Gospel-Centered LEADERS

The Book of Titus | Making Leaders | Titus 3:1-11 | Pastor Duane Smets

This an exegetical sermon of Titus 3:1-11 which addresses the need for Christians to have gospel character, gospel change, to know the gospel content, follow the gospel command and stand up to gospel challengers. Particular attention is given to the importance of the gospel informing everything we are and do. This sermon was originally preached on July 24th, 2011 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
July 23rd, 2011

The Book of Titus: Making Leaders
Gospel-Centered LEADERS | Titus 3:1-11

I. Gospel Character (v.1-2)
II. Gospel Change (v.3)
III. Gospel Content (v.4-7)
IV. Gospel Commands (v.8)
V. Gospel Challengers (v.9-11)

Introduction

Good morning everyone. Summer is in full force and we hope you are enjoying our great city this summer. Most of you know me. If you don’t my name is Duane. I’m one of the sub-pastors here under the real pastor King Jesus. One of my jobs and ways that I serve God and his people is by working hard to prepare a sermon from the Word of God each week to preach for all of you. However, my goal is never really first and foremost to entertain you. I mean I hope I’m not boring and am able to keep your attention for a little while. But my main goal each week is to preach and present the gospel from the Bible.

We’re a church who’s super into the Bible. So we read it a lot, talk about it a lot, sing it a lot and preach from it a lot. This summer we’ve been working through the whole book of Titus, the second to last book of the Pauline corpus in the New Testament. We’ve called the book a series on “Making Leaders” and today we launch into the third and final chapter of the book. We’ve got a big section to work through today, so I’m not going to waste any more time and just jump into it. So let’s read the text together and then pray over it. Titus 3:1-11. (read text and pray)

Alright. So I know this is a super big section and there is a lot here. If you’re wondering why last week we took just one verse and hung out on it for a whole sermon and then this week we take eleven verses the reason is I really try, to the best of my ability to follow the theme and the flow of the text. When you read through the book you look for natural breaks, flow and emphasis. As I mentioned last week, the last verse of chapter two sort of stands alone as a summary of what had been said so far and a transition into the content of chapter three we look at this week.

In contrast to that verse, this week there’s not a single verse in all of verses 1-11 which stands alone. They all go together like one big run on paragraph. Many have noted the reason for this is in many ways what this section, the bulk of chapter three does is unpack in greater detail what was merely introduced and summarized in chapter two. There’s a lot of similarities.

So what I want to do for us today is to give us the overview flavor of this section and how it all works together, because that’s important. Then in our next Titus sermon, we’ll slow down and spend a whole week on verses four through seven which contain one of the most beautiful and condensed statements of the gospel in the entire Bible.

Now what we’ve got in this fat paragraph is a central theme or thread which ties it all together. And that thread is the gospel. Let me show you real quick and then we’ll jump into it.

Verses 1-2 give these clear and specific instructions of how we as Christians are supposed to be and behave. Verse 3 says the reason for that is we have become different people from who we were before we were Christians. Then verses 4-7 tells us what it was that caused us to become Christians and how it happened. It doesn’t use the word “gospel” but describes with great precision what is defined as “the gospel” in several other places of the Bible. Then we’ve got verse 8 which gives a command to share and live out the gospel. And then there’s verses 9-11 tell us how that’s not going to be easy.

So hopefully what you see here is that the gospel in verses 4-7 is the heart and center of this passage which tie it all together. The verses before it are rooted in the gospel it describes and the verses after it are the outflow of the gospel it defines. So I titled my sermon this week “Gospel-Centered LEADERS.”

To be “gospel-centered” is one of the core values of our church. It’s up there on our main church banner and tagline. This week will perhaps give you the best clarification we’ve ever provided on what it means to be gospel centered. It involves five things: gospel character, gospel change, gospel content, gospel commands, and gospel challengers.

I. Gospel Character (v.1-2)

Let’s look at this first one, “Gospel Character.” Verse one starts out “Remind them.” We’ll talk about the specific character things we’re reminded of here but before we do I want to talk about the nature and need of being reminded.

The older I get the more I find myself forgetting things. A friend recently told me the reason you forget things is because knowledge is like an iceberg with a bunch of penguins on it and only so many penguins can stand on the iceberg. What happens is over time as you learn new things and have to register new memories, some of the penguins fall off or get kicked off. And that’s why you forget…you’re just losing penguins.

In the Bible there is a consistent theme where God’s people are regularly told not to forget and instead to remember and be reminded.

