Speaker: Dustin Scott

Passage: Titus 2:11-3:8

GRACE: A WORD WE TALK ABOUT OR THE WAY WE LIVE

I shared with our first gathering, the word for bread and cup in the original Greek New Testament is a verb. It’s the verb eucharistéō. It’s why the older churches call the sacrament of bread and cup the Eucharist. And what it means is, I give thanks. 

The bread and the cup is a place of thanksgiving, where we don’t just in a narrow way remember the sacrifice of the cross, but we actively remember that sacrifice by adjusting our life by allowing the Lord to transform our life, so that we live in accordance with God’s kindness towards us. It’s a place of thanksgiving and gratitude. 

This morning, I have a lot to be thankful for. Yesterday, Saturday morning, I was outside most of the morning with my young daughter. She’s two, and we were playing with the leaves. And I wish I had pictures to show you because it was just adorable. But what happened is we both got stricken with allergies. Her face was all red. I started coughing.

And so, if you’re here this morning, and you’re like, Dustin, you lack the charisma you normally have, just be gracious with me. I feel kind of clustered up from the allergies I got yesterday. Some of you are going, Dustin, you had no charisma to begin with, to which I say, I didn’t want your feedback anyways. 

While we’re on the topic of sickness, I don’t know if you’ve ever been stricken with that particular ailment of the GI system– Gary, I’m not looking at you right now– where you know that something needs to happen, but you can’t make it happen. That’s how I felt writing this teaching throughout the week. 

I’m like, Lord, I know what You’ve given me to share. I don’t know how to write it out. And thankfully, the Lord was gracious, and I sense we have a direction for this morning. But before I ramble and get too far ahead of myself, let’s begin with the reading of the Scriptures. You know I’m going to do it. Would you stand? 

TITUS 2:11-3:8

We will be reading from Titus 2:11-3:8, and I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version. It says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce sin and worldly passions and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all sin and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds. Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down upon you. 

“Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is sure. I desire that you insist on these things, so that those who have come to believe in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works; these things are excellent and profitable to everyone.” 

Lord, would You be with us as we study Your Word this morning? Lord, would You make us a people who are dedicated to good works in You? A people who, through our lifestyle, reveal Your character and nature to the world around us? 

Lord, Your grace is abounding through this passage. Lord, we repent of any place where we’ve thought that the grace of God is anything less than You, the person of Jesus. That You are our identity, You are our calling, You are our purpose, You’re the way we are called to live. 

So, would You teach us to live like You and express Your love towards the world around us? Lord, for any places where we’ve deviated from Your way, we repent and we return to You again. Give us ears to hear what Your Spirit is saying to the church. 

If I say anything which contradicts Your truth or which misses the mark, will You allow it to be forgotten so that You can reign supreme in everything? We ask this in Your holy name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And everyone said, Amen. You may be seated. 

WHAT ARE MERCY AND GRACE?

The title of today’s teaching is, is grace a word we talk about, or is it the way we live? Throughout our study of the letter to Titus, I’ve discerned a problem. I felt it within myself. I’ve heard it in the conversations of others. 

It is no surprise that I started this morning talking about sickness because I think that we as a body, as a family, have come down with a serious case of the what abouts? Now, what are the what abouts? Let me explain what I mean here. 

Throughout Paul’s letter to Titus in chapter 2, Paul tells us, as mature believers, that we must instruct younger believers in the faith. But we protest: What about my old age? What about the years I’ve already spent volunteering and serving others? What about the disrespect and obstinance of these often wretched young people? I mean, the Gen Z stare. Come on. I’m a millennial, so I don’t have that same gripe. 

Paul says, as wives, we must be affectionately loving and submissive to our husbands, but we object: What about his bad attitude? What about his bad behavior? What about the fact his breath always smells so terrible? What about his spiritual immaturity and his failure to meet my emotional needs? 

Paul says, as husbands, we must exercise strict self-control and marital fidelity to our wife, but we complain: What about her constant criticisms and complaints? What about her unwillingness to satisfy my sexual desires? What about the fact she puts on pajamas or sweatpants every day when we used to be so alluring to each other? 

Uh oh, here’s one we won’t like. Paul says, as civilians, we must honor and obey governing authorities over us. But we whine: What about their immorality and corruption? What about the heavy taxes they levy against us? 

