Over in the book of Titus, chapter
2. Titus chapter 2, and look in
verse 11. Titus chapter 2, verse 11. If
you found 2 Timothy, the next book to your right. If you don't
have a Bible, there's one there, a pulpit Bible. Feel free to
use that. Titus chapter 2. First of all,
let's just look at this little short phrase, For the grace of
God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. What a wonderful,
wonderful phrase in and of itself. The grace of God. The grace of
God. If you look that up in one of
your theological dictionaries, Probably the definition for grace
that you'll get more than any other time is this simple definition,
the free favor of God. Or you may hear it say, the unearned
favor of God. Somebody asks you, would you
do me a favor? We've all said that out loud.
Clarence, would you do me a favor? I can't repay you now. It's got
to be a favor. It's got to be free. I'm not
worthy that you should do this favor, but I need a favor. Would
you do me a favor? That's what this word grace means.
The favor of God. And you know, every one of us
here can relate to God's favor. Because all of us have experienced
God's favor. You're sitting here right now,
and you're breathing. You're taking a deep breath.
You know what that is? God's favor. You don't deserve
that breath you just took in. That's God's favor. You feel
your heart beating? It should stop. That's what we
deserve. But it doesn't. What is that?
It's God's favor. I look out over you here this
afternoon and your families. You've got families, beautiful
children. You've got nice vehicles you
drive sitting outside. You have good jobs. You that
are retired, you have good retirements. Where does that come from? Where
does that come from? Have you earned any of that?
Do you deserve that at all? You know what that is? The free
favor of God. We relate to this in our everyday
life. That's what we want. Every one
of us that's here this afternoon, if we'd be honest with ourselves.
We may not know the Lord, but we know this. Everything we have
comes from Him. And it comes because of His favor. God's favor. Jacob said this,
Lord, I am not worthy of the least of Thy mercy. I am not worthy of the least
of Thy mercy. You know something? If we ever
had any claims on God, we would send them away. He don't owe
us a thing now. When Adam sinned against the
Lord, we all sinned in Him, and now all He owes us is judgment. But yet, look what He's given
us. Look what He's given us. Everybody in here this evening,
young people and older people, there should not a day go by
when we don't bow our head and say, Oh, God in Heaven, thank
You for favor. Thank You for showing me favor.
I said that to those old people sitting there in the wheelchair.
Some of them may think, man, I'm bad off. You're not as bad
off as you could be. And the reason you're not is
because of God's favor. That's it. Favor. It's favor.
But He doesn't stop there. All these carnal blessings are
temporal blessings that we have. They're blessings indeed. They're
God's favor. But He goes one step further
here, doesn't He? He's not talking about the temporal
blessings. are the carnal blessings. But
he's talking about those eternal blessings, the spiritual blessings.
The grace of God that bringeth salvation. The grace of God that
bringeth salvation. But you know it's the same standard,
it's on the same principle, isn't it? The same favor that's free
to us in giving us carnal blessings, that same favor is what brings
salvation to a man's soul. It's the favor of God. You can't
earn it either. You can't deserve it either.
It's the favor of God. We talk about saved from what?
The grace of God that bringeth salvation. Salvation from what? Salvation from sin? Salvation
from the guilt of it? Salvation from death? Salvation
from the wrath of God? Salvation from hell? Aren't these
heavy things? When you think of these things,
these are awful things to even think about, and they're hard
things to speak about. Listen to this, and see if this
ain't so. Death is called the king of terrors. Now think about
that. To be saved from the king of
terrors is a salvation indeed. The wrath of God, who knows the
power of His anger? For a person to be saved from
the wrath of God, the eternal wrath of God, that's the greatest
blessing anybody could ever know. And what is it that brings that
blessing? Grace. Grace. Oh, to be saved from sin, to
be saved from that thing that God hates more than anything
else. Saved. Saved. For the soul to be saved. For
salvation to come to my soul, something that I don't earn or
don't marry, it comes by the grace of God. And you know salvation
not just only to our souls, but to our bodies you're after? Because
the whole man is going to be saved. Salvation comes to the
soul now, but we have bodies that must be saved. Salvation
is coming to the body, because the Lord Jesus said, the hour
is coming in which those who are in the graves shall hear
His voice, and they're going to come forth. And that soul
that's there in heaven sleeping with the Lord is going to be
reunited to this body that's sleeping in the grave, and soul
and body is going to be saved. What a glorious day that will
be. And how does this come? Grace. The grace of God that
bringeth salvation. Isn't it strange that you can
read this and it's so plain? Have you ever read a plain statement?
