WWUTT 753 The Grace of God Has Appeared?

Titus 2 .11 says, For the grace of God has appeared. And it is by God's grace that we are saved, we renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and live godly lives in the present age, when we understand the text.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. We come back again to our study in Titus chapter 2 and we'll be looking at that section that closes out the chapter, verses 11 -15.

The Apostle Paul writes, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave

Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, who are zealous for good works.

Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

So as we read here in verse 11, the Apostle Paul says, the grace of God has appeared.

And then everything that we read from there through verse 14 is expounding upon understanding the grace of God.

All of this in verses 11 -14 is by the grace of God. And I want you to think about the profoundness of this statement in verse 11.

For the grace of God has appeared. What does grace mean?

Do you remember? We've talked about this before. The definition of grace is unmerited favor.

You don't deserve it. And you do nothing to earn it. But God shows

His favor toward you because He is gracious and He is merciful.

This is what grace is. Romans 6 .23, for the wages of sin is death.

That's what we deserve. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

Lord. And that's grace. We deserve death. He has given us life through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross.

And we receive this atonement sacrifice by faith. By believing in Jesus Christ, turning from sin and following Him, we have received this forgiveness of sins that God has graciously bestowed to us through His Son Jesus Christ.

The grace of God has appeared in the coming of His Son.

Now consider this. In the Old Testament, the word grace only comes up something like four or five times.

It's not very many times at all. I believe it's twice in the Psalms.

It is, and I'm trying to do this off the top of my head, it's once in Jeremiah and once in Zechariah, maybe twice in Zechariah.

So that may be it, just four or five occasions that the word grace appears in the

Old Testament. But that word comes up more than a hundred times in the

Old Testament. There is simply a hope and a resolve that comes with the appearing of Jesus Christ in the

New Testament that simply is not there in the Old Testament. There's always this narrative tension in the

Old Testament that never seems to find a resolution, and it doesn't happen until God sends

His Son, Jesus. The very first time that we see the word grace appear in the

Bible is in John 1 .14. We go through Matthew, Mark, and Luke never seeing the word grace, but then

John writes about it first. John 1 .14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen

His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Skipping to verse 16, for from His fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

So it is in the giving of His Son that we have received the grace of God.

And then grace is talked about all the more in the book of Acts, and then of course, just about every time

Paul opens up a letter, he mentions grace. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the

Lord Jesus Christ is just about every way he starts his letters. When John MacArthur named his ministry grace to you,

I think he pulled about the best name that you could name a ministry. John MacArthur claimed it, nobody else gets to have it,

I guess, but grace to you because this is what we have received in Jesus Christ, the grace of God, unmerited favor.

We have not earned it. What we have earned, what we deserve is death. We were previously children of wrath.

We were the objects of God's wrath, according to John 3, 36 and Ephesians 2, 3.

And it's by faith in Jesus Christ that we've been transformed into something different, the atoning blood that covers over our sins.

And when God looks at us, if we are followers of Jesus, if we are believers upon His name,

He does not see the object of wrath that we deserve. Rather, He sees the object of His love and affection.

He sees someone who is wearing the righteousness of His son and He shows you the same love and affection that He gives to His own son if you are a follower of Jesus.

So instead of being worthy of destruction, we are worthy of His love.

We are not children of wrath or children of Satan. We are children of love and children of God by the adoption that we have received through faith in Jesus Christ.

And this is the undeserved grace of God that we have been given.

The grace of God has appeared in Jesus Christ, bringing salvation for all people.

That's the next part of verse 11, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

Now, we need to be careful with this because a lot of people use this verse and take it out of context to say that salvation has come for everyone.

Says it right here, salvation has come for all people. Everybody gets saved. And it's not what the passage says.

And we would be taking that completely out of context if that's the way that we read it. And Paul is certainly not going to contradict himself.

For he previously wrote in 1 Timothy 4 .1, the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

So Paul even warns Timothy that there are those who are going to leave the faith. They will not be walking in salvation.

