Lillie Baltrip is a good bus driver. In fact, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of June 17, 1988, the Houston school district nominated her for a safe-driving award. Her colleagues even trusted her to drive a busload of them to an awards ceremony for safe drivers. Unfortunately, on the way to the ceremony, Lillie turned a corner too sharply and flipped the bus over, sending herself and sixteen others to the hospital for minor emergency treatment (Grant Lovejoy, Fort Worth, Texas, Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 1; www.PreachingToday.com).
Needless to say, the award committee withdrew their safe-driving award, even though she had a spotless record until then. That’s because reward committees rarely operate on the principle of grace.
Thank the Lord, He is full of grace and mercy. Otherwise, none of us would ever receive our final award, because we’ve all messed up more than once in our lives. That’s why Jesus entered our world on that first Christmas night. God was demonstrating His grace towards sinners, who deserved blame.
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Titus 2, Titus 2, where the Bible describes Christ’s coming as an act of God’s grace towards those of us who are less than perfect.
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people (ESV).
Literally, in the original Greek, the saving grace of God has appeared to all people. In other words, God, in His grace, sent Jesus to show His saving grace to everyone.
However, He doesn’t force His saving grace on you, no! If you want to experience that grace, you have to receive Him. You have to welcome Him into your life.
The Bible says, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:11-12). “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
So if you want God’s saving grace to work in your own life, you must…
BELIEVE IN CHRIST.
Trust Christ with your life. Depend on Jesus to save you from your sins.
It was the first night of camp, and a group of tough kids from the city had hardly unpacked when the leaders received word about a theft. A work crew kid was missing a wallet, $35, and a watch. The next morning, Kirk, the intern from the city, found the empty wallet in his cabin. He immediately called his guys together and hit them with the hard facts.
“Man, you guys did exactly what society expected you to do. You just proved them right. And it's a shame. Now you've got 20 minutes to produce that money and the watch, or we're all going home.”
Kirk walked out and shut the door. He could hear the guys shouting at one another and scrambling around inside the cabin. In a moment, the door opened again, and the toughest kid in the crowd presented Kirk with the $35 and the watch. The money was already spent, but the kids had emptied their pockets and pooled their cash.
When the staff person came to pick up the stolen goods, someone asked, “Who did it?”
Kirk replied, "We all did it. We're all guilty. We're in this together.” The kids were shocked by Kirk's display of solidarity. Then he shut the cabin door and started to preach.
“Let's talk about grace,” he said to the silent cabin. “Grace is getting something you don't deserve. God is going to correct you, but he's going to forgive you. Jesus is going to break you, but he's going to remake you. We all deserve to go home, but we're going to get to stay.” It was only the first morning of camp, but God already had the undivided attention of 17 tough guys from the city.
A few nights later, Kirk invited the work crew kid who had been robbed to come to his cabin and to share his own experience of God's grace with the guys. After the young man left that night, Kirk said, “Now I'm going to say a prayer, and if any of you want to pray with me and give your lives to God, then just do it.” By the end of the prayer, 17 baritone voices had cried out to Jesus Christ (Denny Rydberg, president of Young Life, from October 1999 ministry letter; www.PreachingToday.com).
Oh my dear friends, no matter what you have done, just cry out to Jesus. Trust Christ with your life and experience His grace. For if you want God’s saving grace to work in your own life, you must believe in Christ. Then you must…
LEARN FROM CHRIST, as well.
Learn the lessons His grace teaches you. Grasp the change for which His undeserved favor trains you.
Titus 2:11-12 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age… (ESV).
God’s grace doesn’t excuse your sin. On the contrary, God’s grace disciplines you to renounce your sin and to embrace a godly lifestyle. God’s grace trains you to change your life.
Warren Wiersbe says, “Believers who honestly understand the grace of God will not want to live in sin. They will turn from ungodliness and worldly lusts; they will live serious, clean, dedicated lives in this present world (Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the New Testament, Victor Books, 1992).
So, if you want God’s grace to work in your life…
LEARN TO LIVE FOR HIM.
Let God’s grace empower you to reject your old way of life and adopt a new way of living.
People love superhero films. I know I do. I love watching Batman, Iron Man, Thor, Superman, Spider-Man, Captain America and others. Now, almost all of these films have the same plot line. At the beginning of the film the not-yet-hero is just an ordinary person, probably getting beat up. Then some accident happens in a lab, or the hero discovers they were born with a superpower. After that, they use their superpower to battle the forces of evil. They win, and the movie is over.
