Titus 2:11-15
Date: October 22nd, 2023
Speaker: Samuel Crites
Scripture: Titus 2:11-15
Exegetical Outline
Main Idea of Text: Titus is to authoritatively declare that the grace of God saves and trains his people.
11-14: The grace of God saves and trains his people.
11: The grace of God brings salvation for all people.
12-14: The grace of God trains us:
12: To renounce ungodliness and live godly lives.
13: To wait in hope for the return of Christ.
14: Zealously doing good works
15: Titus is to proclaim this with authority.
Homiletical Outline
Main Idea of Sermon: The grace of God saves and sanctifies his people.
The grace of God saves his people.
The grace of God sanctifies his people.
Turning away from sin.
Hoping in the return of Christ.
Zealous for good works.
Introduction:
Grace is a concept that is typically misunderstood. Some would make grace so free that there are no longer consequences for sin. Others would so minimize grace that they live their Christian life as if they earn their salvation through holy living and good works. Both of these extremes are errors that are alive and well in the Church.
Today in Titus 2:11-15, Paul is going to teach us how grace is active in the Christian life. Let’s read Titus 2:11-15.
Titus 2:11-15
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 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.
15 Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
What is grace? Some of us might think of God’s grace as that kind of sweet spirited good will a benevolent grandfather shows towards his grandchildren. The kind of affection that prevents a grandfather from being able to see any of his grandchildren’s flaws and weaknesses and only their good qualities and strengths.
Or perhaps God’s grace is a kindness that does not hold anyone accountable for their sin. God is only gracious if he permits me to whatever I please and doesn’t require anything of me.
Maybe God’s grace is just a good feeling. Like when the sun is warm on your face, but the breeze is cool. When everything in the world is going right, and everyone you care about is prosperous and healthy.
This is not the grace that Paul describes in Titus 2. Grace is not a passive tenderness towards his people. It is a purposeful exercising of his will to be kind to them, to do something for their good. In our sermon text, Paul says that God’s grace goes to work on behalf of his people in two specific ways; the main idea of our sermon is this: the grace of God saves and sanctifies his people.
First, the grace of God saves his people. This is a fundamental doctrine of the reformation. Justification is by grace alone, meaning it is completely and totally a gift. There is absolutely nothing that anyone has done or could ever do to deserve God’s steadfast love demonstrated in salvation. This is the ground upon which all that Paul has been charging Titus to do in chapter 2 is founded. All the specific instruction to the various groups within the church at Crete that we saw two weeks ago are dependent on this one idea that Paul reveals in verse 11: God’s grace has saved his people. What they once were, they are no longer. God has made them something that is fundamentally new, and in that newness, they are able to live in a new way.
That new way of living takes root immediately, but it takes time for Christians to grow in holiness and maturity. The second point of our sermon is that the grace of God sanctifies his people. Meaning, the same unmerited kindness that saves us from the consequences of our sin, that calls us from death to life, that makes us children of God, that same grace is active in our lives every day, making us more like Christ and less like our old selves. Paul says that grace is active in our sanctification in three ways: it makes us turn away from sin, it makes us hope in the coming of Christ, and it makes us zealous for good works. These three very practical steps of sanctification are not completed in our lives by our own efforts, but by the free, unearned favor of the same God that overcame your rebellion and made you his child. You were not saved by grace and then kept by the works of your own hands.
From beginning to the end, the saving work of God in your life is an act of his sovereign grace. Grace does not merely describe his attitude toward you. It describes his effort to save and sanctify you as a people for his own possession.
The grace of God saves his people.
If you’ll remember from two weeks ago, Paul told Titus to teach sound doctrine. How Paul unpacks that idea, “teach sound doctrine,” is the point of Chapter 2. We can see this because in verse 15 Paul says:
Titus 2:15
15 Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
What things is Titus to declare with authority? How is he to exhort and rebuke the people in Crete? These things in verse 15 is the same sound doctrine that Paul commanded him to teach in verse 1. You can think of these two commands like a sandwich or bookends that frame all that Paul wants Titus to teach the Church in Crete.
