Titus continue Lesson 11

All righty, so we are in lesson 11. We've been covering verses 1 through 5. And I will read those again and then give, I'm just going to kind of give us a brief reminder of where we are in Titus and what's happened already, some context, just to give a little bit of perspective to today's lesson.

So Titus 3, 1 through 5, it says, remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient. to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God, our Savior, and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us. not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. So I think that maybe looking at this thematically for a few minutes, we're just going to take about three to five minutes to give ourselves context, remind us where we are as we kind of push through this last chapter. So the themes of Titus are going to really help us understand these verses 3, 1, 1, and 2 that we're looking at today, specifically 2.

But it fits into Paul's overall instructions in terms of the arguments that he's making. Sorry, I've got a hair in my mouth. That's annoying. Firstly, Paul highlights the errors of the false teachers. That's where he starts in this book. So he's pointing out the Judaizers, what are the errors in those false teachers, and how the church should respond, how church leaders specifically should respond to false teachers. So in the event that we had a false teacher come in and start to promote, I mean even in this instance now, it would be Mike and Roger's responsibility to respond to what Titus has instructed them to do and according to false teachers, right?

So that's how it has context to us today. He then explains the strict qualifications of church leaders. So he spent a lot of time talking about what makes an elder an elder. How does God qualify that? And it was really important because Titus was carrying on this church and he needed to establish leaders. And so Paul was reminding him of the qualifications of how those men would fit into the leadership of this church.

Next he gives, and this is where we start to pick up in our context, he moves from the qualification of church leaders to the conduct of believers. And that's where we started out with chapter 3, verse 1, remind them of these things. And so we're in that remind them stage in this book today. And then where we're headed, towards the end of this chapter, is the Christological basis for the saving work God has done and our hope of eternal life with Him. It's based on Christ. And so, He's moving towards the salvation of men, but He starts with the conduct, and before that it's the qualification, and before that it's the false teachers. So you see where we are in the book in terms of context.

There's a couple important topics that we've covered so far related to the behavior of believers, and it keeps showing up, right? So it's the importance of a person's speech. In contrast, proper speaking with divisive and damaging speaking. He also writes about the significance of Christians and proper living. And the word good works is mentioned six times. A lot of good works in this book.

We've got to give context to that. So, like I said, Paul starts in chapter 3, verse 1 with, remind them, and this implies that he's already talked to them about this stuff, right? They've already been told some of these things, and Paul's telling Titus, remind them about this stuff, because the people in Crete had been exposed to it, but they needed to be reminded of it. And so last week, we talked a lot about the importance of why God has us be reminded of things.

Right? And so, let's move into question four. Question four says, the idea of responsibility is seen in three infinitives or actions. In verse two, what are they? What are the three infinitives or actions that Paul has asked Titus to remind them of initially here? And I'll just say that an infinitive, in English, an infinitive is used to express purpose, intention, or the beginning of an action.

Right? They're supposed to not malign. Okay. And be peaceable, gentle. Okay, so we've got to malign no one. Showing consideration. To be gentle. to be peaceable, not in that order. And then there's the word consideration. So let's look at those, let's break those down. We've got those three.

So remember in verse one, Paul tells Titus to remind them to be subject. We talked about that last week a little bit, but the word to be subject is to be obedient and to be ready for good works. And this first infinitive, or action, commands subjection in the middle voice, which means subject yourself and shows that this is a willing, volitional act, not a forced one. So when Paul is telling Titus to remind them to subject themselves, he's not telling them to force themselves underneath the governing authority.

He's saying subject yourself willfully. It's an act of your will. In other words, it's not against your will. You're not being forced into this objection. Does that make sense? All right, so verse two, the three infinitives here. So, to malign no one. What does that mean?

Speak evil of them, not to badmouth them. Not to badmouth them, not to speak evil of them. Yeah, the word here, we get our word blasphemer from this. What is a blasphemer? And I'm not talking about blasphemy against God. I'm saying a blasphemer from one to another human. What does it mean, blaspheme? You ever blasphemed anyone? You ever started a rumor about somebody that wasn't true? That had intentions of evil towards them? Or hurt? We don't think of our blasphemy being towards others, or blasphemous actions towards others, as being necessarily evil, but we know they hurt, and therefore they are evil.

