Put Them In Mind

Titus 3:1-7 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, 2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men. 3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. 4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior; 7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Not Everyone Will Live

I heard a great statement the other day – it was in a Christian song by a man called Dax. He said:

“All people will die – but not everyone will live”

That is so very true. In the first two chapters the Lord tells His Church how the leaders should be – if they are indeed of Christ. Now in this chapter the Apostle focuses on how the the Church itself – each and every believer – should be. Now let me be very quick to point out that salvation is not something that is earned. A broken creature cannot work harder at self improvement in order to be saved. This isn’t a bootstrap program. Salvation is entirely of grace. The Apostle makes this clear in our text:

Titus 3:4-5 after that the KINDNESS and LOVE of GOD OUR SAVIOR toward man appeared, 5 NOT BY WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH WE HAVE DONE, but according to his mercy he saved us

How are we saved? By “GOD OUR SAVIOR”. Not by us. Not by our hands. This is what the Pharisee thought saved them, the keeping of the Law of Moses. And yet, when confronted by Jesus Christ, Who told them:

Mark 7:8-9 (NKJV) For LAYING ASIDE THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD, you HOLD THE TRADITION OF MEN–the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.” 9 He said to them, “[All too] well YOU REJECT THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD, that YOU MAY KEEP YOUR TRADITION.

Rather than surrender their lives to God in Christ, the Pharisees chased a “do it yourself” religion, attempting to do what they considered good in order to win the favor of God. Yet when broken people try to fix their brokenness, they may look good initially, but when tried or challenged they will fall back into obvious darkness. The Pharisees (John 11:53) “plotted to take Jesus’ life”. Knowing the Law of God,

Matthew 26:59-61 The CHIEF PRIESTS AND THE WHOLE COUNCIL were SEEKING FALSE TESTIMONY AGAINST JESUS THAT THEY MIGHT PUT HIM TO DEATH, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward.

They violated the ninth commandment, “You shall not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 19:16-19). They violated the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12; Matthew 15:3-6). They violated the second great commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:37-39; Matthew 5:43-44).

A broken creature cannot make themselves right. Christianity is not a series of moral laws you must keep in order to be saved. Christianity is an act of God that only occurs when your eyes are opened to your brokenness, and you come to Jesus to be saved.

A Christian Comes To God From Brokenness

Titus 3:3-4 For WE OURSELVES also were SOMETIMES {pote} foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. 4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared

The Apostle does not speak of “THEY”, the Cretians, the lost people that the Church finds itself among. He says “WE OURSELVES”. What the world is NOW, is what we were THEN. I often hear the statement from unbelievers who refuse to go to Church:

I don’t go to Church, because there are hypocrites there!

I could point out that there are hypocrites everywhere. There are hypocrites at ball games, on the gold course, in movie theaters, at the grocery store, at the gym or the beach. There will be hypocrites at Church. But there should be less hypocrites in Church than in the general population. If you are saved by Jesus, then Jesus will call you out for hypocrisy just as He did when He walked this earth (read Matthew 23; Luke 11:39-44; Matthew 6:1-6, 16; Matthew 7:3-5; Matthew 15:7-9). If you are indeed a Christian, you won’t be a hypocrite. Paul is not a hypocrite. He said “WE OURSELVES”. Before God saved us, we were a mess.

Word Study: The Apostle writes “For WE OURSELVES also were SOMETIMES FOOLISH”. The word “SOMETIMES” isn’t the proper rendering of the Greek pote. The word means “formerly, in times past, before we were saved”. We are no different than the lost now but for the Grace of God.

* IN TIME PAST we were FOOLISH. The Bible says “The FOOL has SAID IN HIS HEART, THERE IS NO GOD” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). God was not in our thoughts. We barely acknowledged that there was a God, unless we were in trouble and had expended all our other resources. THEN we would hypocritically call on God, on a priest, or some pastor we did not know. We were lifted up with pride.

Psalm 10:4 In his PRIDE the WICKED person does not SEEK GOD; in ALL HIS THOUGHTS THERE IS NO ROOM FOR GOD

* IN TIME PAST we were DISOBEDIENT. Since there was no real God in our minds, we rejected the Laws of God as fairy tales or ancient writings that had no place in modern society. We were like Pharaoh of old who, when God sent Moses to him saying “Let My people go, that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness” (Exodus 5:1), Pharaoh said:

Exodus 5:2 (LSB) Who is Yahweh that I should listen to His voice … I do not know Yahweh …

Darkness does not obey light, and we would not follow the Lord.

* IN TIME PAST we were DECEIVED. We were “the BLIND following the BLIND” (Luke 6:39). We followed the blind crowd, the world, whatever the current trend or fad was. As a result we “all fell in the pit”. Our minds were godless, disobedient, and chasing every silly thing. How did this affect our lives?

