Please turn in your Bibles to Titus chapter 2, and I want to read to you verses 11 through 15. Hear the Word of God. 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. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word, and it is our desire to honor it to love it, to cherish it, to have it sink deep in our hearts, and by your grace, to have your word transform us. And so we lift up our continued worship and our responses to your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, last week, as we examined Christ's words in Matthew chapter 4, we looked at the incredibly far-reaching implications of the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura, which means scripture alone. And once you understand what the Reformers meant by that phrase, it's no mystery at all why the Western civilization was even more transformed, tremendously transformed as a result of the Reformation in technology and economics, politics, the arts, and many, many other areas. Now, of course, we saw that we're still in the infancy of applying the scriptures to music and math and logic and linguistics, but I think I was able to demonstrate that the Bible does indeed have the axioms, the Greek word is stoicheia, the building blocks the foundational starting points for every discipline of life, as well as the interpretive framework and the worldview framework within which we can have success and our dominion in all of those areas. As 2 Peter words it, the Scriptures give to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Now today we're going to look at a second issue, sola gratia, grace alone. And just as many Christians pay lip service to the concept of sola scriptura, And they really are not applying the Scripture to every area of life. Many times the same Christians are paying lip service to grace alone. They've really not learned how to live by grace in absolutely everything that they do. In fact, I have found, in my experience, that some of the people who talk about grace the most, and it tends to be people who say, we're not under law, we're under grace, that have demonstrated the most powerless Christianity. Your views of grace profoundly affect whether your life operates in the flesh on a day-to-day basis or whether it is transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit." So really this message is just as critical a doctrine for Reformation as last week's message was. When Jesus said, without me you can do nothing, he meant it. And when you realize that the scripture says that we live and move and have our being in him, that he upholds everything by the word of his power, which means every atom of your body, every breath that you take comes from him, that he gives light to everyone that comes into the world. Yeah, without him we can do nothing. But I especially want to be focusing in on what does sola gratia mean in very practical terms? Now there are a lot of false views of grace out there, and I want to start by giving you five faulty views found within the evangelical church of America. This is where they have deviated from the Reformation. First, there are evangelicals who have been so confused about the nature of grace that they think that Roman Catholics have the same gospel that we do. You may have noticed in the news a couple of months ago that the World Evangelical Alliance, which represents multiplied millions of evangelicals around the world, is linking arms with the Roman Catholic Church on this area of saying, you know, we are brothers in the defense of the same gospel. And I think in part they say this because they realize Roman Catholics talk about grace a great deal. They do. Sometimes they talk about grace more than evangelicals do. They believe that grace starts and undergirds and it finishes the Christian walk. But you need to also realize Mormons talk about grace, JWs talk about grace. I've even recently seen some Muslims talking about grace. That's kind of a new thing for Muslims. But just because people talk about grace does not mean that they have the same view of grace that the Bible gives. There are counterfeit views of grace that are out there. So Roman Catholics, they don't deny grace, they just deny the doctrine of sola. gratia, or grace alone. On the other hand, there are evangelicals who think that grace is somehow contrary to law, and if there is any law keeping, that there is no grace. And they fail to remember that Jesus had to perfectly keep the law in order to purchase grace for us, and that the purpose of grace is to transform us, is to make us more and more like the image of Jesus Christ. Third, some think grace is needed for conversion, in other words, for our regeneration, our faith, repentance, our justification, but then they act as if grace is really not needed for the rest of their lives, and Galatians 3 says that is incredibly foolish. It says, yes, we begin our Christian life by the power of the Holy Spirit, but we've got to continue the Christian life by faith in the working of God's Holy Spirit in everything that we do as well. everything must be characterized by grace. And so the book of Galatians, I think, is a major correction to that third group. Fourth, there is a group of evangelicals who define grace in a way that you would think God's not really bothered by sin. He doesn't really care about sin. For them, grace means that God likes us just the way that we are and we can sin like the devil and still be secure in God's grace. And then the fifth group, are the five-point Arminians who think that grace can be completely lost and that therefore we need to get regenerated all over again, and we need to get justified over and over again. In their view, sin is constantly putting us in jeopardy of our salvation. And that means that they really don't understand sin either. Sin's a whole lot worse than what they think it is, and grace is a whole