Christmas: The Grace of God Has Appeared (Titus 2:11-14)

Hello, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning in to New Sun Churches Podcast.

We're a gospel centered church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

The second reading is from the Book of Titus, chapter 2, verses 11 to 14.

Titus 2:11–14

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.

This is the word of the Lord.

The grace of God has appeared.

Oh come, let us adore him.

Let's pray.

God of God, light of light.

We come into your holy presence tonight, always needful of your grace.

Will the eyes of our heart be drawn once again to behold our Savior born for us?

In his name we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, it was in my very first week of college during orientation that professors and upperclassmen were offering all sorts of advice.

Some advice solicited, some advice not so much solicited.

But I do remember one of these pieces of advice.

A professor recommended a book that we should read as we head into the rest of our studies.

And this book was called How to Read a Book.

And I was 18, and I read a healthy two to three books a year at that time.

And I thought to myself, what a waste of time.

I am not going to waste one of the two or three books I read in a year on a book about how to read books.

Of course, you catch the wisdom that my professor was offering at the time.

I didn't catch it at the time.

There's wisdom in going back to basics, right?

In fact, the further on I go in life, the further away I get from college, the more I realize some of the wisest people I know go back to basics frequently.

We go back to basics lest we m lest we have missed something of crucial importance that we ought to understand.

Okay, where are you going with this, Friedrich?

Year for year, we love to celebrate Christmas.

And we see Queen Street decorated with lights, and we go into the storefronts and we sing the songs and we share the cards and we celebrate things like peace on earth.

And all the while we hear phrases like the spirit of Christmas, the significance of Christmas.

And sometimes I wonder if we've arrived at the conclusion too quickly.

If what we've concluded is the spirit of Christmas, the significance of Christmas, boils essentially down to treating one another well.

Which, by the way, is a very good idea.

Don't go home, you know, like the pastor told you not to be kind to one another or something like that.

It's tempting to think that the spirit of Christmas perhaps boils down to our disposition, our attitudes, our actions towards one another.

We read peace on earth and we think it would be nice if there were more peace on earth.

I certainly would enjoy more peace.

Maybe I should be more peaceful to others.

And that's a good thought, by the way.

Again, good thought.

But that's a good thought.

That's good advice, isn't it?

If we're talking about Christmas and we want to know what the good news of Christmas is, we need more than just good advice.

I wonder if sometimes we need to get back to basics and consider whether or not we've missed something of crucial importance, something that illuminates the significance of Christmas from the inside out.

Is the significance of Christmas about our disposition towards one another?

Well, certainly that's an implication.

But perhaps there's something deeper.

I wonder if we're in a comparable position to the church in Crete.

Paul writes a letter to a protege of his named Titus, and he's sent Titus to be a pastor in this church on this Mediterranean island that is in, let's put it, rough shape.

Paul's exhortation to Titus is to teach what accords with sound doctrine.

We could put it in other words and say, proclaim the gospel.

See, it's very interesting to me that a church that is so out of order and out of whack, like the church in Crete, Paul is not saying, take it to them, bring down the moral hammer.

Paul is saying, preach the gospel to them and let everything else follow.

And what Paul has to say about the basics, the very fundamentals of the Christian life, I think illuminates the significance of this mystery we call Christmas, that we celebrate year for year as Christians.

Perhaps the significance of Christmas lies less in our disposition towards one another, as important as that is, and perhaps the significance lies more in God's disposition towards us.

Here's the message that Paul exhorts Titus to make known to Christians in Crete and would offer to us tonight.

God's grace has definitively appeared in Jesus Christ.

God's grace, his favor, his kindness has definitively appeared in our Lord Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate that night.

God's grace is his disposition towards us.

Peace on earth, goodwill with those to whom he is pleased.

See, we need to consider the significance of God's grace if we are going to grasp the greater significance of this thing we call Christmas.

