The Costliness of Grace | Titus 2:14

Would you pray with me one more time?

Lord, would this book live?

Would you do your mighty work now in our midst?

This supernatural work of grace through the work of the Word.

I pray, Lord, that you would anoint me in the power of your Holy Spirit.

Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things from your law.

In Christ's name.

Amen.

I invite you to open back up to the book of Titus.

What a magnificent study this has been, at least it has for me.

You know, Paul told Timothy, he said, by teaching the word, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

I think about that often that I need the word as I'm studying and preaching just as much as you need the word.

And God has certainly been doing this work in my life.

It's been been really a remarkable reminder, if you look at verse 11, of this reality of grace.

What an incredible statement that Paul makes, isn't it?

That he says, 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.

I find that amazing because it's something that our world doesn't understand.

Our world is throwing all sorts of money at therapy and psychologists, and all that's taking place in the therapy room is behavioral modification.

Change this habit, change this discipline, and you'll get a different outcome.

And sure, maybe that that works to a degree.

But if you want transformation, if you want a life change, if you want something to really take place in the person, you have to do an inside work.

And only God, the Holy Spirit, can do that.

And the way that He does that, it's called grace.

And that word grace means gift.

It's the Greek word caris.

And so what Paul is saying is that sanctification, this renouncing ungodliness and worldly passions and living self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age.

It's all this magnificent work of grace.

And if you don't get that, the church will become dead and lackluster and lifeless.

It is grace and grace alone that is the foundation of the true church because that is alone what changes people's lives.

It's really amazing.

And we looked at last week how grace changes our perspective, our worldview, our mindset.

And he says, we're now waiting, we're looking for the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

That's the perspective of the Christian.

That we look at history and we know that history will not just continue as is forever, but it will come to a decisive end with the appearing of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

A couple weeks ago I used the phrase, Grace has a name.

And his name is Jesus.

And in thinking about the second coming of Jesus, Paul, he gets caught up in the emotion of it all.

He gets caught up in the glory of it all, thinking of this appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And then he adds this amazing statement, this fundamental statement in verse 14.

Look at verse 14.

He says, 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.

Now that verse, verse 14, I think, is the capstone and the climax of the entire epistle to Titus.

This is the origin story of grace.

It's one of those great verses in Scripture that really unpacks all of Christianity for us.

It's an astounding verse, verse 14.

It's the story of where grace comes from.

You ask, you know, what is grace?

It sounds very ethereal to us, but where does it come from?

What's its source?

What's its substance?

Well, it's right there in verse 14.

What Jesus did for us.

I was watching a documentary the other night, and uh it was about David Livingstone, the the missionary and the pioneer in Africa, and he went all across Africa and explored different parts of Africa.

And the last seven years of his life, last seven years, he was searching for the source of the Nile River.

So he he started all the way up in Egypt and kept kept going deeper and deeper and deeper along the White Nile, and he's looking for the source waters, the head, the fountain of that great river, the Nile.

And in a sense, verse 14 is the source waters of grace.

That's what we're looking at.

We're looking at the origin of grace.

Or if you want another picture, if you think about the temple in Jerusalem, I went there uh with a group from this church, and what we did is we we went down, and they can take you down to the western wall underneath the surface, because of course remember Titus tore down the temple in 70 AD.

But you go down and beneath the surface are the original foundation stones, big stones, as big as big as this choir loft right behind me.

And and you're looking at the foundation stones of the old temple.

Now, verse uh 14 is the foundation stones of grace.

In other words, if you get this, you can get to the bedrock of what grace is really about.

And here's my hope.

Here's my hope is that if you are an unbeliever, in other words, you you have yet to come to faith in Jesus Christ and surrender your life to him in faith.

That in seeing what Jesus has done in securing grace, that you could not help but trust him, believe in Jesus Christ, repent of your sins, and trust Christ in faith that God would do that work of grace in your own life.

But moreover, I remember when I was in high school for the first time, you know, I grew up in the church and I became a believer at an early age.

But in high school, I began to study, I begin to look at the doctrines of grace.

I begin to go back and I was looking at and studying the atonement and what Jesus accomplished in our redemption.

I was looking at the work of the Holy Spirit and regeneration, and I couldn't, it awakened a new pathway in my spiritual life.

