Let's read in Titus chapter 2
and verse 11 and the rest of that chapter. For the grace of
God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching
us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking
for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great
God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that
he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good works. These things speak, and exhort,
and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee." God's
grace hath appeared to all men. I mainly want to concentrate
tonight on verse 11. And one of the reasons I wanted
us to look at this verse in particular is that maybe we could understand
it a little bit better. If we understand it maybe a little
bit clearer, and if we have it clear in our hearts, maybe I
could just remind us this evening. But I want to begin by looking
at this word. The Apostle said here, ìThe grace
of God hath appeared.î The grace of God hath appeared. And weíve
often heard the meaning of Godís grace. It's unmerited favor. It's unearned favor, undeserved
favor. I'm always amazed but not surprised
when we try to define God's grace and still people don't get it.
You talk about unmerited favor and they turn right around and
think they merit it. You talk about undeserved favor, they
turn around and think they deserve it. Grace is so free. Grace is so grace that we can't
comprehend it until God opens our hearts and lets us see what
grace really is. So it's undeserved, it's unearned,
and it's unmerited. It's something God bestows on
somebody, something He gives them that they absolutely do
not deserve. It's something God is not required
to give. God owes no debts, does He? He's
not a debtor to any man. If he was, he would pay him immediately.
Grace is God giving a man something good that he does not deserve. But you know we can go further
than that with grace. Grace is this. It can be defined
this way. It's God doing good for somebody
and to somebody in spite of the evil they deserve. I want you
to turn to a couple of passages of Scripture with me. I want
you to look over to Psalms chapter 106. Look here in verse 1 to begin
with. It's God doing good to people
that don't deserve it, but it's God doing good to people that
deserve His wrath, deserve His judgment. Look in chapter 106
of Psalms and look in verse 1 praise you the Lord. Oh give thanks
unto the Lord for he is good He is good for his mercy and
dearth forever and now in verse 6 we have sinned with our father
We have committed iniquity We have done wickedly our fathers
understood not by wonders in Egypt They remembered not the
multitude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even
at the Red Sea." Now look in verse 8. Here is grace. Nevertheless,
He saved them for His namesake, that He might make His mighty
power to be known. He rebuked the Red Sea also,
and it was dried up, so that He led them through the depths
as through the wilderness. Now that word, nevertheless,
it reveals grace, doesn't it? We've sinned, we've done wickedly,
and our fathers didn't understand what the Lord was doing, and
really they didn't believe Him, did they? But nevertheless, He
saved them. Now if we apply verse 6 here
in a spiritual application and say it's spiritual salvation,
then we know that's grace. That's grace. If He saved them
spiritually, saved their souls, that's grace. But if we look
at it as a temporal blessing, as some physical deliverance,
simply He made the waters go back and stand on the heaps and
led them through dry land, that's a physical salvation, but that's
grace too, isn't it? That's nothing that any of them
deserve. Some who want to be very, very,
very, very, very, very, very technical, they want to divide
everything up, and I reckon that's all right in some cases. They
talk about God's long-suffering. They talk about His kindness.
They talk about His goodness. They talk about His mercy. And
then they say we separate all of that from grace. But you know,
the fact that He opened this sea and led them across, call
it what you want to, that's grace, isn't it? And when the Lord does
anything good for anybody, When he is long-suffering to a person
that he should destroy, when he is long-suffering to a person
that deserves his wrath and he does not destroy him, what is
that? We can call it long-suffering or whatever, but it is grace,
isn't it? He has given him something that he does not deserve. He
has given him something that he has certainly not earned.
He has earned right the opposite. Nevertheless, he saved them. When you compare that to verse
7, Our fathers understood not His wonders in Egypt, and so
on. Then verse 8, Nevertheless He
saved them for His name's sake. That's unmerited favor. Look
in another place, talking about physical things. Look in Acts chapter 14, talking
about temporal blessings. Look here in Acts chapter 14
and begin in verse 15. You and I should be able, I think,
to see grace all around us. In the physical realm, God's
unmerited favor to people. And that's what Paul's telling
them here in Acts chapter 14. They were getting ready to do
sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas. They thought they were gods.
They were bringing these wreaths, going to put them around their
necks and worship them. And in verse 15 of Acts chapter 14,
and Paul said, Sirs, why do you these things? We also are men
of lack passions as you, and we preach unto you that you should
turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven
and earth and sea and all things that are therein, who in time
past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. How did those nations walk? Man,
they were idolaters, weren't they? They worshipped devils,
all kinds of open and profane sins, and God suffered them to
walk there. But look at the grace, verse
17, Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that
he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons,
filling our hearts with food and with gladness. I think probably
it will take the Day of Judgment to manifest all the goodness
that God has showed to a lost humanity, all the gifts that
He has given, the rain that comes from heaven to water the earth,
the sunshine, the jobs, the health, filling hearts with gladness.