Now, if there’s any police officers in the room, I am sorry ahead of time. What about those stupid speed trap cameras they put all over our city? I particularly hate the one on Lemay. It gets me every time. 

The what abouts are any excuse we would use to push away the commandments of Jesus and His apostles. And they’re symptoms of a spiritual sickness within us. I have it too. And if a spiritual physician were to diagnose our ailment, I think he’d find we were sick for two reasons. 

One is theological. Paul will use two words throughout this passage: mercy and grace. I don’t think we really understand what those words actually mean, and we’ll talk about it this morning. 

But more importantly, the reason for our spiritual sickness is this: we have confined God’s glorious, eternal salvation to a me-sized box. God’s salvation is big enough to fit me, but not you, especially when you annoy me. So, let’s talk about these confused words, mercy and grace, to understand Paul’s theology. And we must first understand the words he’s using. Mercy and grace are not the same thing. 

The New Testament word for mercy is eleos, and it means pity or compassion. Paul will say He saved us not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy. What is mercy? According to Paul, it’s not getting what we deserve. Mercy is the fact that God has spared us of the punishment and justice that our sins deserve. 

This other word, grace, in the Greek is charis, and its goodwill, kindness, favor. Paul will say of the grace of God that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce sinful living and worldly passions. What is grace? Grace is the supernatural power to change. Grace is what trains us to renounce sin and to pick up God’s holiness. 

Mercy and Grace are not the same thing. But I think in modern Christian culture, we have come to believe that they are. I have said at certain times in my life, Wow, I really made a lot of mistakes yesterday, but thank goodness for the grace of God. 

Mercy and grace are not the same thing. And what is the danger of this conflation of these words in Scripture? We begin to believe a lie, and the lie is this: that salvation is mercy, meaning God has forgiven my sins, but without grace, meaning I have no obligation or requirement to change the way I live. 

Mercy declares the forgiveness of God over my failures, but grace is what leads me to put on the nature of Jesus to be holy and to love others. These are the two aspects of salvation, and without both of them, you don’t have salvation. 

SALVATION FOR ALL

Let’s talk about the bigger problem– the me-sized box. Perhaps I should say the smaller problem. Paul says in verse 11, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.” The Greek dative of phrase is pantes anthrōpoi. It means to all human beings. 

There is no mistaking that Paul is saying the salvation of God has been revealed to all human beings, past, present, and future. I want you to raise your hand in this room if you’re human. I want you to raise your hand if every single person you know in your life is human. Okay, so we understand the scale here. 

I think if we were honest with ourselves, especially in our worst moments, we would rather Paul say, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to me, but not to this person over here who annoys me, who hurts me, who frustrates me, who disappoints me. 

Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest, who I’m going to rep because he’s from Gonzaga, my same university, he works for the facilitation of ex-gang members back into society. He has an incredible ministry in LA called Homeboy Industries. And he’ll write this: “A wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be some lives out there that matter less than others.” 

Think about what our excuses say. When we say, Hey, I would love you, but you do this thing that really annoys me. Hey, I would serve you, but you don’t meet my needs. Hey, I would forgive you, but you don’t repent and humble yourself the way you should. What does that say? It says the salvation of God is available to me, but not to you. 

And these excuses reveal a dark reality within us that we have to root out. I have it too. We don’t fully believe in the good news of God’s mercy. We’re ready to claim the mercy of God for ourselves, but yet we so willingly deny it to others. 

And worse yet, I think we don’t fully believe in the good news of God’s grace because we don’t want to surrender to Him. We don’t want to become like Him. We’d rather stay comfortable, unloving, and self-absorbed in our excuses. 

And here’s the problem: a gospel without both God’s mercy and His transformative grace is no gospel at all. Why? Because unchanged people change nothing. 

How many of you grew up in a context where you heard people talking about God’s attributes, about His character, about His posture towards humanity, but you saw none of that virtue lived out in the family or church you came from? There was no change. There was no transformation. What effect did that have on you? 

Paul writes Titus, and he says, He saved us not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy. 