And my life was just filled with glory and praise to God for what he had done for me.

So the more you understand grace, the more you grow spiritually in your Christian life because you begin to worship God more, you desire to please him more.

And that's what we're praying for the King's Chapel.

That we wouldn't just go through the motions, that we would be people of grace.

And by God's grace we are.

But we're we're not yet what we should be.

We need to be more sanctified, more like Christ.

And so let's press into this reality of grace.

So as we're looking at the foundation, I want to give you five foundation stones, so to speak, of grace that I want you to notice just from verse 14.

First is the purchase price.

When we talk about grace, remember when we looked at verse 11, we said, grace by nature, grace by definition is a gift.

It's free.

So what do we have to do to receive grace?

Answer, nothing.

So we're we're we're tempted to take a step back and say, well, it's cheap.

Since it's free, we think it's cheap.

But verse 14, Paul says, Lee Corso style, not so fast.

It's actually costly.

Grace is costly.

Look what he says.

He uses this phrase talking about Jesus from the verse before, who gave himself for us.

Who gave himself for us.

Interesting that use of the word gave.

What do you do with a gift?

You give it.

Now, John 3.16, you'd probably know John 3.16, that emphasizes the costliness to the Father.

That the Father gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish.

This verse, verse 14, emphasizes the costliness of the Son.

Now, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all equally in substance God.

So it's not that the Son was given unwillingly.

He came for the purpose of laying down his life for sinners.

In fact, most likely, jot down this verse, Matthew 20, 28, Paul is probably paraphrasing Matthew 20, 28.

Jesus said, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

So Jesus came with the intention of laying down his life.

He gave his life.

I know sometimes around Easter, the History Channel will talk about how Jesus was betrayed by Judas, the religious leaders, Pilate, and all the events that led up to the crucifixion, and paint it as if Jesus was a hapless victim.

That Jesus just kind of walked into these circumstances and he was crucified.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.

Jesus knew that Judas would come to the Garden of Gethsemane.

He goes to the garden.

He uses that language.

He said, My hour is here.

The hour referring to the hour of his passion.

When Judas and the servants of the high priest and the temple guard come into the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says, Who do you seek?

And they say, We seek Jesus of Nazareth.

And Jesus says, I am he.

And the moment he uses that divine name, I am he, they fall to the ground.

John uses a wrestling term that they're pinned to the mat.

They're pinned to the ground.

He says, Who do you seek?

They say, We seek you, Jesus.

And Jesus said, Well, you can take me, but you can't touch the disciples.

You ever wonder how Peter got the courage to go after Malchus with the sword?

Y'all know that story?

He tried to cut his head off.

He missed and cut off his ear.

Where does Peter get the courage?

And they all fell to the deck.

So Jesus says, You can take me.

My point is, is Jesus went willingly to the cross.

And remember, he's on the cross and the scribes and the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin.

What were they yelling at Jesus when he's on the cross?

Save yourself.

If you're the Messiah, come down from that cross.

And guess what?

He could have.

He absolutely could have.

But he went through to the end.

He said, To telestai, it is finished.

And he breathed his last.

Now, why did he do that?

Why did Jesus do that?

And the answer is in the next prepositional phrase.

Look back at verse 14.

He gave himself.

Look at the next prepositional phrase.

For us.

On behalf of us.

In the place of us.

Now here's something that's interesting about that phrase.

For us.

Because I want you to personalize this.

Sometimes I think we we think about the atonement indiscriminately.

Or we just think about the atonement generally.

Jesus died for sinners.

Yes, that's true.

But Jesus died for his sheep.

Jesus died for you.

Whenever that word for us is used in the New Testament, it always refers to the remnant, the believing remnant.

Paul uses for us in his letters to talk about those of us who believe.

And he talks about how Jesus laid down his life for us.

I think we need to get this to our head.

Jesus went there to the cross, not just for indiscriminate people, but for his people, for you, for me.

Jot these verses down.

Think about these.

Galatians 3 13.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed.

Let's see.

Otherwise, he would be unjust.

And so the lawless deeds of Kenny must be paid for in order for there to be forgiveness.

Not just Kenny.

All of us.

I single him out because he's my friend, he can take it.

So I want you to imagine for a second, I want you to imagine a kingdom.