On the Judgment Day, I am sure that God will reveal to the world,
to people, His unmerited that He had to them while they were
here, even in the physical realm, unmerited favor. Not only did
He not give them what they deserved, He gave them something they could
never earn or deserve, health and rain from heaven and fruitful
season. But our text speaks of something
specific, doesn't it? Our text in Titus 2.11 says,
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation at the pier. That's not sunshine or rain or
food or clothing or jobs or health or anything like that. That has
nothing to do with anything temporal, but this here is talking about
the grace of God that brings eternal deliverance from sin
and from deserved wrath unto the joys and favor of God here
and eternal life and happiness in the world that's to come.
And what does our text attribute such salvation to? The grace
of God. The grace of God. What is it
that brings the salvation? What is it that brings deliverance
from sin? What is it that saves a man's soul, reconciles him
to God, brings the spirit of adoption to his heart, crying,
Father, Father? What does that? God's grace. The free, unmerited favor of
God brings that. We've all experienced it, haven't
we? We've seen it. You take a little baby that comes
into this world and it's not long until, boy, you begin to
see some signs of depravity in that infant. He gets up at about
a year old or two years old and he just starts lying, don't he?
And some little children, you can see it in more than others,
but it's in all of us. It's in all the children. Then
they grow up and you see this dark understanding. They don't
understand the things of God. And you can see they're adverse
to the things of God. Even though you've raised them
differently, there it is. You can see the darkness and
you can see the enmity. You can see them leaning towards
the works of the flesh. They may not fulfill the lust
of the flesh. You may keep them from that,
but I tell you what they'll do, they'll fulfill the lust of the
mind. And you can't keep them from that. And how do you know,
Bruce, this involves everybody? Because the Apostle Paul said
we were all children of wrath by nature, didn't he? All of
us were involved in that. What is it then? that delivers
a person from that sin, from the working of Satan, from the
fulfilling of the lust, from a dark understanding, from the
enmity of the carnal mind. What is it that while that person
is there dead in sin, deliverance comes to them and washes their
guilt away and gives them a heart to hate the sin they loved and
love the God that they hated. What is it that gives them new
desires that they never had before and new loves? What is it that
brings such a deliverance? Well, Paul says right here, it's
the grace of God. It's the grace of God. Some mistakenly
say that repentance brings salvation and faith brings salvation. But
what they don't understand is this. Repentance and grace and
faith are vital aspects of salvation. Nothing we do and nothing God
does in us in the way of repentance and faith brings salvation. Repentance
doesn't bring salvation. Faith doesn't bring salvation.
These things are vital aspects of salvation, aren't they? No heart ever repented on its
own. No natural heart ever broke itself.
And faith that saves doesn't lay dormant in the natural heart
waiting to be exercised. These are gifts of God's unmerited
favor, and they don't bring salvation. They're vital aspects of salvation,
and you know something? They're evidences of salvation. Repentance and faith are evidences
of salvation. Have you turned to God in repentance?
Have you turned to God in repentance? Is all your trust in Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, in His merit, in His worth, in His righteousness?
Is He all your trust? All your salvation is utterly
dependent upon Him? Then you know something? Grace
has brought salvation. to you. And repentance and faith
is evidence that it has. Look back here to your right
just a minute if you're there in Titus. In 2 Timothy chapter
2, look at this. Paul here talking about repentance. Men are so mistaken about this.
They say, you know, if we'll repent, then salvation will come
to us as though as though repentance is not of God, that repentance
is not a grace, but repentance is a vital aspect of salvation.
Look here what he says in verse 24, 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse
24. He's talking about witnessing
and preaching the gospel. The servant of the Lord must
not strive, no sense standing around fussing with people, but
be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing
those that oppose themselves, if God, preadventure, will give
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, that they may recover
themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive
by him at his will." That God would grant them repentance,
give them repentance. Repentance is a gift, isn't it?
He's not waiting to give you salvation after you repent. Repentance is a vital aspect
of salvation. It's a gift, an unmerited favor
of God. What makes a sinner turn from
his sin he used to love and serve? He's come to the knowledge of
the truth. God's granted him repentance to the knowledge of
the truth. He begins to understand what sin has done for him. and
to him. It is separated between him and
God. He does not want anything to
do with it anymore. He is sick of it. He fears it.
