Titus 2:11-3:8, Why Did He Do That?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

The Grace of God Has Appeared in Titus 2:11–3:8

Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 11, to chapter 3, verse 8. Hear the word of the Lord. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 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.

Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, and let no one disregard you. Remind them to be submissive to 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 show perfect courtesy toward all people.

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.

Why People Forget the Purpose of What They Are Doing

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Have you ever asked, why did he do that? Someone did something, but you don't know the purpose because it seems to be against what should be their purpose.

Maybe you thought you knew the purpose, but then they seem to have forgotten their purpose. They're acting contrary to it. A football player hits an opponent illegally, getting a penalty, losing the game.

Why did he do that, you ask? He should have known. Didn't he think? What didn't he think? This, by the way, is a common gesture of coaches in a game. Think what you're doing. Friday night, Virginia was playing NC State.

Near the end of the game, Virginia was down by about eight points, time running out. They drive down the field. Amazingly, they score a touchdown, and they need two more points to tie the game. So maybe they go into overtime, and who knows, maybe win.

But their center, headbutts a NC State player, getting a 15-yard penalty. Instead of two-point tries, like from the two-and-a-half or three-yard line, now they get a 15-yard penalty. They've got to back it up 15 yards.

A big difference between making two-and-a-half yards and making almost 18, but that's what they've got to do. So it looks like, you think, this center, he just lost their team the game. And you could see the coach, the Virginia coach, going, think.

Why were you doing that? What do you think you're doing out there playing? You're supposed to be thinking to win, not just putting out, venting your frustrations. So it's 18 yards to get the two points instead of just the three, but amazingly, they get it.

They do it. So they're tied. Ah, but at the end of the play, the Virginia quarterback takes off his helmet and opposes as a superhero, and he gets a penalty. 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct. Again, he forgot what he was supposed to be doing.

That's 15 yards that's on the kickoff. This means they can't kick it out of the end zone. This means NC State gets to return the kickoff. They get a pretty good return. A few plays later, they're in field goal range.

They kick a field goal at the last play of the game, and they win, all because Virginia players forgot what they were supposed to be doing, and Joshua was very happy about all that. Why do you do what you do?

Maybe build a gym or refurbish a gym, but then you don't let the kids play in it because they might mess it up, and they do mess it up. I just said, well, we're not going to let kids play because they're going to mess up our gym.

Well, why didn't you build it in the first place? In Ethiopia, we learned that the missionaries had closed the Bible school's library because the books were getting out of order. Well, why didn't you build a library in the first place?

You forgot why you built it. You didn't build it to keep books in order. About three years ago, we were told to lock down, stay at home 15 days to slow the spread. I thought that was reasonable at first to make sure hospitals were not overwhelmed, but when it became clear that hospitals were not going to be overwhelmed, they still wanted to lock down, and I asked, why?

Why are you doing that now? Schools were closed for a disease that hardly affected children. Why did they do that? Well, for the teachers, explain. But schools aren't supposed to be for the teachers. People forgot why they're doing what they're doing.

Why are we having schools? To keep teachers safe? Why was America founded? Why did the colonists, why did they come here from Europe? A few years ago, the 1619 Project claimed that America was founded for and by slavery because 1619 was the year the first slaves came here.

Never mind that Jamestown had actually been founded 12 years earlier in 1607, so that kind of throws a little confusion into their thesis. I wrote an article in response called the 1620 Project about why the Puritans planted their colonies, why the Puritans came here, 1620 being the year that the Plymouth colony was started.

Why was America founded? Increase Mather, a son of one of the founders of Massachusetts said, quote, it was in respect to some worldly accommodation that other plantations like Virginia, North Carolina, were erected, but religion and not the world was that which our fathers came hither for.

Pure worship and ordinances without the mixture of human inventions was that which the first fathers of this colony designed in their coming hither. We are the children of the good old nonconformist. Why did Jesus do what he did?

Jesus Rejected a False Plan B and Came to Save His People

Now, some say it was to put Israel back on top again, to be king and lead Israel back to glory, like in the days of David. But they say, well, Israel rejected his offer to be king and so God resorted to plan B, the church and the gospel.

Now, some of those same people say that Jesus gave us, as we Gentiles, the gospel so that we could be safe from future judgment. If we just say we believe in him, even if we don't repent and change and all that law stuff that was just for Israel, it's not for us.

