And we'll go to the second chapter. Let me begin reading with verse
11, and I'll read down through the end of the chapter. Titus
2.11. Here's my subject. Grace that
brings salvation. Grace that brings salvation. Titus 2.11. For the grace of
God that bringeth It doesn't offer. It doesn't
invite. It doesn't make an effort. It
brings salvation. It hath appeared to all men. And this grace of God that makes
its appearance to men, it teaches us. It's an educator. It's the thing about the grace
of God. It's an emancipator, but it is also an educator, teaching
us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live,
how should we live? Soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world. And this grace also educates
us to be looking. The word looking in verse 13
is literally the word waiting. Waiting for that blessed hope. What is that? That's the glorious
appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Well, what did he do? He gave
himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and
purify unto himself a peculiar people, a special people, a people
who are zealous of good works. He finishes this chapter by saying,
these things speak and exhort and rebuke. with all authority. And then he says, let no man
despise thee. Every time we get together, it's
like we're gathering at a table of spiritual food. The dainties of God. At this table we enjoy the feast
of the gospel. Often think and liken this to
a fellow by the name of Mephibosheth. He was the son of Jonathan, grandson
of King Saul. David, the king of Israel, he
asked, is there anybody left of the household of Jonathan?
by a household of Saul. And he said, yeah, there's one
grandson he's got. His name's Mephibosheth. But
he's lame. Lame on both feet. David said,
I want to bless him for Jonathan's sake. And he said, go fetch him. Servants went after Mephibosheth,
brought him to the king. He did reverence to the king.
He respected the king. He bowed to the king. And David
said, you're going to sit at my table the rest of the days
of your life. Mephibosheth said, who am I? I'm just a dead dog. that I'd
sit at the king's table. I feel like that sitting at the
gospel table. The gospel table that's filled
with the bread of Christ Jesus. We feed on him. We drink of the
wine of the gospel that makes the heart merry, makes us happy,
makes us joyful. And every time we come together,
God has a banquet for us, and I'm not saying the banquet is
in the things that I speak to you, The banquet is the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the good news of this great salvation
for sinners, a salvation that's all of grace and all in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when we meet together like
we're meeting together tonight, I just, it's such a special time. It's such a privilege. And I
hope we all appreciate it. I'm afraid that Some of us, from
time to time, we maybe grow careless about coming to the Gospel feast,
or we just take for granted there'll be another feast. But we ought
never to take the things of God for granted. It's a wonderful
thing that God bring us here tonight, that He would in His
infinite mercy, permit us to approach His throne of grace,
to read His word, call upon Him in prayer, lift up our voices
together, We bless the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's a
wonderful thing. And it's a mysterious thing in
that this happens. God the Spirit blesses us as
we come together to honor God. Our motive for being here every
time is to be God's glory. It's to bless Him. To honor Him. To exalt Him. That's to be our
motive. But in doing that, God always
gives us a blessing. He speaks to us. He encourages
us. He lifts up our spirits. How
often have you come into this place and maybe you've been a
little downtrodden. You've been a little discouraged. Things are kind of gloomy and
things have happened that have been disappointing to you, and
you come in, and maybe oftentimes you don't even have the best
attitude when you come in here, and yet you listen to the Gospel,
you sit down at the table to feast on this heavenly manna, and to
drink of the water of life. And all of a sudden, as you're
listening, you kind of get caught up in it. and you find your very
soul to be refreshed and to be fed, to be nourished, to be nurtured. That's what happens when the
gospel goes forth. And so as I approach this message
tonight, grace that brings salvation, I hope it will be to each of
us a wonderful feast in which we dine on the grace of God What
can you say about the grace of God? It is infinite. It is everlasting. It is without
beginning and it is without end. And in the gospel of the grace
of God, we see all the features of God Himself. In the gospel,
we see our ever-gracious Heavenly Father in His purpose of grace,
And in providing for us unworthy sinners, that one who is the
son of his love. We see in this gospel of God's
grace, the Lord Jesus. We see his performance of redemption. We see him as that one who restored
