Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Stuart Briscoe brings us his message called "The Development of Godliness" from a series, "Cheerful Godliness." The series is all about how embracing godly living actually frees us to be more than we believed we could be.

But before we launch into the program, today's culture is a revolving door of ever-shifting views and beliefs. That's why it's so important to test new ideas against the timeless truth of Scripture. It's the best defense against the world's confusion.

We want to help ground you in the foundations of your faith by sending you Stuart Briscoe's six-message series on the book of Second Peter, "Six Things We Must Never Forget." The "Six Things We Must Never Forget" series is our thanks for your gift to help keep Telling the Truth going strong, sharing life-giving teaching from Stuart and Jill with more people all over the world.

So, request your copy when you give today and get help staying grounded in truth in today's shifting culture. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Stuart with today's message called "The Development of Godliness."

Stuart Briscoe: Remember that I pointed out to you that Paul, writing to Timothy in his first letter, told Timothy that it was necessary for him to be committed to prayer for all people, with particular regard to those in positions of leadership. The point of praying for those in positions of political and national leadership is in order that we might have a quiet and peaceful life that we could live in all godliness and holiness.

Now, we've said a lot about holiness, but we haven't really said much about godliness. So, that's the focus. I'm interested and I'm concerned to try to stress that these days in which we live should be a stimulus to us for a greater sense of intensity and a greater sense of urgency to live as we ought in these challenging days. As far as the Scripture is concerned, we ought to be living lives characterized by godliness and holiness.

The big question, of course, is what is godliness? It's not a term that we use very much at the present time. Well, let's look again in Scripture and see if we can find some more answers to this question. Today, we go to Paul's letter to Titus and the second chapter. I'd like to read a few verses commencing with verse 11.

While you're finding the place, let me just point out to you that the whole of this chapter gives instruction to Titus about the kind of teaching that he should be involved in on the island of Crete, a beautiful little island in the Mediterranean. He's to teach the older men certain things, he's to teach the older women certain things, he's to teach the younger women specific things, and he has to emphasize some things to the younger men.

Then in verse 11, he summarizes all this and this is what he says: "For the grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared. It teaches us to say 'no' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age." There's the theme again, you see. "While we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority, and Titus, do not let anyone despise you."

Now, let me draw your attention particularly to two words in that reading. In verse 11: "The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared." Notice the word "appeared" there. Then in verse 13: "While we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior." Notice the two words are very similar in the English. In the original language in which they were written, they are very similar, too.

In actual fact, the word that is used in the original language is the word from which we get our English word "epiphany." So, he's talking about two epiphanies here. Somebody's probably saying, "And what's an epiphany?" It's not a word that we use very frequently in our normal discourse either. Let me give you an example of a modern-day epiphany.

The two young women who were working for the German relief agency in Afghanistan—they were arrested, you remember, and held by the Taliban for three and a half months. They were held in primitive conditions for a considerable amount of time. They were incarcerated. At night, they would be bundled into trucks and shipped to another place.

Then the bombing started. Their temporary prisons in which they were held, sometimes actually in metal shipping containers where they would lie in a fetal condition—they were shaken by the bombing. They just wondered if they were ever going to be free, if they would ever survive this experience.

One morning, there was a very terrifying rattling on the door and a lot of shouting going on, and they assumed that this was it; they were going to take them out and probably do away with them. But to their intense delight, when the door was thrown open, a soldier said, "You're free. The Taliban has gone. We can get you out of here." They called in the helicopters, they whisked them away, and that is a modern-day epiphany.

What does it mean? An epiphany is a sudden, dramatic intervention by a hero on behalf of people in dire straits with a view to rescuing them. That's what an epiphany is: a sudden, dramatic intervention by a hero on behalf of people in dire straits with a view to delivering them. Now, says Paul, there are two epiphanies. One has already taken place; the other one is yet to take place.

The first one we will call the epiphany of grace. For Paul writes, "The grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared"—the epiphany of grace. Tell you more about that in a minute. But whilst that has happened, we anticipate another epiphany—another sudden, dramatic intervention on behalf of beleaguered people to provide for them what they need.

And that will be the ultimate epiphany of glory. Both of these epiphanies have the same hero. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. The first epiphany had to do with his incarnation and all that led out of his incarnation: his birth, his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection, and his ascension back to the Father.