The grace of God that bringeth salvation. And then for some
men to read this, and then they profess that all sorts of things
bring salvation. What is it that brings salvation?
The unmerited, unearned favor of God. That's it. By grace are
you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is
the gift of God. But notice what else he says
in the last portion of verse 11. The grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared. Hath appeared. unto all men."
Now, when you read this, appeared to all men, made known to all
men, we cannot say that the grace of God has brought salvation
to every man without exception, can we? The grace of God has
appeared to everybody without exception. I bet there is somebody
here this afternoon, the grace of God has not appeared to you.
If you go down this street and you say, Has the grace of God
appeared to you? Has the grace of God brought salvation to you?
No, I don't know anything about that. But you know what he's
meaning here. The grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all kinds of men. Grace saves all kinds of people. Jews, Gentiles, slave masters,
slaves. You know most of the New Testament
epistles they tell us, and this may be so, was written to former
slaves, or slaves who were still slaves. Ain't that amazing? Ain't
that wonderful? The grace of God has saved paupers.
The grace of God has saved kings. It's saved all kinds of people.
You read in the context, and he talks about aged men and aged
women, young women, young men, and servants and masters. The
grace of God that brings salvation. has saved all kinds of people. I was thinking the other night
when I started looking out over, when I was preaching this message
to those people in the nursing home, and I started looking at
several people there that I remember the Lord saving. Clarence was
one of them. Gene and Joe and Gail and all
of them. I've seen the Lord save all of
you folks. Over here is two right here. I remember when the Lord
saved Miranda. Her and Clarence were going together. Miranda
broke up with him. I need to know the Lord, she
said. I need to be right with Him. She wasn't concerned about
Him. She was concerned about Him and her relationship with
Him. Remember one of the Lord's saved
parents? The Lord saves all kinds of people
by His grace. It's appeared. There was a time
you didn't know anything about His grace, but you do now. It's appeared to you. You remember
on the cross, when the Lord Jesus was hanging there. Remember that
fellow that hung beside of Him? That thief and his dying hour? I mean, here's a man you thought,
surely this man's going to perish. He's dying in his sin. But he
said, Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom. And
you know the grace of God appeared to that man and saved him. If you go back, I tell you, To
me, in all the scriptures, in the Old Testament, maybe Saul
of Tarsus in the New Testament, but the man that I marvel at
more than anybody else, the Lord's Savior, is a king. He was a famous
king, a powerful king. But he was one of the most wicked
kings that Judah had ever known. His name was Manasseh. And he
had some children, and he took them out and put them in the
fire. He burned them in the fire to his idols. And the Lord sent
prophets to him and warned him time and time again. And he said,
I don't care. I don't care who the Lord is.
I'm not paying any attention to him. And he'd take another
child and send him out in burning. And the Lord said, I'm going
to save him. My grace is going to appear to that man. And he
sent the enemy, Manasseh's enemy, Judah's enemy, the army against
them, he was trying to run off. And they caught him, didn't have
anything to bind him with, so they cut a bunch of brawlers.
They made handcuffs out of brawlers. And they wrapped him all up in
those brawlers, tucked him and threw him in a dungeon. And you
know what the Scripture said that wicked man did? In that
dungeon, he humbled himself and sought the Lord and the Lord's
safety. You say, Bruce, how could He
save somebody like that, that burned His children in the fire?