And there's a righteous king in that kingdom.

And there's a group of former citizens, and they call themselves the lawless ones.

They rebel against the king.

They break his laws.

They're traitors.

They're rebels.

If you've been in the service, what do you do to a traitor?

What's the penalty for being a traitor?

Death.

Execution.

They have rebelled against the king.

But yet the king wants to bring reconciliation with some of the lawless ones.

What must he do?

Well, he can't just forgive them because they've been lawless.

They've been disobedient.

They have broken his laws.

There must be a just penalty, but the just penalty for being a traitor, for being lawless, is death.

Well, this king has a perfect son who's been obedient, a perfect citizen.

And the king and the son, they meet together and they say, We have a plan.

We have a plan.

You're going to take off your crown.

You're going to take off your righteous, your robes, your garments.

You're going to go outside the city gates, and you are going to die a traitor's death in their place, in order that I might forgive them.

That's what he means when he says that he redeems us from all lawlessness.

Peter says this amazing verse, shot this verse down.

1 Peter 1.18.

He says, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish.

Several points of application here to think about.

We need to be reminded, I do at least, every day, that Jesus has paid the penalty for all of my sin and all of my lawlessness.

We're so prone to revert back in our thinking to works-based righteousness.

But Jesus has paid it and paid it all.

Paul says Romans 4 7, Blessed is the man whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

And by the grace of God, that's me.

And that's many of you.

And so you wake up every day.

It's amazing.

You wake up every day.

I'm a forgiven man.

What I've done against God, my lawless deeds, all of them have been dealt with.

And so we need to be reminded of that absolution, of that forgiveness.

And secondly, understanding the fact that we have been redeemed from that lawless group, that ragtag group is the ground of our obedience.

Paul often reminds people, especially if you read Romans, he says, Don't you know who you are now?

You're no longer a lawless person.

You've been brought near.

You're no longer a lawbreaker, you're no longer a rebel.

Now you have been reconciled.

So why would you keep on sinning like that?

Why would you keep on living like you were a lawless one?

Third application point to think about is as someone who's been forgiven, ransomed from lawlessness.

Our close friends, Paul says, our spouses, our business partners, should be believers and not lawless ones.

That's 2 Corinthians 6.14.

Don't be unequally yoked, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Obviously, we're to be in the world, not of it.

We are we're to have non-Christian friends, we're to preach the gospel, but our closest associates, those who spur us on, are those that we consider marrying, business partners, those people should be believers.

Because why would you partner with somebody who's rebelling against God?

Why would you enter into a marriage with somebody who's rebelling against God?

Why would you do that?

Third foundation stone.

So the first is is the purchase price.

The second is redemption.

Third, and this is really amazing, purification.

To purify for himself a people.

So we just looked at a negative aspect.

We're ransomed from lawlessness.

But this is a positive aspect.

He says, we are purified.

Jesus purifies us.

That word purify is the Greek word catharsio.

That's where we get our English words carterize or cathartic.

In English, it's the idea of cleansing.

Now, I want you to jot this down.

Think about this.

This is very important.

Jesus cleanses or purifies the believer two ways.

Two ways.

The first is positionally, and that's how God sees you.

How God sees you.

The second is experientially, and that's how you live.

So when you become a believer, this work of grace cleanses you, purifies you positionally before God.

The fancy word for that is imputation, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

But then we're also purified and cleansed on the inside so that we have new affections, new desires.

So positionally, let's think for a second about positional righteousness.

Key verse, 2 Corinthians 5.21.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In other words, when God looks at you clothed in Christ, he sees the righteousness, the good works, the good life of Jesus Christ, his purity, his righteous life is now yours.

But moreover, the Holy Spirit does this work of cleansing in the heart.

Where now we have new, clean, pure affections, desires.

Paul says, 1 Corinthians 2, we have the mind of Christ.

We begin to think like Jesus does according to the scriptures.

Hebrews 9 14, amazing verse.

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

So if you if you go back to the whole idea of the lawless ones and the king and his son, this is what is taking place.

The son has paid the penalty that we deserved, the ransom price.

So now we're approaching the castle.

You're approaching the castle, and two things take place is the king takes that discarded robe of his son, that ornate kingly gown, and he puts it on you.

