Good and Profitable Things

If you would open in your Bibles to Titus chapter 3, we will be looking at the first eight verses of chapter 3. Hear God's word for us tonight. 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. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 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, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 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. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we come before you this evening and Lord as we open your word we ask that the Holy Spirit teach us this word tonight. Take the words that the Apostle Paul wrote down to instruct Titus and to instruct us and drive them into our heart. Father that we are a people that demonstrate Christ to the world around us. Father teach us your word. Humbly let us learn at your feet. And Lord let us give you glory for all that you do and it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. Tonight we enter the final chapter of Titus and I'm going to break it into two sections. The first eight chapters here tonight we are going to look at and the title is called Good and Profitable Things. You'll notice in the ESV that it said excellent and profitable for people but when you read the New King James version it uses good and profitable things.

And I like that for some reason better over excellent just in the way it read. What we want to look at tonight in this message is something we've looked at in basically two messages in a row. And as we walk through tonight it's preparing for the ending part because again it's teaching Christians how they are supposed to live in the world and why we are supposed to live that way.

What enables us to do it. But then the culmination of the book is going to culminate with the church itself applying discipline and making sure she stays pure and then providing hospitality to the apostle himself by helping in his needs. So that's going to be the two divisions of chapter three. But as we enter this final chapter tonight what struck me is something that I really sort of made fun of for many years when I was in the eighth grade I had an English teacher and her name was Miss Connor. And every day in the month of February because I had her through the winter months but every day in the month of February she made us stand up individually one at a time and we rotated and walked in front of we had a big picture window and it was always snowy outside in February. And she would make us wave out the window and we had to say goodbye to winter and hello to spring. And we had to say February F-E-B-R-U-A-R-Y and then we could matriculate back and sit in our seat. And for however many days in February we had class we each one of us probably 20 some in our class had to walk and do that and at the time it was the most aggravating thing that I ever did.

But what I learned when I left that class is many people spell February wrong. And what she did to me by taking us over and over on a topic that she felt important and making us do it properly again and again presenting it over and over it is stuck to this day. And I believe that's what Paul is doing with Titus over the past two chapters. He lays out for Titus what he is to share with the believers in Crete with us. Then he shares the reason that's possible the gospel. And even in his foundational statement he opens up by making allusion to it and that what God has done from the beginning of time. So we see Paul laying out how Christians are to live as new creatures. In chapter 2 we saw this in reference to some of the actions and works that they were to do but we mostly saw it in the qualities.

Paul told Titus that the qualities for man from old man to young man to older women to younger women and even to slaves were the qualities of sober mindedness of being dignified, faithful, loving and steadfast. In chapter 3 he's going to change a little bit and it's going to become more specific to actions or works that all the Christians are to do and it gets somewhat under our skin when we look at this one because now we look at things like submitting and obeying and who that's tied to the government. He also tells us things that our manner of speech and our manner of comportment towards one another and how we should act as Christians towards one another but also out to the world around us. And as he's drilling down into those actions again he is going to anchor these works that he's calling Titus to teach people to do and he's going to anchor it to this gospel message again. But he's going to anchor it in an even a deeper or fuller expression of that gospel work of that salvific work. I would contend the way that chapter 2 and chapter 3 open this up that this matter is of great importance to the Cretan church but also to us today. Paul's repetition like my English teacher back in the 8th grade is used to set this as a foundational teaching. And he actually expresses this in verse 8 when he said, this is a faithful saying and these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.

These things are good and profitable to men. That's the new King James from the ESV. The saying is trustworthy and I want you to insist on it. So these are teachings that we must have that when I hear the word February I know without a doubt I'm going to spell it correctly. And I'm probably going to spell it in that same chanted way that she made us do it. Because that's the way I learned it.

F-E-B-R-U-A-R-Y. Paul is doing the exact same thing when he is sharing the works and the word that we are supposed to know and we are to know it that well that we can rest upon it. To take a look at the book of Titus it's a very small short letter.

But I would like to use some stats from it to defend the contention that I made of the importance of what we're going to talk about again. Titus is a total of three chapters and in those three chapters there are forty six verses total. There are six verses throughout the whole letter that reference good works. In verse 116 it tells us who cannot do good works. It says they profess to know God but they deny him by their works.

They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. In chapter 2 verses 7 and 14 we read show yourself in all respect to be a model of good works and in your teaching show integrity and dignity. Verse 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. We have the references in the first verse of tonight's text and the eighth verse. And then in verse 14 which we will get to in our next message and let our people learn to devote themselves to good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful. Thirteen percent of the letter has Paul telling Titus to teach the Cretan church, the believers that good works is a responsibility they are to walk in.

Paul is making the anchor declaration just as clear. There are six verses that emphasize God our Savior in some sense. Verses 3 and 4 in chapter 1 read this way that foundational greeting that Paul gave and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior to Titus my true child in a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus and Christ Jesus our Savior.

We see in verses 10 and 13 of chapter 2 in verse 10 it says not pilfering but showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in verse 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. And then of course from the text verses 4 and 6 that we read tonight we see that anchor just as much represented in the text. So 12 verses out of 46 which is roughly 25 percent of the letter Paul is declaring to Titus the Cretans and to us that based upon what God has done we therefore can and should respond in a certain way in which he lays out this way of good works. Each declaration of God's work, the gospel, reveals a deeper aspect in each movement from chapter 1 into chapter 2 and into chapter 3. In chapter 1 Paul touches on the anchor in verses 1 and 2 where he states in hope of eternal life which God who never lies promised before the ages began, a definite allusion to the work of Christ the cross and what he was going to do in salvation. In chapter 2, 11 through 14 what I preached on the last time I spoke it got much more revealing and it says this that God had brought his salvation and it was by grace alone and that salvation was accomplished by what Jesus Christ had done in his redemptive work and on the cross.

Tonight's text drills in a little bit more. The works become a little more specific and the anchor becomes a little bit broader in our understanding of how God accomplishes that for us. In light of this I would like us to focus on three truths tonight from the text and I always get yelled at by my daughter when she's here that I go through these too quick.

So I'm going to take them slowly. The first one is we are called to good works. The second one is we are moved by God from unable to enabled. And the third, we are only enabled by a new birth.

Did you have time to write it? Point 1, look with me at verse 1 of chapter 3. We are called to good works. Paul tells Titus, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work. Paul opens chapter 3 with an imperative to Titus. He's saying, you Titus, remind them, meaning that they have been instructed at some point on these very same things. If we go back to chapter 1 and remember why Titus is even in Crete, Titus is left in Crete for what reason?

He is left in Crete in order to place in order those things that the church needs and appoint elders in all the churches. And so we understand that there is teaching that has been going on. And so Paul starts out at the end of his letter saying, Titus, remind them. They have been told we want this standard underneath the salvation work of Christ Jesus.

This standard of behavior is what should model the Christians. They know this, but remind them. So we see a reminder to let us know even tonight that we are called by God and by His work, we are called into good works that He has prepared for us.

The Cretans, just like us, need that reminding, don't they? It is very easy for us in today's hectic world that we can get sidetracked and we can develop thought processes that cause us to step away from the works we are called to do. If you want to think about it with me, turning on the news, turning on a radio program that talks a lot of rhetoric about what's going on in the world can take our minds down paths and ways that we don't think Christian-wise, we think J-centered-wise, we think man-centered-wise.

That's one way. Just looking around the world today and seeing things that we see with our eyes. We were just in Memphis and there was a report that came back that somebody, there's a street called Beale Street, I guess that is a hotbed for at one time music, but now it's more a danger zone.

And there was a report that came back that somebody was walking on Beale Street and they witnessed a person snorting cocaine right on the street out in the open. There is sin all around us and that sin as we see it, we see it and at times in our hearts it causes us to lose sight of what we were and we can easily make judgments instead of looking and seeing and offering the grace and love of God is what we're going to see as the works we're called to. At times we can just start to become self-centered, can't we?

We hear reports of changes in the stock market or prices going up and down in the housing market or the job field or inflation going up or down and we start to become concerned with ourselves and the importance of who we are and what we have and how do we protect. And so it is easy for us to get sidetracked from the truth that Paul is sharing in how we are to live in and out each day no matter what is going on and the only way we can live that way is that anchor, that work that Christ Jesus has done, that God has done through him and that the Holy Spirit applies. So the second question that would arise after the reminding is what are the works Paul is calling us to do and calling them to do? And basically as we walk through that, remind them to be submissive to the rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. I read that and I am convicted. Thank you.

Somebody knows me. Those are the works we're called to. Where do those works come from? Where do we see an example of that? And it is the life of Jesus Christ, isn't it?

You know, we complain when our party doesn't win an election and the world is going to be different than we want it to be and oh, what is going to happen and this is terrible. Jesus Christ grew up and was crucified in a culture, in a government, in a society that was corrupt and filled with debauchery. And as we walk through and see Jesus and His correction was to where?

