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What Is the Grace of God Titus 2:11–15, Part 1 · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: This is our first session on Tidus to eleven to fifteen,
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  Speaker 1: for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for
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  Speaker 1: all people, training us in order that, having renounced on
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  Speaker 1: godliness and worldly passions, we might live self controlled, upright
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  Speaker 1: and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our
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  Speaker 1: blessed hope, even the appearing of the glory of our
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  Speaker 1: great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for
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  Speaker 1: us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify
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  Speaker 1: for himself a people for his own possession who are
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  Speaker 1: zealous for good deeds or good works. Declare these things
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  Speaker 1: and exhort rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you, Father,
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  Speaker 1: as we ponder the grace that you have cause to
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  Speaker 1: appear in history, the salvation that you have brought. Oh God,
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  Speaker 1: grant that this would be in some measure, in the
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  Speaker 1: scope of it, the depth of it, the height of it,
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  Speaker 1: the glory of it, understandable to us and loved by us,
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  Speaker 1: treasured and what our salvation involves. A prayer that in
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  Speaker 1: Jesus name, Amen. Mostly we'll talk about salvation and what
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  Speaker 1: it is next time. This time I want to focus
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  Speaker 1: on the grace of God. But first, the word four
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  Speaker 1: four usually means because and is the ground for what
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  Speaker 1: just went before. And it makes sense because here he says,
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  Speaker 1: because the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for
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  Speaker 1: all people. And he had just said, and he wants
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  Speaker 1: these slaves to live in such a magnificent and beautiful, humble,
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  Speaker 1: wise confident way that in everything they may adorn the
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  Speaker 1: doctrine of God, our savior, God our Savior, the teaching
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  Speaker 1: of the Saving God is to be made beautiful by
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  Speaker 1: this kind of behavior, because because the grace of God
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  Speaker 1: has appeared, bringing that salvation for all people, meaning both
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  Speaker 1: slaves and they're masters who may look on and say,
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  Speaker 1: what are you hoping in that you can live the
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  Speaker 1: kind of life where you don't steal from me, and
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  Speaker 1: you don't argue with me, and you please me and
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  Speaker 1: you submit to me, and you show all good faith
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  Speaker 1: to me. Where are you getting this amazing strength and
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  Speaker 1: hope and joy that keeps you from sinning against me
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  Speaker 1: like that when I, in fact, probably am sinning against
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  Speaker 1: you by the way I treat you. And the answer
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  Speaker 1: is that kind of behavior should adorn the doctrine of
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  Speaker 1: God our Savior. Because this is what that slave is
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  Speaker 1: counting on. Grace has come into the world, the grace
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  Speaker 1: of God, the love of God, the kindness of God.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, this word right here is replaced in the
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  Speaker 1: next chapter like this when the goodness and loving kindness
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  Speaker 1: of God our Savior upheared. So he's saying exactly the
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  Speaker 1: same thing in three four. The goodness and loving kindness
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  Speaker 1: of God our Savior appeared, as he is here when
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  Speaker 1: he says the grace of God appeared. So these slaves
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  Speaker 1: have tasted grace and goodness and kindness from God leading
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  Speaker 1: to salvation, which will unpack next time. But it definitely
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  Speaker 1: includes the hope of eternal life. So here's a slave
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  Speaker 1: who knows this world doesn't hold hell a lot of
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  Speaker 1: hope for him. He couldn't do much. Even if he
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  Speaker 1: tried to run away, he probably caught and killed. So
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  Speaker 1: what has God got to offer him? Billions of ages
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  Speaker 1: of happiness, that's what he's got to offer him. And
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  Speaker 1: that poor slave master, what does he get thirty forty
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  Speaker 1: fifty years of half baked pleasures embossing people around in
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  Speaker 1: this life and then hell. Of course, there's a great
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  Speaker 1: and glorious adornment of the doctrine of God, our savior.
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  Speaker 1: So what is the grace of God that has appeared.
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  Speaker 1: There's a strange phrase, isn't it. I mean, we don't
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  Speaker 1: usually think of we think of Jesus has appeared. The
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  Speaker 1: Son of God has appeared. We beheld his glory. Glory
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  Speaker 1: is of the only Son from the Father, full of
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  Speaker 1: grace and truth. In the beginning was the Word, and
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  Speaker 1: the word was with God. The word was God, and
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  Speaker 1: the Word became flesh and appeared among us. But here
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  Speaker 1: he says the grace of God has appeared among us,
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  Speaker 1: and that's referring to God shows up in Jesus Christ
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  Speaker 1: and does what needs to be done so that grace
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  Speaker 1: could do its work. This means that grace was there
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  Speaker 1: before it appeared, right two Timothy one nine. God saved
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  Speaker 1: us and called us to a holy calling, not because
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  Speaker 1: of our works, but because of his own purpose and
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  Speaker 1: grace which he gave us in Christ before the ages began.
