MO37
8/2/2026
How To Live In A Hostile World
Titus 3:1-11
Michael Otazu

Well, good morning, Church. Another glorious Sunday. Another day to serve our Lord, worship Him together. Those songs that we just sang, I feel like they get better and better every week. I don’t know if that’s just me growing, I guess, and understanding the lyrics and singing them with you all. Praise the Lord for the opportunity to gather together and to study His Word, and to praise Him. If you would, grab your copy of God’s Word, and open up with me to Titus 3. Titus 3 is where we’ll be this morning. As you get there, I want to introduce the passage by making a couple of observations. I believe that there are three main concerns for every church. Each body of Believers needs to be thinking about how they’re to behave in three directions, if you will. 

The first one is Upward. Every church must be concerned with how it relates upward to God. This is, of course, intuitive for us. Each of us are in the body of Christ, the Church because of something that God, up there, did in us down here. So, us down here, are to therefore worship the God up there as a natural response to who He is and what He’s done. We’re to relate upward in worship. The Bible has a lot to say about that. 

The second Direction, which we need to be concerned with, is inward. Believers are to carefully adhere to the principles in scripture related to how we should live with each other in community. We’re to care about how we talk to each other. How we interact with each other. How we relate to each other. Maybe who we don’t relate to each other, inward. 

The third direction about which we ought to be concerned, is Outward. How do we interact with those outside these walls. How must we engage with unbelievers in evangelism, say? How should we deal with them in the workplace? How are we to interact with unbelievers when they hold authority over us in some way? How should we think about association with unbelievers when they’re blood related family members? How about when they sin against us, and they don’t submit to the Shepherds of your local church, so the Matthew 18 process doesn’t apply to them? How ought we, as a Church, to relate outwardly? 

We spend a lot of time, most of our time, probably, in Bible study together here at the Church, considering the first two directions upward and inward. That is probably because the Bible itself spends most of it’s time and space, dealing with those two directions. But there are a few passages throughout the New Testament which give us instructions on how we should relate outwardly. These texts help us when we encounter trials in life. When we encounter situations in which we’re confused on how to navigate situations with unbelievers. When we come to these texts, they’re helpful because we’re forced to turn our attention away from the things that are of immediate concern here in the Church. And we’re pushed to think beyond these walls, beyond our philosophy of worship and our principles of church member relationships. When we come to these passages, we think more deeply about our disposition, and even our ethical principles for how we ought to interact with the outside world. I think that’s something that we ought to be doing regularly. We should be thinking about how we should relate outwardly, especially in a world like ours. Because in case you haven’t noticed, the outside world is in a downward spiral. 

I don’t think I need to spend too much effort and time convincing you that we’re in a world, a country even, that’s not only getting more and more lost in its darkness but getting more and more hostile to us. What’s going on in the world of unbelievers out there, is not great. The cancer of cultural depravity, which I think the Midwest has largely warded off, due to its geographical and cultural insulation for so many decades, is finally starting to make its way here. If any of us thought that that would never happen, we would be living in a pipe dream. The currents of the world move exactly as God warned us, they would move. In general, things go from bad to worse, wherever sin is allowed to fester and mold. Wherever society is rejecting God, outright, or even perhaps maybe pay lip service to Him, because of the population that is around there, still moral enough to not be comfortable with outright rebellion; so, they just go about, you know, eroding those morals, little by little like a frog being boiled in a pot. Whenever societies do that, it ends in destruction and judgment and wrath doesn’t it? It happened to every nation in history. To every human empire throughout the centuries. Just read Romans 2, if you want a detailed description of how that works.  Praise the Lord, we have a good church here. What we have going on, in these walls, within this body, is quite healthy and encouraging. Praise the Lord for that. The way we worship God, is reverent and accurate and beautiful. I think the last 30 minutes of doctrinally heavy songs, accurate songs that we just sang to each other and to the Lord, prove that. The way we relate upwardly, and the way we relate inwardly, by in large, wonderful. I think the way we relate to the outside world is good too. 

I think I’d be failing my job here as a pastor and a shepherd, if I didn’t suggest or warn that it’s going to get harder. We obviously can’t lose sight of our philosophy of worship upward. We definitely shouldn’t stop improving the way we relate to each other, inwardly.  But we most certainly must not lose sight of how important it is that we have a well thought out, and robustly Biblical set of ethics for how we relate to the outside world outwardly. We need to be a people busy with thinking about how God wants us to relate to those among whom He’s chosen to put us wherever they might be. Whatever society or culture we find ourselves in. Those who are all around us right now are those who are careening toward judgment and wrath, like it’s their job. It might be ok still right now, and we still have freedom of religion, last I checked we don’t need to prepare to go underground just yet. We’re still somewhat a Christian nation, even if only in name. We have a lot of blessings, more than most nations in the history of mankind, don’t get me wrong. But it’s going to get harder. That’s just the nature of the beast. It’s how things work in God’s plan to give Himself more glory – through the micronarrative of history. This is how things work. I’m saying all this in the front end of this sermon, because I think that it sets us up well to receive what God has for us in His word this morning.  

