I invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Paul's letter to Titus. Paul's letter to Titus is near the back of your Bible, a couple of pages before Hebrews. Page 1271, that's 1271 in the Pew Bible. Paul's letter to Titus. You may have already noticed by now with the Christmas carols that we have heard in the prelude and the offertory that we have entered the season of Advent. the season that anticipates the celebration of Christmas, the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. See, that's what Advent means. It means coming. It means the coming of someone, and we celebrate at Christmas the coming of Jesus. This season was established more than a millennia ago. In the calendar of the Roman Church is a yearly rehearsal that anticipates the advent of Christ, Not so much his birth, but his coming again. But over the centuries, it's turned back in on itself and has become focused on the coming of Christ and his first advent at his birth. And so today, for the most part, Advent is the season that we get ready for Christmas, the celebration of his birthday. It's official. Christmas is coming. The question is, which Christmas? Commercial Christmas is coming. We've had Gray Thursday, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, and if you haven't got the message, you're supposed to spend your money now. America needs you. Behavioral Christmas is coming. This was big in my day. Santa's making a list, and he's checking it twice. He's going to find out who's naughty and nice. So behave yourself, Christmas. Sentimental Christmas is coming. The stuff of Hallmark cards and movies that makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy. Family Christmas is coming. Everyone gathered from near and far around the table for favorite dishes and for sharing gifts and for special traditions and for making memories and remembering memories. It's a blessed time. And of course, cultural Christmas is coming. with baby Jesus as the political football about whether there should be a nativity scene at the courthouse step or not. And for many of us, disrupted Christmas is coming. Any and all of the above disrupted by financial strain, broken relationships, unpleasant memories, and empty chairs of loved ones lost. Christmas is coming. Which Christmas are you looking forward to? Well, it might be one. If you're like most of us, I think most of us are looking forward to something of all of these things. Christmas is funny that way. And it might even be that first and foremost you are looking forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Which I'm sure is true for many among us. And certainly his birth is an event to be remembered and to be celebrated. but in what way? Whatever merits there may be to the celebration of Christmas as an annual holiday, like a birthday, the Apostolic Church did not practice that. The Scripture and the early church bear a much broader witness to the significance of Christ's coming, the extent of Christ's coming, not as a day to be celebrated, not as a season to be remembered, but as the turning point in history when God himself came into this world to save sinners and to change the course of history forever. It was an advent that took a lifetime. An advent that was had and made for us, God's people. And we turn this morning to Titus to a text that bears witness to this broader witness. We're going to turn to Titus chapter 2, which I'm going to read in its entirety because it begins with the application of what is the heart of the matter in verses 11 to 14. So I want to read the entirety for the context, but we're going to give our attention to verses 11 through 14 this morning. So hear now the Word of God and listen for Advent, for coming. But as for you, Titus, 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 teachings 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. Slaves 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. And here ends the reading of God's Word. Paul opens our text this morning in verse 11 with the little word for that introduces the basis and the power for all that he has commanded in verses 1 through 10. The Christian life we're called to live, he says, for, because, pay attention. And what he introduces in verse 11 that continues through 14 is the gospel of Jesus Christ. See, not only is the gospel the power of God under the salvation of everyone who believes, It is also the truth, the sound doctrine of God our Savior that accords with godliness, that corresponds with godliness, we might even say that works godliness in his people, just as Paul has described. See, gospel doctrine, gospel truth, and godly living go hand in hand. The gospel of Jesus Christ informs and it promotes godliness. It does so for those who believe the promises of the gospel. And the godliness of believers, it defends, and it promotes, and it adorns, it beautifies the very gospel that we believe. And so together, gospel, doctrine, and godly living leave unbelievers nothing with which they can revile the word of God or by which they can shame us as Christians. In verses 11 through 14, we consider the gospel that declares three things very clearly, very prominently, that Jesus Christ has come, his first advent. Jesus Christ will come again, his second advent. And Jesus Christ is present and active here and now with his people. So we begin where Paul begins in verse 11, where he basically says that Jesus Christ has come. He declares that the grace of God has appeared. The English here clouds this for us. It's not the common grace of God that's appeared, that He takes care of everybody. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and He causes His rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. That's not the grace Paul's talking about. He's talking about the saving grace of God. The saving grace of God has appeared. The grace by which he accomplishes salvation. It's appeared. It was first promised in the garden when the Lord said the seed of the woman would come to crush the head of the seed of the serpent. The promise was proclaimed throughout the entire Old Testament through the prophets. And it was displayed in the ceremonies and sacrifices of the law. And Paul says that the promise has been fulfilled. It's appeared. When the saving grace of God appeared, Paul says. And he explains this in Galatians chapter 4. He says, When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law. The saving grace of God has appeared. The ESV goes on in verse 11 to say that he appeared bringing salvation for all people. Bringing salvation for all people. Young people, the red flag should be sticking up. It doesn't sound quite right, does it? It's not false in and of itself, but if we didn't have the rest of Scripture, we might get the wrong idea. We might think that Jesus came to save everybody. Our confessions make it clear that he didn't. He came to save the elect of God. But we can stay right here in Paul's letter and learn the same thing. We need to look no further than verse 14, part of our text. There Paul adds, Jesus Christ gave himself for us. And if we ask who is us, that includes the question, who's not us? And throughout this letter, Paul has made casual allusions to the us and the not us. In verse 14, he tells us that the us are those for whom Jesus Christ has given himself to redeem from something and to purify for himself. The us are God's elect, chapter 1, verse 1. The not us is everyone else. Us are those who hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. The not us are those who contradict it. Chapter 1, verse 9. Us are those who are being trained to be zealous for good works. Not us is everyone left to ungodliness and worldly passions. The grace of God has appeared, the saving grace of God has appeared to all men, but not for all men. And here I have to say the NIV does a better job of preserving that distinction when it says That the grace of God that brings salvation, which is Christ, has appeared to all men. It is this appearance, this first advent of Christ, we want to remember at Christmas. It's our best intention. But too often we're tempted to keep Jesus in the manger. We remember this first advent more fully, more faithfully, more frequently, every time we confess the Apostles' Creed, even the Nicene Creed. We remember the first advent of Jesus Christ when we confess aloud together that I believe in Jesus Christ, His, that is the Father's only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. And the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Now that is to remember the first advent of Christ. It includes everything from his conception to His ascension. And it is the fullness of this Advent that is proclaimed when we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's what we must know about who He is and what He's done. And it's the fullness of this Advent that's signified and sealed to us in the sacraments, baptism, and in the Lord's table. These things, this preaching of the gospel, this display in the sacraments, present to us this gospel this advent of Christ and it's what the Holy Spirit uses to create faith in unbelievers and to strengthen the faith of his people frankly the celebration of Christmas can't compete with the means of grace don't get me wrong I'm not dissing Christmas let's keep it in his place the fact that in Jesus Christ the saving grace of God has appeared for all men presses this question upon you today. You've been called to prepare for the Lord's Supper. And to put that preparation in a nutshell, remembering that the saving grace of God has appeared, the question to you is, do you trust that He came for the likes of you? I have to ask myself the same question. Has He come for the likes of me? Are you displeased with yourself? because of your sins? And do you nevertheless trust that Jesus Christ has pardoned your sins and that He covers your remaining weaknesses by His suffering and His death on the cross, by His advent in your place? If you do, and you've made a public profession of that trust in Christ, then you should come to the supper next Lord's Day and participate as a member of His church in His body and His blood that was given for complete remission of all of our sins. If you're not so displeased and if you do not trust in Christ but in yourself, then you should not come. It's clear. But know this, that the saving grace of God has appeared for you also. There's no sin so great and there's no sinner so lost that the love of Jesus Christ can't redeem and purify those who will turn to Him in repentance and faith. And so today, if