. This is the point of Titus chapter 2. In Titus chapter 2, Paul gives instructions on how everyone in the church is meant to disciple someone else, this is a good work.

So, if you are in Titus chapter 2, let’s go ahead and read the entire chapter together but we will focus our time on verses 11-14.

Titus 2 ESV

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Paul’s aim to Titus isn’t just to teach orthodoxy/right doctrine. Paul’s point is that orthodoxy (our right beliefs) should lead to orthopraxy (righteous living). It is very important that we teach the right doctrines but if our teaching stops at what we say we believe and there is no application, then it is pointless.

What Paul is not saying is that we earn anything from God by doing good works or by discipling new Christians. We in the Protestant world absolutely love the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone and we should because it is biblical.

We are saved in Christ Alone through Faith Alone.

But our affinity for this doctrine has caused many groups within Protestantism to diminish the importance of good works. And this is not salvation by works. This isn’t about salvation, it’s about how we live after salvation.

I was reading Dallas Willard’s book The Great Omission and in this book, he makes the distinction between Effort and Earning. Because, typically, when we Protestants hear “good works”, we hear Earning. Willard says, “No, effort is not in opposition to grace.” He says this:

Once we learn that grace is not opposed to effort (action)—though it is opposed to earning (attitude)—the way is open for us to “work out” all that is involved in our salvation, not only “with fear and trembling” but also with the calm assurance that it is God who is at work in us to accomplish all of His goodwill (see Philippians 2:12–13).

Effort or Action is good, this is how we work out our salvation. But as soon as we begin to do good works because we are trying to earn something from God, that is when we get off-base and are out of step with the gospel. We don’t do good works to please God but we do them because he is pleased with us in Christ.

And this is why I want to focus on verses 11-14. Verses 11-14 is all about how we are to live in between the two appearances of Christ. In verses 1-10, Paul is giving instructions for everyone in the church but in verses 11-14, he give the reason that we should be doing these things. That first word in verse 11, “For,” is an indicator for this. You can replace that word “For” for “because.”

Let’s read verses 11-14, again. It says,

Titus 2:11–14 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

This morning, I will have three motivators for you to live as a disciple of Jesus. And the first thing in your notes is this:

Motivation 1: The Gospel Saves

Verse 11,

Titus 2:11 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,

The greek word used here for appear is Ἐπεφάνη (epiphany), where we get our word for Epiphany. The same word is used again in verse 13 when he says ἐπιφάνειαν (epiphaneian) which means “will appear.” The two different tenses of this one word just means that Jesus Christ has appeared and he is going to appear again.

Paul says in verse 11 to do all of the stuff that he mentioned in verses 1-10 because Grace has appeared.

This is our first motivation to make disciples and to do the work of the ministry, namely that the grace of God has appeared in the person of Jesus Christ, bringing salvation for all people. In other words, our primary motivation is the gospel and in what God’s grace has already done for us and what he is willing to do for all people.

He is saying that the message of God’s grace has been made available to all kinds of people and there are a lot of people out there still that have not heard it. This Grace that we have experienced has appeared for all people. It has brought salvation for all people but that does not mean that all people will be saved. We see in verse 13 that not everyone is redeemed because that begins at faith.

For this to be a motivator, you have to remember where you were before you met Jesus. Were you deserving to be saved? No. This is why it is of Grace and it was Grace that appeared. There is absolutely nothing that you could have ever done to earn your salvation.

This is the gospel

What exactly does Paul mean when he says that Grace has appeared? When he says that it appeared, he is acknowledging that this is something that he and his people had been waiting for for a long time.

Because all of us are born into brokenness. If you remember the story, God gave Adam and Even one rule and that was they were not to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When they gave into temptation and ate of that tree, a curse fell upon humanity. This is brokenness.

But even then, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and were deserving of immediate death, God gave the first gospel presentation, the first promise of the appearing of Grace and what he will eventually do when he comes the second time.

He tells them that Grace will appear to make things right again. He said in Genesis 3:15

Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your Seed and her Seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

So with this curse, God gave a promise. He promised that there will come a Seed who will crush the head of the serpent forever. This is the appearing of Grace that Paul is talking about in Titus 2:11 and 13 that came with at the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

All throughout the Old Testament, this promise revealed more and more about who this Seed would be through different Covenants that God makes with his people, Israel. He gives more and more details of who it is they were to be looking for.

And when Paul says that Grace has appeared, he is saying that when Jesus appeared, he was the promised one that they had been waiting for. When he lived, died, and resurrected, he was beginning the fulfillment of this promise. There will come a day when he will fulfill it ultimately, with his Second Coming but belief in that promise is a part of the gospel.