You know how He can do it? Grace. Grace. That's it. That's how He can
save you. That's how He can save you. You
see, grace is free. It's unearned. It's unmerited. So what the Lord can do, He can
bestow it upon the most unworthy of human beings. and save them,
because it's free. It's unmerited. He don't owe
salvation to us any more than He owes us our next breath. And
since it's by grace, it can reach all kinds of people. One of the
reasons I'm preaching this message this evening is to let you know
the Lord can save you. There's nobody here this afternoon
the Lord can't save. Because he's saved by his free,
sovereign, unmerited favor. This grace has appeared. Now look in verse 12. Look here
in verse 12. I tell you one of the most amazing
things is when your past is gone. He hath saved us. That's the most wonderful, wonderful
fact. When you look back upon your past sin, and you say, the
grace of God hath appeared to me, my past is gone. All my sins,
He saved me from it. That's the most wonderful thing
you can ever find out. All your sins have been following
you all this time. And you just know for sure they're
going to lay down in the grave with you. And they're going to
get up and follow you to judgment. But then salvation appears, and
you're saved from all that past. No matter what you've done, it's
gone. It's gone. I'll never remember
their sins against them again. Did you hear what Jesus said
to me? They're all taken away. Your sins are pardoned and now
you're free. They're all taken away. Ain't that good news? That's
the gospel. That's good news. That's good
news. I don't care what you've done. I don't care how you live.
I don't care what you are, who you are. I don't care. It don't
make any difference. When salvation comes to you by
God's grace, the past is gone. It's gone. Murder? It's gone. Bank robbery? It's gone. It's
gone. Everything's gone. And look at
this. But here's what salvation does.
It not only saves us from our past. In verse 12, it teaches
us how to live in the present. Look in verse 12. Teaching us
that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly and righteously and godly in this present world. That there's not burdens to be
borne. There is. But I'm telling you, He gives
you grace to live the Christian life. One of the things that
the devil held over my head for all my teenage years, he kept
telling me, you can't live the Christian life. And I couldn't.
But he never did tell me, when the Lord saves you, He makes
you a new creature. He changes you. Those things
that you used to love, now you hate them. And those things they
used to hate, now you love. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creature. And David said, he leads me.
He leads me in the paths of righteousness. He leads me. He don't save us
and then turn us aloose and say, well, I'm going to see if you
can live. I hope the devil don't get you.
And I just hope you don't go back on me. I'm just waiting
to see you. I'll put you on probation." What does he say? Teaching us. Teaching us. I'll give you another
carpenter, and he will abide with you forever. He shall guide
you unto all truth. He teaches us. I told him down
there the other night about Charles Spurgeon. It was a funny incident
that happened with him. He said he was walking down the
streets of London one night, a great preacher. He died around
1892. One of the best preachers they've
had there in England, forever. But he said he met this old fellow
and he was drunk. He seen him come and he jumped
up and staggered over and stuck out his hand and said, Oh, Brother
Spurgeon, I'm one of your converts. And Brother Spurgeon said, It's
obvious that you're one of mine. Because you're not one of the
Lord's. You're not one of His. When He saves us, what does He
do? He comes to abide in us, and He teaches us how to live. We love what we used to hate.
You young people, I wish you'd listen to that. I wish the Lord
would take this to your heart. Because I know how you folks
are. It may seem by looking at me it's been an ancient time
since I was your age, but I know what you're going through. I
know what you desire. I know what you want. It's natural
too. Childhood and youth are vanity.
And one of the things you think is, well, I can't be a Christian.
I don't have the desires to live the Christian life. I can't live
the Christian life. It's all I can do to sit through
a 30-minute sermon. But listen to this. When the
Lord saves you, He makes you new. And this God in heaven comes
to abide in you. And you will desire to live for
His glory. You'll love it. Clarence, don't
you love the Christian life? Don't you love the Christian
life, Wifey? You do, don't you? Why do you? Because He saves
you. It's a wonderful life. It's a wonderful life. It's the
only life. It's the only way to live. The
Christian life. Teaching us. Teaching us. What
would we do without our moms and dads teaching us? We have
to be taught, don't we? And that's the same way with
the Lord. Oh, He teaches us. He knows how to teach us. He's
a good teacher. I tell you, sometimes He can put the whip on your bottom
and make you hurt. And other times when you think
the whip's coming, He'll just hug your neck and love you. He
knows how to teach you. He can teach you more in the
blink of an eye than I can in a lifetime. That's the kind of
teacher He is. He is a teacher. Teach Him us. Teach Him us. Have no confidence in these fellows
that say they're saved and they know something about God's grace.