That is all called the epiphany of grace. We keenly anticipate his return. If the epiphany of grace was his first coming, the epiphany of glory will be his second coming. All of salvation history fits in between these towers of epiphany. The first one was all about Jesus coming the first time in grace. The second one is all about him returning in glory.

When Jesus came the first time, he came as a baby, he came in relative obscurity, he came humbly. When he comes the second time, he will come in great glory. Every eye will see him, every tongue will confess he is Lord, every knee will bow to him and confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The two epiphanies.

Now, says the Apostle Paul, when we understand these two epiphanies rightly, it will have a profound impact on the way we live. So, first of all, the epiphany of grace. I want you to notice three things about this epiphany of grace: first of all, the dramatic dimension of it, then the dynamic dimension of it, and then the didactic dimension of it.

Didactic simply means the teaching dimension of it—but "teaching" does not begin with "D." So, dramatic, dynamic, and didactic dimension there. I don't know why that amuses me, but I might as well have fun while I'm doing it.

Alright, the epiphany of grace. What do we mean by grace? Grace is a divine attitude. It is born of God's goodness and love and mercy. It is the attitude that God has to human beings in which he purposes to give human beings what they could never earn, what they could never get any other way, and which they emphatically do not deserve. That's the essence of grace.

It is a divine attitude that says to a humanity that has deeply grieved and offended his holy majesty: I will reach out to you nevertheless and make available to you what you couldn't earn or what you don't deserve and which, if I don't make it available to you, you will never have. And I do not do it because you merit it; I will do it because of what I am. Grace.

Guest (Male): Don't go anywhere; there's more life-giving truth from the Briscoes headed your way. Tellingthetruth.org and the Telling the Truth app are great resources to help you grow in your spiritual life.

Packed with videos like "Ask the Briscoes," articles from Stuart and Jill, and encouraging audio teaching content, you'll find a treasure trove of resources to encourage you and others in your faith. And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource when you give a gift to help more people around the world experience life in Christ.

So, visit us online or download the app today. We look forward to connecting with you. Now, let's rejoin the program as Stuart continues his message, "The Development of Godliness."

Stuart Briscoe: Now, the Lord Jesus is the means whereby God can be gracious to us and present us with the gift of salvation. And that was the dramatic thing that happened when the baby Jesus was born. Now, we need to be very careful at Christmas time. We have so many traditions wrapped up in the Advent season.

We have so many accretions to the Christmas story, many of which are perfectly valid, most of which are very charming and beautiful. But if we're not careful, we can dilute the whole message of Christmas. Try to get hold of the message of Christmas this way: that when the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, that was a sudden, dramatic, powerful intervention in the affairs of a beleaguered people with a view to rescuing them from that which controlled them, and without their hero coming, they would be in dire straits. Think of it as the Lord Jesus Christ coming in an epiphany of grace to bring salvation. It is a dramatic event.

But then the dynamic element of it. The word "salvation" that is used here—bringing salvation to all men—salvation is the umbrella word. And under that umbrella, there are many aspects of salvation, many other words that are used. They are all dynamic. The idea of salvation is that it brings powerful change into people's lives.

Look at what Paul says here. He says, for instance, in verse 14, that the Lord Jesus is our great God and Savior, "who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness." That is a very precise statement. Notice that the Lord Jesus came in order to give himself.

When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, he insisted that nobody was taking his life away from him. He said, "I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Before he went to the cross, he explained to his disciples, "I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many."

Very often, when we think of the cross, we point the fingers. Well, it was the Jews who did it; well, it was the Romans who did it. Well, underneath the whole thing is this inescapable fact: nobody did it to him. He gave himself.

When he hung on the cross, he cried with a loud voice, not with a whimper, "Tetelestai," which means "finished, completed, consummated." I've done everything I came to do. Then notice what it says: he bowed his head and dismissed his spirit. "You may go now, spirit," he said, and that was how he died. They didn't take his life away from it; it was an offering of himself.

Notice he gave himself for us. But not only does he come to deliver us from wickedness and all kinds of worldly passions, but he also comes to purify us—to take away the blot and the stain of shame and guilt that so often spoils and ruins our lives. There is a sense in which we come to Christ in deep repentance and in faith that he washes away our sin.

"Though your sins be as scarlet," we're told, "they shall be as white as snow." "Your sins and iniquities," God says, "I will remember no more." "As far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your iniquities from you." "I have buried them in the depths of the sea." All kinds of quotations from Scripture that give us this idea that when we come before God in our sin and accept what Jesus has done for us on the cross, we are purified.

After we have been initially cleansed, however, we often revert to bad habits. But Scripture then goes on to say that if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then it adds: and the blood of Christ goes on cleansing us from all sin. That brings a tremendous sense of assurance. And that is a powerful thing, a dynamic thing, that happens in our lives.

And he says he wants to purify for himself a people who will be eager to do that which is good. We do not have an eagerness to do what is good and right and true very often. Very often, we're more eager to enjoy that which is comfortable, profitable, and popular. And God says, "No, I'm going to do a dynamic work in you, and you'll begin to discover a new aspiration within you and a deep desire to be eager to do what is good."

All this happens as a result of the epiphany of grace. It is a dramatic, dynamic, didactic intervention in our affairs. For Paul now goes on to say this: "The grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared. It teaches us."

What does the epiphany of grace possibly have to do with teaching me? And the answer is: it teaches me, first of all, to say "no" to ungodliness and worldly passions. And secondly, to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present evil age.

This is where godliness comes into it. When I understand the epiphany of grace—this dynamic, dramatic event where Jesus came into the world and made salvation available to all men, and I, by grace, have been drawn to God and have discovered the reality of it in my own life—I begin to understand the dynamic power of it, and I learn something.

What do I learn? I learn that I don't have the freedom to go on living in ungodliness and worldly passions. And I learn that I have now been saved in order that I might live self-controlled, upright, and godly in this present evil age. Jesus left Heaven's highest glory and came down here to this earth. What a remarkable thing to do.

Guest (Male): Stuart, why is it so important for us to understand the doctrine of grace?

Stuart Briscoe: I love the doctrine of grace. Grace is a word that is used not very frequently. And when it is used, it tends to be used in a religious sense. So, for instance, some families will say grace before a meal. But there's much more to the idea of grace in Scripture than that.

What we mean by grace is that grace is unmerited favor, unmerited benefit given to the most undeserving. We do think in terms of getting our just deserts. We tend to think of sometimes our just deserts or our rights becoming entitlements. And we get very, very upset if we don't get what we think we deserve, what we are entitled to.

Grace is all about us recognizing how much we don't deserve and how abundantly God has reached out to us in giving us what we don't deserve. What he has given us that we don't deserve is his love and his mercy and his forgiveness and all that we need to live rightly before him. This is amazing grace.

Guest (Male): Stuart, could you explain for us again what the epiphany of grace is?

Stuart Briscoe: The epiphany of grace may be an expression with which some people listening to my voice are not familiar. Grace, of course, is defined as unmerited favor. It is God giving us what we don't deserve. Epiphany—well, that word is even less familiar, I think. An epiphany is an unveiling, a surprising, beautiful demonstration of something.

And when we talk about the epiphany of grace, what we're talking about is God, in a beautiful, surprising manner, demonstrating his unmerited favor to us. The epiphany of grace is actually another term to describe the coming of Jesus into the world.

God decided that he wanted to show, in language that people would understand, what his grace looks like. And so he sent Jesus: the perfect man, the man who loved, the man who cared, the man who forgave, the man who reached out to those who would destroy him—the man who, even as he hung on a cross, said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That is grace, and it was wonderfully personified in Jesus. The epiphany of grace.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to Telling the Truth today. We're so glad you've joined us, and we pray this message has helped you experience more of the abundant life Jesus promised. Today's culture is a revolving door of ever-shifting views and beliefs. That's why it's so important to test new ideas against the timeless truth of Scripture. It's the best defense against the world's confusion.

We want to help ground you in the foundations of your faith by sending you Stuart Briscoe's six-message series on the book of Second Peter, "Six Things We Must Never Forget." This series will anchor you in six time-tested truths from God's Word, so you can stand strong in your beliefs as you remember the deep spiritual truths that are foundational to your faith.

The "Six Things We Must Never Forget" series is our thanks for your gift to help keep Telling the Truth going strong, sharing life-giving teaching from Stuart and Jill with more people all over the world. So, request your copy when you give today and get help staying grounded in truth in today's shifting culture.

Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. We're so glad you listened today. Be sure to come back next time for more encouraging biblical truths with the Briscoes. Experience life, right here on Telling the Truth.