God’s Grand Redemption (a study in Titus 2:11-15 • Part 5)

God gave Himself for us to showcase His marvelous redemption in our lives. He bought us out of captivity to sin and darkness and has purified us for Himself. And just as God is our inheritance so too we have become His.

In this study, we examine God’s grand redemption which Paul wrote about in Titus 2:14 and we discover that God wants to use us to showcase His life, love, and Gospel to the world around us … He wants to work the “poetry” of the Gospel through our lives and use us to once again be image bearers of Himself to the world.

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Titus 2:11–15 – For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all lawlessness, and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good works. These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

God’s Grand Redemption

1. Jesus gave Himself for us

• He willingly gave Himself and wasn’t forced or coerced 
• It was all because of His great love and mercy for us (see Romans 5:8 and Ephesians 2:4–5)

2. He redeems us from all lawlessness

• Redeem: to liberate or redeem a captured person by paying the price demanded for their return; to set free, rescue, redeem
• Romans 6:6 – … knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin …
• Romans 6:12–14 – Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
• Romans 6:17–18 – But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

3. He purifies a people for Himself

• Purify – to cleanse, to purge of evil, to make clean, purify
• Titus 2:12 – … denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age …
• We are called to holiness – to be unlike, set apart from the world around us
  • God is holy and wants a holy people

3a. The people become God’s possession

• God is our inheritance
  • Titus 3:7 – … so that having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
  • Romans 8:16–17 – The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
  • Ephesians 1:11 – In Him, we also have been made an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will …
  • Ephesians 1:14 – … [the Holy Spirit] who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
  • Ephesians 1:18 – … so that you—the eyes of your heart having been enlightened—will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints …
• We are God’s inheritance
  • Just as Jesus is our inheritance, we are also His inheritance.
  • Hebrews 1:2 – [God has] in these last days spoke to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds …
  • Deuteronomy 4:20 – [Moses to the Israelites] “But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own inheritance, as today.”
  • Deuteronomy 9:29 – [Moses speaking to God about the Israelites] “Yet they are Your people, even Your inheritance, whom You have brought out by Your great power and Your outstretched arm.”
  • Deuteronomy 32:9 – “For Yahweh’s portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.”
  • I am His possession and dwelling place
    • 1 Corinthians 6:19 – “What? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God, and that you are not your own?”
• Song of Solomon 6:3 – “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine, He who shepherds his flock among the lilies.”
  • also see Song of Solomon 2:16 and 7:10

3b. The people are zealous for good works

• Possession – reserved for a particular purpose
  • the purpose is “good works”
  • we are not saved BY works but FOR works
• Ephesians 2:8–9 – For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast.
• Ephesians2:10 – For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
  • Works (ergon – duty) don’t save us … but we are to have them produced in our lives through the Spirit of God.
  • Workmanship (poiēma) – we are God’s poetry to this world

In short, God wants to take His life and use us to showcase His life, love, and Gospel to the world around us. He wants to work the “poetry” of the Gospel through your life and use you to once again be an image bearer of God Almighty to the world (see Genesis 1:26).

Go deeper: see 1 Peter 3:15; 1 Corinthians 6:20; Hebrews 9:12

Join the Conversation

Question: How have you seen God’s grand redemption and poetry demonstrated in and through your life?