Titus 1:1–4
Sermon Transcript - “Grace Works” - Titus 1:1–4
Introduction
Today, we begin the letter to Titus. This is the second letter we are covering in our series on the Pastoral Epistles. They’re called the Pastoral Epistles because these letters were written to guys in pastoral ministry.
Normally, when we read one of Paul’s letters (or “epistles”) they’re written to churches. When we went through the book of Philippians, we saw that it was written to the saints at Philippi. This letter, on the other hand, is written to Titus,—a fellow worker of Paul—just like the book of 1 Timothy was written to Timothy.
So this letter to Titus is a letter written to a fellow worker of Paul’s who is on a mission from Paul. And Paul says in Titus 1:5 what that mission is: “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order.” In his previous missionary journeys, Paul and his fellow workers traveled to the Mediterranean island of Crete. Often they stopped there on their ways to other parts of Asia Minor. And whenever Paul visited the island, he would tell people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. As a result, churches were planted.
But Paul didn’t spend a lot of time there. There was still a lot of work left to be done to see these churches flourished and remained faithful to the gospel. Paul was busy elsewhere planting and strengthening churches (as well as being imprisoned!), but he still cared about these Cretan churches. So instead of going himself, Paul sends his fellow worker, Titus, to go on this mission to put what remained in order.
You might wonder, what does that have to do with us? Why are we reading this ancient letter? In order to understand how this letter speaks to us even today, we need to understand how much the culture of Crete and our culture share in common. Paul says in Titus 1:12, “One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’” And Paul says that’s true! Though it’s not a very complimentary thing to say about a whole group of people. But this island was full of people who rejected the God revealed in the Bible. And part of that rejection was a reputation for being liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. They had a reputation among their own prophets for being godless, immoral people.
This is the culture Paul was sending Titus into and that’s our culture today as well. In many ways, our culture rejects wholesale the God of the scriptures and engages in (and even celebrates!) immoral behavior—just like the Cretans did; just like Peter says the Gentiles of his day did (1 Peter 4:3). Not only that, but we’re in a time right now where we struggle to know what can be believed in our society—who is lying and who is telling the truth? We struggle to know what to believe about Coronavirus, the election, and many other things happening in our country right now. We see a lot of lying and intentional deception on both sides of the issues. And just like Titus going to an island of liars with a mission to see churches planted, grown, flourishing, and remaining faithful, we exist in a culture of deception and long to see gospel preaching churches flourish in our day. The letter to Titus offers us a trustworthy guide.
Not only did Cretans have a reputation for being immoral, but many of them also practiced an empty, solely pragmatic faith. Paul says in Titus 1:16, “They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.” In other words, these people are happy to have a faith in a god, but they’re not believing in the God of the Bible, because their works don’t match what they say they believe. They have faith in faith—faith in a god of their own making. This permeates our culture right now as well. I read an article recently in the New York Times that talked about corporations hiring “sacred designers” or “soul- centered advertisers” to develop corporate rituals drawn from religion. These consultants apply their “theological” training to create rituals for things like beginning and ending a Zoom meeting. But the goal of the ritual is not to help you connect with the true and living God and the truth of the gospel. The goal of the ritual is to make you a happy and productive worker. This is starkly disconnecting faith from the truth. It was happening at Crete in Titus’s day and it’s still happening in ours. And thus the letter to Titus serves as a faithful guide here as well.
Both in Titus’s day and in ours, there’s a danger of this culture we swim in seeping into and disrupting the church. That was already happening in Crete. That’s why Paul sent Titus to the churches —to put what remained in order. The implication of this is that something was out of order. Something was left that still needed to be done. And if it wasn’t done, these churches would eventually turn from the truth. The first glimpses of this were already present as false teachers rose up in the church, teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach and upsetting the faith of whole families (Titus 1:10–11).
Friends, this letter to Titus has direct relevance for what we are experiencing now. It teaches us what we need to believe and do in order to put the church in order. That’s why it’s relevant to us. That’s why we're studying it—so we can learn the answer to the important question: How do God’s people be faithful and flourish in the midst of a crooked and twisted society? The answer to that question is the main point of the letter to Titus.
