Titus 2.11-12
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”
The grace of God is essential to everything in your life as a Christian. Here are four essential things you need to know about grace. The big message today is that grace doesn’t make the Christian life easy; grace makes the Christian life possible.
#4 Grace transforms and trains
Grace redeems you and saves you; it also changes you. Grace brings more than a pardon; it also brings the process of spiritual formation. It brings the power of the Holy Spirit to energize your growth so that you are progressively conformed to Christ’s image, and bear fruit for God’s kingdom.
The same grace that appeared to all men and brought salvation—the very same grace—also trains, teaches, and disciplines us. The Lord works in your life to progressively transform you more and more into the Christ-like person he created you to be.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
The Titus passage above provides essential truth about the ”training” role that grace plays in driving spiritual growth and development. We could accurately call this training process “the discipline of grace.”
That phrase may seem like an oxymoron, but that is because many Christians wrongly think of grace as associated primarily, even exclusively, with forgiveness and salvation. Because grace means unmerited favor apart from works, it is common for Christians to mistakenly equate grace with the absence of human effort or self-discipline. Such a perspective shows a misunderstanding of both discipline and grace.
Grace brings more than a pardon; it also brings the process of spiritual formation. It brings the power of the Holy Spirit to energize our growth so that we are progressively conformed to Christ’s image, and we bear fruit for God’s kingdom. The same grace that appeared to all men and brought salvation — the very same grace — also trains, teaches, and disciplines us.
Titus says that grace teaches us to say “no” to worldly impulses, and to live self-disciplined lives of godly integrity in the midst of the present evil age. Grace teaches us. Trains us. Disciplines us.
The mature Christian life is not given, it is learned. It requires our full effort as well as our faith in Christ. Discipline is part of the process. So is productive discomfort. This is very important, because many people think that God’s grace makes the Christian life easy. But that is simply not true. Grace doesn’t make the Christian life easy; grace makes the Christian life possible.
The Lord is calling.
