Trained by Grace

Living for Jesus

(Titus 2:11-14; Preaching: Nathan Snyder; August 28, 2016)

[2:11] For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, [12] training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, [13] waiting for the our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, [14] 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.

I have heard it said that God loves us as we are but he does not leave us as we are.  This is true.  The grace of God changes us.  In fact, it is precisely because God loves us that he sets about remodeling our lives.

Paul tells us the grace of God has appeared (cf. 3:4).  God’s grace has appeared in history when he sent his Son into this world to be our Savior.  God’s grace appears in our lives when we hear and believe the good news about Jesus, receiving him as our personal Savior.  Paul writes that God’s grace bring salvation to all people.  He doesn’t mean that all people will be saved.  He means that God’s grace is for all kinds of people, including men and women, the old and the young, slave and free (cf. 2:1-10).  No matter who you are and what life situation you find yourself in, salvation is for you if only you will place your trust in Jesus alone as your personal Savior.

When God’s grace comes into your life, he will not leave you the same.  An essential aspect of his salvation is to save us from the power of sin in our lives in order that we might live for him.  God’s grace trains us to live for him.  Imagine being trained as an athlete, or even as a soldier.  The process is often painful, but it is meant for our eternal good and God glory.

The grace of God trains us to renounce sinful ways and to live in a way that would bring glory to God.  We must renounce ungodliness, meaning godless thoughts and actions.  We must renounce worldly passions, for we must no longer devote our life to all that a godless world so eagerly pursues (cf. 1 John 2:16-17).  We renounce all this because God’s grace shows that it all leads to death, while the pursuit of him and his kingdom brings us lasting joy.  Thus the grace of God is training us to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.  To be self-controlled is to have mastery over our impulses so that we submit ourselves to God’s word, not to whatever our flesh might desire.  Self-control is a major concern of this letter (cf. 1:8; 2:2, 5, 6).  To be upright is to live honestly and justly in our relations and dealings with other people.  To be godly is to live a life devoted to God.  This kind of life is life indeed.

A big part of how God’s grace trains us is by giving us the internal motivation to want to live for Jesus, our Savior.  In verse 13 we see that the hope we have in Christ Jesus affects how we live.  What is our hope?  Our hope is that we will see Jesus appearing in the fullness of his glory.  This will be our blessedness for all eternity, that we will be with Jesus, enraptured by his glory and his unquenchable love for us.  We the Church are the Bride of Christ, our Husband who is our great God and Savior.  We know him now.  We love him now.  We are in union with him now.  But the union is not what it will be when this present age comes to end.  We eagerly await the fullness of enjoying Jesus.  Essentially, Jesus himself is our hope.  If we are eager to spend eternity with our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, then we are eager to live for him now.  If we are not eager to live for Jesus now, then we must not be eager to spend eternity with him.

Paul goes on to remind us that this Jesus whom we long to see face to face is the one who gave himself up unto death on our behalf.  He gave himself freely because of his great love for us.  He did it to redeem us from all lawlessness.  He paid in full the wages of our sin that he might set us free from the strangle-hold of sin on our hearts and lives (cf. Psalm 130:7-8; John 8:34-36; Romans 6:14-19).  The death of Jesus broke the chains of sin, so that we can indeed renounce ungodliness in our lives.  His death has also cleansed us.  Jesus has purified us from sin’s defilement so that we could be his own special people.  We could not be the treasured possession of a holy God unless our unholiness had somehow been cleansed.  Jesus’ perfect sacrifice for sin has accomplished exactly this, in order that we might belong to God and live for him (cf. Hebrews 9:14; Ezekiel 37:23; Deuteronomy 26:18-19).  Jesus’ desire is that we as his treasured possession, in whom he delights, might be zealous for good works.  He died that we might be eagerly devoted to doing what is good.  The term “good works” especially refers to doing that which is a blessing and a help to other people.

What or who am I devoting my life to?  What or who are you devoting your life to?  Have you received God’s grace in Jesus?  Is he your Savior and your hope?  He died for us that we might be his treasured people.  He died for us that we might live for him.