you're not yet able to come to the table, hear this. Repent and believe that you too may receive the benefits of the advent of Christ, the coming of God in the flesh, and to be nurtured upon Him at His table one day. But when Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Lord's table for His church, He commanded us to do this in remembrance of Him, to remember what we've just remembered. And Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 to explain that when we do so, We proclaim the Lord's death, what He's done, and we do so until He comes. This is a sacrament for here and now. A sacrament that will not continue in glory. And it calls us to remember that Jesus Christ will come again. Paul reminds us of this in verse 13 when he says that we are waiting for, We're waiting for the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. What a verse. Chew on that one for an hour or a day or a week or a month. The confession that Jesus Christ is our great God and Savior. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who became the Son of Man that was predicted in the prophets. He is Emmanuel. He's God with us. He's the one and only God-man. We need to hold on to this clearly at all times. We get the message he was a baby. We get the message that he's in heaven. And they seem so disconnected, but they're connected in him. He's the God-man. He will forever remain the God-man. What he has joined together in himself will never be ran apart. Death could not do it. His first advent has concluded. He has been lifted up from the earth and he is out of sight. He's gone from view, but he's not gone forever. The God-man has promised to come again. And when he comes in a cloud with power and great glory, he will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, with the trumpet call of God. And everyone on the earth will know that Jesus Christ is on the scene. Many missed His first advent. None will miss the second. And on that day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior, is Lord. The dead will be raised and the living transformed and we will all stand before Him in judgment. To His enemies He will say, Depart from me, you cursed. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you. Scratch that. Inherit the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And to his people he will say, Come. Come, you who are blessed of my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. All men are waiting for that day. Some with dread, most with absolute indifference. But Paul describes our waiting as the people of God with a word that envisions a waiting that is eager, a waiting that is open-armed, a waiting that wants to welcome our Savior back with us and we with Him. God's people welcome the day when Jesus will come and purge this world with fire and establish the new heavens and the new earth. when He will dwell with us and we with Him, when He will wipe every tear from our eyes, when death will be no more, neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away. God's people wait for that day. We expect that day. We're eager for that day. And that day is not a pipe dream. And that day is not a wish. That day, Paul says, is our blessed hope. A hope that is anchored to a reality that's been promised. A hope to a reality that has been accomplished in Christ. It's anchored to Christ himself who's gone before us into the heavens and will come back as he has promised to bring us to himself. The Gospel of John tells us that when he appears, we shall be like him because we will see him as he is. The Apostle Paul assures us that when he comes, he will transform our lowly bodies, this body, to be like his glorious body. I like to ponder this question because I really don't have the beginnings of understanding of what this will be like. But Jesus Christ, the God-man, when he comes again, will transform our humanity to be like his humanity, which is perfect and glorious, and that will live forever. That's our blessed hope. If that's not your hope, it can be. Because until the day that he returns, today is still the day of salvation. It's the day that he is patiently extending. So that all might come to repentance. So that none would perish. So that you would hear this gospel, this day perhaps, and know that there's a rescue for you. will repent of your sins. Cling to Christ for that day of judgment. But do it today. For even though he's patient and he continues to delay as of this moment, we're promised that that day will come. And it will come like a thief in the night, at a time that you least expect, and then it will be too late. And you will find yourself among the cursed rather than among those who are brought home. If this is your blessed hope, it's your privilege to participate in an important part of our waiting, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Jesus Christ gave it to the church for this time between his comings. He established it before he left the earth and it will end when he returns. and we are to celebrate it until he comes again. Each time we partake could be our last. Each time we partake, we proclaim the Lord's death, the finishing work of his first advent. It's a key part of our remembering. It's a key part of our waiting. At Christmas, we remember the birth of Jesus, and it's important