This morning, we have before us, a paragraph of scripture which speaks to the very question of how we ought to live in relation to the world around us. It’s a paragraph that tells us what to do in the midst of a society that’s not primarily concerned with bowing its knee to God and making it super comfortable for His followers to worship Him. This text, these 11 verses, in Titus 3 hold wisdom that we need in our day. So, I chose this text for us this morning, because I think that we would all benefit from uncovering and meditating on these truths here together. So, if you would, look with me at Titus 3:1-11. We’ll read it together, all the way through, then we’ll come back to the top and break it up, bit by bit, and we’ll draw some principles out of it. 

Titus 3, Paul says this to young pastor Titus:
“Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities. To be obedient. To be ready for every good work, to slander no one. To be peaceable, considerate, demonstrating all gentleness to all men. For we ourselves also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. But, when the kindness and affection of our God, our Savior appeared, He saved us. Not by works which we did in righteousness, but according to His mercy through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior. So that having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And concerning these things, I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God, will be intent to lead in good works. These things are good and profitable for men. But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and conflicts about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject the factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.”

These 11 verses contain a whole lot of truth in them. A whole lot of principles, a whole lot of marching orders for how we ought to think about relating to the world around us. As we work through them, I suggest that we pull out from them, with the help of the Holy Spirit, six principles for living in a hostile world.  
 
Six Principles For Living in a Hostile World. 
If you’re a note taker, if you like jotting down these things, and taking them home with you, and meditating on them later in the week I suggest you write down these six principles for living in a hostile world. We’ll go through them one by one here, as we work through the text. 
In verses 1 and 2, we’re going to get our first principle here. Which is:
We ought to cultivate peacefulness in our heart. He says there at the very beginning of these 11 verses, this paragraph, it says: “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to obedient, to be ready for every good work, to slander no one, to be peaceful, considerate, demonstrating all gentleness to all men.” Paul really knows how to pack a lot into a couple of verses, doesn’t he? What we have here in this list, in verses 1-2, is a picture of how it looks to be intentional in cultivating peacefulness. Christians are to be known as a peaceful people. We should always be strategizing and angling for peace with everyone around us. Paul, of course, knows that and so, he gives Titus these elements of peaceful disposition. Now, if you’re one of those super note takers, and you like sub-notes, sub-points within the main points, you’re welcome to jot these down. These are seven elements of a peaceful disposition. If you don’t want to write them down, just listen. Trace with me, how we get these out of these verses. 

The first of Seven Elements of a Peaceful Disposition is this: Be submissive to government. He writes there in the first part of verse 1, “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities.” What is in view here is a church filled with motel citizens. He wants the local churches under Titus’ care to be churches known for being filled with the best citizens in all the land. I think it would be helpful here to remind ourselves of the context of this letter. We haven’t been in Titus in a while. I’ll remind you here that Titus, this letter is written from the Apostle Paul to a younger pastor named Titus, who is on a mission in the Island of Crete. Which is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. This is about 65-mid 60’s AD. About 30 years after Christ died and rose again. We have Titus here on this mission in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, on this Island of Crete; and He’s trying to establish local churches on this island. But the people in Crete were known for being just terrible. They’re just really bad people. Cretens were known for being pathological liars, who exploited everyone around them, for their own gain. The Creten culture was selfish and had a mean streak of rebelliousness and anarchism in it. Before Rome conquered the island, in the middle of that decade, about the time Titus went there on his mission, Cretens were known as the pirates of the Mediterranean. The island served as a hub for pirate ships, which would go out. These Cretens would go out and just take and maraud and harm people for their own pleasure and for their own good. Cretens were known as these exploitative people who were willing to kill for anything. They had no respect for law and order. They would even fight themselves, if they had no enemy to fight. They would form all these small factions on this little island, and they would war against each other, almost as if they had nothing else to do. They were basically the opposite of what Paul is calling for here in verse 1. So, Paul is poking at a very real problem that Titus is trying to deal with here, on this island. He’s telling Titus that he should remind these folks, these newly saved Believers in these local churches that they ought to be properly submissive to the civil authority that God has placed over them. These Creten Christians, in other words, were to put their old anarchist ways behind them and present themselves to their government, as models of peacefulness and submission. Which would have been a radical change for these people. I think it’s noteworthy to realize that this reminder from Paul is coming on the heels of what he wrote in chapter 2, just above this verse. Paul exhorted Titus and the Creten Christians, by extension, to be sure to submit in the proper roles that they are in, in the household hierarchy. That’s what Titus 2 is all about. If you’re a wife, submit to your husband, and commit to your role as a worker at home. If you’re a slave, chapter 2 tells us, be subject to your own masters in everything. And now here, in chapter 3, Paul brought into the scope of those who ought to be submissive, to include just everyone. You know, perhaps you thought that since you’re not a wife, and since you’re not a slave, well, you just don’t have to be subject to anyone right? Wrong! The first line of chapter 3 tells us that no one is exempt from practicing submission to authority. Even us red-blooded Americans and we’ve got to be careful here to extract a principle of what Paul is telling them to do. If we’re going to sit here, in 2026 in the United States of America, in the middle of the country in one of the greatest states in the union then we need to be careful to principally extract the principle out of the text and put it into our situation. What do we do, how do we apply this? He’s calling them and then us, by principle, to be submissive to civil authority in accordance with the expectations of citizenry in your specific time and place. 