But there's also a crucial part of the standard superhero movie that usually gets covered in just a few scenes: the training. Some cool song plays on the soundtrack while we see our newly minted hero trying out this or that superpower. Peter Parker covers his room with spider webs. Bruce Wayne pummels things in the mountains of Nepal. Tony Stark fires up a blacksmithing bellows in prison and hammers stuff.
The training is boring, so the movie covers it as quickly and painlessly as possible. However, the training is everything. Nothing happens without the training. Without the training, our hero is just a person with a bunch of cool powers he doesn't know how to harness. But with the training he saves the world and thwarts the bad guys. Without the training we don't have a story—just a hero who gets squashed (Adapted from Craig Gross, Go Small, Thomas Nelson, 2014, pp. 6-9; www.PreachingToday.com).
God’s grace has granted you superpower to overcome the enemy. Now, learn to use that power to make your world a better place. If you want God’s grace to work in your life, 1st, learn to live for Him. Then 2nd…
LEARN TO WAIT FOR HIM.
Let God’s grace empower you to anticipate a glorious future. For the saving grace of God has appeared training us in….
Titus 2:13 … waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ… (ESV)
Because of God’s grace, we no longer have to fear the future. Instead, we can anticipate the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is both God and Savior.
On New Year's Eve 999, a crowd pushed its way into St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to pray at a midnight mass led by Pope Sylvester II. Some trembled, some wept—all were on their knees or prostrate in prayer. The beginning of the end, the great day of wrath, God's judgment, was moments away, or so they thought.
For months, reports of meteors and earthquakes seemed to signal the end. All across Europe, people donated lands, homes, and goods to the poor to better their souls for the coming judgment. Sins were confessed, businesses neglected, fields left uncultivated as people waited in dread. On New Year's Eve at St. Peter's, the tension was so thick that, as the clock ticked toward the end of the millennium, one account says, “not a few [died] from fright.”
Then the clock struck twelve: “The crowd remained transfixed, barely daring to breathe.” And life went on. Bells peeled and people cheered. So the story goes (Richard Erdoes, AD 1000: Living on the Brink of Apocalypse, Harper & Row, 1988; www.PreachingToday.com).
The great day of wrath never happened, not in the year Y1K or for many years after that. Then, as Y2K approached, people feared technological catastrophe when all the computers around the world would crash and issue in the apocalypse. But on New Years Day, at the beginning of the year 2000, the clock struck twelve and life went on.
Even today, a lot of people live in fear of the future. But you don’t have to, because God’s grace has secured your future. Hebrews 10 says that those who reject Christ face “a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume [God’s] adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27). But those of us who put our faith in Christ, “We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (Hebrews 10:39).
So, dear believer, don’t fear the future. Instead, anticipate it. Wait with expectancy for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. It will help you persevere during the hard times today.
Admiral William H. McRaven writes about what he learned during Navy SEAL training that has helped him live a better life. Hope. He said:
Hope is the most powerful force in the universe. With hope you can inspire nations to greatness. With hope you can raise up the downtrodden. With hope you can ease the pain of unbearable loss. Sometimes all it takes is one person to make a difference.
We will all find ourselves neck deep in mud someday. That is the time to sing loudly, to smile broadly, to lift up those around you and give them hope that tomorrow will be a better day (Admiral William H. McRaven, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World, Grand Central Publishing, 2017, pp. 93-94; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s what God’s grace trains you to do if you accept it. God’s grace trains you to anticipate a better day ahead, which helps you endure the hard days now.
I’ve shared this before (in 2017), but it’s worth sharing again.
Tim Keller, in his book Making Sense of God, asks us to imagine you have two women of the same age, the same socioeconomic status, the same educational level, and even the same temperament. You hire both of them and say to each, “You are part of an assembly line, and I want you to put part A into slot B and then hand what you have assembled to someone else. I want you to do that over and over for eight hours a day.” You put them in identical rooms with identical lighting, temperature, and ventilation. You give them the very same number of breaks in a day. It is very boring work.
Their conditions are the same in every way—except for one difference. You tell the first woman that at the end of the year you will pay her thirty thousand dollars, and you tell the second woman that at the end of the year you will pay her thirty million.