And he turns from it. He turns to God through Christ.
Why? Because God has granted him repentance
to the knowledge of the truth. And he sees now that Christ is
the only way, that God will save him and have mercy upon him.
So he turns. He turns. But why does he turn? God has granted him. God has
given him repentance. So what brings repentance? Grace
does. The same thing that brings salvation.
Because you can't have salvation apart from repentance. It's just
another aspect of it. Look in Philippians. Look in
Philippians chapter 1, just on over to your left, speaking about faith. Look in verse 29. If a person has been given faith
in Christ, then salvation has come to his heart. You may not have the assurance
of it. I'm not saying a man has the assurance of it when he believes.
But I'm saying if God has granted the gift of faith to believe,
then he's saved. He may come to a greater assurance
of it later, but He's saved. There's no such thing as believing
in Jesus Christ with all your heart and not be saved. There's no such thing as that,
is there? He's saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved. I believe, then you're saved.
But where did you get that faith? Was that something that lay dormant
in your heart and you mustered it up? So salvation could come
to you? No. Faith in Christ is a vital
aspect of salvation. Look what Paul says here in verse
29, "...unto you it is given." You're something you don't deserve.
You couldn't earn it. You deserve right the opposite.
But God has given you something. It is given you in the behalf
of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for
His sake. It's given you to believe on
Him. Faith is a gift of God, isn't
it? It's a gift of God. And it's a vital aspect of salvation. All the last two days, all I've
heard, if you make the right choice... Poor preacher, I had
to sit yesterday and listen to him. I tried to just be patient. I was, I was just patient as
I could be. I got up and read the literary and I prayed and
then I had to take my seat and be patient. And poor fella, I
don't know how many times he said, if you'll make the same
choice this young man made, if you'll make the same choice this
young man, you're gonna be saved. You're gonna be saved. Choose it. Decide it. Don't bring
salvation to anybody. And if a man believes in his
heart, salvation has come to his house, to his heart. Because
believing in Christ is just a vital aspect of salvation. He doesn't
bring it. Grace brings salvation. And every part of it does. There's
no aspect of our salvation that grace does not bring to us. Every
aspect of it is unmerited. It's unearned. Let me give you three or four
of them quickly. Election is one aspect of salvation, is it
not? It's by grace, isn't it? It's
by grace. God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. Way back in the beginning, whenever
that was, when God wrote all the names of His people, is elect
in the book of life. That was grace. He owed nobody
that. Nobody earned that or merited
that. Romans 11 and 5 said at this present time, at this present
time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. It's grace. What about redemption? What about the death of Christ,
the atonement that He made upon the cross? He is leaving heaven
and coming and taking our humanity. Did He owe us that? Could any
of us earn that or merit that? Listen to 2 Corinthians 8 and
9. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though He
was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through
His poverty might be made rich. That's the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Grace brought Him down from heaven.
Grace every step of the way that He suffered, denied Himself,
and did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. It's grace.
Calling, calling to salvation is an aspect of salvation and
it is said to be by grace. Paul said in Galatians 1.15,
when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by His grace. It is a call of grace. Here we
sit. We have wandered off in sin all
of our life. We have been serving sin, a slave
to the devil. We're darkening our understanding?
Why would God the Holy Spirit come to any of us and enlighten
our understanding and call us out of that darkness unto the
light of God? Why? That's grace, isn't it? Grace. Grace. Peter said this
in that great message in Acts chapter 2, the promise is unto
you and to your children and them that are for off even as
many as the Lord our God shall call. We must be called. Nobody can come except those
who are called. The Lord was standing under that
sycamore tree and He looked up at Zacchaeus and He said, Zacchaeus,
make haste and come down For today I must abide at your house."