The answer is this: we must recognize the connection between grace and godliness. In other words, the way I would summarize the book of Titus is “Grace works.” That’s what we’re going to see as we go through this letter. Repeated over and over is the theme of the saving grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ and how that saving grace of God necessarily leads to godliness in the lives of God’s people. That’s what I mean by grace works—the grace that we have received in the gospel of Jesus Christ works in our lives to produce grace-works, to produce godliness, to produce good works.
To see this theme, we’re going to read the letter together now. It’s a short letter, only 46 verses. It takes about six and a half minutes to read, so it’s not too hard for us to read through the whole letter together. As we read through it, I’m going to draw your attention to a couple of places where I see “Grace works.”
Reading Titus
(Note to the reader: at this point in the sermon, Pastor Tyler read the letter to the congregation, pausing at the texts listed below to explain how they illustrate the theme “grace works”.)
"Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness,” (Titus 1:1). Staring in verse one, we see the first example of grace works: knowledge of the truth (i.e. the gospel of grace) which accords with godliness. Accords with means (as the NIV translates it) “leads to godliness”. Truth leads to godliness; grace works.
"But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.” (Titus 2:1). Teach the things that accord with the sound doctrine of God’s saving grace in the gospel. What accords with that? All the following exhortations to godly behavior for God’s people. In other words, teach that grace leads to godliness. Grace works.
"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11–14). Here we have two examples. First, the grace of God has both brought salvation and is training us to renounce ungodliness. The grace of God in the gospel trains us to live godly lives. Grace works. Again in verse 14, Jesus gave himself up for us to both redeem us and to purify us. Redemption (grace) and purity (works). Grace works.
“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy....The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.” (Titus 3:4–5, 8). Again, we see we are saved by grace (the good news of the gospel) and we insist on this “so that” God’s people devote themselves to good works. Grace works.
The Grace of God in the Promise of God
Let’s look back at chapter one to see how this grace works in Paul’s introduction. Paul calls out the grace of the gospel in the very first verses of this epistle. ”in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (Titus 1:2). The good news of the gospel, friends, is that God has promised eternal life. That’s the hope Paul had. The core of the gospel is that before time began, God made a promise—a covenant—with his Son to both create a people and to redeem them when they rebel.
God made this promise before time eternal, which means this promise can only come by grace. It can’t be something that you earn. It’s not as if God looks at you and sees you trying really hard and calls it good enough for eternal life. No, this eternal life is secured by an eternal promise. God, before time began, set his love on you in Christ Jesus. He looked at you and said, “I’m going to redeem you.” Even knowing all of the rotten, wicked stuff you would do in this life—all of the sin that you would get entangled in. He promised to redeem you, to free you from that. It’s a promise that only comes to us by grace because it’s a promise that was made before everything else.
What does it mean that God promised “eternal life”? It’s not just a quantity of life (never dying). It is that, but also so much more. In promising eternal life, God promises a quality of life. God promised to redeem us from the curse of sin, which exiled us from his presence. Remember what happened to Adam and Eve when they turned away from God in sin? They were kicked out of the garden and God set a cherub to guard the entrance. Their sin meant exile from God’s life-giving presence. God had to say, “No, you cannot be with me.”
But then, in keeping with his promise, what did God do? He sent his son to redeem you so that you can be with him; so that you get to be in eternal life with God, your father who loves you, and with Christ Jesus, his Son who gave himself up for you, and with the Spirit who fills you with faith in this promise. That’s the promise of eternal life—it’s both a quantity of life and a quality of life.
And that’s the promise that we cling to, received by grace. It’s a promise that we can be sure of and bank on. After all, it’s a promise from God “who never lies” (Titus 1:2). You can take it to the bank because God cannot lie. That’s so different from the Cretan people, a people known for being liars. God himself never lies, but we do. We know sometimes we make promises and break them. We know that sometimes someone tells us something and then does something else. Should we just take God at His Word that he never lies? Yes. But do we often? No. Believing that God never lies is harder for us because we see lies every day.
