Latest / Reformed Thinking / From Slavery to Sonship: The Trinitarian Mercy of God (Titus 3:3–7)

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From Slavery to Sonship: The Trinitarian Mercy of God (Titus 3:3–7) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. I'm your host and today we are
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getting straight into the text. As we should.
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Yeah, You know, we aren't interested in fluff or just sort
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of skimming the surface. We really want to understand the
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Bible through the lens of the Protestant Reformation.
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And specifically, the Westminster Confession.
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Exactly. And that's not because we just
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love old books, though. I mean, let's be honest, we do.
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We definitely do. But it's because we believe this
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specific theological framework, well, it offers the most
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coherent explanation for reality.
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It explains why the world is the way it is.
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It does. And maybe more pressing for our
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conversation today, it explains why we are the way we are.
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It is good to be here. And you're so right, theology
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isn't some kind of, you know, hobby for people who like dusty
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library, right? It is the engine, it's the
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operating system. And if you have a bad engine,
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the car, it just doesn't run. Or worse, it runs right off a
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Cliff. Exactly.
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We have to get the mechanics right.
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And today we're looking at a text that acts as a serious
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piece of machinery. We're opening up Titus chapter
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3, specifically verses 3 through 7.
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This is such a good one. It is now Titus is a short
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letter. It's tucked right in there next
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to Timothy and Philammon. So it's, you know, it's pretty
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easy to miss for sure. But this particular paragraph,
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this little section, is what some theologians have called a
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Gospel engine. That is a great description, a
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perfect description, really. I mean, if you asked Martin
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Luther or John Calvin to summarize the entire message of
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Christianity in just one paragraph, they might very will
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have pointed you straight to these 5 verses.
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It is so dense it just it packs such a punch.
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It really does. So before we start, you know,
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taking this engine apart to see how it works, we absolutely need
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the context. Yes, we're reading a letter from
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the apostle Paul to Titus. So who is Titus and where is he?
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So Titus is a pastor. He's one of Paul's younger
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associates, and he has been given a really, really tough
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assignment. OK.
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Paul left him on the island of Crete.
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Crete. You know, when we hear Crete, I
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think for most modern listeners, you think of a Mediterranean
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holiday, right? Blue water, olive oil.
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Nice weather, yeah, but in the 1st century Crete had, well, a
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terrible reputation. Oh, it was awful.
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It was not a tourist trap. No.
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No. In fact, in the 1st chapter of
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this very letter, Paul actually quotes a Cretan poet.
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Right, he quotes one of their own guys.
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He does, and the poet said Cretans are always liars, evil
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beasts, lazy gluttons. Wow, that was a cultural
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assessment from the inside. From one of their own.
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Yes. So it was a rough, culturally
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hostile, deeply dishonest society.
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It was the kind of place where planting a church would feel
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like a completely losing battle. You know that makes this text
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feel so immediate for us. It does, doesn't.
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It we're living in a time that feels so fractured, people are
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just shouting at each other constantly, the culture can feel
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really hostile to Christian values.
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So Titus is there trying to organize a church right in the
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middle of a total mass. Right.
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And the temptation for him and for the Christians on Crete, it
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must have been to just isolate. Of course, to look at the
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culture all around them and just say, you know what, these people
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are monsters, right? We're the righteous ones.
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Let's just build a wall and stay away from them and, you know,
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judge them from a distance. Precisely.
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And that is the temptation for us too, isn't it?
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Oh. Absolutely.
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It is so easy to look at the quote UN quote culture war and
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just feel superior. But the whole mission of this
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deep dive today is to see how the doctrine of monarchism.
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And let's define that. Yeah, that's the idea that God
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alone saves. God alone, no cooperation from
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us. And how that doctrine completely
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restructures just turns upside down our public behavior.
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That's the goal. We are not here to discuss how
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to be, you know, better people and some kind of vague moral
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sense. No, we're here to look at how
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dead people are brought to life and how that one reality changes
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absolutely everything about how we treat our neighbors.
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OK, so let's start with segment one, the frame we have to see
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why the theology has to come before the ethics.
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It has to. We need to look at what Paul
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says right before our main text. So in Titus 3 verses 1 and 2,
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Paul gives some commands. What is he telling them to do?
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Well, he tells them to be submissive to rulers and
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authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.