Now, a bit of history of Crete, this is important here. We’re not quite sure exactly who the civil authorities were that Paul is mentioning. At about the middle 60’s AD is when Rome conquered this Island of Crete and squashed these pirates. And then annexed Crete as a province, a province or Island withing the Roman Empire, in 67 AD. We think that this letter was written from Paul to Titus somewhere just before that. Like, maybe months or a year or two before that. So, the context in which they would be reading this, and Titus would be reading this, then applying it and trying to preach accurately what Paul told him to preach to these folks, would have been a time of confusion. There probably would have been a lot of confusion about who the civil authority is. You know, there’s a lot of war going on in the ocean around us, who is it that we ought to submit to? It was not a clean-cut answer, likely. So, the principle is what’s important, right? What’s the principle? What do we need to import all the way into our context today, where we have a similar situation, in our different sort of government? Christians are to be submissive to their civil authority in accordance with the proper expectations of citizenry at that specific time and place. That’s the principle. We ought to be a people who are submissive to the civil authority, whoever that is. The top authority, with the proper expectations of citizenry in that context. And in our context today, that implies that we need to interact with our government with our eyes open. You know, we don’t have time for full-on American civics lesson this morning. Although, I did write that out, and then there were too many words in my document, so I knew I was going to go over, so I highlighted 938 words, and I deleted them. You can ask me later if you want a civics lesson. We don’t have time for that right now, but we should all know that we live in a governmental system that’s far different from that which Paul and Titus and the Cretens were living in. Paul and Titus and the Cretens, the way that they related to their government, is necessarily different than the way that the churches in the United States ought to. You know, we must be submissive to our civil authorities in accordance with the proper expectations of citizenry in our context. 

Paul writes, “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities.” How we submit here’s another principle – colors our reputation as Christians. We don’t have time to trace out all the nuances, for you to go out and this week, change the way that you’re interacting with your government. But, if you take this and imbibe it and absorb it, and then apply it in your ethics, you’re in good ground. Paul writes, “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities.” How we submit, colors our reputation as Christians. God wants His people not to be know for rebelliousness. He doesn’t want us to be the sort of people who are prone to civil disobedience and proud of it. If that’s part of your ethos, if that’s part of the way you navigate this life when you interact with your government well, this principle here would rub against that. God, rather, wants us to represent Him well to the outside world, by being known for responsible and honorable and convictional submission to our rulers and authorities, insofar as we ought to do so, as citizens of that government. People should see how seriously we take this submission and they should wonder what makes those people tick. They should see how submissive we are to our rulers and authorities and be inclined to get to know us a little more, and to figure out how we could be so confident in what we believe, and yet so submissive to a government which might not even promote and protect those beliefs. That’s how Paul begins these rapid-fire exhortations here. He wants Believers, he wants the Cretens to be submissive to their authorities, to navigate the milieu of civic engagement with the predisposition to civility and submission. We ought to do the same. Next, he tells them that they ought to be “obedient”, this is the second element of peaceful disposition within the main first point here, of our sermon. The first was: be submissive to government, the second subpoint is that we ought to be obedient. 

By this, Paul simply means that they ought to be taking their submission to authority and then layering on a broader reputation of being people who are compliant. They are to be amenable, or easy to lead, in other words. These people were not predisposed to obedience and civility. The second century Greek historian, where we learn a lot about these Cretens – Polybius – he was quoted as saying of these folks in Crete- it says, their laws allowed them to acquire property in any way whatsoever. No gain is considered dishonorable to them. Their lives are spent in perpetual civil discord, public assignations and intestine wars. These people were the opposite of peaceable and acquiescent, weren’t they? And so, Paul here is saying, that’s unacceptable. Titus, if they’re really claiming to be Believers, then they must put off their old ways, tell them that. Just look across the page to chapter 1:10, just at the beginning of this same letter, verse 10 of chapter 1, see how Paul describes these people here in their natural state. He says, “For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers, deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families. Teaching things that they should not teach, for the sake of dishonest gain.” One of themselves, a prophet of their own said, “Cretens are always liars, evil, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”  “This testimony is true, for this reason, reprove them severely, so that they may be sound in faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Both in their minds and in their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their works they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work.” It’s those last two phrases there that push Paul to say what he says in chapter 3:1. That they are “disobedient and unfit for any good work.” While Cretens are naturally disobedient and unfit for any good work, chapter 1:16, once they are saved in Christ, they ought to be concerned with building a new reputation. The new reputation of chapter 3:1 “being obedient and ready for every good work”, the exact opposite. 

