From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: There are really only two ways that you can live. You can live by God's grace, or you can live by your strength. And when you live under the power of your strength, life is so hard, and it's so tiresome, and it's so wearisome, and you think, "What is the use? Nothing ever seems to work right."

Grace is critical to the Christian life. You can't get along without grace. And grace is here to instruct us, as the Scripture said, "instructing us" to do certain things. So I want us to look and see the three lessons that grace has for us.

Larry Nobles: Thank you for joining us today for From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. And today we're going to learn what grace means when we walk with the Lord. Grace is an essential part of God's character. Grace is closely related to God's benevolence, love, and mercy.

Grace can be variously defined as God's favor toward the unworthy, or God's benevolence on the undeserving. Pastor Jeff often repeats this well-known comparison: Grace means God's riches at Christ's expense. And in His grace, God is willing to forgive us and bless us abundantly, in spite of the fact that we don't deserve it.

We don't deserve to be treated so well or dealt with so generously. It's an undeserved or unearned forgiveness on steroids. And grace is a universal need we all have. Today our lesson is from the series, Setting the House in Order, and it's a study of the book of Titus.

The message is called, "Are You Following the Instruction of Grace?" Open your Bible now to the second chapter of the book of Titus, and let's be honest about our tendency to follow the instruction of grace.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Titus chapter 2 talks about the power of God's grace and the lessons that God wants to teach us through His grace. Verse 11 says this: "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. These things, Titus, speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you."

Grace is critical to the Christian life. You can't get along without grace. And grace is here to instruct us, as the Scripture said, instructing us to do certain things. So I want us to look and see the three lessons that grace has for us.

Number one, lesson number one: God's grace brings salvation. Big lesson, huge lesson. God's grace brings salvation. There can be no salvation without God's grace. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 says, "For by grace are you saved through faith."

One of the ways to think about grace and faith, because they work together, grace is like electricity. Faith is like plugging into electricity. Now, you think about those two things. Both are critical to be saved. For by grace you're saved through faith. Both are critical, but for salvation to even be an option, you have to have grace. You have to have the grace in order to be saved.

Now, grace is the thing that everyone needs. Everyone needs grace. You can't make it to heaven without grace. It's a universal need. The African, the American, the Canadian, the Bushman—everyone on the planet needs God's grace.

And the reason they need it is because Romans 3:23 says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all miss the mark. That's an archery term—"all have sinned" is to fall short of the mark. We fall short of the standards of God. Romans chapter 3, verse 10 says, "There is none righteous, not even one." Not one!

So there's a universal need of grace because we can't get there on our own. And then there is the universal remedy. Everyone can have God's grace. Everyone needs it, and everyone can have it. And that's the beautiful thing about this grace that comes.

"For the grace of God," he says in verse 11, "has appeared." That word "appeared" means an epiphany. It's come on the scene. It's shining. It's become visible, bringing salvation to all men. I believe Jesus died for everybody.

I believe that any person that you talk to at work, in the neighborhood, at the mall, at the airport, at the restaurant, you can say with confidence that Jesus Christ loves you and Jesus Christ died on the cross for you so that you would be saved. For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men.

Electricity is on for every person. It doesn't mean that they're going to plug in the toaster. Because faith is plugging into the electricity. It means the electricity is on and the electricity is available for you. Jesus died for everyone.

We sing that song sometimes in church: "Whosoever will may come." Whosoever will may come. Hey, you want to come? You want to have grace? You want to plug in your faith into the stream of grace? You can do it. Because salvation and the grace of God has come, appearing to all men, so that all may be saved.

Second lesson. Not only is there the lesson of salvation, God's grace brings salvation, but then there's the lesson of sanctification. God's grace brings sanctification. Sanctification is a big word that just means to be set apart for God. It's the process that the Lord uses in our lives to make us more like Himself.

When I was a senior in high school and I got down on my knees and I prayed and asked Christ to come into my life and save me, and here I was, a high school kid filled with lust and all sorts of sins to my credit, and when I cried out to the Lord, He saved me. And He came into my life, and all of that was washed away.

But you know, when I got up off my knees, you couldn't tell any difference. My face didn't glow, anything like that. I looked like the same guy, the same knucklehead high school senior. But the Lord started to work in me from that day.

And that's the process of sanctification. That's where He makes you more like Jesus. And that is a lifelong process. And Titus says that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us in this thing called sanctification.

Instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. See, we do some things that the grace of God says don't do. You say no, you deny, you reject ungodliness—things that are contrary to what God would want. Wickedness is another translation. And worldly desires.

What are worldly desires? Scripture talks about that in 1 John chapter 2. It says, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world, for if any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world" —this is worldly desires—"the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life."

The grace of God has appeared instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and boastful pride of life—and it tells us that we are to embrace sensible living, righteousness, and godliness in the present age. Now you mark it down: It matters how we live as saved people.