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OK, pretty standard stuff so far.
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Right. But then he says to speak evil
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of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and then this last
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one, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.
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I just want to stop on that one. Show perfect courtesy toward all
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people, and Crete to the liars and the evil beasts.
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Yes, that's the part that just hits you.
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That's the hard part. It's one thing to be courteous
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to people who agree with you. Of course, it's easy to be
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gentle with your friends in the church.
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But Paul is commanding these Christians to show perfect
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courtesy to a culture that, by all accounts, hates them and is
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deeply corrupt. It sounds almost impossible.
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It really does. I mean, you think about our
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current political climate where the other side is so often
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demonized and social media is just this constant battlefield.
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This instruction show perfect courtesy.
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It just feels naive if you don't have the theology to back it.
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Up you would be naive. It would be just crushing
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legalism if it's stood alone. What do you mean by that?
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Well, these commands, they could easily be misread as just, you
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know, civic moralism. Like Christianity just means
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being a polite, law abiding citizen.
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Exactly. Just be nice.
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Or on the other hand, we could just dismiss them as optional
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because they're way too hard. Right, I'll be courteous to them
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when they stop being evil. That's the thought.
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Precisely. But Paul doesn't leave us
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hanging there. And this brings us to what might
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be the single most vital word in the transition between verse 2
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and verse 3 is the very first word of verse 3.
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The word for. Yes, for in the Greek it's gar.
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Gar. And it acts as a logical
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connector. It means because So Paul is
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grounding the command to be gentle in verse 2 directly in
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the theological reality verse 3. So he's literally saying be
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gentle and show perfect courtesy to everyone for because we
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ourselves were once. That's the pivot.
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That is the whole hinge on which this swings.
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Wow. He's saying you must be gentle
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with these foolish, disobedient Cretans because you used to be
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exactly like them. So you can't maintain Christian
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behavior without Christian memory.
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You can't. That is a massive concept and
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it's right here. Christian memory.
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If we forget where we came from, we lose the fuel, the
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motivation, the ability to treat other people correctly.
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And that's the trap of moralism you mentioned.
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That is the trap. If you disconnect the behavior
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from the doctrine, you become a Pharisee.
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It's inevitable. You look at the center, at the
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person you disagree with, and you say I thank God I'm not like
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other men. But Paul comes in and says, no,
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no, no, look in the mirror. You were exactly like other men,
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yes. And if you forget that
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connection, you will inevitably end up despising the lost rather
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than evangelizing them. OK, so let's do it.
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Let's look into that mirror. This brings us to Segment 2, the
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mirror of depravity. Brace yourself.
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Yeah, verse 3 says. For we ourselves were once
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foolish, disobedient, LED astray, slaves to various
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passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy,
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hated by others and hating one another.
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It's just a brutal, comprehensive list.
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It really is, and you have to notice the first word after for
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it's. We for we ourselves.
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Paul includes himself in this the apostle Paul.
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Yes, this is so important. He doesn't say.
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You guys were all messy. Right, you Cretans were a real
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project. No, he says.
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We. It's a leveling confession that
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flattens everyone. There is no space here for that
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narrative of oh, it was a pretty good person who just needed a
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little help from. Jesus, no.
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This is a morgue report. It's a description of a
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spiritual corpse. It is.
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So let's break down the diagnosis.
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He starts with the mind. He says we were foolish.
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OK so foolish in the Greek this is No2.
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Does this just mean we were like uneducated?
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We didn't go to the right schools or have a high IQ.
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No, absolutely not. It is nothing to do with IQ or
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your level of education. You can have three pH DS from
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Harvard and be profoundly an O2. So what does it mean?
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It means spiritually senseless. It implies a complete lack of
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divine perspective. It is, and this isn't an
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exaggeration, a form of moral insanity.
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Or all insanity. It fits, doesn't it?
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As we see in First Corinthians, the natural man, the
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unregenerate person, does not accept the things of the Spirit
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of God, for they are folly to him.
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He seemed foolish. Yes, so we were living in God's
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universe, breathing his air, and all the while actively
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suppressing the truth of his existence.
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That is a profoundly foolish way to live.
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OK, then he moves from the mind to the will.
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He says we were disobedient. The Greek word here is a pithus.
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A pithus. And it describes an act of
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insurrection. This isn't just that we were
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sort of passively wandering around lost.
