Jonathan was doing some multitasking.
He brought my water and sang. I've entitled the message for
this evening, The Teaching of Grace. Grace, the grace of God, is invincible. It saves. It teaches. I hate it when I hear people
say God's trying to teach me something. God never tried to
do anything. When God teaches, we're taught
what the grace of God teaches, the teaching of saving grace.
Now look at our text in verse 11, for the grace of God that
bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Bringeth salvation is one word
in the original and it's an adjective used to describe God's grace. It is saving grace. It is salvation grace. That is the grace of God. It
saves. Now his grace always teaches
us this because it is saving grace. Let me quote a couple
of scriptures to you. Ephesians two, four and five,
but God who is rich in mercy, how rich is he in mercy? For
his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead
in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace. You are saved. God's grace. is saving grace. Ephesians 2, 8, 9 says, for by
grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. Don't
you know that so? If you have faith, it's not something
you came up with. That not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now, when grace is presented
as a sincere and genuine offer from God, God offers you his
grace and you can receive it or reject it. That's not the
grace of God. Now, let me emphasize that. That
is not the grace of God. It's not grace at all. It makes
your salvation dependent upon what you do, whether you decide
to accept or reject his grace. Now that is not saving grace. Grace of God brings salvation. The grace of God is God's favor.
It's not God making his favor available to you if you'll take
it. I love what was said of Noah, but Noah found grace. It doesn't mean he was looking
for it and found it. It means God gave him grace. Yes, he was included in that
horrible description of mankind and God saw the wickedness of
man was great. in the earth and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. But
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord had favor
toward him, the grace of God. that bring you salvation. Now,
when we talk about the grace of God, we cannot talk about
the grace of God without talking about electing grace. God's sovereign choice of his
people before time began. If that is not part of the grace
of God, it's not the grace of God. If we talk about grace,
we've got to talk about justifying grace. Being justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. Now think
about this. God, by his grace, if I'm a believer, God, by his
grace justified me. That means he made it to where
I have never sinned. Chew on that. Think about that. It's not God treat me as if I
never sinned. He made me to where I never sinned. He wouldn't have justified me
if I had any sin. He took that sin, put it away
and justified me freely by His grace. When we speak of the grace
of God, we speak of redeeming grace. Grace that redeemed me,
that made payment for all my sins so that they're gone, they're
put away. He was manifested to take away
our sins. In Him is no sin. Now this is what His redemption
did. He took away my sins so that in Him I have no sin. The grace of God is regenerating
grace. Now, Lord will in the next week
or two, I'm gonna preach on regeneration from Titus chapter three, what
it means, but regeneration, you are dead in sins. He gave you
life. He created life in you that was
not there before. He regenerated you, generation. Only the grace of God can give
a man spiritual life. What about the grace of God?
in your preservation. The only reason you've continued
the faith up to this point is because of His grace. Don't you
know that so? Aren't you sure that so? The grace of God in regeneration,
saving grace, preserving grace, now unto Him that's able to keep
you from falling and to present you faultless. Now think about
that. Don't just have that memorized.
Think about what it means. When he presents me before God
in judgment, he's going to present me faultless, without sin, perfect in Christ
Jesus. His grace is glorifying grace.
Now you want to talk about grace that can make me glorified? For
whom he did foreknow, them he also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren, among his brothers. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called. Whom he called, them he also
justified. Whom he justified, them he also
will glorify. No, it doesn't say it that way,
does it? Already glorified in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now that is saving grace. And
a denial of any of those things is a denial of salvation by the
grace of God. To fail to believe this is to
fail to believe on Christ. It's failed to believe the grace
of God. To fail to preach this publicly.
I don't mean to apologize for it. I mean, glory in it. To fail
to preach this publicly is to fail to preach salvation by grace,
the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto
all men. Does that mean all men are saved
by his grace? Well, as long as there's a hell
and there he is. And every time I speak of hell,
I speak of it with fear and trembling, not some kind of hellfire and
brimstone preaching. I despise that kind of stuff.