Titus 3:3 … LIVING {diagō} in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

Word Study: We thought we were LIVING, but we weren’t. The word diagō doesn’t mean to live, but it means “to pass the time, to wander through”. Remember that quote I gave you at the beginning,

“All people will die – but not everyone will live”

Word Study: What we were doing without God, without Jesus in our lives was NOT living. We were just marking time. We were existing, but not LIVING. Our Lord Jesus quoted Exodus 3:6, when God approached Moses, and said that God told Moses:

Matthew 22:32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the LIVING {zaō}.

Those who are without Christ are diagō, just existing, just passing through. But those who are with Christ are zaō. God is the Source of life. Those who belong to God are truly living!

Titus 3:3 SERVING {douleuō} divers lusts and pleasures,… LIVING {diagō} in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

Word Study: Those without God are just passing the time. They aren’t living (zaō) because they are not bound to the God of the Living (zaō). So what do the lost do while passing the time? They create golden calves, man made gods and goddesses that they guard vigorously. Like Israel in Egyptian bondage, the lost person is busy “SERVING”, the Greek douleuō which means “to act as a slave toward, to do the function of the slave”. I hear people make the statement,

“I can’t change who I am. I was BORN this way.”

Of course you were. You were born into this life enslaved to sin, enslaved to lusts and pleasures. Your god was not the God Who created the universe, but your desires and wants. You had an old sin nature that made you hateful, and hating others. If anyone challenged your gods, your “pronouns”, your DEI initiatives, your perceptions of what is true, then you reacted in the most egregious way possible.

It Is God Who Saves

Titus 3:4 But AFTER THAT the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man APPEARED

I love the phrase. “AFTER THAT”. After our godless mindset. After our disobedience to God’s good Law. After our willingness to follow empty and blind people rather than the Creator Who loves us. After our enslavement to pleasures, and our hatefulness. “AFTER THAT”, after all the evil we willingly and with malice aforethought did, God came to us. We were mean and unkind. We cursed His name, and mocked His nature. But God was both “KIND and LOVING”.

God “APPEARED” to us. God spoke to Moses from a burning bush. But for us “God was MANIFESTED in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16). The Eternal God the Son, the “Word Who is God … became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). God reached out to each one of us in Christ Jesus. Jesus said:

John 14:9 He who has seen Me has seen the Father.

It is Jesus Who is the “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being” (Hebrews 1:3). Why did Jesus come? Why did the Word become flesh and dwell among us? He came to invite us into a relationship with God. C.H. Spurgeon wrote:

“Man was in the dark, plunging onward to blacker midnight every step he took. I do not find, as I read history, any excuse for the modern notion that men are longing for God, and laboring to find Him. No, the sheep were never seeking the Shepherd, but all were going astray. Men everywhere turn their backs to the light, and try to forget what has been handed down by their forefathers, they are everywhere feeling after a great lie which they may raise to the throne of God. We do not by nature long after God, nor sigh for His holiness. The gracious Lord came in uncalled for and unsought, and in the bounty of His heart, and in the great love of His nature, He determined to save man. Methinks I hear Him say, “How shall I give thee up?” He sees mankind resolved to perish unless an almighty arm shall intervene, and He interposes in fullness of pity and power. You know how, in many ways, the Lord has intervened on our behalf, but especially, you remember how He came down from heaven, took our nature, lived among us, mourned our sin, and bore it in His own body on the tree.”

Jesus died for us that we might live.

Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but ACCORDING TO HIS MERCY HE SAVED US

Mercy came from glory, was born in a manger in Bethlehem, born of a virgin, raised in an obscure place called Nazareth, was baptized by John in the Jordan River, and walked among us for 3 ½ years, healing and teaching. We were all born broken, with a fully operating Old Sin Nature, separated from God. Jesus came to give us live.

John 10:10 (KJV) The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they MIGHT HAVE LIFE (zōē), and that they might have [it] more abundantly.

The thief, the devil and this fallen world, bids you to ignore God and to just keep on diagō, passing through, wasting time. But Jesus came to give us LIFE, abundant and everlasting LIFE. “The wages of sin is DEATH, but the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE (zōē) THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD”. We can be saved because Jesus died for our sins.

1 John 5:11-12 (ESV) … God gave us eternal LIFE (zōē), and this LIFE (zōē) is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has LIFE (zōē); whoever does not have the Son of God does not have LIFE (zōē).

Those who love Jesus, who have given their broken lives to Jesus, have been transformed. We no longer live according to our sin nature. We live according to the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus did not die just to get us to Heaven, but to bring the Kingdom of God into our lives.

