THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"The Appearance of God’s Grace"Rev. Carl Haak(e-mail: Rev. Carl Haak) |
Dear radio friends,
The Reformed Witness Hour plans to bring a series of messages on our Savior’s
birth under the theme: Epiphany. The word “epiphany” means
“appearing, to bring to light, to become fully known.” In the human traditions of the Christian church,
epiphany refers to the appearance of the star to the wise men. We are going to look at that word
“epiphany” as it is used in the holy Scriptures to describe the birth of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Very commonly, the Holy Spirit has used the word “epiphany” or
“appearing” to refer to our Lord Jesus Christ’s second coming at the end of
the world: Titus 2:13, “Looking for that
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ”; and II Timothy 4:8, where Paul speaks of the “crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that
love his appearing.” Epiphany, when
Christ is brought to full light and appears on the earth:
Colossians 3:4, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye
also appear with him in glory.” Jesus
Christ is going to appear on the earth at the end of the world. He will be fully known.
But the word “epiphany” is also used to refer to His first coming to the
earth, when He was born of the virgin Mary in our flesh in the lowly stable in Bethlehem. And we are going to follow that word as it is used
to describe the coming of Jesus Christ into the world.
The first passage we will look at today is found in Titus 2:11, 12: “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation
hath appeared (there’s the word epiphany) to all men, teaching us that, denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this
present world.”
The apostle Paul, in this chapter, has been exhorting Titus to teach the people to
live a godly life. According to verse 10, he
has given them the exhortation that they must “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour
in all things,” that is, they must make attractive, they must embellish, they must
show, in how they live, the beauty of the doctrine of God that they believe. If you read the entire chapter, you will see that
Paul shows how that is to be done in every age group of the church — how aged men and
aged women, how younger women and younger men, are to adorn the doctrine of God in all of
their life so that the world, from the life of the Christian, sees that that doctrine is
something that is wholesome and beautiful. Then
Paul seeks to give motivation. Why should we,
as children of God, seek so to live so that the doctrine of our God is seen in all of its
beauty? Why should we do this? Here is the answer:
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Because Jesus Christ has been born. And because in that birth we have seen the
wonderful appearing of God’s grace to us. For
that reason, we ought to adorn the doctrine of God in everything we do.
Beloved, the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared. God’s wonderful grace became visible. It shined out of the gloom. It burst out of the pitch black of sin and death. The wonderful saving grace of almighty God
appeared. When? It appeared the night in which Jesus Christ was
born in Bethlehem. Something happened in the
world that had never happened before. A
wonderful, glorious thing, breath-taking, blinding in its brilliance — God’s
saving grace shone out clearly and brilliantly from the stable of Bethlehem.
What is God’s grace? The word
“grace” is, literally, “beauty.”
It means “beautiful.” That
God is gracious means that God is beautiful. He
is attractive. But, more specifically,
God’s grace, as it comes to men, refers to His unmerited favor toward those whom He
has chosen unto salvation. We read in
Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Salvation comes by grace, by unmerited favor, not
because you deserved it, but solely as a gift of God.
Again, Deuteronomy 7 tells us that the Lord did not choose us because of anything
in us to attract Him to us, but because the Lord is gracious. God’s grace is that He does not give to us
what we deserve, but He gives to us that which we do not deserve and cannot earn.
A wonderful, glorious thing, breath-taking,
blinding in its brilliance — God’s saving
grace
shone out clearly and brilliantly
from the stable of Bethlehem.
Therefore, God’s grace refers to His saving power. The apostle says, “For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared.” Get that
down into your soul. It is just that simple! God’s grace brings salvation. Salvation is the deliverance from the greatest of
all evil: sin.
And it is deliverance unto the highest of all conceivable good: the fellowship of God. When God is being gracious, when God shows forth
His grace, that grace brings salvation. You
see, God’s grace is not merely His desire to bring salvation. He does not then back off and say, “But I
certainly don’t want to violate your will. I
might desire to save you, but I won’t do so unless you first want to be saved.” That is not God’s grace. That is not a biblical teaching. What says the Bible? “The grace of God that bringeth
salvation.” God’s grace is His
irresistible power, His glorious power, to save the object of His choosing. That grace has appeared in Bethlehem in the person
of our Lord Jesus Christ as He is swaddled in rags and is in a manger.