Now I believe that once you're saved, you're saved forever. Jesus said when His Spirit comes in, He will be in you and He will be with you forever. The Bible says in Ephesians that you're sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise once you put your faith and trust in Jesus.

So can you ever lose your salvation? No. You didn't do anything to get it other than cry out to Jesus. You can't do anything to lose it. And the argument has often been, "Well, gosh, if I believe like you guys, once saved, always saved, I'd just go out and sin. I'd sin all I want."

Well, I have a confession to make: I sin all I want. Because I don't want to. I don't want to sin. See, when you're really saved, the Lord changes your "wanter." And you still have a temptation to sin, you still have a pull toward sin, but deep down in your heart, you want to please God.

You want to walk with God because He has done a work inside of the heart of every true believer. And so your wanter gets changed, and you don't have the idea that, "Well, gosh, I just... grace is a license to sin. I can do whatever I want."

Grace is not a license to sin. The Bible says, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid." The Scripture says in 1 Peter chapter 1, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'"

Obedient children. That's what God expects from you and me. He wants us to be holy, and that's sanctification. It comes from God's grace where we reject and deny worldly desires and wickedness and ungodliness, and we live sensibly, godly, righteously in this present age.

Larry Nobles: Wow, that is an incredible truth that is really difficult for us to fathom—the depth of God's unearned grace. You're listening to Pastor Jeff Schreve on From His Heart today. And are you following the instruction of grace?

Pastor Jeff will return in just a moment with more. But first, today's message is from the series Setting the House in Order. It's a study of the book of Titus. You can go to fromhisheart.org to get this series—eight messages in the format of your choice.

And also when you do, we'd like to ask you to pray about helping us with a financial gift this month. And for that gift this month of any amount, we want to send you the series, the special series from Pastor Jeff called Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival.

Five messages that will be a blessing to you. Just call 866-40-BIBLE, or go to fromhisheart.org. It's only because of the faithful support of our listeners that we're able to be on this great station and on hundreds around the nation and around the world each and every day.

So thank you so very much for joining us to allow this message to be shared with the nations. Now let's get back to conclude today's message: "Are You Following the Instruction of Grace?"

Dr. Jeff Schreve: The world desperately needs to see Christians who really live out their faith—Christians who are really shining for the Lord. We don't have enough of that. Why is it that our world seems to be getting further and further away from the Lord?

One of the reasons why is because Christians aren't standing out. They're not stepping up to the plate. They're not showing to the world, "This is what a Christian is." They're not Jesus with skin on. We become church people.

The Lord doesn't want us to be church people. He wants us to be Jesus people. Big difference between being a church person and being a Jesus person. Caiaphas was a church person, the high priest. He was the one that stood there at the cross and mocked Jesus.

He was the one that got the crowd all worked up to say, "Crucify Him, crucify Him." That's a church person. Church people are mean—mean. Religious people, mean. It's religious people who flew planes into the World Trade Center. Religious people.

Christian people are like Jesus. They're not mean. And God doesn't want us to be church people. He wants us to be Jesus people. And Jesus people make a difference. Jesus people shine. Jesus people are salt and they're light.

And here's the big problem that we're having: is you have people that call themselves Jesus people but they're not living like Jesus. And they don't live any different than the way the world lives. We're supposed to be Jesus in the world. And the world needs to see true Christianity lived out.

It says instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. The age in which Titus lived, he was to live that way. In the age in which we live, Warren Wiersbe makes this comment.

He said, "We live in this age, not for it, and we're not to be like it. We live in it." We're a boat out in the water, and that's fine for the boat to be in the water, but when the water gets in the boat, you have trouble.

And in Christianity today, so much of the water of the world has gotten in the boat that the boat is sinking. And people can't tell the difference, and then people don't want what they perceive to be a hypocritical faith. God's grace brings sanctification.

And third lesson: God's grace brings expectation. He says we're looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. There's expectation that comes with the grace of God.

And the expectation is this: The King is coming one day. As it says in those verbs, it's bringing salvation, it's instructing us to deny ungodliness, and then it causes us to be looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.

If you ever need a verse to show somebody the deity of Christ, Titus chapter 2, verse 13: "Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." No denying that Paul knew Jesus Christ is our great God and Savior. So we're supposed to be looking for that.

We're to live on the lookout for the coming King. It's cool to live thinking about the blessed hope. Tim LaHaye thinks and believes, as do many others, that the blessed hope that he's talking about, the appearing—the epiphany is the word there—is the Rapture when Jesus comes in the clouds.

It's not the Second Coming when Jesus comes and sets His feet down on the Mount of Olives. It's when He comes in the clouds, comes for His own, comes for those who have received His grace. And we're to be looking for that. We're to be thinking about that because at any moment the Lord could come back.

And you know that's the biggest secret in all of the Bible, the most guarded secret. Jesus said He didn't even know; it's the Father alone that knew the day and the hour that He was coming back. He doesn't want us to know the day and the hour. He wants us to always live in a state of readiness.

