Words of truth from pastor and best-selling author, Dr. Michael Youssef. You are in your Father's last will and testament. You're gonna inherit with Jesus. You're gonna reign and rule with Him. You are destined for greatness. You are destined to reign and rule with Christ. You are destined to be called the child of the King of Kings.
Now, live like it. In the New Testament pages of Titus, the author Paul emphasizes the influence and the impact of grace for living and growing in life. And today on Leading the Way, Dr. Michael Youssef gives you a look into Paul's words on grace. It's part of Dr. Youssef's series, Pursuing Godliness in a Godless World. Hey, in this quick reminder before he begins, if you would like to listen to more content from Dr. Michael Youssef, ltw.org is the place to start.
You can stream messages on demand and you can get information about podcasts and other ways to listen and to watch. While you're there, learn more about the worldwide impact of Dr. Youssef and Leading the Way. Right now, though, listen with me to Dr. Youssef's challenging words regarding pursuing godliness in a godless world. Please turn with me, if you haven't already, to Titus chapter 2, beginning of verse 11. We're going all the way to chapter 3, verse 7. Here Paul is saying, not only tells us about that incredible grace of God, which I can't wait to talk about, that it brings us salvation, it brings us forgiveness, but we see how this grace of God also disciplines us.
It trains us into godliness. In the last few verses of chapter 2, Paul shows us that God's grace is past, God's grace is present, and God's grace is future. And the reason the Bible teaches that true Christians, and the emphasis here on true Christians, not just the one who claimed to be Christians or just who go to church, those who are true Christians, the reason the Bible teaches us that those true Christians will never lose their salvation is because God's grace does a total job, beginning, middle, and end. Just think with me, if God is unable to keep the true believers saved, then God's grace is lacking in everlasting power, right? But it is not. God's grace is beginning, middle, and end.
Thank God this is not the case. Jesus said in John chapter 6, verse 37, that though all those whom the Father gives me will come to me, and when they come to me I'll never reject them. They will never be lost. Grace past, grace present, and grace future. Let's see how that works.
I'm going to show it to you. In verse 11, it's grace past. The grace of God appeared in the past.
That is, offered salvation to all people. But even that grace goes further past beyond the cross. And before the cross, I'm going to show you in a minute, it's very important that you get that, because there's so many people running around in the church today saying the God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath, but the God of the New Testament is the God of grace. That is absolutely a lie.
It's a fallacy. It's the same God of grace in the Old Testament and New Testament. Verse 12, grace teaches us, that's the present, it's in the present tense, it teaches us now to say what? No, to ungodliness, and worldly passions, and to live self-control life upright, and godly lives in the present age. It's the present. Verse 13, future. We wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Future. In verse 4, he puts the past, present, and future all together.
Now let me unpack this for you. Grace past, even before the cross, in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve blew it. I know that's not what the Bible says, but you know what I mean. Now, God could have said to them, I told you there are consequences to your disobedience, the wages of sin is death, you disobeyed me, drop dead.
Right? But God didn't. He gave them grace instead. Grace is God's unmerited favor. Grace is God's blessing when we deserve punishment.
Grace is forgiveness when we deserve not forgive, be forgiven. Later on, God calls Abraham, and when he called Abraham and he made a covenant with Abraham, he said, okay Abraham, I now made this good start with you, I've started this covenant, now up to you buddy, to keep up the terms of the Covenant. No, absolutely not, God said it's gonna depend on me. I'm the one who's be the guarantor, I'm the one who's gonna guarantee this incredible work of my covenant. No way God was gonna leave it up to him to keep the Covenant. God guaranteed it. He is guaranteed the outcome of that Covenant. You see, that is grace where?
Past. Out of Abraham came his descendants. He told Abraham, he said, your descendants are gonna go down into Egypt and they're gonna be enslaved for 400 years, but I'm not gonna leave them there, I'm gonna bring them out. And right on schedule, just as God told Abraham, 400 years later, they're coming out of the slavery of Egypt.
How did they get out of there? By God's grace. They didn't deserve it, even Moses told them so. He said, in fact, your stiff neck, but God chose you anyway.
He delivered them from the land of the slavery. He provided for them, supernaturally and miraculously, that is grace past. But there no greater place where the grace past had been manifested anywhere greatly than on the cross of Jesus Christ.
When the sinless died for sinners, when the righteous died for the unrighteous, when the perfect died for the imperfect, when the king dies for the sin of his subjects. And the Bible said, the grace is offered. Can you say offered? Now the NIV said revealed.
Really it's one word. It is offered. It is revealed. It was not given to everyone, as so many liberal teachers and preachers within the evangelical church who are teaching universalism, saying that everybody's gonna make it, no matter whether they believed in Jesus or not. That is absolutely alive on the pit of hell.