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It means we were actively refusing to be persuaded by God.
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So rebels. We were rebels in act of
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defiance against our Creator. And then the next phrase LED
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astray. That sounds more passive, like
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it was something that happened to.
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Us. It is passive.
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The Greek is planet Moi. It means we were being deceived.
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Deceived by what? By the world, by our own flesh,
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by the devil. And this really highlights the
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deep tragedy of the Sinner. How so?
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The Sinner thinks he's the captain of his soul, right?
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He thinks he's making all his own free choices, blazing his
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own trail. I did it my way.
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Exactly. But Paul says, actually you were
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a pawn. You were being played.
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You thought you were free, but you were being LED astray.
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And that leads right into the very next phrase, which is just
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devastating slaves to various passions and pleasures.
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This is the diagnosis of the will, and the irony here is just
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so thick. Because the world defines
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freedom as doing whatever I want.
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Follow your passions, do what makes you happy.
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You do you, but Scripture pulls back the curtain and reveals
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that unbridled desire is actually the cruelest form of
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bondage. We see this so clearly all the
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time. I mean, the obvious examples are
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things like chemical addiction, drug and alcohol abuse.
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Right, those are the easy ones to spot, but it goes so much
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deeper than that for sure. You can be a slave to the
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approval of others, a slave to comfort, a slave to your career,
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to your political party, to your own sense of being right.
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And Paul uses the Greek word duliantes.
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What's the significance of that? It literally means serving as a
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slave, a doulos. And here's the key take away
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from that. A slave cannot free himself just
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by receiving better instructions.
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A slave doesn't need a life coach, he needs a Liberator.
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That is a key point we have to hold on to.
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A slave needs a Liberator, not a self help book Gurrick.
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So Paul moves from our internal state of mind and will to our
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relational state. And this is where it gets
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really, really uncomfortable for our modern context passing our
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days and malice and envy. Yeah, these two are ugly malice
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or kakiya, and the Greek is just internal wickedness.
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It's a subtle disposition to want to harm others.
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Just a general ill will. Yes, and then envy fanos, is the
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resentment of another person's good.
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You know, envy seems to be the fuel for so much of our
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political and social discourse today.
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It absolutely is. It's the fuel of class warfare.
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It's the engine of grievance culture.
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It's looking at what someone else has, their success, their
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happiness, their property and hating them for it.
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And look at the results of all this.
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The verse ends hated by others and hating one another.
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That phrase I mean hated by others and hating one another.
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That sounds like a perfect clinical description of the
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comments section on any political news article.
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It really does. Or just Twitter now X the whole
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thing. It's the ecosystem of hostility,
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a perfect phrase for it. It's a reciprocal cycle of
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destruction. You hate me, so I hate you back,
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which just makes you hate me even more.
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And that connects directly to the polarized, vitriolic
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political climate we are all swimming in.
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It's. A perfect diagnosis of it.
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So why does Paul do this? I mean, why does he drag Titus,
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and by extension us through all this mud?
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It's frankly depressing to read. He has to.
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He absolutely has to crush the idol of moralism.
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He has to smash our self righteousness into 1000 pieces.
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Because you cannot look down on your opponent.
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You can't, you cannot look down on your opponent in the culture
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war if you realize that apart from the grace of God, you are
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in the exact same spiritual condition.
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It just completely levels the playing field.
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Completely, there is no high ground for the Christian to
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stand on in terms of our own merit.
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If you really truly believe verse three, you can never again
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look at a foolish liberal or foolish conservative with
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arrogance. You can't.
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You can only look at them with a kind of pity and and
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recognition. You have to say that was me, but
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for the grace of God, that is me.
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And that recognition brings us to the great turning point,
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segment 3, the divine intervention.
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Verse four starts with two of the most beautiful words in the
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English language. But when?
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The great adversative in Greek it's otid de, otid de, and it
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signals a total radical shift in agency.
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Up until this very word, the subject of all the verbs has
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been we. Right.
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We were foolish. We were slaves.
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We were hating. Yes, and if the sentence
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continued with we as the subject, the story would end in
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hell. Right.
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We were foolish. And so we drove off a Cliff, and
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that was the end. That would be it.
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But here the subject changes from we to God.
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But when the kindness and love for mankind of God our Savior
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appeared. That's monarchism.
