Titus 2:11-15

Do you realize that this is the very reason why we have received grace from God? I am going to show it to you.

These verses are jam-packed with instruction regarding our responsibility toward this subject. I think that all of us coming from this Protestant-dominated society have grown up with the belief that grace is a free gift!

Now, free it is—I do not deny that! But I also think that there is a possibility that we do not understand what the Bible means by free. I am going to clarify that for you. Think of these next verses in terms of yourself as being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Brethren, is being a disciple of Christ free to us? These verses say to me that we have to give up everything! That is not cheap! And He mentions this in the context of the things that are normally the most dear to us of all things on earth—our flesh-and-blood relatives!

There is no greater price that a human being can pay than to give up his family and, yes, his own life! That is not cheap! That is not free!

Grace is the most costly thing that has ever been given to this earth. It was costly in terms of the life of the very Creator—the God who made everything! He gave His life! And in return, in order to receive that grace, He demands of us—you and me—that we give up our lives. It is not cheap. It is not free.

Then how can people say that it is free? Brethren, I do not know whether Christ could have made the cost of our obligation any clearer than He did right here. There are no relationship ties stronger than blood ties.

We have probably heard the saying, "blood is thicker than water." The origin of this saying came out of the Church of England, I believe. Blood ties are stronger than the Holy Spirit (water). They recognized that family ties would pull people away from the truth of God. They are that powerful!

Grace is not free and it is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination! Then He tells us that in addition to this we have to humbly bear any burden that comes upon us as a result of our discipleship, as a result of our having received such forgiveness. Sometimes that cost can be very great. It is pretty sweeping in terms of its consequence.

Free does not mean cheap; it means that God freely gave it—that is what it means. God was under no constraint. There was no obligation on His part to do what He did. He owes us absolutely nothing for what we have done. Grace is an aspect of His love that has no motive but itself. "God so loved the world that He gave. . ."

Looking at history, brethren, is there anything about us that is lovable? Look at what we have done to this earth! Look at what we have done to one another! In the name of "God" we have blown one another to smithereens! Brethren, if someone did something to your property and to your family the way we have treated God's property and family, I think that we would have an awfully difficult time freely giving love. In fact, we may be unable, totally, to do it! We do not have a love of that depth. But God freely gave it—under no obligation whatsoever.

So grace is a self-motivating, stooping, communicating, tender, and forgiving mercy which has appeared, it says in this verse (back to Titus 2). It has appeared. This word, appeared, is the same word that is used in Greek literature to describe the bursting forth of the sun in a glorious sunrise over the darkened earth! The feminine form of this word is used in the Bible to describe Christ's first coming and His second coming. It is usually used in the passive tense and it means "to show openly; to shine forth light upon." It has the sense of something occurring suddenly and unexpectedly.

I think in this context Paul is saying that we normally do not expect grace to teach us something. Grace teaches us something. Are we aware of that? The word "teach" is very interesting, as well. It is paideuo, in the Greek.

This word is used in the sense of … . . .

Titus 2:11-14

There are things that we must learn from grace and whether what we learn comes from God's grace to us directly, or the kind of grace He has given to others, it matters not. We better learn something from God's grace! The Days of Unleavened Bread have very much to do with this.

I've used this scripture a couple of times recently, but is so important to our understanding. If there is anything this verse teaches us, it is that grace is not the entire story, especially after we leave Egypt. Our portion of the responsibility for salvation begins to become larger after we leave Egypt. It will never be in balance with what God does. God is always going to be doing way more providing salvation for us than we do, but our part enlarges, and that's the way it is in life too, as well.

The realization of grace and what it accomplishes for us puts us under obligation to respond to God in the way that these verses show. It says there that "grace teaches us"—or "grace trains us" would be a bit more specific interpretation or translation of that. What obligation does it put us under? It puts us under obligation to no longer LIVE the way we did in bondage.

What grace does, as we can see from these verses, is it makes ethical demands on us. It makes ethical demands that are consistent with its nature. Since it's the grace of God, the nature of this grace is God's. We are then put under obligation to change or to produce ethical things that are consistent with God. So why is grace given? So a change can take place.

In Titus 2:11-14, the word that's translated "worldly" is kosmikos. It's an adverbial form of the word cosmos. Cosmos means world. We have the adverbial form here "worldly." It means "of the world."

You'll understand it, I think, if I give you a synonym we can all relate to. Its synonym is "carnal." Its antonym is haggios. Does anyone know what haggios means? It means "holy." The opposite of worldly is holy. Holy means pure; holy means different; holy means set apart.

Worldly lust, which is what these people in Numbers 11 were having an attack of—they were lusting after the food—it was a carnal desire that had gotten out of hand. Worldly lusts are those desires that are not of God but of the world, and these desires are FUELED by the reservoir of concepts that are formed from our experiences in bondage in the world.

