In the sermon 'Grace That Keeps on Teaching' by Scott Brown, the focus is on Titus 2:11-15, emphasizing the role of grace in the life of believers. Grace, which appeared through Jesus Christ, is portrayed as a teacher that guides Christians in living soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. The sermon outlines six key teachings of grace: rejecting ungodliness, pursuing righteousness, facing today's challenges, maintaining hope, doing good works, and inspiring grace in others. Grace is characterized as both a comforting and disruptive force, transforming believers into God's special people zealous for good works. The sermon underscores the importance of understanding grace as an ongoing process of sanctification, not just a one-time event of salvation. Through grace, believers are empowered to overcome sin, live in accordance with God's will, and impact their communities positively. The message is a call to continually seek more grace for spiritual growth and effective discipleship.

Please open your Bibles to Titus chapter 2 and find verse 11, Titus 2 11. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, Sweeter than honey word of God. Verse 11. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed, and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. Speak these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority.

Let no one despise you. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord, come shepherd your flock, come feed your sheep, come teach us the ways of the grace that you have bestowed upon us through Jesus Christ. Lord that you would use this to exalt your son Jesus and all of his works is Being full of grace and truth Amen, please be seated Well, this is part two on this matter of the grace of God in Titus 2 11 through 15.

And the center of this text is that grace appeared through Jesus Christ. At the same time, grace is a teacher. What's so interesting about this passage of scripture is that there are there are no commands there are no imperatives in these words it's primarily composed of indicative verbs and participles there are the commands of Scripture the imperatives and then there are the indicatives the things that are just realities the it's the way things are it's it's what God has done That's what this passage is really about. Paul is making a statement of reality and he's describing what God does with his people and you who are his people this is for you this is what Jesus Christ has accomplished for you I don't want us to minimize the fact that the people of God are God's precious possession. The Bible says that the people of God are his treasure.

The Bible says that he he favors his people, his blood-bought people, over the people of the world. And this is the this holy nation, this royal priesthood, and it's in the people of God is this treasure in in earthen vessels so as we go through this this morning I I want you to see what God not just what God did for you but what he has done for you every day of your life since you began to follow Jesus Christ. And and I would just like for you to be itemizing it in your own mind to rejoice in what God has done, to rejoice in the grace of God poured out upon you. And at the same time, my motive for this is to really call us all to cry out for more grace, for more illumination, for more help from heaven. We need more help from heaven.

Have you ever have you ever felt like you just continue to fall short? Of course you did. You need more help, so do I. And God has really actually put us in his church as a body of people to come together and to cry out to God for help. So that's what this is about.

You know I was reading this morning early in Psalm 105 and it really it hit me it just captured what I pray that this message will accomplish today. Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, sing to him, sing Psalms to him, talk of all his wondrous works, glory in his holy name, Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord." So I pray that these words are a source of consolation and comfort to God's people for whom he shed his blood. This is why George Knight he described this passage as God telling us that he saves, he instructs, and he enables his people. He keeps on doing it. Now you remember the context.

Paul is writing at the end of his life, his days are numbered, the Roman government will soon cut off his head, and he writes his last two letters to the churches. He writes to Titus who has been sent to the island of Crete and he writes to Timothy in 1st and 2nd Timothy and he will not be long for this world after these words are written. And he begins Titus really describing this new kind of community that is to be established on the island of Crete and it begins with living in accordance with the Word of God. This is the central North Star of the Christian life and then He speaks of what a church should look like and how it should appoint elders with particular qualities to lead that church. And then he talks about this new kind of man.

It's a new kind of old man, not a crotchety old man, but a man of integrity and sobriety. And then he talks about an older woman. What kind of older woman will be created in this church? He describes it. What kind of younger women will be created?

What kind of younger men will be created in this church? What kind of employees and servants will be created in this church? And see, he itemizes this transformed society. It's all transformation of grace. And then in verse 11, bringing us up to where we are the first thing that we see is the appearance of grace for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men there he's talking about that Jesus Christ entered into the world and he calls all sinners to repent and to follow him and what he does is he changes your heart he brings you to repentance he forgives you of all of your sins past and present and future He justifies you and then he energizes you.

