Grace for Godliness

Titus 2:11-15 “Grace for Godliness”

Today I want to speak about God’s grace. God’s grace is absolutely breath-taking. God’s grace does not leave us in our sin, but is a relentless river sweeping away our sin and forming us to look like Jesus Christ. There are many reasons way it is called Amazing Grace.

Last week we looked some very direct commands to Christians living in households: 2:1-10. Verses 11-14 give us the basis for this lifestyle of godliness that is commanded us. Throughout the series I have mentioned that there is a certain lifestyle that matches the gospel message. We have finally arrived at the explanation of that message: an explanation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel leads to godliness.

Read Titus 2:11-15

-Verse 15 we covered when we looked at the last part of chapter 1. We will focus on verses 11- 14 today. I would like to ask 2 questions:

1. What does God’s grace do in our lives?
2. What does God’s grace look like?

That is my broad outline for the text today. We’ll look at verse 11, then ask these 2 questions.

Verse 11: God’s grace that brings salvation has appeared. This is just another way to describe the good news of Jesus Christ. This salvation is offered to all men- all kinds of people: men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile. This grace has appeared…really Christ has appeared and gives us grace. Paul says that grace “has appeared” to counter the religion in Crete. They believed that their gods had appeared in different ways. By saying this, Paul frames the gospel is a way that confronts cultural lies.

1. What does this grace do in our lives?
-It is an event that educates

Sometimes teaching is better done than said. Events in the classroom do stick with you for long time. When I was in college, my professor was trying to teach about prepositions in Hebrew. Prepositions are tricky in any language you learn. His point that prepositions direct nouns. Unfortunately, I was sitting close to the front with my brand new Greek and Hebrew Bible on the table. He said prepositions direct nouns like this: he directed his hand toward my Bible and flung it across the room. Then he retrieved it threw it through the air and few more times. That is an educational event that I will not forget. Grace appearing is the biggest event in the world. And it has massive implications for our lives.

Grace trains us to live godly lives. The word for “train” was used in the Greek culture to speak of educating someone to be civilized. Certainly, we want Christians to be civilized.
More than that God wants Christians to be godly. Grace trains us do to that, but we’ll have to wait to verse 14 to find out how that works.

The main focus of the training in verses 12 and 13 is the word live. Grace trains us to live a certain way.

1. To live soberly, uprightly, and godly…or self-control, righteousness, and godliness. These characteristics are a contrast to the Cretan culture in which Titus was ministering. Paul expands on what it means to live this way. As we strive for godliness, we:

2. Deny ungodliness and worldly desires. Living for Christ requires us to turn our back on sin. Godliness first consists in repenting of our sins and leaving them behind.

3. Looking for the blessed hope
In living a godly life, we turn our back on sin, but they focus our eyes on Jesus Christ. His grace has appeared in the past and it will appear again in the future.

The blessed hope is Jesus Christ. The last part of verse 13 needs some unpacking. The literal translation: the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. “Our great God and Savior” refers to one person…that’s how the grammar works. Is that person God the Father or Jesus Christ? I believe it is the Father. To get there, let me ask another question: the words “Jesus Christ” describe something previous in the sentence. What is that? Jesus Christ is certainly God, but he is also described as the glory of God other places in the NT. We are looking for the appearing of the GLORY of God…that, is Jesus Christ. To put the sentence in a way that’s easier for us English speakers to understand: We wait for the blessed hope, that is, the appearing of Jesus Christ, who is the glory of our great God and Savior.

Now I need to rescue you from the bog of Greek grammar. But the focus of this whole paragraph is Jesus Christ who gives us grace.

Grace trains us to live a certain way: godly. Godliness is turning your back on sin, living like Jesus, and looking forward to his coming. The teaching in this passage rescues us from errors in our godliness and errors in our faith.

1. Errors in our godliness
Perhaps you’ve grown up in a Christian tradition that defined godliness almost entirely by what you should NOT do. Unfortunately, this is the case in some fundamentalist churches. You can NOT do this list of sins or vices. This can lead to legalism. We could think we are godly because we aren’t doing certain things. This mindset is destructive to the individual Christians, the church, and the testimony of Christ. The testimony of the church in part is based on our good works in the world: things we do. Are we to NOT do certain things as Christians? Absolutely. We are to deny ungodliness and worldly desires. Saying no is a part of godliness, but not the only part.

An opposite error would be to define godliness only by your good works. This is an error that can plague more progressive branches of Christianity. Godliness or Christlikeness is defined by doing good works or working for social change. But there are very few standards when it comes to not living like the world. Are we to be going good works for others? Absolutely. But good works without a corresponding passion for denying sin tarnishes those good works. Without repentance from sin, Christians and churches will fall.

Godliness is a yes and no. We say yes to Christlikeness in godly character and good works. We say no to sin and the evil desires of this world. Both effect the church’s witness. A lack of repentance and denying of sin erodes the testimony of the church. A lack of love and good works and the same thing happens.

2. Errors in our faith
This text also guards us from errors in our faith. Faith looks back to God’s grace as it appeared at the cross of Christ. Faith also looks forward to the coming of Christ in the future: we call it hope. Our text has 2 appearances of Christ: his grace at the cross and his appearance in the future. As Christians we must root our faith firmly in the historic reality of the cross. We also must ground our hope solidly in his return. Our faith looks and back and forward.

