Titus

If you have your bibles, I'd like to invite you to open with me to Titus three. Titus three. We're nearly at the end of our series on the book of Titus or the letter to Titus. And I hope you've been blessed by it. It's a book just permeated with grace, permeated with the understanding of what God has done in our life completely out of His goodness and His mercy to us.

Let's turn to Titus chapter three. We're gonna read from verses one to eight. Paul writes to Titus, "Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men. At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another."

"But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour appeared, He saved us not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour so that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone." As we've been dealing with Titus, we've noticed the story really of a man called Paul who has been encouraging a young pastor by the name of Titus to in turn exhort or encourage his congregations.

He was in charge of a few on the Isle of Crete. He was to encourage and challenge and support these Christians living a Christian life in a very immoral, broken society. And as we've been dealing with this series, we've seen again the parallels between that society and ours of today. We saw that they are a pluralistic society. They are a society who have many different faiths and religions.

They have many truths, many realities. They are a society that have a certain sense of hatred or discomfort with Christians. They also lived in a world where there was no one absolute truth. No absolute truth. And so when it came to having to proclaim or live a Christian life, sharing with fellow neighbours and fellow countrymen the truth about Jesus Christ, it was a very lonely, very isolated Christian church or Christian community that Titus was a pastor of.

And so there are many applications of the truth of this word from God from Paul to Titus for us today. One of the things we've said all along is that Paul's theme throughout this is the grace of God. The absolute undeserved goodness of God in saving us, of redeeming us from a life that is pointless, a life that is broken, a life that is self destructive, completely out of His goodness. The other thing we've seen is how Christians must live such a life as to make this message of God's grace attractive. It's a very outward focused letter.

It is how Christians are to adorn the gospel of grace. And so what we see here is Paul wanting to make sure that these Christians would live in such a way that the teaching of God in His scripture would be held in high honour in the eyes of their neighbours and that they would see the evidence of the divine work of the grace of God in their hearts, setting them apart from the immoral contemporaries, setting them apart from the people that they were living around, and bearing an amazing witness to God's gospel in Jesus Christ, that it is a powerful gospel, that it changes people radically. It's not just another philosophy that you can take, another philosophy that comes and goes. And so we're dealing with that again this morning in our passage. Let's have a look at verses one and two.

This is what Paul says Christians are to do. This is what a Christian life should look like. "Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men." Two weeks ago, we dealt with a similar passage where we spoke about our affections or our desire to be obedient to the authorities that God has placed over us, that we have to believe that God is in control. God is looking after His planet.

Even though there is so much sin even in our justice system, even in our legal system, or our government system, God has chosen these men and these women to be in this place. And so God calls us to be good citizens. God calls us to pay our rates bills on time. God calls us not to destroy government property, not to graffiti and do all those sort of things. God calls us to respect the police and the law enforcement agencies.

God calls us to respect the laws that have been set by the government and the courts that uphold them. And then Paul says that we are to do whatever is good, and this is a massive far reaching statement. It's so broad. But everything that God has considered to be good, everything that God places in His word, we are to do. We are to be doing in every situation, in every possible way, the right thing.

That means doing our jobs well, working hard, not trying to get by, not trying to avoid the boss as much as possible so that you can just do your job, you know, get your paycheck at the end of the day. But to do our jobs well, to be great husbands, great wives. You know, even before that, three or so weeks ago, we talked about the different categories, the different demographics in a church of older men being respectful, or, worthy of respect, should I say. Older men being wise and considerate and loving towards the church, towards their wives. Older women being great role models for younger women in how they love their husbands, how they love their children.

Younger men being self controlled, not running after everything that has two legs on it. And younger women, yet again, to be pure, to be like priestesses, the word was. Holy. That's what God means when He says we are to do whatever is good. But the interesting thing is how Paul tells us what the motivation should be for these good things.

What our motivation should be for doing these amazing things of being great citizens and great employees and great bosses and great husbands. Our attitude should be that in verses three and five. Have a look. Paul says, "Remember that at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another."

We are to remember who we used to be. In doing the right good stuff, we have to remember why we are doing it. And the reason why is because we used to be real jerks. We used to be villains. We used to be sinners.

We used to be people who absolutely were enslaved to sin. I was speaking with my barber this week, having my haircut. And he's a guy that I've just sort of started going to him. And he's this really, you know, charismatic, I would say slightly arrogant, but maybe that's not the nicest word, but a really sort of proud guy. And he's only a few years older than me.

And he's, you know, cutting my hair and, you know, telling me what a great job he's doing of cutting my hair. And he knows I'm a minister, I'm a pastor, I'm about to be one, and, you know, he's asking me about premarital sex. You know, how do you deal with that? He's Italian, so he comes from a Roman Catholic background, and he doesn't understand whether I can marry or not blah blah blah. And, you know, I gave him sort of my opinion and what the Bible says.

And he went off and he said, well, you know, I'm a very sexually liberated guy. I chase girls really hard. This is my life. This is how I do it. And, I mean, he spoke for the whole half hour.

There was no real dialogue going on here. But every now and then I would just pose a question. I would just ask him, you know, so what does that act of making love mean for you? And at the end of this half an hour, he came to the point where he actually said, it doesn't mean anything to me anymore. And I thought to myself, well, you say that you're so liberated and that in turn, I'm the one that's conservative or that's tied down or whatever.