So now you are wearing the robe of the king's son, and no longer your unrighteous rags.

And moreover, he does this special work in your heart, where now you desire to live like that son.

You have the affections that that son has.

You have the desire to obey like that son did.

You desire to glorify God the way that that son did.

And that's why when you become a Christian, everything changes.

Everything changes because you now have these new affections, these new desires.

You've been purified, you've been cleansed.

It's absolutely amazing.

That's the third foundation stone, the purification.

The fourth foundation stone.

A people for his own possession.

So first is the purchase that he gave himself for us.

Second is the ransom, the redemption that he redeemed us from all lawlessness.

Third is the purification that he purifies for himself a people.

And now look at this phrase: a people for his own possession.

This is so wonderful.

This is so amazing.

Because before, I know sometimes in some liberal churches they'll say, we're all God's children.

In a creative sense, that's true.

God is the creator of life, and in that sense, we are all God's children, but not in a redemptive sense.

In a redemptive sense, you are not adopted into the family of God until you become a believer.

But here's the thing is that when you become a Christian, and now that you've been purified, now you belong to him.

Now you're a people, he says, of his own possession.

That phrase, a people for his own possession, is lifted right out of the Old Testament.

It was used in Exodus 19.

Remember, you had Moses and the children of Israel, you had all of the plagues, and Moses telling Pharaoh that they needed to go out and worship Yahweh, and he kept saying, no, no, no.

And finally you had the Passover, and Pharaoh said, Get out.

And they leave Egypt and they go out into the wilderness.

And this phrase is used to describe now the people of God Israel, that they are a people for his own possession.

What does that mean?

What does that mean?

It means that by grace, if you're a Christian, you belong to the Father.

It means that you're his.

That has huge ramifications for your life.

One, it means that you live for him.

Remember 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says, you are not your own.

You were bought with a price.

Therefore, glorify God with your body.

It means that you live for him.

But it also means if you belong to the sovereign, almighty, all-powerful, omniscient God, and you're his own possession.

What does that mean for your life?

Can you lose your salvation?

No.

Jesus said, No one can take my sheep out of my hand.

My Father who is greater than all, no one can take the sheep out of his hand.

If you belong to him, then your future is settled.

Your salvation is sure.

Remember Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, talking about anxiety?

He says, consider the lilies of the field.

Consider the birds of the earth.

Does not the Lord feed the birds?

Does not the Lord clothe the lilies?

How much more you, God's children?

And so we've gone.

You've gone from this place of living a lawless life and rebellion against God.

And now you've been ransomed from that life?

You've been clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

There's this inside work in your life, and now you are called the people of God, a people of God's own possession.

What else does that mean?

It means that every single day, one of the most glorious promises in Scripture is worked for your good.

Romans 8.28, God works all things together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

So when you wake up every single day, I want you to imagine waking up tomorrow.

When you wake up, everything you will encounter that day, even the bad things, the worst things, maybe even your death, all of it, all of it is for your ultimate good.

Because you belong to Him.

Nothing will settle your heart like that.

That is the most gracious, amazing reality that you can understand.

That God works good for His people.

So that's the fourth foundation stone that you belong to Him.

And then the fifth and final one zeal.

Zealousness.

Notice that this comes at the very end of the verse.

This comes at the very end.

Good works, good works are not the grounds of our salvation.

They're the fruit of our salvation.

They're the result of our salvation.

You could say that good works are the evidence of grace.

They're the evidences of grace.

What have you seen so far in this passage that you and I do?

Take us look at it.

Jesus gave himself for us.

He redeemed us from all lawlessness.

He purified for himself a people for his own possession.

And then at the very end, he says, Those people then are zealous for good works.

In other words, good works are the fruit, the result of divine grace.

Paul says this, this is uh 1 Corinthians 15 10.

Paul said, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

In other words, every day, as you're going along, the good works that you do, it's fueled by the Holy Spirit in you.

It's that grace in you that is empowering you, empowering you to do the good works.

And in fact, those are the good works that count for eternity.

You know, the secularists to ease their conscience, they're constantly giving to charity, uh, volunteering their time, but it's out of a seared conscience.

The good works that count are works that the Holy Spirit is working in your life ultimately for the advance of the kingdom of Christ.