That sound teaching has two components. The specific instructions that he gives to individual groups within the church. He is teaching them how to live well with each other within the context of a local church. Older men are to be examples of godliness and teach the younger generation. Older women are to teach younger women. Younger women and younger men are to be self-controlled and by implication, learn from the older generation. All bondservants are to be submissive to their masters as we are all supposed to submit to our Savior as his bondservants. All this is specific instruction that Titus is to relay to the church at Crete.
But this seems like a tall order. I can imagine Titus finding himself doubting whether he would be capable of communicating it or whether the people were capable of following it. Meaning, are Paul’s expectations too high? If this is possible, how is it possible?
His answer comes in verse 11. How is it even conceivable that the church could live up to Paul’s high standard? “For” or “because,” do you see the importance of that word? For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. What Paul has commanded in verses 2-10 is possible because God has already done what is impossible. As an act his unwavering, and unmerited affection toward those that he loves, he has saved those that were his enemies. The grace of God saves his people.
Now, one tricky part of what Paul’s says is the “for all people” bit. What does he mean when he says the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. Based on an initial reading, it seems like Paul might be saying that the free gift of God is that all people will be saved from the consequences of their sins, or said another way, salvation is universal. This is known as universalism; the teaching that eventually, all people will be redeemed by the grace of God, because God is loving and kind.
We know this is not true, because of so many passages of Scripture that teach the exact opposite. Consider 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10:
2 Thessalonians 1:6-10
6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
This passage seems pretty clear that there will be an eternal punishment for sin that is a never-ending destruction and complete separation from his presence and glory. So while there might be some obscurity of what is meant by Paul in Titus 2, it cannot mean that every single person, at some point, will be saved. We know that is not true, because o the clear teaching of Scripture.
So as I read Titus 2:11, I am reminded of 1 Timothy 2:4. Another pastoral epistle where Paul sheds some light what I think he is referring to in Titus. 1 Timothy 2, beginning in verse 1:
1 Timothy 2:1-4
2 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
What Paul says in 1 Timothy is that God desires for everyone to be saved, but he says in 2 Thessalonians 1 that everyone will not be saved. In fact, 2 Thessalonians 1 says that it is not his desire to save but to exact vengeance on all those that have afflicted his people.
So how do we reconcile these two, seemingly contradictory teachings on God’s will in salvation? The answer is that Scripture teaches there is a duality to the will of God, meaning, God does not have two wills, he only has one will, but his one will can have two aspects: a declared will and a secret will. In the reformed tradition, you might have heard of his secret will referred to as his will of decree and his declared will as his will of precept, but for our purposes, we will use declared will and secret will.
God’s declared will is what he makes known to us, and everything that God makes known is for us. It is ours. Deuteronomy 29:29 says:
Deuteronomy 29:29
29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Everything God has revealed should be studied and savored and treasured as our inheritance from him. We should wrestle to understand all that he has taught us about himself. Often when Christians come up against something difficult to understand in God’s word or something that is debated, they will throw up their hands and say something like, “Greater minds than ours have been debating this forever,” or, “We will never know this side of heaven.” When it comes to what God has revealed, we do not get to throw up our hands in defeat. Paul says that we are to press on towards the upward call to which we have been called. We should wrestle with the revealed will of God because it is treasure we are meant to mine.
But there are things that God has not revealed.. Those things belong to him, not us. They might become known throughout time, but there are some things that will never be known, simply because God is an infinite being and we are not. There will always be more of him to know that is outside of our grasps.