us to God. We were lost, he came and found
us. We were dead, He gave us life. We were bankrupt, He gave us
the riches of His mercy. And in this gospel, we see the
Holy Spirit in His perfections in giving us regenerating grace. He quickened us. And you have
He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. And so here
we see a threefold binding as it were of the covenant of grace
and love, in which all the combined efforts of the world and the
devil and the flesh are futile in their enmity and opposition
to the great God of this gospel. How blessed it is to know that
the God the Father is for me in covenant grace. And if God
be for us, who can be against us? And how blessed it is to
see the Lord Jesus Christ with me in incarnate grace, bone of
my bone and flesh of my flesh. And how glorious it is to know
that the Holy Spirit is in me. In me, the Father is for me,
the Son of God is with me, and the Spirit of God is in me by
His gracious, gracious power, and in His revelations of the
glory of Christ Jesus to me. And in the word of God, as we
read through the scriptures, we see this all gracious God
in his doctrine of grace. This is so in our salvation. This grace brought us, it brought
us effectually God's salvation. And this grace, it instructs
us, it teaches us, it educates us in all the experiences of
life. We see how grace affects us. And how grace is still affecting
us. For it is the grace of God that
teaches us how to live in this old world. to live in a manner
that's honoring and glorifying to our God. Now, what is the
grace of God? Wow. It's kind of difficult to
define it because it's such a, there's such a depth to it. It's
such a height to it. Well, simply speaking, the grace
of God's the free unmerited favor of God to the undeserving. It is that divine communication
of love and mercy, the love and mercy of God to the hearts of
sinful men. When I was opposed to God, when
I had no interest in the things of God, grace came to me, and
if I could put it this way, grace arrested me. Grace got a hold
of me and grace will never let me go. Isn't that wonderful?
Grace took hold of us. Grace doesn't come to us and
say, will you? Will you allow me to do something
for you? No, grace comes in and brings,
it brings salvation. It brings it effectually. It
brings it powerfully. It brings it to such a degree
that it makes us glad that it came and fetched us. I hardly know how to go deeper
into a definition of grace, but I wrote these things down yesterday
afternoon. What is grace? It's the bread
of life feeding the hungry. It's the water of life relieving
the thirsty. It's the robe of righteousness
that clothes the naked. What is grace? It's the blood
of Christ Jesus washing the filthy. What is grace? It's the truth
of God saving a person who loves lies. What is the grace of God? It's the rest of God, R-E-S-T,
the rest of God embracing those who are weary. It's the light
of God illuminating those who love darkness rather than light. Grace is the justifier who clears
the guilty. Grace is the innocent one dying
to save the transgressors Grace is the liberty of God given
to the captives. Grace is the mercy of God given
to the wretched. Grace is the life of God given
to those who are spiritually dead. And all of this grace is
in a wonderful person, the Lord Jesus Christ, the seeker and
the savior of sinners. And I'll tell you this, that
person who knows the grace of God and knows the gift of life
through the grace of God, won't ever glory in what he's done
for God, not at all. He never brags about himself.
He's not gonna boast about himself. Here's what he'll say like the
Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 15, by the grace of God. I am what
I am. But wait a minute, you're a preacher,
you're an apostle, you're not behind the chief apostle. He
says, understand this, by the grace of God, I am what I am.
And he said, all that I've done is really the Lord working through
me. Oh, may God impress upon our
hearts the majesty of his sweet grace. And this is for certain,
grace always humbles the heart. When God shows you and when he
shows me just exactly what we are, at least to the degree that
we can receive it, when he shows us the depth of our depravity,
as far as we can see it, And then he shows us God has made
us to be His sons and daughters. God has made us to be His children. God has adopted us into His family. He's made us heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ Jesus. And God has given to us the very
riches, the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus. Who could ever
fathom the riches of the grace of God? God who owns all things. God who does his will in the
armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and
none can stay his hand. He's given us all things in grace
in Christ Jesus. All the depths and the wonders
of his marvelous grace. And his grace is the very source
of every blessing. This is not what you've earned.