That means that the grace of God appeared where we would never look for it. We would look for the grace of God to appear on
polished marble floors, with a cozy fireplace, with a beautiful crib, with soft bunting
and a music box playing lullabies, in the midst of a palace. But that is not where God’s grace appeared. God’s grace shone out of a manger with the
sounds of a cow and the snort of a camel and the smell of manure and the dust and straw
and spider webs and a feedbox and a little babe, newborn, wrapped up in discarded clothes. God’s eternal Son, now in the flesh, to bear
all our sins.
The grace of God hath appeared. Oh,
that grace appeared in the sense that God had promised that He was going to do this from
the very dawn of history. He revealed it to
Adam and Eve, when He sought them out and brought to them the promise of His Son. And throughout the thousands of years of Old
Testament history God always promised that this glorious grace of His would appear in the
person of His own Son in the flesh. But now
it did appear in the wonder of the incarnation! That
is when God’s eternal Son took flesh in the womb of the virgin and was born in
Bethlehem. The grace of God appeared.
God’s grace is His irresistible power,
His glorious power, to save the object of His
choosing.
I can say with confidence that you know this.
I can say that in that great and awful day when Jesus Christ shall appear the
second time, no one who now hears this program will ever be able to claim ignorance and
ever be able to say, “But it was never told me, it was never shown to me that this
glorious grace of God appeared on the earth.” You
know it!
You know it the same way that Titus knew about it in the congregation of the Lord
over which he was pastor on the island of Crete. He
knew about it through the preaching of the Word of God.
The apostle Paul said to Titus in chapter 1:1-3 that God hath, in due time,
manifested His Word through preaching, “which is committed unto me according to the
commandment of God our Saviour.” The
chosen way that God announces to you the appearance of His saving grace in the birth of
Jesus Christ is His Word, especially as that Word is preached to you in the church. Now you see and now you know of this wonder. You do not need to take a pilgrimage to Israel and
walk the hills of Bethlehem. You do not need
to worship at the place where it is suspected the stable once stood in order for you to
understand this glorious truth that God’s grace has appeared. You do not need to imagine some time machine to
whisk you back to that night. You do not need
to go to some display on a church stage and have a “Bethlehem walk.” You do not need a visit from an angel. And you do not need a sign put out in your back
yard in December that Jesus was born. You
have it right now. You have it in the
authority of the living and abiding Word of God which is declared unto you: “Unto you is born this day in the city of
David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” God
has sent forth His messengers to preach the glad tidings of the appearance of God’s
grace. That grace has appeared, says the
apostle, to all men.
The idea of “all” here means all kinds, or all classes, of men. As Paul has explained to Titus that his ministry
must not be bound to any class of men, but to all ages of men, both male and female, so
also the gospel goes forth to all kinds: to
children, to rich, to poor, to male, to female. The
Word is sounded out to the end of the earth, no matter who you are or what your station of
life. Business man in the work-a-day world
where truth and honesty are thrown to the wind — the grace of God, that bringeth
salvation, hath appeared unto you. College
and high school student in the classroom led by a witty, insightful professor who either
outrightly denies or cunningly questions the truth of the living God — God’s
grace in Jesus Christ has appeared to you. Young
people, as you live in a day of fornication and drunkenness and disrespect as part of the
culture — God’s grace has appeared to you.
Housewife, when influences come upon you and you are at your wit’s end and you
are ready to walk out; aged men and aged women; no matter who you may be, I can say with
absolute confidence, with absolute certainty, that you know this — the grace of God
which bringeth salvation hath appeared when Jesus Christ was born in our flesh in
Bethlehem as the only Savior, the one sent of the Father, to bear all the sins of His
chosen.
Now, what effect does that produce upon your heart?
Listen to the apostle: “Teaching
us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and
godly, in this present world.” The
appearing of God’s grace into the world in the birth of our Savior produces in us a
profound effect. It begins to instruct our
heart and it begins to teach our feet and it motivates our soul to a godly life. Does the birth of Jesus Christ have that effect
upon you?
Is it simply some holiday cheer that you look forward to in this season, or does
the gospel now produce, by its own power, this effect:
that you desire to live a godly life? The
truth of God is when the appearance of God’s grace in Christ is made known to our
hearts — this will teach us to live a godly life.