MERCY IS NOT TRANSACTIONAL

I want to contrast God’s mercy against our excuses. We say, Hey, I’d invest in young believers, but they don’t respect me enough. We say, I’d honor my husband, but he doesn’t lead me well. We say, Hey, I’d be faithful to my wife, but she doesn’t satisfy me. 

Our excuses reflect a transactional approach to mercy. Hey, I’ll do this, but only if you do that first. Compare that to the mercy of God. Yahweh tells Moses in Exodus 33, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and proclaim before you the name Yahweh, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” 

Can you guys imagine if God’s answer to creation was, Hey, you’re doomed to destruction. There’s no redemption. It’s all judgment and justice for the sin you’ve committed. And then humanity pleads and whines and praises, and finally God’s like, Yeah, I wasn’t feeling like it. I didn’t really want to save you, but since you’ve begged me, I guess I’ll send Jesus. Can you imagine if that was God’s heart towards us? 

God’s mercy is not a transaction. It’s not a response to our behavior or holiness. Mercy is the sovereign expression of who God is, and the falsehood of our transactional mercy does not reflect that. 

Jesus gives us a parable which explains this principle in Matthew 18, and I’m going to read it for us. It says, “For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and for payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ Out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave the debt. 

“But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay me what you owe me.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 

“When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave as I had mercy on you?’ And in his anger the lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay the entirety of his debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” 

THE DEBT WE ARE FORGIVEN

Sobering stuff, right? There’s a comprehensive illustration of God’s mercy in this parable. I want to do some historical digging for you. Those of you who are math nerds or history buffs, you’ll love this. For those of you who aren’t, I’ve put it all up on a slide so that I don’t need to kill you along this journey. 

I wanted to figure out what exactly is ten thousand talents worth of debt? So, I took Hebrew talents, I was combing over Josephus and Pliny the Younger and all these first-century sources, and I was converting talents to shekels, shekels to drachmas, drachmas to denarii because I wanted to figure out, what was this debt? How much debt did this slave owe the master? 

And you know what I found? If you took the ten thousand talents worth of debt, and you converted it into our language, we would understand the debtor was forgiven 3,287,671 years worth of debt. That’s a lot of debt. Some of us are here with some hefty student loans, but we don’t have more debt than that. 

Jesus is saying God’s forgiveness of your sin is like 3.2 million years worth of debt being forgiven, that is how big the mercy of God is. In fact, 3.2 million years wouldn’t hold a candle to it because who did God send? God the Son, what He loved the most, for the redemption of the world. 

I want to pause here. How many of us have ever struggled to accept the mercy of God towards us? Maybe you have that sin that your imagination always trails back to, and when you think of it, you go, Man, there is no way God will ever forgive me. There is no way He will ever redeem me. There’s no way He’ll restore me. 

Maybe you had a prodigal son period in your life where you walked away from the Lord, and that haunts you to this day. Maybe you feel crushed by shame and despair. I want to encourage you in something: your worst sin cannot exceed God’s mercy. This mercy is exhaustive, comprehensive, eternal. He has given us a new life, and there’s absolutely nothing we did to deserve it. 

Isn’t that good news? Isn’t the Gospel incredible? But yet this eternal mercy comes with a condition: we must be a people who show to others the same mercy He has shown to us. What Jesus is saying by this parable, He puts 3.2 million years of debt side by side with one hundred days worth of debt. The sin we commit against each other is like one hundred days worth of debt in comparison to the forgiveness of God. 

WE MUST SHOW THE SAME KIND OF MERCY

So, what’s the message? How dare we not forgive those around us? How dare we not show mercy to those around us when God has shown such mercy to us? We must be a people of unconditional mercy. We must be a people who understand that forgiveness and the extension of mercy isn’t just a good idea, it isn’t just highly encouraged, it’s a necessity for our salvation. 

Some of us might say, That’s an extreme view. Really? Jesus says, “If you forgive your brother, so will my Father in Heaven forgive you. But if you don’t forgive your brother, neither will my Father in Heaven forgive you.” 

If we think, Well, Jesus was God, He’s given us this extreme statement that we can’t possibly walk in. The writer of 1 John will say this: “If anyone claims to know God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar, and the love of God is not in him.” 