And their lives don't prove to be so. Be careful of folks like
that. Thirdly, look at this. Look at
this. The past life is gone. The present
life, He abides within, teaching us, guiding us in the paths of
righteousness. But look for the future. Look
what the grace of God does. In verse 13, looking forward
to that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great
God and our Savior. Who is our God? Who is our Savior? Can somebody finish that line? Jill, who is He? Who is God? Jesus Christ. Ain't that what
He said? Can you read this? Aren't you
amazed when you read this and some people tell you, Jesus is
not God? Jesus is not only God, He is
our great God and Savior. Looking forward to the appearing
of our great God and Savior. Savior. That's what we've got
to look forward to. You see, when the Lord saves
a person, He not only saves them from the past, He saves them
to a glorious future. Oh, I tell you, salvation has
just begun. It's got a wonderful, wonderful
eternity ahead of it. Looking forward to. And you notice your life during
the day. When I used to work, I used to work in a mill, in
a board shop. And I'm telling you, I'd come
out of that thing and my clothes was white with my sweater dry. It was awful. I'd sit in my vehicle
for ten minutes sometimes just trying to get rested up enough
to get home. It was awful. But you know what kept me going
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday? You know
one of the things I looked forward to? The weekend. Boy, if I can
make it to Friday night, I got it made. Terrence, Miranda put
him in a little swimming pool this summer, and I bet you while
he's out in some of those holes like he were last week, sweated,
hot, don't you look forward to coming home and jumping in that
pool? Coming home and taking a good shower, eating supper
on Saturday night. Having something to look forward
to. Doesn't that encourage you and
comfort you? Well, look at this. Looking forward to His glorious
appearance. of our great God and our Savior. The Lord Jesus said, if I go
away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive
you unto Myself that where I am. Where is He? Where is He? He is in heaven, isn't He? Where
I am, there you will be also. Isn't that something to look
forward to? I tell you, brothers and sisters, this can be an awful
life. This can be a life full of heartaches
and trials. Family. If you just stayed home,
there's enough family trials in the house to burden you to
death. And then when you get out in
this world working, tribulation and anguish and heartaches and
trials, In this world you shall have tribulation. Isn't it wonderful
to have something to look forward to? The Lord Jesus was writing
to the church of Surma, and He says, I know what you're suffering.
I know what you're going to suffer. The devil is going to cast some
of you into prison, and you're going to have tribulation. And
here's what He said to them. Be faithful unto death, for I've
got laid up for you a crown of life. Oh, that's a good hope. Isn't it wonderful to have a
hope? How would you feel if you didn't have a good hope? Wouldn't
your heart break? If all you had to look forward
to was dying? Maybe get cancer and suffer and
die? A Christian has more than that. It doesn't matter what a Christian
suffers in this life, they've got a glorious future. The coming
of the great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Confront one another
with these words. Then verse 14, lastly in verse
14. This is how all this comes about. Look, and He said, for that blessed
hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior.