Are we just talking about believers as leaders, or just any leader? Say that one more time? Are we talking about just the believers, the leaders in the church? Well, we're talking about all believers. I think we're talking about all believers in this context. To remind them... Do you disagree? No, so we're not talking about the police or the mayor or... That's right. We're talking about...

So these infinitives are to believers and they apply to all men. Right? So it's not just the leadership, but it's also all men. I mean, this is a principle that we see elsewhere in Scripture that's related to the believer's attitude towards one another and towards others. But certainly, it has to do in the context of leadership here as well. I mean, primarily. But I think in other verses it supports that this is an attitude of the Spirit, to not malign, to not blaspheme others. And it certainly applies to our leadership. So if you want to take it in that direction, when was the last time you bad-mouthed the leadership of our country? Now, can you say something that's true that's hurtful? If it's true, it can't hurt. This is not that.

This is blasphemy, meaning I am saying something intentionally that is hurtful and evil in order to malign you. I'm trying to bring you down with my words. Thoughts? Zodiaty's definition of it is to hurt the reputation or smite with reports or words speaking evil of slander or rails. So it's with a malicious intent. A malicious intent, slander.

You know, I didn't think I was going to tell this story, but I was looking at To Kill a Mockingbird. That's a story about slander. It's a story about blasphemy. It's a story about a black man who is accused of rape, and he's not guilty of it, but his community is insistent upon ensuring that he is the one who goes down for the crime.

And Atticus Finch is the lawyer that has to protect his reputation because it has been slandered. You can think about how many innocent men or women are imprisoned because they were blasphemed or slandered and never corrected. That's the power of blasphemy, is that it can completely ruin and destroy the person that you're blaspheming.

What brings to mind, I don't know if you were, did you watch the Lawrence Thomas hearings? He was up for Supreme Court justice. No. went after him and blasphemed him and accused him of... you name it. Yeah. Well, how much blasphemy is in our politics today? A hundred percent, almost, it would seem. Almost.

Well, that's not the way that the Spirit works in the believer. And to malign someone, to blaspheme someone, even to just even to say to a friend about another, maybe former friend or someone that you don't like, to start a rumor around them and to propagate it and to support it is a form of slander, you know? So it can happen in the smallest of relationships to all the way up to the government, right? And we know that it can also happen between an unbeliever and God, right? To slander, to malign, that's not the context here, So this kind of behavior doesn't match up with who we are in Christ. It doesn't match. And the next one does. So what's the next one? What's the next infinitive that we've got here?

To lie no one. Be peaceable. To be peaceable, right? So not disposed to a fight. I got a problem with that. I'm Irish, just like Mike, just like Courtney. No, not really, not in that sense. But in my unbelieving state, it was definitely something that I was close to. But the life of Christ is pleasant. It's a peacemaker. And these folks needed to be reminded of that.

What do you think their environment was like? was ousted, I can't remember the historical context exactly, but they were still under the Roman government, but they were treated harshly by the Romans. And so being peaceable was not in their core whatsoever. So the believers, you've got to remember that these believers were coming from the context of the Cretans, who were what?

I can't remember the epidemic guy that said this and then Paul quotes, but the liars and what's the rest of it? Dishonest cheaters. Lazy and liars. So they were liars. The lining was in their blood. That's what they did. That's the context of these Cretans and these believers in Crete. And they were not really peaceable people. They were party animals, to a degree. Not necessarily like the Corinthians, but they certainly weren't peaceable. So he's saying, be peaceable. That's consistent with who you are in Christ, as we're coming to see in this remaining chapter. And finally, the third is what? What's the third one? To be peaceable and then? Gentle. Gentle. All right. What does it mean to be gentle? Calling on the back row. Just kidding. What does it mean to be gentle?

I have that it means to be fair, to be appropriate, to be lenient. Like, how do you be lenient? The meaning of the word gentle carries with it the idea of reasonableness. You see that here in another verse, but fair, appropriate, lenient. Now, is that lenient against the law? Or is that lenient in terms of seeing a person come to a potential perspective?

It's an attitude. Why do you think they were needing to be reminded to be gentle with one another? To be reasonable with one another? To be fair? To be lenient? Isn't that what Christ did? Wasn't he lenient in the sense that he gave you something that you did not deserve?

