Wednesday, May 7, 2025 PM

A quick announcement before we get started. So hopefully you know that this coming Sunday is Mother's Day, so be prepared to honor your mother. And I just wanted to let you know that we are not gonna be having services on Sunday night, so tell other people, make sure everybody hears it, okay?

So let's go ahead and bow and pray, and then we'll begin. And Lord God, we thank you for the day you've given to us, for our time of fellowship and our time in your word. I pray that you would open it up to us and illumine your word that we might see Christ there and learn of you.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. So last week we started in our study in Titus chapter three, and we saw how Paul was shifting from a focus on Christian ethics in the church and within the household in chapter two, and was moving to a focus on Christian ethics toward those on the outside in chapter three.

And we talked about the duty of the overseer, of the teacher, to remind the flock of God about the tried and true things of God, and not to try to bring out new and novel interpretations or go chasing after trends and fads.

And likewise, we talked about the importance for all of us as Christians to remember, to remember who God is and his character and his mighty deeds and his salvation, and how we ought to be content and satisfied in hearing those things over and over again.

And then we thought a little bit about how Christians are to relate to the rulers and the authorities and how we are to be subject to them and to obey them in all things, unless they command us to do what God forbids or forbid us to do what God commands.

Remembering Who We Are in Christ

So tonight we're gonna pick back up where we left off and Lord willing, we'll be able to finish up verse one and verse two. I plan to kind of dwell on the ready for every good work part. And then when we get to verse two, I'm gonna speed up like I mentioned last week.

I told you, we're gonna try to pick things up a little bit because I wanna get to a point where we can start to step back and look at how these things function together and how they function in the larger context.

And to help facilitate that, we need to have a structure or some framework in place so that we can have a place to hang these different things. So they're not just kind of floating out here individually and just unconnected and untethered and ungrounded.

And so by way of structure, I've provided just a little outline for my whole passage for verses one through eight of Titus three. I'm not gonna go into any detail right now other than just to say that I've titled verses one and two.

So our section tonight, remember who you are in Christ. And then verse three, remember who you were without Christ. And then verses four through seven, remember who saved you through Christ. And then verse eight is just kind of a conclusion to this little section.

So let's go ahead and read the passage and we'll just jump right in. So remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men.

So be ready for every good work. This is an interesting phrase that Paul uses here. He could have just as easily said, Titus, remind them to do good works, which is essentially what he says in verse eight.

But instead he kind of nuances it and he says, remind them to be ready for every good work. So that word ready implies that we need to have a preparedness, right? We need a consistent attitude of heart and of mind.

There ought to be an anticipation and an expectation that God is going to provide opportunities for us to do good. So why should a Christian have that kind of mindset? Why should we have that kind of expectation?

If we think back to Ephesians 2 .10, God tells us that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So good works are not just something that are simply commanded or demanded of us, but something that God has carefully and personally crafted and made provision for in our lives.

He has fashioned us in the likeness of his son for the express purpose of working in and through us as we walk in newness of life. So we all know that as we go through this life and we're seeking to do good, we're seeking to honor the Lord, that we encounter all kinds of distractions and temptations to not be ready, temptations to be lulled into the flow of the world or the pattern of the world, to be lulled to sleep, so to speak.

So how do we get and stay ready to do good works? So four things. So number one, stay in God's word. Okay, so number one, staying in the word. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof and for correction and for instruction in righteousness.

To what end? That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So God's word equips us to do good. So we might be willing and eager to do good in the name of the Lord, but if we don't have God's word abiding in us from use and exercise, then we lack the most important thing that we could offer somebody.

Okay, so number one, staying in the word. And number two is like it. It's setting your mind on the things of God. So set your mind on the things of God. Seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. So this is that attitude that I mentioned just a minute ago, that consistent focus. Meditate on the things of God so that it's right here at the surface, ready to come out of our mouths, ready to come out of our hands.

Because alternatively, if you meditate upon the world, worldly stuff is going to come out of you, right?

Here's number three.

We must sanctify ourselves. Okay, we must sanctify ourselves. And I get this from 2 Timothy 2, verses 19 through 21. And this comes in a passage where Paul is saying to Timothy, remind them, Timothy, just kind of like here, where he's telling Titus, remind them.

And he tells him to remind them to let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. And skipping to verse 21. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, from the dishonor of iniquity, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful to the master, prepared for every good work.