See, the first mistake I think we make with grace is we assume it's some kind of divine substance that God keeps stashed up in bottles, and every once in a while he pours a drop on us from on high.

Grace is less like this substance God distributes, and it's more like God's very heart being revealed in real time.

Here's how one commentator puts it grace is not some abstract doctrine or theological construct.

Grace is as personal as Christ is.

In fact, Christ is grace.

The unmerited favor of God is what Jesus is about, but it is also who He is.

We need to consider the significance of God's grace.

And Paul wants to help us do that.

In this amazing exposition of God's grace, we see that God's grace in Christ towards us does three things: it saves us, it sanctifies us, and it sustains us.

So let's consider the significance of grace and discover something of the greater significance of Christmas.

Let's open up our Bibles or our order of service to Titus chapter 2.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

For using the Pew Bibles, that's page 938.

And I've been looking forward to giving a pew Bible number for a long time, so I'm very excited about this.

I guess we don't have pews, do we?

But you know what I mean.

God's grace, his favor, his unmerited kindness has definitively appeared for us in Jesus Christ, and God's grace, first and foremost, saves us.

Did you catch that in verse 11?

The grace of God has appeared, Paul writes, bringing salvation for all people.

God's grace, first and foremost, brings salvation.

It brings rescue for us.

And if God's grace brings rescue, then we want to ask the logical question, which is, rescue from what?

And Paul would give us an answer in his letter to the Ephesians.

In chapter 2, he writes, You, that is, the corporate you, you all, were once dead in your trespasses and sins.

And he goes on to conclude, therefore we all were by nature deserving of God's wrath.

God's grace brings salvation with it.

It brings rescue from spiritual death, lifelessness apart from God's grace, and it brings liberation from God's condemnation, which we as sinners justly deserve.

This is not good news so far, is it?

Hang in there.

God's grace brings salvation, liberation, rescue from all of these things, and it brings it for all people.

Salvation is truly offered to all.

There is no limit to God's grace.

It is sufficient for all.

Tim Keller writes this of the gospel.

The gospel is this.

We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe.

Yet at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

See, if we believe that God's grace brings salvation with it, then we have good reason for hope, don't we?

Yes, the Bible's diagnosis makes us uncomfortable, to say the least.

Condemnation and spiritual death are not happy thoughts, but God is not content to leave us in this predicament and consign us to our fate.

No, God enters into our situation, bringing his salvation with him.

As surely as Christ was born, he brings his grace to bear on a creation that is otherwise estranged from him.

He calls us to himself.

He comes to us and takes the gracious initiative towards us.

This is the heart of our God to meet us in our greatest need.

And surely this is a great assurance for us as Christians.

As surely as Christ was born, he was born for you, because salvation is for all people.

As surely as Christ was crucified, he was crucified for your transgressions and bore away your guilt.

And as surely as Christ was raised, he was raised for your justification, so that you can be in right standing with God.

Do you see the significance, friends, of God's grace?

This is the gracious heart of our God revealed to us in Jesus Christ who is born.

Our God is not a God who is content to consign us away, but he comes for us to draw us to himself in Christ.

His grace saves us.

His grace finds us where we are, just like this baby born in this backwater called Bethlehem, amongst the lowliest people around, these shepherds working the night shift.

God's grace comes to us, the lowliest of all people, exactly where we are, and brings salvation with it.

But God's grace doesn't leave us where we are.

No, God's grace trains us, it upbuilds us, it strengthens us.

In fact, God's grace sanctifies us.

Let's look at uh verse 11, verse 12 here.

The grace of God has appeared, first and foremost bringing salvation with it.

Second, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.

God's grace sanctifies us, and it sanctifies us in two ways.

Did you see that?

It trains us, first, to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.

Another way of saying that might be: God's grace trains us to say no to sin.

That which does not conform to God's gracious character, his heart towards us, or his good will towards us.

We turn away from turning away from God.