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Pure monarchism. We did not find God.
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We didn't decide to clean ourselves up and wave a white
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flag. We were busy hating one another.
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We were in the mud. Deep in the mud and God
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interrupted us. I love that phrasing.
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God interrupted us, so let's talk about his motivation.
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The text gives 2 reasons, kindness and love for mankind.
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The word for kindness is Chris Sotos.
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It's this idea of benevolent goodness.
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A useful way to think about it is as the perfect opposite of
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the malice kakia we just saw in verse 3.
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So we were full of venom. And God was full of virtue.
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We had ill will, he had goodwill.
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And then there's love for mankind.
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The Greek word there is just. Fascinating it is.
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It's philanthropy. Philanthropy.
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Yes. Literally, friendship toward
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humanity. And what's so shocking about
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this is the timing, right? God manifested friendship toward
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humanity at the specific historical moment that humanity
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was hating one another. That is the very definition of
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grace, isn't it? It's a love that is not drawn
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out by our attractiveness. Not at all.
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We were repulsively ugly in our sin.
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This love flows entirely and exclusively from God's own
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character. He loves because He is love, not
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because we are in any way lovable.
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And Paul says this love appeared epiphany that's.
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Where we get our word epiphany. And appearing a manifestation.
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Yes, and this refers specifically to the incarnation
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of Jesus Christ. This is so critical for us to
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understand. Salvation is an event in
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history. It's not just a philosophical
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idea, we finally realized. It's not a warm feeling we
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conjured up during a meditation session.
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It appeared God stepped into space and time.
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You know, that really pushes back against any kind of
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mysticism, doesn't it? Absolutely.
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Mysticism in all its forms ultimately looks inward for
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salvation or enlightenment. To the self.
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Yes, but Christianity looks outward.
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It looks to history, to the Manger, to the cross, into the
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empty tomb. These are historical events.
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And the title Paul uses here for God is God our Savior.
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And that is such a loaded term in his world.
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In the Roman context, Caesar claimed the title Sodor.
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Savior. Savior Caesar will save you from
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chaos, from poverty, from enemies.
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Paul takes that exclusive political title and applies it
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solely to the Triune God. Caesar might claim to save your
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body or your nation, but only God can save you from the
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condition we just read about in verse 3.
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Only God. OK, so we have the diagnosis of
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our condition and we have the divine intervention.
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Now we need to understand the basis of the salvation, and that
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brings us to segment 4, which covers the first part of verse
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5. He saved us not by works done by
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us in righteousness. This phrase, it's just, it's the
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axe laid to the root of the tree of human pride.
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It is Paul is systematically stripping away every possible
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human contribution to salvation. But notice so carefully what he
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excludes. He doesn't just say he saved us.
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Not because of our sins, Of course not.
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Right, that's obvious. He says not by works done by us
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in righteousness. And that's the detail that just
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destroys us. We all readily admit our sins
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didn't save us. That's easy.
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But we all have this secret hope deep down that our righteous
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deeds helped a little bit. Our philanthropy, our church
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attendance, our good politics, our volunteering.
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Our voting record, being a good neighbor, all of it.
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And Paul says no, none of that contributed 1 oz to your
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salvation. Why does he have to be so
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absolute, so specific about this?
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Because he's destroying legalism, which is the idea that
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we can earn God's favor by our obedience, but is also
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destroying the more subtle Roman Catholic concept of merit.
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Which is what exactly? That's the idea that God's grace
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helps us to do good works, and then those good works that we do
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contribute to our increasing justification before God.
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It's a cooperative effort. And Paul is saying it's not
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cooperative at all. Not at all.
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So think about the logic if salvation depended on even one
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single ounce of our righteousness.
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We would all be lost. Every single one of us.
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Because, as we just saw in verse 3, even our best deeds were
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stained. They were stayed with mixed
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motives, with selfishness, with the desire for approval, with
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hints of malice and envy. It's like Isaiah says, our
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righteous deeds are like filthy rags.
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Exactly. If you bring a cup of perfectly
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clean water to a thirsty man, but you bring it in a filthy,
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muddy cup, the water is contaminated.
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Our best works are like that before a holy God.
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So what is the positive basis then?
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If it's not our works, what is it?
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The text is crystal clear according to his mercy.
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According to his mercy. That's the entire basis.
