“For the grace of God has appeared with salvation for all people, 12 instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14 He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for Himself a people for His own possession, eager to do good works.
15 Say these things, and encourage and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.”
Titus 2:11-15
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What are ‘worldly lusts?’ What defines ‘godlessness?’ Just how lawless is ‘lawlessness?’ We talked about this on Sunday in our sermon from Judges 3. When something threatens our lives, we don’t stick around to examine it, we flee, we run away. We don’t see just how hot the fire is, or move in closer to inspect an active volcano. We don’t skirt the edge of danger just to see how close we can get without dying, so why would we see just how much we can live like the world, how much is ‘permissable’ rather than simply, plainly living for Christ, according to His Word?

We deny godlessness. We reject worldly lusts. We have been redeemed from lawlessness when we put our trust in Christ. There is no sense in trying to do otherwise, there is no reason in sampling from sin when you have the fruit of righteousness made available through Christ. Would you rather have a fresh salad and a nice, perfectly cooked piece of meat, or fetid, rotting, maggot-ridden garbage for dinner? There’s no contest. Yet morally, we make the vulgar choice on a regular basis. We choose gossip over love, slander over honesty and greed over generosity. We value silence over sharing the Good News and privacy over living publicly for Christ.

Paul is encouraging Titus, who is the leader for Christianity and the church on the whole island of Crete, to maintain the walk that honors God. It must be tempting to just live like the locals, to be popular and accomodating. But what must be done instead, is to live the Gospel out daily in integrity, honesty and in sensible, God-honoring purity. It means standing out from society. It means being different. It means intentionally setting the example for Christ in front of others who don’t know different than ‘the way its always been.’

It’s not going to be easy, but it is the right thing to do. Christ must be represented well in each of our lives as we daily follow His commission to GoLove in His Name. We cannot represent Christ and look like the world. We must be distinctive in Him.