The word “teach” here means “lead a child step by step.” The teaching of grace leads us through the
confusion of this present world step by step and teaches us how to live. How? The
birth of Jesus Christ means that you and I should deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Ungodliness is a life without regard for what God
says, as if there is no God and there are no commandments from this God. It arises out of contempt for God. Ungodliness is when a man says, “I’ll go
my way and do what suits me and give myself to what I please.” This ungodliness shows itself in a multitude of
forms. You may read Romans 1:28-32, where you
have a list. There is fornication,
maliciousness, envy, murder, backbiting, cruelty, disobedience — all the sins of our
own nature that are in the world.
The appearing of God’s grace into the world
in the birth of our Savior
produces in us a profound effect.
When God’s grace appears, it teaches us that we must deny ungodliness and be
godly, sensitive, obedient, respectful, reverent, trusting in God. It teaches us that we should deny worldly lusts. Worldly lusts are those sinful passions that are
so characteristic of the world: all the
things that the modern movies and the entertainment industry seek to glamorize and promote
and instill. It refers to sexual lusts that
burn in the soul and become the claws and teeth of a demon that sink themselves into you
and do not let you go. There is drunkenness,
the perverse desire to get a rush, to be taken over by the influence of alcohol. There is greed.
There is pride. And on and on we could
go. The grace of God teaches us that we must
deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.
That word “deny” is a very strong word.
It is the same word that is used for Peter’s denial of his Lord. Peter repudiated any knowledge of his Lord and
Savior. Now, when the grace of God in the
birth of Christ shines by His wondrous love into our hearts, we are resolved to deny, to
repudiate, to set aside ungodliness and worldly lusts.
Not only so, but now we want to live, says the apostle, soberly, righteously, and
godly in this present world. That is, a
change takes place. A change that can be seen
in how we live. A Christian is not someone
who is under cover in the present world, hoping no one will notice, and secretly ashamed
of being identified with the Lord Jesus. A
Christian is not a dead fish floating belly-up down the stream of filth with public
opinion, doing what everybody else does: evil
talking, swearing, drinking. But a Christian
is alive. He swims upstream in sobriety,
righteousness, and godliness.
We are to live soberly, says the apostle. That
is a favorite word of the apostle Paul in this epistle to Titus. It means that spiritually we are alert to our
calling. We are alert to our place in this
world. We do not have a swirling confusion
as to why we are on the earth. We know why we
are here. We are here to live in Christ.
We are to live righteously. And that
looks out toward other people. That means
that we will be faithful to each other in our marriages and in all of our life.
And godly. We will desire to live in a
way that is pleasing to God in all of our thoughts.
Now the Word of God says that the appearing of Christ in the manger of Bethlehem is
the appearing of God’s saving grace. That
grace powerfully begins to teach our hearts to deny ungodliness, deny worldly lusts, and
more and more live a sober, righteous, and godly life in this present world, says the
apostle. Right now, and right here. God’s grace in the birth of Jesus Christ,
which brings our salvation, is not intended to be something neatly wrapped up and stored
away in our minds and remembered at this
moment as we sing Christmas carols. God’s
grace, in the appearance of His Son, is not to be like the Christmas knickknacks you get
out of the closet and put on the shelf, and then in a month or so you will store away
again. Christ’s birth does not simply
teach you of a promise of a life to come, that someday you will have a perfect life with
your Savior in heaven. But the appearance of
God’s grace in the birth of Christ has to do with this present world, with the effect
upon you day by day.
The Christian, you see, is not just for God’s glory in heaven. He is for God’s glory on earth. The Christian speaks of Jesus not just at
Christmas time, but always —because God has taught us something in the appearance of
His grace. He has taught us that we are
hell-deserving sinners who could not attain to salvation, but now we are rich, for we have
received the grace of Christ. That grace
stirs in our souls, so that more and more we live unto God —right now, in this
present world, in our home, in our work, in our school, in our church, always learning
ever more deeply what it means that God has had grace upon us in the giving of His own
Son.
Then you will seek to adorn the doctrine of God your Savior. You will want to show the wonder, the power, the
beauty of this glorious gospel that God’s eternal Son was made flesh as the only way
whereby sin could be removed. It will be seen
in your life.
Have you been to Bethlehem? Have you
seen the light that shines there? Do you
worship the God who has sent forth the brilliance of His free, saving, irresistible grace? The answer will be found in your life, in how you
live. And the answer will be found in this,
that you live especially as one who cannot wait for that Savior to appear yet once more.
Let us pray.
Father, thanks for Thy holy Word. And
now bless it to our hearts. We pray through
Jesus Christ, Amen.