Amazing Grace

Introduction

The last couple of months we have been studying through the Minor Prophets and we have seen some themes throughout the study. Whenever the people do what they are supposed to do, they experience covenantal blessings. Whenever they disobey God, though, they receive covenantal cursing. The people of Israel are notorious for trying to do things their own way - and as we have seen in Hosea the people are punished accordingly. We are going to take a couple of weeks off of Hosea and spend some time studying key Christian doctrines. Around the Christmas season there are many things that we should be thankful for and this season is one that reminds us that our God sent His Son. That is the thing that we should be most thankful for!

For some of us the concept of theology (Theos - God and logy - study of = the study of God) is a concept that can seem strange or mysterious. It can seem difficult. While some aspects of theology certainly are difficult to understand, must of theology is easily understood. There are also some aspects of theology that are “essentials”. The next couple of weeks we will spend some time looking at some of these essential Christian doctrines in order to both increase our knowledge of God and grow in obedience to God’s will.

Our text tonight focus on the doctrine of “Grace”. As Christians, simply, the only appropriate word to describe the action of a Holy God reaching down from heaven to rescue and save sinners from eternal separation from Him is grace. Sadly, grace and salvation are misunderstood by many people in our world. Nearly every person falls into one of 3 camps regarding salvation. Universalism, Inclusivism, Exclusivism.

Universalism - Very popular with modern people as it states that all roads lead to heaven. One modern advocate of universalism is John Hick, who states, “The basic moral teachings of all religions is the same. It constitutes the moral ideal.” Many people follow Hick’s line of thought. All religions are essentially the same with a slightly different flavor.

Inclusivism - These people say that Jesus is the only way but it is possible to be saved without trusting in Him for salvation, personally. Even though other religions might not know Jesus personally, the truth that they do possess is adequate enough to save them. Essentially, you can tell these “anonymous” Christians by the good deeds that they do. This is a classic works based salvation but it adds that you don’t even have to believe in Jesus Christ in order to be saved. You are saved just by being a good, genuine, faithful, religious person.

Exclusivism - The traditional, orthodox position that maintains that Jesus Christ is the only way one can be saved. You must have a personal relationship with the Son of God. Only in Him can you be saved. This is the view that Southern Baptists maintain and advocate. That Christ is Lord and Savior, but He is only Lord of those who call upon His name.

There are several texts of Scripture that talk about salvation and grace: talks about the spiritual rebirth, talks about being justified by faith in God, talks about being reconciled to God, talks about being delivered from the curse of the law, (as we will cover next year!) talks about how Christ is our merciful and faithful high priest and atones for our sin. shows us God gives humanity grace by bringing salvation to all men.

Let’s read this text:

Titus 2:11–15 NASB95

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, 14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. 15 These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Grace shows us how we should live (11-12)

Right from the get go in verse 11 we see that God’s grace has come to us. It has appeared! God’s grace towards us is based solely on His love and our total inability to meet His standards. God’s grace is a gift that we do not deserve and a gift that we can never earn on our own. Grace is foundational to salvation according to . Some Christians will argue the second half of this verse regarding who is saved because states that the grace of God brings salvation to all men. Some people state that this means that all people are saved - this leads to universalism. There are some Christians who advocate such a view. They say that a loving God would never send anyone to hell and that everyone gets to go to heaven. As we discussed on Wednesday evening for our Trinity study, this is a view that the Mormons have been heavily influenced by and one that Joseph Smith and his family subscribed to in some ways.

The grace of God has appeared (aorist, past tense) and is given for all men indiscriminately (Jew, Gentile, slave, free, man, woman). The grace of God was revealed and personified in Jesus Christ. Not just in His birth and coming to the earth but also in His entire life, His death, resurrection and ascension which accomplished salvation that is now offered to all men. Grace has come to us, today. God is a saving God and He is still in the business of saving souls! Grace is active and powerful. It sustains, strengthens and produces thanksgiving and brings glory to God. It also enables us to live holy and godly lives.

Grace, according to verse 12, changes people. It changes us from ungodliness to righteous living. Verse 12 shows how grace leads to change. God’s grace changes us from the inside out to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to say yes to godly living.

We are quick to acknowledge that grace saves, but church grace also transforms. Grace transforms sinners into saints. It transforms us from enemies of God into a part of His family. Guess when this happens? Do we have to wait a decade or until we go on to glory? Nope! We experience this in this present age. We know that we will experience these things fully in the future age, but we experience salvation and the grace of God now, in this present age.

Grace teaches us where to look (13)

Not only does grace show us how we should live, but it shows us where we should look! We know that this world is not our home. It is not our final destination. With that in mind, we must look heavenward. We live with hope knowing that our Savior will return one day. In the incarnation the Son of God brought grace to mankind, in His second coming He will come with glory surrounding Him. As it has been said, as Christians we are to live with our eyes fixated heavenward to Christ because He is our only hope. We look to Him today.

CS Lewis in Mere Christianity wrote,

“I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Lea, T. D., & Griffin, H. P. (1992). 1, 2 Timothy, Titus (Vol. 34, p. 314). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

We don’t look for a coming angelic member or a future teacher, we look forward for the coming Messiah! Understanding God’s grace shows us our desperate need for a Savior and the fact that we know that He will return again one day. As Lewis noted, simply saying that Jesus was a good teacher is not an option that He left us. He is either a lunatic or Lord, there is no middle ground. You can’t pick and choose what you want Jesus to be!