So for example, consider the ancient people of Israel of the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy God instructed them, “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments…(don’t) forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Deut 8:11,14).” But if you read on from Deuteronomy 8 what do you find? They forget. They forget what God did and who he is. They begin to complain and even beg to go back.

In the New Testament, God’s people are instructed to receive the Lord’s Supper when we gather. Jesus says to do it so we will remember who he is and what he has done. That’s why we have communion here each week. We realize how easy it is for our lives to get sidetracked away from the gospel. So each week our worship service is structured to help us remember the centrality of the gospel.

Now here in Titus 3:1-2 there are some specific things listed right away we’re told to be reminded of: “to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.”

What’s interesting about this list is it has a very missional slant to it. The beginning has local law in mind. Rulers and authorities are police officers, the irs, and city, state and country officials like the president. The last part, which inclusios the list says to “show perfect courtesy toward ALL people.” This is Christians and non-Christians alike. One commentator called this section “Living as the church in the world.”

What it gets at is your character. How you carry yourself. I’m not going to go through each of these words in this list because the theme is really clear. It’s your reputation, as a Christian who represents the gospel and as a church who represents the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here’s the real simple thing. If you’re cheating on your taxes being thrown in prison for committing crimes, if you’re arguing and fighting all the time, criticizing non-stop and just in general are not a very nice person (no courtesy) you don’t make Jesus look very good. That’s not gospel character.

And here’s the really sad thing. Just stop and think about it for a second. What do people think of when they think of “Christians” in our city or country as a whole. I got a quick 1 minute video piece of a bunch of interviews for us. http://youtu.be/5m3Q2lDMRm0

In his book unChristian, David Kinnaman, now president of the Barna research group writes this, “In virtually every study we conduct, representing thousands of interviews every year, born-again Christians fail to display much attitudinal or behavioral evidence of transformed lives. For instance, based on a study released in 2007, we found that most of the lifestyle activities of born-again Christians were statistically equivalent to those of non-born-agains. When asked to identify their activities over the last thirty days, born-again believers were just as likely to (squander money), to visit a pornographic website, to take something that did not belong to them, to consult a medium or psychic, to physically fight or abuse someone, to have consumed enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk, to have used an illegal, nonprescription drug, to have said something to someone that was not true, to have gotten back at someone for something he or she did, and to have said mean things behind another person’s back.“

I think that’s pretty accurate from my experience. I’d probably add that we’re also often known to be argumentative, defensive and condescending.

To that, Titus 3:1-2 says, “Remind them…” Remind them that how we carry ourselves and how we represent Jesus and his gospel matters. We’ve got to have gospel character or the gospel will not look that good.

Let me press in just a bit here. Think of a friend you have you is not yet a Christian. Got ‘em in your head? If you can’t think of one, you need to repent and go get some friends today. That’s not okay. So think of your friend. Now say you die, you’re gone. And they sit down to write out what “the gospel” is based on your life, what you did and what you said…what would they write? Have you done enough or said enough so that they would know? What kind of life have you shown them? A gospel life or something else?

Well, verse three points out the reason our gospel character is supposed to stand out…and that is if we are really a Christian then we ought to have a marked change or transformation in our lives. Let’s look at this in our next point, “Gospel Change.”

II. Gospel Change (v.3)

Verse three begins, “For we ourselves were once…” That’s a big transition, a big “for.” For is one of the most important words in the Bible. What it draws out is how the gospel changes us…that before Jesus we were one way and after Jesus we become different.

We spent a whole sermon on this two weeks ago. How the gospel really does make us different people…that there becomes a discernable difference in who we are, how we see ourselves, how we function and how we relate to others.

Now it used to be popular in church services to have “testimonies” each week. We still do them every once in a while, we just call ‘em gospel stories instead of testimonies. Usually the old school testimonies would go something like this…”I was such a sinner, totally addicted to drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex…and then Jesus saved me!” That’s actually my story. But what I’ve realized is this.

Two things. Often times when we glorify those stories there’s two negative outcomes. One, it leaves the person who hasn’t had that kind of a drastic radical life transformation feeling less than because they didn’t experience that. Two, it leaves the impression that now, because of this change there is no more sin and now the person is all fixed up.

Here’s the deal. Both of those are untrue. The gospel teaches us that all people, non-Christians and Christians alike are all born into sin. I know some of you were literally born in a church, which is a good thing. But you were still born into sin. Yes. Psalm 51 says even when babies are still in the womb they have sin.