lot greater than they think it is. But as a result of their faulty view of grace, they have no sure footing on which to grow. And sadly, those five defective viewpoints are very, very common in the so-called evangelical church of today. And this passage not only corrects those faulty views, it gives us, I think, a paradigm by which we can live by grace every moment of our lives. I want you to take a look at verse 12, teaching us. What is teaching us? Well, the grammar indicates that it's the grace of God from the previous verse. It is teaching us something. And so commentators say he's likening grace to a teacher. And one of the ways that you can tell whether your version of grace is a counterfeiter, it's the real thing, is by whether your version of grace is teaching you the same things that Paul says his version of grace is teaching us in this passage. So let's look at verse 11, let's see how we got introduced to grace in the first place. First we see in verse 11 that the school of grace opens our eyes to the only way of salvation. We have totally misunderstood grace if we think that we can somehow earn or deserve or even contribute in some small way to our salvation. And let's break the verse down word by word. The word grace is a word that simply means God's favor. The word salvation implies that we were lost, we were deserving of hell. It implies that mankind is desperately in need of salvation. But I want you to notice the order in which God's favor comes. Verse 11 says, for the grace of God that brings salvation. So the first thing we need to notice is that God's favor came upon us before we were saved. Otherwise, it wouldn't be bringing salvation. If God's favor brings salvation, it means the favor was there before there was salvation. But if God had favor on us before we were saved, that logically means that God's favor came before we were changed, before we were converted, before there was anything good within us. That means there was nothing we contributed to get God's favor. That's why theologians speak of it as grace, as unmerited favor, undeserved favor. God's favor began in eternity past when He elected us before the foundation of the world, and that eternal undeserved favor brings every aspect of our salvation into being. Scripture says that we are regenerated by grace. We have faith and repentance by grace. We are sanctified by grace. We're resurrected by grace. We are Adopted and glorified by grace. Every aspect of salvation flows from God's prior favor. So that's all logically implied there. But there is a certainty in those words that's very encouraging as well, and commentators point out that there's a very curious usage of an adjective for salvation. OK, the English word salvation is a noun, but the Greek is not a noun. It's an adjective that would be literally translated as saving. Okay? Saving. And if you look at the Greek form of the word, it helps you to see what saving adjective is modifying. It's a feminine singular nominative and it corresponds to the feminine singular nominative of the word grace. So commentators point out literally it is saving grace. It's not simply a grace that makes salvation possible. You know, if we would just cooperate with it, as Arminians would have it, you know, it is a grace that always and effectively saves. It is irresistible grace, and that's why our version says that it actually brings salvation. When that grace is present, Okay, salvation results. It is a saving grace. It's a very strong, very encouraging term. Third thing to notice is that this prior favor of God that presently brings salvation had to pierce the darkness. You can't really see that in our version, but the word appeared is literally in the Greek Well, the Greek word is epiphane, from which we get the English word epiphany, okay? Now, it's okay to translate it as appeared, but it's really, because when you turn on the lights, things appear, right? All of a sudden you can see them. But the emphasis in the Greek is on the turning on of the lights. And let me give you a dictionary definition of the word. To shine upon, to light up. to cause light to come upon some object by way of illuminating it, to illuminate, to cause something to be seen in the darkness. So it's not just appearing. Yes, Christ was appearing, but it's emphasizing a shining in the darkness. So he's using that metaphor to indicate not only did grace come before anything that we did to deserve it, all we contributed was darkness, and God's grace had to pierce through that darkness in order for us to be saved. John begins his gospel by saying, in him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. So even with the light there, people didn't comprehend it. Until their eyes are open, they're not going to see the light, right? Luke begins his gospel by saying of Jesus that he was to give light, exactly the same word we're talking about in Titus 2.11, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. And this is precisely what men need Before they can learn any lessons from grace grace needs to open up blind eyes to be able to see the truths of scripture so there is no synergy or Cooperation between God and man. In fact Romans says there isn't anyone who seeks after God. No, it's God seeking us so on God's part with this idea of shining into the darkness. On God's part, grace is completely unmerited. It is sovereign and unconditional. On man's part, it's unmerited. All we contributed was darkness, and God contributed everything else. So already you can see logically all of the solas are connected. If this is true, sola gratia, automatically there's two other solas that are involved. And actually, you know, solus Christus, I think is the way the Latin goes, Christ alone and to the glory of God alone, sole deo gloria. And the fact that Jesus appeared to all men, or shone his light before all men shows that God's