Everything has words that are important to it. They are words that define and describe what it means. They are words that are critical to understanding and keeping it pure in its essence. The Christian faith is no different. There are some things that are essential to the Christian faith. In Titus 2:11-14, we have some of those words represented.
In Titus 2:11, we see the first word, grace. It is the grace of God that brings salvation. Grace is that unmerited favor that God has extended to all who will believe. Without grace, there can be no salvation of the soul. God is perfect and cannot be in the presence of sin, but because of His love for us, He made a way for us to spend eternity with Him. I like to remember grace as “God’s riches at Christ’s expense.” God, the King of Glory, gave His riches, Jesus, to pay the price for my sins. Grace was extended at the expense of Jesus’ life and the agony of having our sins poured out on Him.
Titus 2:11 “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,”
The next word is repentance. To repent means to turn away from. It is also of God. In His goodness He allows us to come to him through repentance to receive His grace. Titus 2:12 teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. The only way we can live this way is to understand our standing before Him. The grace that He bestows upon us teaches us to live a life that is pleasing to Him. When we repent of our sins, we turn from them to God. We are to deny anything that would not be pleasing to God. His grace teaches us that when we do this, it is possible to live righteously, in right standing with Him. Through repentance, we put off the ungodliness and put on the righteousness of God. In the New Testament Jesus proclaimed 15 times that we must repent to have eternal life.
Titus 2:12 “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;”
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
Mark 1:15 “And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
Luke 13:3 “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”
After we have repented of our sins, we look forward to the day we will be with Christ. We have great hope for the future. Hope is a fundamental need for everyone. We all hope in something but is your hope in something eternal? Something that exceeds everything else in life. For those who are His, we have the hope of spending eternity with Christ. Christ, the one who loved us enough to die for us. He gave himself out of love for us. He gave himself so that we could be redeemed from the sins of this world and live a life unto God. Without Christ, there would be no eternal hope. Our lives would become a mundane day-to-day existence with our only hope being in the things this world has to offer. Things that will pass away in a world that is constantly changing for the bad, not for the good. If your hope is in this world you will live a life that has no peace when bad things happen. You will have no hope beyond the grave. You will live a life of deception that will lead to hell when you could have had a life of eternal hope where all is perfect forever. Our hope is in Christ and we who have accepted Him as our Savior look for Him to return one day. In verse 13 Christ’s appearance will be a glorious one. Our hope is all about Christ!
Titus 2:13-14 “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”
The Cross is another essential word for the Christian. Without the cross, there would be no hope of eternal life. There would be no grace extended to us. Jesus Christ would still be the Son of God, but He would not be our Savior. In verse 14, Jesus Christ who gave Himself for us hung on the cross in shame and in separation from His Father for us. Without the cross, we would all be lost and spend eternity in Hell.
The last word in these verses that cannot be overlooked is redeemed. The word redeem means to buy back. Before sin entered into the world all mankind belonged to God, but sin brought a separation that only God could change. When we are redeemed, He buys us back and we are His again. The cost? It was the death of His Son. Because of our redemption, we are free from the power of sin, and the penalty of sin.
I Peter 1:18-19 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:”
We who have experienced the grace of God should live in obedience to God. When we sin, we need to repent and seek to stay in the right relationship with God. We ought to live with Jesus Christ as our Master and Savior. Seeking to honor and please Him, and seeking to thank Him for our redemption. We should live a life that is so grateful that we never get over what God did by sending His Son to die on the cross for us. When we live this way, we will be always “looking for the blessed hope and appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
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