Have you ever heard somebody say, “God forgive me,” right before they jump into something they know straight up they shouldn’t do? Most of us have at least thought something like it, right? We know what the Bible says. But we start looking for reasons why our particular sin isn’t really all that bad.
You know what we tend to do? We abuse God’s grace. And when we abuse God’s grace, we take the very thing God gave us to save us from sin and turn it into a reason to stay in it.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this “cheap grace.” Wanting forgiveness without repentance. Wanting to be saved without actually following Jesus. He set that over against what he called costly grace.[1] Now hear me on this. Grace isn’t costly because we pay for it. We can’t. There’s not one thing you can do to earn it. It’s free to us. It’s costly because of what it cost Jesus to give it to us. And the grace that saves us also changes us.
We’ve been working through Paul’s instructions in Titus about sound doctrine and godly living. Last week we ended with the idea that our lives should “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” Today Paul tells us why any of that is even possible. And he ties it all together with one word.
Did you catch that first word? “For.” Paul is giving us the reason behind everything he’s been telling the older men and women, the younger men and women, and the bondservants/slaves. That godly living he’s been describing isn’t what earns our salvation. It’s what God’s grace produces in people who’ve already been saved.
God's grace has appeared to bring us salvation. (11)
Verse 11 says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.” I love that word “appeared.” Paul isn’t saying people finally worked hard enough to go out and find God’s grace. Grace came to us. God made the first move.
That word “appeared” carries the idea of the sun coming up, or an army coming over the horizon.[2] Most of us have been up before daylight at some point, heading to work or sitting out in a deer stand. You’re sitting there in the dark, and you can’t do one thing to make that sun come up. You just wait. Then it finally breaks over the tree line and everything changes. The best picture I have of this is from that original Narnia movie, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when the resurrected Aslan (the Christ-figure) comes out in all his glory.[3]
Think about the difference between somebody who’s lost trying to find his own way home and somebody going out to rescue him. Just last month a 70-year-old hiker went missing for a week on Isle Royale, a remote island out in Lake Superior with no roads at all. When they found him, he was hurt and hypothermic. He would have died there. Searchers came and found him, and a Coast Guard helicopter lifted him out.[4] Think of the joy he felt when he first saw those people looking for him. He thought he was a goner. That’s the difference here. We aren’t climbing our way up to God. We were lost sinners who needed God to come down and get us. And He did. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God’s grace appeared in Jesus Christ.
And this matters, because a lot of us think about grace like it’s just God looking the other way. Like He sees our sin and decides it doesn’t really matter. But it’s the opposite. Our sin mattered so much that Jesus had to come and die for it. God didn’t pretend our sin and guilt weren’t there. He sent His Son, who took on flesh, to deal with it.
Paul says this grace brings “salvation for all people.” Now, that doesn’t mean everybody is automatically saved. This isn’t universalism. Scripture is clear that we’re saved by grace but through faith in Jesus, and that those who reject Him are not saved. What Paul most likely means here, I think, is that salvation isn’t reserved for one kind of person. Look at who he just got done talking to in this chapter. Older men. Older women. Younger women. Younger men. And bondservants, slaves, the lowest class in their society. Every one of them needs the same Savior. And Jesus is available to save every one of them.
So the person who grew up in church needs Jesus just as much as the person who’s never opened a Bible. The person everybody in town holds in the highest respect needs Jesus just as much as the person whose life is falling apart. Which one are you? You are the person who needs the grace of Jesus. Because that’s all of us. Nobody is good enough to earn grace, and nobody is too far gone for God’s grace to reach.
God's grace teaches us to turn from sin and live for Him. (12)
Now look at verse 12. The same grace that brings salvation is “training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” Paul doesn’t say grace saves us and then leaves us on our own to figure out the rest. Grace trains us. It doesn’t leave us the way it found us.
That word “training” is the Greek word that comes from the word for a little child.[5] Paul could have used the normal word for classroom teaching, but he didn’t.[6] He used the word for raising a child, and that includes teaching and discipline.
Parents, you know what this looks like. A good parent doesn’t just tell a child, “I love you,” and then let that kid do whatever they want. Real love teaches. Real love corrects. Real love disciplines. Sometimes love has to say no. “That’s hot.” “That’ll hurt you.” “That’s not good for you.” And God’s grace does that for us.