There is no one in this room who is exempt from this list here in verse 3: being foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to passions and pleasures, having malice, envy and hatred. But what the gospel does as we believe in and trust Jesus is it changes us. Sometimes big chunks at a time. Other times little pieces being shaved and sanded off.

Now let me give you a little of Paul’s strategy. Paul, the human writer here, I think this is how he means verses 1-2 and verse 3 to function in us. When we read verses 1-2 it’s easy. Right away you hear those things and you’re like, “Oh yeah. Those are good things. That’s the kind of person I want to be…what I want to be like.”

But then when you read verse 3 I think, I could be wrong here, but I think he means it in part to be a rebuke because when I read it I don’t start patting myself on the back thinking…”Man, I’m so glad I’m not foolish any more, never disobedient, led astray, caught up into my own passions or having hateful anger towards other people.” No. It does the opposition in me. I’m like oh man! That stuff needs to change more in me.

Sometimes I’m still foolish. You know what foolishness is? It’s not listening to wisdom.

Sometimes I’m still disobedient. Knowingly doing something I know God, his word, and his leaders disapprove of.

Sometimes I’m still led astray. Get off and start doing my own thing and blazing my own trail without submitting myself to the input and counsel of my community and my God.

Sometimes I’m still a slave to passion and pleasure. Caught up into my feelings, thinking how I feel is all that matters.

Sometimes I’m still have malice, envy and hatred. I get angry, bitter and think dark unloving thoughts towards others and sometimes act on it.

Do any of you experience any of that? I think God means, through the hand of Paul here, to get a reaction out of us. It’s another way of reminding us, don’t go back. Because on this side of believing the gospel we recognize that those things are wrong and out of step with our faith.

Some of you are just foolish sometimes. You make bad, unwise decisions. Some of you are disobedient and don’t care what God has to say about something in his word or what his leaders or pastors are telling you. Some of you are still in the drivers seat of your life and because of that you get led astray. Some of you are just a slave to your feelings and think whatever makes you feel happy is right and that’s wrong a lot of the time. Some of you have got deep seated anger against others.

The answer for us is the gospel. The gospel is the only thing that can change us. Where do you need to have the gospel work in you today? I beg you. Don’t get defensive in me pointing these things out today. It’s just God’s word and that’s what it is supposed to do, to convict us of sin and unrighteousness. Don’t reject that and push it away, welcome it. Have God’s Spirit work in you in these moments.

I’ll even go out a little further on a limb today. Some of you very well may think you’re a Christian. But when it comes down to it, you’re really not. There has never been any marked difference in your life. No real change ever. You see for those of us who are Christians, we know that change because we see it at work in us…we know we’re changing. But if you can’t see that you’re growing and changing and becoming more and more like Jesus…that’s a sign that you’ve never really become a Christian and it’s my prayer for you that today would be the day of salvation for you.

Alright, so the answer is the gospel. I’ve been using the word “gospel” a ton. Let’s get on with it and look through what it is and how it works. Our third point today, “Gospel Content.”

III. Gospel Content (v.4-7)

First off, let me re-read the section. If you haven’t picked up on it yet. I like to re-read the text a lot. Because my hope is even if you don’t remember anything I’ve said to maybe you’ll remember the words of the Bible and that is most important. Plus, these verses are loaded. So verses 4-7 of chapter three here, “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, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to eternal life.”

This is loaded. I mean there are about ten major theological concepts here. Where to begin? Well, what I’m going to do as I said earlier is give these verses a whole week so in our next sermon in Titus we’ll go through it in detail and talk about what regeneration, justification and glorification are all about.

This week I just want to try, to the best of my abilities and just make it simple for us. Sometimes when we’ve got a big important passage like this with big important words we can easily skip over the obvious things which just as big and important. So real simple, four simple things.

One, God is good. It may not always seem like it. Life may not seem to go right at times. But God is good and he did something once and for all time to show and prove his goodness. His goodness and loving kindness appeared in sending Jesus!

Two, God did a work. When God’s goodness appeared He did something. Not us. There is no good or righteous thing anyone can ever do to save themselves. God did a work! Why? We don’t know, all it says is he felt like having mercy, which is not giving someone something bad that they deserve. God did a work of mercy.

Three, God gives Jesus. Jesus, God’s righteous son who died on the cross and rose again for sin, gets given to sinners by God’s Spirit. Follow the thinking. We can’t do a work of righteousness or any amount of works of righteousness to save ourselves. But Jesus did, richly or perfectly and God gives us his work. Just gives it to us.

