I’d invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Titus chapter 3. We’re going to look at verses 1 to 8 in Titus chapter 3. And I want to think with you for just a few moments this morning about how Christians ought to relate to the world and society around us. I think almost all of us are aware that we are living in a world and a culture that is becoming more antagonistic towards Christianity, Christian institutions and Christians. What are we supposed to do in that context? How are we supposed to respond? How are we supposed to publicly behave? The New Testament does not leave us without an answer to that question. Repeatedly, there are passages in the New Testament that tell us how we are to relate to the world and culture around us. And this is one of those passages. We could have gone to Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 to 16, where Jesus says, “Be salt and light.” We could have gone to Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, where Paul says, “Don’t be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”
We could have gone to many places like that in the New Testament, but I want us to look at this passage today because it gloriously ties together two or three things. Number one, it tells us what our posture ought to be towards the world, even a sinful world that is antagonistic towards us. Number two, it spells out some important motivations for why we live the way we ought to live in the Christian life. And thirdly, it beautifully explains the Gospel and the relationship between salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and our doing good works. How do those two things go together? This passage explains. So this morning I hope we can look at God’s Word and learn about those things. Before we even read God’s Word, let’s ask for His help and blessing in prayer. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we do not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, so speak, Lord, Your servants listen. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
This is the Word of God. Hear it, in Titus chapter 3, beginning in verse 1:
“Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy; hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy statement, and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men.”
And then if you’ll look further down in the passage to verse 14, he goes on to say:
“Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs so that they will not be unfruitful.”
Amen, and thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired and inerrant Word. May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.
So how are we as Christians to respond to a world, a culture, a nation that is increasingly antagonistic to Christians and to Christian institutions and to Christianity itself. Well, Paul tells us here. And I want you to see the main thesis of this whole passage is simply this. We are justified by God’s grace in order to be careful to engage in good deeds. The way that Paul wants us to respond to an antagonistic culture is by loving that culture well in our behavior so that we are seeking its well-being in the way that we behave. But we do that because we are justified by God’s grace, not because we are justified by works, not because we are justified by what we do. We act that way because God has saved us by grace. We’re not trying to earn our salvation by our behavior. No. Our behavior is the result of God’s gracious salvation of us. That’s what we are going to look at together this morning.
I want you to see three things here. Paul teaches us first about our public, Christian witnesses, especially our conduct towards our neighbors and our community, our society and our culture. And you’ll see that in verses 1 and 2. Secondly, Paul spells out several important motivations to our behavior. I love that the Bible, when God tells us to do something in the Bible, He frequently attaches to it – why? You know, God could just play the authority card. You remember when you went to your dad and you complained about what your mother had told you to do? “Dad, Mom told me to do such-and-such,” and he said, “Did you Mama tell you to do it?” “Yes.” “Do it.” That’s the appeal to authority. Why do you do it? Because Mama told me to do it. And by the way, that’s a very good reason for obedience! But it’s interesting that so often, whereas God could say, “I told you to do it,” He will tell you your motivations. He’ll provide for you a “why” in that behavior so that you will understand the logic of what He is asking you to do. And then finally, I want us to look at how Paul explains the Gospel in this passage – the way that our gracious salvation relates to our good works; the way justification and sanctification go together; the way good deeds are the fruit of grace in the Christian life.
Now if you want an outline that rhymes, I’m not really good at that! But you could say – witness, why, and works. Witness, that is, how Christians witness in their behavior to the non-Christian world. Why we relate to the non-Christian world this way; our motivations for relating to the non-Christian world in this way. And then works and God’s grace, how they go together. You see I’m not very good at the rhyming thing, but that’s the outline that we are going to follow today!
Witness
First, let’s look at witness – our godliness towards non-Christians in relation, and Paul here spells out two groups – those who are in public authority and all people in general. Look at what he says in verses 1 and 2. Speaking to Titus who is pastoring these Cretan Christians and he says, “Titus, remind them to do seven things – to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient.” So one thing these Christians are going to do is they are going to respect public authority. And that would have been hard, right, because these people in public authority were pagans and that’s a reality that we have to bear in mind today. Very often, the people in public authority that we are called to relate to are pagans. He says be subject to them, be obedient to them.