The declared and secret will of God are not two wills in God the same way they are not two wills in you. I can express my desire to go to Mexico for a three-week vacation. I might even talk about the all-inclusive resort Molly, and I went to on our honeymoon and how I had definite plans to go back some day. I can express that desire, I might even sacrifice to put money aside so that we can make good on our plans. But I might also know that I have other obligations that might force me to make a decision that goes against my desire. What if one of the kids were to get sick and need special medical care above and beyond our insurance coverage? Or what if our house burned down and we had to dip into our savings? I freely made the choice to go against my own stated desire for the greater good of the moment.
Now I am speaking in human terms, but the secret will and declared will of God work similarly. God can say that he desires all men to come to a knowledge of the truth, he can even command us to pray toward that end through the Apostle Paul, and yet he can choose to not save them because it is inconsistent with his secret will set before all time in the foreknowledge of God.
So when Paul says in Titus 2:11 that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, he means that the grace of God has appeared making salvation possible for all people. There is nothing that limits anyone’s access to the Gospel: not race, not sex, not socio-economic status. All have free access to the good news of Jesus Christ. The only thing that prevents them from accepting the Gospel is their own evil desire to reject it.
This is why salvation reveals the grace of God. It is an undeserved act of God’s kindness because if he did not purposefully overcome our rebellion, every single one of us would freely choose to reject him 100% of the time every time. This is what Paul teaches us in Ephesians 2:1-5:
Ephesians 2:1-5
2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Paul says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. Dead, period. Dead people don’t want the bread of life. They don’t want to drink from fountains of living water. They only want the things of death because that is consistent with their nature. If we stopped with verses 1-3, we would have a dire picture of our predicament. We not only were dead, we only had a desire for death and we chasing after our destruction with reckless abandon, never even considering that there could be anything better for us.
And then there was verse four. You know this verse carries special meaning for me. About 4 or 5 years after we got married, Molly and I took a trip to New Braunfels. It is literally one of our favorite places in Texas to vacation. It is not particularly beautiful, but it is nostalgic for us. Floating the river and going to Schlitterbahn and Naegelin’s Bakery are special things to us. So we decided to take out kids. Now if you know anything about the Comal, you know it is cold, spring fed water. And if you know anything about cold water and wedding rings, they tend to slip off if your hands get cold. And slip off mine did. It was the craziest thing. We were in a couple inches of water, and I felt it come off my hand, but we couldn’t find it to save our lives. So Molly eventually bought me a new wedding band, the one I have now, and she carved on the inside, “’But God…’ Ephesians 2:4-9” to remind me of this one reality. If it were not for God, I would be lost.
Verse 4 is one of the most precious verses in all the Bible to me, because it makes salvation so clear! God saves, period, end of story. If he does not intervene in our lives there is not a single one of us that would even want to escape the horrific destruction that awaits us. So Paul says,
Ephesians 2:4-5
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
By grace you have been saved. It is a free, unmerited, undeserved, unsought, act of God’s kindness and favor that anyone would go from death to life. God’s grace saves his people.
In our first point, we have considered Paul’s teaching that the grace of God saves his people. It is not something that we do or deserve that causes our salvation, but the free, undeserved kindness of God acting on our behalf that calls us from death to life. And in this new life that we have been called to, we have a new nature that requires us to live differently.
The grace of God sanctifies his people.
Which introduces our second point. God’s grace is not only the origin for our salvation, but it is also the cause of our sanctification. God’s undeserved kindness trains us in three distinct ways. See if you can identify them as we read beginning in verse 12:
Titus 2:12-14
training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 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.
Before we consider the three ways that the grace of God trains us and what that looks like in the life of the believer, just meditate for a moment on how monumental an idea this is. So many Christians struggle with a works-based sanctification that is fine admitting that we are saved by grace, but fully expects to keep themselves by works.
Now they would not admit this in the open, but they live it with their lives. It could be a brother that is constantly comparing himself to others. He lets everyone know how many people he is discipling and is constantly trying to one up everyone with sweetness of his quiet time or the profoundness of his prayer life. He is constantly trying to humbly let everyone know how much he knows for their benefit, not his. If he can tangibly demonstrate his value, it makes him feel valuable.
