Titus 3:8-15 Live Like This: Rest in Christ

The Text

Titus 3:8–15 (CSB)
⁸ This saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed God might be careful to devote themselves to good works. These are good and profitable for everyone.

⁹ But avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, because they are unprofitable and worthless.

¹⁰ Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning.

¹¹ For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning; he is self-condemned.

¹² When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, make every effort to come to me in Nicopolis, because I have decided to spend the winter there.

¹³ Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey, so that they will lack nothing.

¹⁴ Let our people learn to devote themselves to good works for pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.

¹⁵ All those who are with me send you greetings. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with all of you.

The Meditation

⁸ This saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed God might be careful to devote themselves to good works. These are good and profitable for everyone.

Rest in Christ: Insist on the Gospel

What is Paul is wanting pastors and congregation to insist on?

Go back to the passage right above:

Titus 3:3–7 (CSB)
³ For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.

⁴ But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared,

⁵ he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

⁶ He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior

⁷ so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.

You say, "Preacher, that is the gospel." And I say, "You are correct." Therefore it is the call of God on our lives to preach, insist, continuously bringing up his good news. You say, "Preacher, I don't know how to do that and I am afraid I am going to fumble that up." But don't you know, you live your lives not out of back breaking performance or soul crushing perfectionism but out of vulnerability, weakeness, and repentance that you and I are always in need of a great, great God.

You live your lives with one another. You talk about all that God has done for you. You insist that you are not the one who does it but Christ in us.

But why? Why insist on the gospel? Why preach the gospel? Why continuously point us to Christ? Paul tells us why:

so that those who have believed God might be careful to devote themselves to good works. These are good and profitable for everyone.

The Bible is never: do good works so you believe. But yet, believe/trust/obey/rest/abide/hope in Christ and now, you get to do good and profitable for everyone else.

Remember the gospel passage in Ezekiel?

Ezekiel 36:25–27 (CSB) I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

Look at what God does:

• I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean
• I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols
• I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you
• I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh
• I will place my Spirit within you

Christian, what is ours to do?

• cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances

Don't read this as "oh now we are God's robots?" as though he suddenly reprogram you. We are not computers running on software. Read this as, "You were once lost but now found by God! You once dead but now alive by God to God forever!" (Luke 15:24)

Now that you are alive, you get to live to God.

⁹ But avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, because they are unprofitable and worthless.

Rest in Christ: Trust in the Gospel

Paul, Timothy, Titus and rest of the year zero Christians could not imagine the day we live today. For these literally new Christians (because it was fraction of a lifetime ago that Christ lived, died, rose, and ascended.) Most of the people in that time could not read. If they did, it wasn't well. And many of the Apostles either insisted on scribes (Paul, Luke) or had no choice but to enlist scribes (Peter, John) to write down what they said in an letter or a book that would be known as a book of God's Holy Bible.

Paper was expensive. Ink was expensive. Scribes were expensive. And that is just to get the manuscript in place. Now you have got to cross the massive, incredible Greco-Roman empire filled with a massive, huge army that will be historically famous. You think sneaking out that precious manuscript was going to be easy? Not on your life.

Look at us. We send massive amounts of text to someone across the country in a blink of an eye. I can send currency to my friends in Ukraine or Kenya in a moment. Paul and co. could not imagine our world.

Yet, I would suggest that they didn't have an philosophical mountain to climb. Paul, Luke, Peter, John, Matthew, Mark and the author of Hebrews did not have to fight, scrape, claw, kickback, pushback against all of social media and the barrage of information in this age where we are getting way more data but not getting smarter nor wiser.

But even Paul says:

... avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, because they are unprofitable and worthless.

Just as the gospel is absolute truth, the Bible becomes not outdated or obsolete but rather wisdom and commands of God that become more magnificent. We still in a post-Genesis 3 world. But we are all still Christians at the foot of the cross. And that counters all sin and despair that the world has to offer.

¹⁰ Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning.

Rest in Christ: Continue on with the Gospel

Listen, this is a sticky verse. Because, doesn't God give grace upon grace. Shouldn't we give grace upon grace even more?

Look at Matthew 18.

Matthew 18:15-20 (CSB) “If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. 17 If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church. If he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.”

(Let me address something. Does this mean we should pray together because Christ is with us? Yes. Does it mean this is how we do church discipline because Christ is within us? Also, yes.)

Paul neatly sums up Matthew's passage on discipline.

Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning.

"Preacher, where is the grace?" Hey, if you are coming into a church--a gathering of the people of God who are saved and bonded to one another because of the work of Christ--God gives you grace. He told his people to give you two warnings. Stop being divisive or you gotta go.

You don't have to go. We rather you stay. We rather you hear of Christ and what he has done for us. We rather you listen to the gospel. We rather you join us and repent of our sins and turn to Christ and rest in him forever.

But division cannot be entertained, for:

Ephesians 4:11-13 (CSB) And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.

We will reach unity in faith. We won't get there with divisive people.

¹¹ For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning; he is self-condemned.

Rest in Christ: Saved by God by the gospel

Romans 6:23 (CSB) For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You don't have to keep going down that road. You don't have to run into death.

Romans 8:1 (CSB) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,

You might say, "I want to stop sinning because I find myself keep turning back to sin."

Proverbs 24:16 (CSB) Though a righteous person falls seven times, he will get up, but the wicked will stumble into ruin.

What did I say early? What the does God preach? Try harder? Do better? Be perfect? No! Repent of your sins and believe in Christ.

Is that a one time for all time declaration? No, it is all the time. Like I asked my son, "Do you think that the righteous can only fall seven times and that's it?" He would say no. Or to mix my metaphors, "How about seven times seventy?" Or how about all the time. Repent and believe. Because Christ has done it all. Christ has you. You just got to rest in him. That's it. Read your Bible. Pray. Worship. Evangelize. Eat. Drink. Work. Write. Whatever you do, do it to the glory of his name.

The Gospel

¹² When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, make every effort to come to me in Nicopolis, because I have decided to spend the winter there.

¹³ Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey, so that they will lack nothing.

Rest in Christ: Love One Another

Now we are in this together. We get to build up one another. Support one another. Give to one another. And not just to Christians, but to our neighbor. And guess what? Every person in the world is your neighbor. Build them up. Encourage them. Give to them. Love them. Pray for them.

¹⁴ Let our people learn to devote themselves to good works for pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.

Rest in Christ: Minister to One Another

You have the same Spirit of Christ who raised Christ from the dead dwelling in you. Does that mean you get to sit and wait for Christ to come back? Nah. You have the Spirit of the Almighty God. What are going to do with the Triune God who has made his home in you?

¹⁵ All those who are with me send you greetings. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with all of you.

Greet each other in the name of the Lord. Grace be with you all. Amen.