How can we be sure we have a God who never lies and a promise we can bank on? We can be sure because of what Paul says in verse three. "and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;” (Titus 1:3). Not only did God promise eternal life, but he manifested that promise. God promised and he keeps his promises.
Throughout the history of his people, God has been manifesting his promise to redeem from the curse of sin and death and to bring us into the blessing of eternal life. One of the places we see that is in Deuteronomy 7:7–9: "It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,”. In other words, God promised Abraham that his children would be like the sand of the sea and that the land that lay before him would be given to him as a blessing. But then God’s people went into slavery in Egypt. They cried out to him for 400 years. And what did he do? He heard their cries and he brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. God brought his people through the wilderness and into the promised land. And now, here in Deuteronomy, God is saying all of this was so that we might know that he keeps his promises, to 1000 generations and beyond. God keeps his promises. We know he does not lie because we have this whole book of records of God’s promise-keeping.
We see this in the New Testament as well. God manifested the hope of eternal life in his written word. Remember what John 20:30–31 says. "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” God took his promise of eternal life—that he does not lie about—and he wrote letters and books, through people moved by his Holy Spirit, to show us the reality of these promises.
But even more than that, God manifested the hope of eternal life in his Word incarnate. Who is God’s Word? John 1:1 says, ”In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, is the manifestation of God’s promise of eternal life. How can you know that God will keep his promise? Because he sent his Son to be born as a child, to grow up, and be obedient even to the point of death on a cross. If there was any time that would make sense for God to break his promise it must have been when his own Son was facing death, right? Was the cost too high or the pain too great? No, God kept his promise, even at the cost of his Son. Jesus Christ, his faithful Son, was faithful to keep the promise he made with the Father before time began so that you and I would have the hope of eternal life.
That’s how we know when Paul says, “in the hope of eternal life which God promised...”, we can trust that promise. He’s shown us he will never lie. That’s the point of Romans 8:32: "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” If you’ve already received the best, most costly gift you could ever receive, how could you doubt? That’s why we can trust the promises of God in the gospel—because he’s already kept his greatest promise. That’s the grace of the gospel that’s given to us without anything we can do.
How does grace work?
What does grace do? We see the answer in what Paul writes about himself. The grace of the gospel changes everything about who we think we are. How does Paul identify himself in Titus 1:1? ”Paul, a servant of God an an apostle of Jesus Christ.” Paul identifies himself with relation to God. This is Paul, who in the early part of the book of Acts is known as Saul, a faithful Pharisee and enemy of the followers of The Way—an enemy of Jesus Christ and his church. Paul was breathing threats and murder against the church when Jesus met him with grace and radically transformed him. As we saw in 1 Timothy 1:15, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” Paul was the foremost sinner—a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent of Christ. But now, how does he define himself? A servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul has been radically transformed by grace. He deserved destruction, but the grace of the gospel overflowed towards him. And God, in this overflow of grace, gave Paul a new identity—no longer an enemy, but a servant and beloved son of God.
Grace gives a new identity to Paul, but not only to Paul. Look at what grace has done in the life of Titus? Titus was a Gentile. Where were Gentiles when Christ came? We read about it in Ephesians 2:11–12: "Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Before Jesus, Gentiles were separated, alienated without hope and without God. That’s where Titus was. And before the grace of God transformed his life, Paul as a good Pharisee would have called Titus a dog and wanted nothing to do with him.
But now the grace of God has appeared. And who is Titus? "Titus, my true child in a common faith” (Titus 1:4). The grace of the gospel has so transformed the identity of Paul and Titus that they are now family. Paul can say to Titus, “You are my child. You are not alienated. You are not forsaken. You are not without hope. But you are dear and beloved to me.” The gospel of Jesus Christ has united a Pharisee and a Gentile into a new family. Only Jesus can do that. Only the grace of the gospel that Jesus brings reconciles mortal enemies like that.