Every time we mention hell, it ought to be with a tear in our
eye, knowing that's where we ought to be, and just fearful
of the wrath of God against sin. But as long as there's a hell,
that certainly does not teach that the grace of God has appeared
and saved all men. But what that is saying is the
grace of God has appeared to every kind of man. There is no
demographic. He is redeemed to people out
of every tribe, kindred, people, and nation. There is no demographic
that he doesn't save. You can't think of yourself in
any demographic and think, well, I'm not gonna be saved because
I'm this or that, all the distinctions men make. white, black, yellow,
red, brown, educated, uneducated, wealthy, poor, poverty stricken,
whatever, liberal, conservative, all the distinctions men make. There's no difference between
men. Any man. All have sinned and
come short of the glory. of God. We make all these distinctions. We're all just sons of Adam. We all came out of the same fallen
man, and that's where we got our fallen nature. But thank
God His grace has appeared to all men. There is no demographic
that makes you more likely to be saved. His grace has appeared
to all men. I love that. I think that's glorious. I think it's glorious that He's
gonna have a people out of every kindred, tribe, people, and race. Isn't that glorious? The grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us, teaching us. Now, like I said previously,
the word teaching is not the word usually used for teaching,
like the Lord has called the teacher and he taught the people.
This is not the word that's generally used. This is the word that has
to do with the training of children. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. That's the word. The training
of children. Now, you don't punish other people's
children. You certainly ought not. I've seen people do it.
Don't do that. They don't belong to you. Don't
punish other people's children, but you punish your own, because
they're your children. and you love them, and you care
about what's taking place with them, and you train them up in
the fear and the admonition of the Lord. They're your children.
Now this is talking about his training of his children. Whom the Lord loveth. I wanna be one of those people,
don't you? Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and he scourgeth
every son that he receiveth. Teaching us that us is the same
us as if God be for us. Who can be against us? He that
spared not his own son delivered him up for us all. How shall
he not with him freely give us all things? Teaching us his children. What's he teach us? Teaching
us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. We should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Now, first thing we're taught
by the grace of God is something about denying. Denying. What'd the Lord say? If any man
will come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross willingly,
the confession of Christ, and follow me. And when the Lord's
talking about follow me, we always imitate, or we always think that
means imitate him. And we ought to imitate him.
I'm not saying anything against him, that. But follow Christ
does not mean imitate Christ. It means keep your eye on him.
Don't look anywhere else. Don't look down at your walk.
Don't look at other people, how they're doing. Don't look back
to some kind of experience to try to prove to yourself you're
a Christian. You keep your eyes totally on Christ. Deny yourself. Yourself is your biggest problem.
I know mine is. I am my own worst enemy, and
I believe that. I know that. Deny yourself. Yourself is your big problem.
Take up your cross, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
something that we willingly take up. That's not something that's
laid on us. That's something we take up, our confession of
Christ, and follow, look to him. Now he says denying, that's an
important word. This is what grace teaches. Denying
ungodliness. Want of reverence and all. Anything that is a reverent,
shun, flippant, bold familiarity. Now that's what ungodliness is. It's a lack of reverence for
the living God. It comes from no fear of God. When we use his name, I hope
our hearts are trembling when we use his name. fearing taking
his name in vain, knowing that if we even use his name, there's
an element of taking his name in vain because we said it. We
don't speak of him flippantly. We don't speak of the gospel
flippantly. That's ungodliness. That is lack
of awe and reverence for the living God. Anything that's like
that, shun it. Avoid it. Denying ungodliness, and worldly
lusts. Now, what do people think of
when they think of worldly lusts? Well, they think of sexual lust.