purpose is not to have a tiny little holy huddle, you know, that's almost negligible in this world. It was moving out towards all men. There was an invasion of the kingdom of light into the darkness of this world and it's spreading off across this world. Now let me make a clarification here. He is not saying that this is all without exception or everybody would be saved. All without exception is one of five dictionary definitions of the Greek word all, and universalists take this passage here as all without exception. Each and every man in the world from Adam to the end of Christ, including the devil, everybody's going to be saved is the way universalists take it. Well, that didn't make any sense in context, and instead, it is all men without distinction. All without distinction is the proper look at that. In other words, both the Jews and the Gentiles that the book has just been talking about, the old And the young that he's just finished exhorting, males and females, masters and servants, the rich and the poor, all without distinction. So there is an invasion of heaven to earth and a spreading of the gospel of light, the gospel of the kingdom. So Paul instructs us on how we even got into the schoolhouse or into God's homeschool program, okay? It had to be by grace that we would even get in there. And we were dead in our sins and trespasses, lying out in the darkness of the world. God's favor went out of the schoolhouse in search of us, brought us in, resurrected us to new light. took the scales off our eyes, took the blindness away, turned on the lights, and all of a sudden we can see all kinds of lessons of grace. And so verse 12 says that this grace is teaching us a whole bunch of new things. And we'll be looking at those new things, but we have to be saved before we can learn any of those lessons of grace. Once we are in the schoolhouse, we can never be satisfied with only learning how grace saved us and brought us into God's family. Now that's glorious, that is wonderful, but there are so many other lessons of grace and ignorance of these other lessons has been absolutely disastrous in America. So these verses tell us that grace is our teacher, teaching us a whole bunch of lessons after we get saved. Let's look at those. The first lesson it teaches us is that those who have been truly saved are always going to be sanctified. Okay, that sanctification is not an option. So if point one dealt with regeneration and justification, the beginning of our Christian walk, this deals with sanctification, verse 12. teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. Now this is exactly the opposite of the doctrine of grace that is taught by those who believe in the carnal Christian theory who say, you know, sanctification is an option. It's a good option. You really should follow it, but it's an option. You can accept Jesus as Savior, and then you can decide later if you want to accept Him as Lord or reject Him as Lord. I'm sorry, God doesn't allow for that. You can't split Jesus up like that. He is Lord and Savior. In fact, it's interesting that every time He's addressed, it's not Savior and Lord, it's always Lord and Savior. And so the true doctrine teaches that sanctification always and necessarily follows justification. We don't get justified by our sanctification, but if the first has happened, there's always going to be sanctification that happens. You can't have one without the other. So I want you to notice that in this verse, Paul says that grace teaches two things. First, it teaches us something negative. Now, grace stands against something. It stands in opposition to something. It denies something, or as William Hendrickson translates it, it renounces something. That's really important to understand. Grace is always against something. What is it against? Well, verse 11 says, true grace denies, or you can translate it renounces, ungodliness and worldly lusts. And if your grace is not working in you, the denying or the renouncing of ungodliness and worldly lusts, it's a counterfeit grace, okay? It is not a saving grace. And so it stands against sin, all of our fleshly desires, and then it stands for something very positive. It stands for righteousness, and I want you to notice the order. You gotta stand against something before you can stand for something. And here's what it stands for, that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. Now, soberly is the Greek word for rationality. Okay, logic and rationality. Now, you see the same Greek word used in the majority text in verses 6, 4, and 2. And I love the fact that Paul wants us to be rational. We have been saved to be rational. Amen? Not to be idiots, to be rational. Grace teaches us to think with our head. Now, unfortunately, there's a common notion out there that if you really want to be spiritual, you're going to believe in contradictions. And Paul says, no, no way. Grace teaches us to be rational. There are some people out there that think that barking for Jesus and slithering around on the floor is a sign of revival, you know, spirituality. And Paul says, no way. Grace has saved us to teach us to be rational. There are others who think if you have not had some kind of an irrational experience, you've never been baptized by the Holy Spirit. And some people, I had a pastor actually tell me, I don't believe in doctrine. I said, well, that's a doctrine right there that you just told me. But he said, I don't believe in doctrine. I'm allergic to doctrine. God only wants my heart. Well, what did Jesus say? That we're to love him with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind, right? He has saved us to use our minds. He has saved us to make us more and more rational. In fact, the further away From God, you get the more irrational you get. And I tell you, there's a lot of irrational stuff coming out of Washington, D.C. right