Ever have a smell that brought back a memory? The smell of rain that brings back a camping trip? Or the smell of apple pie, that brought back a spring picnic. A perfume or cologne that brought back a loved one. How many smells do you think humans can detect? Supposedly, those who make fragrances suggest that there are between 10,000-30,000 different fragrances that we can pick up on. Yet not all of them bring back memories. Why? Because its those things that we are devoted to that connect us. We remember the smells because we are intimately connected to them through the circumstances we’ve experienced. So when we smell a familiar scent, that devotion is triggered and the memory comes flooding back.
It’s this idea of devotion that brings us back to our final week in the letter to Titus, where we’l be picking it back up in chapter 3, verse 1. As we pick back up in Titus 3:1, let’s look at the last three weeks.
In our first week, we take about how Titus was sent to Crete for a specific role and purpose to raise up elders in the local congregations. By having good elders to lead the local congregations, a greater experience of God’s grace and peace would happen, because good leadership leads people into the goodness of God. We walked away from that week with the understanding that, every Christian needs to understand their role and purpose within the congregation that they’re apart of for the purpose of experiencing more of God’s grace and peace.
Following that, when we looked at the qualifications of an elder. What we saw was a call to godliness that we are all to strive for. Even if we are never called to the position of elder, each and everyone of us should be striving for the godly character of an elder.
The reason for this is because God has empowered us through the Holy Spirit to produce and display this goodness in what ever role or position he calls us into. If we are not striving to produce the fruits of the Spirit, then God won’t use us for the greater purpose he has, and we will not experience his grace and peace as he intended us to.
With that call to strive for godly character in whatever role we are called to, that we might produce the fruit of the Spirit, in our mind, we can open up to the last chapter of Titus. Let’s read together.
1 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. 3 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. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 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, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 The saying is trustworthy, 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. 9 But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. 10 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. 12 When I send Artemas or Tychicus (tick-a-kiss) to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. 13 Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing. 14 And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful. 15 All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all.
Next week were going to talk about politics and I don’t think anyone’s going to leave the worship service happy. But everything that will be said next week, means nothing if we don’t first understand what Paul is telling Titus in this chapter. There is one point that Paul is getting at in this last chapter and that’s preparedness for good work. Three times Paul uses those two words, “good works.” Paul says in verse 1 to be ready for good works, and in verses 8 and 14, he says to be devoted to good works. The end goal of what Paul is talking about here is that we would be a people of good works in the world. So let’s walk through Paul’s thought process, knowing that his intention is to get us to produce good works.
v.1-11
Paul starts off with what we should do. We should, be submissive to rulers and authorities. That word means to put yourself under the subjection of the rulers. That means to yield one’s rights rather than asserting them. Oh boy, that’s going to be a fun one next week to talk about. Not only are we called to this type of yielding, but we are to be obedient, which is to conform to authority. Are we upset yet? Wait until next week. We are called to not speak evil of anyone, and to avoid quarreling.
Instead we are to be gentle with people and we are to show perfect courtesy to them. That word courtesy is humility; we are to be humble before all people.
Why? Because of what we were. We were foolish, we were disobedient, we were led astray, we were slaves of passions and pleasures, we were living daily in malice and envy, we lived hating and be hated by others.
But something changed. Christ appeared! Jesus saved us, not because of our righteousness. If we were righteousness we would be submissive and obedient, we would have shown gentleness and humility with people. We wouldn’t have been led astray. We wouldn’t have been slaves to passions and pleasures. We wouldn’t have lived in malice and envy and hatred. But we weren’t righteous and we know it, so Jesus had to appear, he had to save us, but he saved us because of his mercy not because of our goodness.
Now notice that everything is past tense. When Jesus appeared, that word means shined upon us, when we accepted Jesus as Savior, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. That’s what he did. That’s why Paul can declare back in 2nd Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” If you’ve accepted Jesus as Savior, you are a new creation, your old self is gone. That’s what happened when you accept Jesus as your Savior. You are no longer the person you were, you have been regenerated and renewed. At that moment, you gained the riches of the Holy Spirit who now works and lives within you. You were justified by God’s grace with your sins being blotted out of eternity. You became an heir to the hope of eternal life. That’s who you are, so why live in such a way that says other wise? Why live in disobedience? Why live in speaking evil? Why live in quarreling? Why live in harshness? Why live for selfishness? Why live being led astray? Why live as slaves of passions and pleasures? Why live in daily malice, envy and hatred? You are new, you are free, you are an heir to the riches of God.