Well, that's certainly included in it, but there's a whole lot
of things that come under the umbrella of worldly lusts, everything
a natural man desires. The lust of the flesh, pleasure,
the lust of the eyes, being concerned about what people see when they
see, being more concerned about what people view than what God
sees. the pride of life, self-righteousness, thinking you have power, thinking
you have control. Deny worldly lusts, the lust
of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. And we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world. Now, this is what the grace of
God teaches, denying ungodliness, shutting it, worldly lusts. I
mean, you see them in you because of your flesh. Ask God to take
them away. where you have no will but his
will. Denying ungodliness and worldly
lust. Somebody says, I don't have any
worldly lust. Nobody believes that. And the
reason he said that is because he knows that's something that
we're always struggling with. That's why he gave us this command.
This is what the grace of God teaches. Denying ungodliness
and worldly lust, we should live soberly. Now the word there means
with wisdom. What do wise men do? They look to Christ only. That's
what a wise man does. If you look to Christ only as
everything in your salvation, you're counted by God himself
as a wise man. Christ has made unto us wisdom
to live soberly, righteously. Do the right thing. You see,
God's grace never teaches you to do the wrong thing. It teaches
you to do the right thing. Don't be concerned about being
happy. Somebody says, I'm not happy.
That always bothers me when somebody puts such an emphasis on being
happy. I'm not happy. Do the right thing
and you'll be happy. Treat others as you would have
them treat you. That's doing the right thing, isn't it? Pay
your bills. That's doing the right thing.
I mean, we could go on and on about doing the right thing,
living righteously. As far as the law of God, the 10 commandments,
I've kept the 10 commandments in Christ. That's why I don't
fear the 10 commandments. I've kept them. They don't condemn
me, but because I've kept them, does that mean it's okay to break
them? Of course not. Of course not. There's never
a reason or an excuse to sin. The grace of God teaches us to
live righteously. That's his saving grace. And
godly, he says in this present world, and I brought this out
several times. The word God is not in the word godly. I don't
know why the translators translated that. I think it's kind of unfortunate
that they translated that because it simply means well-reverent,
reverent and devout. Whenever you call somebody a
godly man, I've always just, I just, no he's not because nobody's
like God. He said, there's none like me.
You just read that. There's none like me. Godly man,
he's not godly. He can be devout. I want to be
a devout man, and I want to live in devotion to him. Now, that's
what the grace of God teaches. Now, it's saving grace, and I
know who needs saving grace, those who need it. You know,
I was thinking about this. You know what the difference
between an unbeliever, there's a lot of differences I could
speak of between an unbeliever and a believer, but perhaps the
main difference is need. Need. The believer needs the
gospel. The unbeliever doesn't. And this is what the grace of
God teaches. Now let's go on reading, verse 13. Notice there's
a semicolon after verse 12. The teaching is not over, teaching
us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking
or waiting. That word is generally translated
waiting. for that blessed hope and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Waiting. Waiting. You're waiting for something
to take place. You're not trying to force something.
You're waiting. This is part of the teaching
of the gospel. We wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. Paul said in Galatians chapter
five, verse six, waiting for that blessed hope. Now remember hope that's seen
is not hope. If you can see it, you don't have hope for it. The
only things you hope for is that which you see not. Now we're
waiting for something we do not see, that blessed hope and the
glorious appearing of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. Now my hope is that at the glorious
appearing of Jesus Christ, two things are gonna take place.
For the first time, I'm gonna see him as he is. Right now I
see and you see in a glass dimly. Far off. And we can't see him
as we would. But when he appears, we shall
see him as he is. What a thing to be waiting for.
The glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
this appearing is such that just seeing him as he is, I'm going
to be like him. I'm going to be perfect. That
sight is going to be so glorious, so powerful. So it's going to make me, as soon
as I see him, I'm going to be just like him. That's how glorious
this sight is. That's something to wait for,
isn't it? The great end of predestination
will be realized. We've been predestinated to be
conformed to His image. When I see Him, I'll be conformed
to His image. I'll still be Todd. I'll still
be Todd, but I'll be just like the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll still
be who I am. You'll still be who you are,
but you'll be perfectly conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. We have a hope that will take
place because we have the hope of present justification. I hope we never lose our amazement
of justification. This is what this book is about.
