THE SAVING GRACE OF GOD |
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Perhaps the most popular hymn in Church history is John Newton’s Amazing Grace:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I’m found Twas blind but now I see.
Anyway you examine God’s grace you come away declaring that it is amazing. A popular Christian song a few years ago said, “There’s no other word for grace but amazing.”
A.W. Tozer said, “Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. It is a self-existent principle inherent in the divine nature and appears to us as a self-caused propensity to pity the wretched, spare the guilty, welcome the outcast, and bring into favor those who were before under just disapprobation. Its use to us sinful men is to save us and make us sit together in heavenly places to demonstrate to the ages the exceeding riches of God's kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
He also said, “The grace of God is infinite and eternal. As it had no beginning, so it can have no end, and being an attribute of God, it is as boundless as infinitude.”
Titus 2:11-15 turns our attention to the saving nature of God’s grace. As verse 11 states, it is “the grace of God that bringeth salvation.” The words “bringeth salvation” are an adjective. Paul was literally speaking of the salvation bringing grace of God.
Apart from grace we could not be saved. The Bible says in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Salvation anyway you slice is a story of grace.
Paul’s own personal testimony was, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). His, as well as ours, was a story of grace.
John Bradford on seeing a condemned man said, “There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.” Yes, if not for God’s saving grace, we would all be lost and on our way to hell.
Let’s notice 3 aspects of the saving grace of God as defined in our text. Paul explains that grace did a saving work in our life, is doing a saving work in our life, and there is a saving work that is yet to come. Saving grace is a work of the past, the present, and the future.
First, let me say that:
1. GRACE SAVES US FROM THE PENALTY OF SIN
Paul says in verse 11, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” The word “salvation” means “to be delivered, rescued, or released.” It speaks of that act whereby God delivers us from and releases us from the penalty of sin.
Paul said in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” To be saved (salvation) means that the wages for our sin have been paid for and instead of eternal death awaiting us, we now have eternal life through Jesus Christ.
As Paul speaks of grace saving us from the penalty of sin he speaks of:
A) The Appearing of Salvation
The word “appearing” means to “make evident.” It speaks of something coming to light or being manifested. How did God manifest His saving grace? He did so in the person of Jesus Christ. Paul said in 2 Timothy 1:9-10, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, [10] But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” It is through the Lord Jesus that we find deliverance from the penalty of sin.
In this day of political correctness one of the things that is disturbing to me is the way some preachers and Christian leaders dance around the subject of salvation only being in Jesus Christ when they are being interviewed on TV. One of the few that I have listened to in such environments that has always been clear and straight forward is Anne Graham Lotz. I saw her on Larry King one night and appreciated the way she was fearlessness in sharing the gospel. Let me share with you just a portion of the transcript from that interview:
KING: Just to straighten out something that was in the "USA Today" story. Were you attacking Catholicism. They quoted you as saying, "You don't have to count beads." What do you mean? Because the pope is 80 today. LOTZ: Right. And he's somebody they admire enormously. In order to get into Heaven, you don't have to count beads, you don't have to go to church every time the door opens, you don't have to be a Baptist, you don't have to be a Methodist, you don't have to do anything except place your faith in Jesus. KING: And because you placed your faith in him and you claim his as your savior, then heavens door is open to him. And those who don't, don't. The Jews, Muslims or others don't go? LOTZ: The Bible says -- in fact, this is interesting, my daddy lives in a place in Montreat. I don't know if you've ever been to our home, but it's secured. It has a fence around it, a gate. And if the average person drove up to that gate, and said -- you know, knocked on the gate, "Billy Graham, would you let me in?" They would say, "Well, who are you?" "Well, I give to your ministry. I watch you on TV. I want to come up and live in your house." And my daddy would say, "I'm sorry, you know, this is my home; you can't come here." But if I drive up to that gate, the gate is flung open, and I'm welcomed in, and the difference is because I'm the father's child, and Heaven is God's home, and he has told us in the Bible who he'll he let in and who he's going to keep out. KING: So if you don't believe, you're not going in? LOTZ: If you're not his child, he says, if you haven't placed your faith in Jesus as your personal savior, the Bible says that he'll keep you out. KING: We'll take a break….