The church. To the people that were His people. When we see the apostles going out and Paul has the opportunity because he is going to be taken before the Roman authority, what is his joy in? Not that he's going to be able to present legislation that changes the laws, but he is going to be able to present Christ to the emperor. The goal of what these works are, are us demonstrating Christ and His walk, His life, His manner, not ours. We see as we walk through those works and I know, especially as election seasons come and go, that first one seems overwhelming, but we are to submit to the rulers and the authorities and to be obedient.

How can he say that? Well, when we sit and look at John 19, 10 and 11, we can put it into perspective the example that we have. Jesus in John 19, 10 and 11 is standing before the governor of Jerusalem, of that area, Pilate. And it says, so Pilate said to him, you will not speak to me. Do you not know that I have authority to release you and the authority to crucify you? And Jesus answered him, you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. Jesus is not going to rail against Rome and its atrocities and its debauchery and He doesn't even say you have no authority. He looks at Pilate and says, the only authority that you have is that authority that is given to you from my Father. When we get upset about our government, when we get upset about the authorities over us, what are we showing our expression to other than we're upset, I would guess primarily at God, because He is the one who places that authority over us. And in that situation, when it isn't our guy or our way, where are we to be resting anyway, not in the government that is above us, whether it's Harrisburg or North Carolina or the United States.

We are to be resting in the government that is established by Jesus Christ where our citizenship is held under His Father. And again, to me, that's the easy text. If we move down through and see the other works that Paul points out here, it becomes very difficult for me to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle. It's funny, my wife didn't laugh whenever I read that, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. I am known because I can be harsh at times, and that is a terrible thing to let you know that I can be known by. And I treat my harshness like it's okay because I think I'm right in what I'm stating. Jesus was always completely right, and He was loving in the way that He offered His correction, except when it was the men who were destroying the Word of God, the Pharisees. And then, yes, He was harsh, but still in a loving way, that He actually had compassion upon them being that deceived. I sat in the back of GA at times, and when speakers would speak, it wasn't kind words that I either thought were verbalized to get a little funny when it was a speaker who wasn't speaking the way I saw a subject.

When I said my wife should laugh, I have been far short of being gentle and showing perfect courtesy to her at all times, and that's to my wife. Imagine if that's the case in my life, how difficult I have it out here. But Paul is telling Titus, this is what you're to remind them to, this is the way their life is to be. But again, he's not going to leave us because, left to myself, I can't. He goes on, and he gives us a very definite picture of how we should see ourselves outside of Christ and then inside of Christ, and that will allow us to be able to understand how we can walk the way Paul is calling us to walk. That second point that we are unable, and we move to enabled, starting in verse 3, we read this, and I love that Paul writes it this way because he doesn't discount himself from it. He said, for we ourselves, it's an emphatic term, for we ourselves, including himself, were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, and that slaves there isn't a noun, it is actually a verb meaning that you are working or pursuing to those various pleasures and passions. Passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

Verse 3 shows the condition we were all in outside of Jesus Christ. Those descriptors, foolish, disobedient, led astray, pursuing or slaving to those various passions and pleasures, the word malice, that's filled with anger with the hope of injury or the intent, I wrote it down, I think, but that a bad outcome comes to someone. It's not just having a disposition towards them that is negative. You want the worst to happen that can in the situation and that you were envying.

Think about that. We see that daily in our world, don't we? You need to have this, and then once you have this, you need to have this because this person has this, and then this is going to come along and you need to have this.

And there is never a fulfillment to man as we pursue the things of this life, the temporal things of the world. It's envy. We desire more, and when the desire is met, it's temporarily seized, and then there is more envy that comes. And then we see that we are hated and we hate. The scary part is the remnants of that old man cling to us.

They cling. And so when I talk about the failings that we have to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy, and we fail at those, that old man, that remnant that hangs, pulls at us. Paul is reminding us by this contrast, he's using it to give to Titus, to give to us by the contrast to see that we are no longer this way.

He opens it up by saying, for we ourselves were once foolish, meaning we no longer are. The Christian needs reminded constantly of this truth. Are you a believer tonight?

If you are, in John 17, Christ prayed that you will be in him and he will be in you. The Holy Spirit has crushed that dominion of sin in us. If he has changed us.

And he literally makes his home in the believer. Paul says it this way in Romans 6, 6, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. In Galatians 2, 20, he says it even sweeter, I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live, not what we used to be, but now. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Just as an unbeliever is without excuse, even more so we the Christian are without excuse when we walk in the manner of the old man because the Holy Spirit has an indwelt presence with us. We are actually deciding to do that sinful behavior, the culture is not.