Mercy is necessary in our life of salvation. So, I want to encourage you guys in something: if you’re here this morning and you’re holding on to a decade-long grudge– maybe someone in your family really harmed you, maybe a friend fractured a relationship with you– and you’ve been holding on to that unforgiveness, I want to encourage you: stop it, and forgive. 

Maybe you’re like me, and it’s like, Well, once they repent, once they humiliate themselves, once they admit that I was right and they were wrong, and they do three years of penance, they send me twenty-five letters appealing for my forgiveness, then maybe I’ll think about it. Stop it. Forgive them. There is no other way. We have to lay down our excuses and embrace His mercy.

Salvation doesn’t stop at mercy. Mercy is purposed unto grace. Paul says of God’s grace, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age, to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.” 

I want to bring a Biblical correction to our theology of grace. According to Paul, it is grace that trains us to renounce our sinful lifestyle and worldly desires. What does that mean? We don’t have a right to excuses anymore. 

When someone harms us and we sin back, we can’t go, Hey, I’m just human. Hey, they did it first. Grace takes away our excuses. Grace is what enables us to live a transformed life of holiness, purity, and Godly character which reflects Jesus. 

I want to pause on this statement. Grace is not a license to sin. Grace is the revelation of the person of Jesus, God’s love towards us. Grace is the supernatural power God has given us to change. We have muddled ourselves in a false theology of grace, what Bonhoeffer called cheap grace. I’m going to take it a step further: it’s counterfeit grace. 

The unforgiving slave, if we go back to Jesus’ parable, did not work off his debt. He was shown complete mercy. He didn’t earn his forgiveness. He was freely given a new life, and yet, at the same time, the unforgiving slave did not partner with the grace and kindness of his master. 

He did not adopt the master’s character. He did not forgive his fellow slave the same way he had been forgiven. And he did not live a transformed life. And while the unforgiving slave was shown complete mercy, the parable tells us that his unchanged, dare I say graceless, life resulted in both the removal of his pardon and the full reapplication of his debt. 

Jesus is giving us an illustration of the life of salvation. This isn’t a works-based salvation. It’s a grace-based salvation. God the Father sent His one and only Son for our redemption. Grace is the most marvelous gift that has ever been given. 

This isn’t a story about, Hey, we’ve studied the Scriptures, we’ve been looking at grace and mercy, and we’ve come to discover that the mercy and grace are much smaller than previously expected. 

What we found is that God’s mercy and God’s grace are so immeasurable, He takes it so seriously, Paul will say in Romans, “Note both the kindness and severity of God.” This is the greatest gift which has ever been given. We have to take it seriously. 

I want to give you guys a narrative, a story from my own life where the Lord smacked me with this principle. Kelly and I got married several years ago. I had grown up in the Baptist tradition, which means I was really good at hiding my sins and pretending I was holy. 

She did not grow up Christian. She grew up in an unbelieving house that was exposed to a lot of sin, a lot of brokenness, a lot of trauma. And when we first got married, it was a bit of a roller coaster. The roller coaster was pretty much here all the time, but I had a few moments where it went down.

And so, we were working through some of this trauma and difficulty from her past. And one day, I was listening to my lifelong favorite band, Pink Floyd, and Kelly snapped at me and said, Hey, I can’t listen to that. That takes me back to one of the darkest points in my life. 

She moved out when she was sixteen with a guy who was an adult man who exposed her to a lot of violence and trauma, and me listening to Pink Floyd was bringing her back to a lot of those memories. 

And so, I do the perfectly Christian thing, and I say, Okay, honey, I’ll turn it off. No, I didn’t. I raged. And not only did I rage, but I was on the way to a Sunday night church gathering, our DTS ministry, where guys come from the jail to worship the Lord and study the Scriptures. And I raged the whole way there. I’m like, Man, if I ever meet this guy from Kelly’s past, I’m going to rip his face off. I can’t listen to my favorite band at home anymore. I was throwing a fit. 

And so, I get to the church. You’re like, Man, Pastor Dustin is that messed up? Yeah, that’s what the Lord saved me from. So, I get to the church. The worship softens me up a bit. We do a teaching from the Scriptures, and we break up into small groups, and I meet this new guy named Kevin. 