Or it could be a sister that struggles with what people think of her. She knows the right people in the Church that are in the inner circle, and she is not merely attempting to serve, but she wants to serve the right people. She cultivates a relationship with the pastor or the pastor’s wife, or the right group of elders, because in her mind if the “holiest people” in the Church think highly of her than she is free to think highly of herself.
Or perhaps it a brother that is so self-deprecating that when he sins he forces himself into pseudo penance, trying to earn God’s favor to make up for the sins no one knows he commits. He doubles down on Bible study and Christian student orgs, and fills up every extra minute of time, because he subconsciously is trying to make up for sin in his life.
Or it could be a rich widow, that has never really served the Church or had that great of an affection for Christ, so she tries to make up for it with giving. She thinks her value to God is expressed in the value of her bank account. She is a generous giver, but in her mind she is really keeping a tally between her and God to make sure he knows how valuable she is to him.
All of these examples are the product of the same fundamental misunderstanding about sanctification. We do not become more holy and Christ like because of the good things that we do. We become more holy and Christ like by relying on the same grace of God that was operative in our salvation to carries us through to our glorification. When we make it to the end of our lives, still hoping and trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross, we will not look back and say, “My what a good job I did to walk so faithfully.” We will look back at our lives in stunned amazement that every single day God woke us up giving us the free gift of faith to make it one more day.
The grace of God has to be the thing that sanctifies his people, otherwise the Christian life becomes all about me. It becomes about what I can do and how faithful I am, and not about how faithful Christ is.
When I was in high school, I was a bleeding heart Arminian. I genuinely believed that it was up to me to do all the right things to progress in my Christian faith. Our youth group was large and every Summer, we would have multiple interns. One Summer, I was debating like all good young Christian boys do with one of our new interns about this very point. In the confidence of youth, I quoted Philippians 2:12 at him like it would settle the debate. I said, “Paul says in Philippians 2:12 to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. You see? I have to do it. If I don’t work out my salvation with fear and trembling, I am disobeying God.” I’ll never forget what happened next because it was very embarrassing. He asked me, “what does the next verse say?” I stared at him blankly. I didn’t know. I hadn’t memorized the verses, I just wanted it to seem like I had. He quoted all of verse 12 and verse 13. He said:
Philippians 2:12-13
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
The grace of God sanctifies his people by working in and through their working to accomplish his own will in their lives for his own good pleasure. This is not how most Christians approach their sanctification, but it is a profound truth that Paul is teaching us in Titus 2:11-15.
God’s grace trains us to turn away from sin and live holy lives.
Paul tells us three ways that the grace of God sanctifies his people. Grace trains us in three different ways. First, verse 12 tells us that the grace of God trains us to turn away from sin and live holy lives.
Titus 2:11-12
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
This process of self-denial and godly living is not easy, so the analogy of training is really helpful. Apart from God’s active grace in our lives, we would not be able to make progress in holiness because we still struggle against our old desires. In our flesh, even after salvation, we don’t want the things of God; we only want the things of the world.
God’s grace is active in our sanctification, because he rewires our affections so that we renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and desire to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives. He literally gives us new desires. This is such a crucial point, because every decision you make is because you genuinely want to make that choice. Even if you make a decision that is contrary to your interests it is still consistent with your desires. No one likes to work out. Exercising hurts and makes you feel terrible, but it makes you stronger in the future. Your desire for the future benefits overrule your lack of a desire to do the work now. No one choose to do something against their desires.
So it is essential for the grace of God to be active in our lives, changing our desires away from ungodly and earthly things and increasing our appetites for heavenly things. I know there are many Christians that struggle all of their lives with various kinds of sin. They have prayed over and over again that God would remove the sin from their life. They put barriers in place to build accountability and make it difficult to do the behavior, but they fail to fight the battle at the source. We must fight the battle for holiness at the source by asking God to not change our behavior, but to change our desires. If we want the right things, we will do the right things.