Coming together and listening to the Word of God, listening
about Christ Jesus, we don't merit this. This is not what
we deserve. You think upon your own condition
by nature. alienated from God, dead in trespasses
and sins, children of wrath, even as others. If God gave to
you and God gave to me that which we naturally deserve, why, we'd
already be in hell. We'd already be suffering the
vengeance of God, but here we are. Resting in the Lord Jesus. Finding that the grace of God
is that which has saved us. It's brought salvation to us. And this grace preserves us.
This grace keeps us going. And this grace is educating us. It's teaching us as we go through
life. Grace brings salvation. And I'll
tell you those few words of Ephesians 1, according to the riches of
his grace, that's the stamp of God upon every facet of salvation,
according to the riches of his grace. Begin with the election,
it's according to the riches of His grace. Go on to predestination,
it's according to the riches of His grace. Go on to adoption,
it's according to the riches of His grace. Go on to redemption,
it's according to the riches of His grace. Go on to enlightenment,
to regeneration, it's according to the riches of His grace and
go all all the way to glorification, it's according to the riches
of His grace. Everything that God does for
unworthy sinners has this stamp on it, according to the riches
of His grace. Grace shines brightly in this
salvation from beginning to end. Grace is seen in our election. Look at Romans chapter 11. Let's do a little bit of searching
of the scriptures here. Romans chapter 11. Look at verses
five and six. First of all, grace is seen in
our election. Romans 11, five and six. Even so at this present time,
right now. Also, there's a remnant according
to the election but it's an election of grace. And if you want some further
understanding of this grace, this salvation, and this election,
and if by grace, verse six, it's no more of works. Otherwise,
in other words, if it is of works, then grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then it is no more grace. Otherwise,
work is no more work. In other words, it's gotta be
one way or the other. It's gotta be you or God. It's gotta be works or grace.
Now, which is it? And anybody who honestly deals
with the scriptures knows that this election is all of grace. Our Lord Jesus set his disciples
down one day and he's talking to them. He said, you didn't
choose me. I chose you. You didn't come
to me. I came to you. You men were out
fishing. You weren't seeking for me. I
came and sought you. You didn't call on me. I called
on you. This is the grace of God. Grace
is seen in our election. You go to Ephesians 1, that passage
of Scripture that James read to us a while ago. And he talks
about blessed be the God and Father by Lord Jesus Christ according
as he blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. And he reads on down according
to the glory of God's grace. So I asked you this, you saved? I'm saved. And I don't mean it
the way the religious world means it. I mean, I've been rescued.
I've been delivered. I'm saved. Well, who saved you? Well, God did. Was it your choice
or His choice? These questions are easily answered
by an honest person. Well, when did He choose you?
Before the foundation of the world. Why did He choose you? After all, you know better than
anybody else. He did so because He shows mercy
and grace on whom He will. It's all according to the good
pleasure of His will. And our Lord Jesus said in Matthew
chapter 11, even so, Father, so it seemed good in thy sight.
You hidden these things from the wise and the prudent. And
if God hides salvation, if He hides the gospel, If He hides
Christ Jesus, if He hides His saving grace, you're not going
to find it. You've hidden these things, He
says, from the wise and the prudent. But thank God He's revealed them
to babes, even the babes of His people. Grace. It is fully displayed in God's
election. Secondly, grace is grandly displayed
in our redemption. Go back to Ephesians one, that
passage that James read to us. Look at Ephesians chapter one. And after he talks about the
work of the father, and he kind of sums it up this way in verse
six, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath
made us accepted in the beloved. And the word made there is also
the word grace. In the verb form, He's graced
us. So really, we could read verse
six like this, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein
He hath graced us in the beloved. in whom we have
redemption through His blood. Redemption is not offered. Redemption
is not offered to us. Redemption was a one-time legal
transaction between God the Son and God the Father. We have redemption
through His blood. What does that mean? The forgiveness
of sins, watch it, according to the riches of His grace. Election is according to His
grace, and redemption is according to His grace, and forgiveness
is according to His grace. What is redemption? Redemption
is paying the price that's owed. And really, if you wanna get
technical about it, it's to buy back. It's to buy again. It's to purchase something that
was yours but's been lost. You see, God owns us by creation. Christ owns us by virtue of the
fact He made us. But we fell in Adam's transgression. We fell into bondage to God's
law and to God's justice, and God's law and justice held us
for a price. And our Lord Jesus came and redeemed
us. He paid the price we owed to
justice. He redeemed us. He bought us
back. We're His first by creation.
