The Magnificence Of Grace
Paul describes the human condition in Titus 3:3.
In verse four of chapter 3 Paul gives us a crash course in salvation.
Titus 3:4-8
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men.
God’s Kindness And Love ; His Mercy ; Regeneration And Renewing ; Jesus Christ Our Savior
There is a way to say everything that God has done to save sinners with just ONE word. A one word summation of God’s work of salvation.
That word is Grace.
I think that if we were having a conversation with the Apostle Paul and we were to ask him to define grace, he would direct us to Titus 3:4-7.
Then he would say to us verse 8.
8This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men.
Grace is God meeting us at our point of need and doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. to save us
The key thing is that God does for us what we can not do for ourselves.
A couple of weeks we looked at a difficult passage in John where Jesus taught about the work that God does in the lives of believers.
Today I want us to look at another passage in John that sheds some light on the working of God’s grace in the heart of believers.
John 14:16-23
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
18“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” 22Judas (not Iscariot) said* to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” 23Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
John 15:1-7
1“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. 7“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
God’s Work Of Grace Results In Our Justification
“Justification is a legal sentence issued by God in which He pronounces the person in question free from any guild or fault and fully acceptable in His sight.” Steele and Thomas ; Romans an Interpretive Outline
This takes care of the legal status of believers.
Our sinfulness and our sinful nature create for us a very difficult and serious legal problem in which we stand condemned before a pure and holy God.
John 3:18
“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
But through faith by which receive Jesus Christ as Lord God and Savior ,we are justified. That is to say we are declared NOT GUILTY.
BUT there is more.
Justification means that believers are declared not guilty.
Declared not guilty of breaking the law that they actually did break.
But they are also declared righteous.
Declared to have always fully kept the law that they actually broke.
2 Corinthians 5:21
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Justification Qualifies Us To Become Heirs
Before being justified by faith in Jesus we were legally excluded from the household of God. We had no claim on the inheritance of eternal life.
But when we become justified by faith in Jesus Christ, we also become heirs of God. Co-heirs with Jesus.
Romans 8:16-17
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,
What do we inherit?
Eternal Life.
Everything in the universe.
Hebrews 1:2
in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things,
None of this would happen without God’s work of Grace.
We Do Good Works Because Of God’s Grace And Our Justification
Vs. 8 …be careful to engage in good deeds.
Ephesians 2:10
10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Frist is believe in Jesus Christ.
Obey his commands.
Make disciples.
Be witnesses for Jesus.