This is what Jesus Christ appearing has accomplished and all of this begins with when Jesus Christ gave himself as a sacrifice for sins. And we find at the end of this passage, the net of it is that you become zealous for good works. That's in verse verse 14. So you have the doctrine of justification in this passage, the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and then you have sanctification, which really is the exportation of Christ's righteousness into your everyday behavior and it spreads out in your church and it spreads out in your world and that's what the whole thing here is. Now we've been talking, we introduced the idea that grace is a trainer.

In other words, this grace is teaching us that. Grace teaches, And just to remind of last week, he uses a word that really is used for child training, the word paideia, where parents are to bring their children up in the training and admonition of the Lord. It's the same word. God is training his children. Parents, you train your children, and God is training you.

That's sort of the whole idea here. This word, it occurs 13 times in the New Testament, And it has to do with the whole range of teaching, teaching children about everything in life, the ups and downs of life, the moral shaping of the person, the chastisement, the correction of the person. It's really it's an all-encompassing term and it includes the the tender-hearted encouragement and also the wise correction of a parent. God is that parent to the Church of Jesus Christ And so with training there's a regimen. You know if you've ever been in any kind of training or you've hired a trainer to train you how to do something there's always a regimen And the training session usually begins like this, well what are you looking to accomplish?

And then you say what you're looking to accomplish, and then there is a regimen that is applied to those objectives. He tells you what to do. You know if you go to a trainer in a fitness operation he's going to tell you what to do and he often tells you things that you don't want to do. You don't want to do it as much, but he's going to tell you to do it as much and you will do it so much. But this training is the metaphor that the Apostle uses here in this passage of Scripture.

And what this means is that this doctrine that has been laid out is always put into practice. All theology is practical theology. You know the women in our church, women's mentoring are going through a book called practical theology by J.C. Ryle. All theology is practical.

Theology is not meant to just sit in your head and rot there as an intellectual exercise, but it's actually meant to move your feet to teach you how to live. And so here we have that grace is a trainer. One more comment about this, the Apostle is explaining how things work. Some of you love to go take things apart and find out how things work and that's what the apostle is doing. He's giving you the inner workings of a thing and he's showing you how grace works in a person's life.

It's really street-level wisdom for the inner workings of the grace of God. In this passage, you'll see tremendous insight in how grace works and what grace is trying to do as a trainer in your life. What does grace tell you to do? And what we've seen here, and you can see it here, grace is not just this comforting feeling that you've been forgiven of all of your sins. Grace is also disruptive.

Grace seeks to change your life. Grace is not always a quiet partner. It's teaching you something to do something and it's always teaching you something good. Two words that are common and often repeated in this passage are grace and good works, those two things. Good works is repeated over and over again I think six times in the letter to Titus.

So all of this to make it very clear grace comes through Jesus Christ and in John 1 16 we read this of Jesus and of his fullness we have all received grace for grace for the law was given through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ Hebrews In Hebrews we're told to come boldly before the throne of grace. Why? That we might obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In other words, grace goes far farther than just your salvation. It has to do with your sanctification in your life and that's why Peter in 2nd Peter 318 he says grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So we all have room to grow in grace. What does that mean? How do you grow in this unmerited favor that God has given to you. Well we know that you can't grow in justification that's something that's done one time but the growth in grace is something that continues to happen in your sanctification. Another way to say this is grace is a ruler.

In Romans 521 it says that grace rules. This is how grace rules. This is the kind of ruler that you have in Jesus Christ. And we all understand that the doctrine of grace is often misunderstood. And it's not understood as this disruptive change agent in your life that it stimulates the believer to live differently and that the grace of God is not simply for the forgiveness of your sins.