So preparedness hinges on our departing from iniquity, from fleeing youthful lusts and pursuing righteousness. Again, if you're not walking with the Lord, then how are you going to be able to do good to anyone else in any kind of meaningful and eternal way?

Okay, so number four is praying, praying for readiness. So Paul in, let me jump back. Praying for readiness. Does God know how to give good gifts to his children? Right, absolutely, yes. If we were to ask him for bread, would he give us a stone?

No, he would not. So James 1, 5 says that God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, he will give wisdom to the one who asks, right? So do we think that he will withhold readiness to do good deeds in the name of his son if we ask him for it?

No, of course not. And so we must pray. But we don't only pray for ourselves, but we pray this for others. And so Paul in Colossians 1, 9 and 10, he says, Colossians, we do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work.

So Paul prayed for the Colossians' fruitfulness and for the Philippians' fruitfulness and the Corinthians and so on and so forth. And so as you pray for one another in all things, which I know that you're faithful to do, don't forget to pray for one another that God will make each of us fruitful in the good work that he has prepared for us to do.

Okay, so be ready for every good work, for every good work. That sounds like a plurality of works to me, not a one and done. Like, well, I got my good work in for the week and I'm done for a while. But rather, good works are a normative, definitive characteristic of the daily Christian life.

Not just an abundance of good works, but also a wide variety, works of every kind, ranging from the routine and the mundane to the unusual and the extraordinary, from those works done in secret that are known only between you and God to those that are done out in the open that win public praise for Christ.

I especially think of the bride of Christ as a whole in this regard. How plentiful and how varied is the good that God does through his people? Now, good works are baked into our spiritual redeemed DNA, so to speak.

They are the outflowing of the love, joy, and peace of Christ that reigns in our hearts as Christians. So what does it mean practically speaking? What are good works more specifically? So oftentimes in the New Testament, good works are mentioned in the immediate context of giving and sharing and meeting practical physical needs.

Also, honest labor, so as to have something to give him who has need is called working what is good. Faithfully serving and leading in the church is referred to as a good work. And 1 Timothy 5 .10 offers some more details highlighting the women in particular.

It says, if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints' feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, these are good works. So while I was studying and I came across this verse, I thought, the ladies at Sunnyside are very good at this and they ought to be commended because every time I look around, I see them ministering to and serving others and it is very good.

And that's not to put the men down, but we all need to be growing and increasing in this. Okay, so all of those examples, it's obviously not an exhaustive list of what good works are, but I think it's enough to start to see a common thread.

And I think that this common thread says that good works are tightly coupled to selflessness. External work has at its root, a focus on the self, then the goodness of it is undercut from the very beginning.

So selflessness is a key characteristic, but let's try to continue and expand this out into a broader principle. So let me read for you 1 Timothy 6, 17 and 18. Command those who are rich in this present age.

So those who have worldly goods, right? Command them not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good that they may be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share.

So for a rich person, just as an example, one good work that they should constantly be ready to do is to give from their wealth. And I think the principle here is that whatever God has given you, acknowledge where it came from with thanksgiving and use it to serve others.

So you might say, but I don't have excess earthly riches to share. Well, do you have practical skills? And then share your knowledge and your labor with the needy. Do you have a cheerful disposition? I see Mike there smiling.

Do you have a cheerful disposition? Then share your joy with the depressed and the struggling. Do you have free time? And share your companionship with the lonely. Do you have God's word? Then share the truth with your children and with your neighbors and with coworkers.

Do you have Christ? If you have Christ, then you have an inexhaustible bounty of riches. So share the good news of a risen savior with anybody who will listen to you. So all that to say, serve the Lord by serving others with the gifts he has given to you.

Remembering that our good works resound to God's glory because they originate in him. He is the good of our good works. And that's because he is the source of our good works. He's the supplier and he is the sustainer of our good works.

He's the source for it is God who works in you both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. It begins with him. He's the supplier who is able to make all grace abound towards you that you always having all sufficiency in all things may have an abundance for every good work.

His supply is not meager. It does not trickle down. No, his grace abounds in all sufficiency. And he's the sustainer in whom we can be confident because he who began a good work in us will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

And on top of all of that, he is the one who makes our work successful. He blesses that work when it is in accordance with his will and his character. And I think that's why so often when we see in the Bible good being done, needs being met and burdens being shared, it goes hand in hand with an abounding of thanksgiving to God.

Because the recipients and the witnesses of that good see that God is raining down his blessings through the hands and the feet of his people. Okay, that's the end of verse one. Verse two, we're gonna speed up.