That all that repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That also was just all for Israel in Jesus's day. It's not for us. We get grace. We're in that dispensation of grace, which can be a license for sin if you want it to be.

I mean, you can live God a life if you want, or you can just live as you want. But whatever, as long as you say you believe, you're going to be saved. Now, the problem with that, as many, is that in John chapter 6, the people of Israel wanted to make Jesus king.

Remember, he feeds all the 5 ,000 with fish and a little bit of bread. He feeds them all, and they want to make him king, and he kind of runs away from that. Israel did not reject Jesus as king. Jesus rejected their idea of kingship.

Now, why did he do that? Because of plan A, which is the gospel, which is not a license to sin, as we see here. God never failed in what he wanted to do. He never forgets the purpose of what he sets out to do.

He's not like those football players that are supposed to be playing to win a game, but then in their emotions, they forget in the moment. God never does that. He does what he plans to do. He never forgets what he plans to do.

Why did Jesus do what he did? Well, the passage from Titus, this passage, tells us. It tells us that he saved us. This was plan A, and there is no plan B. He didn't just save us from bad politics, from oppressive rulers, from foreign invaders, and he didn't just save us from the penalty of sin, kind of leaving us free to live as we want.

We see four truths about why Jesus did what he did. First, who saved us? Then, what he saved us by? Third, what he saved us from? And fourth, what he saved us for? First, who saved us? Well, the Savior is the one who saves, and this passage twice tells us that Jesus is the Savior.

In chapter 2, verse 13, our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. In chapter 3, verse 6, Jesus Christ, our Savior. Who saved us? Well, the Savior did. Of course, that's what they call a tautology, just saying the same thing twice in different words.

But who is the Savior? God is, our great God and Savior. Jesus is, Jesus Christ. Same thing, because Jesus is God. And last week, we saw that he appeared because he was God, and so he existed before he was born.

This passage twice shows us that Jesus is God. First, overtly, as we saw last week in verse 13, Jesus called our great God and Savior, and then in chapter 3, verse 4, the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared.

Who is our Savior? Chapter 3, verse 4 calls him God. Jesus is our Savior, so Jesus is God. Yeah, see? You can figure it out. Verse 11 says that the Savior brought salvation for all people. Now, we know from other Scripture that not all people are saved, so what he means is that Christ came bringing salvation for all kinds of people, and out of those all kinds of people, he makes his people.

You see, he says Christ saved us. Who's the us? Well, that's his people. Not just Jews, not just Greeks, or Americans, or whites, or blacks, or Chinese. He came for all peoples, and then from all those peoples, he makes a people who are his people.

Saved by Grace, Not by Works, Rituals, or Human Effort

Well, second, we see here what he saved us by. Does he save us by giving us good advice that we follow? Maybe like a lifeguard, doesn't want to dive in, you're drowning. Lifeguard just yells out, hey, grab on to that flotation device, something like that.

And if we follow his advice, we kind of save ourselves. Is that what he saves us by? Does he save us by giving us rituals like baptism? And so we do them. If we do the ritual he gave us, then we get saved.

Or does he save us by a religion that we follow? No. Says he saved us by grace. In chapter 2, verse 11, says the grace of God has appeared. Now, by Christ appearing, grace appeared. Why did he come? To bring grace to save his people.

Another way of saying that is that Jesus gave himself for us. In verse 14, we could not save ourselves because we are too sinful. We required a Savior who has said less, so he wouldn't have any sin of his own to have to pay for.

So he could give himself for us without having to give himself for himself. And he's fully human, so he could represent us. And he's fully God, so he could be God to us. So Jesus did that. He gave himself to redeem us.

In verse 14, redeem means to buy back, to purchase. The Savior is the redeemer. He's the one who buys us back. As sinners, we're under God's right anger. We're deserving condemnation and eternity in hell.

We're slaves to the world, the flesh, and the devil. But with nothing that we can offer him, nothing we can do for ourselves to save ourselves, and yet still Jesus bought us back. He's the redeemer. Not only did the grace appear in verse 14, in chapter 3, verse 4, the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared and manifest itself.

You could see it. You see it in Jesus himself, the goodness and loving-kindness of God. His goodness is his gentle, forgiving nature toward us. Remember he says, I'm the good shepherd, gentle and lowly in heart.

He does good to his people who don't deserve goodness. His loving-kindness is his commitment to love his one people who are from all people. He's making a covenant with these people, with us, whom he's buying back.