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And the Greek preposition there, according to Ludus Kata.
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Yes, and that's an important little word.
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That preposition implies the standard or the measure of
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something. So he doesn't just save us out
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of his mercy, as if a millionaire gives a single
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dollar to a beggar. No, He saves us according to the
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full measure of His infinite mercy.
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The scale of the salvation perfectly matches the scale of
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the mercy that provides it. And mercy, by its very
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definition, assumes we deserve judgement.
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It does. You don't show mercy to an
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innocent person, you show justice to an innocent person,
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Right. Mercy is for the guilty.
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It is the rescue of the helpless who deserve condemnation.
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OK, so we're saved by mercy, not merit, but how does that mercy
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actually get applied to us? How does it happen?
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This brings us to segment 5, the means of salvation.
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The rest of verse 5. By the washing of regeneration
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and renewal of the Holy Spirit. All right, this is where we
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really get into the mechanics of grace.
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Paul uses 2 massive theological terms here.
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He does, and the first one is pill in Genesia Regeneration.
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Pill in Genesia. It sounds like Genesis again.
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That's exactly what it means, recreation.
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It's a very rare word in the New Testament.
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Oh really? Yes, it only appears here and in
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Matthew 19.28 where Jesus talks about the renewal of all things
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in the new creation, but here it's applied to the removal of
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the person. So this is not just, you know,
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turning over a new leaf or making a New Year's resolution,
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not at all. This is a metaphysical event.
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This is a dead battery being replaced with a new one.
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This is a spiritual heart transplant.
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It is the sovereign impartation of spiritual life to a spiritual
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corpse. And Paul calls it the washing of
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regeneration. The word is Lutron.
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Lutron, a washing place or a bath.
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Now we have to address the elephant in the room here.
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Is he talking about water baptism?
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And that has been the great debate for centuries.
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Some traditions, particularly those that hold to baptismal
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regeneration, would say yes. The water of baptism itself is
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what regenerates. But that's not the Reformed
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understanding. No.
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Given the immediate context of not by works right before this,
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and the whole testimony of Scripture, we see this
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differently. So how does a reformed exegesis
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handle this? We see this as pointing back to
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the Old Testament promises. Specifically, Ezekiel 36.2527 is
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the key background text here. Remind us what that says.
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God says I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be
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clean, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh
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and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within
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you, ah. OK, so the water is the symbol
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of a much deeper spiritual reality.
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Precisely, water baptism is the beautiful, necessary, commanded,
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outward sign, but the Holy Spirit's secret work of
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regeneration is the inward reality that the sign points to.
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So the washing is the spiritual cleansing of our conscience, the
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removal of that guilt and filth. We talked.
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About correct, and it's paired with the second phrase and
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renewal of the Holy Spirit. The Greek here is Anakinousis.
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Anakinousis. If regeneration is the heart
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transplant, what's this? This is the rewiring of the
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entire house. If regeneration is the jump
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start of the dead heart, renewal is the gradual rewiring of the
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mind and the affections. So this is what replaces the
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foolishness and the deception from verse 3.
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Exactly. The mind that was insane is now
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being made sane. The will that was enslaved is
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now being liberated. And this connects directly to
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the doctrine of effectual calling in the Westminster
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Standards, doesn't it? It does.
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Effectual calling is what this is describing.
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The call of the Spirit is what resurrects the dead will.
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Remember back in verse 3 we were disobedient and slaves.
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We were morally unable to choose God.
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Effectual calling means the Holy Spirit works so powerfully in us
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that He makes the Sinner both willing and able to believe.
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He changes the want. To he changes the want, to he
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liberates the will from its bondage to sin, so that we
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freely and joyfully choose Christ.
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This is such a robustly Trinitarian picture of
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salvation, and that leads us perfectly into segment 6, the
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Trinitarian agency, verse 6. Only poured out on us richly
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through Jesus Christ our Savior. You just you cannot read this
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text without seeing all three persons of the Trinity working
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in perfect concert. No, it's impossible to miss.
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The Father initiates the whole plan out of His kindness and
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philanthropy. OK, the Son accomplishes the
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work as our mediator and Savior. And the Spirit is the one who
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applies it all to us through regeneration and renewal.
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It's a perfectly coordinated divine rescue mission, so.
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Let's talk about that phrase poured out.
