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HopeLives365

Mark Finley

The Travesty of Cheap Grace

Father in Heaven, as we study about your grace today, may we see insights in your Word.

Speak to us through the inspired Word of God.

Help us to grasp the magnificence of grace, the breadth of grace, the depth of grace, the marvelous nature of grace.

Fill us with a sense of awe and wonder at your grace, and help us to never cheapen it.

The title of my sermon today is The Travesty of Cheap Grace.

Cheap grace condones sin in the name of tolerance.

Cheap grace emphasizes love without obedience to God's law.

Cheap grace emphasizes forgiveness without ever requiring repentance.

Cheap grace is grace without Christian discipline.

Cheap grace seeks to deemphasize the cost of the cross.

It cheapens what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Cheap grace shouts only believe as if belief were some mental assent without the transforming power of the gospel.

Chief Grace ignores taking up your cross.

It downplays growth in Christ or sanctification.

Chief Grace offers a comfortable, easygoing, crossless religion that knows very, very little of true discipleship.

Cheap grace plays down the importance of doctrines and shouts, Jesus only, Jesus only, as if you can separate Jesus from doctrine.

It's really humanism clothed in religious garments.

Now the term cheap grace was coined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer was imprisoned with the Nazis and he died as a martyr in a prison camp.

And he wrote to the church in his day that he felt was drifting from the essence of the gospel and misunderstood the nature of grace.

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer's words are more relevant to us today than they were in his day.

Here's what he said, in such a church, that's a church that teaches cheap grace, the world finds a cheap covering for its sins, no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin.

Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living word of God.

He goes on, in fact, a denial of the incarnation of the word of God.

And I love this last sentence, cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.

Now the Apostle Paul writing to the church at the writing to Titus for the church at Crete talks too about cheap grace.

Now grace is never cheap because it costs the life of the Son of God.

And when we accept God's grace, it costs us something too.

So Paul writes to believers in Crete as he counsels Titus.

And I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Titus the first chapter.

And we're going to look there at Titus chapter 1 as Paul is writing to the Cretans.

So do they have a profession of Christianity, these Cretan Christians, do they?

Yeah, the Scripture says they profess to know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

They had a pretense of religion, but not the heartfelt commitment that led to a changed life.

Cheap grace is not life transformational grace.

Now, 1 of the clearest passages in all the Bible on the grace of God is found in Titus chapter 2, verse 11 through 15.

So we're gonna spend our time studying this morning this passage.

We're not going to jump around the Bible.

We're going to look at Titus 2, phrase by phrase, verse by verse.

Now we will read other passages that correlate with this passage.

I know at Living Hope we bring our Bibles, don't we?

Do you have your Bible with you this morning?

Lift it up if you have your Bible with you.

If it's on your cell phone, look, look, look, I want to get a picture of this.

Here at Living Hope, we don't come to hear the Word of man, we come to hear the Word of God, right?

We come here to listen to a message from God's book because we believe that the Word of God is life transformational.

Titus chapter 2, beginning with verse 11, phrase by phrase, word by word.

Titus 2, verse 11, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify us, purify for himself his own special people zealous for good works.

For the grace of God that brings salvation.

Is salvation come because of my human effort?

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to whom?

What does it mean that the grace of God has appeared to all men?

Grace appears to all men in the sense that it's available to all.

It bridges all national boundaries, all cultural biases, because through grace that appears to all men, all women, We are brothers and sisters in Christ.

We may come from different backgrounds, different cultures.

We may have different colors of skin, different textures of hair, but the grace of God appears to who, everybody?

Through grace, God has made us of 1 blood through the cross.

Now there's another aspect of this, the grace of God, that appears to all humanity.

Grace appears to all humanity in the sense that when every human being is born, God puts a spark of grace in their hearts.

That doesn't come from some human effort, but God places eternity in every heart.

Take your Bible please and turn to Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11.

It helps us to understand what this means that God's grace appears to all man.

Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 11.

The grace of God appears to all humanity.

Notice what scripture says, the 11th verse, Ecclesiastes 3, written by Solomon, wisest man to ever live except for Jesus.

I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied.

Verse 11, he has made everything beautiful in his time, and he has put eternity in their hearts.

So when every human being is born into this world, God places eternity in their hearts.

The grace of God, which they never chose, begins leading them to Him.

And If they do not resist, they'll be led to Him.

Jesus outlines this through the Gospel of John as well.

Every person born into this world is given the light of God's love in their hearts whether they know it or not.

And every person into this world is given by grace a moral compass indicted in their hearts by the Holy Spirit.

John 1 verse 9, speaking about Christ, that 1 or he was the true light, which gives light to how many people, everybody?

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The Travesty of Cheap Grace

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