And when that goodness and loving-kindness appeared in Jesus himself, he saved us in verse 5. So there's the gospel in his simplest form. It's reducible to a bumper sticker, accurately still to a bumper sticker.

He saved us. You don't need an asterisk. You don't need fine print. You don't need really any qualifiers. He saved us. Now, why did he do that? Why did he do what he did? Well, to save us. Notice in verse 5 that we're saved not because of righteous things we had done.

We didn't do something, do the right ritual, do the right moral behavior, born in the right family, whatever that got us to get what we needed to make him save us. No, not because of righteous things we had done.

It says, he didn't come to provide a self-help plan for those who try to choose to opt in. No, then we would be saving ourselves. It really is as simple as the three-word phrase, he saved us. This is called, in theological terms, monergism, meaning one working.

It's easy to remember. Mono, like, you know, one, like a one rail, monorail. Erg, short for energy. And ism is a belief in, so monergism is one working ism. It's the belief in one working. When it comes to salvation, it is one person doing the work, and that one person isn't you, isn't me.

It's the Savior, our great God, Jesus Christ. He saved us. But how do we get his salvation? People always assume there's something that they do that gets them salvation. Maybe it's their baptism, it's their prayer, it's their morality.

There's got to be something that we do come down to us, right? Well, we just kind of assume that. No, but here it's just grace. It's goodness, it's loving kindness. In verse 4, according to his own mercy, he washed us, he regenerated us, he gave us a new nature, taking out the heart of stone, putting in a living heart of flesh, and he renewed us by the Holy Spirit, whom, in verse 6, he poured out.

Notice Paul's language here. He poured out. He didn't just kind of trickle out. He didn't give like a little thimble-sized, like these Lord's Supper cups we use, just a little bit of mercy or grace. He poured out on us richly, poured out richly.

That's lavishly, not stingily, not like an eyedropper, just a gushing of grace. And the result of this is that we are justified, he says. That is, we're in a right relationship with God. We're made righteous, made right with him.

So he looks on me, he looks on you, justified, never sinned. He saved us. What did he do? He washed us, regenerated us, making us born again. Now, some people say that the washing, in verse 5, that refers to baptism.

That is, we are baptized, and they say by that, by being baptized, we are washed. And not just by water, but by the Holy Spirit. And so we are made regenerate. We're made born again by being baptized.

Baptism does it. They say baptism makes you born again. And this is called baptismal regeneration. So if you ask, well, what saved us? How did God save us? How did I get salvation? Well, they say, well, baptism.

Baptism saves, they'd say. And then they would quote the first half of 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 21. And they don't want to quote the second half, because the second half says that baptism that is not an appeal to God by a believer for a clean conscience is just a bath.

It just washes the body and not the soul. The second half of their own verse, I've told some of this, must be bad when you have a theology that depends on one half of a verse and you can't read the second half because it totally blows it away.

The second half says if you get baptized and it's not an appeal to God for a clean conscience, in other words, you don't believe in God, you're not already saved, then it's nothing. You just got a bath, that's all.

It doesn't wash away sin or regenerate. So here in Titus 1, I don't think he's referring to baptism at all, unless perhaps it's in the back of his mind that baptism is a picture of what happens in regeneration.

Here he says he saved us by the washing of regeneration. He doesn't say by the washing of baptism or by the washing of water, but by making us a new creature, the washing of regeneration, making us new, making us born again.

Not by baptism, but by what baptism portrays. When God did that, we were washed of our sins and renewed by the Holy Spirit, then we can be baptized to portray it. And notice when this was done. Look carefully at verse 11.

The grace of God has appeared. Has appeared. It's past tense, it's accomplished. Chapter 2, verse 14, he gave himself, again, past, completed. Again, in chapter 3, verse 4, the goodness and lovingkindness of God, our Savior, appeared.

Past tense, again, finished. And verse 6, the washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit has been poured out, past tense, on us. Verse 7, we are justified, done. You have been justified. You've been made right in God's sight.

This is why we don't have rituals or holy seasons that we go through in which we act as if we'll have to be saved all over again, that God's doing it all over again, as if the Savior is born and suffers and dies and resurrected all over again, every year or with every Lord's Supper, cyclically, repeatedly.

No, he saved us. It's accomplished. Jesus said on the cross, it is finished. So we add nothing to it in verse 5, not because of works done by us in righteousness. So we don't need to add our little bit of effort, our little bit of religion to complete what he did.