Some take grace as just permission to keep on doing to keep on sinning the way the way that you've been sinning. Others think that grace is earned through works. Of course not. Some think that grace is just leniency, that God overlooks sin, and that's what grace is all about. Some actually separate grace from discipleship.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke of this in his book Life Together he called it cheap grace accepting Christ benefits without following Jesus Christ and then some view grace and this is probably what most people do they view grace as sort of this private individual experience, forgetting that grace was meant to actually overflow into all of your relationships. So this passage is sort of an attack against this easy believism mentality that you find in the church. And so what you see is really the height and the depth and the width and the length of God's grace in this passage. Now you have your outline in front of you, I hope, and there are six things that grace teaches you. Six things that grace is desiring to do through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you can see them there. First, grace teaches us to reject, verse 11. Grace teaches us to pursue. Grace teaches us for what we are facing today verse 12 a grace teaches us to hope verse 13 grace teaches us to do good works verse 14 and grace teaches us to stimulate grace in others. I don't believe we will finish this outline today but we will the next time we come into this passage of Scripture.

We have such a need for grace in our lives, and we need it every minute and every hour. I was looking through a book this week called The Fullness of Grace, 90 Days with the Puritans, compiled by Stephen Yule. He quotes Thomas Manton, he says, God must breathe on his own work. This is the grace of God. Believers need assistance.

He says, believers need assistance to stoke the fire in their hearts, unquote, to carry out the commands of God toward one another and in the church and In his in his exposition of Psalm 119 Thomas Manton he describes the work of regeneration as the infusion of the life of grace and you know Manton says that grace keeps us from slothfulness and worldliness and carelessness I'm quoting Thomas Manton one of the great English Puritans William Perkins said Christ's humanity has all fullness of grace in it. It is a pipe to convey the same grace to all of God's people. Jesus Christ full of grace and truth, he distributes his grace to his children. This is the whole doctrine of Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is Jesus Christ with the person of Jesus Christ living within the soul of man that delivers grace from Jesus Christ It's described like this I in them and thou in me.

That's how Jesus Christ described it. You are in Jesus Christ and therefore he is transmitting His grace through you in all of its glory and this is the unsearchable riches of His grace that the Apostle Paul talks about and it it's a delivery of grace in all of your suffering It's a delivery of grace in every disappointment you've ever had. It's the deliverance of grace. When you need wisdom to speak to someone and interact with someone, maybe someone who's hot-headed or someone who's evil. God gives grace to his beloved.

This is such a wonderful doctrine. Paul told the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 1.30, but of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us the wisdom of God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. In other words, you are in Him and as a result He is the source of your wisdom. And he uses there in to the Corinthian Church almost the same words that he uses here in Titus 2 11 through 14 righteousness and sanctification and redemption so this is the whole package of the kindness of God toward his people So this is the work of grace So these these six things that grace teaches will just begin will take them one by one and We'll get as far as we can get First of all grace teaches us what to reject. Grace teaches us what to reject.

So he did grace teaches denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. The work of grace in your life will activate your conscience toward ungodliness and worldly lusts. God through His grace teaches His children what to renounce, what to run from. Grace is a running coach. He teaches you to run, to run from worldliness and to run from ungodliness.

Now of course this is the negative side of the training. We'll get to the positive in just a minute but this is the what grace does is it teaches you to be careful how you obey. In Deuteronomy, Moses over and over again says be careful how you walk, be careful. And the basic meaning of this is to say no, to deny. It's a description actually of a negative attitude toward a question or a demand of worldliness.

And what the Apostle is saying is that it's the power of God that teaches you to say no and to run the other direction and when you have a sense that you should go in the other direction you should go in the other direction. You should go in the other direction before you get cut off of the past. In other words, to permit nothing in your life that would dishonor God. To set proper boundaries in your life for worldliness and ungodliness. And then this is how grace, he creates fervor before sin, not slumber before sin.

Grace is that voice that tells you be gone Satan because these things they compete with our desires for God Worldliness and ungodliness is a competitor and we are being trained to to run to to overcome the competitor by running from him. And so ask your trainer you can do this right now ask your trainer what you need to renounce. Ask your trainer the grace of God what ungodliness or worldliness that you should deny, that you should turn away from. Just ponder that because it's the voice of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that asks us to get rid of godless things. You know we live in a godless world isn't it interesting you know so much of the entertainment that we see creates a godless world.

God's not there. God's not there in most of the most of the plays and most of the movies. God's just not there. Why? It's a godless world.

And so Grace does not overlook sin. That's why Charles Spurgeon said, The grace that does not change my life will not change my soul. Will not save my soul, I'm sorry. Because what grace does is it alters your position. Grace makes you hate sin.