that we do. But the Lord's Supper reminds us that he was born to die and to be raised for our justification and to ascend to glory to bring us home one day. And so we remember the advent of Christ in the Lord's Supper and we anticipate his return in the Lord's Supper. Just as Paul waited and Titus waited and all the saints who've gone before waited, we also wait, confident that the salvation is nearer to us now than it was the first day we believed. We're closer to home. And we're assured by Jesus Christ himself, who revealed from heaven through the revelation of John, says, surely I'm coming soon. To which we answer, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ has come. Jesus Christ will come again. But while we wait, and while He is still seated in the heavenlies at the right hand of His Father, He is active here on earth. He is present. In verses 12 and 14 of our text, we see His work here among us. These verses tell us what He's doing. He has appeared, and he will appear again in glory. But in this present age, he's at work. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus told his disciples he was going to the Father, and he assured them, saying, I'll come again, and I'll take you to myself. I'll come again. But he went on to promise, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. And after his resurrection, before he ascended into glory, he gave the apostles a great commission and he said his parting words were, Behold, I am with you always. To the end of the age. This is a mystery. The God-man is in heaven and he will return one day. And yet he is present with his people here and now. And of course we know that that's by His Spirit whom He promised to send and who He sent at Pentecost and who has indwelt His people from that time on. He lives in His people. He is the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of Christ, the Scripture calls Him. And we see His work in verse 14. Paul says that our great God and Savior Jesus Christ 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, who are zealous to live as the older men are called to live, who are zealous to live as the older women are called to live, who are zealous to live as the younger women, the younger men, and for the minister himself. That's why he gave himself. He gave himself to redeem us and to purify us. And this is where the shorthand of doctrine comes in. young people and children. This is why we learn those $10 words. Because we can say with a word that explains so much. In doctrine language, he gave himself for our justification. You've heard that word. He gave himself for our sanctification. You've heard that word. He gave himself for our justification to make us right with God, to redeem us from all of our sins and lawlessness and give us the righteousness of Christ that we may stand in the presence of God and be acceptable. He's accomplished our justification and He has accomplished our sanctification. He's accomplished the certainty that on the day that we see Him face to face, we will be purified. We will be ready to behold Him as He is and we will be like Him. We will be a people for Himself. He's accomplished that by His work. He accomplished that once and for all by the shedding of His blood, by His first advent. But His work, accomplished once and for all, 2,000 years ago, must be applied to each and every one of His people. Each and every one of us, in order to have the benefit of His work, need Him to be active here and now in space and time by the power of His Spirit. To apply that work to us. and he does that by the preaching of the gospel, which he uses to create faith. A faith that will hear that gospel, that will believe that gospel, that will trust in Jesus Christ, not only for salvation, but for the purification that he is going to work in us. The Holy Spirit creates that true faith, that trusts in Christ, and through that true faith, we receive our justification. So that it's just as if we never sinned or had been a sinner. And just as if we'd always obeyed as perfectly as Christ obeyed for us. That's ours through faith in Christ. Our sanctification, that ongoing work of purifying us, is a work in progress. Until Jesus Christ returns and brings us home to glory, He is at work in us to accomplish that end. The purity and the zeal for good works which Jesus Christ gave himself for do not come naturally to us. It's not an invitation for us to do better. It's not a threat from Santa Claus to get it right. That which he demands in us, he creates in us by the power of his Holy Spirit through his gospel. Therefore, Paul says in verse 12, he is training us for this result. That's a here and now activity of Jesus Christ the Son in the present. He is training us. He is training us. Young men, you won't get that six-pack ab unless you are vigorously training. And you won't win the spelling bee unless you vigorously train. And you won't be purified for Christ and zealous for good works without vigorous training. And so He is training us. Jesus Christ has secured the outcome and He has given us the Holy Spirit who is at work even now within us to will, that is to want to, and to work, that is to do what's pleasing to Him more and more. By His Spirit, Jesus Christ is training us here and now more and more