She is absolutely right. If you haven’t placed your faith in Jesus, then you have not and cannot be saved. The Bible says in Isaiah 45:21, “Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.” There are not many ways to salvation. There is only one and He is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Secondly, Paul speaks of:
B) The Availability of Salvation
Paul says in verse 11, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” It is a salvation that if offered “to all men.” There are no restrictions placed upon God’s offer of salvation. Whosoever will may come. There is no one that can’t be saved.
The Bible says in 1 Timothy 4:10, “For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.”
We read in 1 Timothy 2:4, “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”
The Bible says in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
The Bible says in Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
The Puritan John Brown said, “Not merely was the atonement offered by Christ Jesus sufficient for the salvation of the whole world, but it was intended and fitted to remove out of the way of the salvation of sinners generally, every bar which the perfections of the divine moral character and the principles of the divine moral government presented. . . .In consequence of that atonement, every sinner may be, and if he believe in Jesus certainly shall be, pardoned and saved.”
There is not one person who cannot be saved and delivered from the penalty of sin. Secondly, we see that:
2. GRACE SAVES US FROM THE POWER OF SIN
Notice verse 12: “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.” Grace not only delivers us, but teaches us. It acts as a teacher in how the believer should live “in this present world.” Grace works in the heart and life of one that has been delivered from the penalty of sin that we might be delivered from the power sin can hold over our life. It teaches us that sin no longer has to have dominion in our life.
Paul spoke of how we used to live in Ephesians 2:1-3, “1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
Yet, salvation changed how we walked and live. In Christ we have a new life and a new walk. The grace of God that brought salvation that delivered us from the penalty of sin is now teaching us how to be delivered from the very power of sin in our life.
As one has said, “By His divine grace, Jesus Christ completely reprograms our computers, as it were. He throws away the old disks and deletes the previous programs and files—all of which were permeated with errors and destructive "viruses"—and graciously replaces them with His own divine truth and righteousness.”
Paul gives us two negatives and three positives.
A) The Lifestyle We Deny
On the negative side, there are things that grace teaches us should not characterize a Christian. He tells us in verse 12 that grace teaches us to deny “ungodliness and worldly lusts.” The word “denying” carries the idea of a conscious, purposeful action of the will. It means to say no to ungodliness and worldliness.
The word “ungodliness” simply means “without godliness.” It speaks of a lack of reverence and devotion toward God. It is descriptive of the life that a person lived before they were saved.
The words “worldly lusts” speaks of sinful desires and cravings that characterize someone who is lost. It is what Paul referred to as “youthful lusts” in 2 Timothy 2:22; “fleshly lusts” in 1 Peter 2:11; and “foolish and hurtful lusts” in 1 Timothy 6:9.
Grace teaches us to say no to such a lifestyle. Grace instructs us to deny the things that often dominated our former life. I once read that the hardest word to say is “no.” However, grace enables us and gives us the strength and power to say “no” to all ungodliness and worldly lusts.
On the other hand, grace teaches us to say “yes” to certain things. There is not only the lifestyle we deny, but there is also:
B) The Lifestyle We Desire
On the positive side there is a life that is lived “soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.” A changed nature is reflected in a changed life.
The word “soberly” means “self-control.” Instead of yielding to ungodliness and fleshly lusts, grace teaches us how to resist temptation. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” Paul had learned that the body was an excellent servant, but a terrible master, therefore he lived soberly. He controlled his desires rather than them controlling him.
The word “righteously” simply speaks of living the right way. It is a life that is dedicated to the divine standard and the life that is common and normal for one who is saved. The word “godly” has the idea of living God like. His desires become our desires. His ways become our ways. To be as much like God and Christ becomes a passion in our life.
In both these negatives and positives we see that that sin no longer has power over us. A Christian is not only someone who has experienced a past work of salvation whereby they have been saved from the penalty of sin, but there is a progressive work in which we are being saved from the power of sin.
This great truth of saving grace is explained by Paul in Romans chapter six. Paul said in Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Now that we are saved ungodliness must be denied and godliness desired. We do no continue living as we did before we were saved, but are dead to such a life. We now live a new life.