And God's grace trains us not just to turn away from sin, but to say a comprehensive and ongoing yes to God's good will for us in Christ.

It trains us to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.

And I think what Paul is trying to get at is this grace is comprehensive.

There is no part of our life it does not transform.

See, God's grace trains us to live into the very character, the very heart of the God who saves us in Christ.

One commentator writes this involves all of oneself.

It involves one's relationships to others, it involves one's relationship with God.

The life of grace is comprehensive.

But I want us to note a very important point that Paul's making here.

The sequence matters.

Because the sequence suggests cause and effect.

And often I wonder if we Christians get the cause mixed up with the effect.

Here's what I mean: God's grace saves us, God's grace sanctifies us, it trains us to live a life that conforms to God's good will.

But what comes first?

Our moral action or God's grace?

See, often I wonder if we think it's our moral action.

If I do all the right things and I don't do all the wrong things, then God is going to see fit to give me a couple of celestial drops of that grace thing that I need so badly.

And my relationship with God essentially becomes a transaction, doesn't it?

There's no assurance in a transaction.

I just hope God keeps up his end of the bargain if I can keep up mine.

Notice the sequence here.

Our moral action is not the cause, and God's grace is not the effect.

God's grace comes first.

It is the cause.

And our training in godly living is the effect.

Do you see that?

That makes all the difference.

Let's think about it this way.

One child, well, pardon me, two children are asked to go and clean their room.

That's never happened to us, right?

One child knows without a shadow of a doubt how much her parents love her.

And so therefore goes about the task of cleaning the room, however reluctantly, with the assurance of the parents' love no matter what, regardless of the outcome.

And perhaps even sees in this, pardon me, I'm on this mic, perhaps sees in this opportunity to clean the room an expression of gratitude and reciprocation for the love that the parents have shown her.

But another child gets asked to clean his room, and perhaps for whatever reason, this child has no assurance, no sense of certainty of how much his parents love him.

And so instead he goes about the task of cleaning his room with an anxious perfectionism that says, unless I get this absolutely right, I'm not sure my parents can love me.

Both children go about the task of cleaning their room.

Let's say both children accomplish the task of cleaning their room, but both do it with very different hearts, don't they?

Very different dispositions.

This is the difference that the gospel can make, friends.

If God's grace comes first and our moral action is the effect, then the way we live our Christian lives is lived not with an anxiety, an uncertainty about how God feels about us.

It is lived with an assurance that God's grace comes to us first and foremost.

And every action we can take for the sake of God and for the sake of others is simply a grateful response to his generosity, which he has freely shown to us in Christ.

Do you see the difference?

Grace comes first.

From time to time I have the privilege of talking with folks experiencing some sort of spiritual desolation.

They're in the dark night of the soul.

And often, and this is just my own intuition, I wonder if folks expect me to say something like, Here are the three or five or maybe ten things that you need to do to make sure that you're on the right page with God.

If you do all these things correctly, then surely He's going to be generous towards you.

And that would be a mistake.

Because the thing we need in our spiritual desolation, when we are at our lowest, we need not to hear all the things you need to accomplish before God.

That is not the gospel.

The gospel is come back to the good news of Jesus and see what God in Christ has done for you first and foremost.

I'm convinced that the cure for spiritual desolation is not laying down God's law, it is delighting in the gospel.

Perhaps there are some of us who need to come back to that simple gospel of grace once again and delight in this Savior who is freely, joyfully given as God's grace.

God's grace saves us.

God's grace sanctifies us, it trains us, even while it precedes our very training.

But it goes even further.

It anticipates even greater things to come.

Let's look at verses 13 and 14.

Right?

God's grace has appeared, it's training us, it's sanctifying us in this present age as we do what?

As we are waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has given 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.

God's grace saves us, it sanctifies us, but finally it sustains us.

We have something to look forward to, friends.

We are waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

We've talked about the grace of God, pardon me, in verse 11, the grace of God has appeared.