He has already come, graciously come, to bring salvation. And remember, he achieves, he always achieves what he sets out to do, and he never forgets what he intended to do. Well, third, what did he save us from?

Saved from Wrath, Sin, and Lawlessness

Now, some people today scoff at the idea of just salvation. Saved from what? They muck. We're naturally good, they think. We don't be saved from anything. Well, we just need to wake up. Maybe we need some learning.

Maybe we need some education. Maybe we need, you know, a little bit of therapy. And God is not so holy that he requires a sacrifice. We're certainly not going to be saved from God. He's on our side. But here Paul tells us that there must be bloodstains on our peace.

Someone had to die to purchase our salvation. Someone without sin of his own that had to be paid for. So there was wrath, there was punishment. There's God's just anger coming for our sins. And that's why Jesus began preaching, like John the Baptist, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

In other words, God is coming to rule. We're a kingdom, we were a kingdom of rebels, and God is coming in to put down the rebellion. And when he puts down the rebellion, anyone who's left as a rebel is going to get anger, is going to get punishment.

So he's going to put down the rebellion of insubordinate people, and if you're still a rebel, it will be rough for you. So you have something very dangerous then coming your way. Like imagine you're a rebel and there comes the oncoming army, and they're going to overwhelm you.

Or another analogy, like an oncoming flood, and you need to be saved from that flood. There was a flood of wrath, a punishment heading to us. So there had to be propitiation. That is an atoning sacrifice, a sacrifice that takes away the wrath, that pays, that appeases the wrath, takes away the penalty.

It saves. Now why did he do what he did? Now some say, well, okay, okay, okay, for propitiation. They'll agree with that, to save us from wrath, from hell, from the penalty of sin that's coming at us like an oncoming flood.

Well then, now once we're saved, that wrath is appeased, well then grace lets us live just like before. Just like before the wrath was appeased. You know, we don't have to worry about it. We can go back to living the way we were in our sin, because God's not angry with us anyway.

The anger has been paid for. We're still under the power of sin, but the penalty has been paid for. But here in verse 12, we see that what he did to save us from ungodliness, from not just the penalty, but also the power of sin, from lives consumed by whatever the things the world is consumed by, money-making, wealth, or thrills, adulation, for our egos, trophies to show off.

We're saved from worldly passions, sexual immorality, sex out of marriage, gluttony, like out of control eating and drinking, parties where people just hope to hook up with someone. Those are worldly passions, but we're saved from them.

Not saved so that we can still live in them and not worry about hell. No, in chapter 3, verse 3, he writes that we ourselves, not just those people out there, but we ourselves were once, you notice this is in the past, not this way anymore, were once foolish, disobedient, slaves to various passions and pleasures, full of hate and envy.

Well, that's us. That's the way we were anyway. Each of us trying to make ourselves God and resentful that others don't cooperate. I mean, if she would just do everything I said, we would be perfectly happy.

Here in Titus, the Apostle Paul says that we are by our fallen nature inclined to despise and resent each other. In our pride, we like to imagine that we're better than we are, but the inspired Apostle reminds us that we're not better than we are.

We're much worse. But then he reminds us of something more remarkable. When grace appeared, there was a world of malice, of strife, of self-centeredness, everyone rebelling and seeking their own way and cheating and conniving and insulting and hating and raging and seething with resentment.

And into that world, the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared. And when you look at what we're really like, as Paul does here in verse 3, that describes us, describes the worldlies around us, the way we were and the world around us now, you see how desperately we needed him to do what he did.

Saved for Good Works, a New People, and Eternal Inheritance

Why did he do what he did? Fourth, he saved us. What he saved us for. Well, for what? For whatever. Many imagine that if we're saved purely by grace, then we don't need to do anything. You can opt to be really godly and religious and moral and, you know, read the Bible and all that, but you don't have to.

You can kind of blow it all off because of grace. That's grace. Grace provides a license to sin. It's an excuse to live for money, as if you can serve God in mammon, to stay in those worldly pleasures, stay under the power of sin.

In their mind, it doesn't save us from anything except hell, and it doesn't save us for anything here and now. He saved us, they think, for living like he hadn't saved us. But that's okay, they think.

But notice that woven throughout this lavish account of the gospel, this intricately in all this account of the gospel, this, you know, by his pouring out spirit or his grace on us lavishly, woven throughout it all is the reason why he saved us.