That’s the third element here of this peaceable disposition, we ought to be prepared to do good. This is the idea of being premeditatively postured for doing good. That’s what the word “ready”, in the original Greek text means. It describes things like tools which were designed by some designer to accomplish a specific task, once they were picked up and used. That’s what this word communicates. Sort of like a hammer is ready to pound a nail, once it’s picked up and swung downward toward the nail. It was predisposed; it was designed to do that. A cup is ready to contain liquid once liquid is poured into it. A knife with its sharp edge is ready to cut that which it presses up against, once something presses up against it. In the say way, we as Believers, are called to be ready. Designedly predisposed for every good work. You see that there? Once the Lord picks us up and uses us, we ought to prove the fact that we were ready for it. That we have been preparing for it. That we are designedly predisposed for these good works whenever God wants to use us for good works. Which, by the way, is all the time. 

Then Paul adds to this list, saying in verse 2, that Believers in Crete, ought to “slander” no one. That’s the next phrase there. In other words, Believers are to be honorable to others. That’s our fourth element of a peaceful disposition. They are to be honorable to others. To slander someone is to speak evil of them. To speak in such a disrespectful way about someone as to denigrate their reputation. This is one of those that’s easy to nod along with and affirm, while we’re all sitting here on a Sunday morning. But I’ll tell you what, there will come a time, if it hasn’t come already, when this is going to be hard to obey. All it takes is a perfect storm of events. Someone did something that was bad. Someone said something that hurt me. Someone maybe even sinned against me. Now, someone else is asking me about it in private. And it seems like this person just wants a few details about the situation so that they can pray for me better. What harm is it to simply tell the truth about so-and-so and what they did for the purpose of clarity in this conversation, or the purpose of them being able to pray for me, or for accountability? Listen, if you have something negative to say about another person, and you really think it needs to be said then go to that person and humbly and lovingly seek to work it out with them. Don’t speak ill of them to others. Not even your own spouse. Paul is calling Titus to say this very thing to the Believers in Crete, and so I feel like I’m on pretty solid ground to say it to you. Act honorably to others. Break the mold of gossip in your social circle and be honorable. Be known for being honorable. 

Then, in the next phrase, Paul adds another element to the mix. He says the Believer should be “peaceable”. We should be inclined to peace, in other words. That’s our fifth point here. The word Paul chose to use here is a term borrowed from the military world. It describes a soldier or a group of soldiers who are not interested in fighting. The idea is that Christians are to be the sort of people who have a propensity to not be quarrelsome. We’re to be the opposite of quarrelsome. We’re to be peaceable. 

Next of Paul’s list is just a single word “considerate.” And we can put this one down as yielding, which I think is probably an even better translation of the original Greek word. We ought to be “yielding”. This one carries this concept of moving when things push against you. When things push against us, we ought not to hold our ground unnecessarily. That’s what that word communicates. It shouldn’t be stubbornness that defines us. It shouldn’t be pride that defines us. We should be, as James 1:19 tells us – “quick to hear and slow to speak.”
And then finally, Paul says, at the end of verse 2, the sort of Believers Paul wants the Cretens to be, are those who are demonstrating all “gentleness to all men.” This is our final element of peacefulness disposition, which is we ought to be “gentle in practice.” Notice how Paul phrases it here. He says that they are to be “demonstrating all gentleness to all men.” This isn’t a gentleness in word only. It’s not token gentleness. This is the sort of gentleness that’s practiced. It’s the sort of gentleness that’s on the polar opposite end of angry roughness. It’s peaceability played out in practicality. You know, we have some men on our pastoral staff who excel in this characteristic.  You know who they are. You go to them with sensitive prayer requests. You ask them to come visit you in the hospital and to call on you when you’re sick or stuck at home. You know who they are because you’ve seen this gentleness played out in their lives, in an obvious sort of way. I know, if you know me, I’m still working on trying to develop that in myself. Sensitivity in gentleness has never been on the list of traits people have told me I’m doing well in. So, I’ve picked up on that, and I’m preaching to myself here. These are the things we ought to be. We ought to have this peaceful disposition in at least seven ways. We ought to be submissive to government, obedient, prepared to do good, honorable to others, inclined to peace, yielding and gentle in practice. That’s what Paul wants us to get out of this. 