Maybe that word is not as appropriate as we we would like, maybe merciful would be a better word, but certainly fair, appropriate, reasonable. How do you deal with others? Are you dealing with others in a gentle manner? Or are you prone to fighting and then blaspheming them? You see how that can kind of work. You start off not being gentle, forget the peace, and then you start running the rumor mill. It's pretty typical. In the workplace, Pretty typical in families, pretty typical in friendships, so.

I find this interesting because a lot of family environments, what you grow up in, you grew up in a household where, like mine, I have three brothers, and we're Irish Catholics. We drank a beer once in a while, but we wouldn't align one another. We wouldn't align one another. We'd fight.

And then from there, I went to boarding school. I lived in a dorm for eight years. That's the tenor of a dorm. And then I became a Christian. Looking around to see how these Christians acted was totally different than what I was used to. Really hard, you know? I thought, gee, these people really do love one another. They're not kidding about that. And so they demonstrated in the way that they interact with one another.

So between growing up in a Catholic family with multiple brothers, going to boarding school, then going to the military, you knew what it was like to malign, to not be peaceable, and to not be gentle. That was your environment. Sure, it was. And then as a believer, you came to have to consider something, right? And actually, the word consideration is in this verse. So it says, And that word, and Cheryl, you mentioned consideration, and it often means courtesy to all men, even those that are unreasonable.

1 Peter 2.18. Somebody read that one for me.

1 Peter 2.18. Is that right? What I want is not a guy praying over me. I think she wants to know if there's a guy in my house or somebody. There we go. Thank you. Happy birthday, by the way. See you later. All right. First Peter 2 18.

Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also those who are harsh. Harsh or unreasonable. So, servants be submissive. We talked about submissiveness. Right? This is a willful, volitional act on your part by faith. You're submitting because you know that God is in control and has placed that government in its place in this time in history. So you submit to your masters, wherever the Lord has you, with all respect. Right? You submit to them with all respect. Not only those who are good and gentle, so we don't just submit and respect those that are kind to us. Peter goes on to talk about the fact that you also submit to those who are harsh or unreasonable. That's a little bit harder thing to do, especially if you're walking in the flesh. That's an only fake it till you make it situation, and that won't last too long.

So this word consideration has us giving courtesy to all men, even though they are unreasonable. What about if they slander you? Are you still to be reasonable? What if co-workers say things that are untrue of you and they pop it up the chain and the chain thinks it's true and you're in a situation where you've been maligned and how do you deal with that? Both Titus and Peter are talking about respect and gentleness to even those that are harsh and unreasonable.

It doesn't mean that you don't correct the situation or try to right the maligning that has been done. You may not succeed, but it doesn't change who you are in Christ and your attitude towards that person. Is that fair to say? Not easy to do, especially if the Holy Spirit's not involved in living life through you. you're just trying to bootstrap it through, that's not easy to do. It's impossible to do in your sin nature. Sin nature wants nobody to control them.

But here, the Spirit The believer that's walking by the Spirit is submissive, respectful, gentle, even to those that are unreasonable. So remember, subjection is not to be grumpy or forced, but willfully excited about what God's doing in the situation.

Remember, God's put you in that place, whatever that place is. And he's using that. And so, subjection is a subjection to God, ultimately, that has put that authority in your life, and you are willfully submitting to it, and even enthusiastically expecting to see God's work in it.

As you're talking, I'm thinking about Roger talking in Romans 7. And, you know, the situation of dealing with our sin natures. That's what this is a description of. This is how the sin nature worked. And just because, you know, Paul tells Titus, remind these guys, there's a lot of information and spiritual growth that goes into this.

Because if I'm a guy enrolling in 7th, 14th, or 24th, and I'm really trying to do this. Trying hard. Really hard. Every time I read the paper, I'm mad. Every time somebody crosses my path or cuts me off in the highway, I'm flipping them off. And then I'm not happy about my reaction.

So there's a lot that goes into it. In Chapter 2, when he talked about grace as a period teaching us, that grace as a period teaching us is not just Friday afternoon in a class. That's years. It really starts with, you're in a situation like this, where you're being told here in the book of Titus, to malign no one, to be peaceable, to be gentle, and you're the one that's on the bad end of the stick with this deal.