Then he goes on to say a third thing. “Be ready for every good deed.” So our posture is to be – I want to be ready for every possible opportunity to do a good deed. I want to be ready to seek the well-being of other people as a Christian. Fourth, “malign no one.” Oooo, that’s hard because we like to complain and we especially like to complain about people who are in authority. He says malign no one. Fifth, “be peaceable,” not contentious; peaceable. “Gentle.” Oooo. And seventh, “showing every consideration for all men.” So here he paints out, here is your posture in a fallen world, in a sinful world, in a world where there is antagonism towards Christians and towards the Gospel, how do you behave? Be subject to rulers and authorities, be obedient, be ready for every good deed, malign no one, be peaceable, gentle, show every consideration for all men.” These are seven civic virtues that Paul wants Christians to cultivate.
And this is not unusual in the New Testament. Jesus, you remember in Matthew 5:16, says, “Let your light shine before men so that they will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Paul is just ripping off Jesus here. That’s all he’s doing. It’s plagiarism! He’s simply saying what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:16 with a little elaboration. Peter says the same thing, by the way, in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 12, which just proves to you that Peter and Paul were listening when Jesus taught. Okay? Peter says the same thing. “Make sure that your behavior bears good testimony to the unbelieving world around you.”
Now, Paul does not think that that means that the culture will be converted or that they will like you. It’s very interesting that in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 12 when he exhorts us to do good works to the watching world around us, he says they’re going to slander you. So he doesn’t expect that just by doing good to the world around us that the world will like us. This is very important for us to understand, especially the younger people in this congregation. No good deed of yours will go unpunished. Do it anyway. Okay? Do it anyway. No good deed of yours will go unpunished. If you believe what the Bible says, no good deed of yours is going to go unpunished. Do it anyway because you’re not doing it because it always results in the world changing its mind or being converted or having a more favorable opinion of Christians. You are doing it to glorify your Father in heaven. And either now or on the last day, they will come to see reality. We hope now. We hope it doesn’t wait until the last day for them to see reality. But whenever it is, our job – glorify the Father in our doing good deeds, good works, showing consideration for all men, being ready for every good deed. That’s the public posture that Paul wants us to take. That’s the witness that we are to bear to the unbelieving world to show godliness in the form of being concerned for their well-being, to all.
Why
Now Paul then explains why we should do this; that is, he gives us motivations for our godliness to others. And notice, the first and most important motivation is in verse 4. It’s because of what our God is like. Our God was kind and loving to us. We didn’t deserve it. God was not kind and loving to us because we were awesome. God was not kind and loving to us because we were good. God was not kind and loving to us because we deserved it. He was kind and loving to us because He is kind and loving! And Paul doesn’t even have to pull out the application to that. The point is, if our God is kind and loving, we should be kind and loving. People ought to see a little picture of what our God is like in the way that we relate to others.
Second motivation. The second motivation he gives is what we once were. Did you see what he said in verse 3? “We were once foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved, spending our lives in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.” So Paul does not say, “You know what Christians? The world out there is foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved, malicious, hateful and hating one another, so you just hate them back.” That’s not what he says. He says, “We were just like that apart from God’s grace. That’s exactly what we were like. That’s exactly what we would be apart from God’s grace. So, love them. Love them all, because we would be like that were it not for the grace of God to us.”
Third, don’t you just love the fact he doesn’t just give you one motivation? He’s piling on motivation because he knows this is hard! It is hard to love a world that hates you. It’s really interesting, I was with Brian Davis who teaches for us at RTS Atlanta. He’s actually a professor at Covenant College, and he said one of the main questions that the young people that come to him in his philosophy classes at Covenant College ask is, “Professor” – these are Christians – “Professor, show me how to love a world that hates me.” Isn’t that interesting? “Show me how to love a world that hates me.” Paul’s doing that here. He’s providing motivations for that very thing.
Here’s his third motivation. He says, “Despite all this, look at what God has done for you. Despite the fact that we were this way, what has God done? He has saved us,” verse 5. He didn’t look down on us and say, “Awe, aren’t they wonderful?” He looked down on us in pity and mercy and though He could have judged us justly, He saved us. And what’s that supposed to do? It’s supposed to produce mercy in us. Remember how Jesus asked us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our sins, our debts, our transgressions, the way we forgive others.” Ouch, Jesus! You’re going to make me pray that prayer? Ouch! But you see the implication of it. God’s forgiveness of us is supposed to build in us – what? A heart of mercy and forgiveness to others. And we didn’t deserve that forgiveness; the world doesn’t deserve that forgiveness, but He wants to build in us a heart of forgiveness.
