Trained by Grace

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, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. — Titus 2:11–14

God's grace doesn't just save us—it trains us to live like His own peculiar people.

The Weight of the Exhortations

Over the last several weeks we've been in the book of Titus, where the Apostle Paul gives a whole list of exhortations to the church—first to Christians on the island of Crete, but also to us here today. He calls us to a certain kind of lifestyle, very evidently seen in the world: be temperate, be self-controlled, be sound in faith, love, and patience; the older women not slanderers or given to much wine; the younger women to love their husbands and children; the young men to be self-controlled, to do what is good, to show integrity and seriousness.

Challenges like these can leave us feeling condemned. We can step away from a passage like this feeling we've been handed a new laundry list of do's and don'ts to check off every single week. And the seriousness compounds when you read the end of verses 5, 8, and 10. Live a good life—so that no one will malign the Word of God. Get your act together—so that those who oppose the gospel may be ashamed, having nothing bad to say. Make your holy conduct evident—so that in every way you make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. People are watching, and the weight is on you.

The Conscience and Our Failure

This reminds me of a favorite verse, Philippians 2:12, where Paul says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Verses like that touch something every person lives with—not just Christians. There is a compelling thing within us that makes us feel we have to live to a certain standard. It's called a conscience. God, the moral lawgiver, has written a moral law into the heart of every human being, and Romans says that conscience does two things: it excuses you when you do right, and it accuses you when you do wrong.

Unfortunately, most of us live in a place of feeling pretty accused, because when we're honest, we don't live up to even the standard our own conscience sets. That's why religion is humanity's default—every culture defaults toward a religious lifestyle. Even those who call themselves non-religious, the growing group identified as the "nones," are religiously non-religious, and often among the most morally accusatory people, pointing fingers at everyone else.

But man's interpretation of "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" is what we see in religion—and that's not all the Bible teaches. That very verse flows into verse 13: "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure." The Bible is filled with exhortations to live at a certain level, but alongside them come passages like Titus 2:11.

Salvation Is by Grace

"For the grace of God that brings salvation"—stop right there. That leads us to our first point: salvation is by grace. This is the basic premise of the Christian gospel. If you've been a Christian for a while, that's not new. But we cannot move too quickly past this essentially important truth. We need to let our roots go deep down into the soil of that simple point.

If you're new to the faith, or not yet a Christian, this is good news. In line with the conscience God has given every one of the 7.2 billion people on this planet, all humans default toward religious effort—trying to make themselves better. But if you've tried to be good, you quickly realize you're not very good. We try to appease our conscience, the expectations of others, and the religious standards of our culture, and we utterly fail. That's why people feel guilt and shame; when someone says "you could be so much better," part of us knows it's true.

The Bible makes this clear from beginning to end. Isaiah 53:6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way." Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And at just the right time, the gospel comes in. Isaiah 53:6 continues, "And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all"—700 years before Jesus, a prophetic vision of all our sins laid on One standing in our place. Paul looks back on it in Romans, saying we are "justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Salvation is by grace.

Living Under Works Instead of Grace

You may say, "I know that, I've heard it for years." But I guarantee you have not exhausted that truth as much as you think. A lot of Christians actually live more under works than under grace. I interact with Christians most of every week, and I find they often live under a works mentality with God. We get discouraged because we don't do enough good works and do far more bad works than we should. So people come to churches across the nation every week trying to clear their conscience from the previous week's failures. You sing, you give, you hear the Scriptures, you leave ready to face the weekend—and by Tuesday you're deflated again. Maybe you've failed so royally you don't show up for three weeks, and then I see you and say, "Where have you been?"—"Oh, I've been busy." So many of us live feeling we never measure up.

There's another way Christians show they're not living in grace: they're convinced—somewhat proudly—that they're actually really good, a lot better than all those other people. We look down at other Christians and think, "God, get them to get their act together." This is exactly what we see at the end of the prodigal son story in Luke 15. We know the younger son who squandered his inheritance and came home to a gracious father. But there are two prodigals in that story.

The older brother was in the field, heard the music and dancing, and learned his father had killed the fatted calf because his brother had returned safe and sound—and he got angry. He would not go in. His father came out and pleaded with him, and the older son said, "These many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandments, and you never gave me even a young goat. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him." Notice—he doesn't even call him "my brother." The father answers, "Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry, for your brother was dead and is alive again." You may not be the one who feels constantly self-condemned; you may be the one who feels self-righteous. Be careful of that danger.

Grace Is for All People

"The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." Point two: grace is for all people. Again, that's not new theologically. But the question isn't whether we know it intellectually; it's whether we live this way. Do we really live believing no one is beyond the reach of God's grace? Are we the kind of Christians who, having freely received grace, freely give it out by sharing the gospel?

Sadly, the church has not always been known for being gracious—not just toward non-Christians, but toward fellow believers. We can be known for kicking people when they're down. We look at the brother or sister who got a DUI or failed in a big way and think, "I can't believe they did that." We forget we have freely received God's grace, and His grace is for all people, even failures.

Galatians 6:1 says, "If anyone is overtaken in a trespass"—I picture a giant wave enveloping a person—"you who are spiritual..." We anticipate the next word will be "condemn them." But it says "restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted." There's the old saying, "But for the grace of God go I." If you're not yet a Christian and think God couldn't accept you because of all you've done—first, I don't want to imagine the wicked things you've done; but second, our God is a God of grace. He knows every bad thing you've ever thought, said, or done, and still He is gracious. Hebrews 4 calls His throne a throne of grace, and we can come boldly to obtain mercy and grace anytime we need it.