Titus 2:11-13

Most of these things listed here as ungodliness are the things with which we are more familiar. These kinds of things, too, are those which can occur within a congregation of the church of God. But then we also find in this context the unholy marriage of idolatry joined to immorality. We find that these things are ungodly.

Let us put this back into the context of Titus 2:11-13. When grace truly comes into a person's life, one will repudiate consciously and utterly reject ungodliness. It will not happen all at once. But if we are growing we will be moving in that direction.

The second is—worldly passions.

This is the way that Moffatt puts it. He is talking about desire here. Desire is so common to us that it might even cause a measure of guilt because we feel any cravings whatsoever. Desire of and by itself is not wrong—it is not sin. God created us with the ability to desire. It is from desire that accomplishment comes.

There are two different kinds of desire, however. There are godly desires and there are worldly desires. God wants us to desire the Kingdom of God. God wants us to desire the character of Jesus Christ. He wants us to desire that we become like Jesus Christ. He wants us to desire peace in the congregation. He wants us to desire the love of God, the peace of God, the joy of God—all of the fruits of God's Spirit. He wants us to desire these things.

If they are greater than the desire for worldly things then that is the direction in which we will move because we always move in the direction of our desires—unless we will to do otherwise. You see, we can do that—we can will to do otherwise—so that whenever a wrong desire does arise we can consciously will to move away from it.

Grace teaches us this. If we had not received grace we would not will ourselves to move away from a desire that is wrong. What would we do? We would allow ourselves to gratify that desire. Grace teaches us—it schools us, it instructs us, it drills us—and it will chasten us so that we are consciously choosing to move our desires in the right direction and to renounce those desires that are wrong.

Titus 2:11-14

Forgiveness, redemption through Christ's blood, the grace of God, has a long-ranged purpose. We have a tendency to think of grace—rightly so—as God's free gift, unmerited pardon. God does this with a purpose in mind. It is not an end-all for everything, but rather it is only a beginning of a process that will end in whatever it is that God wants to be produced and so grace, though it is free, has a process attached to it.

Moffat reads in such a way so that we see three areas that God wants this process to take place within. He translated them self mastery, integrity, and godliness. They are much more accurate than what we tend to see in the King James or the New King James. But without going into them deeply, the grace of God teaches us, schools us, that we should have self-control, self-mastery. That we should become self-governing and this has to do with a person's control of his own appetites, his own passions, his own feelings.

Integrity has to do with one's relationships with other people. Godliness has to do with one's fellowship with God. It becomes clear, then, that God gives us grace to relieve us of the penalty of our sins against His government so that we can be changed. Grace, in effect, becomes a teacher. We begin to see that though grace is freely given, it has a cost to it to those who receive it, and the cost is that the person who receives it has to give his life over to the accomplishment of self-mastery, integrity, and godliness.

Human nature wants the good life, but it neither wants to work to achieve it nor does it want to pay the penalty. God removes the penalty, but we are obligated in return to allow grace to have its work in us to prepare us through self-mastery, integrity, and godliness. Human nature wants the good things, it wants to have the penalty removed, and it wants to be rewarded with good things.

Notice what Moffat said in verse 14, "God is creating a people who are zestful for good works." Grace teaches us that part of the cost is good works required of those who receive it.

Titus 2:11-15

Grace here appears as the connotation of penetrating in the same way that light penetrates darkness. It does not just appear to darkness, but rather it penetrates it and disperses it. That is what grace does to a human being. It enters into a person's life, penetrates it, and begins dynamically to produce things.

This is what John 1 is about. God came to the earth and He penetrated it. The grace of God appeared to man in the person of Jesus. It can be translated that God's grace made its appearance, salvation bringing.

Grace can rescue man from the greatest possible evil. What could that possibly be? The greatest possible evil that anybody can face is God's curse. Men can curse you, but if God curses you, you have had it. That curse is sin—I should say the penalty of sin. That would be more specific.

But God counterbalanced that, and more, by giving us grace. So here, then, grace is seen as the power that teaches. It trains us. It disciplines us. It guides and leads us. It does not force us. In other places it can been seen as being used as counseling, comforting, encouraging, admonishing, guiding, convicting, rewarding, even restraining. It teaches us that we must deny immorality, that we must give ourselves over to self-mastery, that is, controlling ourselves. We must give ourselves over to integrity and devotion right here and now. And all the while, expectantly and patiently looking forward to the return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the dead.

Titus 2:11-14

Again, think of this. From before the foundation of the earth, God knew that He was going to die for us. He knew that He was going to die a horrible, horrible death that He may purchase you so He could make you holy. It is humbling when you meditate on this thought.

You know, that is actually right. Christ's death made it possible for us to be holy. But it is His life, it is His interaction with you and I that helps us to actually become holy. He has invested in us. We are a treasure to Him. And He is going to do whatever it takes to make us holy.