And look at this. Jesus Christ who gave Himself, who gave Himself
for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify
to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." This
word redeemed means to deliver by price. To deliver by a price. Not just to deliver, but by a
price. It has the same meaning as delivering
someone by ransom. If you've been taken and you've
held captive and you're Someone demanding a ransom? The only
way you can be delivered is by somebody paying the ransom. That's
what this Word is. A ransom. Not just power, but
a ransom. The Lord Jesus gave Himself a
ransom. Now, you think about that just
for a minute. Because when you say the great
God and Savior gave Himself, isn't that amazing? I was listening
to I debate Richard Dawkins and John Lennox. They're two Harvard
professors. Larry and I listen to them sometimes. Dawkins, is that his name, Larry
Dawkins, Richard Dawkins? He's an atheist, one of the big
atheists. And Lennox is a Christian. And
they debate each other. And Lennox was talking about
sin and basically redemption promise. And he asked the atheist,
Dawkins, he said, now why wouldn't you believe this? And he said
something to this effect. He said, it makes no sense to
me that if you say God created this universe, imagine what kind
of God he has to be. To make this vast creation and
uphold it, what kind of God would he have to be, Dawkins said.
And he says, I can't believe a God like that could be even
interested in dust of this earth, especially dying to save them
from their sin. But you know what produces unbelief
in him? It makes us mourn, because that's
exactly what happened. This glorious, eternal, Great
Creator gave Himself to redeem us from sin. That's the most
amazing thing in this world. It already amazes us. It astounds
us. How can it be, the songwriter
said, how can it be that Thou, my God, hast died for me? Me, who Him to death pursued,
amazing love. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how He could love me. It is amazing, isn't it? It's
an astounding thing, but that's what He said. This great God,
the Creator, gave Himself to redeem us from our sin. I'll never get over that. I hope
I never get over that. Gave himself. He could have gave
everything he had. He could have gave his angels. He could have gave the world.
He could have gave heaven. He has a lot. But that's not what
he gave. He gave himself. He took our
humanity to himself and gave all that he had. This is my blood. I give it to you for the remission
of your sins. These are my cheeks, he said.
I gave them to those who plucked up the hair thereof. This is
my back. I gave it to those who smoked
me and made long their furrows, even down to the bones. I gave
myself. He gave himself. Not for a good
cause. Not for good people. No. He gave himself for bad people.
Not for some potential he saw in us, but to save us from our
sins. What a wonderful, wonderful salvation. Have you ever got over it? And you know something? He didn't
do it by accident. Ain't that amazing? Who gave
himself in order That's what that word, might, means, in order
to redeem us. It was something that was in
his heart all along that he'd already purposed to do. The Scripture
says he's a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It was
in his mind then. You know what makes that so important
and wonderful? He purposed to do it before the
world was, and he had all this time to change his mind. He had
all those years to think about it. But you know He never changed
His mind. That's He said, I purpose to
redeem them. It's going to cost me my death, but I shall redeem
them. Ain't that wonderful? I can't
get over it. I just can't get over it. That He did this on purpose.
Can you imagine being on His mind when He hanged on the cross? When He hanged on the cross,
He was on His mind. That's amazing. And He never
gave Himself any rest until He called you to Himself and saved
you. On purpose. On purpose. Spurgeon
asked an old lady in his congregation one time. He said, Dear lady,
has the Lord saved you? And she said, I believe he has. And he said, did he save you
by accident? Or did he save you on purpose? And she said, I don't think the
Lord does anything by accident. He saved me on purpose. And then
Spurgeon asked her this question. And this will make you think.
When did he purpose to save you? That's wonderful. What a question. You know when he purposed to
do it? Before the world began. Can you imagine that? No wonder
Richard Dawkins said, that's too amazing for me. I don't believe
that God is that concerned about us. Well, David had the same
thought. David was laying on his back
looking up at this universe, and he said, Lord, when I consider
the heavens that You have made, what is man that You are mindful
of him? But there it is. We have an evidence
of it. There the great God hangs on
Calvary's tree. Is that love? Is He thinking
about us? It can't be denied. You just
wonder at it. You just bow before it and believe
in amazement. Thou, my God, hast died for me
to redeem me." And I tell you, before it's over with, before
it's finished, everybody for whom Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, died, they won't have one bit of stain of sin left on them. They'll be saved completely.
Their souls will be saved here, their souls and body will be
saved at the last day, and He will present them to Himself,
saved forever. What a blessed salvation. And
what brings it? Grace. Let's pray.