First, Paul says grace teaches us what to turn away from: “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.” Grace teaches us to say no to the things of the world.
Now, that doesn’t mean everything pleasant and enjoyable in this world is sinful. God made a good world, and He’s given us a lot of good gifts to enjoy. But even good things turn sinful when we want them more than we want God. A lot of times the problem isn’t just what we’re doing. It’s what’s going on in our hearts and what we’re loving.
And this is where cheap grace gets dangerous. We get comfortable with a sin, so we rename it. We call it “just a struggle” when we quit fighting it a long time ago. We say, “That’s just my personality,” when we’re talking about a temper or negativity that hurts those closest to us. We say, “Everybody does it,” about cutting corners at work or something. We say, “God knows my heart,” while we ignore what He’s plainly said in His Word. Well, He does know your heart. That’s the problem! The heart is deceitful and wicked, the Bible says![7] That’s why we need His grace so bad! Be honest with yourself. Which one of those excuses have you used just this week? Right? How have you cheapened God’s grace?
Think about how we raise our kids. If your little one keeps running toward a busy road, you don’t just say, “Well, I love him, so I don’t want to interfere with his fun.” Of course you interfere! You love him too much to let him run out in front of a car. Kids, that’s why your mom and dad holler when you get close to the road. They’re not trying to ruin your fun. They love you. And God’s commands aren’t meant to rob us of life. God’s not a cosmic killjoy. He knows what sin does to us and to the people around us. So His grace teaches us to turn away from it.
But Paul doesn’t stop with what we turn away from. He tells us what to turn toward. Grace trains us “to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” Self-control is about how I govern myself. Upright is about how I treat you. Godly is about how I live before God. That right there covers all of life, doesn’t it?
And don’t miss the last words of verse 12, “in the present age.” Not someday. Not once we get to heaven. Right now, in this broken world. We’re called to live differently right here. At work Monday morning. In the car line at school. In your daily family life. That’s the present age Paul’s talking about.
Now, none of this means we’ll be sinless in this life. We won’t. But there should be growth. If you’ve been a Christian for twenty years, you shouldn’t be satisfied being right where you were the day you first believed. Grace should still be teaching you. You should be growing.
God's grace gives us hope as we wait for Christ's return. (13)
Verse 13 says we’re “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” I love how Paul ties this to the verse before it. We live godly lives in this present age while we wait for Jesus to come back. Our hope for the future should change how we live right now.[8]
Paul talks about two appearings here. In verse 11, the grace of God “has appeared.” In verse 13, we’re waiting for “the appearing of the glory.” The first one already happened. Jesus came in humility, born in a manger, to save sinners. The second one is still coming. Jesus will come again in glory.
So Christians live between those two appearings. We look back to the cross and the empty tomb, and we look ahead to the return of Christ. Do you ever wonder if God really loves you? Look back at the cross. You ever wonder if evil and suffering get the final word? Look forward. Jesus is coming back.
Paul calls it our “blessed hope.” Now, biblical hope isn’t like saying, “I hope it doesn’t rain on the Strawberry Festival.” That’s just wishing. Our hope is grounded in God’s certain promises. Remember how Paul started this letter in Titus 1:2? He talked about the “hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.” The God who never lies has promised that Jesus is coming again. You can take that to the bank.
And that matters when life gets hard. Some of you are carrying some heavy things today. Some of you are dealing with sickness. Some of you are grieving. Some of you are praying for a son or daughter or grandchild who’s walked away from the Lord. And some of you are just plain tired of the fight to live for God in this world. Paul doesn’t tell us everything’s going to get easy. He reminds us that Jesus is coming.
But waiting doesn’t mean sitting around. If you knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow, what would you want to change about how you’re living today? Is there somebody you’d want to forgive? Somebody you’d want to tell about Jesus? Something you’d want to quit? Well, we don’t know when He’s coming. That’s exactly why we need to be faithful now.
And don’t miss what Paul calls Jesus here: “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Paul is talking about one person. Jesus isn’t just a good teacher or a good example.[9] He is God, and He is our Savior. And our hope isn’t in things getting back to normal or our circumstances getting better. It’s in Him, the One who’s already beaten sin and death. That’s the blessed hope we have.