How God can be just and justify the ungodly. And I realize many
people look that, put that in the shelf of dull and uninteresting
subjects. But I see, oh, Right now, because
of what Jesus Christ did for me on Calvary Street, he was
delivered from my offenses, he was raised again for my justification,
this is the state of every single believer without exception, justified. And that's why I have this hope.
Because of his justification, I'm presently in God's sight,
holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight, but I'm not that
in my sight. I'm that in his sight because I'm justified because
of what Christ did for me and that's real. If I'm that in his
sight, that's how I am. But I'm not that way in my sight.
But when I see him as he is, I'll be that in my sight. Perfectly
conformed to his image. This hope we can't see, but we're
waiting, aren't we? We're waiting on this. I'm waiting
on it. Verse 14, now this one who is
called the great God and our savior, Jesus Christ, what's
to say he did? He gave himself for us. What greater gift could there
be? He gave Himself. Now that us represents every
individual believer. Say it like this, He gave Himself
for me. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, Yet for your sakes,
He became poor. And that's what's involved in
Him giving Himself. He was rich in fellowship with
His Father. He was rich in holiness, rich
in righteousness, rich in everything that God is. And on the cross,
He became poor. Now, I don't understand what
all that means, neither does anybody else, but he was made
sin. I know that. He became poor. He said, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Why are thou so far from helping
me in the words of my roaring? In Psalm 22, the great Psalm
of the cross, he actually called himself a worm. I am a worm not
even fit to be called a man. He did that for me. He gave himself
for me. Now first he gave himself for
God that God would find the way to be just and justify me. But
he gave himself for me. Let's go on reading. Who gave himself for us that
he might redeem us. from all iniquity. Did he do it? Now this was his intention. He
gave himself that he might redeem us from all iniquity. Did he do it? Now redeem means to pay the ransom
owed to God, owed to God's holy law because of my sin against
him. Another way of saying this is, pastor, I'll call his name
Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins. Who gave himself for us that
he might redeem us from our sins. Saved from the penalty of sin.
There's no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Saved
from the power of sin. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. That word dominion is lordship. I used to struggle with that
verse so much because I thought it seems like it's got a lot
of dominion in me. Seems like I'd quit sinning if it didn't
have any dominion in me. That word means lordship. It's not
your lord. Christ is your lord. Doesn't
mean you don't sin anymore. But I'll tell you what, you've
been delivered from its power in this sense. There was a time
when you could not believe. You didn't even know what it
meant to believe. You believe now. Why? you've been delivered
from the power of sin. There was a time when you had
no love for Christ. You know, you think about this.
Your disposition's been changed. You still have the old man. You
still have all the faculties of the old man. But you used
to have a disposition that had no love for Christ. But because
God saved you, you have a new disposition. You love him. You
wanna honor him. You wanna walk with him. He redeemed
us from all iniquity. Now, his redemption is such that
I'm redeemed. From all iniquity, don't miss
that, from all iniquity. I love the song we sing, Jesus
paid it all, all the debt I owe. Seeing it left a crimson stain,
he washed it white as snow. Now, when most people sing this,
They don't sing it this way, but this is what they're thinking.
Jesus paid a half, the other half I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
but we need to cooperate together to wash it, wipe the snow. No,
that's not the case at all. He redeemed us from all iniquity. When he said it is finished,
all iniquity was away. That was his intention and that's
what he did. Who gave himself for us that
he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good and works. He purified into himself a peculiar
people. Now, what does that word mean?
Does it mean odd? He's peculiar. Well, a lot of
God's people are odd. I'm one of them. I'm glad for
the variety of people, weird, kind of strange. Well, he redeems
a lot of people like that. And I'm so thankful for that. But the word Peculiar means his
own. He redeemed them to be his own. He shall save his people from
their sins. My sheep, my sheep hear my voice
and they follow me. His own people. He gave himself
for us that he might redeem us. from all iniquity and purify
unto himself a peculiar people, his people. And here's what they
all have in common. Every one of them. I love this. Every one of them without exception
are zealous of good works. Every one of them. Now, does
that mean they think, oh, I've got a lot of good works. I'm
zealous of good works. Not one of them thinks that way.