Now we look forward to a future appearing.

No celebration of Christmas.

The first advent, the first coming of Christ is complete without looking forward to that second advent, that second coming of Christ, where he will come in glory and bring his kingdom with him.

And things on earth will be as they are in heaven, and he will dwell with us as his people, and we will dwell with him as our God.

The Christian faith, friends, is a forward-looking faith.

Surely.

Yes, it does look back.

And we do remember, and we take assurance from that which we remember.

We see that in verse 14.

Paul looks back.

He remembers our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us, right?

To purify us.

Paul reflects back on the great events of salvation that have transpired, and he finds great assurance for the Christian life in them.

Yes, we as Christians open up the scriptures and we look back to remember the good things that God has done, and we are filled with assurance.

And being filled with assurance of God's goodness and grace, we are therefore made zealous to get about the business of doing good works in the present.

Because anticipating the future, waiting for that blessed hope, is not a passive activity, sitting around and twiddling our thumbs.

No, we're empowered to go out and do the good works that God has prepared for us to do in Christ.

Christians tend to the presence with an enthusiasm for the good works that God calls us to.

We look back and we remember with assurance.

We look presently with enthusiasm, but let's not forget we look forward to an even greater grace which will eclipse all of this.

Past saving grace and present sanctifying grace sustains our hope for that future grace, the coming of our Lord Jesus.

Think back to when you were a kid.

Perhaps you remember, as a kid, thinking back on all Christmases past.

You spent all year long thinking about the gifts that you received.

Perhaps your parents, like mine, put out the gifts weeks ahead of time, so you had to just painfully stare at them for a few weeks until you got to open them.

You remember the day that those gifts, those presents, they were put out, and you keep recalling that.

And then in the present, you keep looking at the gifts and you think, there's good things in there.

I just know it.

But when Christmas Day comes, what do you say?

Do you say, boy, those those Christmas presents are just too lovely to look at, you know?

And my memory is just too sweet.

I don't even want to open my gifts.

No one says that.

Presents are meant to be unwrapped, they're meant to be anticipated.

And friends, we as Christians live in the present anticipating the greatest gift to come.

We have received the great gift of our Savior Jesus born on that first Christmas day, but we wait to unwrap the fullness of that gift when he returns.

We have a future-looking faith, and we anticipate his coming again with insurance, with enthusiasm, and with anticipation.

Friends, God's grace in Christ has appeared to us definitively in our Lord Jesus, saving us, sanctifying us, and sustaining us for the age to come.

So perhaps, friends, this is the time of year where you come and visit church, and we are so delighted that you're here.

And perhaps you're curious about who this Jesus is, or perhaps you're doing a kindness to someone who's invited you this morning or this evening.

Either way, we are so glad you're here.

Let me leave you with a simple thought to ponder.

As we go back to basics, let's consider who Jesus reveals himself to be, even more than perhaps what's said about him.

Is Jesus our great moral example of how to treat one another more peacefully, or is he himself the peace of God made incarnate?

Has he taught us to treat one another more gracefully, or foundationally, is he the very grace of God revealed to us?

If he is the grace of God himself, then perhaps it's to Jesus we need to go.

If we want to discover what Christmas truly means, perhaps it's Jesus we need to consider.

And if we are here, and perhaps we've come to church for a long, long time, but perhaps we come always wondering, is God really happy with me?

I mean, I'm doing my best, or maybe I know I'm not doing my best, but what is God's disposition towards me truly?

Let Christmas bear witness to your heart, friend.

God's grace precedes whatever action we think we can take for his sake.

And God was glad to do it.

God comes to us in our Savior, Lord Jesus Christ, to the lowliest, and offers us the gift of himself.

Let's receive it continually by faith.

For the grace of God has appeared.

Oh come, let us adore him.

Amen.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's word today.

If you live in the Port Perry area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

Newsong's ministry is entirely funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us.

If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make your contribution.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.