Let the story of Jesus motivate you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus. All of those discipleship circles that Mike taught on for the last few weeks are all things that require effort. It will require effort for you to read your Bible everyday, it will take effort to live in community with others, and being generous. But we can do it because Jesus has appeared for all people. And nothing is more motivating for living on mission as believing that Jesus has appeared for all people.

Back to Titus,

In verses 1-10 of Titus 2, Paul is telling Titus to make sure that what is “in accord with sound doctrine” is taught to everyone in the church. This includes older men, older women, young men, and young women. Everyone in the church needs discipleship in orthodoxy. Here in verse 11, Paul tells us why. He gives Titus the reason for all of these imperatives.

He says to Titus, that he, and everyone in the church, is to make disciples by teaching them the right things to believe about God. Why? Because the “Grace of God has appeared to bring salvation to all men.”

This is our first motivation to live as disciples and to make disciples who make disciples, because the Lord Jesus has come and made salvation possible for anyone who has faith in him.

Do you see the difference? We are not doing good works and we are not making disciples to earn anything from God. Instead, we are doing these things because Jesus has earned salvation for us through his death, burial, and resurrection.

Let this truth motivate you to live faithful lives under the Lordship of Jesus. Let the truths of the gospel message motivate you to make disciples and to do good works, not because you are trying to please God but do it because God has already accepted you through the blood of the Lord Jesus.

But the gospel is not just a message that we believe one time in our lives and we’re done with it. The gospel works in our present lives even after we have come to faith in Jesus.

The “why” is very important for what we are doing. And our lives in light of our belief in the gospel is very important.

Jesus has appeared making salvation possible for all men. Anyone who believes is welcomed into the family of God. But this is not the gospel’s only purpose. Yes, it saves but the gospel also trains us to live godly lives now while we are waiting from his return. And this is the second thing in your notes,

Motivation 2: The Gospel Transforms

The gospel is so much more than something that we believed one time when we were in the nursery at our grandma’s church. I’m pretty sure that’s many of our stories.

This is one of those things that our culture is stuck on. The cultural church tends to make the gospel into something that we believe one time in our lives and then we move on from it.

We treat the gospel as if it were the ABC’s of Christianity when in reality, the gospel is the A-Z of our faith. Here’s the reality, we need the gospel even after we first believe it because it is the gospel that trains us to live godly, self-controlled lives.

Look at verse 12. Paul is still talking about the Grace that has appeared in the first appearance, or epiphany, or the Lord Jesus. This is something that happened in the past. But notice how he is now using present tense verbs. Verse 12,

Titus 2:12 ESV

training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

Yes, Grace appeared and now that it has appeared and we’ve believed it, it’s function now is to train. What Paul is describing here is Sanctification. Sanctification is the process in which we are becoming more and more like Jesus. To sanctify something means to set it apart from all of the others, in our case, the world. It means the same thing as to make holy. And to be holy is to be like Jesus.

The Lord wants us to live different lives from those around us. He has a very particular idea of how he wants his disciples to live. As we live out the life of a disciple of Jesus, we will spend more time in his Word, we will spend more time with God in fellowship with him, and we will begin to look more and more like him. That’s how it works.

What Paul is saying in verse 11 and 12 is that Grace has Appeared and we were saved because of it. Now that we are saved, we are to spend our lives avoiding and putting to death the things that imprisoned us in the very first place. Ungodliness and worldly passions.

The first thing that Paul says is the Grace that has appeared (the gospel) teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions. How do we know what behaviors are considered ungodly or worldly? Well, Paul gives us many lists of these fruits of the flesh.

Like In Galatians 5. Ungodliness and worldly passions are those sins that you lived for before you started following Jesus. They are anything that is contrary to the character of God, which we learn from his revealed Word, the Bible. Sexual sins, lusts, greed, slothfulness, etc.

All of us have a past. We all have things that Jesus saved us from. Sin and struggles and lifestyles that were ungodly.

When we come to Jesus, all of us, we left something so that we could gain him. And it is the gospel that trains us to live lives that are honoring to God. How does the gospel work in our lives as disciples of Jesus?

The Gospel Grid

Take a look at this graphic on the screen. This is called the Gospel Grid. I got this from Robert Thune’s book The Gospel-Centered Life. Great book about discipleship for new Christians. I would recommend it.

What this graphic represents is how the gospel works in the life of the believer after they have come to follow Jesus. I really resonated with it.