If our government is sinful and corrupt, they are verse three, they weren't once were, they are those things, we are not. The Holy Spirit enables us to respond differently. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20 says this, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God. You are not your own, you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. Brothers and sisters, we have been bought with a price and we are not our own. That is an important thing to remind every day so that when we walk in our walk daily, we do not let the old man pull us back to verse three, but rather we can be those who are submissive, obedient, who do not speak evil, who avoid quarreling, who are general and show perfect courtesy.

But how does this take place? Paul brings us to that anchor in verses four through seven, and the point three is we are enabled by the new birth. In chapter two, God did not, he did not hide that it was by grace alone that we are saved and it's not a doing of ourselves. Paul's going to reaffirm that in four through seven, that it's by grace alone. He tells us in chapter two, that gospel message that it's the work of Jesus Christ and his work on the cross that has done it. But in chapter three, he's going to add something spectacular to our understanding of the process of salvation.

Verses four through seven say this, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God, why? Because of his goodness and because of his steadfast love to us, of God our Savior appeared. He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, grace alone, but here it comes by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. Through that work of Christ, he pours out salvation in a way that the Holy Spirit baptizes us, brings us new life, the washing of regeneration.

And not only that, once that is accomplished, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. We see again here, Paul declaring this gospel message and he's anchoring our good works, our life into this truth of the gospel. And it is this work that God saves us through, but what we see is a deeper understanding of how that works. We see that he gives the reason that God did it, goodness and loving kindness.

In verse five, it was for no reason. In verse five, he also again emphasizes by grace alone, but when we get to this detail of being enabled, he shares how he does it and he says that it is by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. You know, when we talk about the orderos ludus, the order of salvation, and we can walk through those, do we understand that step of regeneration, what regeneration means? This same writer, Apostle Paul, he has shared in two different, two or three different places, that we are dead in trespasses and sin, that verse three is the result of our deadness. But here he reveals to us that by this baptism of the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit moving over and changing our heart, he brings life where there is death and then chapter three is no longer us. The Merriam-Webster dictionary for us defined regeneration this way, the very first one is tremendous, formed or created again, the second spiritual rebirth or converted, and number three restored to a better, higher or more worthy state.

I'm going to kick out number three because that's saying that there was something okay in us and it was just built up. The definition number one, formed or created again, is the exact thing that Jesus teaches, isn't it, in John chapter three when he talks to Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night to ask him a question and he asks that question and Jesus answers him by telling him he must be born again and in Nicodemus' mind he rails because he doesn't understand what he's saying.

Paul is laying out what he is saying. To Nicodemus the question came back to Jesus, I'm an old man, how is it I would enter my mother's womb again? And Jesus does answer him and tell him that it is a spiritual rebirth but Paul makes it clear. What we see in chapter three in this explanation of the gospel is we see a triune work of salvation. Salvation is not the work of Jesus alone, it is the work of God the Father, the work of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit, each one participating in the saving of us. God from the eternities past chose those who would be his people but also raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Jesus gave himself over, emptied himself and became one of us and lived under the law perfectly and gave himself over to death the punishment that we deserved and became sin for us. And here Paul shares the third part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit coming and changing, bringing life by the baptism of him. The Spirit of God from Genesis 1, he blew into his nose and what did he blow into him? Life. He breathed into him that word, Ruah, Spirit.

That is what it is. The Holy Spirit brings life to the dead so that we can become those people that can do those things. It is amazing as we look at how Paul lays out in 1 chapter 2 and now in chapter 3, the first 8 verses, what Christians are called to do and the importance that that is into the world. We are salt and light by the way we live but the only way that can happen is by what God has done. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

So as we conclude tonight thinking about those truths, I just want to share with you, hear what is good and profitable. God has chosen a people for himself. He has appeared at the right time in our space and time and he has accepted the work that his Son has done. The Father and the Son have sent the Holy Spirit to apply this work to the chosen and the Holy Spirit applies this work by washing us in a baptism of the Holy Spirit and bringing life where there was death. Renewal in him and the Holy Spirit then resides. It doesn't just bring life but then he makes his home in us. This provides us further in the verse that we are heirs according to the hope of eternal life. We become the children of God and this enables us to be able to do those good works. It not only enables us, Paul in the writing to the Roman church in chapter 12 tells us it should drive us to them as an act of worship. He said, I appeal to you brothers therefore by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship. Paul tells Titus remind them, tonight I have the privilege to remind us. Let us devote ourselves to good works as this is the right response to the truth of the gospel of our great triune God.