Ok, that’s verses 1 and 2, cultivate peacefulness in your heart. 
Now, as we turn to verse 3, we’re going to see our second principle for living in a hostile world. Which is, we ought to remember your slavery to sin. Remember your slavery to sin. Look at verse 3, “For we ourselves also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. Spending our life in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another.” Paul here is doing something that he’s done a number of times in other letters. He’s attempting to encourage good mind sets and behaviors in his readers. In order to accomplish that, he draws their attention back to the negative, dark history that they came from. It’s ultimately a positive thing. But he gets to that positive goal by first focusing on the negative past for a moment. And really, this is genius, isn’t it? He knows that the tendency for these new Believers in the churches in Crete will be to respond to the outside world’s hostility to them, with the same hostility. The unbelievers in the world around them will mock them and deride them and pressure them and maybe even persecute them. These Creten Christians were going to want to resort to the sort of response that they’d always resorted to in the past, when push came to shove. They were going to want to match offense for offense and give it right back. But Paul here is saying, don’t do that. That’s not your way anymore Creten Christians. You have a new way of living that involves what I just explained in verses 1-2. You need to be cultivating peacefulness in your heart toward those outsiders, not resentment. Now, of course, that’s easier said than done. So, after just calling these folks to be model citizens of submission, obedience, predisposed to do good, speaking of others honorably, inclined to peace, yielding gentleness. After calling them to that standard of behavior toward the lost world around them Paul takes a moment to remind them that they were no different from those lost people not long ago. He reminds them that were it not for God inserting Himself into their lives and working a miracle of salvation in their hearts and taking their hearts of stone and replacing them with a heart of flesh. Were it not for their own salvation, they would still be wondering around in the darkness just like these outsiders. Just look at the vividness of this description of darkness here. Paul says that they, and we can just read it as though he’s talking to us, because it’s just as true of us this morning. They – we, also were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. We were foolish, he says. In that we had a sort of childishness that comes with youthfulness. But it was regarding spiritual things, and then it never wore off as we grew up. We were disobedient in that we had the notion of what was right and good, but we did what was wrong and bad. We were deceived, in that we allowed our own hearts and minds to be led astray by the propaganda of the Devil. We ate up his lies and told ourselves that it was the truth. We swallowed the bait hook line and sinker. 

In II Corinthians 4:4, Paul explains this in a different context. He says that the God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that the might not see the light of the Gospel of glory of Christ. That was us blinded in our minds. We were, Paul says here in the middle of verse 3, “enslaved to various lusts and pleasures.” We were not free as we had supposed we were. We were not at liberty to do what we wanted, when we wanted, with no constraints outside of ourselves. No. Rather, we were enslaved to our sins. Sin was our master, and we were like poor malnourished, begging wretches who groveled at the feet of Satan for just one more hit, just one more high, just one more night of ecstasy and forgetfulness and escape and a chance to finally fine that fleeting satisfaction. 

Paul says in his letter to the church at Ephesus, “you were once dead in your transgressions and sin in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world. According to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that’s now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And were by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest.”  He goes on here in Titus 3:3, saying that we were “spending our life in malice”, we “spent”, notice that verb choice there, we were “spending”, squandering, wasting the precious days of our life in malice. That’s the Greek word for depravity and perversion. We threw away days, years of our lives in a state of wickedness that was so despicable that Paul needs to throw the whole thesaurus at us to get us to realize how bad it was. We were spending our life in envy; we couldn’t get enough stuff. Our appetites were never satiated, no matter how much we accumulated in our sinfulness. We were, he says, despicable in that we did such things that were worthy of being despised. We were loathsome. And then, finally, we were hating one another. We were so lost that hating others on our side of the cosmic rift was totally acceptable, apparently to us. Our hate was so uncontrolled that we hated even one another, he says. I know that not all of us have testimonies that highlight each and every one of these characteristics. I realize that God, in His mercy, praise the Lord, chose to save some of us at a younger age, before our sin really began to tailspin into a catastrophic proportion. But what we need to realize is that this is an accurate description of our hearts. You may not like to admit it; there might be a lot of goodness and cuteness and apparent innocence masking what’s going on inside. But this is even the natural states of our children. Until God decides to make someone new this is how they are foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved, malicious, envious, despicable, hateful. The reason Paul inserts this description of our past selves is because he wants us to remember that we’re no better than them, in and of ourselves. That’s the point. That’s why he says this. You want some guidance for how to live in a hostile world filled with people who don’t like you for what you believe and how you live. Start by remembering that you once lived as they do. You once lived as they live. We’re nothing special in and of ourselves, folks. Don’t forget that. Paul doesn’t want us to. 

Next, in verses 4-6, we pull out this principle that we ought to meditate on the details of our salvation. It says this in verse 4-6, “When the kindness and affection of our God, our Savior appeared, He saved us, not by works, which we did in righteousness, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior.” There’s a lot here. I thought about actually just preaching these three verses on their own this morning. And I know we could do a whole series on just this, probably like an easy three-week series on just these three verses. But I think there’s a way to get so focused on the microscopic truths embedded here, that we lose the whole point of why Paul included it in this paragraph. And so that’s what I’m trying to accomplish today. 