You're the one that's getting that unfair treatment. The first thing that comes to mind as a believer is, I can't do this. I cannot be gentle and I cannot be peaceful. And Lord, it's not my job to do this. It's your job and I'll trust you to do it. And that's the role of the Holy Spirit in your life. And as you submit to the Lord, and allow Him to do the peace, allow Him to do the gentleness, you'll find that when you walk in the Spirit, you see the benefits that are not worldly, but are based on your relationship to your Savior. You have a dependence upon Him, not a dependence upon yourself. It's a totally different perspective, and that takes years and years to be convinced of in many cases, at least it did for me and it does for me. Let's see if we can get a little bit through question five.

Christians should be models of good citizenship, why? Maybe I can give you a little context of the Roman citizenship. So this is going to help frame it. So I wrote down some thoughts. Being a Roman citizen came with certain privileges and benefits. So that's the first part of being a citizen. You get privileges, you get benefits, such as protection under Roman law, the ability to... excuse me, the ability to participate in government and access to various social and economic opportunities, right? Canada gets healthcare.

We kind of do and don't, and we don't know where we're headed there. But being a citizen gives you access to the healthcare system, et cetera, things like that. However, there were also challenges and difficulties associated with Roman citizenship. One such difficulty was the heavy tax burden. You know, we can kind of relate. Not nearly as much as I think the Romans could. It was even heavier.

And it was placed on their citizens to build their military. There was a military government, right? This is the context of those that Titus is speaking to. Additionally, citizens were required to serve in the military if called upon. They could grab you at any point in time, enlist you, and then you're putting on the red robe, and you're getting your little short sword, so forth.

And that could mean long, long, long periods of separation from from your family. So, anyway, the citizens were expected to adhere to strict moral codes and societal norms, and there were also limitations in that citizenship. Women, slaves, non-Romans, including those believers in Crete, were treated very unfairly and limited to the access of what Roman citizenship had for them. Those privileges and those benefits were not extended to many people. So overall, that Roman citizenship had advantages, but it brought a lot of challenges and responsibilities.

So now, we've got U.S. and Canadian citizens on the call today, but the Bible talks about citizenship for believers as far greater. I remember hiking through the Canadian forests with a group of about 15 young people, high schoolers, young high schoolers, age of my kids. And one of the kids really wanted to understand, he was a Canadian and he wanted to understand the U.S. The stereotype is that we're very arrogant and very proud, and it's probably not just a stereotype in many cases. So he was talking about Americans and things like that, and the difference between Canadians and Americans, and I said, I didn't quote this verse, but I paraphrased it to him, and I was like, you know, our citizenship is in heaven. He was like, what? I was like, you're Canadian, and I'm American, but we're believers, and so our citizenship is in heaven.

Philippians 3.20 says, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So based on this verse, believers have a citizenship which is fixed in the heavenlies. That's your position. Your citizenship is wrapped up in your position in him. So you have a heavenly positional citizenship and you have an earthly conditional citizenship. Is that fair to say? The cool thing is that your heavenly citizenship has everything to do with how you handle your conditional citizenship. And that's the subject of these verses.

Yeah, you know, J.D., national pride goes both ways, definitely. I mean, even as Canadians to think of ourselves as, well, we're not arrogant like Americans. We're very humble. It's a pretty arrogant statement. Thank you for admitting that. But, you know, really, like Paul says, a boast in the cross of Jesus Christ, we can boast of our heavenly citizenship because we had nothing to do with the fact that we're placed there. You know, that's grace. And so we can boast about that.

I think the other thing I think of is our citizenship is in heaven, but we are here on earth now. So what does our citizenship have to look like, or why? And I go back to 2 Corinthians 5, 20, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. As of God, we're making appeal through us. I think that's our position now is that citizenship, our lives should reflect our citizenship as we are, you know, earthly bound right now. You know, we are to be a reflection of Christ and that, you know, how do people see Christ now? They see it through us. Which church was that?

Second Corinthians 520. Yeah. And I think that's our position now, and why citizenship is important, or why we need to be, quote, good citizens. Yeah. Because it's a reflection of Christ. We are citizens of heaven. That's who we should reflect as we live here on the earth. I like that. I know it's very contextually relevant, for sure. And what does an ambassador do? Do they come up with their own ideas? They do not. There's a middleman. They get up with God. I had to say that a few times as an ambassador.

