Titus 2:11-14 Grace Teaches Me How to Live – Living By Grace Part 2

What I want you know today is that you will never outgrow your need for the gospel. The gospel is not like a thing that you set aside once you have received it, so that you can live the rest of your life. It is not something that you say: Now I have the Gospel, my eternal life is secure, I can go on and live the rest of my life. The gospel is not just some ritual you pass through like you might have thought it was at confirmation, so that you can go and do other things in your life. You need the gospel in your life to live.

You will never outgrow your need for the gospel. NEVER!

You need the gospel in your life. You need the good news of Jesus in your life, so that you can live. Grace is there to teach you that need.

When I was nine years old, there was a piano player in the church who taught me how to play the piano. Her name was Grace. So I went to her home every week and learned how to play the piano. I had known some of the basics – what are notes and how to find them on the piano. She taught me the scales that everyone needs to know. After I had mastered the scales that one learns, (why I have no idea, but apparently it helps you play the piano better), then she taught me how to “play by ear.” When you learn to play the piano by hear, there is a certain strategy involved. You learn to memorize the melody. Then there are a set of chords that you learn to harmonize with the melody. When you have learned to play the song by ear, then in theory you can walk up to any piano and play the song without having to read the notes. This can be a handy skill when you don’t have a hymnal available. So Grace taught me how to play the piano by ear – one song at a time. The first song was – “Amazing Grace.” I spent three weeks learning “Amazing Grace.” I was able to master the skill of playing this song by ear. I can still play it today. Here is how it goes.

PLAY AMAZING GRACE ON THE PIANO

Now because I learned to play by ear, I could remember what I was taught, even though I have not touched a piano in years. Grace taught me so well that I could remember what I learned, recall the skill whenever I needed it, and use it at the right time.

The grace of God is the same way. It teaches me in a way that I can remember for my entire life. But what does the grace of God teach me?

The grace of God teaches me to read spiritual traffic lights. In real life, you drive a car and you learn to read a traffic light at an intersection. There is a green light that tells me to go. There is a yellow light that tells me to yield. There is a red light that tells me to stop. Anywhere I go and I see these lights I know what to do with my car. The grace of God teaches me to read spiritual traffic lights:

COLOR ACTION WORD TEACHING ROLE VERSE
Red Stop No Instruct 2:12
Yellow Yield Wait Guide 2:13
Green Go Yes Discipline 2:12-14

STOP – What are we to stop? We are to stop our ungodliness and our worldly desires. We have to learn to say no to these things.

What parts of your life do you need to stop?

YIELD – How am I supposed to yield? When a person yields at a traffic light, the car slows down so that it can let the other cars go. I give up my right to go. I have not yet stopped, but I am giving my rights to the other driver. If I don’t yield, I can stop for the other cars and then I can cause a crash. What causes me to yield? The brakes. The brakes in my life are a form of purification. God is purifying me. He changing me. This is one of the reasons why I never outgrow my need for the gospel. There are parts of my life that I need purifying. What rights do I need to give up to God? What parts of my life do I need to yield to God?

GO – There are times in which I can go. In the case of the Christian, I learn to go do good works.

Now, I don’t do good works to earn my salvation. If I did that, then grace is meaningless. Salvation in Jesus Christ is not earned. I can’t work my way to God. God shares His unmerited favor, His indescribable love is poured out for me without my ability to earn it. But out of this love, I can learn to do good works. My good works prove that I follow God, they do not give me the chance to earn my way to God. When someone sees my good works, they should think of Jesus. This is what God gives me to do. But without the good news of Jesus Christ, I can’t even do these good works. I need the help of the Holy Spirit. I need the grace of God to teach me how to do good works. I can’t do them alone. Because without God I am a reprobate, worthless sinner.

I saw a cartoon this week. I was flipping channels on my last week in the apartment. I turned it to KIKA. On the channel was a cartoon about a monkey and his squirrel friend. They were trying to go to the other side of the street. But they were at a traffic light. They could not understand what the red, yellow, and green lights were for. They saw the cars pass, and then stop. They saw the cars pass and then stop. Just when the squirrel would be ready to take his food across the street to the tree, cars would come. So the monkey watched and then had an idea. He took some pieces of colored paper and a pair of scissors and made three sets of lights. One set was made with just three green lights. The second were all yellow. The third were all red. So he took one direction of lights and made them all red. The second, he made them all yellow. The third, he made them all green. He made the cars stop completely. But the lights never changed. They just stayed red on one side. On another side, they stayed green. On another side they stayed yellow. After some time passed, the drivers became very angry. A policeman was called. He had to explain to the monkey that what he was doing was causing chaos. What is my point?

When you don’t follow the grace of God in your lights, your spiritual traffic lights are going to be messed up. Either you will have everything red in your life, or green in your life, or yellow in your life. When you stop things that you should be doing (good works), and when you go on things you should stop (unrighteousness and worldly desires), and when you don’t yield God like you should, your life is going to be like chaos. Even as Christians, we need the gospel every day of our lives. We need the teaching of the grace of God in our lives. Otherwise, we have chaos. You can have lots of knowledge of God, but little grace of God, and your life will be chaotic, no matter how spiritual you think your Christian life is.

Because the grace of God came at the first coming of Jesus Christ. We follow the spiritual traffic lights that God grace teaches us – so that we can do the good works that He expects us to do. All the while, we wait on the second coming of Jesus Christ.

So there is the grace of God. The good works from God. And finally the glory of God.

Are you looking forward to the glory of God? I am. There is a reason why Paul calls the return of Jesus the blessed hope. The return of Jesus is something to look forward to. It should give us hope in our lives. Why, so that we can do the good works that God has called us to do. The grace of God teaches me the good works. The grace gives me these good works as a reminder of the glory of God that is to come. Does the grace of God teach me something just so that I have some work to do? No. There is a point to it all.

Remember my piano teacher? Why did she teach me to play the piano? Well, first it was so that I would learn to play something correctly and well. Why should I learn to play something co

rrectly? Why should I learn to play a song well? Because at some point, I am going to play this song before other people. No, not necessary in a symphony, not necessarily like Mozart. But I will play this song so that other people can sing. It is the good work that I learn to do with other people. It is called a recital.

At some point in time, I am going to use my newly learned talent before other people. My playing the piano will reflect on the reputation of the teacher who taught me. If I play well, I will get some credit and so will my teacher. If I play poorly, people will boo me off the stage. They will look poorly at my teacher.

So it is with God. I need the gospel in my life. Without it, I am nothing. The grace that gives me the gospel also teaches me during my time on Earth. At some point, at the end of life, there will be a recital before God. The glory of God will shine forever. What I have learned here I will give back to Him. What I learn from Him also reflects to other people. What I do with my life, with the gospel that God gave me, with the good works that the grace of God teaches me, will hopefully point people to God.

I need the gospel in my life to live. The grace of God teaches me so that other people will learn of their need of the gospel of God in their life.