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“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.” (Titus 2:11-12, ESV)

Pastor Abel’s sermon on this passage is titled, “Who Defines Do”.

What does Paul say is training us? The grace of God. The Greek word used for “training” here is παιδεύω which means to discipline or educate as one would with a child. The word has been translated as punish, discipline, train, correct, educate, etc.

The question is: how does grace train us? Isn’t grace a gift? And isn’t training work? When I go for a run to train in aerobics, or to the gym to train with weights, that is hard work. But grace is a gift we don’t earn, so how can it be said to train us?

Here are just a few ways the free gift of God’s grace in the gospel trains us in righteousness:

  1. It gives us new desires (Galatians 5:16-24): Take two people, one who hates going to the gym, and one who loves it. Which one will train more? The answer is obvious. By giving us the desire to love and honor Christ, grace enables us to hate sin.
  2. It frees us from the wrath of God (Romans 3:21-26): In the first chapter of Romans, Paul shows us why sin has the tendency to get worse and worse: because God’s wrath against sin is expressed in giving us up to our own sin. By removing God’s wrath, Jesus freed us from this cycle of sin, allowing us to train in righteousness.
  3. It makes us children of God (Hebrews 12:1-11): The author of Hebrews lays out in chapter 12 how God is a loving father because he disciplines his true children when they sin. Grace allows us to be children of God through the merits of Christ. Now, when we sin, God does not cast us out. Instead, he lovingly disciplines us, showing us the consequences of sin, so that we will learn to live in obedience to him.

Far from being a free pass or a license to sin without consequence, God’s grace, in the saving work of Jesus Christ, really opens the door to radical obedience to God because without it, we would still be enemies of God. Now, however, we are free to train, to work, to be disciplined in our efforts to love, trust, and obey God.

 

For Further Study

  • How has God’s grace worked in your own life? Have your desires changed? Have your actions changed because of that?
  • Read Romans 8. Meditate on the way grace enables us to walk in the Spirit.
  • Books: Pleasing God by R.C. Sproul; The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges