Saved By Grace: How It Makes a Difference Past, Present, and Future
“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, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 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.”—Titus 2:11-14
How do you live your days?
Do you have a tightly packed schedule and routine—and God help anyone that interrupts?
Does your kids’ activity schedule—school, extracurricular, or birthday parties—dictate your days?
Do you work on the next deadline you can no longer procrastinate?
Do you live at the mercy of whatever urgent fire is raging?
Or do you wander with your whims, doing whatever strikes you?
I’ve tried all of these, depending on the season of my life. While some of them may work better than others, all of them have left me feeling generally dissatisfied.
Why?
Because they focused only on my life in the here and now, separated from God’s eternal agenda.
As I had been studying Titus for my last series of posts, I decided to continue on for my personal Bible study and now have been studying and meditating on the next passage. Titus 2:11-14 tells us the why behind the commands in verses 1-10 in the household.
Without these verses, it would be easy to look at the Titus command in 2:3-5 for older women to teach the younger women as a task.
But this is way more than a task. It is a way that we declare and demonstrate our faith. It is evidence of our salvation, good works that display our commitment to Christ.
So how does being saved by grace change how we orchestrate and live our days?
Saved by Grace, Living By Grace
When we entered God’s Kingdom through faith in the Gospel, we received God’s gift of salvation, not just as a ticket to heaven but as a new life today.
Titus 2:11-14 reminds us that those of us who have been saved through God’s gracious gift through Christ are people for His own possession. Zeal for good works is one evidence of our salvation.
God’s grace brings us salvation from our past debts and frees us from the penalty we are due. But it also trains us to both renounce the ungodly and pursue the godly.
Because we are born with hearts that find the ungodly and worldly naturally appealing and because we still prefer to be the rulers of our own lives, we do need to be trained to live in the pathways of grace that God has designed for us.
We are people for God’s own possession and have been rescued from that dead-end way of living the world espouses. Our new and changed hearts gives us a new passion for our new Master. We will want to live for His agenda, not our own.
Being saved by grace gives us the power to live by grace each day as well. Instead of following the me-centered culture we live in, pursuing the ends we desire through the means we feel is best, we humble ourselves and lay down our rights to live out the Gospel that has saved us.
Is grace the operating system of your life? Or are you still living a worldly life, following its ways, its values, its goals? Why do you do what you do: as an expression of gratitude for God’s grace or a means to earn your salvation?
Saved By Grace, Doing Good Works
Along with training to live a life that reflects God instead of the world, a life saved by grace will also be characterized by good works. Paul tells us that this is part of what it means to be a purified people.
Ephesians 2:8-10 tells us a similar idea. We are saved by grace alone, not by our works.
But when we are saved, we live by grace and do the good works God has prepared for us to do, out of gratitude.
When I was younger, I imagined my good works as something noble like finding the cure for cancer or something grand like that.
But as the years went by and the opportunities to do those kinds of things seemed to be fewer, I began to wonder if I will ever do anything good. I began to doubt.
That’s when I began to realize that good does not automatically mean great or grand. Good just means good. This can be as simple as cleaning up your home, stewarding yourself or your possessions well, or caring faithfully for your family. All these are good works, even if no one sees them.
Most of us are not actively pursuing evil. Our days are filled with good things. Sometimes too many good things!
But the question is: are they the good works God planned—or the ones you planned? Are we saying yes to things that we shouldn’t? Are we signing up our kids for activities so they can keep up with their peers? Are we trying to earn the favor of others for our own ends?
The truth is, we can justify pretty much anything as good works. The difference is that good works from God reflect His agenda: making disciples, imaging His character to others and pointing to Him, actively seeking to represent Him to a lost world.
Take a moment to think:
If you’re feeling busy, what are things you resent doing?
Are they responsibilities tied to the roles that God has given you? How might it help to look at them as good works that you can do to honor God?
Are there good things that simply suck up time but are not God’s assignment for you? How does it impact your availability to do the good works He has planned for you?
Saved By Grace, Living in Hope
Lastly, this passage reminds us that though God’s grace that brings us salvation has already appeared (past tense), we live in the present tense, training our hearts and doing good works with an eye on the future tense. We live today remembering where we will one day be.
This makes a huge difference in how we function. For me, this hope has helped me to persevere in the care for our disabled daughter. It has helped me to find purpose in the menial and mundane.
This hope is not found in getting what we wish. Rather, it is found in a person—our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. While Jesus’ first appearance was to bring grace, his second appearance will be in glory.
Knowing He is coming again encourages us to exercise self-control and pursue that which reflects Him the most. We are able to say “no” to ungodliness (NIV version of Titus 2:11) so we can say “yes” to those things that will please Him when He returns. It keeps us working and laboring for His “well done,” when we will finally see him face-to-face (Matt. 25:21).
Our salvation with grace gives us a new purpose to live for, a passion for good works and a higher hope to focus on. This allows us to live our days, laboring with a difference: serving Christ alone as we serve others as He would:
As students, diligently engaging in our studies and learning all we can in our chosen field to be equipped for vocational service.
As full-time employees, faithfully executing our responsibilities in service of our patients, students, and clients.
As stay-home mothers, diligently preparing meals, maintaining the home, and serving our husbands and children so that our family is a light to others.
As retirees, making the most of our experience and wisdom to disciple and encourage the next generation into faithfulness.
What season of life are you in today?
Make a list of what you do on a regular basis.
How might these tasks be God’s training ground for you now? Try to reframe your purpose for these tasks in light of eternity, not just today.
How This Impacts Our Planning
Knowing God’s Story helps us to know Him and His agenda as well as what we are designed to do. It changes how we interpret the activities in our lives.
Before we move, take some time to start taking notice of the things that fill your days. Are they ways that showcase God’s grace, train you to live in ways that reflect His values, or fulfill His gospel mission?
Take some time to pray that God will help you to be open to what He intends for your life, that you may live a life that mirrors His grace to us.