It's erroneous, erroneous, erroneous. The word here says, the grace is offered in Christ alone. Not in so many other ways to God. And those who have received it, those who have experienced that grace, and they're going to experience the blessings that go with it. Verse 12, because those who receive the grace of God are going to accept the training program that goes with it. How many of you believe that there was a training program was handed to you when you received the grace? What is that training program? Embedded in that grace of God that is given to us through the Lord Jesus Christ is the empowerment to live godly lives in a godless world.
How does this work? When you come in confession and repentance, confessing your failures and your shortcomings and your disobedience, what does God say? Get up. My grace is gonna lift you up now. Rely on my strength, not on yours. So the question is, what does God's grace teaches us?
What does God's grace train us to do? Grace teaches us to say no. Can you say no?
So much for positive thinking. No. To me no is a beautiful word.
It is a positive word. Daniel paid hefty price when he made up his mind that he is going to say no to the godlessness of Babylon. When he said no, he took a risk, but God blessed that risk and he lifted him up high above everybody else. You see, it means that we have to always say no to the flesh, no to the old nature, no to the old habits, no to the old addictions, but we also must say yes. Yes to the Holy Spirit, yes to the new nature, yes to the power of Christ working in us, yes to the new identity in Christ, yes to the Christ like characteristics. Paul makes it very clear in Galatians 5 16, he said, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the sinful nature. Here's something again that's going to bless you every time you think of it, it's going to bless you. Do you know what the greatest difference between a godly person and ungodly person?
The greatest difference. Write this down, hang it on the wall, keep it in your Bible. The difference between the godly and the ungodly is consciousness of sin.
Did you get that? Consciousness of sin. You see, the ungodly person says, I'm a good guy, I'm a good person, but the person who says, oh Lord have mercy on me a sinner. That's a godly person, that's a godly person. A godly person like Isaiah when he was lifted up into the very presence of the Lord, he cried out, what to me? A man of unclean lips. Beloved, what the Bible teaches runs contrary, opposite to everything that the media and this culture is dishing out to us.
Contrary, opposite, in two opposite directions. God says, the more godly you are, the more unworthy you feel. The culture said, baby you are worth it, you're worth it. Now there are some Christians who have been saturated by the spirit of the age, that they adopted the spirit of the age into the Christian life and they said, you know, God looked at me and saw me worthy to die on the cross for me. Now listen to me, beloved, any worth that we have comes from the grace of God that is given to us and because he died on the cross, he made us worthy to receive. Not because we were worthy, he died. The Bible said, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Amen, amen, amen. The Bible said, if we say we have no sin, if ourselves think that we are worthy of Christ's death on the cross, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Grace teaches us to live a life that is self-controlled, that's upright. Did you notice that in those two chapters, chapter one and two of Titus, just two chapters, five times, five times he uses the word self-control.
Five times. Self-control is not only the mark of godliness but also the fruit of the one of the fruit of the Spirit. Self-control of the tongue, self-control of the anger, self-control of addictions and false habits. In fact, self-control is what the grace of God trained us to do. This world is ruled by sin, this world is torn by hatred and selfishness, but those of us who are called of God, we are to pursue godliness.
Why? Verse 13, because we are looking to the blessed hope. We're looking the blessed hope. We are being trained by the grace of God, getting ready for that big party in heaven.
May it be today. Beloved, listen to me, this life is a dress rehearsal for life to come. This life is a preparation for our home coronation and graduation day.
This life is an investment in the life to come. Oh, God promised to meet our needs. He promised that. He promised to give us joy and he does. God promised that he will provide for us.
God promised he will supply us. God promised that nobody's gonna touch us until the day comes when we're ready to go to hell. All these are promises of God, but God's grace purifies us while we're living in this life. How does God's grace purifies?
How does this purification work? Well, first, he sets us free through Christ and when we come to Christ, his grace begins to purify us again continuously. He does it in the beginning and keeps on doing it. We become zealous for good work, for service. When we are busy serving the Lord, looking forward for the payoff. By the way, nothing wrong with looking forward to a reward.
That's very biblical. I am looking forward to my reward. I work every day looking for those crowns because you know why? The world talks about five crowns and I'm working for every one of them. It's not because I can put the crowns on my head and say, look at me boys.
No, no, no. So that on that great day, I'm gonna come and take those crowns and place them at his feet and said, you are worthy to receive all the glory. Unfortunately, some churches short circuit the process and they rush people into service by passing the process of being set as free and purification and training and then they get completely burnt out and they wonder why. But what's that result of the training in godliness? Chapter 3, it tells us that when true godliness is pursued, we find ourselves living under God's authority. How do we prove that we're living under God's authority? We're submitting to spiritual authority in this life. We're submitting to the laws of the land.
We're living at peace with our neighbors and I'm going to show you in a minute here. Thank God we live in a free land where we can dissent and dispute with our political leaders when they do wrong. And we can work hard to change the law and change the law makers. This is a privilege the first century Christians didn't even dream of.
These are those possible but God privileged us and he put us here for a reason. But once the law becomes the law of the land, we have no choice but to obey it unless it conflicts with our loyalty to Jesus Christ. It conflicts with our obedience to Christ. At that point we need to make a decision like the early church. They said God is to be obeyed above Caesar and then they're willing to pay the price for that.
