If you would take your Bibles in hand and turn with me back to Titus chapter 2. We have been working our waythrough the pastoral epistles here. So, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. We’ve come to Titus chapter 2, verses 11 through 14. You can find that on page 998 if you’re using one of our church Bibles. Last time, if you remember a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the preceding paragraph to this one. And we noted that in verse one, Paul links the godly life to which he calls the Christians on the island of Crete to live. The godly life, he links that life to sound doctrine. So, the life that pleases God flourishes in the context of the truth of God. This is the key to holiness. This is the secret to living God’s way.
And Paul now is going to go on in verses 11- 15 to reinforce that message. And he describes it to us in terms of five things that grace does. Five things that grace does in verses 11 through actually 11-14. First, grace appears in the first part of verse 11. Then, grace offers, in the second part of verse 11. Thirdly, grace trains in verse 12. Then grace expects in verse 13. And finally, grace redeems. It sets us free in verse 14. Five things that grace does in our hearts and lives.When it breaks in, it appears. It offers. It trains. It expects. And it redeems. Before we look at each of those, let’s bow our heads and pray. And then we’ll read God’s word. Let us pray.
Oh Lord our God, come now we plead with you in the anointing and blessing of the Holy Spirit that as we read your holy word, its truth may do more than merely fall on our ears, but that it might enter our hearts. it might reform and liberate our wills. That it might incline them to new obedience, that it might awaken in us the gift and grace of saving faith, that we might receive and rest on Christ alone as he is offered in the gospel. For we ask it in his holy name. Amen.
Titus chapter 2 at verse 11. This is the word of God. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Amen.
Let’s look please at verse 11 first of all and notice the first thing that grace does. Paul says grace
appears. Grace appears. Verse 11. Don’t miss the first word of verse 11. For the grace of God has appeared. So, he’s connecting this paragraph to what he’s just said in verses 1-10. By way of further explanation. that verse one of this chapter grounds all the exhortations to holiness that we saw last time in verses 2 through 10 on the teaching of sound doctrine. Then verse 11 now circles back and amplifies that point. Just how is it that we are going to live as verses 2-10 say we should live older men, younger men, older women, younger women, bondservants, Titus himself. How are we going to live a godly life? That’s what this section now verses 11-4 explains for us. And the foundation of this life of godliness that pleases the Lord, Paul says, has to do with the grace of God that has appeared. That word appeared here is the term from which we get the English word epiphany. It means a disclosure, an unveiling. It’s used in the New Testament especially to describe the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world or to describe his final return at the very end of history to judge the living and the dead. And so, if you remember back in 2 Timothy 4:8, Paul spoke about those who love his appearing. Talking about longing for Christ’s return—His appearing. There is the same word that we find here in verse 11. Actually, both epiphanies—both appearing’s are here in
our passage, aren’t they?
First, there is the epiphany of grace in verse 11. And then there’s also the epiphany of glory in verse 13. The appearing, the epiphany of the grace of God in verse 11is talking about Jesus’ first coming in His virgin birth, His earthly life, His ministry, His sufferings, His death and resurrection. That was the epiphany, the coming, the appearing of grace. And then the Epiphany of glory, verse 13, is talking about our blessed hope, the final coming of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ at the very end of history. And right now, Paul says, Christians live between those two appearing’s in what verse 12 calls this present age. And now it’s crucial that we give full weight to the fact that the first appearing, the first epiphany at the at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world two millennia ago is the epiphany of grace.Because that means that it is grace that characterizes God’s dealings with the world in this present age. Paul might have said for the wisdom of God or the holiness of God, or the power of God has appeared or more prosaically he might have said simply the Christ of God has appeared or the son of God has appeared. All of that would have been true but the text says the grace of God has appeared in his first coming. It was not the wrath of God that appeared. It was not the condemnation of heaven that appeared. It wasn’t the final reckoning that appeared. When Mary was delivered of a baby boy and laid him in the manger and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, it was the grace of God that appeared.