He’s not done yet. There’s still motivation. Notice what God did not do. He did not – look at verse 5 again – He did not save us on the basis of our deeds. In other words, God did not say, “Look, straighten up, fly right, and then I’ll think about blessing you. Start acting right and I’ll show you mercy. Be obedient and I’ll save you.” No, no, no. He did not save us on the basis of deeds. So what’s Paul saying? You don’t look at the world and say, “When you get your act together, I’ll start being concerned about your well-being.” No, I’m going to be concerned about your well-being precisely because your act is not together.
And then, he’s not done yet. There’s still another one. Look at verses 5 to 7 where he tells you what God is doing and is continuing to do in you. He regenerated you – that’s what He did – He renewed you by the Holy Spirit, He made us heirs and gave us an eternal hope. So He gave us a lot of things that we did not deserve. He was unbelievably generous to us. All of those things, Paul says, that’s supposed to inform the way we relate to a wicked world.
Works
Now this gives us a great opportunity to explore just for a few seconds the relationship between works and grace in the Gospel. Notice, verse 5, we are not saved on the basis of deeds, but three times in this passage we are told, verse 1, “Be ready for every good deed,” verse 8, “Be careful to engage in good deeds,” verse 14, “Our people must learn to engage in good deeds.” Okay, so help me here, Paul. I’m not saved by good deeds, but I’m supposed to engage in good deeds. How does that go together? Glad you asked! Notice those good deeds are not the things that saved us. He explicitly says, verse 5, He saved us not on the basis of deeds. But we’re all supposed to be ready to do good deeds. So where do good deeds come in? They are not in any way the root and cause of our salvation. They are the fruit and result of our salvation. They are not in any way the root and cause of our salvation; they are the fruit and the result of our salvation. By the way, Paul talks about that in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 to 10, doesn’t he? “For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” And then he goes on to say, “For you were created in Christ Jesus for good works.”
So what’s Paul’s point? You were not saved by good works; you were saved to good works. And this is hugely important. When we teach that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone – and that is true – we do not mean that it does not matter how Christians live. What we mean is, good works is not the way that Christians are made right with God. Good works are the result of God saving us by grace. If I could put it this way, God does not love us because of our good deeds; He loves us into our good deeds. He does not love us because of our good deeds; He loves us into our good deeds.
And I hope some of you know relationships like that – maybe in your marriage, maybe in your family, maybe with really close friends. Do you have people in your life it is a delight to do things for them? Why? Because you know they love you and you cannot do enough for them because you know they love you. On the other hand, some of you may know relationships that go like this – you work and work and work to try to please someone who is never pleased. That kind of relationship will kill you. The other kind of relationship will give you life. That is the kind of relationship you have with your heavenly Father. It’s Father’s Day, and we have the best Father in the world – our heavenly Father, and He loves us into good deeds. He doesn’t say, “Child, I love you because you have done good deeds.” He says, “Child, I love you. Be like Me.” That’s so freeing. It’s so wonderful. We’re set free to be who God made us to be in the grace of the Gospel. The Gospel is not “Be good and God will save you.” God, in His love and mercy and grace, has saved you by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. You have absolutely contributed nothing to it! And because of that, you’re finally able to care about other people. You’re finally able to care about the well-being of others. You’re finally able, in the words of this text, “to do good deeds.”
By the way, there’s a whole chapter in the Westminster Confession of Faith about good deeds because the reformers knew that good deeds aren’t bad. Okay? Good deeds aren’t bad unless you try to make them the basis of your salvation. And so Paul beautifully in this passage is saying, faith, grace and good deeds, they all have a place in the Christian life, but the place of good deeds is not the basis of your salvation. It’s the fruit of your salvation. And so what Paul is doing here is he is setting the Cretan Christians free to love and seek the well-being of others who are not necessarily going to treat them well. How can they do that? Only if they know that they have been treated graciously by their heavenly Father. See, you have to figure out how to love a world that hates you. How can you do that? Only by the grace of God.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we ask that by Your grace, You would enable us to let our light shine before men so that they will see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven, and that we would do this in constant remembrance of Your grace to us and in constant reliance upon Your grace to us. In Jesus’ name, amen.