After a couple of weeks the first woman will be saying, “Isn't this tedious? Isn't it driving you insane? Aren't you thinking about quitting?” And the second woman will say. “No. This is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I whistle while I work.” What is going on? You have two human beings who are experiencing identical circumstances in radically different ways. What makes the difference? It is their expectation of the future (Tim Keller, Making Sense of God, Viking, 2016, page 153).
So it is with every believer who anticipates the Second Coming of Christ. They can endure the present, and even enjoy it, because they know He will give them a whole lot more than thirty million dollars when He comes again.
That’s one of the lessons God’s grace teaches you. So, if you want God’s grace to work in your life, 1st, learn to live for Him. 2nd, learn to wait for Him, and 3rd…
LEARN TO LOVE HIM, because He first loved you.
Let God’s grace empower you to respond with gratitude to His sacrificial love for you on the cross. Tell me. Who is the One we live for? Who is the One we wait for? It is our Lord Jesus Christ…
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 (ESV).
Jesus died to set us free from sin, and He also died to clean the sin out of our lives. That’s because we belong to Him. Literally, in the Greek, we are a peculiar people. That is to say we are in a unique relationship with the living God of the universe!
God loves you! That’s why Jesus died for you. And when that truth grips your heart, you can’t help but be “zealous for good works,” for works that please Him.
Warren Wiersbe says, “Jesus gave Himself for us; the least we can do is give ourselves to Him and live Christ-honoring lives until He comes” (Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the New Testament, Victor Books, 1992).
For when you realize the price Christ paid for you on the cross, you will pay any price to please Him—not because you HAVE to, but because you WANT to out of love for Him.
When police officer Cpl. Annette L. Goodyear holds up her hand to direct traffic in front of the local middle school, drivers usually stop. But when one driver didn’t, Goodyear didn’t have time to get angry or offended—she was instead focused on the girl crossing the street.
Cameras caught Goodyear as she pushed the child out of the way and was instead struck by the car herself, landing hard on the pavement. Goodyear said, “It was strange. As I’m lying there, I’m thinking to myself ‘this actually did happen.’ It didn’t seem real as it was happening.”
Authorities cited the driver for multiple infractions including negligent driving, failure to stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, and an expired registration.
Despite her hard landing, Goodyear was not significantly injured. She was in good enough spirits when she left the hospital that she immediately went to check on the student, who while not injured, was too shaken up to go to school.
Goodyear said, “She saw me standing there and as she was walking toward the door, she was getting teary-eyed. And when she got teary-eyed, then her dad started getting teary-eyed, and we all started at that point. I was just so thankful she was standing there and that she was OK” (Ed Mazza, “Hero Crossing Guard Hailed for Incredible Reflexes After Saving Kid From Car,” HuffPost, 2-7-22; www.PreachingToday.com).
When someone sacrifices his or her life for you, you can’t help but be teary-eyed. You can't help but be extremely grateful, which is the start of a new life for you. My dear friends, Jesus sacrificed Himself for you on the cross. Let that give you the zeal to do what pleases Him.
If you want God’s saving grace to work in your life, first, believe in Christ, and then learn from Christ: Learn to live for Him; learn to wait for Him; and learn to love Him, because He first loved you.
John Newton had a devoted Christian mother who dreamed that her only son would become a preacher. But she died when John was a child, and he followed his sea-captain father to a sailor's life. John didn't care for the discipline of the Royal Navy: he deserted ship, was flogged, and eventually was discharged.
He then headed for regions where he could “sin freely,” and ended up on the western coast of Africa, working for a slave trader who mistreated him. Newton's life resembled the downward spiral of the Prodigal Son during that time. His clothes had become rags. He had no shelter, and he begged for unhealthy roots to alleviate his hunger. Then, after more than a year of such treatment, he managed to escape in 1747.
The following year his ship was battered by a severe storm, during which he turned his life over to Christ. Ironically, Newton then served as captain of a slave ship for six years. He gradually came to abhor slavery and later crusaded against it.
He married his long-time sweetheart and began studying for the ministry. He preached in whatever vacant building he could find. Known as the “old converted sea captain,” he attracted large audiences. He was ordained within the Anglican Church, and in 1764 he became a pastor in Olney, England, where he wrote the now famous hymn, Amazing Grace.
In his old age, someone suggested that Newton retire because of bad health and failing memory. He replied, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior!” (“The Golden Age of Hymns,” Christian History, no. 31; www.PreachingToday.com).
Newton never got over the amazing grace of God in His own life. It gripped his soul and changed him forever. Please, let God’s amazing grace grip your soul, as well, and let it change you forever.