now. They are in deep need of salvation. But this is a very, very important word. If you are in the homeschool of God, God is teaching you step by step to be more rational. The next thing that grace teaches us is that we should live righteously. Any conception of grace that says we can sin so that grace may abound is a false view of grace. Paul says that true grace teaches us to live righteously. That means God's interested in righteousness. He is interested in how we live. Not only is righteousness compatible with grace, it always flows irresistibly from grace. You're not even saved if you have not in some small way begun to live righteously. When I was doing street evangelism up in Calgary, Alberta, We used to, and we probably ought to get back into that, hand out tracts downtown and accost people and say, would you like to read this tack and discuss with me? It's really a hard kind of evangelism to do. But anyway, we used to go every week and engage in evangelism. I talked to this one Skid Row bum, drunker than a skunk, and he was on Skid Row, and I had shared the whole gospel with him, and he said, oh yeah, yeah, I got saved some time ago, and he looked around in his pocket, and he pulled out a spiritual birth certificate that some fool evangelist had given to him, and it says on there, you made a decision for Christ on whatever the date was, and any time you doubt your salvation, look at the spiritual birth certificate, never doubt it again, something to that effect. And true grace does not have us looking at some fool man-made spiritual birth certificate. What does it do? It has us look to Jesus for salvation and keep looking to Jesus. And what does Jesus do to the saved people who were looking to him? Jesus beckons us to become more and more like him to be righteous as he is righteous and If you see a teacher whose version of grace and they're out there even in the Reformed faith, by the way it's really sad, but if you see any teacher out there and whose version of grace does not teach you to live righteously, run from him, do not listen to him, because he is teaching exactly the opposite of what Paul says true grace teaches us to do. Now the next word deals with a life devoted to God, that we should live Godly, and some of the versions translate this as having devotion to God. It causes devotion to God or to become more like God. And the point is that grace stirs up our hearts to seek after God, to commune with Him, and to have a life that is wrapped up in God. And so God isn't interested just in our intellectual Christianity. He is interested in that. We've already seen that. But he wants the whole of us, even our emotion. He wants every aspect of us to be devoted to God. But this deals with worship, with devotions. And if you have never had a hunger for God, Hunger for devotions and communion with God, it's an evidence you don't have a true grace. You've got a counterfeit grace. Grace always draws us to God, to become more and more conformed to His nature, His character. We're attracted to Him. We want communion with Him. And if there is no evidence of a desire for prayer, There's evidence you are missing out on grace altogether. William Gurnall, the Puritan said, praying is the same as the new creature to the new creature as crying is to the natural. The child is not learned by art or example to cry, but is instructed by nature. It comes into the world crying. Praying is not a lesson got by forms and rules of art, but flowing from principles of new life itself. Anyway, he's indicating if you've got this new life that grace produces, it's the instantaneous desire, just like Gary said at the beginning of the service. It's the yearning of the heart To be near to God. Now, sometimes we're dry, right? But when you're dry, what's your heart doing? It's like, I don't want to be dry. I want to be close to you, Lord. Don't leave me, Lord. The Puritan Thomas Watson said that prayer is the natural spiritual reflex that he likens to a baby breathing. OK. The point is that however faltering our crying and spiritual breathing is, it is one of the first things that grace teaches a new believer to do. We are drawn to devotion, not simply to activity. And there are many people who are fooled into thinking that they're saved when they have no desire for devotion or communion with God. So in these words, we've seen that grace teaches us how to be sanctified in relationship to self, You know, resisting our own fleshly impulses, how to be sanctified in relationship to other people, and how to be sanctified in relationship to God. But there's another phrase in verse 12. All of this is said to be in this present age. Now that implies that it's possible to be rational and righteous and devoted to God in this present age. We don't have to wait till we get to heaven, nor is it an option. to wait till we get to heaven, like the carnal Christian theory teaches. True grace teaches that we are to live this way in this present age, and literally it's in the now age. Now, to me, that's encouraging. If that's God's pattern, that means that it is possible. Grace makes it possible. You can overcome by God's grace. But the interesting thing about grace is that it does this gradually, not suddenly. The word for teaching us is from the same stem as pedagogue. As William Hendrickson points out, a pedagogue is a kind of teacher who teaches children step by step in their learning. And grace, too, gently but persistently teaches us, it leads us, it guides us forward, and we do not get there overnight. We grow in grace gradually. And so any form of perfectionism You understand what perfectionism is, right? Where they say, at some point in my life, I came to the place where I no longer sin. I went to a church, visited three Sundays in a row, and oh man, it just drove me crazy, because each of the Sunday evening services, they were