to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. You've heard this before from this pulpit, to put it away, to put it to death, to put it off, to put it behind, and instead to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives, to put it on, to pursue it, to practice it, to exert ourselves for it. He's training us in Christian integrity, bringing our walk into line with our talk, forming disciples that look more like our master, making us literally zealots of good works, radically committed to His cause ready to die to our own. This is Christ's work in us by His Spirit. We're called to give ourselves to it to not resist it to not resist the Spirit to not grieve the Spirit by whom we are sealed for the day of redemption. Our work is not to try harder. Our work is not to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Our work is the work of faith that finds expression in love to God and to our neighbor. Faith that works out through us in these ways by the power of the Spirit. But we know that our faith is feeble. Our faith is feeble. And it needs to be strengthened constantly. What are we to do? Well, when we feel feeble, we're tempted to work harder in our own strength. We're tempted to give it the college go, to go the extra mile, to put on a stiff lip and just go for it. But when we exercise our own strength toward these ends, we'll either be led to despair because we'll fail again and again and again. Or we'll be sidetracked into pride when we lie to ourselves about how well we're doing, especially compared to Joe over here. See, the truth is our sanctification depends entirely upon God's grace. Entirely. So when we feel feeble, faith turns to Christ. When we feel feeble, we turn to the gospel promises. When we feel feeble, we go to His Word. When we feel feeble, we come to the table. Our sanctification depends entirely upon God's grace and we confess this in the canons of Dort. Buried in the back of your blue Psalter hymnal. Buried in the back of your little white book. Perseverance of the saints. We all love this doctrine, but what does it say? There we confess that it has pleased God by the preaching of the gospel to begin this work of grace in us. But it didn't stop there. In like manner, He preserves, continues, and perfects it by the hearing and the reading of His Word. by meditating thereon by the exhortations, threatenings, and promises thereof and by the use of the sacraments. That which He is working in us He has given us all that we need by the power of His Spirit by the Gospel proclaimed and by the Gospel displayed. People of God, we need the Gospel. We need it preached to us each morning and evening of each and every Lord's day And if we tell ourselves otherwise, we're deceiving ourselves. And we're good at it. We also need the sacraments to show us the gospel. And the Lord's Supper in particular to feed us the gospel. We need these, the preaching of the gospel and the sacramental gospel, more than Christmas once a year. Even if we make Christmas a priority and we remember Christ and his birth, even if we get everything right, we need these more. And God has given them to us because He knows our need. And so, as we anticipate the Lord's Supper next week, we're further encouraged to come if it is our desire, it's our desire more and more, to strengthen our faith and to lead a better life. We don't come perfect. We don't come entirely purified. but we come in dependence on Christ and His work in us by His Spirit through His Gospel to strengthen us for another day and to press us on toward the goal of our purification. So the day that He returns for us as people will be without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish adorned as a bride for our groom. And when we come to the Lord's table, with a believing heart that knows our sin and trusts our Savior and desires these things. Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will nourish and strengthen the new life that is ours in Him by His Spirit, by the proper and natural body and blood of Christ that we will receive, really receive, not by the mouth, but through the faith that He's given us to believe. Christmas is coming. Enjoy it. The Lord's Supper is appointed. The question before us this week is, should you come? I pray, God, that you are looking to Christ and you come to His table next week. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we come before you at the close of this consideration of your word and we thank you for revealing to us so clearly and so pointedly the reality of Christ's work for his people. That he has come in the flesh to accomplish our redemption. That he will come again at the appointed time and the appointed day to consummate all things and to finalize the entirety of his salvation and to bring His people home to glory. In the meantime, He's not left us as orphans, but He's given us His Spirit by which He dwells within us. And He has accommodated to our weakness by giving us the Gospel to be preached and heard, to be sacramentally administered and received. We pray, Father, that You would strengthen our faith and to grow our awareness of our need for these means to live as the people you call us to live like in this world to the glory of the gospel to the love of God and love of neighbor we ask this in Christ's name, Amen.