Why do you think Paul would take time, in the middle of this paragraph about how Believers should live in relation to the outside world, to explain the doctrine of soteriology? Why do you think he would take the ink, take the time, take the pen space, the space on the papyrus to explain the details of soteriology – salvation doctrine? Why do you think he wants us to think about this? Well, maybe it’s because in order to cultivate a robust understanding of how to live in a hostile world, we need to be intimately acquainted with how it is that we’re not a part of that hostile world anymore. If we want to have a solid disposition toward those outside this body, then we need to fully understand why we’re not outside this body. Does that make sense? That’s what Paul’s doing here. Let me tell you right now, that the answer to that question of why you’re here and not out there, or why you’re in here now, is not because you were born into this. Let’s get that straight. You might have been born to parents who are Believers. You might have even been born into one of the many dynastic families here in this church, which have faithful Believers going back three, four, maybe five generations back. That is a huge blessing. That’s wonderful. That’s a mark of God’s generosity and benevolence in gifting you a heritage of faithful Believers in your family.  He has gifted our church with those families here. Praise the Lord for that. That’s wonderful. But most of us don’t have that same experience. Even if we all did, that wouldn’t be the actual reason why we’re in here and not out there. The reason we are here, and I’m referring to the Believers in this room particularly. The reason we’re saved and set apart from the outside hostile world is not because we were born into it, it is not even because we chose to be in here, even of our own libertarian free will. We’re here and not out there because, Paul says – God did an absolute miracle in our hearts. God turned us new on the inside. He reached into the depths of our broken, sinful, cursed, selfish, blind, dead hearts, and He shocked us back to life. We were passive parties in this transaction of regeneration. Get that straight. It would actually be more accurate to say that we were antagonistic to this transaction of regeneration. Romans 3:10-11 says, “There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands”, get this, “there is none who seeks for God.” Do you realize the gravity of that statement from Paul? Do you submit your testimony to that statement from Paul? Do you speak about the time when you were saved in light of the truth of what the Bible teaches, that not a single person in history has ever sought after God. We so often talk about our unbelieving friends or family or even our children, as they are on their journey to find God. Or, we say that they’re searching. And I’m sure they’ll eventually find God. I wonder if we realize, if every time we talk like that, we contradict the plain teaching of the Bible. “There is none who understands,” Paul says in Romans 3:10, “There is none who seeks for God”, Paul says in Romans 3:11. I think this is something that everyone should hear at least once in their life. Just because you’re saved, doesn’t mean you fully understand what happened to you when you were saved. Just because you’ve been given new life in Christ, it doesn’t mean that you’ve wrapped your head around how that happened. You know, before becoming a pastor, I expected that much of the pastor’s job was to preach the Gospel to people, in an effort to see lost people saved and made new. What I didn’t fully expect, was that so much of the pastor’s job involves preaching the Gospel to saved people in an effort to see them understand what actually happened to them, when they came to faith. So many Believers, I’ve found, are willing to trust their own perception of what happened at the moment of salvation, over and against what the Bible says actually happened to them at the moment of salvation. Paul obviously had the same in mind when he wrote verses 4-6. He wanted Titus to remind the Creten Christians that if they want to have a healthy disposition toward those outside the church and they should want that; then they need to first realize what it is that brought them out of the world and into communion with God, and other Believers. 

One must have an accurate understanding of the Gospel in order to be saved. Yes! But it’s just as true that one can be saved without an accurate understanding of the details of that salvation. That’s why Paul here exhorts Titus to teach the people in his churches, about the details of their own salvation. Studying soteriology or the doctrine of salvation, the detail concerning salvation lifted off the pages of scripture, is so important for us, even as Believers to study. You don’t outgrow that the moment you’re saved. In fact, you’ve just entered the school of soteriology. Now, you have new eyes, and you can begin to understand what God says about what just happened to you. It might feel like you chose Him, but news flash, the Bible says you didn’t. The Bible says He made you chose Him. He caused you, He worked the circumstances in your life, He’s meticulously sovereign, so meticulously sovereign that every single thing that led you to Christ, was Him orchestrating it the whole time. I mean, that’s mind boggling, isn’t it? I truly think that I get to the end of my minds ability to understand that, when I contemplate it. That’s a good feeling. We ought to live there. We ought to remind ourselves of that. That’s what Paul’s doing right here. You want to have a good disposition toward outsiders? Figure out why you’re not them anymore. 

He gives us five truths here, specifically, which should be guiding our thinking when we come to view our own salvation. First, we’re saved due to God’s own kindness and affection. That is to say that God was the initiator of salvation, like I just mentioned. There’s nothing that you or I did, in and of our own strength, to save ourselves. We didn’t reach our hands upward to grasp the outstretched hand of God, which was there the whole time, waiting for us to just reach up and take hold of it, being offered the whole time. We didn’t do God a favor by choosing to join His team. We didn’t see Him coming to meet us at mid-field and then ran to meet Him with open arms. We didn’t appease a weepy and sad God who was just sitting up there waiting for us to finally realize that He’s been here for us all along. 