What he saved us for. Now, some say that since he saved us by grace, we can continue with sin. But, you know, so I can be unsubmissive and disobedient and unfit for any good work still. I can still be a slave to passions and still watch porn and be sexually immoral.

That's any sex out of marriage. And it's okay because of grace. I repeated the prayer. I said I believed it. I believe in my belief. And they said that saves me. And grace says I don't have to change, they say.

It's amazing the number of fresh Christians, especially around here, who think that grace means they can still be hating one another. So they can make up any lie. They can accuse someone of, you know, that they don't like, they don't agree with, of anything.

They just can make it up, accuse them, lie about them, slander, especially someone who challenges them with Scripture. And it's okay, they think, because of grace. You mean I'm not saved just because I'm lying all the time and slandering and hateful and profane and immoral.

I prayed the prayer. Grace says I'm saved no matter how I live. Judge not unless you be judged. That's the way these conversations typically go with them. They'll say, well that's what grace is for. Grace is for that I can live still immorally, hatefully, lying, dishonestly, and still claim to be saved, be a Christian.

Well they're wrong. The reason the Lord Jesus appeared, as it says in chapter 2 verse 11, is to free us from those things that used to enslave us. Notice what in chapter 2 verse 12 and verse 14 and chapter 3 verse 1 and chapter 3 verse 8 we're saved for.

Chapter 2 verse 12, for being like God, which is being godly. That's what godly means, you're like God. It says we're trained, being trained, we're training, He is training us to renounce, that is say no to, not stay in, it's the opposite of staying in, to renounce ungodliness.

And worldly passions. And to live for self-control, upright, and godly lives. So you don't headbutt the NC State player and get a penalty. Not just to be in a different place in the future, but now in the present age, to be different.

We saw earlier in the past tense, remember the past is the completed actions of justification, that we would declare right, that's justified, justified never sin. Here we also see, woven throughout this, is the ongoing work of sanctification.

The grace of God appeared for, what's it for? Training, or training is ongoing, a process of training that we're going through. Training us to renounce, that is right now, say no to ungodliness. And worldly passions, something ungodly tempts us, some passion tempts us, and the Holy Spirit, the grace of God trains us to be able to say no to that.

And before we were slaves to it. Slaves have no choice, they do what they're told. And now we're free from it, and now we're trained to say no, what before we were enslaved to. And it's to live at the present moment, to live continually.

Right now a life of self-control, upright, just godly, God-centered lives. And in case you missed the point, in the present age, that is He saved us to change us now. And verse 14 says that we're saved, what we're saved for, is for training.

We're now being trained because of what God did all by Himself in saving us. He saved us to purify, by training, for Himself. And you notice this, for Himself. He is the one working now to make us better, to purify for Himself a people for His own possession.

We belong to Him more than anyone else, that we belong to Him alone. We're not to a race, or to a nation, or to a family, but to be His people, a people for His possession. We are saved not just to be saved individuals, each doing our own thing, but to be a people, as a holy nation, a church.

That's what we're saved for. What is this people saved for? I've already said it in part in verse 14. We're saved for, to be zealous for good works. I was zealous, I was on fire, having eagerness, a passion for something.

Here's for good works. I used to have a passion for immoral things. Now that passion is for doing good things. In verse 1, we're to be ready for every good work. I remember back in chapter 2 verse 14, zealous for good works.

Chapter 3 verse 1, ready for good works. Chapter 3 verse 8, to be devoted to good works. So zealous, ready, devoted. We're not the kind of people just give a little money to charity occasionally, or we feel bad when some homeless person plays on our emotions, or we visit our elderly parents out of a dreadful sense of duty.

We feel compelled to help a needy person, or we grimly give a meal to someone who needs it, or we just feel guilty that we don't, you know, we're not involved enough in church, and so out of guilt we kind of make ourselves do it.

No, rather we are zealous, that is eager, to do good works. We love the opportunity to do something for someone, especially if it's our kind of gift, something we have a skill for, an ability for, to volunteer, to give, to share, perhaps to cook, or to clean, or give a ride, or to evangelize, to relish it, to help the church in some way, do something.

Verse 7 also tells us what we're saved for, so that, this is the purpose for which God's goodness and loving kindness and mercy appeared, so that we might become heirs, that is inheritors, or people who inherit the promises of God, who inherit what belongs to God, what everything, and we get to inherit everything, promises for eternal life, and joy, and protection, and glory.