Grace moves you in a different direction. Grace causes you reject and fight and run in the face of sin. In this sense, there's a militaristic sense of grace. We often think of grace as this wonderfully comforting thing, and it is absolutely, but there's a militaristic flavor to grace in this passage of scripture because it teaches you to deny to reject and it's it makes you say no. Imagine imagine the the effect of grace on the island of Crete where all men are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

It's because the grace of God will come into the hearts of those people and they will stop lying and they will stop being out of control and they will have control over their appetites. That's the power of the grace of God on the island of Crete. Ephesians 2-3 says, and he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience and then in Ephesians 422 he says that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness so this righteousness and holiness. So this is the whole idea of putting off and putting on. And frankly, One of the great errors of modern evangelicalism is to say that your works don't matter.

But here, your works do matter. So, first of all, grace teaches us to reject. Ask the Lord, oh Lord, pour your grace out upon me and teach me more because we always need to be taught more. And then the second grace teaches us what to pursue, see the words here, that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly. Now there are these three things, excuse me, soberly.

This has to do with sound mind to think rightly about things, not rashly but temporally, discreetly. This word appears seven times in Titus for older men and also for women as well. It's keeping your head about you, okay? It teaches you to keep your head about you. And then righteously, the things that are right, and then godly, the things are consistent with the character of God.

So it's the grace of God has always been teaching you these things. From the very beginning, you because of The presence of Jesus Christ in his grace you are more sober minded today than you were than the first moment when you were saved You are You are living more righteously today than the very first moment when you're saved because God has been pouring out His grace upon you. You might not have felt it. These slow incremental changes and then He has also been teaching you what it is like to live in a way that's consistent with the holiness of God. The Bible says, you shall be holy for I am holy.

And it's the grace of God that has been teaching you to be holy. And I want you to give thanks for that that he he's always been doing that in your life he hasn't stopped you have and I have gone through fluctuations in our lives but Jesus Christ has never stopped giving his grace. He is full of grace and truth and he is in you and that is the hope of glory. Now There are many explicit manifestations of this in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 3 verse 10, we learn that it was grace that taught Paul how to build and plant churches.

In 2 Corinthians 1-12, we learned that it was grace that taught Paul how to behave wisely before the Corinthians. Have you ever needed help to behave wisely in any situation with rebellious children, with overbearing adults maybe? How about that? Overbearing parents? You know parents sometimes sin when they're in their parenting and so children also need to be converted children will be taught to behave wisely in front of the imperfections of their parents, the imperfections of their spouses to behave wisely.

It's grace that comes alongside to help. In 2 Thessalonians 1, 11-12, It's the grace of God that causes Christ to be glorified in you. It was also, it was the grace of God that taught the Macedonians that they should give, they should give liberally to the suffering church in Jerusalem. They gave out of their poverty, and it was the grace of God that taught them to give out of their poverty to come alongside the church that actually planted them years before the Jerusalem Church planted the Macedonian Church and now the Jerusalem Church is in big trouble and the daughter gave help to the mother in that situation. Paul told the Corinthian church how to give generously to the work of the ministry in their own church and he said that it was God who causes them to sow bountifully and to rebound to flee with their money.

You know it's interesting I you know we're facing a moment where we're gonna need to raise money to build another building but he says that God is able to make all grace abound to you that you having all sufficiency in all things may abound in every good work and he says that this is he says and God is able to make all grace abound to you. It's grace that opens people's hearts to give to the needs of the ministry. In 1 Corinthians 15 verse 10, we learn something that really covers every part of your life. That carries you through all of the seasons of your life, even the down seasons. And the apostle Paul said, but by the grace of God, I am what I am.

And his grace toward me was not in vain. God's grace keeps pouring out. We were in Romans chapter five, and we read that we stand in grace. We stand like in a waterfall of grace all our life long. You know, I've been trying to ponder what grace teaches you in a marriage, because Peter speaks about this in 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 7 he says husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding or knowledge giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel.

And then he says this, as being heirs together of the grace of life. What does that mean? That you are in marriage, you are heirs together of the grace of life. So grace has something to do with being married and I think there are different ways to understand this. He says you're joint heirs.

In other words a husband and wife who are converted are both beneficiaries of the grace of God. You have received grace and you are conduits of grace. You are heirs together of the grace of life. And so when two believers are bound together in covenant in marriage, They both are partakers of this heavenly inheritance and fellow travelers in the state of grace. Every marriage is in a hails from a state.

It's the state of grace. And you're both recipients of grace. You both stand in grace. You both have the gifts of grace in the Holy Spirit. And I think this, well all of you married people, how can you be a more complete and blessed source of grace to your spouse?

Can you? He says here to give her honor as the weaker vessel, you know, don't despise the difference between a man and a woman and don't be a stumbling block to the blessings of grace. You were created for a blessing. I think this means that both are God's instruments of grace, to be fruitful and multiply, to establish households, to bring the gospel to the rising generation. All these are manifestations of the grace of God and at the same time we we are helping one another more and more to love the Lord.

Is that what is do you need more grace for that? To help one another love the Lord more and more? Or you can actually be a hindrance by your neglect. You can be a hindrance of helping your spouse to love the Lord more and more. What are you doing for your spouse?

You are an heir of the grace of God, the grace of life. One theologian describes this living with your wife in an understanding way, this knowledge. He says it's the knowledge of God's purposes and principles for marriage, knowledge of the wife's desires, her goals, her frustrations, knowledge of her strengths and weaknesses in the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms. So marriage is the grace of life because you have partners who have entered into a covenant with God and with one another. So here's your assignment.

Here's your assignment if you're married. What has been the grace of God toward you through your spouse? How has God blessed you? How has the grace of God been manifested through your spouse? Eternal life, they belong to both of you.

And I just want you to see the benefit of the grace of life in your marriage There's so many Letters in the New Testament that either begin with grace to you or like in Revelation 22 the last prayer in the Bible the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all amen So I think the grace of God speaks to really every area of life and it's such a blessing. So let me try to tie these threads together. We've covered the grace that teaches us to reject and then the grace that teaches us to pursue and then we'll finish this, we'll finish the rest of it the next time we come into Titus. But I want to try to wrap this up by saying that grace is not only the power to save, but it's the ongoing of God for you and in you and on you. For you, in you, and on you.

This is the miracle of the new birth. It's his unmerited favor that redeems and then teaches you to reject and to pursue and makes you zealous for good works. We'll get to that in the next time. Grace is not a passive partner. Grace is on the offense.

Not so much in the defense but in the offense. Well on the one hand he is defending the grace of God, defends you from condemnation. But the offensive strategy is the conquering strategy. Grace turns over tables in your life. Sin was your master, now grace is your master.

The Bible says that explicitly, that grace is a master, it's a ruler. So cry out to God and say, Lord, give me more grace to reject. Lord, give me more grace to pursue. And I want to close with a hymn called He giveth more grace. The words are such a tremendous summary of these first two points.

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater. He sendeth more strength when the labors increase. To added affliction, he addeth his mercy. To multiplied trials, his multiplied peace. His love has no limit, his grace has no measure, his power has no boundary known unto men.

For out of his infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth and giveth and giveth again. Fear not that thy need shall exceed his provision. Our God ever yearns his resources to share. Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing the Father both thee and thy load shall up bear. When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength has failed, ere the day is half done.

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, our Father's full giving is only begun. His love has no limit, His grace has no measure, His power has no boundary known unto men. For out of his infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth and giveth and giveth again. This is the power of the grace of God in sanctification. Praise God for his remarkable gift And my hope is that you who are believers will go home rejoicing in the grace of God, that you will enumerate in your mind what God has done by His grace in your life.

And we'll get to the rest of this passage later on but let's never forget how important it is to cry out for grace for more grace so we do need it let's pray Lord we thank you Thank you for the gift of your son our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior who teaches us everything we need to know who helps us to walk in the ways in which we should go that teaches us how to love one another teaches us how to operate in the church you've given us the ordinary means of grace to stimulate grace in our lives you your grace teaches us how to be married and how to deal with our money and how to deal with our tongues it's your grace oh Lord is such a marvelous grace may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ Be with us all. Amen.