teaching on perfectionism. And on the third one, that was it. I had to walk out. But on the third one, he said, how many people here have come to the place where they no longer sin? And I looked around, there's a bunch of people raising their hands. And he said, yeah, I quit sinning. I don't know if he said some 20 years ago. And he said, we shouldn't be embarrassed to talk about this. A true understanding of grace means that you come to a place where you never, ever sin again. And I'm thinking, these guys need to read the law. They don't have a clue what sin even is. And any view of perfectionism, there's others, the higher life movement says you can live above known sin. I don't care what the kind of perfectionism is, it is a false view of grace. Even the Apostle Paul had not arrived at the end of his life, and he sensed it. He was still pressing toward the upward calling of God and Christ Jesus. He told us he had not yet arrived. He was still striving against his fleshly nature. Now he had grown hugely. And we grow our whole lives, but grace is always growing. It's like a magnet that's drawing us more and more to Him. So if you think you've arrived and you have no evidence of personal growth in the last, say, year or two, then I would say you better question whether you are really saved, whether you have experienced the genuine grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in your life. Grace is a pedagogue that is constantly but gradually and gently leading us along, teaching us principle upon principle of how to live. It's a lifetime of growing. And so I think it's a perfect analogy of sanctification, that pedagogue idea. It's growth. So, true nature of sanctification by grace is the second point. The third point we see in verse 13. Verse 13 is continuing the sentence that begins with what God's grace is teaching us. And the third major point that the school of grace teaches us in is that we must be driven by the future. Verse 13 says, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, the first thing I want you to notice here is that Jesus is called God. There is one appearing and since the article is before God and encompasses both God and Savior, it's one person and that one person is called our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He was fully God and fully man. So this is a great go-to verse for when you're dealing with JWs who deny the Trinity. But another thing to notice is that God's grace will drive us to look forward to this appearing of Jesus, and it calls it a blessed hope. Not a scary hope, but a blessed hope. The ultimate goal in history in some way drives our vision and our lives. In fact, Romans 8 says it drives all of creation. All of creation is groaning and travailing, and it is looking forward to this progress of history and the final goal that all of history is moving towards. Now at Christ's second coming, all sin will be removed, death will be removed, there won't be any animals eating other animals, won't be any more thorns and thistles, but there is, just like there's a pedagogue for us individually, there is this pedagogue gradually moving history in that direction. And it's a glorious hope that is irresistible. Grace makes us long for it. It makes us realize what we are currently experiencing is not all that God intended for planet Earth. Grace intuitively makes us have a holy dissatisfaction with the way things are in this world and to long for the final product. In fact, long for heaven, right? when there will be perfection. And yet what we do in this present age, which is verse 12, has a part in how we look forward to that day, verse 13. We're not passively waiting to get bailed out by the second coming. No. We are denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and by rationality, righteous living and devotion to God, we are hastening that day. At least that's the way that 2 Peter 3 words it. 2 Peter 3 says that he is not willing that any of his elect should perish. If you look in context, it's the us that he's talking to. Not willing that any of his elect should perish, but that all of us, all of the elect will come to salvation and all of his purposes for planet earth will be achieved. Now, if we are hindering that process by failing to live by faith, We slow down the second coming in a relative sense. Obviously, God's predestined all of the timing, including our recalcitrance. He factors that all in. But we hasten the day as we aggressively pursue what God has called us to accomplish. And the Great Commission is a part of that, making Christian nations. And through those Christian nations, there will be Christian civilization that fully obeys the Bible. But the Greek word pedagogue indicates it's a gradual process. And so point number four says that grace teaches us to have a zeal for Christ's cause in this world, verse 14. Now let me remind you again that in the Greek it's one long, long sentence encompassing all of verses 11 through 14. One sentence and the parts of that sentence are logically tied together. Any view of eschatology that takes away our zeal, which is verse 14, is a defective eschatology. Any view of eschatology which is irrelevant to the way that we're living right now, which is verse 12, is a defective eschatology. All the parts of these four verses logically hang together and they all flow from what grace is teaching us. So, verse 14. indicates that grace hugely motivates us to move ourselves and planet Earth as close to that final pattern as we can. 