Four, God grants life. The result of God giving Jesus is that when he is received, one receives life. They become an heir of eternal life. And that doesn’t just mean going to heaven. Sure eternal life is a quantity, forever. But it is more than that, it’s a quality to. It’s the life we long for and life the way it is meant to be. God is the one who first made life and he’s the one who gives new life to his creatures who have become dead.

Now that might be a massive oversimplification but for you theology heads, don’t forget the gospel is supposed to be simple, always…understandable to a child. Yes, there are deep and complex things about it but it’s core is simple. God is good. God did a work for us. God gives Jesus. Through Jesus we get life.

This is the nuts and bolts of the gospel. The word gospel means good news. And it is good because it frees us from our failings and striving to try and make our lives good or happy and it frees us from the burden and fear of eternal consequence and judgement. This tells us yes, God is good and loves you, yes God did something for you to save you, yes God did it in his son Jesus and yes through him we live!

It is so good because we get freed from pursuing religious trying and we get freed from avoiding religion altogether and we get the thing we we’re longing for and needing all along. Life!

Now, I’ll tell you one weird thing about this section. There is no mention of anything you or I ever do here. There’s no mention even of faith, believing, trusting, praying, receiving, confessing or any of that. It’s all God. I don’t think that’s a mistake. The whole point is God is the giver, he does it all and we simply get to enjoy the goodness and lovingkindness of it all.

So here is probably the best thing I could say to you today. If you feel like you have to do something or be a certain way or be in a certain place in your life to have God be kind and good to you, you’re wrong. You don’t. God just likes to give. And he gives richly. He gives his son.

This likely is the simplest and most difficult truth of the gospel for us. We never do anything. God does it all. Some of you have got all hyped up about some decision or prayer you’ve made or thinking it’s something you need to do, but even those things only come from God working in you. Even faith. Perhaps you think “I believed.” Well the Bible teaches that even that belief or faith was God’s gift to you (Eph 2:8-9). God simply gives. The gospel is a giving thing. We never bring anything to the table. We always come empty handed and receive.

I’m going to venture out here because it very well may be that you have thought the gospel which required you to do something. If you have thought that, I’m trying to tell you today, that’s not the gospel. That’s not good news. Because the truth is you could never do enough or do it good enough. The gospel is good because God is good and he is enough and he did enough to save you.

Oh how I pray today that you get the gospel. God gave his son Jesus up on a bloody cross in or to be your savior because you can’t save yourself. Some of you have been trying and you need to give up and embrace Jesus as your savior today. May God grant great grace.

Well, immediately following this jewel of a gospel description, there comes some commands. So let’s look at “Gospel Commands.”

IV. Gospel Commands (v.8)

Verse 8, “This 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. These things are excellent and profitable for people.”

Three quick things here. One, he looks backward at what was just said and says you can trust this, it’s trustworthy. You see, it’s easy to think that the gospel is either too good to be true or that it’s just crazy talk. How can anything good ever come that you don’t have to work for or earn? How does God’s Spirit pour out on us Jesus and then give us life? Sounds too good and a little crazy.

Then in swoops verse 8. You can trust this. You know it’s true. You are built for this. You know this. Comic-Con was full this week of all kinds of superheroes. We know we need a hero to save us. It’s Jesus. You can trust it. He died and rose again to give new life.

The second thing here is he says, “I want you to insist on these things.” That’s a strong command. Insist on the gospel. Don’t ever move away from the gospel. I like that. It’s one of the reasons we named our church “The Resolved CHURCH.” 1 Corinthians 2:2 says, “I resolved to nothing while I was among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” We insist or resolve to know nothing else here except Jesus.

If you’re here and you wonder, when are we going to move on to something else. You know, learn some other things besides the gospel. We’re not! Every week is the gospel. There is nothing else besides the gospel. We will spend our lifetimes plunging down into it’s depths and soaring high into it’s heights. I’ve been walking with Jesus now for fifteen years and I feel like I’m just now starting to scratch the surface of the gospel. I’ve been preaching now for over twelve years and I hope I got about another fifty years of gospel sermons in me. The gospel is it. It’s our resolve and we will insist on it.

Now, there’s a third thing here in verse 8 that can almost throw you for a loop. After all this emphasis on what God does and how we can’t do a good work to save ourselves he says, “be careful to devote (yourself) to good works.” What?! Don’t get confused here. These are not good works we do to save ourselves, their works we do because we’ve been saved. Notice it says these good works are supposed to come from “those who have believed in God.”

Really the truth is you can’t do any real good work if it’s not a work produced by the gospel. The reason is because your motive will always be off kilter. Your work might look good on the outside but inwardly you are trying to achieve something and make yourself seem better than you know you really are. Only works done out of belief in the gospel can be works without corrupt motive.