Saving Grace Teaches Us How to Live

God accepts us as we are, but His desire is to transform us. Verse 12: the grace of God brings salvation, "teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age." Point three: saving grace teaches us how to live. Until we have God's grace, we are totally incapable of living in a way that honors God and clears our conscience. But when grace enters in, it instructs us.

First, grace teaches us to deny ourselves. That conflicts sharply with the modern Western ethos. The worldview of the 21st century is: do whatever you want, whatever appetite or impulse you have, because to hold back wouldn't be living your true self—as long as it doesn't injure anybody else. I watched a BBC video this week about the resurgence of hallucinogenic drugs, featuring a woman who micro-doses on mushrooms. Her statement was, "What does it matter what I do? I'm not harming anybody." That's the worldview of our day.

Yet the grace of God instructs us to deny and reject ungodly, carnal impulses. Why? Because God, who created us, knows those things will ultimately destroy us. Some think God's restrictions exist because He's the cosmic killjoy—no drinking, no drugs, no extramarital sex—just to keep us from being happy. But He made us, and He knows how we should live for our best. We don't deny ourselves out of religious obligation to obtain salvation; we do it out of gratitude, because grace has already brought salvation. And we do it by the gracious enabling of His Holy Spirit.

In Romans 7, Paul cries, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells... For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" But he doesn't leave us there: "I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Then Romans 8:1: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus... For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son... that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." God, by His grace and the work of His Spirit, enables us to deny carnal impulses and walk in righteousness.

Saving Grace Secures Our Eternal Hope

Grace also teaches us to maintain a focus. Verse 13: "looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." Point four: saving grace secures our eternal hope. If you asked twelve people this week, "If you died tonight, do you think you'd go to heaven?" ten or twelve would say, "Yeah, I hope so." But press further—"On the basis of what?"—and you'll hear, "I'm a pretty good person," or "I've done less bad than those people." That kind of hope is wishful thinking, the same hope you might have of winning the lottery.

But the hope in this passage is an absolute certainty of eternity with Christ—not based on our good works or our abstinence from bad works, but on His finished work. On the cross Jesus said, "It is finished." We will not be with God in heaven because we maintained righteousness; we will be with Him because He has clothed us with His righteousness. If today you relate to God on the basis of your good works, you're probably not looking forward to His coming. But if you relate to Him on the basis of His finished work, you can eagerly look forward to Christ, because it's not about what you have or haven't done—it's about what He did.

Hebrews 12 says it like this: "Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us"—that is, deny ourselves—"and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." He joyously went to the cross to pay our debt. So we run this race not to apprehend salvation, but because He has apprehended it for us. Ephesians 1:13: "In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth... in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance." We eagerly look forward to His return because the price is paid and our place is certain.

Set Apart as God's People

How do we have this certainty? Verse 14: our great God and Savior Jesus Christ "gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works." Jesus wants to rescue us out of every sin. So why do we deny ourselves and live in righteousness—to obtain salvation? No; it has been obtained for us by Christ.

Some throughout Christian history have warned that if you teach grace this freely, people will run out and sin. But Paul answers, "Shall we sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" When we realize the greatness of the grace given us in Jesus, the response is not to live it up but to deny ourselves and live in righteousness—because Jesus died to redeem us from every lawless deed and to make us His own.

Point five: saving grace sets us apart as God's purified, peculiar, and passionate people. It's all in that verse—He redeemed us to purify for Himself His own peculiar people, passionate for good works. We cannot purify ourselves apart from grace. My friend Josh Kuransky, who pastors the church plant we're sponsoring in downtown Baltimore, posted this morning a picture of a man named Dan. The caption read, "I literally pulled Dan out of the gutter today to bring him to church." On the way, Dan said, "I don't think Jesus can forgive me from all the sins I've done." That's the gospel: Jesus does not call us to purify ourselves before we can receive His grace—He gives us His grace to purify us.

First Peter 2: "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." How do we become this people? By His grace and His mercy. And may our response be passionate zeal for good works, because, as Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." On Father's Day, that's a good place to end—that we would glorify our Father in heaven, who loved us so much He gave everything to redeem us as His adopted children.

Closing Prayer

Father, I thank You for Your grace—God's riches at Christ's expense—that Jesus, You gave everything so You could fully pay the debt of our sin, that we would be bought back, redeemed to be Your special treasure, and then transformed by the working of Your grace to glorify Your name. You take what was once a vessel of dishonor, our broken lives, and turn them into vessels of honor in Your house and kingdom. We thank You for Your grace, and I pray You would pour it out in abundance upon Your church, because we come before Your throne of grace right now needing it. Make us not only recipients of Your grace but conduits of it, that as we have freely received, we would freely give.

Maybe today you feel the weight of your sin and your conscience is heavy, and you need to be reminded by a fresh pouring out of God's grace. Or maybe you have not yet put your faith in Jesus because you've been convinced you're not good enough. Let me tell you—you're not good enough, and you never will be. But Jesus isn't calling you to be good enough to receive His grace; He freely gives it as we receive it by faith. If that's you, pray with me: Dear Jesus, would You fill my life with Your grace? Would You forgive me of my sin? I know I can't earn my way to You—I've tried and failed—but would You come in, fill me, forgive me, and help me to follow You by faith. In Jesus' name, Amen.