And from that moment, this present age has been the age of grace. Not yet the age of glory. That’s not yet appeared. It is the age of grace. The grace of God has appeared. I wonder if you’ve got the wrong idea about Jesus. Perhaps you think about Jesus as a stern, cold judge, aloof, distant, uncaring, far off, frowning, arms folded, scowling at you. That’s not how Paul speaks about him, is it? He says, when Jesus came, grace appeared. Grace is embodied in Jesus Christ. Jesus is all grace. Grace for sinners. Grace for strugglers. Grace for sufferers. Grace for you. Grace appears. That’s first.
Then notice the second thing. Grace does. Grace appears. Secondly, grace offers. Look again at verse 11. The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people. When grace appeared, salvation was brought and it is salvation, Paul says, for all people. That means there’s no class of human being excluded from the salvation that Jesus offers. “Oh, but I’m not the kind of person that Jesus would ever invite to be saved. Jesus is for other people, not for me. No.” The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people. “But I’m not religious. I don’t have a church background. I’ve never read the Bible. This salvation can’t be for me, can it?” The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people. This salvation is for you. “But you don’t know what I’ve done, pastor. My past, it’s a long litany of wickedness and rebellion. I’ve been hateful and selfish and spiteful. I’ve not been faithful. I’ve not been pure. I’m a drunk. I’m a liar. I’ve left a long trail of wounded people and broken relationships behind me. I mean, look at you people. Your shirts are all tucked in. Your hair’s all nicely combed. You’re all so clean-cut and well-mannered. And that’s not me. I don’t fit in around here. There’s no way this salvation’s for me.” The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. This salvation is for you. Jesus Christ is for you. You’re not too old to come to Jesus. It’s never too late for him. You’re not too young to come to Jesus. You don’t need to wait till you reach some imagined age of discretion before he’ll welcome you. You’re not too bad to come to Jesus. There’s no sin, nor any amount of sin that can make Him rescind his unconditional offer, His free invitation to you.
If this is your first time in years, maybe your first time ever, walking into a church service,
this text says you are welcome to have Jesus for your savior just as you are right now without any other condition or prerequisite being met. Right now, you’re invited to salvation. Jesus Himself in whom grace has appeared invites you. If you’ve been here every Sunday for decades, but the truth is you’ve been living a lie this whole time. You’ve been a terrible hypocrite, praising his name, but worshiping yourself. Even then, you can still come to him. You’ll find him ready and willing this morning to save you. Whoever you are, you need to know you are not a special case. You’re not a unique exception to the rule. No, the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people.
I like the way John Rabbi Duncan, the 19th century Scottish Presbyterian missionary to the Jews in Budapest, once put it. He said, ‘The Christian gospel says to us all, you have no right to go to hell. You cannot go there without trampling on the Son of God. Isn’t that part of the message here? Jesus has done everything needful. Every provision for sinners has been made so that anyone who wishes may come and have him and be saved. And so, there’s no escaping the implications of this, is there? There’s no excuse you can offer to exempt you from the claim and the summons of the gospel. It goes out to all people. The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people. That means you must answer this summons. You must accept this offer. You have no right, no excuse, no justification to validate your refusal a moment longer. You can point to nothing about yourself or your background or your environment that can exempt you. No, the Lord Jesus Christ himself invites you now to come to him and be saved. To refuse, says Rabbi Duncan, is to go to damnation, trampling on the son of God in order to get there. He puts himself, as it were, between you and the gates of hell. And he is pleading with you not to go there. And so, if you do go there in the end after hearing this invitation, you go there willfully. You walk through those dreadful gates trampling on the son of God to do it. And that, if I can say it kindly, would be the very height of folly surely because verse 11, the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people for you.
Grace appears. Grace offers. Thirdly, grace trains. Look at verse 12, please. The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. Now, let’s think about that word training for a moment. The Greek word translated training means to instruct to teach perhaps possibly to discipline. We get our English word pedagogy from it. Although that might give you the wrong impression of how the training Paul’s talking about here really works in our lives because when people talk about pedagogy, they have the classroom in mind don’t they? They have a teacher in a classroom standing at the front communicating information and you the student must work hard to digest that information and learn the information and receive the information. That’s the kind of image when we talk about pedagogy. That’s what we think about. But the pedagogy of grace, the training that grace does is far mightier than that. Does much more than that. No human teacher can do in us what the grace of God does when it teaches us.