Christian Gentleness, Humility, and Non-Rebellion

Okay, speak evil of no one. So this is slanderous speech, reviling, defaming, throwing insults. Jude 1 .8 says, ungodly men speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the archangel dared not bring a reviling accusation against the devil, but said, the Lord rebuke you.

And neither do we return evil for evil, whether in word or in deed. Rather, we are peaceable, not contentious, not stirring up trouble, not gossiping, not divisive. No, we are a gentle people. Now don't take this word gentle as a synonym for weakness.

So I liked an example that Al Mohler gave. He was talking about how when we see a little newborn baby, we don't say, oh, that baby is so gentle. Because that baby doesn't have the power to harm anyone or anything.

But if your little three-year-old toddler comes running up and wants to play with his newborn baby's sister,.

You say, be gentle, be gentle.

Because that toddler does have the ability to do harm and may not have the self-control, the control of their motor skills to keep from doing harm. And so like imagine a big football player, he's just full of muscles, destroys people on the field, but then you hand him this little newborn baby and all of a sudden he becomes very gentle, very caring.

And all of that strength, it comes under control. And so that's what this word gentle is. It's strength under control. And I know that those are all examples of physical gentleness, but it's the same is true of spiritual gentleness as well.

And we are to show humility to all. And if we need examples of any of these virtues, especially that of humility, we have no further to look than to our Lord Jesus Christ, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men and being found in the appearance of men, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

So though we are rich in Christ and we are heirs of all things in him, yet we take on the mind of Christ. In lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.

Okay, so that was me speeding up, okay? If we look back over these two verses, over verses one and two, and we wanted to summarize or to draw out a defining characteristic of the Christian's attitude toward the outside world, what might we say that is?

What's the common thread across these verses? And there's not just one answer to that, right? I mean, you could say, well, it has to do with obedience or kindness or holiness or godliness, but I wanna take it a little bit different direction.

And I'm gonna say the common thread is not rebellious. Okay, not rebellious. We have here a list of positive virtues, but I think it's helpful to summarize them in the negative as not rebellious, simply to highlight what God is doing in the bigger picture.

Sin and rebellion entered this world through the fall, but God is restoring what was lost in Eden. He is recreating humanity in the image of his son, and he is undoing the rebellion of the fall by fulfilling his promise from Ezekiel 36, 26, through Christ in us, where he said, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And so jumping back to my outline, that's why I entitled this first section, remember who you are in Christ, rather than something like, remember how to behave toward the outside world, which is true.

It is that, but because when we come to a list like this in the scriptures, a list of virtues, we can approach it one of a handful of ways. If we're super organized and a put together type of person, we might say, this is great.

I love lists. I'll just add all of these things to my existing list so that I can check them off as I go. And I'll have a clear starting point. I'll have a clear target. And that way I'll know all the time what I'm supposed to be doing.

That's one way. And then another person might look at this list and they say, oh no, another list. Maybe there's more of that kind of person. They say, I'm already burdened and weighed down by all the things that the Bible says I have to be doing.

Okay.

And neither one of these reactions is good.

Okay.

Because they are both hanging these items on a legalistic framework that says, verses one and two comprises a to-do list. But of course there is then the new heart of flesh kind of person who upon encountering a list like this says, blessed be the God and father of my Lord Jesus Christ who works such wondrous things in a sinner like me.

What a glorious salvation is this that he has prepared righteousness for my feet. And that person talks like that because they are hanging these items on a different structure that says, this is not a to-do list.

This is a becoming list. So by God's sanctifying grace, we are becoming what we already are in Christ. So God has conquered our rebellion and this must be reflected in the way that we interact with the world.

And these things here in verses one and two, these are fruit of the heart that has been conquered by the love of Christ. First Peter 2 .12 says, have your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, among the outside world, right?

That when they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. And there is the desire of all believers that our works would testify of the greatness and the glory of our heavenly Father until the day when we see our Redeemer face to face.

And that's my song.

Look at that, that's two in a row guys, right? Are there any thoughts or questions? I didn't really give you guys a chance to interject or anything, but if not, then I'll just, I'll close this out in prayer.

Lord God, you're good, you're gracious, and you're kind. And we rejoice in you. We rejoice in your word. Pray that you would help us to walk in it or that you would make us fruitful. Help us to love one another well.

Help us to love Christ with all our hearts. We ask this in his name, amen.