He made us. We're His by redemption. He bought
us. He owns us. This is the grace
of God. Salvation's all of grace. Elections
of grace. There's a remnant according to
the election of grace. And we're redeemed and forgiven
by the grace of God. And I'll give you another one
here real quick. 2 Timothy chapter one. Look at 2 Timothy chapter
one. Here's the apostle Paul, he's
sitting in prison. And he's writing a letter here,
the second letter that he's written to Timothy, who's a preacher. He writes by the inspiration,
the leadership, the breathing upon him and in him of the Spirit
of God. Paul called Timothy his son in
the faith and in the ministry. And here's what he says to him
in 2 Timothy 2, chapter one in verse, look at verse eight, first
of all, he says, be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony
of our Lord, nor me his prisoner. Don't be ashamed of the gospel.
Remember the apostle Paul said that in Romans chapter one, didn't
he? He said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's
the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believe it,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek. He says, don't you
be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, of the gospel of the
Lord, and don't be ashamed of me even though I'm in prison.
Don't be ashamed to be associated with me. but rather be thou partaker
of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. This God who has saved us and
called us with a holy calling. Question, which came first, salvation
or calling? Now in our experience, it's calling. The Lord calls us effectually. He draws us unto Himself. But
in God's eternal purpose, He saved us from old eternity. How long have you been saved?
If I ask you, are you saved? You say, yeah. Yes, I'm saved. I'm saved by the grace of God.
How long have you been saved? Forever. That is correct, isn't
it? Forever. There has never been
a time when I was unsaved in the purpose of God. Now, in my
experience, I was unsaved. There was a time when I was lost.
And the Lord, by His gracious Spirit, found me through the
preaching of the gospel. Brother Mahan came to Winston-Salem,
North Carolina, and he preached the gospel, and the Lord found
me. The Lord called me, and I experienced
that effectual call of grace. But God had saved me long, long
ago. In fact, as long as God has been
God, that's how long I've been saved. Because it's from everlasting
to everlasting. I was never a child of the devil. I was never a goat. I've always
been one of his people. And if you're a believer, that's
true of you too. Grace is manifested in our calling. We love him. Why? Because he first loved us. It's
what the scripture says. And then grace is manifested
in our justification. Go over to Romans three, and
I need to move quickly because I wanna come back to book of
Titus, but look at Romans chapter three. Grace is manifested in
our justification. Justification. Romans chapter
three. Look at verse 23. You know this,
for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Therefore,
if we gonna be justified, if we're going to be legally by
God declared to be guiltless and righteous, He's got to do
it. So being justified without a
reason in us, word is freely. It's also translated in John
chapter 15, verse 25, without a cause. The Savior said, they
hated me without a cause, which is a quote from the Psalms. And
here's what the apostle is saying here. We're justified without
any cause in us. We're declared to be innocent
and righteous and guiltless and forgiven without any reason in
us. We're justified freely by His
grace, by His grace. through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation,
to be a mercy seat, to be the satisfaction of divine justice,
through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed, through the forbearance
of God, to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness,
that He might be just and the justifier everybody who believes
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace is seen in our justification. And grace is the reason for our
acceptance with God, as we saw there in Ephesians 1. But I want
you to go back over to Titus 2. And let me deal with something
here in the rest of our allotted time this evening, I want to
talk about grace that saves and grace that teaches. This grace
that saves us, this grace that brings salvation, it teaches
its pupils. Grace, as it were, brings us
into a school. We all know what it means to
be brought into school. We got several teachers here,
retired teachers, and we were all at one time students. Well,
grace has brought us into its school. It has put us under its
tutelage. And the grace that came and fetched
us, that brought us, brought us salvation, didn't try to,
didn't make an effort to, but grace brings salvation. This same grace educates us. It teaches us. It's always teaching
us. Like lots of kids, we're kind
of slow to learn when it comes to the things of God, but grace
is patient. And though we mess up quite a
bit and we fail and we're given a test and we fail the test,
grace forgives us and grace keeps on teaching us. Grace is very
patient with us. And he says here in this passage
of scripture, for the grace of God that brings salvation hath
appeared to all men. And we know when it says all
men, it's not talking about universal salvation. It would be foolish
in this context. It appears to all kinds of people. In fact, all men who are saved
are saved because the grace of God appeared to them. It suddenly
appeared. You weren't looking for grace.