Paul states in Romans 6:6-7, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.” The word “destroyed” means to render inoperative or invalid, to deprive of its strength. To be saved does not mean that our old man or body of sin is no longer a problem. Absolutely not! There are the lusts of the flesh and temptations of this present world that constantly war with us.
Martin Lloyd-Jones gave the illustration of two fields with a road dividing them. Before he knew Christ, Lloyd-Jones lived in a field where Satan was king. Satan always told him what to do and he always responded. But when he placed his faith in Christ, he crossed the road into a new field where Christ was King. The only problem was that sometimes he could hear Satan barking orders at him across the road and oftentimes he was tempted to obey.
The pull of sin is still there, but the difference is that the believer that is crucified with Christ has made the lusts and desires of the flesh inoperative. They are no longer the dominant force in their life. Godliness is now the dominant force.
Paul says in Romans 6:11-13, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” Sin no longer has to reign in our life for the power of sin is broken in our life. This is part of the work of God’s grace in our life.
Lastly, Paul tells us that:
3. GRACE SAVES US FROM THE PRESENCE OF SIN
There is coming a day when we will be totally and completely delivered from the very presence of sin. He says in verses 13-14, “13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”
Even though sin no longer has power over us, it remains a constant enemy and the war with the flesh will continue through out our life. However, one day we will be removed from this present world and all its sin to a place where there is no sin.
Paul speaks of:
A) The Return of the Saviour
He says in verse 13, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” The words “Looking for” speaks of a longing and waiting and a eager expectation and anticipation.
Dr. Horatius Bonar, as he drew the curtains at night and retired to rest, used to repeat to himself the words, as if in prayer, and certainly with expectancy, 'Perhaps tonight, Lord!' In the morning, as he awoke and looked out on the dawn of a new day, he would say, looking up into the sky. 'Perhaps today, Lord!'
He expected the Lord to return at any moment. As Christians we should live every moment with the expectation that Jesus could return at any moment. The fact is, He could come in the next moment.
He refers to the Lord’s return as a “blessed hope.” The word “hope” speaks of that which is certain and sure. It is not something we hope will happen, such a kid is hoping for a new bicycle for his birthday, but something that we know will happen.
I once read that Ladbrokes, a London bookmaker, has lowered the odds against a visit from outer space to 33-to-1. They had been 100-to-1, but because of a rash of bets from all over the United States. The firm said it now stands to lose nearly $500,000 if somebody does drop in.
If I were them, I would drop the odds lower because there definitely will a visitor from outer space. One day, just as He promised, the Lord Jesus will come again. As the old-timers used to say, “You can put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
It will be a glorious hour for all who are saved. Paul explains one of the reasons it will be so glorious. He not only speaks of the return of the Saviour, but also:
B) The Redemption of the Saints
We read in verse 14, “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” The word “redeem” that he uses refers to the releasing or setting free someone, such as a slave or captive on the basis of a ransom that had been paid.
Jesus “gave Himself for us.” By giving His life and shedding His blood He paid the ransom. When He comes again he will set us free from the very presence of sin. He will “redeem us from all iniquity.” I love the word “all” in that statement. Even though we have been saved from the power of sin, there are times when we fail the Lord and are guilty of sin. The truth is we sin daily. However, at the return of the Lord Jesus we will be redeemed from “all” sin. Sin will never be a problem again for the Christian. I must say “glory” right here.
Paul refers to the Christian as a “peculiar people.” Now, this doesn’t mean strange or odd. I must confess that I have met a few that could be described peculiar in that sense. However, Paul uses the word in the sense of a one’s “possession.” Christians are people that belong to God. We are His people, redeemed by His grace. And, when Jesus returns, He will remove His “possession” from the very presence of sin. He will take us out of this world of sin to where sin will never be a part of our existence.
It is with gratitude that we are a people “zealous of good works.” How could we not serve the Lord when, by His grace, we have been saved from the penalty of sin, are being saved from the power of sin, and one day will be saved from the very presence of sin.
With John Newton we gratefully sing:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I’m found Twas blind but now I see.
YES, GRACE IS AMAZING! |