Passage: Titus 2:11-12

The Big Idea

The law says, “Be holy, be loving, be perfect,” but can’t make us any of those things. The New Covenant is what actually makes us holy, loving and perfect. It is grace for justification (starting out with God) and grace for sanctification (going on with God). Many believers understand that we’re forgiven by grace, but then try to grow by effort. Scripture says grace is what teaches us, strengthens us and establishes our hearts. We access that grace through humility, and its riches are beyond measure.

Review

What is the message and the inability of the law?

Be holy, but it can’t make you holy.
Be loving, but it can’t make you loving.
Be perfect, but it can’t make you perfect.

The New Covenant is what makes us holy, loving and perfect.

New Covenant = Grace.

Grace for Justification: Starting Out with God

Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24).

Justification is starting out with God.
His grace saves us by redeeming us with the blood of Jesus. All sins are forgiven!
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Every part of grace is always free, because of the price Jesus paid: His blood.

It is of faith, so that it might be by grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the descendants (Romans 4:16).

Abraham was justified by faith, showing how grace works for justification.
Faith is what connects us to grace. Works can never fit with grace. Works don’t work with grace.
As soon as you have to do something, grace stops being grace.
Faith isn’t “doing something.” It’s a heart attitude.
God refuses to relate to His people in any way but grace.
Grace makes the promise sure.
It can’t fail, because it doesn’t depend on you or your strength.
It’s not wishy-washy, a “maybe” or a distant hope.
If you believe it, it’s guaranteed.
You can be sure you’re saved if you depend on His grace. If you depend on your own performance, you can be sure you’ll fall short.

Grace for Sanctification: Going On with God

Justification is easy to understand, and many believers do. But the greatest confusion in the church is about how to be sanctified: changed into a Christlike person. How does a person change after they’ve been forgiven? Meetings? Effort? Therapy? Classes? Serving?

The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age (Titus 2:11-12).

Many Christians believe the way to grow is to let the law teach them.
But here, grace is what teaches a believer how to be godly!
Becoming a better Christian has nothing to do with your performance under the law. Trying isn’t what’s rewarded; only true goodness matters.
Law-focused, performance-based religion can never teach a heart to truly keep the law. It can’t change a heart.
Grace is a transforming power, a force able to teach and change our hearts.

Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 2:1).

Where does strength come from? Grace.
The opposite of grace is law. Many struggling Christians believe investing in rules will produce a strong walk. It won’t. Otherwise the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, who had more rules and tried harder than any of us, would have succeeded.
Grace actually has the power to strengthen our lives.

It is good for the heart to be established by grace, not by foods, which have not profited those who have been occupied with them (Hebrews 13:9).

When it comes to sanctification, the idea that people can change themselves is a “strange doctrine” indeed.
Many believers describe their walk as a series of ups and downs. When their performance looks good, they soar. When it fails, as it always does, they despair.
But grace establishes the heart. God’s unearned, undeserved favor lets the heart rest secure, whether we’re succeeding or failing.
“Foods” refers to the rules of the law. If you invest your time and effort in performance-based religion, it will never profit you.

Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). And out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34).

The law can’t change the heart, yet all of life flows out of the heart.
The heart’s sinfulness can’t be reformed by human effort. It has to be supernaturally transformed, and that happens by the grace of Jesus alone.

Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

Our command is to grow in grace! That’s how we truly know Jesus. Intimacy with Him is only by grace, never by performance-based religion.
Grace is for growing!
Total trust in God’s grace glorifies God alone. When we trust our own performance and effort, we glorify ourselves.

Access to God’s Grace

If grace is God’s gift to transform us and draw us near, how do I get it?

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Jesus gives us His grace, His riches! His resources are freely given to you.
Remember how full of life and truth Jesus was. Now you’re rich with the same resources.

God is able to make all grace abound toward you, so that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8).

Read it again and stress every “all.”
Good works matter. But how will we ever do them? Only by drawing on God’s grace and the life of Jesus.
Grace is an all-sufficient resource for doing God’s will. It’s not a license for evil. It equips us to do good, just as Jesus did.

He gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

God wants to give grace. He isn’t bothered by your needs or brokenness.
His one requirement is humility: acknowledging our need for His help. That’s His New Covenant.
God gives grace, like a gift, to anyone who will humble themselves.
The opposite is also true: God resists the proud. Instead of help, the proud heart meets God’s opposition, until it learns to humble itself.

Be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

Humility matters not only with God but with one another.
Humility is the only thing you can bring to God. But it isn’t a work. It’s a relational reality: a heart honest about its need and weakness before God.

The Dimensions of God’s Grace

Paul runs out of words for it:

The glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6).
The riches of His grace, by which we have redemption and forgiveness (Ephesians 1:7).
The exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us, which He’ll keep showing for ages to come (Ephesians 2:7).
The unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8).

Grace Takeaway

The same grace that saved you is the grace that grows you. You didn’t start out with God by effort, and you won’t go on with Him by effort either. Grace teaches, strengthens and establishes your heart, and it’s always free. Humble yourself, and receive more grace today.

For Discussion

What is the New Covenant?
How is a person changed after they’ve been forgiven? Meetings? Effort? Therapy? Classes? Serving?
If grace is God’s gift to transform us and draw us near, how do I get this grace?

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Grace Discipleship 3: The New Covenant