We inherit all that. How do we get it? Well, inheritors just get it. They don't earn it. That's why we can renounce, we can say no to living for things and pleasures that enslave many people. We see that God has so much better things for us, so when the temptation comes to live for passions, for greed, or lust, or hatred, we can say no, because we got something better than all that.

Why would we want to settle for the trinkets of the world when we can have the treasures of the Lord? We are heirs. We're people who have the gifts of the Father, of the owner of the universe, of all things, the one who owns a cattle and a thousand hills.

We inherit everything that's His without having to work for it. He works. We inherit. There are two equally dangerous false doctrines out there today, common among people. One is legalism, or synergism, that is working with, instead of monergism, working, one working, that we can somehow, synergism, that we can somehow save ourselves.

We need to work with God somehow to get from God what we need. We need, maybe it's just a little bit, but we need to do our little bit. It depends on us. At least something depends on us, perhaps by being good neighbors, or being moral, or apparently just a people, or even perhaps just by being religious, doing some ritual, doing our giving, getting our baptism, praying the right prayer, whatever work, but it depends.

Something depends on us. That's synergism, and they think they have to work with God a little, but here we say it's not so. Not by works of righteousness we have done. He saved us by grace. So there is that error, that error of synergism.

There's another error, technically called antinomianism. It doesn't mean opposed to gnomes. It means being against the law. This is the false idea that grace means lawlessness. There are no laws. There's no restrictions.

There's no rules you have to submit to. There's no covenants to keep that if there are, someone tries to put one on you. Well, those are restraining. Those are imprisoning. Those are depriving. They're binding me, but we're free, free to be me.

There are those in our days who imagine that that is what we're saved for, that somehow that we can be free from sin and at the same time free from the Lord. We can be autonomous, literally self-ruling as though we were saved for lawlessness.

And Paul tells Titus in chapter 2 verse 14 that this entire way of viewing things is individualistic, it's autonomous mindset, that we're accountable to no one, that covenants and expectations and commitments and laws are things that we can be free from, and we should even want to be free from them, that the idea that we actually have to do things is oppressive, it's contrary to grace, and the goal of our Christian lives is to get us away from that.

That idea, so common out there, many people assume that's what the gospel is. That idea is wrong. That's not what we're saved for, but that's what we're saved from. It's lawlessness. Many people think the gospel is against living under God's law.

It's actually for, and what they think the gospel is for, lawlessness, individualism, it is actually against. We're saved for a new heart that wants to do good things, that's filled with the Holy Spirit who enables us to walk according to God's word, His law, to love and to live like Jesus.

Yes, we're saved by grace alone, by grace alone. We're saved through faith alone, but faith that saves is never alone. It makes us eager to be like the Father who gave us the Son through whom He poured out lavishly the Spirit, pouring out blessings on us lavishly.

That's the message that we are, in verse 15, to declare and to encourage others to experience the grace, to be on fire, grace that makes you on fire, makes you zealous to do good works, and to rebuke those who tell us that there are no bloodstains on our peace, and to not let anyone disregard it.

Let no one disregard you, Paul tells Titus. What did he do? What did Jesus do when He created a church where Titus is told to let no one disregard you? What did Jesus do? Did He form a self-help club for those trying to save themselves?

No, obviously not. It's by grace. Did He found a retirement village for those who don't want to do anything more? No. It's in order to make us zealous for good works. Certainly not. Did He gather individual lone rangers who don't have to listen to or be committed to each other?

Obviously not. They're not allowed to disregard Titus here, their pastor. Did Jesus start a religious nourishment provider? You know, it's like a restaurant. And you're no more attached to the other people who happen to be in church than you are to other customers at a restaurant when you go down to eat.

No. Titus, the shepherd of this church in Crete, is told to don't let anyone disregard you. Don't let anyone push you around. Because of what kind of community, what kind of people, the grace of God creates a people who belong to God, who are being trained to do good, who are eager to do good.

Because God has done so much good for them. And that message, Paul concludes in verse 8, is excellent and profitable. What did Jesus do? He started building a church, being trained how to live now, being retrained to think from the attitude that commitments and covenants and being part of a body are restricting and imprisoning the good works or things we wish we didn't have to do.

Maybe we got to do it, but we really don't want to. That we could be free from them. Retrained from that worldly mindset to being eager, to being ready, to being devoted to good works. Excellent and profitable.