And you know those interactions where you’re like, Man, I love this person? We’ve just met for the first time, but I feel like this is a Divine meeting that the Lord orchestrated. Well, Kevin starts to share his life, some horrible things which had happened to him, some horrible sins he had committed against others. And it was really just this incredible time. You could sense the Spirit of God through that whole interaction.

So, I leave the gathering feeling good about myself, holy about myself, forgetting all of my previous sins that day, and as I go to drive away, I sense God’s Spirit arrest me and say, Do you not realize that the only difference between the man you met tonight and the man you hate is their name? When did you decide that you could be the gatekeeper of My mercy and grace towards humanity?

God takes His grace so seriously, He takes His love so seriously, He will not allow it to be profaned, and that’s why we have such a holy calling as believers. 

SEEKING MERCY AND GRACE

So, what do we do when we feel like we are at our wits’ end, where we feel pushed by the difficulties and struggles of life? What do we do when we feel like those around us have mistreated us and hurt us and injured us, and our hearts and passions are crying out for vengeance and justice? What do we do? 

Well, thank goodness, Paul gives us an answer. He says we are renewed by the Spirit in Titus 3:5, and he says that God’s Spirit, in verse 6, is poured out upon us, not meagerly, not narrowly, not in a small two-ounce portion. Sorry, you’ve used too much of God’s spiritual power today. You’ll have to wait till tomorrow to get your next measure. No, richly. 

The writer of Hebrews will write, “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive and find grace to help in our time of need.” What does that look like in our daily life? 

I think it looks like a systematic encounter with the Lord, where we are receiving of His mercy and grace each day, that we’re starting the day and His grace and His transformative mercy are within us. The Scriptures will say that we love because He first loved us next. I think if this mercy and grace is available to help in our time of need, it might be awkward, but what about going to Him in our time of need? 

Maybe we’re having an argument with our spouse, and passions are high. What if we just said, Hey, pause, I know you’re yelling, I’m yelling, but I don’t have the grace and mercy I need to navigate this situation right. I’m going to walk away. I’m going to go sit with the Lord. I’m going to let him whoop smack me with the truth of the Kingdom until I can come back and treat you the way God has treated me. 

What if we’re at our work and we’re like, Man, my manager doesn’t acknowledge me, he doesn’t reward me, he hasn’t promoted me. I’m so frustrated. What if, instead of slandering him to our co-workers, we said, Hey, I need to take a fifteen-minute break. I need to go outside and receive the mercy and grace of God until I can come back and navigate this situation the way Jesus would. 

I’ve thought this, I’m sure many of us think it too, Well, isn’t that so passive? Isn’t that so powerless? No, grace is the revelation of the eternal Son of God. Grace is the most powerful authority in existence. It transforms our response patterns. It changes our heart and character, and most importantly, it forms within us a person who loves and thinks and acts like Jesus. 

And what do the Scriptures say? The time is coming when all things will be subjected under the feet of Jesus, and then God will be all in all. The Father loves His Son so much He wants to see Him in every aspect of our lives. 

So, the question that stands before us this morning is, will we embrace the full measure of grace and mercy found in His salvation? 

Remember, mercy declares the forgiveness of my failures, but grace is what leads me to put on the nature of Jesus to be holy and to treat others the way He has treated me. Will we be a people who extend His mercy? Will we be a people who allow His transformative grace within us to transform every aspect of how we love and handle those around us?

Let’s pray. Holy Spirit, I think about Paul’s words about your Gospel and his letter to the Romans: note then the kindness and severity of God. Lord, we stand in awe of your kindness, that You are a God who loved us so much that You sent who You loved the most for our salvation. 

You gave us Your Son to rebirth our humanity, to make us new, to give us new life. You sent Your Spirit to dwell within us. You made us temples of His presence, so that we could be living reflections of Your character in this world. 

Lord, that is such a majestically kind picture, and it’s the true picture of who You are. But yet, Lord, we note Your severity, Your seriousness, that such a rich gift comes with reverence, with moderation, with self-reflection. 

So, Lord, would You search us and know us? Would You show us any area in our lives where we’ve neglected Your mercy and Your transformative grace? God, I thank You that Your strength is made perfect in weakness because I know I am so, so weak. 

So, Lord, would You give Your power, Your authority? Be in Your strength to every beloved person in this room, so that they might reflect You to this world who so desperately needs You. We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Everyone said, Amen.