God’s grace, you see, actually transforms us. It remakes us by his word and spirit. Jesus Christ rewires our appetites and our desires. He reprograms our wills and empowers our resolve to follow an entirely new direction and course for our lives. Earlier we heard the excuses of someone who might argue that he’s too bad, too hopelessly locked into sin ever to be welcomed to come to Jesus or be saved. And we sought to press the wide welcome of verse 11 upon such a person.Salvation, Paul says, is for all people. But here now is the full extent of the wonder of Christ’s invitation. Do you see it?When the most twisted, sin enslaved pagan comes to Christ, the grace of God that brings salvation erupts into her life.That same grace moves in and begins a renovation project in her heart. I was talking to a couple who’ve recently purchased a new home. The situation is a bit unusual, however, because of the unique circumstances of both the buyer and the seller, an accommodation had to be reached so that the owner could still live in the house for a few more weeks while the new owners move all their possessions in and began painting and redecorating. At the same time, it is no doubt, and you might know who I’m talking about, a chaotic experience.
But isn’t that actually what’s happening in the hearts of everyone who accepts this offer of grace? Isn’t this what happens in us when grace moves in? The old tenant of sin and self still lives there. But a new tenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, has moved in and begun renovations already. You might think that your sin is so bad you can’t come to Jesus.What you need to understand is that it is sinners He wants to come to him. Not the righteous sinners Jesus came to call. And when you do come, he moves in. And over the course of the rest of your life, he begins to eradicate every lastvestige of the old tenant’s presence in your heart. The grace that saves, sanctifies, it trains us so that we live in a newway. And look how grace does that. Look again at verse 12. It results in both a negative turning from certain things and a positive turning to certain other things. Look at verse 12 again. Negatively, grace trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly desires. Ungodliness here is a kind of catchall term for a life oriented away from God, lived in opposition to the rule of God. Worldly desires, on the other hand, speaks more specifically to the deep motivations of the heart.
So, ungodliness describes the whole set and frame of a life. Worldly desires unmask the roots of that ungodliness in our passions, our lusts, our longings. And Paul says when Jesus saves by his grace, he trains us to renounce all of that. Now think about that for a moment. To renounce something demands a conscious act. Paul isn’t talking about a passive automatic change in our lives here, is he? When grace breaks into your life, you’ll change for sure. But that change happens by grace renewing your will in such a way that you actively decisively turn from sin. It’s not a matter simply of letting go and letting God. It is a determined resolve, an intentional decision that we must make every day, again and again and again throughout the day to turn from sin. And this word renounce also here has the connotation not just of a private internal decision, a private plan that you can make with yourself and then break it and no one’s any the wiser.No, it is a commitment with a public observable effect. One lexicon translates this word as quote to make manifest not to know something to reject something. Not just to reject it, but to make it manifest that you’ve rejected it. In other words, it is a renunciation of a way of life that is so thorough that everyone can see it.
Jesus uses this word in Luke 12:9 for example when he says whoever denies me there’s our word before men whoever renounces me before men will be denied before the angels of God. There’s a before men component a public dynamic involved in renouncing sin. It shows up in real ways in our lives. People can see it. You’re changed. You don’t live that way anymore, go that way anymore, say those things anymore, act like that anymore. And it cannot be hidden. And that brings us now to the positive thing that the training of grace produces in us. It teaches us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions negatively. But look again at verse 12. It also positively trains us to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. We’ve seen the word self-control over and again, haven’t we, so far in the book of Titus. It’s a key word in Titus. It means the management of our minds and our hearts, our words, and our works. It involves talking to ourselves with the truth instead of listening to the lies that we prefer to tell ourselves. It’s about self-mastery, self-control. And then Paul says, “Grace also produces uprightness.” The word has the same root as the Greek word for righteousness. In other words, this is about the conformity of your life to the divine standard revealed in the law of God.And then there’s godliness. Godliness is the orienting of our whole lives toward him, his glory, his praise, his service.And the point is, you see, when grace trains us, it does not do it like some scarlet-faced Marine Corps drill sergeant screaming in our faces, “No, no, no.” When in our feeble strength we can’t do the requisite number of pull-ups or finish the run or climb the wall. That’s not the picture. Rather, when grace trains us, it actually fuels the change God requires. Now, isn’t that good news?