So your earthly or your conditional citizenship is to be subject to the government, right? Your heavenly or positional citizenship is subject to God through his word. And these actions, to malign no one, to be peaceable, and to be gentle, are part of that model of conditional citizenship, that is to be lived out on this earth.

Because the new supernatural life of the Spirit, when you got Spirit-baptized, the moment you believed, you were baptized in the Spirit. It wasn't being dunked in the water, that's an outward sign of what happened internally with the Spirit. When you were baptized with the Spirit, you were given heavenly citizenship. And you were, the Holy Spirit is now able to carry out these different actions to malign no one, to be peaceful, and to be gentle.

These are the kinds of attitudes that the Spirit produces in the believer towards government and towards one another. So, we're all aliens here. Right? We're aliens here on Earth, but we are to be subject and have this attitude that is what the Spirit is doing here on Earth through believers. And that's what he's doing through us. And that's what Paul was reminding Titus to tell these believers. This is what the Lord's doing. And there's a basis for all this stuff. And that's where we move into the next chapter here, or the next question here. I think I've got time for one more. See if we can get through it.

So do the words, we're on question number six, do the words, we were, and we also, indicate what Paul and Titus once were, explain. So look in, go back to the verses. We're in chapter three, verse three, for we also, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and then we were, we have. So, in looking at these we also and the, or we were and we also, What is Paul saying to Titus? Saying, hey, we, we also were these things. We were these things. And these things are the things that we're gonna talk about a lot next week. But I wanna break down those different behaviors of believers next week. But I wanted to just say that our citizenship in heaven is at the center of everything. both here and into eternity.

And without it, there's no inheritance. You don't get to be an heir. There's no riches stored up in heaven. There's no heavenly privileges. There's no heavenly benefits. We should be heirs to nothing but our own sin and that separation from God. Without that citizenship, you do not belong to anything other than your citizenship on this earth. Our citizenship in heaven is the sole evidence of a gracious God who sought to save those who are in total debt. And that's what we're going to talk about next week, is the debt. Right? The total foolishness, the total deception, the total disobedience.

And just like Paul, just like Titus, just like you, just like me, But we, by grace, have been given what we did not deserve, and that's where Paul's taking us, or Titus is taking us through, Paul and Titus are taking us through this conversation. You belong to the Lord, you're a heavenly citizen, and you have the spirit now to live the Lord's heavenly life even now. You can malign no one, you can be peaceable, and you can be gentle, because you have citizenship in heaven, and therefore you have the life of Christ. So that's kind of how I wanted to wrap things up before we get into those foolish behaviors and where Paul and Titus were saying, remember where we came from? Remember where we were? Final thoughts?

I think one of the things that indicates that we were also men, it shows definitely a positional change. Go to the Romans, we're no longer slaves to this same nature. We have a complete change of position. We were, which means something changed, and it's a change of position. We're no longer slaves to the sin nature. We've been freed from that. So it's kind of showing a positional change, which from our citizenship on earth to our citizenship in heaven. But I think the biggest thing is the positional change. That's what that indicates. from something to something.

We'll talk about that next week without you two guys. Courtney and Mike will be out, Miles will be out, so we'll have a skeleton crew and that'll be just fine. So we'll wrap up Lesson 11 next week and then who's up for 12? We have Lesson 12. Probably me. Let's stand up. We'll see in a couple weeks then. Yeah. All right. Well, let's pray. Father Howie, thank you for the truths of Titus here.

And while there's a lot of good works here, we know that these are not good works that we produce in our own ability, they are by faith, that we submit to your authority and dependence upon you to do the living through us, through the Holy Spirit. And we thank you that as you do that, we get to experience your grace, we get to experience your love in a way that walking by faith causes us to grow, and it causes us to know you even more, to grow in the grace and the knowledge of you and so we thank you for that we thank you that our citizenship is in heaven that we belong to you and that our inheritance our riches are all wrapped up in a single person and that is your son jesus and we thank you for that truth thank you for your love for your grace we pray for the week ahead now that we would concentrate on who we are in christ it's in your name we pray amen