Where Christianity is gone in this world, think about this for a second, in history.

Wherever Christianity is gone, the message of the gospel, the message of grace, what has been the result of Christianity in the West?

Orphanages.

Hospitals.

Bringing water to people that don't have water.

Wherever Christianity is gone, it's changed the world.

How many Muslim hospitals or orphanages do you see being built?

Answer none.

They don't do that.

It's the grace of God that transforms believers to do the good works.

And so if we get that right, we can understand where good works fall into this.

We don't do good works to earn grace, we do good works because of grace.

So our prayer should be: the deeper we can go into grace, the more you get your head around verse 14 and verses like it, Ephesians 2.8, the more you can think about what Jesus has done for you, what God has done for you, the plan of God in redemption, what does that make you want to do in your heart?

It makes me want to serve Him.

It makes me want to live for Him.

It makes me want to do those good works.

And so the evidence that the King's Chapel is a church that is shaped by grace is that we're zealous for good works.

Zealous.

That word means a passion, a fervency.

You ask, does that describe you and me?

That we have this fervency, this zealousness to do good.

Let me give you as we close three distinctives.

Three distinctives that should result from understanding these foundation stones of grace.

And this is my prayer for us, the prayer for the King's Chapel.

First, doxological that you would praise God.

You did nothing.

You did nothing to earn any of this.

Sometimes preachers say God does his part, we do our part.

No, no, no, no.

He does all of it.

Grace is an entire work of God.

He redeemed you from all lawlessness, he changed your life.

So therefore, solo deo gloria, he gets all the glory.

The more you study grace, the more you give glory to him.

And so we need to be a praising church, lifting up our voices, lifting up our lives in worship and praise to him.

Second, understanding the nature of grace helps us progress beyond being baby Christians.

Now we can begin to progress to godliness.

All the godliness that Paul talks about in Titus 2 is built right here.

It's built right here.

And I say baby Christians, of course, we love our baby Christians.

You know, you know what I'm talking about?

They get saved and they're they're they love Jesus, but sadly, many baby Christians don't grow much beyond that.

And part of that is because they're never actually taught these foundations of grace of what happened to them, of what God did for them, what Jesus has accomplished for them.

And so the more you go into this, the more you think about this, the more you grow in sanctification and godliness.

And then third, our zeal for Christ can and must increase.

Our zeal for Christ can and must increase.

As we're praying and you're thinking about church, as you're thinking about church, you think about church during the week, you think about coming to this moment, you think about coming maybe on Wednesday night.

I want you to start thinking about being zealous for good works.

Being zealous for good works.

And I want you to start asking the question: how can I serve the body of Christ?

How can I demonstrate this grace that has been given to me in the lives of others?

How can I be zealous for good works?

Not to earn any more of God's favor, but because he's given me so much.

And the more you serve, the more that you're fervent for these types of good works, the more joyful you will be as you see the Holy Spirit's grace in your life.

And the amazing thing is that God's grace is new every day.

It's inexhaustible.

You know, every Sunday morning I'm praying.

And I'm praying, Lord, fill me up with your grace that I might serve you.

Every morning I'm praying that.

And before every every task I know that you encounter, if you're praying in the spirit, you're praying, Lord, I need your grace, I need your strength, I need your power.

And he's faithful.

So let's ask the Lord to do this work of grace and increase our zeal for him, increase our fervor for him.

Let's do that now.

Lord, we pray.

Lord, we want to understand your grace more fully, more deeply.

We're in awe of what you did for us, that you gave your life for us, that you redeemed us from all lawlessness.

Moreover, you positively purified us.

You gave us the righteousness of Christ.

You cleansed us from the inside out so that we would have new affections, new desires.

You made us your own, a people for your own possession, so that we know we belong to you.

What an amazing truth.

And then you make us zealous for good works.

This new life that we have, doing good works in service to you, in service to others, this new life that we have is all this work of grace.

So, Lord, we pray that we would see that life in our midst.

Would you do this work of grace in our midst?

Would you bring revival to our midst where we become more and more people of grace, zealous to do good works, serving one another?

I pray, Lord, for those here whose eyes are still closed to this reality, open their eyes that they may see your grace.

And Lord, may they profess Christ today, repent of their sins, and trust Christ in faith as recipients of this amazing grace.