That same grace transforms you and me, giving us a new identity. Look at who Paul says he works for: ”An apostle of Christ Jesus for the sake of the faith of the elect...” (Titus 1:1). Paul works for the benefit of God’s elect. All through the Old Testament, God’s elect refers to God’s chosen people, Israel. But in the New Testament, it refers to this new family of Jew and Gentile brought together under the banner of the grace of Jesus Christ. All believers make up this elect, this chosen people. This is the new family of God that you and I are a part of if we are trusting in Jesus. We have a new identity as the chosen people of God and we are beneficiaries of this promise, the hope of eternal life.
That’s what the grace of the gospel does. It gives a new identity. And out of this new identity, we receive a new purpose—a new mission. That’s what Paul says in verse one. His mission, his purpose, everything he does in his life is ”for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness.” (Titus 1:1). Paul’s mission can be put this way: I want you to believe. I want you to believe what is true. I want you to act like you believe what is true. That’s Paul’s mission in life—that others would come into the same understanding of the manifestation of the grace of God given in the gospel and that this understanding would change them and bring them a new hope of eternal life only found in Jesus.
That’s Paul’s life mission and now that’s Titus’s mission too. By calling Titus his true child in a common faith, Paul is saying that he and Titus both have the same hope of eternal life—the same experience of the grace of God in the gospel. And therefore this grace has brought both of them to the same life purpose: to encourage the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth as the ground of their faith and the godliness that flows from the truth.
That mission is also the mission of the church. That’s what grace does—how it works. Grace brings a new identity and a new mission and now we live as different people living for a different goal: cultivating faith, truth, and godliness in God’s people.
Conclusion
So the question for us, in light of this text today is this: Has Paul’s work; Titus’s work; the gospel proclamation—has this fallen on deaf ears? Do you believe or do you not? For the sake of the faith of God’s elect means belief is fundamental—you must believe that Jesus died and rose again. You must believe God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him. You must believe God set his love on his people as a gift of his grace. Do you believe?
Not only do you believe, but do you believe the truth? We live in an age where it is so easy to say, yeah, I believe in Jesus. We can say that and yet not mean the Jesus of the Bible. It’s so easy to say: I believe Jesus was a good teacher; I believe Jesus had good morals; I believe we’d all be better off if we acted a little bit more like Jesus. But that’s not the message of the gospel friends. That’s not the hope that leads to eternal life. Do you believe the truth? Do you believe the true gospel—that we are sinners in need of a Savior and that Jesus Christ himself is that savior who satisfied the wrath of God that was due us and gave us his righteousness in exchange. Do you believe in this Jesus who brings you the promise of eternal life?
Do you believe? Do you believe what is true? But also, do you live like you believe it? Does it make a difference in your life? A.W. Tozer says "Plain horse sense ought to tell us that anything that makes no change in the man who professes it makes no difference to God, either.” Your profession of faith doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t make any difference! The grace of the gospel works. And so if your faith has no effect, then you might not actually believe the gospel. That’s what Paul is saying here. That’s what we see all the way through the letter to Titus. So, friends, does the gospel make a difference in your life? Is your life lived for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness? Is your new mission in life to live in a way that adorns the testimony of God’s grace in the gospel?
Here’s the magnificent thing about this. How does God manifest his promise of eternal life? Paul says that at the proper time God manifested it in his word through the preaching with which Paul’s been entrusted. We, as broken jars of clay, have been given the precious promise of eternal life—this manifestation of the gospel which is sound doctrine. This manifestation—sound doctrine—has been given to us though we are so weak to show that the surpassing power belongs not to us, but to God. It’s a precious thing that we have been entrusted with. Do you live like it? Do you believe it?
Maybe you’re like me and when you ask yourself these questions you say, sometimes...and sometimes not. When we look at our task and the precious truths we’ve been entrusted with, we must never forget to return to where Paul returns to in verse 4: ”Grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ, our Savior.” Friends, we must always remember, this is all a work of grace. Grace working in our life does not mean it’s out good works that make us right with God. It is all a work of grace as we pursue the work that grace engenders in us. It is the grace of God at work in us. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:10, ”I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” That’s what we must remember. It is the grace of God that has given us peace with God. By the grace of God we are no longer enemies, but friends and children of God. And now we’re called fellow workers. Servants of God given a precious message to proclaim. And we do it by grace as grace works in us.