1 Peter 2:24 He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that WE MIGHT DIE TO SIN and LIVE TO RIGHTEOUSNESS; by His wounds you have been healed.

2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.

It Is God Who Changes The Christian

Titus 3:5-6Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the WASHING OF REGENERATION (palingenesia), and RENEWING of the Holy Spirit; 6 Which He shed on us ABUNDANTLY through Jesus Christ our Savior;

Word Study: God came to us Christians while we were busy damning ourselves. He awakens us to our sin through the operation of the Holy Spirit. Then the Holy Spirit brings “REGENERATION”. This is the Greek palingenesia, which means “new birth”. This word is used only one other time in the Bible, when Jesus talks about the new earth that God will one day bring about. Here’s the context:

Matthew 19:27-29 (LSB) Peter … said to {Jesus}, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?” 28 And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that YOU WHO HAVE FOLLOWED ME, IN THE REGENERATION (palingenesia) when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 “And EVERYONE who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms FOR MY NAME’S SAKE, will receive one hundred times as much, and WILL INHERIT ETERNAL LIFE.

We are broken creatures in a broken world. All around us we see the damage inflicted by sin, by Adam’s folly. But there is another Kingdom beyond this one. There will be a day when Jesus will return, and there will be a new Heaven and a New Earth created (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-2, 5). God is one day going to make another earth, one in which sin does not reign. Those who surrender their lives to Jesus NOW are REGENERATED – that is, BORN AGAIN. We who believe and receive Jesus are changed from darkness to light. We are promised that “if we endure, WE WILL ALSO REIGN WITH HIM” (2 Timothy 2:12). Paul talked about this wonderful coming age in Romans 8:20-23.

Those who are born again by the Spirit of God will reign with Jesus one day in a born again world! “The night will be NO MORE. They will need no light of lamp or sun, FOR THE LORD GOD WILL BE THEIR LIGHT, AND THEY WILL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER.” (Revelation 22:5)

When you are born again by the Spirit, you become a “Saint” of God, a person set apart as the property and inheritor of God. The Apostle told us, “Do you not know that the SAINTS will JUDGE THE WORLD? Do you not know that WE WILL JUDGE ANGELS?” (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). The New Birth brings new life. The New Birth brings eternal life. The New Birth changes your position with God. The New Birth brings you into the Kingdom and Family of God.

Now That I Am Saved – What Next?

Titus 3:1-2 PUT THEM IN MIND to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to BE READY TO EVERY GOOD WORK, 2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.

You are not saved, born again of the Spirit, to sit. You are saved to serve. You serve God by “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Citizens of the Kingdom of God are not anarchists. We obey the laws of man, as long as those laws are not in contradiction to the Law of God.

Romans 13:1 Let EVERY SOUL BE SUBJECT UNTO THE HIGHER POWERS. For there is NO POWER BUT OF GOD: the POWERS THAT BE ARE ORDAINED OF GOD.

1 Peter 2:13-14 Submit yourselves to EVERY ORDINANCE OF MAN FOR THE LORD’S SAKE: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

Christians should be good citizens, not lawless or law breakers. Christians should not be trouble makers. Christians are called to SHINE for Jesus. Jesus said:

Matthew 5:16 let your light shine before others, so that they may SEE YOUR GOOD WORKS and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

We are called to “BE READY TO EVERY GOOD WORK”. You are not to be sitting still doing nothing. Salvation brings with it new birth, and new birth brings with it good works.

ELDERS are to “love what is good” (Titus 1:8)
FALSE TEACHERS are “unfit for doing anything good” (Titus 1:16)
OLDER WOMEN are to “teach what is good” (Titus 2:3)
YOUNGER MEN are to “do what is good” (Titus 2:6)
CHRIST redeemed us to be “eager to do good” (Titus 2:14)

Titus 3:8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that THEY WHICH HAVE BELIEVED IN GOD MIGHT BE CAREFUL TO MAINTAIN GOOD WORKS. These things are good and profitable unto men.

Christian, you are called to SHINE for Jesus in the world in which you live. If you think that you are saved, but that you have no obligation to do anything whatsoever for the kingdom, then brother you ain’t saved! I end with these words:

Galatians 6:10 (KJV) As we have therefore opportunity, LET US DO GOOD UNTO ALL, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Hebrews 13:16 (KJV) But to DO GOOD AND TO COMMUNICATE FORGET NOT: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

James 4:17 (KJV) Therefore TO HIM THAT KNOWETH TO DO GOOD, and DOETH IT NOT, TO HIM IT IS SIN.

God shed salvation on us “ABUNDANTLY through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:6). We are heirs of eternal life. Let us do good, and prayerfully lead others to the blessed salvation we now enjoy.