January 27, 2011 Forward Motion Faith

Grace As A Teacher

I had a great time teaching tonight!  I sure hope our folk get as much out of class as I do!  I absolutely love what I do in shepherding the church.  I am home after a late appointment.  I was just sitting here in the quiet of our family room thinking about the subject of grace.  Grace is the favor or the blessings of God on all of us as believers.  Underserved favor!   As a pastor my mind wandered to the place where I know so many want to abuse grace.  They trample grace under their feet by engaging in repetitious sin and taking advantage of God’s grace to forgive.  Romans chapter one points to this type of person who engages in repetitious sin and finds pleasure in doing as “depraved”.  The KJV refers to them as “reprobates.”   They simply ignore the righteousness of character and engage in sin.  They know its sin but ignore conviction and do it anyway.  This is rejecting grace – not accepting grace.

Titus has something to say about grace that I think we overlook.  Everyone wants the blessing of grace but not the discipline of it.  Let me point something out to you.

Titus 2:11-14  

11   For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,

12  instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,

13  looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,

14  who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

1. Grace brings salvation to men.  Unmerited favor introduces men to Christ.  We are saved by grace and not by works – because God knew if we “did” something to get saved we would brag about it and we would become the initiator of salvation.  We enter into the kingdom by grace.

Ephesians  2:8-9   For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;   9  not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

2. All men can be saved.  Grace or unmerited favor is an equal opportunity salvation!  All men can be saved.  Grace reaches to the wealthy and the poor, the educated and the ignorant.  Grace brings salvation to all men…everywhere.  Black, white, red, Russian, Romanian, Indian, Anglo-Saxon, American, South American, British.  It doesn’t matter what religion a man professes – if he is not a believer in Jesus Christ he can be converted! Salvation is free to all men.  There is only one way to be saved – through Jesus Christ the Son of God!

Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

3. Grace becomes a teacher that opposes ungodliness.  Grace is found as a teacher within our heart.  Grace has a job description as a teacher – teach us inwardly to deny ungodliness and worldly desires.  Wow!  Think about that for a moment!

Grace screams at us to “reject” ungodliness (destitute of reverential awe toward God) and worldly desires (corrupt lusts).  Grace has her hands full!  Ungodliness is the absence of fear towards God and worldly desires are the attractions toward our innate desires in a perverted sense. 

For those “faith perverts” out there who assume they can pervert the gospel (Galatians 1.7) and live like they want to because of grace – you’re kidding yourself…actually, deceiving yourselves.  You can’t sin and consistently trample on grace.  Grace teaches against it.  If you have real grace in your heart you won’t want to sin –period.

4. Grace motivates hope in the rapture.   The denial of ungodliness and worldly desires is in preparation for the rapture.  We deny these two antichrist and anti-scripture dynamics in our life because we are looking for the Lord’s return.  Two things here: a) looking for a blessed hope and 2) appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul said he was after two things – looking with forward motion faith for the rapture and second the actual appearing of the Lord.  The coming of the Lord ought to make all of us walk a little more balanced, righteous and honest with God the Father. 

Grace is a teacher that teaches us to trust in the unmerited favor of God – not trample it under foot.  Grace teaches us not sin – in light of the coming of the Lord.  Now we can better understand where sin abound grace does much more abound.  You get the picture don’t you?