Perhaps you’ve thought of the Christian life like some basic training course that you just don’t have the strength to complete. But that’s not the picture. When grace comes, it fuels the change that is required. It inclines our wills. It remakes our desires. It shows up in new commitments and holy aspirations. And it can be seen and observed in our words and our works. We start to love what God loves, hate what God hates, and everybody around us begins to notice.You are no longer who you once were. You’re not yet who you will be, but you are manifestly becoming like your savior who has broken into your heart and made you his own. Grace appears. Grace offers. Grace trains. Is grace training you? Can people see how grace is training you to live for Jesus Christ?
Fourthly, grace expects. Look at verse 13. Now, grace appears in Christ, trains everyone that it saves. And those it trains, Paul says, are found waiting. Do you see that word in verse 13? waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Here’s the second appearing, the second epiphany that we talked about right back at the beginning. Do you remember? Right now, as Christians, we enjoy the salvation that the epiphany of grace, the appearing of grace brings us. But we are waiting for another epiphany, another appearing, the appearing of glory, when all things will be made new at last. This, Paul says, is our blessed hope. Now, hope there is not a subjective feeling. That’s not what Paul’s talking about, a feeling of hopefulness. Rather, Paul is talking about the object of our hope, the thing hoped for, the one in whom we hope. He’s talking about Jesus Christ. He is our hope. And look at the way Paul describes him. His coming at the end of history will be the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. You caught the clear declaration there of Jesus’ deity, didn’t you? The glory of the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the father full of grace and truth. The glory of the second person of the blessed Trinity. God the Son joined forever to human nature sitting on the throne of all things at the father’s right hand exalted over all. King of kings and lord of lords. That glory that shines from him will one day come in all its dazzling brilliance and every eye will see him and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess him Lord to the glory of God the father. That is our blessedhope. Isn’t it helpful to be reminded that our hope is not primarily about waiting for my own eventual release from sin’s remaining corruption in my life. Nor is it about waiting for sin’s consequences in present suffering and sorrow at last to be removed. My hope is not about waiting merely for all things to be made new and a great reunion to take place with the saints in glory at the last day.
All of these are promised to the people of God. And it’s not wrong to look forward to them. But the great focus of our hope in this present age, Paul says, is the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He is the focus. Not ourselves, who we will one day be. Not our world, how it will be transformed. Not one another and those who’ve gone ahead of us. As wonderful as it will be to be reunited with them. Jesus will be our focus. Jesus is to be our hope. Perhaps you find it as easy as I do sometimes to drop your horizons down and down until they focus. not on his glorious appearing, but almost entirely on yourself. You do some personal inventory. You’re in the trenches battling with your sin every day. You’re frustrated with your lack of progress. And so, you measure the condition of your spiritual life by some metrics. How faithful have I been in daily Bible reading and daily prayer of late? and you can see some areas of declension, some dullness, some backsliding. And so, you resolve to try harder in the week ahead, be more consistent. And all of that is good and right, but you have not noticed yet that Jesus Christ is nowhere on your checklist. You’re engaged actually in a species of spiritual naval gazing. You’re looking only at your own progress or lack of progress. You’re not looking at him. You’re not waiting for him. And you know as well as I do that looking in the wrong direction can be dangerous.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that driving at 55 miles an hour while texting for 5 seconds is like driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed.