But this process is a slow one. Our affections do not change overnight. We have a new capacity to love the things of God, but we are not competent yet. We must work our spiritual appetites like we would work a muscle. Like spiritual athletes, we must discipline ourselves by being purposeful in all aspects of life.
Paul uses the illustration of an athlete training in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Paul explains to us in 1 Corinthians 9, why we go through pain of spiritual discipline and self-denial. There is a great prize that we look forward to and it coming at the end of the race. So we must pray for the grace to change our desires while at the same time doing the hard work of changing our diet and exercise patterns.
Think about what you spend the most time watching or reading throughout the week. What are your eyes consuming? Our family is playing a game called Served. It is a silly card game that I got off of Amazon. It is not a game you sit down and play, but a game you play over a long period of time. The first time we are playing, we decided to play for a month. Everyone in the family gets a set of cards. For kids, they are like get out of chore free cards or swap beds with one of your parents. For the parents it is things like clean the whole house, or walk the dog. Some are fun and silly, some are more work based. Yesterday, I played one of my cards called, “the Good Ole Days Card.” The Good Ole Days Card means we go back to the good ole days for one entire day. No video games, no TV, no social media, basically no screen for the purpose of entertainment at all.
In the morning, while it was still novel, they started playing together doing all the normal non-electronic activities we have in the house: paly-dough, jump on the trampoline, eating food. But by about lunch time, they started moping around the house complaining that they were bored. I told them that being bored was a good things for their minds and that if they allowed themselves to be bored they would come up with all kinds of new things to do that they have never done before.
Ford built a Lego beach, Jacob spent time in the afternoon reading his book, at one point, Piper even came in and asked if she could go take a nap; she slept for two hours and we were all very thankful.
This morning, as I was giving back their electronics, I asked the boys if they learned anything from not having their electronics yesterday, and they both said that they were surprised that they could have more fun without their screens than they could with them. They liked coming up with fun and creative things to do.
I thought to myself, that is a perfect illustration for what we are talking about here. If you think of all the time you spend consuming entertainment throughout the week: podcasts, audiobooks, social media, television, sports. Ask yourself, what would happen to your relationship with the Lord if you cut back by twenty-five percent? If you allowed yourself to be bored, for even one afternoon a week, what creative way could you think of to grow your relationship with Jesus Christ? If you spent time consuming better things, like reading your Bible or listening to a sermon or reading an old Christian book, eventually your appetites would change. You would grow in your discontentment with this world and desire more and more of the world to come.
God’s grace trains us to hope in the coming of Christ.
Which brings us to the second way that the grace of God sanctifies his people. The grace of God causes us to hope in the immanent return of our Savior. As God rewires our present desires in this world, he begins to plant in us the ache for the next.
The grace of God has appeared, training us to renounce sin and live holy lives and look at what verse 13 says:
Titus 2:13
waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
Church, we are a people caught between the world in which we live and the world that is our actual home. It is a kindness of God to work in us a holy discontent in this life because we were not made to be here forever. We were meant for something far greater. We must understand that the Christian life is a journey from a world in which we are aliens to a world that is our true home.
This is exactly how Augustine summarized all of the Christian life. In his work On Christian Teaching, Augustine describes the Christian life as a journey. We are sojourners and strangers in a foreign land that knows we have to get to our ultimate home because it is the only place where we can be truly happy. In order to make the journey, we build land vehicles and ships to cross the sea. If God didn’t give us a holy discontent with this world, then we run the risk of losing sight of our destination and falling in love with the journey.
When we sing songs about heaven or we read passages in Scripture that make us consider the second coming of Christ or when we get to the end of the Lord’s Supper and are reminded that we meet every week to proclaim his death until he comes again, these are gracious reminders from God that this is not our home. There is more coming. The work he began in us is not complete. Salvation has been initiated but it has not been completed. We are still waiting for that wonderful day of our future glorification.