You weren't searching for grace. And all of a sudden, you're under
the sound of the gospel of grace, and then grace comes after you. And before you even knew what
happened, before you realized the majesty of grace and the
great wonders of God's grace, you found yourself believing.
That's due to the grace of God. So he says that this grace teaches
us, it educates us. It makes us different. It's a
wonderful passage of Scripture, and let me just read it to you. If you're taking notes, you can
jot it down later, rather than you taking the time to look to
it. This is what the Scripture says
in Galatians, when James and Cephas and John, Peter, James
and John, who seemed to be pillars, this is what the Apostle Paul
said, they perceived that grace was given to me. Well, how could they perceive
that? Could they look into his heart?
Could they see him? They saw the effects of grace.
They saw the effects of grace. You remember when the Lord told
Ananias, I want you to go down and talk to Saul of Tarsus. I'd
rather not. That guy's a butcher of people. He's throwing people in jail.
Moms, dads, boys and girls, he throws them in prison. No, not
anymore. Behold, he prayeth. Something
different about this man now. They perceived a difference in
him. And the grace of God will make
us different. over in the book of Acts chapter
11. Word got back to Jerusalem, the church of Jerusalem, that
there were wonderful things happening in the church at Antioch. And
they said, Brother Barnabas, would you go to the church of
Antioch and check things out? See what's happening down there.
And it says in Acts 11.23, And when he came, and he saw the
grace of God, He was glad. He was glad. Tell you what, grace
makes you different. You're not the same as you were
before. Grace causes you to fall in love with the gospel. Grace
causes you to fall in love with the Lord Jesus and you can never
hear enough about Him. You want to hear Him bragged
on. Grace makes you different. There was a time when you had
a slight interest in the things of God, but the grace of God
now has given you a hunger and a thirst for this glorious gospel
of the finished work of the Lord Jesus. And you want to hear more
of His blood, and more of His righteousness, and more of His
holiness, and more of His kindness to you. Grace makes you different. Grace causes a hunger for the
Word of God. Grace causes a love for the servants
of God. Grace causes you to want to support
the gospel. Grace causes you to love those
who preach the gospel, even though you know the man who preaches
the gospel, he's just a sinner saved by grace, just like you
are, but you're thankful God sent you somebody to tell you
the truth. You want to see the effects of
grace? You want to see how grace teaches a man? Here's a fellow who's demon-possessed. A man of the Gadarenes, running
among the tombs, naked. Everybody stayed away. I don't
know what they did when they had the funeral. I guess they
had soldiers come in and kind of confine him. Lord Jesus came
and dealt with him in grace. And people came around and they
found him sitting at the feet of Jesus. And he's in his right
mind and he's clothed. You reckon he's different? I
reckon he was. What made him different? Grace
is teaching him. Sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus.
