“Strangers and Pilgrims”
Titus 3:1-8
November 18, 2001
The Rev’d Quintin Morrow
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Ft. Worth, Texas
A lot of ink has been spilled in the debate from historians and sociologists concerning the issue of how Christian “Christian” America was, or even if it ever was. What is not in dispute now is that America is no longer a Christian nation. It is a post-Christian nation at best and an anti-Christian nation at worst. The old days of secular society supporting the Judeo-Christian moral vision are over. Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon open their book Resident Aliens with the following:
Sometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended…and a new world began.
When and how did we change? Although it may sound trivial, one of us is tempted to date the shift sometime on a Sunday evening in 1963. Then, in Greenville, South Carolina, in defiance of the state’s time-honored blue laws, the Fox Theater opened on Sunday. Seven of us—regular attenders of the Methodist Youth Fellowship at Buncombe Street Church—made a pact to enter the front door of the church, be seen, then quietly slip out the back door and join John Wayne at the Fox.
That evening has come to represent a watershed in the history of Christendom, South Caroline style. On that night, Greenville, South Carolina—the last pocket of resistance to secularity in the Western world—served notice that it would no longer be a prop for the church. There would be no more free passes for the church, no more free rides. The Fox Theater went head to head with the church over who would provide the world view for the young. That night in 1963, the Fox Theater won the opening skirmish.
You see, the authors continue, our parents never worried about whether we would grow up Christian. The church was the only show in town. [And] Church, home and state formed a national consortium that worked together to instill “Christian values.” People grew up Christian simply by being lucky enough to be born in places like Greenville, South Carolina, or Pleasant Grove, Texas.
[But], Hauerwas and Willimon conclude, a few years ago, the two of us awoke and realized that, whether or not our parents were justified in believing this about the world and the Christian faith, nobody believed it today. All sorts of Christians are waking up and realizing that it is no longer “our world”—if it ever was.
The news that we no longer live in a Christian culture may be a shock to some of you, though a quick look at primetime TV is enough to demonstrate the point. But what the realization that we no longer live in a Christian culture means is that we as believers in Jesus Christ must order and live our lives differently. We must live, as Hauerwas and Willimon make clear by the title of their book, as resident aliens. In many ways we have awakened to find ourselves behind cultural enemy lines. Consequently, we must live as strangers and pilgrims in this nation and in this world.
Just how to do that is exactly the subject of St. Paul’s exhortations to the young pastor Titus in his epistle to Titus, chapter 3 verses 1-8. He answers the questions “How should we then live?” and “What manner of people ought we to be?”
Titus was Greek and was a disciple of and coworker with Paul. More than likely Titus had been converted under the Apostle’s ministry. The destination of this short three-chapter letter was the Isle of Crete, where St. Paul had left Titus to organize the fledging church. We know very little about the number of churches or Christians on Crete during the young Greek’s ministry there. We do know, however, something about the residents of the island. Paul quotes one of their own poets, Epimenides, in chapter 1 verse 12, and says, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” Indeed, many classical writers wrote of the untruthfulness of Cretans. In fact, the Greek verb kretizein, meaning “to act as a Cretan,” became synonymous with concept of playing the liar in the ancient world. Such was the cultural climate in which Titus found himself ministering.
The first two chapters of Paul’s letter to Titus focus specifically on Christians and the church. The Apostle informs Titus in chapter 1 of the qualifications of elders for the church and admonishes him in chapter 2 to teach and live sound doctrine.
In chapter 3 the Apostle shifts thematic gears and for the first 8 verses focuses specifically on how Christians are to live in a pagan world. He instructs Titus on how to nurture and shape a group of believers into resident aliens—Christians who honor God and live as strangers and pilgrims behind hostile cultural lines. He answers the questions “How should we then live?” and “What manner of people ought we to be?”
The passage breaks neatly down into four parts: The Reminder to believers on how we are to behave in this world; the Remembrance of how believers use to behave in the world when they were unbelievers; the Redemption, what Jesus Christ did to redeem unbelievers; and finally the Reward, the profit to believers and unbelievers alike for Christians living counter-culturally.
Blessed Paul begins his counsel to Titus in chapter 3 verse 1 with the charge of reminding the Christians committed to his charge of some important things—things they had obviously been taught before but needed reacquainting with. He says “Remind them.” “Remind” is a present imperative—that means Titus was to remind his hearers of their duties as Christians in pagan world, and he was to go on reminding them continuously. But remind them of what? Two things: The first is to submit to and obey the secular rulers, and the second is to be kind, peaceful, humble and courteous with everyone else. He says:
Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for any honest work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all men.
Firstly, then, as believers in an unbelieving world—as resident aliens—we are to be good citizens. In fact, we ought to be the best citizens. We should be patriotic, pay our taxes, vote, obey the law and honor those in authority over us. Paul says in Romans chapter 13 that all secular government exercises its authority by the will of God. Therefore, to rebel against the governmental authorities over us is to be subject not only to temporal punishment but God’s displeasure as well. We must obey the law—even laws we personally dislike. We must honor the President—even if we didn’t vote for him and he is dishonest and a womanizer. By doing so we are honoring God.
Is there ever a time when we must disobey secular authorities? Yes. When they command us to do what clearly violates God’s commandments and when they prohibit what is clearly a command of God. When Peter and John were commanded to cease preaching Christ in Acts chapter 4, they suffered beatings and declared that they must obey God rather than man, because Jesus had commanded them to go into all the world and preach the gospel. In Daniel chapter 3 the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue and commanded everyone in his kingdom to bow down before it. But three Jewish exiles, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused, because the first commandment forbad it. Unless to do so would violate God’s commands, we are to submit to and obey the secular authorities.