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. This is as radical a contradiction of modern antinomianism as you can get. And that's a word you ought to throw around a bit. Antinomianism, it means to be against the law. So an antinomian is a person who is against the law of God, right? And antinomianism, in the name of grace, is rampant in reformed and non-reformed circles today. They can teach grace, grace, grace, all they want to teach, but if they ignore the purpose of grace given in this verse, it shows they've misunderstood grace. True grace, according to the grammar of this sentence, is teaching everything in verses 12 through 14. Now, look at the purpose phrase in verse 14. He might redeem us from every lawless deed. There are three things I want to highlight from this phrase and the first is, if we're redeemed from every lawless deed, That implies we're not just being saved from hell, we're being saved progressively from the sins themselves. And isn't this the whole purpose of the coming of Christ according to Matthew 121? When the angel spoke to Joseph, he said, you're going to name him Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. It means in every area of our lives, we can move gradually, bit by bit, from a Romans 7 to a Romans 8 experience. So maybe we got into Romans 8 on the one area we've been battling maybe for the last couple of years, and we're moving in another part of our lives from Romans 7 into Romans 8. He shall save his people from their sins. You have not learned the lessons of grace if you think all grace is about is getting a free train ticket to heaven, And now you can live any way that you please. Paul says, God forbid. Jesus did not die to make us comfortable in our sins. He died to save us from our sins. Second, I want you to notice that sin is defined by the law. We are redeemed from every lawless deed. God doesn't want lawlessness. If we're being saved from sin, we are being saved from lawlessness. 1 John 3 verse 4 defines it that way. It says, sin is lawlessness. That's God's definition of sin. First John 3, verse 4, sin is lawlessness. It's not some nebulous bad thing out there that has no relationship to the Old Testament law. Sin is lawlessness. And Hebrews 1, 9 says Jesus hates lawlessness. Let me read that verse. It says, you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. On the day of judgment, Jesus will say to some people who thought that they were Christians, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. It's Matthew 7 verse 23. So obviously God continues to be interested in the law and those who resist the law are resisting God's whole purpose for sending Jesus. They're ignorant of the lessons of grace. You have not learned the lessons of grace very well if your view of grace teaches you to ignore the law. Lawlessness is antithetical to true grace. Grace enables us to keep what we could not keep in ourselves. And that's puzzled some people. People say, well, if God's purpose was to save us from lawlessness, why does Paul then in Romans say that we are not under law, but we are under grace? Well, the context indicates that Paul is not saying that grace makes us lawless. No, that grace rescues us from the curse of the law. And I want you to think about it this way. Here's some crummy artwork that I threw together on Saturday afternoon. But up on the top, you've got an image that represents the law of God or the Torah, okay? It's the Old Testament law of God. And on the right-hand side of this sheet here, you've got a stick figure that's representing Jesus. Galatians 4 verse 4 says that Jesus was born under the law. So it's very clear, Galatians 4 verse 4 says Jesus is under the law. Now the very next verse, Galatians 4 verse 5 says that everybody who is unsaved is under the law. They are under the law, but unfortunately they're under the law outside of Christ. They need to be saved because the law demands perfection which no man can achieve. Even one infraction brings judgment, and this lightning bolt here represents the judgment that comes from the law of God against those who are outside of Christ. But it says that Jesus was born under the law in order to redeem those who were under the law and to adopt them as sons. And so I've got another sheet here that shows exactly how that all works. Here is the same group of fallen mankind who was under the curse of the law, but Galatians 4, 4 through 5 says that Jesus was born under the law in order to redeem those under the law and make us united to Jesus by grace. And you've got a whole bunch of people. I don't know if you can see all of those red sticky figures there. They're in Jesus, right? And they're red because they're redeemed by the blood of Christ. And these humans are transferred into Jesus and they are secure in Jesus and so they're no longer under the law and under its curse over here independently. Okay, but there is something I want you to notice. The law of God did not disappear up at the top just because they've been transferred from this column over into this column. 1 Corinthians 9 verse 21 words the relationship of believers to the law this way. not being without law toward God, but under law in Christ. It's all enemas Christi. under law in Christ. To be under law by ourselves over here is judgment. To be under law in Christ is glorious. It makes us love the law of God. That's why David said, oh, how love I thy law. It is my meditation all the day. People over here don't love the law. It takes grace to make us love the law. So even though we do not keep the law perfectly, we're safe in Jesus, who has kept the law perfectly, but being in Jesus makes us want to keep it more and more. Why? Because we want to be more and more like him. And notice that he has kept and continues to keep the law perfectly. He's the only one that kept it perfectly. 