Grace teaches us who is Lord (14)

Salvation can be discussed in 3 different tenses:

past - justification - delivered from the penalty of sin

present - sanctification - delivered from power of sin

future - glorification - delivered from the presence of sin

Verse 14 shows us that Christ gave Himself up for us to redeem us from our sin and to purify for Himself a people for His possession. Do you see the fact that we play zero role in this. You cannot work your way to be saved. Salvation is 100% founded in the work of Jesus Christ. You have been bought completely by His work on the cross.

This process of salvation and having our sins forgiven or atoned for has been described in different terms over the centuries. One term is ransom theory - essentially that Christ’s death on the cross acted as a payment that delivered humanity from all wickedness. Humanity is delivered from the power of sin and the penalty of sin. He is our ransom as states

Mark 10:45 NASB95

45 “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Another such theory of atonement is Penal substitutionary atonement which states Christ bore our sin and death on the cross of Calvary instead of us paying for it one day. Regardless of the atonement theory that you subscribe to, it is clear that Christ paid for us - He did so with His very own life! In the words of Ellis Crum, “Christ paid a debt He did not owe, I owed a debt that I could not pay!” That is the situation that we all are in as humans. We all owe a debt that we cannot pay. Our sin is great and our sins are many, but the mercy of God is more! As the song by Chris Tomlin states, “He became sin who knew no sin, so that we might become His righteousness. He humbled Himself, He carried the cross. Love so amazing. Jesus Messiah.”

Not only does Jesus pay for us, but He also purifies us according to verse 14. Paul notes that Christ’s people will be zealous for good deeds, we will be eager to do what is good! This does not mean that we are eager to do good deeds to save ourselves, but instead because we have been saved by Christ and have our hearts completely transformed, we genuinely desire to do good.

This is the process of spiritual maturity. We should be growing in maturity and sanctification, we should be becoming more like Christ because of the grace that He has shown us.

Jesus’ also possesses us. Whenever you become a Christian and have your eyes opened to the truth of the Gospel message, you don’t just give Christ a section of your life or your heart. You give Him all! He possesses you. We see this from as Peter writes:

1 Peter 2:9–10 NASB95

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Grace teaches us what to learn (15)

Verse 15 concludes this section on grace by showing us that we should speak, exhort and reprove with all authority - we are to believe in grace and live a godly life due to the fact that we have experienced God’s transforming grace! In practical terms, there are 4 things that we can learn and apply to our lives:

1st we can learn doctrine. The first command Paul gives here is to speak. What should we speak? Well, as Christians we should speak the truth of Scripture and do so boldly. We must declare what Christ has done for us. We can declare some of the essentials of our faith to people we come in contact with. Some of these essentials include: Christ, Salvation, the church, the Trinity, and Scripture. We will be spending the next month or so discussing these very items!

2nd we can learn our Christian duty. There are 14 imperative commands in Titus and 4 of them are in this final verse! The second command given by God is “encourage” or “exhort” and this is what we must do as Christians! We must encourage one another on this difficult journey called life. We know that Paul encouraged many believers during his day. We should encourage our fellow brothers and sisters as well as we look forward to our blessed hope as declares.

3rd we can learn discernment. Discernment is certainly a gift that some people have and others might struggle with. Many of us know people in our lives that have this gift and others who desperately need this attribute. The 3rd imperative command from Paul in this final verse is to reprove with all authority. We encourage our brothers and sisters, positively, but we also rebuke (out of love) those who are lost. Whenever someone is lost, they might resort to intellect when debating a Christian, however we speak to them with authority whenever we speak the truth of Scripture. We do this out of love and with respect as Paul notes in

Ephesians 4:15 NASB95

15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,

We desperately need discernment in the church, friends! We need to be able to stand firm against the enemy, but we also need to be able to grow and mature whenever we receive constructive words from our brothers and sisters in Christ!

4th and finally, we can learn dedication. Speaking the truth of Scripture to the lost is not a very popular thing to do in our world that promotes universalism and calls Christian a bunch of judgmental hypocrites. The fact of the matter remains, though, that Christians are to speak the truth and share the Gospel message regardless of its popularity. This means that we desperately need encouragement, courage, conviction and humility. We are to not let anyone disregard us or look down on us for looking upward to Christ. If someone says that we are crazy for believing in a fairytale, that presents a wonderful opportunity to share why we believe in Scripture and why we trust in Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. To share this message with others requires dedication and devotion. We must learn this and we know that we are given grace in order to give grace to others.

Conclusion

The highest and purest motivation for Christian behavior is not based on what we can do for God but rather what God has done and promises to do for us! Many false teachers in Paul’s day and in our world say that there are things (works) that we can do to earn God’s favor, but the Bible teaches very clearly that only whenever we understand the Grace of God do we understand what is truly pleasing to God. Again, we work because of our faith, we do not work to gain salvation.

Our present pursuit of godliness is in between the death/resurrection of Christ and His second coming, because of this we should acknowledge the truly amazing Grace of God that has saved us into service! In the words of the great Martin Luther, “I live as though Christ died yesterday, rose again today, and is coming again tomorrow.”

How would our lives look differently if we lived with this same mentality? I pray that you have experienced the amazing grace of God personally in your life and I pray that we might be growing in our understanding of that grace on a daily basis and applying it to our lives as we go out and enter the mission field. Let’s remember that we are saved into service and that we have a responsibility to live a Christlike life because of the person and work of Jesus Christ, who saved us not on the basis of deeds, but according to His great mercy. Let’s pray