Secondly, as strangers and pilgrims in this world we are to be kind, peaceful, humble and courteous to everyone else. We are “to speak evil of no one,” Paul says. The verb in Greek is blasphemeo, from which we get the English word “blaspheme.” It means to slander or treat with contempt.
The key to understanding the Apostle’s admonitions here is actually found in chapter 2 and verses 7 and 8 of this letter. There Paul says:
Show yourself in all respects a model of good deeds…and sound speech that cannot be censured, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.
The world knows that Christians are supposed to be different. So just name the name of Christ for yourself in the home, at work or at the ballpark and people will be watching you. In fact, they will be watching you looking for a fault in you that might invalidate the Gospel you claim. But we are to be above reproach. We are to avoid the very appearance of evil, so that we might win some and give no one cause to malign the Gospel or the Lord Jesus. There is nothing in the world worse than a surly, selfish Christian in a room full of unbelievers. There is nothing worse than a guy with Jesus bumperstickers on his car, weaving in and out of traffic, blowing his horn and making rude gestures at other drivers with his hands.
Being strangers and pilgrims means that we are to try and imitate our Lord, who when reviled reviled not again; who suffered punishment patiently, though He was innocent. It means living deliberately, conscious that others are watching us and listening to us. We are to be kind, patient, peaceful, humble and courteous to everyone God brings in our path. We may be amongst angels unawares. We may be the only Bible our coworker ever reads.
Next, Paul calls to our mind the remembrance of how we used to behave in the world as unbelievers in verse 3.
For we ourselves were once….
And what follows is a litany of evil and vices. We were foolish and disobedient; we were deceived—in error in our thinking—and enslaved to sinful passions; we were living in malice and hatred. Paul does not mean that every unbeliever manifests every one of the sins named, but only that such sins characterize the lives of the unregenerate, the unbeliever. But here’s the point. The sobering fact that our lives used to be marked by such evil and unhappiness ought to bring forth in us now humility; and it ought to cause us to treat such folks as these with patience and love. Why? But for the grace of God go we. “For we ourselves were once…” But we are not anymore.
Paul says in Ephesians 4:
Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them…. You did not so learn Christ! Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
“For we ourselves were once….” The remembrance of what we used to be.
I say “used to” be because Paul moves on verses 4-7 with our redemption—what Christ did for us when he saved us.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever works and works and works will not perish but having everlasting life. Is that what John 3:16 says? No. It says whosoever believes. You can’t buy salvation. You can’t earn it or merit. It is a free gift of grace. “Not because of righteous deeds we have done, but because of His mercy.” These verses forever put a bullet in the brain of the notion that we can work to earn to our salvation. We can’t. There is no health in us. We are miserable offenders. And if God in His goodness and love and mercy had not taken the initiative to save us we wouldn’t be saved. But He did and we are saved by His grace alone, by faith alone, because of Christ’s death alone, plus nothing and minus nothing.
What did He do? Firstly, He saved us. That means we will be rescued from the wrath of God and judgment of God which is coming against the wicked, as Paul says in Romans 1:18. We are saved from God by God. Secondly, He washed away our sins. All the evil deeds we have done or evil will do are removed from us—as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our sins from us. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, John says in his first letter. We are clean. Thirdly, He gave us the Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts. He regenerated us, literally brought our souls which were dead and trespasses in sin to life. That is what Jesus meant by telling Nicodemus in John 3:3 that he must be born again. Someone once asked George Whitefield, the great 18th century Anglican revivalist preacher why he continued to preach on John 3:3, “Ye must be born again.” Whitefield thundered in reply, “Because ye must be born again!” Fourthly, He justified us. That is, God restored us to a relationship of favor with Himself. Whereas before we were under judgment, now we are in a relationship of favor and blessing. Romans 5:1 says:
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And fifthly, and lastly, He gave us an assurance of everlasting life. Peter says in I Peter 1:3-4:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.…
This means that we can approach sickness and trial and even our own death with quiet confidence. If Christ be for us, who can be against us? No one of consequence. We know what awaits us.
Paul concludes his admonitions to us strangers and pilgrims, us resident aliens, us believers amongst an unbelieving world with the reward in verse 8:
I desire you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God—that’s us—may be careful to apply ourselves to good deeds; these are excellent and profitable—that’s the reward—to men.
Guess who profits when Christians live counter-culturally, as strangers and pilgrims? Everyone. When we live as disciples of the Master, modeling our life after His, and giving ourselves to love and good works, unbelievers see the power in our Gospel and the might of God’s grace. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who believes,” Paul says in Romans 1:16. And some of those unbelievers will become believers because of your cruciform life—your live lived like one who has taken up his cross and followed Jesus. Moreover, we get rewarded. Jesus says in Revelation 22:12: “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay everyone for what he has done.” God doesn’t need us, but He uses us and He blesses and rewards us for our service for Him.
As the great German Reformer Martin Luther rightly observed, we Christians live in two kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man. But our primary citizenship is in the kingdom of God. We are resident aliens here, strangers and pilgrims. Our job? Live as citizens of that kingdom. Order the manner of your life after the customs and commands of that kingdom. As Paul says again in Philippians 2:
Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world (vv. 14-15).
If not us, then who? If not now, when?
They that have ears to hear, let them hear the Word of God.
AMEN.