Those sentiments might feel nice. They might preach well. That sort of thinking might be attractive to us, because it casts us in a better light. But, let me tell you folks, that sort of thinking is cancerous. If you want to understand your salvation accurately, and you should, then you need to believe what the Bible says about it. What instigated our salvation? Just read verse 4 on the page in front of you. “Out of the darkness of depravity, while we were foolish, disobedient” and all the rest God, entered the equation.  His kindness and His affection appeared and that led to the next thing which Paul said, in verse 5, that “He saved us, not by works which we did in righteousness.” We were saved by no contribution of our own good works. It was not us who supplied any of the qualifications for atonement. It was Christ, and Christ alone. We are saved by faith in Christ, and faith alone. Let me tell you the Catholic’s, even today, will tell you that, yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re saved by faith in grace. No, no, no, we say, we’re saved by faith alone, that’s what distinguishes this. That’s what makes us faithful to the text here. That’s why we can be distinct from that church, that apostate church. That’s why it’s so important to draw lines there. We are saved by faith alone, nothing else enters the equation. Third, we’re saved according to God’s mercy. This whole thing is an act of mercy. First, we’re saved due to God’s own kindness and affection. Then, second, we were saved by no contribution of our own. Now, third, we’re saved according to God’s mercy. Salvation is the product of God, not giving us the punishment which we deserve. That’s what mercy is. Let that sink in. Then, fourth, we’re washed clean in the event of regeneration. Not only was the slate of our sins wiped in salvation. But we ourselves were washed clean as well. Our motivations were rewired. Our interests were shifted. Our hearts were made new. And our allegiance was transferred from the prince of the power of the air, to Christ, the Prince of Peace. This Christ, not the prince of the power of the air, but the Prince of Peace rules our hearts. Then fifth, we were renewed by the Holy Spirit who has indwelled us. In salvation, we were given the Holy Spirit who now lives within us. Ministering to us, by making scripture clear to us, as we study them, and pricking our conscious’s, as we stray. This is salvation, folks. These are the details of what happened to us when we were made new in Christ. These are the details upon which we’re called to meditate, as we interact with the outside world who thinks this is all hogwash. We know it’s true. We know it’s so true that we’re willing to cling to it. Meditate on it and let that influence how we interact with them. 

So, having just explained the details of becoming Believers, in verses 4-6, Paul now, in verse 7, turns our attention to the future, to which we can look forward to as Believers. This is our fourth point out of verse 7, that we ought to look forward to our future inheritance. Look forward to your future inheritance. It says in verse 7, “So that having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Paul here is highlighting yet another aspect of God’s miraculous work of salvation in Believers. He’s reminding us of justification. The legal transaction of wiping the debt out of the sinner, clean away from the sinner, through the death of Christ on the cross. A legal transaction of justification. We’ve been justified by His grace, Paul says and that results in what? The rest of the verse tells us here it results in us becoming heirs according to the hope of eternal life. If you’re saved here this morning. If you’ve recognized your sinful depravity and your hopelessness to reconcile to God, on your own. If you’ve looked Jesus Christs’ atoning death and you’ve seen His death on the cross, and you’ve believed with all your heart that Jesus was in fact God in flesh. And that He died on the cross for your sins and rose to prove it three day later. If you’ve turned from your sins and committed your entire being to following this Lord, this authority of Christ. If these things are true of you, then allow me to give you some good news. You have already been made an heir according to the hope of eternal life. This inheritance is forward looking from our perspective right now, of course, but notice the state about which Paul is speaking here is the state in which we find ourselves now. He says, “having been justified”, notice the tense, “having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Let me ask you this, have you been justified by His grace? If so, then you’ve already become an heir according to the hope of eternal life. This is true right now, in this moment of you. 

You remember John 3:16, right? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” If you believe in Him, you have, present tense, eternal life. Eternal life is ours. You can smile about that, that’s ok. Think of the purpose statement of the Epistle of I John, in chapter 5:11-13. John says this, “And the witness it this, that God gave us eternal life”, past tense. The action of giving the eternal life has been already completed. John says, “and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” You have it. Jesus’ own words in John 10:28 tells the sureness of this. It says, “And I will give eternal life to them [us] and they will never perish [ever], and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” This eternal life which we’ve been given is something that’s sure and definite and irrevocable. Take that and pair it up with what we see here in Titus 3:7, and realize that the joy ought to be accompanying this. We have become heirs according to the hope of eternal life, haven’t we? We have an eternal life that’s ours now. But it will most fully be experienced at the Second Coming of Christ. There’s an aspect of this that’s still future. We have an eternal life that’s ours now yes, but it will most fully be experienced at the Second Coming of Christ. But when Christ comes back for His church, our inheritance will become consummated. Our actual experience of eternal life will be reality. We will experience it; that which we already have now. Paul is calling upon Titus and the Creten Christians to remember that fact. He wants them to understand it, and to live in light of it, and so should we. That’s how we’re to look forward to our inheritance, to the product of our being heirs and possessing eternal life, even now. 
Now, in verse 8, we see the fifth principle for Living in a Hostile World. Which is that we ought to pursue profitable good works. Pursuing profitable good works. Verse 8, “This is a trustworthy saying, and concerning these things, I want you to speak confidently so that those who have believed God will be intent to lead in good works. These are good and profitable for men.” Paul wants Titus to exhort his people to pursue good works. Because good works are profitable. I think I’ve shared before, when I’ve been preaching up here, that I’ve been paying my young sons to haul firewood up the hill to my house, from down on the corncrib, 50 hundred yards away, I don’t know. They get a few cents for every load, and they work really hard. And they made enough trips this last winter to save up enough money to buy a couple of small things that they’ve been wanting. It was a pretty profitable business for them during the cold months. But now that winter is over, and there’s no more need for firewood up at the house, they’ve been trying to find more things to do, so they can earn money. It’s pretty funny to hear what they come up with. I’m sure those of you who have kids this age, you understand. They’ve asked me if they can earn money by going around and picking up their toys. They’ve asked me if they can earn money by doing their laundry or cleaning their room. They’ve asked me if putting away the dishes and cleaning the kitchen after supper is worthy of being paid. And the answer to all of those ideas is of course, No. You’re expected to do those things already. That’s the bear minimum of what you need to do, just to live in my house rent free. Now, realizing that I had failed in teaching them a key principle, I have now been trying to teach them to be creative in finding ways to be profitable. 