It is that longing that Paul is referring to here in Titus 2. Christians should be marked by a particular kind of detachment from this present world because we have our eyes focused on the future: on the return of our Savior and the world to come.
This is kind of detachment and longing for Christ’s return is essential to growing in holiness. Consider the connection between hope and holiness that Peter describes in 1 Peter 1:13-16:
1 Peter 1:13-16
13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
As we look forward to the hope that we have in the return of Christ, that hope should makes us live holy now for two reasons. First, we do not know when he will come. He could come at any moment, so there is an urgency to our hope to be found faithful when he comes. But also, if we genuinely believe he is coming again, then we know that when he arrives he will judge the living and the dead. He is not coming again as a gentle lamb, but when he comes he will be a kingly lion. He will come with vengeance and justice, setting to right all that is wrong and purifying the world so that his kingdom can be established. So we are to live holy because he is holy. We want to prepare now for that kingdom that is to come.
God’s grace trains us to be zealous for good works.
Which brings us to the third and final way that God uses his grace to sanctify his people. The grace of God sanctifies his people by making them zealous for good works. Look at verse 14 with me:
Titus 2:14
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.
Why did Christ give himself up to redeem you and me? To purify us, that is, make us more holy and prepare us to do the good works that he has prepared for us.
It might seem counterintuitive to say that you are able to do good works because God is happy with you, but that is exactly what Paul is saying. The way we think it should work is that if I do good things, then that will make God happy, but that is not what Paul is saying. That makes sense to us because that is how it works amongst ourselves. If I want my employees to be happy, I pay them a bonus. If I want my wife to be happy, I bring her flowers. If I want my dog to be happy, I wrestle on the floor with him and he goes crazy, but this is not how it works with God.
Let me teach you something profound about God. Are you ready for this? You cannot make God love you more. Think about that for a second. Christian, there is absolutely nothing that you can do that will make God love you more. There is also nothing you can do to make him love you less. You can’t give enough money, or play the piano beautifully enough, or disciple enough people, or share the Gospel enough, or go on enough mission trips, or read you Bible enough, or preach enough to change God’s affection for you by one grain of sand on the infinite measuring scales of his grace.
Which means, that when we consider all the good works that we are called to in the Christian life, none of them can be done to earn God’s favor. They must be done with the understanding that we already have God’s grace lavishly poured into our lives. This is exactly what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 9:7:
2 Corinthians 9:7
8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
Abounding in grace comes before abounding in good works.
Which should make us zealous for good works. Consider the difference this makes in the Christian life. No longer is doing good works a chore for which we hope to receive our wages, but it is the joyful act of worship that responds to the kindness God has already shown us. When you have gone from a desperate rebel to a beloved son, how could you not want to respond in the worshipful labor of good works? The more you contemplate God’s undeserved kindness to you in Christ the more you will want to do good works. When members are captivated by God’s grace, we will not have to beg them to serve. They will fill every vacancy in the nursery and beg for more. We will have to creatively think of new ways to put people to work, because they are so overwhelmed with the love they have been shown by God.
Conclusion
The grace of God has appeared in the finished work of Jesus Christ and is the means by which God saves and sanctifies his people. It is the same unmerited favor that calls us from death to life that makes us grow in holiness. There are not two works of God in salvation. It is not as if he saves, but we keep ourselves. The work of salvation is a free act of his lovingkindness that begins with justification, is carried through in sanctification, and will one day result in our glorification.
Brothers and sisters, all that we hope to accomplish in this Church: genuinely living out our membership covenant with each other, reaching the lost with the Gospel, planting future churches to carry on the Gospel ministry; all of it will be for nothing if we do not learn what Paul is teaching us in Titus 2:11-15. We cannot hope to be successful in the ministry of the Gospel if we abandon the grace that we preach. We must have a biblical understanding of God’s grace that is active both in our salvation and in our sanctification and we need to preach such grace boldly.
Let’s pray.