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  Speaker 1: So the first thing I want to say about grace
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  Speaker 1: I haven't said already. I guess the next thing I
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  Speaker 1: want to say about grace is that it was God's
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  Speaker 1: purpose or plan before the ages began to save us
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  Speaker 1: a plan to save us, and that saving is the
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  Speaker 1: saving of sinners. That's what makes it grace. If you
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  Speaker 1: saved somebody that totally deserved saving, and you were totally
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  Speaker 1: indebted to them, you wouldn't call it grace. God owes
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  Speaker 1: us nothing, and we have sinned our way out of
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  Speaker 1: all merit, and if we're going to be saved and
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  Speaker 1: get eternal life and joy with Him, it's going to
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  Speaker 1: be totally grace, which is why in that next chapter
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  Speaker 1: he says we are justified by grace. Here there here
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  Speaker 1: in verse seven of chapter three. Justified means declared not guilty,
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  Speaker 1: even though we are guilty, because it's grace. So there
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  Speaker 1: was grace in the heart of God before the creation began,
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  Speaker 1: and it was a purpose and a plan to save
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  Speaker 1: sinners before there was any sin in the world. Think
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  Speaker 1: that through this is right at the center of God's
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  Speaker 1: ultimate purpose as it is playing from Ephesians One. God
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  Speaker 1: chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
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  Speaker 1: that we should be holy in blameleous before him in love.
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  Speaker 1: He predestined us for adoption to himself as suns through
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  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. So predestined before the foundation of the world
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  Speaker 1: through Jesus Christ. This is all planned. The death of Jesus,
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  Speaker 1: the resurrection of Jesus to save undeserving people, was planned
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  Speaker 1: before there was any sin or creation, according to the
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  Speaker 1: purpose of his will, to the praise of the glory
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  Speaker 1: of His grace. So all of this election and predestination
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  Speaker 1: and everything else, as we find in chapter one, verse
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  Speaker 1: eleven of this book, is for the praise of the
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  Speaker 1: glory of the grace of God. So what is grace?
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  Speaker 1: So far, we'll just go one chapter forward in Ephesians.
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  Speaker 1: But God, being rich in mercy because of the great
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  Speaker 1: love with which He loved us, even when we were
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  Speaker 1: dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
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  Speaker 1: By grace, you've been saved. So he inserts in the
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  Speaker 1: sentence right after saying you were dead and God made
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  Speaker 1: you alive. Grace saved you, which means grace is providing
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  Speaker 1: for us what we cannot provide. Dead people don't make
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  Speaker 1: themselves alive by grace. You've been saved. Is inserted precisely
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  Speaker 1: here to make clear that if you have life, you
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  Speaker 1: have it owing totally, not to yourself but to God.
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  Speaker 1: And that means, since you don't deserve it, that gift
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  Speaker 1: that life is free. It is grace. So grace is
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  Speaker 1: the overflow of the fullness of God. He doesn't need us,
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  Speaker 1: he doesn't need our works, and he doesn't need our performances.
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  Speaker 1: He's the giver in this affair. As it says in
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  Speaker 1: verse two YEW one fourteen, the grace of our Lord overflowed.
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  Speaker 1: So there's this, there's this pot of grace which is crazy.
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  Speaker 1: There's no bottom to it, right, it's bottomless. It is
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  Speaker 1: absolutely infinite, and it comes up to the top. And
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  Speaker 1: it is its very nature that it spills over onto
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  Speaker 1: Paul type people, haters of God and gives them faith
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  Speaker 1: and love or makes them alive. That's what grace does.
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  Speaker 1: It provides everything necessary so that God, in his justice
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  Speaker 1: can save undeserving ill deserving people. One more comment. Grace
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  Speaker 1: is not only God's plan and disposition to treat sinners
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  Speaker 1: better than they deserve. It is also his power to
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  Speaker 1: do so power to it about. And you can see
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  Speaker 1: that here the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation
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  Speaker 1: to all people. Training training us. So power gets i
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  Speaker 1: mean grace as power gets down dirty inside of us
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  Speaker 1: and changes us. And we'll watch how that happens. Next time.
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  Speaker 1: But I just want to point that out because so
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  Speaker 1: many people speak of grace as God's pardon and his
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  Speaker 1: disposition to treat us better than we deserve, and they
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  Speaker 1: don't have a clear way to relate grace and holiness
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  Speaker 1: real lived out transformation. But if grace is the power
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  Speaker 1: of God to make sinners good, not just declare them righteous,
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  Speaker 1: then you have a link by the grace of God.
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  Speaker 1: I am what I am, and His grace towards me
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  Speaker 1: was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked, His
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  Speaker 1: grace was not in vain. It enabled me to work.
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  Speaker 1: It caused me to work harder than any of them.
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  Speaker 1: It was not I, It was not I, but the
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  Speaker 1: grace of God that was with me. The harder Paul
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  Speaker 1: worked in reliance on God, the more you could see
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  Speaker 1: of the grace of God at work through Paul as
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  Speaker 1: a power. Same thing in sewo Corinthians nine eight. God
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  Speaker 1: is able to make all grace abound to you, so
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  Speaker 1: that having all sufficiency in all things, at all times,
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  Speaker 1: you may abound in every good work. Grace is God's
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  Speaker 1: power to enable you to do good works. So the
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  Speaker 1: grace of God has appeared. Now that means all of
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  Speaker 1: that plan for the good of sinners, all that disposition
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  Speaker 1: to overflow out of the oldness to treat sinners better
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  Speaker 1: than we deserve, all that power to work in us,
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  Speaker 1: to make us what we ought to be, in need
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  Speaker 1: to be in order to finally obtain this salvation that
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  Speaker 1: has appeared in Jesus Christ. And next time we'll talk
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  Speaker 1: about what does salvation looks like and how it does
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  Speaker 1: its work.