Now what kind of call is that? And I tell you, all he'd had
to done to leave Zacchaeus up in that tree is went on by, went
on by, and Zacchaeus would have stayed up there and never come
down. But to stand and look up at that man and say, come down,
I must abide at your house, that's a gracious call, isn't it? That
is a wonderful, gracious, loving call. And you know something,
it's an effectual call. Because he made haste. He made
haste. The Bible says, and he came down
and received the Lord Jesus Christ graciously. Graciously is not
some offer of salvation, is it? Greg gave me a book on grace
not being an offer. It's no offer of salvation. Salvation
comes by grace. Grace has power to affect the
ends desired. And in calling, that's what we
need and must have. The Lord desiring us to come
to Him and calling us with such a call that it has the power
with it and the means with it to affect the end that He desired. When He said, Zacchaeus, make
Hasten come down, what did He desire that man to do? Make haste
and come down. And boy, when he called him,
he called him in such a way that he didn't say, I'm making you
a great offer, did he? You won't take me up on this offer? I took
off the offer of the grace he did proffer. Sometimes I sing
a song, I want to mark that. We marked out all the places
in our hymn book that we wouldn't be singing a lot of them, wouldn't
we? But it's grace. It's a calling, a calling of
grace. And this living in hope of the
final aspects of salvation, it's all of grace. Listen to this
verse in 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 14. Now our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself and God our Father, who hath loved us and given us everlasting
consolation and good hope through grace. We live in hope, don't
we? Wouldn't your heart break today?
if you didn't have any hope. I buried my poor nephew, and
I seen him laying there in that casket, and over his grave out
there we prayed, and I said, Lord, without hope, my heart
would break. And it would. And it would. And
how long have some of you had hope? Some of you young have
just started to hope. Some of us have been hoping for
a long, long time. And you know something? All these
years of hope, the reason we haven't quit hoping is because
grace gives us this hope, And grace keeps us hoping. And it's
grace that's going to fulfill that hope in us someday. When
we're laying in the tomb, laying in the ground, and Christ speaks,
and we come forth in a body just like His, a glorious body, the
realization of that hope, that's going to be a grace. All of salvation
is of grace, isn't it? Every aspect of it. What brings
salvation? Think of any aspect of it. From
election to glorification. It's all of grace. And when it's
of grace and not by chance or the will of men or the wisdom
of men or the merit of men, when it's all of grace, Paul said,
then the promise is sure to all the seed. All the elect souls
will be saved. If it's of grace, because grace
brings salvation, doesn't it? Grace brings salvation. That's
the first thing I wanted to look at. Grace. the grace of God that
brings salvation. I'd say it brings a lot of good
gifts, a lot of temporary blessings to people, but grace brings salvation. But the second thing I wanted
to look at right quickly is this. This grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men. The grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men. One of the reasons I wanted
to look at this particular aspect of this because sometimes when
you talk to people about salvation, about any aspect of it almost,
you talk to people about that and especially you talk to them
about effectual calling, that God doesn't deal with everybody
the same. I've sometimes told people if
God dealt with everybody the way He dealt with me, He'd save
everybody. If He opened everybody's heart
up like He did mine, He'd save everybody. Do you feel that way
about yourself? And you start telling people
things like that and talking to them about salvation, this
salvation that comes by the sovereign free grace of God. And sometimes
this is what they'll do. They'll come up close to you
and they'll condescend. And they'll come up and they'll
get me by the elbow and they'll pat my arm and say, It proves the grace of God that
brings salvation has appeared to everybody. And it's up to
us to choose what we're going to do with it. How does anybody
do you that way? Sometimes it just upsets you
in a way. But you say, where do you see
that at? Let's go read that again. And that's what let's look at
for just a minute. The grace of God that brings salvation
hath appeared to all men. This word appear. It means to
shine upon, to give light to, to become visible. To shine upon,
to give light to, to become visible. I want you to look at three other
places. It's not the same word, but it has the same concept and
some of the same meanings. Back over to your right in Colossians
chapter 1. Look in verse 26, Colossians
chapter 1 verse 26. Here is the same concept the
Apostle Paul is saying. Look how he says it here. He
is speaking of the mystery of the gospel. In verse 26, Even
the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations,
but now is made manifest to his saints. That's not the same word,
but it has the same concept. Now is manifest, and that word
manifest means to appear, to render apparent, to show. It's
the same definition as the word appear. It's manifested. Who's it manifested to? The saints,
isn't it? The saints. Look at another word
that carries the same definition with it. In 2 Corinthians, look
in verse 4 and verse in chapter four and verse six. 2 Corinthians chapter four and
look in verse six. This word here, hath shined,
has the same definition as the word manifest or appear. Look
in verse six, 2 Corinthians four. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, look at this, hath shined in our hearts. He shines. That is one of the
words for appear is to shine. Well, here God is shining and
where does He shine? In our hearts. And what does
He do when He shines there? To give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. To shine into the heart. I will
show you one more place and this is the same word as appear. Look
in Luke chapter 1. over in Luke chapter 1, and look
in verse 67. This is Zacchaeus, the father
of John the Baptist, and he's speaking. And look what he says.
