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you had an older brother or an older sister or you had a very famous father or famous mother and your whole life was lived in the shadow of someone else. There are verses in the Bible like that. When you think of Titus 2, you probably think of verse 13, looking for that blessed hope. What a powerful verse that is. There's a tower right there. But you know what? The next verse lives in its shadow and it's probably more important. Let me go back and read a few verses before that. Let's start at verse 11 so we can get the context: "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, [now watch this—two reasons] that He might redeem us from every lawless deed [that's number 1] and [2] purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works" (verses 11-14). May I just pry a little bit into your personal life? If I were to ask how many times you have heard a message on Christ dying to redeem us, all of our hands would go up. And if I ask you, Was it often a frequently repeated message? a lot of hands would go up too. But Christ died for two reasons. I wonder when was the last time we heard a message on the second reason? He not only died to redeem us, He died to purify us—that's to live holy lives. The second reason why Jesus died is so we can live for the very reason He died. We couldn't go to Him, so He came to us. He paid a debt He didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay. He died so we could live. And one of the reasons why (according to verse 14 in Titus 2) Jesus died, the second reason, is to prepare a holy people, a unique, separate, distinct people. For those of us who are happy about the first and ignorant about the second, relief is here. We have a Bible in front of us. We can see exactly what God said to us. I want you to think about the tendency we have to ignore the second half of that verse. I say "we" because we all have that tendency. I do as well as you. A. J. Gordon said: "I gravely fear that many Christians make the apostle's word, 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,' the unconscious justification for a low standard of Christian living. It were almost better to overstate the possibilities of sanctification in an eager grasp after holiness, 2
than to understate them in complacent satisfaction with traditional unholiness." Hear what he said? While there are people who will criticize you for wanting to live a holy life and what you do in order to see that you live a holy life, the more concern ought to be given for people who don't care at all to live a holy life. I'm not so much concerned about rules and regulations people make up in order to live a holy life. That's not what the Bible is all about. I'm not as much concerned about that as I am that people have no regulation in their lives at all. They are satisfied with unholy living, because the second reason why Jesus died for me (first one being to redeem me) is to purify me. And if that's not happening in my life, what does that mean for the accomplishment that He had on the cross? So here's the question of the day: How on earth can I be holy? Let me take you back. We have younger listeners, we have older listeners to Back to the Bible, people in the mid-range. Some of you are going to identify with this old hymn more than others, because you sang it a lot longer than people sing it today. And some of you may not even recognize this hymn. Those of you who are my age or younger will remember the hymn "Take Time to Be Holy" (lyrics by William Dun Longstaff, 1882). We used to sing that when I was a kid. And we still sing it occasionally today. Here are the words of that hymn: Take time to be holy, Speak oft with thy Lord; Abide in Him always And feed on His Word. Make friends of God's children, Help those who are weak, Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek. You know what? The person who wrote this old hymn had a firm grasp on what practical holiness is all about. The steps to living a holy life are all in that hymn. Let me show you what they are. There are seven of them. First of all, recognize that holiness takes time. "Take time to be holy." I think it was Harry Ironside who used to say, "You cannot be holy and hurry." And yet, isn't that true for us? We want to be holy immediately. We 3
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