Somebody that presents themselves like that, they have no understanding. I love that passage where the
Lord said, I was hungry and gave you, and you gave me meat. I
was thirsty, you gave me drink. And what was their response to
all the things he said they did? What? We didn't know that. We're unaware
of that. That's why he said, as much as
you have done to the least of these, my brethren, you've done
it to me. And what that's talking about more than else is preaching
of the gospel. That's what we do. We clothe
the naked. We feed the hungry. We visit
the sick. We set people free from the prison and so on. And
that's what that's talking about more than anything else. But
when he said that to the righteous, when did we do that? And then
when he said to the wicked, you didn't do that. And as much as
you did it not to the least of these, my brethren, you did it
not to me. We thought we did. built hospitals and started charities
and did all kinds of good things for in your name. We had many
wonderful works that we have done in your name. You don't
say depart from me ye that work iniquity. I never knew you. No. So this thing of good works
is important. It is. Remember we're created
in Christ Jesus under good works, which God had before ordained
that we should walk in them. Um, Good works. A good work is anything done
out of love for Christ. That's the best definition I
can think of as a good work. And the Lord used the example of the woman
who washed his feet with the hairs of her head with that bottle
of perfume. We considered that a few weeks
ago. And that's the only work he called a good work. And it
was a work of faith. She knew he was gonna die. And
she broke that box of ointment. The Lord said to anoint me for
my burying. It had something to do with the
death of Christ. She had some understanding of what was going
to be accomplished by her Lord on Calvary Street. And she did
it out of love to him, and Christ called it a good work. Oh, giving
a cup of cold water in Christ's name to one of his people, Christ
calls a good work. Now, I want to be zealous of good
works for his glory. Does that mean I feel like I've
got good works? No, it doesn't mean that. But
I'm zealous. I want, in this sense, I want
to have good works that glorify him. Every believer does. Let
your light so shine before men that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father. You see, if they glorify you,
it wasn't good work. You were trying to get glory
out of it for yourself. You were trying to promote yourself. You were
doing what you were doing to be seen of men. But the Lord
says, you let your light so shine before men that they may see
your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Now,
this is the point. In 1 Peter 3, verse 15, always
be ready to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason
for the hope that's in you. With meekness, don't miss that,
with meekness and with fear. Now what that means is I ought to treat you in such
a merciful, oh, make it your aim, may I make it my aim to
treat everybody this way, to treat you in such a merciful,
gracious, nonjudgmental way that you think, what is it he believes
that makes him treat me like that? I'm going to ask him. And then by God's grace, I'm
going to be able to give Him the reason for that hope that's
in me. Because Jesus Christ gave Himself
for me and put away my sins and gave me His righteousness. Now in that sense, every believer
is zealous of good works for this one reason. Well, we want
to glorify our Father, but we want the people come in contact
with, to feel that this person, what's made them like this? They're
not judging me. They're gracious. They're not
harsh. I don't feel like I'm under their microscope. I don't,
I'm going to ask them. Now, every believer in that sense
is zealous of good works. I love the teaching of grace,
don't you? And I love saving grace, grace that brings salvation. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that we might be
taught by your grace. And Lord, how we thank you that
your grace is saving grace, the grace of God that brings salvation. Lord, we pray for the forgiveness
of our sins. We pray for our lack of reverence. We're so ashamed that we would
be that way. We pray for the forgiveness of
interest in worldly lusts. We pray for the forgiveness of
our sins. We pray that you'd give us the
grace to deny. ungodliness and worldly lusts
and that you'd give us grace to live in wisdom, soberly, righteously
and godly in this present world. We pray that you would enable
us to wait for that glorious hope we have, perfect likeness
to Christ upon his appearing. And we pray that we might be
a people that you've redeemed from all iniquity, a peculiar
people, zealous of good works. Bless this message for your glory
and for our good. In Christ's name we pray.