Re-acquainted with Grace

At our prayer meeting we looked at Titus 2:11-15 as our meditation to guide our prayers. In the passage Paul wrote to his “true child in a common faith”, Titus and he reminded Titus of something we can all forget: The grace of god has appeared.

Re-acquainted with Grace

In a world full of folks for whom “nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled” (Titus 1:15), the idea of grace appearing seems absurd. Grace becomes one of those words that can lose its meaning.

 At the base of it, we can ask the question I would ask my sons when they were small and I wanted them to define something. I would ask them, “Is it good or is it bad”? Of course, grace is good. But the goodness of it is not just in the sharing. Yes, it is gratuity, generosity, overflowing, flowing, surrounding us in abundance. But there is something more to this blessing. It is set within a context that is bad, not good.

And at this point you may repeat the mantra, “grace is undeserved favor”. It is very true and very concise. But the undeserved part, the bad part of the definition is often lost on us. We expect grace to be supplied  based on current performance, despite past failure. Yet grace is not performance based ever. Grace is freely supplied by God. If there is a scale of merit, only Jesus Christ can be weighed in merit, but he is so perfect that the scales are broken and he is literally unscalable.

So the greatest grace that can be known is the appearance of the grace of God, in the mission of the Son, Jesus Christ. That mission was undertaken by the Son who assumed human nature and dwelt among us. The mission didn’t have to be taken. The people of this world did not deserve to have a savior appear to them.

Bringing and Training

Bringing Salvation

This overwhelming generosity, like a torrent from a river, or the soaking drizzle of a three-day rain, didn’t have to be given out. The grace of God didn’t have to appear. Certainly the people of this world didn’t deserve to have salvation brought to every tribe, tongue and nation.

Even the concept of a Christian nation, or aspirations to have Christian ethics govern the state, must maintain an awareness of grace. Ideas about chosen nations and special missions for nations under God get very confused when we think that God blesses us because he sees us as inherently special. By contrast, every election and every providential blessing is a gracious one, not an entitled one. There is no way that persons or peoples can save themselves. God must bring salvation or salvation cannot be had.

Training to Renounce and to Live

When grace comes and the salvation which God brings is believed in and embraced, that grace of God, namely the person of Jesus Christ does two things. He trains us to renounce ungodliness and he trains us to live godly lives (cf v.12). This grace of God appearing is none other than Jesus Christ, who calls us to be his disciples, and therefore we are learners and followers of him. He trains us with grace, but he trains us for a reason. He wants us to change.

First, renouncing ungodliness needs the grace of God. Ungodliness and worldly passions are characterized by being grace-less. It is life under the curse (Gen 3:17) that is “red in tooth and claw”(Tennyson). The passions that are in line with this “present evil age” reject God, and so are godless. The ungodly do not want grace. They want divinity and they feel entitled to it. But when the grace of God appears and is embraced, salvation in Christ trains a person to make this good and right renunciations.

The second part is to live. There must be the positive. And Christ, who is the gift of grace given to us, trains us to renounce, but also to live “self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age” (v.12b). Of course we will live such lives in heaven for eternity. That is not in question, if we are true believers. But Paul says that God’s grace in Christ will train us to live in the present age as if we were in the age to come. This will not come naturally, but we will need to be trained in it. You wouldn’t think we would need training to live but we do. It doesn’t come ‘naturally’ to be self-controlled, just look at little children (or ask a parent!). Uprightness does not happen naturally when there are so many opportunities to pursue selfish choices that privilege personal power over integrity. Learning to live a godly life is unnatural to the natural man (1 Cor 2:14). But to the Christian believer, they are being trained to live in resonance and harmony with God’s desire, purpose and will. That harmony with God is what makes them godly. It is a grace from God, and its comes only through Jesus Christ who has appeared for us.

ACTIONS🥅🥅

1. Get re-acquainted with grace. You’ve been busy so long that you’ve forgotten about the generosity of God. To see that generosity, it is not merely in blue skies and a baby’s blue eyes. It is in the gift of Jesus Christ for sinners the world over.

2. Accept the training of renunciation. The popularity of “Lent” in non-Roman Catholic circles shows that people know they need to make renunciations. But like Islam’s Ramadan, Lent is a temporary ceremony that makes you feel good about yourself, but has little impact in renouncing ungodliness, because of the grace of God in God, the incarnate Son. My doctor told me to give up dairy. I can’t quit for a week and say I’ve renounced it. That’s just being phony.

3. Learn to live. When people say, “You need to learn to live a little”, they generally mean that you need to seek more pleasure for yourself, usually in the vices that surround us (booze, drugs, sex). But grace teaches us to live. We live in a more self-controlled way. That’s really living! We live more by being upright and our integrity is seen as a godly integrity. That’s living. And when people see it, they marvel because such changes are not natural. Then you have a chance to tell them that the changes are supernatural. They are from the generosity of God in Christ which evidentially, you don’t deserve.