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Yeah, that language is so significant it links us right
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back to the prophecy in Joel 2.28.
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I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.
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And to the fulfillment of that at Pentecost in Acts 2.
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Exactly. The point is that the Spirit
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isn't just giving it a little dropper.
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He's not rationed out, He is poured out.
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It implies abundance, generosity.
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And Paul adds the adverb richly in Greek plucius.
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And this is so crucial for the believers assurance and daily
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life. We do not receive a trickle of
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the Holy Spirit. Just enough to barely survive.
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No, we have him richly, abundantly.
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This seems to push back against a certain type of theology,
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maybe a second blessing viewpoint.
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It definitely does. There's a view out there that
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says you get saved, you get a little bit of the Spirit, but
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then later you need a second event, a second blessing to
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really get the Spirit or get his power.
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And Paul? Says Paul.
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Says no. At the moment of your
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regeneration, the spirit has been poured out on you richly.
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You have all of him you were ever going to get.
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Now, you might not be obeying him fully, you might be grieving
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him, but he is fully there. And he is poured out through
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Jesus Christ our Savior. This highlights the absolutely
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central mediatorial role of Christ.
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The Spirit doesn't just come to us because we chanted the right
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words or empty our minds in meditation.
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It's not a mystical technique. No, the Father sends the Spirit
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to us through the sun. The sun is the channel.
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And it's all based on Christ's finished work on the cross.
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It has to be Christ. Work of atonement removes our
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guilt. It cleanses us and that creates
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the clean channel for the Holy Spirit to enter and dwell on us.
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That's a powerful thought. Without the blood of Christ, the
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Holy Spirit, who is perfectly holy, could not dwell on us
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sinners. He couldn't.
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His Holiness would consume us in judgment.
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Wow. But Christ's work makes it
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possible. That's the economic Trinity at
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work. They work in perfect harmony to
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save the specific individuals the Father has chosen to save.
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OK. So we've covered the diagnosis,
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the intervention, the basis, the means and the agent.
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So now what is the final verdict?
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What's the goal of all this? That brings us to segment 7,
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verse 7. So that being justified by His
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grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal
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life. The phrase so that tells us
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we're getting to the purpose of it all.
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Yes, all of that washing and pouring out was for a specific
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legal verdict. And that verdict is
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justification. The Greek is D chaifentes.
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And this is a forensic term. It's a legal word.
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It belongs in a courtroom. It means to be declared
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righteous. We really need to make a clear
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distinction here, don't we, between regeneration, which we
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just talked about, and justification.
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It is a crucial distinction. And 1 the Reformation was fought
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over. Regeneration changes our nature.
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It makes us spiritually alive. Justification changes our legal
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status. It makes us legally righteous in
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God's sight. And the classic Reformed polemic
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here is vital. We are not justified because we
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are being sanctified or renewed. Correct.
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That's the Roman Catholic view, that justification is a process
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of becoming more righteous. The protest of you is that we
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are not declared righteous because we are finally becoming
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good people. Because that would be a shaky
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foundation. It would be no foundation at
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all. We are justified by His grace
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and by grace alone, solely based on the imputed or credited
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righteousness of Jesus Christ to our account.
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So the verdict is not guilty and even more positively righteous
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because of what Jesus did for us.
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Yes, if justification depended on our internal renewal, we
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would never have peace with God because our renewal is always
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imperfect and incomplete in this life.
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But the verdict is secure. And then our status changes even
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further. We become heirs.
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Just look at that trajectory from slave in verse 3 to heir in
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verse seven. That is the entire story of the
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Gospel in 2 words. In the Roman world, adoption was
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a really big deal, legally speaking.
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It was huge. A wealthy, powerful man could
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legally adopt a slave and in that moment, instantly all of
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that slaves past debts were cancelled.
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His old family name was erased. And he became a full recipient
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of the new family's name and fortune.
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With all the rights and privileges, and Paul is saying
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to the believers in Crete and to us, that is you.
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We aren't just saved from something from hell, we're saved
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for something. We're saved for the royal
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family. It's about the inheritance.
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We are made Co heirs with Christ himself.
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And the verse ends according to the hope of eternal life.
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And we have to clarify what Paul means by hope.
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The Greek word is elpis. In modern English, hope is often
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just wishful thinking. I hope the weather's nice
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tomorrow. I hope my team wins.