We should be willing to pay the price. Let me tell you something, just last Wednesday night I heard probably the most courageous woman I've heard omit in a long time. She's traveling in all these dark areas on our behalf helping the persecuted, leading different teams in different countries from northern Iraq to Syria to some of the stories that she shared with us. When this man became converted to Christ they took his feet bare feet and they put him on hot tar.
His own brothers were stabbing him with knives and it goes on and on and on. People are paying a price for following Christ and the day is coming when our children and grandchildren who need to be trained now to know how to stand up for Christ and not to cave in. Verse 2 chapter 3 verse 2, another result of this training in godliness is the refusal of slandering others, is the refusal to slander others. Today I hear some horror story particularly my young people with the social media and the slander that gets spread around. It's some very horrible stories that that are coming out of this and slandering people but beloved I want to tell you slander is the issue of the heart.
It's an issue of the heart. Now I found that the next few characteristics of godliness go hand in hand with the slander issue. Being argumentative. Being full of one's own opinion on everything.
You know people like that. Turning every family meeting or every church meeting into a fight. Having no forgiveness in one's heart.
Not forgetting and letting go of the past hurt and just put it under the blood and move forward. All this run contrary to training of the grace of God. Here's what most folks forget, Romans 6 14, for sin shall not be your master because you are not under the law but under grace. So grace does. Not to give me a license to sin but to give me freedom over sin. We often let sin have power over us. And I thought long and hard about we're going to tell you just listen carefully. And this is comes under the rubric of Michael's opinion not from the Word of God. So you can toss it out.
It's what I watched through the years. People confuse two simple words with each other. They confuse can't with won't.
I want to explain that. Most often people use the word can't when they really mean won't. I can't communicate with my spouse. What they really mean is I won't talk to my spouse. So I cannot discipline my kids. And what they mean is I really don't want to accept responsibility for parenting.
I just can't stop this affair. And what they're saying is that I won't give up my selfish desires. Or I can't find time to pray and and read the scripture. What they really mean is I won't find time to pray and feed upon the Word of God. Listen to me. The only thing that is keeping you from victory is your will. Once you exchange the word can't with the word won't, you're halfway through to victory.
Why? Because once you start hearing yourself say I won't do this, you realize that God's grace is now going to empower you to change. Verse 3, we were once like that.
Not anymore. Verse 4, but now the kindness, the love of our Savior appeared. Verse 5, he saved us not because of righteous things we have done but because of his mercy. Why did God do all of this? Why did Christ leave the splendor of heaven, die on a cross?
Why? See, when he brought you to himself, when he pursued you and brought you to himself, he adopted you. He called your son, he called your daughter, he adopted you. But not only that he just adopted you, so you're a kind of adopted son or adopted daughter, but he actually gonna make you inherit with his natural son the Lord Jesus Christ. You're gonna be treated just like the natural child.
You know difference between being adopted being natural. You will inherit just as if you're a natural child. If that does not keep you excited in the Christian life, I really honestly don't know what will. Here it is, you are in your father's lost will and testimony. You're gonna inherit with Jesus. You're gonna reign and rule with him. You are destined for greatness. You are destined to reign and rule with Christ.
You are destined to be called the child of the king of kings. Now, live like it. Live like it.
Live like it. Dr. Michael Yusef with a life-changing message about pursuing godliness in a godless world. And if you missed any portion of this episode or if you're not able to listen regularly, won't you consider subscribing to the Leading the Way podcast.
It's available on Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music, iHeart, Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, whatever platform you use. Information and links at ltw.org. Now as we near the end of this episode, allow me to remind you about Dr. Yusef's offer for this month, How to Read the Bible. Do you read the Bible as if your life depends on it?
Well, you should. In Dr. Michael Yusef's book, How to Read the Bible, he reveals how the Bible guides you through life with faith and power. You'll understand that from the first pages of Genesis all the way through the last words of Revelation, God is pointing you toward the Lord who saves completely and eternally. In a day when so many preachers are saying that we need to ditch the Old Testament, we need to give up the Old Testament, I'm going to show you in this book how to read the Bible. That the two Old and New Testament are interrelated. You cannot have one without the other.
One does not make sense without the other. And so I hope you're going to read that book and you're going to apply it to your life. It will strengthen your faith and your trust in the Word of God. Learn how to get your copy of Dr. Yusef's book, How to Read the Bible, today when you visit ltw.org. ltw.org. Right now, Dr. Yusef is making this powerful book, How to Read the Bible, available when you give a gift of any amount to the worldwide ministry of leading the way. Start at ltw.org or call and speak with a ministry representative at 866-626-4356. We also love hearing from you through the Postal Service. You can write to Leading the Way Post Office Box 20100 Atlanta, Georgia 30325. This program is brought to you by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef. Connect further with audio and video content at ltw.org.