This applies to our endeavors to their endeavors to earn money from me. They want to earn money from Dad, but it also applies to all of their business ideas that they’ve been coming up with, with these companies that they’re going to start as soon as they are 15 ½ and can drive, apparently. I’m trying to teach them what profitability is. What sort of work they can do to provide some sort of actual value to me, right now, or to their customers in the future. What problem can they strategize to meet. What area of the market can they enter and grow. What I’m trying to get them to see is that if they want to do work that’s worthwhile enough to earn money, they need to be creative and intentional in their strategies for how to be profitable. Does that make sense? 

Now, don’t try to take the illustration too far. Because it breaks down pretty quickly. But as Believers, we’re not getting paid in the same way my boys hope to be paid for their work. But I think parallels are helpful. We should be trying that hard-to-find profitable work for ourselves. We may not all be the entrepreneurial type. We may not all be entrepreneurs in the workplace, but we all need to have this entrepreneurial spirit in our efforts to serve the Lord, don’t we. We need to be the sort of slaves who make their master proud, by finishing a project and then just immediately finding more work to do, without having to be asked to get back to work. We’re to be the sort of slaves who think up new ways of reaching lost people with the Gospel. We’re to be the sort of slaves who strategize for maximizing our influence in the workplace, whatever that might be. We’re to be people who Paul says here in verse 8, “are intent to lead in good works. Because these are good and profitable for men,” he says. That should define us. We should be big grownup Christian versions of what my two little boys are doing, whenever they have free time. Writing down in their little notebooks with misspelled words, all the different companies that they’re going to start. We ought to be thinking constantly about how we might provide our good Master with more profitability with more good works, regardless of whether we get paid. 

Now, as Paul turns to verses 9-11, he’s going to give us our sixth and final principle. And it’s basically just the inverse of this fifth principle in verse 8. We just saw how we should pursue profitable good works. Now, we’re going to see how should avoid unprofitable distractions. Avoid unprofitable distractions. Look at verse 9, “But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and conflicts about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted in sinning, being self-condemned.”
This shouldn’t really be a surprise that these Creten churches were plagued with problems like these. The whole island was full of pirates and anarchists and fighter types who would spark civil unrest on the island, if you just looked at them sideways. Titus was dealing with the most troublesome sort of people possible, and yes, the actual Believers in these churches were probably all right. They probably put those ways behind them somewhat. But that didn’t stop the outsiders from infiltrating the churches. Perhaps family members who wouldn’t put up with this new religion. Or factious men who simply liked to stir up trouble by starting arguments with these new Believers, who really didn’t know how to defend their faith very well yet. The problem which Paul is hoping to combat here is the problem ultimately of decreased efficiency due to external forces and influences distracting people from what they really ought to be doing. One of the main skills for living Biblically in a hostile world involves knowing which battles are worth fighting and which ones aren’t. That’s our principle. There can be an irony too. It’s possible to think that defending your faith against a spiritual combatant is a good use of your time. Lots of people spend their energy trying to win over enemies that really have no interest in changing their minds. Paul here is saying, that’s not good. He’s saying, don’t spend your precious time and energy that you have in this short life on unprofitable distractions, no matter how important you think they might be. Just because we’re here today, we might not be engaging regularly in foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and conflicts about the Law. It doesn’t mean that we don’t fail to heed this warning in our own way. How often do we get fruitlessly wrapped up in minor doctrinal debates? How often do we engage in argumentative spats on the internet? How often do we let our controversial but totally correct opinions on issues of Christian freedom get in the way of edifying friendships? Whatever the pitfall is for us, it’s all the same error. We miss the forest for the trees. We lose our sense of perspective, and we become unnecessarily interested in matters which have little to no actual value. That’s what Paul is trying to call out here, as foolish. And so, the principle, which is right here in this passage in front of us. The principle which we need to take home today is avoid unprofitable distractions. Instead, refer back to principle five in verse 8, pursue profitable good works. 

Those are our marching orders folks. This life is short; we only have a few days left. Hebrews 10: 24-25 say this it’s a good note to end on, “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near.” 
The day is drawing near. The end is coming. Are we using our time in this hostile world, well. May we apply these principles. 

Let’s pray.