He says at an hour when you think not, the Son of Man comes. So you're always thinking, "Perhaps today." I think I've told you before, my father-in-law, who was a pastor for 50 years, he had a little lapel pin that he used to wear. It was a trumpet with the word "Perhaps" —perhaps today, perhaps today.

And it made him think, "Hey, the Lord could come back even today." And so how does that affect the way I live? Listen, it affects sanctification a lot. If Jesus were to come back tonight, some of you would say, "I've got to do some business with the Lord. I've got to get some things cleaned up in my life. He's coming back tonight!"

The Bible says this in 1 John chapter 3: "See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be like. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."

When you think about the Lord coming back and the transformation that'll take place, Philippians says we're going to be made like Him. He's going to transform our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory through the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, he says, "This perishable must put on imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality." So when you go up in the Rapture to meet the King, you're changed and you're made like Him, and you're given a glorified body.

And that's the blessed hope. Jesus is coming. He's going to rescue us out of this rat ship that's going down, down, down, that's going to experience the judgment of God. And not only that, but He changes us. No wonder it's a blessed hope.

And that's coming when the Lord comes back in all His glory. And so we're to live on the lookout, and we're to live in awe and love for what the King has done. When he says that about the blessed hope, the great God and our Savior Christ Jesus, then he says in verse 14, "who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds."

Can you imagine? The King gave Himself for you and me to redeem us, to buy us back from slavery to sin. The King of Kings. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, though He was rich"—He's the King—"yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might be made rich."

The King is coming. The King has nail scars. The King gave Himself for you and for me. If you're a believer, you can sing, "The King is coming, praise God, He's coming for me." And when you look on His face, can you imagine what that's going to be like?

The blessed hope. The Lord comes back and you're caught up and you see Him in all His glory, in all His beauty. They didn't see Him like that when He walked on the earth. He had all that veiled.

The only time that He ever showed that to them was on the Mount of Transfiguration when He peeled back the flesh of His humanity and let them see His deity. And they were speechless. He just began to shine like the sun.

We're going to see Him, and we're going to be changed. And man, that's going to be something. And to think He did all that for me. You're going to see those scars in His hand. He did that for me to purify for Himself a people for His own possession so that we would be Jesus people on the earth, so that we would make a difference.

And it all is from the grace of God. Those are the lessons that it teaches. Teaches that it brings salvation, it brings sanctification, it brings such an expectation that this is what's coming to you who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is going to come again. He promised He would come again, and He will come again at the exact right time. And the big question is, are you ready for that? Now he tells Titus, "These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you," because these things are critically important.

I want everybody to get honest, and I want you to test yourself. Scripture says to examine yourself. That's a good thing to do. Have you received God's grace? Have you by faith plugged into God's grace?

The only two people that know that for sure: you and God. I don't know that. Your spouse doesn't know that necessarily. You know if you've ever really done that, and God knows if you've ever really done that.

If you haven't ever done that, if you've never put your puny little hand of faith in His great big hand of grace, you need to do it so that you get your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Because if you don't, there's coming a day at the great white throne where He's going to show you the Book of Life and say, "Your name could have been in there, but you never trusted Me. You never received Me. You never gave Me your heart and life."

Have you received God's grace? Are you walking in God's grace and becoming more like Jesus in the way you act and react? That's a process of sanctification. That's how you know you're growing: when things happen and they jostle you and you get hit in traffic or whatever and somebody does something to you, how do you respond to that?

Do you respond like you would normally respond, or do you respond more like the way the Lord would respond? My pastor used to say, "You know, your life is really like a tube of toothpaste. When the pressure comes, what comes out is what's inside."

And when you're growing in grace and your love for the Lord, when you're pressured, what comes out is Jesus and how He would act and react. And then thirdly, are you looking for His glorious return? Because when you think in terms of "Perhaps today," it changes the way you live right now.

Larry Nobles: Well, if you want to know for sure that you are a child of God and be confident in His promise to never let you go, never turn His back on you, if you want to be saved from your separation from Him, if you want the forgiveness that the Savior offers, you can have it.

It's found in the book of Acts chapter 3, verse 19, and we read this: "Turn to God in complete surrender and faith, with a repentant heart, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord."

And then you'll experience the eternal joy of grace that we've discussed today. Our prayer is that you will turn to Him, know that it's a personal message to you from God alone, and that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

Just go to fromhisheart.org for more information and click the "Why Jesus?" link there to get you started in your Christian journey. We believe you'll be blessed and changed by the blood of Christ that was given to you over 2,000-plus years ago, just for you.

We're out of time for today. Thank you for joining us. I'm Larry Nobles, inviting you to be back tomorrow, and we look forward to closing out the month tomorrow with the last message in the series Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus.

We'll be reminded that we shouldn't forget the blessings and protection and comfort our walk with the Lord gives us. But the truth is, Christians tend to be forgetful on things that they're supposed to remember. Join us for the lesson, "The Forgetful Christian." That's Thursday, here on From His Heart.