We are called out of the oldness of sin and into the newness of Jesus’ righteousness. We are called into being devoted to good works because those are the things that are excellent and profitable. God wants us to live in his excellent abundant life (John 10:10). He wants our lives to be profitable in goodness. That’s who we are in Jesus, anything else is marring the great work that has been done for us.
In July of 2024, USA TODAY did a survey of what people would do if they won the lottery. Sharing some portion of the winnings with family, friends and charities came in at about 14% (https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/banking/how-americans-would-spend-lottery-winnings/#:~:text=Nearly two-thirds of Americans,vacation or a fancy car.).
Which would be the third most important thing after paying off debts and investing. When people tend to talk about “winning it big,” there’s usually talk about helping other people. Well, as Christians we have won big!
Lottery’s only last a little bit, with USA TODAY running a separate article showing that 1/3 of lottery winners go bankrupt within the first five years (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/07/19/powerball-mega-millions-winners-instant-billionaire-regrets/70430571007/).
However, our salvation lasts for eternity, so if we have won it big, why are we living the same way we lived before? Why are we not living to be devoted to the good works Jesus saved us to live?
Now we might wonder how we can we begin to live that way. How can we live to be devoted to the good works of Jesus. First off, we need to remember that Jesus saved us by his righteousness, so we’re working from that jumping off point. Everything we do is from his righteousness, not our own. Secondly, we’re working by the richness of the Holy Spirit. Meaning, we’re not working from our power, but through relying on the Holy Spirit to work through us. So if our thought isn’t “Holy Spirit work here,” then we’re trying good works in our own strength, which will fail every time.
Once we understand were we come from and how we’re empowered, we can then see what Paul says in verse 9. We devote ourselves to good works by avoiding foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law. There’s a lot of things that are foolish controversies. There’s a lot of foolish talk about ancestry and past hurts. There’s a lot of places where dissension happens and the fights break out. And that’s just in the Church. How much more is it outside where sin isn’t checked in anyway. If the Church wrestles with sin because it desires to be separate from it and yet still experiences quarrels, dissension and controversies, what are we to expect from a world that is lost? That’s why we are called to devote ourselves to good works, because if we’re not devoted, we’ll quickly fall into temptation’s trap of engaging in these worthless things.
And that’s what Paul calls them, they are unprofitable and worthless. Controversies, fights about the past, dissensions, and quarrels bring no profit to the life of the believer, because those are old self things, not new creation things.
And so Paul talks about that if a person tries to bring division, give them two chances and then no longer engage with them, because it’s not worth it for the devotion to good works.
v.12-15
Paul ends his letter, as he ends most of them. Talking about people, and plans he has or wants to happen. But he inserts his call to the devotion of good works one more time. However this time, he gives one last reason to why we should be devoted. When we’re devoted, we’re able to respond to urgent case because we are not tied down in unfruitful issues.
We again honored 9/11 this week. An attack that was seemingly out of the blue. Recently on Friday nights, Marika and I have been watching a 1990s cartoon show with Navi, our youngest daughter. In one of the first episodes, a New York detective is showing the city off to her new friend who has been asleep for a 1,000 years. He observes that there are no walls around their city, like the walls around his castle. The detective then tells him, it’s because our enemies are within, and then it pans across the New York skyline and there in the background are the twin towers.
In that moment you can look back in time and see that we were a country who wasn’t ready for the urgency that was ahead.
When were dealing with other issues that produce no fruit, we were not prepared for the unknown problems that mattered. We were blind side because we were so caught up in other less important matters.
It’s the same thing in our own lives. When we’re messing around with issues that blind us to those things that are urgent, we get blindside. However, if we are devoted to good works, avoiding the things that don’t bring about good fruit, we will be ready to respond in goodness when the urgent comes.
We will face these urgent events through the righteousness of Jesus, while being empowered by the Holy Spirit, and we will overcome them with the goodness of God, leaving the event stronger in our faith.
God is calling us to the life he saved us to live. A life founded on the righteousness of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and devoted to the good works that he is doing. Anything less than that, is a life that is holding on to the old self, a self that is decaying away. Instead, let us rely on the Holy Spirit to bring us further into the goodness of God, that we may begin to experience the riches of eternal life in the time we have on this moral existence.
My challenge for you is to prepare for next week’s sermon on politics. Walk back through this passage, taking the unprofitable things that we are to avoid, and seeing how those things are in the political realm right now. What is God calling me away from in how I approach the political landscape, that I might live more in his goodness.
Let us be a people who are devoted to good works, that the people around us might see those works and praise our Heavenly Father. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment