Culture is constantly knocking at our door. ‘Which bank’? ‘Oh what a feeling’! ‘It puts a rose in every cheek’, ‘The fresh food people’, ‘My Dad picks the fruit to make the cordial, that I like best’, ‘Oh what a feeling’, ‘My store’, ‘For the most important person in the world’, and ‘Aussie kids are Wheat-Bix kids’ (these are Australian advertising slogans).
The Teacher in Ecclesiastes says, ‘I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labour. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun’ (Ecc 2:10–11).
The Teacher says that Christians are prime candidates for religious foolishness. ‘Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words’ (Ecc 5:1–3).
This world without God is foolishness, it’s utterly meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Everyday culture invites us to return to its constructed reality—a reality of consumerism and self appeasement. And the Teacher cries out, ‘Don’t do it! Don’t return to worldliness for it makes big promises which it cannot deliver’. At the end of Ecclesiastes, the Teacher says that the prospect of judgment is the thread of reality which we all need. Hang onto that thread, ‘Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man’ (Ecc 12:13).
Then much later the Apostle Paul is discussing the resurrection. If the dead are not raised, he says, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’ (1 Cor 15:32). If there is no resurrection—if there is no judgment— if there is no hope for the future—by all means live unproductive, self-serving lives. If there is no resurrection, enjoy the present for at the very best our future is the coldness and darkness of the grave.
If there is no God then life is a cruel and pointless game. But there is a resurrection. We are accountable to God. So live in the shadow of the empty cross and rejoice in the empty tomb. If you want to have a productive life, Paul says in 1 Cor 15:58, ‘Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain’. The resurrection—the prospect of judgment—here are the threads of reality which give life meaning. The apostle puts it another way in Titus 3:14, ‘‘Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives’. As we give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord, as we devote ourselves to doing what is good, then we will not live unproductive lives.
We know that when Paul left Crete, things were not in an entirely satisfactory condition (slide). We know that the churches on the island were unorganised, though there were Christians in many of the towns. So Paul left Titus behind, he says in 1:5, to straighten out what was left unfinished. Titus was to organise the church so it could provide for daily necessities, so its people would not live unproductive lives. Paul felt it necessary to put in writing what exactly needed to be done. So we have our New Testament letter to Titus written somewhere between 62 and 66 AD.
You know that one of challenges of being in pastoral ministry is that your work is never finished. When I was an engineer on various projects, either the money ran out, or the water treatment plant was built and commissioned and handed over to the client. There was a time when the job was finished. But the Christian life is not like that at all. If you’re a school teacher, you’re work finishes when the students sit for the exams, or when the year comes to an end.
But the Christian life is a work in progress. From the leadership point of view there is always something to straighten out—there is always things unfinished that need to be finished. No matter what layer of leadership, there is always something to do. So Titus is to appoint the right elders in 1:5–16; he is to teach sound doctrine to the whole church in 2:1–15; he is to remind the church of its obligations to earthly rulers in 3:1–2.
Paul’s letter to Titus is an intensely practical letter. The qualities of a useful elder, advice to older men and women, instructions to younger men and women. How we ought to relate to our world. Dealing with a person who divides the church. Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good. The renowned commentator, Gordon Fee, says, ‘The dominant theme in Titus, therefore, is good works, that is, exemplary Christian behaviour and that for the sake of outsiders’.
A quick look through the letter proves this observation to be true. When speaking about elders in Tit 1:8. Paul says he ought to be ‘one who loves what is good’. On the other hand, in 1:16, false teachers are unfit for doing anything good. Then in 2:3, the older women are to teach the younger women what is good. In 2:7, Titus is to be an example to the younger men by ‘doing what is good’. In 2:14, Paul speaks about the gospel which produces a people who are ‘eager to do what is good’. In relation to the world, to rulers and authorities, Paul says in 3:1 we must be ‘ready to do whatever is good’. In 3:8, Titus is to stress the gospel ‘so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good’. This brings us back to 3:14, where ‘our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good’.
The theme of ‘goodness’ dominates the letter. So then are we saved by good works? Is that all it takes to live fruitful lives? Trying hard? Doing one’s best? Can we reduce the Christian life to one of good works? As he writes to Titus, Paul sets this whole business of goodness in it gospel context.
Look with me at Titus 3:3, ‘At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures’. This verse is like a history lesson. It’s not the history of the Rome Empire, its not the history of Crete and the surrounding region. Paul is concerned with the history of the soul. He reminds us of our former condition because we must never forget the way we once were. Some Christian folk argue that we must forget our ugly past. We must put it aside and live as though it never existed. But not according to the apostle who says we should remember our past.
Notice in verse 3 that we are the subject of the verbs. We did something. We were foolish, we were enslaved, we were the ones hating others. Paul summarises our position in Romans 3, ‘There is no-one who does good, not even one’ (Rom 3:12). This is where the worldly man and woman stand in relation to goodness. This is a summary of our unregenerate selves. It’s as though the apostle is applying pressure, pushing down upon us, causing us for moment to feel the hopeless that was our past. This is your history, this is my history.
And then comes the great sense of relief. The burden lifted in verse 4, ‘But when the kindness and 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’. Now the subject of the verbs has changed. The potter has acted—not us. The potter has picked up our broken pieces—sharp, abrasive, unable to do what is good. And out of the fiery furnace of the cross, a beautiful new pot emerged. The potter has forged a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.
The gospel is not about our actions, it is about God and his actions. He pours out his mercy, he justifies us by his grace. Not even our faith is mentioned. We can be good people only because God has poured out his mercy upon us. Then in verse 8, ‘This is a trustworthy saying (the gospel message). 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’ (Tit 3:8). Our capacity to do good comes through the renewal by the Spirit.
And so the relationship between godliness and goodness is a tight one. If you haven’t been saved by the cross, if you haven’t experienced spiritual rebirth, if the Spirit is not renewing you, then you cannot please the Father. The trouble with this world and fallen religion is it believes that good works lead to right standing with God. But this is lifeless religion and Paul tears this to shreds in Titus 3. Faith in the Lord Jesus is a gift from God. We don’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, its not from ourselves, its not by works so that no-one can boast. And the fruit of this gospel is that ‘we will devote ourselves to doing what is good’ (Tit 3:8).
At the heart of this letter to Titus is the grace of God that brings salvation to all men. And Titus is charged to use this gospel to straighten out what remains unfinished in the Cretan church. The message is that we devote ourselves to doing what is good so that we will not live unproductive lives.
You might be near the end of your earthly life and knocking on the gates of glory. You need the gospel to right to the end. You might be muddling through a meaningless middle age. You need the gospel to right to the end. You might be a new Christian and struggling with different teachings. You need the gospel to right to the end. So for all of us there is the unfinished business of holiness, learning to do what is good, devoting ourselves fully to the work of the Lord.
Come with me to the beginning of the letter because I want you to notice that preaching is never old-fashioned. To preach is to proclaim, to announce, to share good news. It’s far more than one man standing in a pulpit each week. Its an infectious verb that bursts forth with life because it’s God’s appointed means of reconciling people to himself. So Jesus says in Luke 4:43, ‘“I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea’.
With the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost, Peter confidently declared that ‘God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ’ (Acts 2:37). And the Spirit ensured that this Word did not return empty. So upon hearing this news, the Jews are cut to the heart and they say to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do’? And the reply is, ‘Repent and be baptised, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins’ (Acts 2:38).
Later, the Lord calls Paul to be his apostle to the Gentiles—the apostle to the church in Crete—our apostle. And what’s the first thing Paul does? Luke says that, ‘At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God’ (Acts 9:20). Paul kept declaring that Jesus is Lord and he did not stop when he arrived in Crete.
In Titus 1:3, Paul says that he went to Crete at God’s appointed time and ‘brought his Word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Saviour’. Are we so familiar with God’s word that we forget its power? The prompting to become a Christian does not come from ourselves. It is supernatural in origin. We were dead and enslaved to the world. But then someone shared the gospel with us and then came the spark of new life. Even your faith is a gift from God. Preaching is never old-fashion. Paul went to Crete, he shared the gospel entrusted to him and dead people were brought to life. And now, ‘as a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ’, Paul writes to further the faith of God’s elect, verse 1. These are the saints whom God has chosen from broadness of humanity and drawn to himself.
We know from verse 5 that these saints had organised themselves into churches in every town throughout Crete. In order to strengthen their faith, Paul’s intention is to equip the saints with a knowledge of the truth. This isn’t any truth. It’s the truth which produces godliness. It’s the truth which produces a godly life, the life of one who fears and serves God. We usually think of truth as propositional, as facts that need to be grasped and learnt. And this often is the case. But the knowledge of the truth which leads to godliness is a relational truth. It is a truth that in 2:12, leads us to live ‘self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age’.
This truth purifies us as it teaches us to reject worldly passions. So in 1:15, Paul says, ‘to the pure, all things are pure’. In contrast, the teaching of untruth leads to corruption, ‘but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing pure […] They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him’. Winston Churchill once said, ‘Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened’. We should not stumble over the truth, because knowledge of the truth leads to godliness.
In our Western world we stress individualism and personal rights and agendas to the exclusion of all else. The unregenerate persons says, ‘This is my life and I have every right to live it my way’. But this is not the Christian way. The gospel calls us out of selfish individualism into the community God’s elect people whose common passion is to know the truth which leads to godliness. And our faith in God, and the knowledge of the truth which sanctifies us, rests (according to verse 2), ‘on the promised hope of eternal life’.
The great hope we have as Christians is the great hope of eternal life. This life is like the dressing room before the main game. But if there is no main game, if there’s just an empty stadium, then we are living a lie. If there is nothing beyond the grave, the Teacher is right, the Apostle is right, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’.
But God does not lie. Our trust in the promises of God, the knowledge of the truth which purifies us, foreshadows the resurrection which leads to eternal life. So in verse 2, Paul predicates the whole Christian life on the promise of eternal life. There is no point devoting ourselves to doing what is good if there is no life after the grave. There is no point Titus straightening out what was left unfinished if there is no resurrection and no judgment day.
With great confidence the apostle says that God does not lie. In fact, verse 2 reminds us that before the beginning of time he purposed our salvation. Whether Paul is referring back to the time God made promises to Abraham (as Calvin thinks), or whether Paul is speaking of God’s commitment before time began—does it really matter? This isn’t some half-baked plan thought up by a minor deity! God’s intention has always been to rescue fallen humanity. The plan of redemption is a cosmic plan that is brought to bear on the Cretan church and on our church. The gospel preached, the assembly of God’s elect, the preparation of the saints for ‘the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ’.
So you and I have a common faith in Jesus, but its not an ordinary faith. In verse 4, Paul addresses Titus this way, ‘To Titus, my true son in our common faith’. Aren’t they lovely words? Titus shares the same faith as the great Apostle. All of us, we all have a common faith in Christ Jesus.
If you think you are superior in this church by virtue of education or wealth—who do you think you are? If you think you are small in this church because you haven’t been a Christian for long, or your poor health makes you second class—who do you think you are? Our common faith in Jesus binds us together. We all enjoy the same great salvation and have in Jesus Christ the same great Saviour. All of us have the same Spirit in our hearts. We all have the same great inheritance stored up for us in heaven. We all have the hope of eternal life.
So remember who you are and whose you are. ‘Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour’ (Titus 1:4b).
