The Grace of God

Our title this evening is The Grace of God. On these mid-summer Sunday evenings at JPC we are looking at the letter of Paul to Titus. And tonight we have reached chapter 2 verses 11-15. After some words of introduction, I have just two main headings, first, UNDERSTANDING THE GRACE OF GOD; then, secondly, LEARNING FROM THE GRACE OF GOD.

There are huge problems facing the Christian church throughout the world at the beginning of the 21st century. Some Christians are facing persecution. In the West Christians are being attacked by secularists and scientific humanists and suffering social and political exclusion for their convictions. For articulating basic Christian sexual morality even in this country Christians are being harassed by the Police and attacked in their professions. Then individually Christians are facing more and more pressures in their personal lives. And most serious of all there is theological and moral confusion in the churches.

This was just how it was at the time Paul was writing to Titus. In some places the churches were persecuted from outside and in many places (as in Crete) they had false teaching inside. And Crete, where Titus was, like Corinth in the ancient world, was proverbial for its immorality. There was a verb "to Cretize". It referred to lying and dishonesty. Similarly there was a verb "to Corinthianize". That referred to sexual immorality.

In Crete there was certainly a culture of decadence. One of the Cretan respected literary figures on a previous occasion had summarized this Cretan culture. He did so in terms of total dishonesty, violence and sensual indulgence. And remember, he himself was a Cretan. But he spoke of the generality of Cretans as "liars, evil brutes [and] lazy gluttons" (Titus chapter 1 verse 12).

I used to be shocked by that verse - but no longer. For if we are honest ourselves, we can see much of post-Christian Western Europe drifting in a "Cretan" direction. There is dishonesty in government, the media, education and the therapeutic services. There is violence on the street and in the home. And there is idleness and over indulgence. You have absenteeism at one end of the social scale and the idiot life-style of rich celebrities at the other end. Add to that the modern problem of obesity and you have a "Cretan" culture.

But as a culture degenerates, it is only too easy for Christians to drift with the flow. That was happening in Crete. And Titus' job was to help Christians stand against this decadent flow and try to reverse it. So what was to be his strategy? Well, first he was to make sure there was solid leadership in the local church.

And the leaders were to be good examples in their own personal lives. We heard about that in chapter 1. But then, and vitally, chapter 2 verse 1 shows Paul making it clear that there needed to be "sound" teaching from Titus - teaching, I quote, "in accord with sound doctrine". And last week we thought about some of that "sound" teaching that Titus was to give to various sections in the church - to older men, older women, younger women, young men and "slaves" - teaching which is still relevant for today. So much by way of introduction.

That brings us to our passage for tonight - Titus chapter 2.11-15 and my first heading.


First, UNDERSTANDING THE GRACE OF GOD

Look at verse 11:

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

Notice how Paul begins with the little word "for". That is so fundamental to Paul's argument. He has just given a range of behavioural or ethical instructions to Titus. But Paul knew that humanly speaking men and women too often do not behave as they should. Orders if backed by force or the law (with the fear of punishment) can make people behave to some extent. But withdraw that force or the law, and people revert to anti-social behaviour.

Martin Luther King once said "the law can restrain the heartless but it cannot change the human heart." But the gospel - the good news of the Christian faith - is that according to the plan of God and through Christ there can be a change of heart. So knowing this, in a number of his letters, Paul starts off with teaching the good news about this change. Then in the light of that he says, therefore behave like this. He gives, if you like, the theology before the ethics. But here it is the other way round. He has given the ethical or behavioural teaching first.

Now in chapter 2 verses 11-15 he gives the basis for it and says: "for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." He is saying that to act and live rightly you need to understand and accept the grace of God. Now "grace" is talked about a great deal in churches today. But "grace" can mean different things to different people. For some it is like an impersonal force - a sort of divine electricity. But that's not right.

The bible is clear. Grace is God acting personally. It is God acting in love towards men and women. When in Sunday school the word "grace" (G-R-A-C-E) is taken as an acronym for "God's Riches At Christ's Expense" that is so right. But today in our churches the currency of this word "grace" can be, and is being, devalued. Bonhoeffer, who was executed for his opposition to Hitler, spoke of "cheap grace". So what has gone wrong?

The problem is this. To understand what the Bible means by the grace of God, you first need to understand certain truths about human nature and God. But these truths are so easily ignored. Let me list three ways this can happen.

First, modern man, as ancient man in Titus' day, thinks he is better than he is. The saying that "Man is the measure of all things" was first written by an ancient Greek philosopher that the people in Crete would have known - Protagoras. But that Protagorean philosophy of godless humanism is now the creed of millions. As a result lying, violence and sensual decadence - the sins of Crete and today - are not felt to be so bad after all. And with that attitude, when, or if, modern people ever think of God, they believe that God doesn't reckon these things are too bad either.

The notion that God could ever hate sin, as the Bible says he does, is beyond belief. And the idea that God could ever condemn people for their sins is also quite unthinkable. For many moderns "grace" simply means that God is rather like Father Christmas. So that is the first way people can misunderstand human nature and God.

Secondly, and related, modern man turns a blind eye to so much wrongdoing. Many today believe that you must tolerate nearly all and every kind of behaviour. But the message of the Bible is that the world God (from his grace and goodness) has created is a moral world. And there is a moral law that demands retribution for sin - sin being attitudes or behaviour that break God's moral law.

I haven't time to discuss our Old Testament lesson from Leviticus. But God's moral law was sufficiently evident there among what theologians call the ritual laws and local civic laws. But, again, so many today find this unbelievable. God, however, is and will be the judge of all the world with hell the ultimate punishment. That is the message of the Bible from the early chapters of Genesis to the last chapters of the book of Revelation. Your sin will find you out later if not sooner. And that moral law is like gravity. You can deny it, but it is still there. However, unless you can grasp something of these hard, but real, facts, the true meaning of grace will escape you. You will have a distorted view of grace. It will be "cheap grace" and it certainly won't motivate you.

Thirdly, modern man thinks too often that he himself can be spiritually good enough for God, if he tries and if there is a God. But that is to live in cloud-cuckoo-land. For human beings are spiritually and morally impotent - from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Lebanon to Amsterdam to London to Las Vegas to Hong Kong - everywhere. But with this belief abroad men and women think that, if necessary, they can restore their relationship with God by making him say "Yes" to them and accepting them. Primitive people did it and still do it by sacrifices and ceremonial gifts. Sophisticated modern people do it by good deeds and contemporary morality such as it is. But the Bible is crystal clear - Romans 3.20:

no one will be declared righteous in his [God's] sight by observing the law [or by being as religious or moral as they can be].

The trouble is your religion or morality is never good enough for God. And you know that. Even when you are very good by the world's standards, you know that you could have done better or you have hidden faults others don't see. Part of the deception of sin is to make you blind to its true and real nature. Spiritually, as the bible says, we are by nature "dead in ... transgressions and sins" (Eph 2.1). It is useless telling a corpse to give itself life. Similarly it is useless telling someone who is spiritually dead to come alive spiritually.

Now when you understand these truths about human nature and God, there is a world of a difference. You can see that grace is never cheap. And you begin to see how when Paul says in verse 11: "the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men," it is good news. For God has acted out of his grace to give us life. Notice, it "has appeared". And that is explained in verse 14. This was at the first appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ (verse 14) ...

... who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

On the Cross Christ redeemed us. That is a metaphor from the practice of slavery where a price had to be paid to free a slave. Similarly, for our eternal freedom Christ has paid the price in full. On the Cross Christ freed us from the penalty and the power of sin. God does judge sin. But Christ bore the punishment you and I deserve, in our place. And his goal was to have a people "that are his very own, eager to do what is good" (the last part of verse 14). So do you see what that means?

It means that the grace of God is not something opposed to the law of God or God's commandments. Of course, not. Some people today only talk about the grace of God as being unconditional. And it is. It never depends on you or me. So it doesn't matter how dreadful a past you have had - you may have been as sexually immoral as the Corinthians. You may have been as dishonest, violent and sensually indulgent as the Cretans. But the good news is that the grace of God is relevant to you, nevertheless. God loves you and he wants you to trust him. That, though, is not to be in a vacuum. It is not as though God doesn't care about your past wrong doing or want you to change.

Yes, the grace of God is unconditional. And it, we are told, has "appeared to all men" - not to some. So that includes the worst of sinners. But - and this is a big "but" - the grace of God is not only "unconditional". It is also "undeserved". No one deserves it. All have sinned. That is why, as John Newton wrote, grace is "so amazing". God hates your sin and my sin. But he loves you and me. And a restored relationship is only possible because Christ, on the Cross, has paid the penalty and made us clean in God's sight. He ...

... gave himself for us [as Paul writes to Titus, verse 14] to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

Yes, it took time for redeemed slaves in the ancient world to adjust to a life of freedom. It takes time for a new Christian to adjust and to grow in godliness. But growing in godliness is what the grace of God must lead to. So that brings us to our second heading tonight.


Secondly, LEARNING FROM THE GRACE OF GOD - learning what it teaches us.

Look at verse 12:

It [the grace of God] teaches us to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The first part of our mission statement at JPC is "Godly Living" (it then goes on "Church Growth and Changing Britain"). Here is a simple but profound statement about "Godly Living". And it shows that living under grace means that you are to learn the teaching of grace. And that means three things.

First, verse 12, you are to learn "to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions." You are to learn to renounce ungodliness - everything that comes between you and God. Today that certainly includes a godless world-view. But perhaps also for you it is the temptation not to make time for bible study and prayer, or the Home Group (or your other small group), or for coming to church Sunday by Sunday. Perhaps you are letting your work crowd God out.

Then grace teaches you are to renounce "worldly passions". These can refer to the sins of the flesh like sexual immorality or drunkenness. But "passion" can be more refined. It can be a wrong passion for making money or for some other selfish-ambition. It is any desire that is contrary to God's will. Grace teaches you negatively, to say "No!" to all these things.

However, secondly, grace teaches you positively verse 12b "to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." That means you are to seek to honour God in your private life by being "self-controlled" and neither flying off the handle or sulking - depending on your temperament. and you are to keep control of your other emotions. It means you are to seek to honour God in your public life by being "upright" and by standing up for God's standards and Christian ethics at work - in you business or clinic or at college or at school or wherever.

And it means you are to seek to be positively committed to Godly Living as well as negatively rejecting all ungodliness and worldly passions. And the grace of God means that God, by his Holy Spirit, will strengthen you to do this as well as forgiving you when you fail. And - this is important - Paul teaches you are to do all this "in this present age". You are not to go into hiding and withdraw from the world. You are to be out there in the stream of things but not going with the godless flow but against it - witnessing and living for Christ.

Then, thirdly, the grace of God teaches that you are, verse 13, to "wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ."

The second coming of Christ is a great motivator. Christ may now be ignored by millions. But one day every eye will see him as the Lord of all in all his glory - at his "glorious appearing".


I must conclude.

Let me recap.

People today find it so hard to understand the amazing grace of God. There are at least three reasons.

One, they think they are better than they are.

Two, they can't understand that there is a moral law and so God condemns and punishes sin.

And, three, they think if necessary, they can be good enough for God.

The good news is that the grace of God means you can have both forgiveness and new spiritual life through Jesus Christ if you will only receive it. On the Cross Christ redeemed or freed us from both the penalty and the power of sin.

But then God's grace needs to be our teacher. It needs to teach us to say "No!" to what is wrong; to live godly lives in our private and public lives and to live in the light Christ's return one day.

But finally look at verse 15:

These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.

These things must be taught.

For unless Titus teaches the gospel of the grace of God along with these ethical instructions, it will be legalism. But unless he teaches these ethical requirements for Godly Living, it will be "cheap grace". There will then be no Cretans or 21st century Christians (verse 14 last part), "eager to do what is good." The literal translation of that is "zealous for good works". God doesn't want his people to be passive bystanders but out there changing the world.

Are you willing to play your part helping to Change Britain and the world? If you are, always hold together both God's grace as seen forgiving sin at Calvary but also joined with the teaching of God's grace about Godly Living.