The Lord opens his mouth and he begins to prophesy, he begins
to preach. In Luke chapter 1, verse 67.
And his father, John the Baptist's father, Zacharias, was filled
with the Holy Ghost and prophesied saying, Blessed be the Lord God
of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people. He hath
raised up now the horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant
David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have
been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all that hate us, to perform the mercy
promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath which he swore unto our father Abraham, that he would
grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of
our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and
righteousness before him all the days of our life. And thou
shalt be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go
before the face of the Lord to prepare his way, to give knowledge
of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring from
on high have visited us, here it is, to give light, to appear,
to manifest, to shine to them that sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death to guide our feet unto the way of peace. So that word appear, the grace
of God has appeared to all men. The grace of God that brings
salvation has shined into their hearts. This grace that brings
salvation has manifested something. What? Manifested salvation that
is of the Lord and in the Lord, manifested, revealed. Now talk
to your average person. You go out in your neighborhood,
talk to your family, your friends, your co-workers, talk to the
average person. about the grace of God that brings
salvation. And see, just see, if they know
anything about the mystery and the power of that salvation. And it won't be but just four
or five minutes that you're going to say, man, the grace of God
has never appeared to you. So when the Apostle Paul says
here, the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared to all
men, he could not be meaning that it's appeared to everybody
without exception, could he? So when that fellow comes up
and pats me on the arm and says, now Bruce, the grace of God has
appeared to everybody and it's up to us to choose what we do
with it. That's not the meaning of this
verse at all, is it? This is your meaning. When the grace
of God shines to a person and to his heart, it appears to that
person. It brings the knowledge, the
saving knowledge of God's mercy with it and salvation. Look around at our neighborhoods.
Look at the cities especially. Look at all the murders, the
fornication, the adultery, the stealing, the drugs. Has the
grace of God appeared to those people? Has it shined into their
hearts? Is it teaching them to deny ungodliness
and worldly lusts and to live soberly and righteously? Obviously
it's not, has it? So this could not be, speaking
of the grace of God appearing to all people without exception. Look at the religious world,
what a mess it's in. Look at the deceit and the falsehood.
the idolatry and the lies as this glorious gospel shined
into their hearts? It's not, is it? It's not. Is
everybody looking for that blessed hope and the glorious superior? No, most people don't want to
talk about that, do they? Most people are scared to death
when they think about the Lord is coming. So the grace of God
that bringeth salvation have not appeared to all men. Most men are not redeemed from
their iniquity, and they are not zealous of good works. So
this could not be speaking of all men without exception, and
God is just waiting to see if you will choose rightly. But the grace of God that bringeth
salvation has shined into the hearts of all kinds of people,
hasn't it? And this is why we've got to
read these verses in their context. Keep them in their context. He's
talking about aged men, aged women, slaves, young men. And chapter 3, he's talking about
praying for these magistrates and submitting yourself to them
because he says, for this reason, the grace of God that bringeth
salvation has appeared to all kinds of people. young people,
old people, kings, queens, slaves and their masters, ignorant and
learned, wise and unwise, Jews and Gentiles, appeared to all
kinds of people. Those people who sat in darkness,
Matthew said, they saw a great light. And to them who were in
the regents and shadowed dead, light has sprung up. That is
a good way to describe salvation. Light has sprung up. Light has
sprung up. And we're living in a world of
darkness, aren't we? Living in a world of darkness. The Gospel
is preached everywhere. We preach it from the Word. People
got Bibles. You can read it. But still most
people are living in darkness. And you know what needs to happen?
The Holy Ghost needs to come down and take this Word and make
it effectual. He needs to shine into the heart. and make something manifest.
He needs to save, doesn't he? I say this very carefully, but
this Bible won't save anybody. You can read all of this Bible,
you can preach all of this Bible, and it won't save anybody. The
Holy Ghost must save men. He must make this Word effectual
to men. He must make salvation appear. He must bring this grace down. One man gave the illustration,
the example that the Word and a man, the Holy Spirit using
the Word is like a scaffold. And He says you can lay that
scaffold there and He'll never do surgery on a man. He'll never
do surgery on a man. You've got to have a doctor that's
skilled, that picks up that and does the surgery. And there you
have the word is the scaffold, but until the Holy Spirit comes
and brings the word and saves us back, then we'll never be
saved, will we? We'll never be saved. That's
what we need, isn't it? The grace of God that bring us
salvation. And that's what we pray for.
Oh, Lord, bring salvation. Make it appear. Make it appear. Lord, bless His word.