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It's uncertain. Very uncertain, but in the
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Bible, Biblical hope Elpis is a no so certainty.
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It's not a hope. So it's an anchor for the soul
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because it's based on the character and promises of God
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who cannot lie. And that certain hope, that
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anchor, is what grounds our ethics bringing us full circle.
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It does. We could be meek now.
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We could be courteous to our enemies now because we know we
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own the future. We don't have to claw and fight
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for scraps of power and honor in this life because we are heirs
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of the next one. Wow.
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OK, so we have unpacked this incredibly dense text.
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Now we need to land the playing Segment 8 application right.
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We like to think in terms of head, heart and hands.
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So let's start with the head, the doctrine.
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Intellectually, what do we need to do with this?
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We have to submit intellectually to monetism.
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We just have to. And that means?
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We must actively root out that secret, stubborn little thought
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that we are Christians because we were smarter or more
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spearfully sensitive or morally better than our neighbors.
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If you think you contributed even 1% to your salvation, you
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rob God of 100% of His glory. Exactly.
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You have to believe verse 5 not by works done by us in
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righteousness. Period.
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Full stop. OK.
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Then the heart, our affections. This text, if we really let it
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sink in, should absolutely shatter our pride.
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That's the emotional test. If you're listening to this and
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you harbor bitterness or political hatred or a sense of
28:47
moral superiority over the woke mob on one side or the mega
28:50
crowd on the other, whichever side you despise, you have
28:53
forgotten your own washing. We have to cultivate amazement
28:56
at God's philanthropia. Yes, the question for the heart
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is if God showed friendship to me when I was a hateful, foolish
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Wretch, how can I possibly refuse to show common courtesy
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to a fellow Sinner who is still trapped in that same condition?
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Which leads to the hands, the practice.
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How does this change our civic engagement?
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It completely changes the rules of engagement.
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It stops us from fighting the culture wars with the world's
29:22
weapons. Meaning we don't use slander, we
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don't use rage, we don't use mockery and contempt as our
29:28
primary tools. We show perfect courtesy even to
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those we believe are profoundly wrong.
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In the voting booth, on social media, in conversation with our
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neighbors. Yes, because we know that the
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person we are arguing with is just a verse three person
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exactly like we were. They're not the ultimate enemy,
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they're a captive of the enemy. And that must change our
29:47
evangelism. It has to.
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We shift from moralism, just telling people stop doing that
29:53
sin, to gospel proclamation which says you were spiritually
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dead and you need life, you are a slave and you need a
29:58
Liberator. It's a totally different
30:00
message. And we pray differently, too.
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Oh, absolutely. We start praying earnestly for
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the Spirit to pour out on people because we finally understand
30:08
that our clever arguments and our perfect logic cannot raise
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the dead. Only the Spirit can do that.
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Only the Spirit. And lastly, what about inside
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the church? Church Unity.
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We learn to extend grace to weary, struggling Saints.
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If God saved us purely by mercy, we cannot turn around and demand
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perfection from our brothers and sisters in Christ.
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The church becomes a hospital. A hospital for people who are
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all in recovery from the disease of malice and envy.
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And the rest of verse 3. This has been a heavy but
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incredibly rich session through just 5 verses of scripture.
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It's the whole gospel. The whole story is right there,
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from the dunghill of human depravity to the glorious status
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of heirs of God. And it was a unilateral rescue
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mission orchestrated and executed by the Triune God.
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From start to finish, he gets all the credit.
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So here is our challenge to you listening this week.
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Let this theology reshape your actual week when you encounter
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foolish or disobedient or malice filled people and you will
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probably in the next hour for sure, do not respond with your
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old nature. Remember the?
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Neutron, Remember the washing. Remember what you were.
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And here is a final provocative thought for you to chew on this
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week. It is impossible to look down on
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a foolish world with arrogance if your heart is truly and
31:25
continually broken by the memory of your own foolishness.
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A haughty Christian is a theological oxymoron.
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It doesn't compute. You cannot be proud and
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simultaneously be amazed by grace.
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You have to pick one. Thank you so much for joining us
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on this deep dive into Titus Three.
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We hope it helps you to think more clearly, to love more
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correctly, and to live more faithfully.
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Amen. Until next time, keep thinking.