But he's the one that's enslaved by this. He's the one absolutely enslaved by sin, and it ruins absolutely ruins what God has created to be good. That is who we were, God says. Remember that that is who we were. We were absolutely enslaved.

We were absolutely disobedient and deceived. We were lied to. But also remember, Paul goes on to say in verse four, what Jesus Christ achieved on the cross. Have a look. "But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour appeared, He saved us not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy."

How are we to do the good things in our life? The things that will adorn the gospel, the things that will draw people into this church, we do them because we remember what Jesus has done for us, who we were, who we are now. We remember that we weren't perfect when God found us. And so when we find it really hard to be a good employee to a really bad boss, we remember that we're not perfect. We were never perfect.

We were never deserving of any good thing that God has given us. We were in desperate straits. That's the truth. And it wasn't because of your good life and being a good person that God made you His daughter, that God made you His son. It was in spite of not being very good.

In spite of not being so perfect that God did not give up on you. God refused to give up on you. So what is our attitude in being great people? Being people who strive to work hard and to bring about lasting change in your community, in your family, in your work environment. Our attitude should also be one of deep humility, absolute humility because this is the result of what God has done in our lives.

We are able to love better. We are able to be great husbands and great wives and great friends, sympathetic friends, friends who go to the ends of the earth because of what God has done in our lives, that He has healed us, that He has set us free from being enslaved to sin. God has set us free to actually love the good things He gave us in life. So that is our attitude in doing what is good, doing the good things. But how are we empowered to do it?

How can we actually do this? Well, that's answered in verse five, the last half to verse eight. Have a look. He saved us. That's God.

"Saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit whom He has poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ, our Saviour. So that having been justified by grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone." The washing and the rebirth of the Holy Spirit.

The technical theological term for it is sanctification. If you've ever heard of it, sanctification means becoming holy, becoming like God, becoming like Christ. That's what happens when the Holy Spirit enters our life when we accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour, that we cannot depend on ourselves for being good. We cannot depend on ourselves for being perfect. The Holy Spirit enters our hearts, and it says here that we are born again.

We've become born again Christians. We are renewed, completely changed into the creation that God intended for us to be originally. And the amazing thing here is just how the Holy Spirit is given to us. Verse six says, "He has poured out to us generously, abundantly, overflowingly." It's not a little dab.

It's not enough to just see us through. The Holy Spirit is poured onto us to absolutely fill our entire being. It's an amazing picture. It is God dwelling in us. God dwelling in us.

Every time I say that, every time I think about that, I'm just blown away. Isn't that an amazing statement? The God who created all this, the entire universe that we don't even know a fraction of is living in us, is working in us. Like a dirty plate that's found in an op shop that is valuable and intrinsically beautiful, but is dirty and grimy and cracked. God has taken us and He is in the process of washing us like that plate clean so that we'll come up as good as new.

That's a process of renewal. That's a process of being born again. So how are we empowered to be all these great things? How are we empowered to be great witnesses to God? The Holy Spirit.

In His cleansing us and His generous love to us. If we understand what God's word has to tell us here, if we understand the motivation for why we ought to do these things and why we ought to relate to our neighbours in this way, this is the result in verse eight. If we understand those things, verse eight says, "Those who have believed God will be careful to be engaged in good deeds." If we understand what our motivation is that we once were broken, rotten sinners, in need of God's grace, God came down powerfully and intervened in the history of humanity, saved us radically, has empowered us to be able to be good because He's changed our hearts, the end result is we should be careful to engage in good deeds. So it becomes this beautiful circle.

We can only be great Christians if we understand that. You see, grace does not free us from obedience. We've learned a lot about God's grace these last few weeks, but God's grace doesn't free us from obedience. It frees us to obedience. If I can say it another way, the grace of God which has saved us does not free us from obedience.

It frees us for obedience. So that we say like the Psalmist of Psalm 119, we delight in your word, oh Lord. We love your law. Our hearts will be changed. So we actually would love to live a life like God has desired for us.

That is the expression of Christian freedom. That is the complete opposite to what my friend the barber was saying. God's grace doesn't free us to be whatever. God's grace frees us to be the best, and God has given us His word to show us what that best can look like. Christian freedom is not doing whatever feels good or what feels right.

Christian freedom is delighting in doing whatever God delights in. Having been saved by God's mercy through Jesus' work, we are saved in order to do good deeds. They are the consequences. They are the result of the work of God's transforming work in us. And so the apostle Paul is saying the result of the Spirit's work, the results of God's merciful salvation in us will be that we will be very careful to be engaged in good deeds.

And so we have this encouragement. Christians, please relate this way to civil authorities and to non believing neighbours so that you will adorn, so that you will make pleasing the doctrine of God your Saviour. Do this realising that your motivation to do it is because God was kind to you when you didn't deserve His kindness. Do this relying upon God's work in you because it will only be the work of the Holy Spirit. The renewing grace of the Holy Spirit that you will be able to live obedient lives to God.

But realise that the result of God's grace in you will be that having trusted in Jesus Christ alone for His salvation, you will be engaged in doing good deeds. You will love doing good deeds. We will live an obedient, humble life because we want to delight the Lord who has saved us. Our continual experience of the grace and the love of God and the gospel grows within us a desire to bring God delight and pleasure. Friends, this is our task.

This is our duty. This is our life. To bring God pleasure, to delight in God, and to want to have Him delight in us.