And even Paul told Timothy about those whom he had disciplined. And the way that he refers to discipline is that he had excommunicated them from the church.

He had turned them over to Satan is the term that he used. And unless they repent of their sin, of their rebellion against God and follow

Jesus Christ, that's exactly how they're going to be judged with the devil and his angels.

So Paul very clearly talks about the wrath of God that comes against unbelievers. Just look at 2

Thessalonians 1. When Christ appears, when he returns again, he will come with his angels in fiery judgment and will destroy those who did not obey the gospel.

He talks about that plainly right at the start of 2 Thessalonians. And so Paul is not saying here, he is not advocating for universal salvation.

When we read in Titus 2 .11 that salvation has come for all people, nor is

Paul saying that the gospel is going to be given to all people. He's not even making that argument.

Weren't there people even in Paul's lifetime that never heard the gospel? Yes, there were.

When we read in the Bible that the gospel has made it to the whole world, that's kind of hyperbolic because it's saying that the gospel has made it to Rome.

The Roman Empire was dominating most of the world at that particular time.

But even in Paul's lifetime, it didn't get all the way to the far eastern side of Asia or all the way to the far western side of Europe.

So there were people even within Paul's lifetime who never heard the gospel. They never heard the saving faith of Jesus Christ.

The gospel went far and wide, but it did not reach every single ear. And so that is the same on planet

Earth right now. There are people dying today who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that should cause us to mourn. It should stir in us a desire to take the gospel to more people.

And this is something that maybe the Lord would lay on your heart, but certainly should lay it on the heart of a church that they would desire to raise up and send out missionaries who can go spread the gospel, especially reaching those unreached people groups where there are no churches.

There's not a Christian within a thousand miles who would be able to come to them and share with them the gospel that we would send missionaries into those areas.

So these people might hear the only message that saves Romans 1 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes a person gets saved only by faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Romans 1 goes on to tell us that everyone knows of the existence of God. As David Platt has put it, everyone knows

God the father, but not everyone knows Jesus Christ. They know that God exists. They know that he has created all things for the evidence of his existence is in all that has been made.

Furthermore, as Romans 1 20 goes on to tell us, even his divine nature and eternal power are seen in all that has been made.

So we even know some of the characteristics of God just by observing the world around us.

We know God the father inherently. Every person does. Even the atheist is aware of God the father.

But Romans 1 also tells us that they suppress the truth with unrighteousness. They would rather have their sin than give honor to God or thanks to him.

And then their foolish hearts are darkened. So there are people who know God is real, but because of their sin, they do not give honor to him.

They know God the father, but they don't know God the son unless somebody comes to them with the gospel.

And Paul gives this argument in Romans 10 where he says, how will they know unless somebody comes to them preaching?

And so we must desire that the gospel would indeed be preached to the whole world, even though not every single ear is going to hear it.

So the argument here in Titus 2 11 is not that every single person on earth will hear the message of salvation.

There's always a context to the word all. Maybe you've heard that cliche saying all means all and that's all all means.

Well, no, that's not true. All has as much of a context as any other word in the

Bible. Even when we read in Romans 3 23 for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Now, we know that Paul is talking about every single person, Jew or Gentile, because that's the argument he's been laying out since Romans 1 18, all the way up to 3 23.

Whether you are Jew or Gentile, everyone has sinned before God. But even the word all there in Romans 3 23 all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God does not mean every single person.

Why doesn't it? Because there is one person who did not sin and fall short of God's glory.

And that is Jesus Christ, who displays for us the glory of God.

Second Corinthians 4 6 for God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So Jesus is glorious and he is sinless and he is the one person who has ever lived, who did not sin and has not fallen short of God's glory.

He is the glory of God. So when we read in Romans 3 23, all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.

That's every single person, Jews and Gentiles, not Jesus, who lived sinlessly and who gives salvation to all who will believe in him.