1 John 2 verse 6 says that if you claim to be united to Jesus, as these are here, that you ought to walk in exactly the way that Jesus walked when He was here on earth. How did Jesus walk when He was here on earth? By the power of the Holy Spirit, He perfectly kept the law of God. So 1 John 2 says, says that he abides in him, ought himself also to walk even as he walked. Okay? When faith takes us from this side over to this side, what happens? Well, Paul says in Romans 3 verse 31, do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary, we establish the law. You see, when faith unites us to Christ and takes us over here, over here we couldn't establish the law because we're under its curse, we're not perfect. But when we're in Christ, in justification, we are treated as perfect. The law sees perfect people. And being in Christ, he's moving us to more and more conformity to the law's standards. So we're not without the law on this side of the sheet. We just relate to that law by grace and through faith. Okay, third, notice how comprehensive this affirmation of the law is. Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. Any deed that could be described as against the law of God is a deed that grace rescues us from. The whole law and every disobedience to that law is what is in view. And this means that grace teaches us exactly the same lesson that I taught you last week that man must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, every word of scripture. Grace teaches us the same lessons that Jesus taught in Matthew 5, 17 through 19. He said, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. But what's the view of grace that so many people teach? They teach if you're over here, then you could just fold down this paper like this and get rid of the law. That's what they teach. But Jesus is teaching the exact opposite. He said, do not think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So failing to learn from grace, what grace really is about has been disastrous, it's been extremely expensive nowadays. It has destroyed the family, it's destroyed church, it's made it so corrupt, it's destroyed American culture. We have got to get back to the proper view of grace, and Paul insists that grace teaches us to flee from lawlessness. Secondly, it teaches us to be zealous for good works. Verse 14 goes on to say, and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. Now, there's several things to note here, and the first is glorious. It teaches us that God's grace cleanses us. Now, that's something you probably are very familiar with, because we emphasize it almost every Sunday, But God's great, you may even feel a little bit dirty and feel like, wow, I have broken God's law, even in my view of grace, I've broken God's law. But hey, what do you do as soon as you find sin? You run to the protection of Jesus. You don't need to cower. You never need to cower. You're never under that lightning bolt of the law. You're in Jesus, right? So what is a person who is in Jesus do? It says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And who's the us that he's talking there to? It's not unbelievers who are becoming Christians. It's Christians who are becoming more holy. They're the ones who confess their sins. Okay, so repentance and faith, they're two sides of the same coin. You cannot have faith to God without having repentance. You're always turning from something to turn to the Lord. And our whole life is a life of faith, which means our whole life is a life of repentance. Second, grace purifies us for himself. What's the purpose of purification and forgiveness? Well, some of the books out there on forgiveness seem to indicate it's got a psychological purpose. It's just to make you feel better. If you confess your sins, you know, if you ask for forgiveness, you're going to feel so much better. Now, that's a man centered viewpoint. He didn't give a psychological answer here. The answer that he gives is that we are not to live selfishly for ourselves. We have been purchased with a price. We belong to God and grace is redeeming us to God. We're made for him. Third, God is making you to be his own special people. Now the word special means being beyond the usual in Strong's Concordance. In other words, you cannot be the status quo of what the world says you should be or even what the church says you should be. You cannot measure what is normal by the world or by the church. Grace makes us radically different, and it makes us different for Him. It helps us to step out of the realm of the usual and into the realm of the supernatural. That's the whole point of the Sermon on the Mount. It's so easy for Christians to live like Pharisees. Pharisees thought they were pretty good. You know, they were constantly You know polishing their their their collars and thinking yeah, I'm better than that sinner over there who's confessing his sin in the temple and What Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount to show such a far-reaching? impact of the law of God That even the Pharisees looked pretty bad That's what one of the reasons they got ticked off at him is because he pointed out there are sinners. They didn't like that okay, so What grace does is it helps us to step out of the normal and into the supernatural beyond the usual. So in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, you know, you pride yourself in being so loving to your family and loving to those who love you. And he says that didn't mean a thing. Any pagan can love his family. Any pagan can love somebody else. Now, when you can really love your enemies, you are beyond the usual. You are demonstrating sonship. You are demonstrating supernatural grace because now you are doing what no pagan can do. When you can rejoice under persecution, you're a peculiar people. You're a special people, a beyond the usual people. You're evidencing God's supernatural grace. Okay, and the whole Sermon on the Mount is that way. And so it's basically asking us to, by faith, not be trying to live by our own arm of strength, but like Peter, to say, Lord, If your word calls me to do something, call me Lord. He didn't dare step into the water. Remember when he was in the boat on that storm? He wouldn't have dared step in the water