That's what grace will teach you to do. It'll teach you to
sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus. And I'll tell you something else
grace does, verse 12, it teaches us denying ungodliness. Say, what in the world is ungodliness? Everything that's opposed to
God. You are opposed, you will be opposed to everything that
is opposed to God. the God of Scripture, the God
of salvation. You don't wanna hear anybody
speak against the God of glory, the God of grace, you'll just
won't have anything to do with it. Because the grace of God
teaches you to deny ungodliness, to deny idolatry, and worldly
lusts, living for the things of this world. The grace of God
shows us, it teaches us, and these are difficult lessons for
us to learn because we're still in the flesh. But the grace of
God teaches us the uselessness of pursuing the things of the
world. To just deny them, to deny them
to your flesh. And it says, here it puts a positive spin on this as it were, but
to live soberly. That doesn't mean we never laugh
and we don't have any joy. That's not what that means. But
we live a life that is submissive to God. And we live our lives
in this world in a serious way pertaining to eternal matters. We take these things seriously.
We didn't used to, but grace teaches us to. Grace teaches
us to respect the Word of God. Grace teaches us to love the
gathering of the saints. Grace teaches us to pray. Grace
teaches us to fall upon our faces before God. Grace teaches us
of our own unrighteousness and filthiness and how desperately
and how always we need the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace
does that. To live soberly and righteously. And righteously is to live in
a right manner toward others. With a right attitude. With right
motives. To live honestly. Listen, if
you live honestly, you don't have to be looking over your
shoulders to see who's watching. Grace teaches us, live uprightly
in this world. The most disgraceful thing, or
one of the most disgraceful things for a child of God is to live
in a manner that brings reproach upon the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And the grace of God teaches
us to live righteously and godly. in a manner pleasing to God in
this present world, which is wicked and vile. I'll tell you something else
grace does. It teaches us in verse 13 to wait for the blessed
hope, to wait with great anticipation. looking for that blessed hope,
the glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior. He is this One who saved us.
He's the great God. He's the everlasting God. And
He's our Savior, Jesus Christ. And grace teaches us to be always
looking for Him, always expecting Him. Listen to me, you who are
the people of God, live as it were upon your tiptoes of faith,
looking for, anxious for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like John said, even so come
Lord Jesus. And the Apostle Paul, as he always
does, he reminds us of the work of our Savior. We're anxiously
awaiting that day when we shall see him, this one who gave himself
for us. And he gave himself for us that
he might redeem us from all iniquity, all inequities, and to purify
himself, to wash us. How does he purifies? By his
blood. by his sacrifice to purify himself
a peculiar people, a special people. Watch, and grace teaches
us this, to be zealous of good works, to do those things that
are honoring to God, to do those things that magnify the Lord
and are beneficial, especially to the household of faith. Grace does that. And you might be thinking to
yourself what I kind of thought to myself yesterday when I was
working on this. Grace has all of this to do.
It's got its work cut out for me. I'll tell you. That was a
thought that came across my mind. Boy, Grace, Grace has got a work
to do. But she's up for it. Oh, Grace is up to the task.
Because grace is almighty. Because remember whose grace
it is. It's God's grace. And so the
apostle, he winds up this chapter by saying to Titus, these things
speak and exhort and even rebuke and
do it with all authority. Preachers do have some authority.
It's spiritual authority. Tell the truth. Don't back down. Don't be ashamed. Like Paul told
Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, be instant, in season, out of season. Whether
they want to hear what you've got to say or don't want to hear
what you've got to say, just keep on preaching. to me this morning and said,
you might get in trouble for a few things you said this morning.
Well, that just have to happen. That's all right. I've been in
trouble with, I told somebody later, I said, I've been in trouble
with bigger and badder people. So if somebody calls into question
something I say, that, hey, I'm just trying to tell the truth.
And I'm not trying to be consistent with any system I'm trying to
be consistent with the Word of God. The only one I answer to
is the Lord. If I say something contrary to
this book, you take issue with me. But if what I say is not
contrary to this book, better bow to the authority of God's
Word. That's why Paul says, don't let any man despise you. Even if they're against you,
you just stick with it. You just keep on preaching that
this grace, it brings salvation. Oh, precious grace. Precious
grace of God.