God's grace makes us His own people who are eager to do good. (14)
Now look at verse 14. Speaking of Jesus, Paul says, “who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” There’s so much wrapped up in this one verse, and I don’t want us to miss it.
Look first at this: Jesus “gave himself for us.” Nobody took His life from Him against His will. He laid it down. That’s the cost of grace. Salvation is a free gift to us, but it wasn’t cheap. It cost the blood of Jesus Christ.
And what did He give Himself to do? First, “to redeem us from all lawlessness.” To redeem means to set somebody free by paying a ransom.[10] And what did He set us free from? “All lawlessness.” Not just the penalty for sin. Sin itself. Jesus didn’t die so we could keep on living like sin is still our master. Romans 6:1–2 asks, “1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
Then Paul says Jesus gave Himself “to purify for himself a people for his own possession.” Did you catch that? “For himself.” Jesus didn’t just save us from something. He saved us for Himself. If you’re in Christ, you belong to Him. We’re not just people who got let off the hook. We’re people God has claimed as His own.
Sometimes we talk about salvation like the whole point is just getting out of hell. And praise God, Jesus does save us from Hell! But that’s not all He saves us for. He brings us into a relationship with Himself. He makes us His people. And He starts changing us to look like Him. If somebody asked you tomorrow, “Why are you a Christian?” would the only answer you’ve got be, “So I don’t go to hell”? Y’all, there’s so much more to it than that!
And then Paul says these people are “zealous for good works.” Zealous means eager. Not just willing to do the right thing if we absolutely have to, but wanting to. Obedience isn’t always going to feel easy. Sometimes the right thing is hard, and God calls us to do things we don’t want to do. But God’s grace doesn’t just change what we do. It changes what we want. More and more, we want His will more than our own.
Now look at verse 15. Paul tells Titus, “Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” Paul isn’t telling Titus to make a few suggestions about grace and hope and see if anybody agrees. He’s telling him to preach it, because it’s God’s Word. Sometimes that means encouraging people. Sometimes it means correcting them. But it’s always for the good of the church. And that’s my aim today. And that’s what grace does, isn’t it? It comforts us, and it corrects us. It tells us we’re loved, and it tells us to put away what doesn’t bring glory to God. We need both aspects.
So let me ask you something. When you think about the grace of God, do you think mostly about what you can get away with, or about what Jesus saved you from? Are you using grace to excuse something you know needs to change? Or are you letting God’s Word correct you and teach you how to live? Don’t answer me in this. Answer to God here.
Maybe you’ve been telling yourself for a long time that a certain sin isn’t really that serious. But you know what God’s Word says. Quit making excuses for it. Confess it. Repent of it. If you need help, go to a brother or sister in Christ you trust and ask them to walk with you. And remember, you’re not trying to change so Jesus will finally love you. If you belong to Him, you’re learning to live in light of the love He’s already given you.
And if you’re here today and you don’t know Jesus, don’t hear this sermon as a to-do list for becoming a Christian. You can’t make yourself right with God by being a better person. That’s why Jesus came. He lived the perfect life we haven’t lived. He died on the cross for our sins, and He rose from the dead. Turn from your sin and trust in Him today. Salvation is God’s free gift of grace. Don’t leave here today without talking to me or somebody about it.
For those of us who know Him, I want you to leave here thinking about what Jesus has done for you. He gave Himself to redeem you, to purify you, and to make you His own. And now, while we wait for Him to come back, He’s teaching us how to live. That’s the difference between cheap grace and the grace Paul is talking about. Cheap grace wants forgiveness without ever being changed. But the grace of God that appeared in Jesus Christ saves us and starts making us new. The God who loved you enough to save you loves you too much to leave you the way you were. Let Him change you.
[1] https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/costlyGrace.pdf
[2] John R. W. Stott, Guard the Truth: The Message of 1 Timothy & Titus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 122.
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZmen-lqkCo
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/13/missing-isle-royale-hiker-70-years-old-found-rescued
[5] https://biblehub.com/greek/3811.htm
[6] Charles R. Swindoll, Insights on 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Swindoll’s New Testament Insights (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), on Titus 2:12.
[7] Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
[8] https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-april-2005
[9] https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-september-2004