If you notice, the line right before it splits is the time before you met Jesus. At the point of conversion, you begin this process of awareness. Awareness of two things.

God’s holiness and your own sinfulness.

So, as I live the life of a disciple, I am constantly learning more and more about God and I am seeing more each day that he is way more holier than I thought he was.

And all the while as my awareness of God’s holiness grows, so does my awareness of my own unholiness and sinfulness. I began to learn about how holy God is and when I look at my own life, I will see how much I do not look like him.

So what’s happening is I am realizing that God is holier than I could ever imagine AND I am far more sinful than I ever realized.

And do you see that chasm, that gap in between the holiness of God and my own sinfulness. It is getting bigger and bigger. This is where the cross comes in to bridge the gap. That is grace.

When we grow in our love for God, our appreciation for the gospel will also grow. And as our appreciation for the gospel grows, our lives will be impacted and we will live holy lives.

Paul says in verse 12 that the gospel “trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age.”

Saying now to ungodliness and worldly passions will take effort but only through the power of the gospel. And this power comes through appreciation of the gospel.

But there is also a motivation for our future lives. Because, by living as disciples, we are just investing in our future.

And this is the final motivator from Titus 2,

Motivation 3: The Gospel Sustains

The gospel enables us to say no to ungodliness and worldliness. The gospel grants us the power to live lives that are self-controlled and upright. Because of the gospel, we can live lives that are pleasing to God while we live in the present age.

In other places in the Bible, Paul calls the Present Age, this present evil age. Biblically speaking, there are two ages. This Present Age (in which all people have lived throughout history) and then there is the Age to Come. This is when the Lord Jesus will return to restore all creation and to judge the living and the dead. When the Grace of God appeared in the man Jesus, he saved us.

So he saved us while we are living in this present evil age but through the gospel, we are empowered to live as though we are already in the Age to Come. The life of the Christian is waiting for and longing for the full realization of the Age to Come.

This is why Peter calls us sojourners and citizens of heaven. Because this is not our home, we are being prepared for our eternal home with the Lord Jesus.

Look at verse 13,

Titus 2:13 ESV

waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

This to me is one of the most exciting things in the Scriptures. This is our Blessed Hope. The return of Jesus.

Our lives are driven by what we are waiting for. The way that we live our daily lives is driven by what we hope in(past and present) and hope for (future).

We are living in this time period between the appearing of Grace and the appearing of Glory. The second coming of the Lord Jesus is what Paul calls our Blessed Hope, the reason for why we are living as disciples. The second coming of the Lord Jesus is the point of all that we are doing.

What we believe about the Second Coming is important simply because it will impact your life as a disciple. Are you living as though the Lord is returning?

Let me ask you this:

What is your Hope?

People Hope in all kinds of different things. This is an election year. A lot of people are acting like their hope is in the right candidate taking office. If that is your hope, you will be disappointed.

The world puts its hope in many things—politics, power, money. But the truth is, no matter who is in power, no matter how much we accumulate, these things will always disappoint. Why? Because they are part of this present age. They are fleeting, temporary, and broken by sin.

But as followers of Jesus, we have a different hope. Our hope is not in the systems or leaders of this world. Our hope is in the appearing of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That is our Blessed Hope—the day when He returns to make all things new, to reign in justice, and to bring His people into eternal glory with Him.

And here’s the incredible thing: That hope fuels our faithfulness today. Knowing that Jesus is coming again gives us the strength to say “no” to sin, to resist the pressures of the world, and to live upright, godly lives in the present age. It empowers us to persevere, to love our neighbors, and to be a light in the darkness.

Look again at verse 13. It says we are “waiting for our Blessed Hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” He is both God and Savior. He is the one we are waiting for, and His return will bring about the fulfillment of every promise.

So, if your hope is in anything less than Christ, I urge you to shift your gaze. Fix your eyes on the Blessed Hope, because when He returns, everything will be made right.

Conclusion

So what are you hoping in? If it is not the Lord Jesus, let me just encourage you to set your eyes on him for your hope. Whether you are a long time believer or someone who does not yet believe. Look at how Paul finishes the sentence in verse 14.

Titus 2:13–14 ESV

waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

The Lord Jesus gave himself to redeem you. He gave up his life to redeem you from all lawlessness and to purify you. He did not do this without a purpose. He did this to set you apart as his own so that you can go out into the world and do good works.

He really died, he really rose from the dead, and he really is going to return for you and for me and anyone who is his. The gospel is our motivator to live as disciples in this world that is so opposed to him.

Let’s pray.