For the church waiting for Christ’s appearing.

Waiting for Christ’s appearing can become a religious alibi. A person may speak warmly of the blessed hope while protecting the ungodliness and worldly lusts that grace has come to deny. I have sometimes wanted the comfort of future glory without the present correction of grace. Titus will not permit that evasion: grace has appeared, bringing salvation and instructing us how to live in this present age. The question is not whether the church has waited long, but whether its waiting is being schooled by the grace already revealed.

Picture a table set in a waiting household. Its prepared place declares that the guest is expected, but it does not pretend the guest has already arrived. So the appearing of grace and the appearing of glory belong together without being confused: grace has appeared through Christ’s saving work; his glory is still the blessed hope for which his people look. Grace sets the table for holy waiting until glory appears. The future does not excuse the present; it gives the present its direction.

That direction is concrete. Grace teaches denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts, then forms a life that lives soberly, righteously, and godly while the church waits. This is not self-improvement purchased by patience. At the cross, Jesus bore the guilt that made such a life impossible to claim as our righteousness; in his resurrection, he rose as the Savior whose promised appearing will reveal glory, not merely offer an idea. Therefore looking is active expectancy: salvation rests on Christ, and obedience answers the grace that directs attention to Jesus, our great God and Savior.