When we lived near Chicago, we contended with quite a few train tracks in our area. To go to church, the grocery store, or just around town, we had to cross at least one set of tracks. Often we would be stopped by long freight trains. Some had 3 or even 4 engines on them. Sometimes there would be engines on the front and back of the train. Faith and hope are like these train engines. Faith in the cross of Christ pushes us from behind and hope in his coming pulls us forward. Without the cross we would be lost in our sins. Without the return of Christ, we would lose hope in this evil world. The 2 appearings of Christ keep our train steaming ahead.

The first main question: what does grace do? It teaches us to be godly. Say no to sin and yes to Jesus. The second question:

2. What does grace look like?
We can throw around the word “grace” in church. What is it? Grace is found in a person….and that person is Jesus Christ. Grace is found in Christ’s sacrifice for us. Verse 14 fill outs what Paul means in verse 11: the grace of God has appeared. Christ appeared and died for us. That’s grace. Christ died on the cross as an intentional sacrifice for our sins. He took on our humanity and lived a perfect life. On the cross he took the full force of God’s punishment for our sins. He gave himself for us. Jesus took our place. Instead of facing the full fury of God’s wrath in hell, we experience his love and mercy. Christ did it all for us. That’s grace.

What does grace look like? It looks like a Savior who sanctifies.

Paul expands the work of Christ is the rest of verse 14.
1. He redeemed us from all lawlessness. The word redeemed speaks of rescue. We are rescued from our sin…iniquity…lawlessness. We were trapped in sin. Now we are free
2. He purified for himself a people
Christ did not just rescue us from our sin, he made us his people. It says a peculiar people. Maybe we are peculiar. The idea is a people for his own possession. People who belong to him. He secured us as his people through his work on the cross. His people are known as zealous—eager—to do good works for their Savior.

Maybe this grace things is still a little foggy for you. How does God’s grace train us? Saying that grace trains us might makes as much sense as saying your couch or lawn tractor trains you. When we think of grace training us, we might think of our response to grace: love for Christ, gratitude for what he has done. That should certainly be the case! Grace training us is more than a set of commands that are tacked on to the gospel. Again, grace is defined here as what Christ has done for us. God’s kind gift to us—his grace—was Christ’s death on our behalf. Because Christ has died, God is now able to lavish us with every spiritual blessing. That grace. I want to look at the way grace is defined in verse 14 and how it trains us.

1. Grace trains us because it free us
Christ redeemed us from iniquity or lawlessness. Grace free us from the bondage of sin. We are on longer salves to sin. Instead, we are free to serve Christ. Imagine if you were held in a POW camp for 10 years. You face starvation, torture, and loneliness. You think that life is going to end. You wonder if you will ever be rescued. But one day you are released. You are led outside the gates of that awful prison. What do you do? Sit outside the gates and wish you could have your horrible cell back? Would you stand there pout because you lost what was familiar to you for the last 10 years? NO! Tears of joy would stream down your cheeks. If you had strength, you would run toward your rescuers. Freedom!

Think of a person who tries to work for their salvation. There is no joy in that…only despair. A person who knows they have been freed from their sins has the powerful motivation of joy as they serve Jesus Christ. We say no to sin because we have been rescued from it.

2. Grace trains us because it gives us a new identity
The second way Christ’s death is described is that he purified a people for his own possession. If you have received grace, you now belong to someone else. You belong to Christ. You have a new identity. You are a part of God’s people. You are in the family of God.

Maybe you’ve watched the movie Princess Diaries. I have to confess that I have watched it more than once. I hope I don’t lose my man card for that. The stories begins with a teenage girl who lives in San Francisco with her mother barely making ends meet. She is a bit awkward and poorly dressed. She has only a few friends and is made fun of at school. Right before she turns 16, she meets her grandmother. She finds out not only that her grandmother is a queen in a distant country, but that she herself is the heir to the throne. Her world is flipped upside down. She flies home with her grandmother, and begins princess lessons. She enjoys the privileges of royalty. Fancy dinners and limousines. What made the difference? She found out her identity.

Christians are given a new identity when they are saved. We belong to the King. No longer do we belong to ourselves. Now we are to live like his kids. Your identity as a Christian supersedes any other identity you may have. Grace trains us to godliness because we now belong to Christ. Paul finishes up verse 14 by pointing out a characteristic of a Christian: they are zealous for good works. People can do good works. But a Christian who has been rescued from sin and given a new identity will radiate a passion to serve Jesus Christ by doing good works for others.

I would like to close with a question. Has God’s grace invaded your life? It has appeared, but has it saved you? How do you know if you have God’s grace in your life?
-Is Christ changing you?
-has he rescued you from sin?
-Do you belong to him?
-Do you have a zeal for good works?
-Are you saying no to sin and yes to following Christ?
-Are you living a self-controlled, upright, and godly life in this world?

All these are the effects of grace in a Christian’s life. If you do not have God’s grace, you are lost. You are in bondage to sin. You are child of the devil. You will die in your sins and spend eternity in hell. Repent of your sins and look to Christ for grace. He died on the cross to give abundant mercy and grace to sinners. He will give you freedom. He will give you a new identity. You will belong to him and be eternally safe from the judgment of God. The grace of God has appeared. Is it yours?