So see there, even the word all has a context. When we read here in Titus 2 11 for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people who are the all that's mentioned at the end of that verse.

Follow the pronouns, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.

Everyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ is the all that's being talked about in verse 11.

For these people, the people of God who are followers of Jesus will display certain characteristics.

They will renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. Verse 12, they'll live self -controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior, Jesus Christ. There we have Jesus described as the glory of God once again, who gave himself for us.

Who is the us there? It's everybody who is a follower of Jesus. Jesus did not give himself up for every single person on planet

Earth, because otherwise his atoning sacrifice would be universal. And we know it was not universal.

His atoning blood does not cover over the sins of every single person. Otherwise there would be no reason for anyone to repent.

That blood would just be offered for everyone. But it is very particular here in Titus 2 who this sacrifice has been given to.

Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness.

Who's the us? Again, it's just Christians that Paul is talking about here.

Only Christians have been redeemed from all lawlessness. Only those who believe in Jesus have been forgiven their sins.

Not every single person. Only those who follow Christ. You know, these letters that we read in the

New Testament are written to the church. They're not written to every single person. Now there will be occasions in which

Paul does not take for granted that everyone that he's addressing with his letter is saved.

He's not just saying, okay, I'm writing to this church. Every single person in that church is a Christian. He doesn't take that for granted.

So sometimes you will have those kind of side mentions of, like in Romans chapter 8, where Paul says, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. So it's as though Paul is not taking for granted that everybody there is a

Christian. But in case there's somebody in that church there in Rome who's just kind of wandered in there because they want to see what these

Christians are all about, or somebody invited them to church, but they're not actually a follower of Jesus yet.

Paul has a mention there specifically for that person who may not yet be a believer in Christ.

And I actually just preached on one of those particular sections with my church just this past Sunday and second

Corinthians chapter six, where Paul says today is the day of salvation. And he's making that appeal to some of those in the

Corinthian church who may not yet be followers of Jesus Christ, unless they believe the gospel in vain.

They have not believed it to the glory of God, but they're just looking for a new religion or a philosophy or something like that.

They're not really loving the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. And Paul appeals to them not to be followers of Christ or believers in Christ for their own glory, but for God's glory.

And so even in his letters, he'll have those occasions in which he'll make a special appeal to those sitting there, hearing the letter read, who may not yet be followers of Jesus Christ.

But for the most part, these letters are all written to churches. They're written to the churches.

They're not written to unbelievers. The whole Bible, in fact, has been written to God's people.

It is not been written to those who are not God's people. We read this in first Corinthians chapter two.

We have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him.

And he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person who has the spirit of God judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

And I even remind you once again of what I just read out of Romans chapter eight, whoever has the spirit of Christ belongs to God.

Whoever does not have the spirit of Christ dwelling within them does not belong to him.

And it is because we have the spirit that we understand his word.

The spirit discerns to us spiritual things. This is why somebody can read the entire

Bible and they see in it the power of God and they are cut to the heart and they seek forgiveness from God for their sins.

And he grants it to them and cleanses them from all unrighteousness. But then you have somebody else who reads the

Bible and they're like, this is ridiculous. It's nonsense. What a horrible story.

And they don't see anything incredible about it whatsoever. It's because the person who was saved belongs to God and had the spirit of Christ to understand the word of Christ.

Whereas the person who did not understand it and just found and just found themselves hating

God more after they read it, did not belong to God. They were not given the spirit to understand spiritual things.

And so it is only those who have the spirit of Christ belong to him. And it's the spirit that is given to us by the grace of God.

It is by this spirit of Christ that we have been saved from our sins and instead given the righteousness of God.

And since we have his righteousness, we will renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and will live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

And even this is by the grace of God that you have repented of sin and have become a follower of Jesus is because of God's grace and his grace alone.

Ephesians 2 .8, it is by grace. You have been saved through faith and this is not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God. Not of works, so that no one may boast.

Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a

New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.