It’s like this. We’ve been switching some things up with parenting action. Until recently we had been naturally using a lot of positive reinforcement. If my daughter did something good, we would say “good girl.” What we realized is we we’re feeding her idolatry and teaching her she could be good and save herself. We were teaching her that the most important thing is to get our approval. But that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is God’s approval. And on top of that, does she have the ability to be good? No, not unless God enables her. So now we’re saying all the time, “Wow, Jesus really helped you be good today!”

You see good works done out of belief in the gospel recognize that without Christ’s work in our heart we either wouldn’t do them or we would do them with jacked up motives. So a real good work is one where we recognize is God working in us to will and to do his good pleasure.

Because we’ve all got this moral compass built inside us I think we all know we should to good works. And because of that I think as Christians we tend to just think of good work as good works and we don’t think of them in connection to the gospel. Verse 8 says no, don’t do that. Insist on the gospel and do good works that are born out of the good work of God in giving us Jesus.

Why do we help someone out? Because Jesus helped us out. Why do we give? Because Jesus gave. Why do we work? Because Jesus did the work for us? Why do we care? Because Jesus cared. Good works are meant to be rooted in the gospel. There is no good work you can ever do where you cannot make the tie to the gospel. And if you do that it will change the entire way you feel and approach what you’re doing.

Well, let’s move on to our final point for this morning, “Gospel Challengers.”

V. Gospel Challengers (v.9-11)

Verses 9-11 “But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

In this last point and last part of today’s passage we find out that sometimes it’s going to be a fight to stay gospel-centered. We as a people in general love to get charged up about secondary things and forget to keep the main thing the main thing. So many churches have been split up over externals in how things should be done. Very few actually split over the gospel.

There will be challenges and challengers to the gospel. I thought about taking a whole separate week on these verses and talking about the importance of having “Unified LEADERS.” Unity is so important. And we’re told here and several other places in the Bible that people will rise up among us, criticize things, and have all kinds of other ideas for how the church should be and what it should teach. What that brings is division. This passage is a call for strong unity based in the gospel.

Every one of the things verse 9 here lists are not gospel issues. In fact some of them were likely anti-gospel. It’s interesting what’s said here. When someone stirs up division, it says you try and do what we talked about last week…biblical rebuke, a warning. But after that if it happens again, it says to have nothing more to do with him. Basically, let him be divided. If someone is stirring up division then let ‘em go.

What’s going on is the gospel provides a protective circle. If we all have the gospel as the thing we cherish and prize the most…if the gospel is front and center…then we won’t get caught up in secondary things that divide. Then it’s clear. When someone’s main concern isn’t the gospel, when some secondary thing starts being treated as though it was as important as the gospel. You cut that off because the gospel is too precious among us. It must be protected.

So just do this. Be all about the gospel. And know this. If you’re not about the gospel, that’s not the thing you care about most then that’s not going to be good. It’s just going to bring division and strife. So be about the gospel or be gone.

Conclusion

Okay, let’s conclude today, “Gospel-Centered LEADERS.” I did a search through my manuscript and I’ve said the word “gospel” 94 times in this sermon. I was kind of bummed. I thought maybe if I hit a hundred it would truly be a gospel-centered sermon.

Look, we’ve covered a lot today. It’s one of those passages and sermons that feels like you just ate a huge steak and potatoes. I’ll just end with this.

I like using gospel language. Meaning I like using the word gospel in how we talk and see ourselves as Christians. I think that’s a good thing. And I’ve noticed in some of you how you’ve begun to take on that language as well..talking about the gospel’s work in your heart how you’re starting to get the gospel more and more. I like that I think that’s good.

However, I also find myself asking people more and more what they mean by the word “gospel” and a lot of times I get blank stares. So don’t miss the meaning of the gospel in all this talk about gospel.

Here’s the gospel, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 says this is the gospel, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, was buried and was raised on the third day.” That’s it. That’s the gospel.

So this week, like every week here we conclude our time in the study of God’s word in the receiving of the Lord Supper. Jesus body in the bread. Jesus blood in the wine. The elements of the gospel. Usually I try to give a few different application points and ways for you to respond. But this week when you come, will you just pray this prayer with me? In your heart or out loud when you arrive at the table, say “Jesus I believe you died on the cross and rose again for my sins. May my life never become about anything else but you and what you’ve done. Help me to be gospel-centered in every aspect of my life. Amen.”

Okay. Let’s pray.