Titus

Sound doctrine matters because from it flows godly lives zealous for good works. Only when our doctrine is sound can we rightly understand the grace of God for the amazing grace that it is.
At the very least, what we have here in this first appearing is the Christmas story. But as we have noted time and again this Advent season, if you fail to see the cross when gazing on the cradle, you aren’t truly seeing the Christmas story.
This little babe whom Joseph would help wrap in strips of cloth and lay to rest in a stone feeding trough would one day be wrapped in a linen cloth and laid to rest in a stone tomb by another Joseph at the end of his life.
The grace of God that has appeared includes the entirety of Christ’s first coming, from the miraculous virgin conception and God taking on human flesh, to the brutal Roman cross where God Himself is put to death for our sin, to the resurrection that guarantees the payment.
Indeed, the grace of God has appeared in the person of Jesus Christ. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
We are being trained, disciplined, really to renounce our former ways of ungodliness and worldly desires. Jump down to chapter 3 verse 3. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
So, don’t think this is going to be an easy transformation! It’s not going to come automatically. Sanctification won’t happen if you are passive in the process. This training, this discipline, is nothing less than learning how to put to death your old self.
This fallen world is the training ground! Not heaven. When your Bridegroom comes to receive His Bride, He doesn’t want to find the Bride had no interest in preparing for His arrival. Jesus is returning for a Bride prepared, a Bride adorned for her Husband, a Bride adorned in righteous deeds.
Listen to this from Revelation 19:8, concerning the Bride. It was granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure… now listen to Johns next words… for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
You fail to be a Bride prepared on this side, you won’t be at the marriage supper. Yes, Jesus’ righteousness covers his Bride. But he covers his Bride through transforming her to be righteous and pure.
Grace trains us to renounce ungodliness by showing us how abhorrent and empty and undesirable and displeasing our former lives were in God’s sight-so much so, that He sent His only Son to die a gruesome death on a bloody cross!
And yet, he did this for us, while we were yet enemies. That’s how God showed His love for us. And that grace moves a heart that knows that salvation to delight in self-control, to delight in uprightness, to delight in godliness… NOW!!!... here in this present age, out of an overflow of thanksgiving and love for this God would grant us undeserving rebels such a pardon… and yet… more… adoption as sons.
Our hope isn’t in this age. This is the age of preparation. This is the age of suffering. This is the age of discipline. This isn’t the age we long for… not if we’re in Christ. No. We long for the age to come. But we recognize the necessity and the purpose of this age. Part of our union with Christ means that we get to experience, certainly to a lesser degree, but nonetheless a true participation in Christ’s sufferings. Without suffering with Christ, we can’t rightly know the love of Christ.
Prosperity preachers, including what we might call “dime-store” prosperity preachers, those who are a bit more subtle, they like to leave out that the call to follow Jesus is the call to come and die. They don’t like to talk about suffering with Christ. But it’s all over the New Testament. And if you refuse to willingly suffer with Christ, you will have no inheritance with Him either. This is the age of our suffering. The age to come is the age of glory, when we will receive the consummation of our blessed hope, and see the appearing of the glory of this great God and Savior.
One may think to pick apart the deity of Christ, by setting aside this verse or that with various challenges. But the verses of Scripture aren’t set in isolation, nor are they few in number. The weight of Christ’s deity comes down in one solid mass.
This Cornerstone will crush you. Don’t think you can get around it by picking it apart. The only refuge from the crushing weight of this Cornerstone is by building your life on it.
For the grace of God has appeared… bringing salvation for all people. Come and know this King, this God, this Savior, Jesus Christ.