As a consequence, 2024, 328 people lost their lives in the United States as a result of distracted driving. Here’s my point. If you’re looking at yourself more than you’re looking up and away from yourself to Jesus, you’re engaged in a form of spiritual distracted driving. His coming in glory is our hope. Fix your eyes there. Otherwise, do not be surprised if you crash. Grace appears. Grace offers. Grace trains. Grace expects. And then finally, grace redeems. Look at verse 14. This great God and Savior who’s coming we wait for is the one, Paul says, who gave himself for us. Paul’s talking about the cross, isn’t he? There at the cross, the son of God loved us and gave himself for us. Paul is inviting us to go back to Calvary and there to trace the blessings that flow from Jesus’ blood that was shed for sinners. Do you see the blessings that he lists out here in verse 14? First of all, he says Jesus gave himself to set us free. He died to redeem us from all lawlessness. Now probably the false teachers on the island of Crete—legalists, Judaizers were accusing Paul’s gospel of grace of promoting lawlessness. But Paul says actually the cross redeems us. That is the cross is the price of our manumission, our freedom from the slavery of sin. sets us free, but not free from the law, but freedom from lawlessness. When Jesus saves us, he makes us love God’s law. We begin to see his moral law now, no longer as the indictment of a condemning judge pointing out our failures every step of the way. Now we hear it as the godly, God-honoring counsel, loving, tender direction of a father saying to us, “This is the way, my dear child. Walk in it.”
You thought lawlessness was freedom, didn’t you? Freedom to live as you please. Freedom to break the rules. But maybe you’re here because actually you’ve begun to realize that all your life of lawlessness has only ever brought you is slavery and bondage to sin and misery. But the cross, Paul tells us, the cross sets sinners free indeed. Really free to live a new life. He gave himself to set us free. Secondly, he gave himself verse 14 to purify us. Again, remember the legalists on the island of Crete. They thought that purity was a thing you could attain through the ceremonial law of Moses. But as we saw when we looked at chapter 1 verse 15, whatever ritual purity they claimed for themselves that way, their hearts still remain defiled. But Jesus’ blood, Paul says, really does make us pure, clean inside and out. Don’t you want to be clean inside and out? “His blood” sang Wesley, “can make the foulest clean.” It’s what’s offered to you in this salvation that the grace that has appeared has brought to all people. Freedom from lawlessness and purity inside an act. Thirdly, the cross makes us treasure. Look again at verse 14. Paul says, Jesus gave himself to redeem us and purify us for himself, a people for his own possession. We become prized possessions in the hand of Jesus Christ, his cherished inheritance, his treasure. How deep the Father’s love for us. how vast beyond all measure that He should give his only Son to make a wretch His treasure. Jesus doesn’t save us grudgingly, does he? He doesn’t simply tolerate us. He makes us his own possession. He loves us, delights in us. You’re treasure to him, dear Christian. Freedom, purity, treasure. Finally, the cross makes us obedient, zealous for good works.
A couple times a week, every week just about, my wife and I, when I turned 50, I was no longer able to sleep past 5:30.And so, we just get up and go find a coffee shop couple times a week. We have a a little coffee date. I always come back smelling of roasting coffee all day long. In fact, can’t get it out of my clothes. And I think Paul is calling Titus and the Christians at Crete and all of us here this morning to go to the cross again. Here in verse 14, where our great God and Savior who is coming gave himself for us because dwelling there under the shadow of Calvary will leave its aroma on you. This is the aroma of Calvary shining uh wafting from your life, zealous for good works. Examine your hearts, brothers and sisters. Can people smell Jesus from you by your zeal to please him? That’s the force of Paul’s teaching here. A changed life living for his glory. Grace appears. It has come. This is the age of grace because Jesus in whom grace is embodied has come. Grace offers. Every one of you is invited to come to him today and take the salvation that he has provided and grace trains. When you come, He moves in and He renovates your life. Grace expects. It leaves us waiting, longing with our eyes trained as it were on the horizon, looking for the day when the skies are split wide and our Savior that our hearts, so love comes at last and we go to be with Him and grace redeems. All of it Jesus gives us by his cross at his great cost at the price of his lifeblood. He loved you and gave himself for you. This is the gift of grace. Take it. Take it. Take it and live. Let’s pray together. Our God and father, we praise you for your holy word. We ask that you would write it on our hearts by the finger of your spirit for the glory of your name.