unless Jesus invited him. But when Jesus calls us, when he invites us by the word to do something impossible, like to forgive somebody who's really abused and hurt us, or to love somebody who is an enemy, Then we can say, Lord, invite me, and his word invites us, and we step into the water, and we begin to do what we didn't think we were able to do. Grace calls us to become a special people, a beyond the usual people, a people who are living in the realm of the supernatural, who can bless those who curse us, et cetera. Fourth, grace teaches us to be zealous for good works. Now, if you're content to be a couch potato all day long, then you have not been learning the lessons of grace. Grace saves us for the purpose of being zealous for good works. It burns within us. It yearns for action. It's got to be released in action. Wherever true grace is, these characteristics are always present, which means that there are many, many people in the Church of Jesus Christ who are not even saved. They need to come to the cross of Christ to receive his cleansing and his empowering grace. And so this whole four verses is a rebuke to the modern church. Ignorance of what grace is all about has been costly. to the church of Jesus Christ. It has left the church in America in a messy shambles. And Jesus basically describes it as a church that has lost its savor, its saltiness. And what does he say happens to a church that it's lost its saltiness? It is good for nothing, but to be cast out and trampled underfoot of men. Now, if you're under the boot of men, it's a metaphor to mean you're under humanism. And that's exactly what's happened in America. America is completely dominated by humanism. Even the church is dominated by humanism. And let me remind you of something. This has happened not because God's grace is too weak and too powerless. No. Scripture says, where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. But he is ordained that the power of his grace goes forward as we lay claim to it by faith as Christians. We must walk by faith. And so his grace is plenty powerful to take over the world. And humanism can be dominated if the whole thing can be reversed. But humanism is dominated not because God's grace is weak, but because we have refused to live by faith in Jesus. through the powerful grace of His Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father. And we really need to pray that this would be reversed, that the church would find reformation and revival and once again become a powerful influence in our society, it will never become a powerful influence in society until it gets back to sola scriptura last week and sola, what is it, sola, I do this, gratia, yes, grace alone. It can't get back, it's not powerful unless by faith we step into the realm of the supernatural, so pray for this. The last lesson of grace is that we should never stop learning these lessons of grace and never stop spreading this glorious message of grace. Verse 15 says, speak these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one despise you. When you're up against all kinds of false doctrine out there, it may be very intimidating to contradict what they are saying, and people will say, you shouldn't be judging me, you shouldn't be contradicting, you shouldn't be so negative about this, but your whole response should be, I'm not judging you, I want to be in conformity to God's law, and I know my life is not fully in conformity to God's law, but I'm not judging you. And the reason that's important, as Matthew 7 says, judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, okay? You're not to ever bring your own judgment. By the way, your own judgment's worthless. It's only sola scriptura that has the power to change people's lives. It's scripture's judgment. John chapter 5 commands us to judge righteous judgment. What's righteous judgment? It's God's judgment. So we're not to bring our own judgment, Matthew 7, we are to judge righteous judgment. That means we're to bring God's word to bear in people's lives continually. That's why it says in 1 Peter 4 that if anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. That means the mouthpiece of God. When you bring scripture, you are speaking as the mouthpiece of God. You're an oracle of God. Don't share opinions, share the scripture. That's last week's message. But the sword of the spirit is powerful when it is accompanied by grace. The school of grace should give every student an insatiable appetite to learn from scripture and to never stop learning. But we should also have an insatiable appetite to share the truth with others of a holy grace that produces holiness. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father, we love your word even when it's uncomfortable and when it steps on our toes, because we don't want to be out of line with your word. We constantly want, with Paul, to be pressing into the upward calling that you have given to us in Christ Jesus. We want to become more and more like you. As 2 Corinthians 3 talks about being transformed and even having faces radiating your glory, we want to be transform from glory to glory, from faith to faith, from strength to strength by the power of your Holy Spirit. Help us, Father, never to walk in our own strength in everything that we do. May we not so much as lift a straw from the ground, except it be to your glory. May we walk throughout the day, not as the pagans who never have a thought of you throughout the day, but may we constantly be doing everything by your grace and to your glory. We love you. And we ask you to forgive us for having doubted your grace and the power of it to change our lives and to change culture. And help us by faith to step into the reality of a grace that can turn the world upside down once again, even as it did in the book of Acts. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.