For the second time in the last 2 weeks, the Lord and I have had a 3am meeting* over Titus. As I look over my notes from both meetings and sit in prayer about what exactly he’s trying to say to me, I just hear “write.” So, I guess you and I are going to figure out what God has to say together – because I truthfully have no idea where this is going.
Titus is a short book – 3 chapters and only 46 verses – but packing quite a punch in its few words when you finally sit down to study it. I have a feeling it’s overlooked by the average person. When I first sat down with God over this book, I was focused on the idea of good works.
The saying is trustworthy [that we are saved by grace and heirs to eternal life], and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.
– Titus 3:8
We spend a lot of time talking to nonbelievers and new Christians about how they can’t work themselves into God’s grace – his mercy requires no action on our part except the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners. So, for me it was a bit refreshing to see Paul dive into the importance of good works by those who are saved. We’re called to good works because 1) we were once lost, but God’s mercy renewed us in the Holy Spirit, and 2) because these things are “excellent and profitable” to other people. Christianity is all about serving others – and good works are required to serve. (Titus 3:1-11)
But even as I write that and believe whole-heartedly in the importance of that message, I can feel the Holy Spirit urging me to deliver the other message…
I want to start here with Paul’s opening verse in Titus 1:1 – with some commentary next to some of these concepts:
“…for the sake of the faith [the core belief, the foundation of every choice you make] of God’s elect [that is YOU, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior] and their knowledge [true and full knowledge of God and nature, of the origin and destiny of all things] of the truth, which accords with godliness [reverence towards God], in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised [it’s hope in eternal life, but God, who never lies, has already promised it to us – so it is hope because it is unseen, but not because it may not come to pass] before the ages began…”
Do you see how big this is? Because you are saved, you are grafted into God’s chosen people; to have intimate access to the fundamental truths of God and nature, unavailable to the unsaved; and to have a hope of eternal life based in a guaranteed promise of the Creator who can never lie. To understand anything about the rest of this message, you must understand that Paul’s definition of himself in this introduction also applies to YOU.
Titus 1:5-2:10 gives instructions for different groups of people. These are important, but they’re laid out relatively plainly and for the sake of keeping your interest, I’m not going to go into detail; we’re going to skip to WHY these instructions are important to follow.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age… - Titus 2:11-12
I think it’s pretty common knowledge that God’s grace brought salvation to everyone; where I think we often miss the mark is in the rest of that verse. Grace is about more than salvation – it’s about teaching us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live a very specific lifestyle in our present age.
Renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. I know that I have a tendency to skip over actually defining terms in the Bible, which is the one step that makes application possible.
Ungodliness: well, if godliness is reverence towards God, then ungodliness is the opposite of that. It’s behaving contrary to God’s word and commands; ultimately, it’s sinful behaviors. I guess to know what that is, you need to know God’s word. 😉
Worldly passions: I think our success or failure in this area depends on us being honest with ourselves about what we struggle with the most; we may be more vulnerable to some things than others, and the list of worldly passions is long. Money, sex, status, drugs and alcohol, control, revenge, self-indulgence…this is not exhaustive.
Now that we’ve defined what these things are, at least on the surface level, we can ask the hard question: How much of these things are we actively renouncing in our lives on a daily basis?
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
– Titus 3:3
This is the definition of a sinner.
1. Foolish
2. Disobedient
3. Deceived and led astray
4. Slaves to passions and pleasures
5. Living in malice (ill will, the intention to do bad) and envy
6. Hateful
According to scripture, our position as God’s elect should have washed us clean of these behaviors…but we all know we’re prone to sin and fall short, which is why we can’t work our way into God’s grace in the first place, and why Jesus’ mercy is so important.
But still…we should be striving to be better, right? And I don’t know about you, but when I read this list, I feel like there are too many times I fall into too many of these categories to feel comfortable.
Here is your challenge today – we get so comfortable in God’s grace and mercy that we often overlook the areas of sin that might be hindering our relationship with God. So, I want you to take some time to sit down and honestly evaluate your life right now…where are you falling short?
Maybe you’ve been laser focused on financial gain recently, and maybe your choices have fallen a little short to get there. Maybe you have been hurt, and you’re holding a grudge against someone that you need to release. Maybe you’ve just been flat-out disobedient to God’s commands. Maybe you’ve been struggling with jealousy of someone that has something you wanted. (Helpful tidbit: if you sit down and say that you aren’t falling short in any area, start with pride. From a Type A personality, as much as it pains me, we ALL have areas to work on.)
Just be honest with yourself and define the terms. Once you’ve done that, surrender them to God. Ask him to help you release whatever it is that is planting you on the list above. And then turn yourself to the one thing that is guaranteed to set you back on the right track:
And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful. – Titus 3:14
We remove a lot of the risk to sin when we focus on following God’s commands and serving others.
One of my commentary Bibles defines knowledge (Greek: epignosis) as I did above for you…but it includes this statement: “Ignorance is the state of the average heathen.” I know that sitting down and digging up the truth about yourself can be painful and hard, but you do not have the luxury of ignorance anymore. You are not an average heathen. You are God’s elect. So, power through and know that the Holy Spirit was given to you for such refining as this, and there is nothing you’ve done that God will not forgive when you repent.
…He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior… - Titus 3:5-6
*I can’t help but notice these middle-of-the-night meetings come at the times I am less than diligent about making time for study in the normal waking hours of my life…and I can’t help but appreciate his persistence when I am lacking…
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