1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,
2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.
3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.
Introduction
A horseman went to Henry Ward Beecher, a great preacher of another generation, and said to him, “I have a good family horse I want to sell you. He is a good saddle horse, a good wagon horse, a good carriage horse. He works single or double with another animal. He pulls on either side of the tongue. In short, he is a good all-around workhorse. He is a good team worker.” Henry Ward Beecher said, “Friend, I can’t buy your horse, but I sure would like to have him as a member of my congregation.” Well, what preacher wouldn’t?
Every church is in need of workers who are good team members. The apostle Paul is giving emphasis to that in the book of Titus, chapter three, and in particular verse 8. If you will open your Bibles to that passage of scripture the text for the sermon of today will have much more meaning to you.
In Titus 3:8 there is a challenge from the apostle Paul, and he says, “This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have belief in God might be careful to maintain good works.” The challenge is that those who believe in God, that’s you and me, might be careful to maintain good works. There are two words in that verse that need our careful attention.
The first is the word maintain. It literally means to stand before or to be over something else. It is the idea of rank, of something being set above something else. And the appeal of the apostle Paul is that we give first place in our lives to doing good works. That we excel in good works. That we settle above everything else that our number one priority as the people of God is to do good works.
Paul says, “I want you to be careful to maintain good works.” The word careful means “to be thoughtful.” It carries with it the idea of being anxious. We as the people of God are anxious from time to time about many things. What we need to be anxious or deeply concerned about is that we always set a priority upon doing good works in our life.
From beginning to end the Bible gives emphasis to the importance of good works in the Christian’s life. In John 15:8 Jesus said, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.” Fruitfulness is the doing of good works in the Christian’s life. John the Baptist demanded that those who went to him for baptism bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. And the apostle Paul talked about the fruits of the Spirit. Again and again, the Bible gives emphasis to fruits in the Christian life and those fruits are nothing more than good works. Jesus said on one occasion, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
Repeatedly the Bible talks about good works as the fruit of the Christian life. But the apostle Paul understood that you cannot have fruits without roots. If there is to be a plant that flourishes, grows, and reproduces, then it must have roots that go down deep into the soil and draw their nourishment and their strength from it. Where there are roots, vines, and branches, eventually there can be fruit. In this passage of scripture, he is talking about both the roots and the fruits of the Christian life.
Paul is talking about the fruits when he says to be careful that you maintain good works. He is talking about the roots of the Christian life when he gives us one of the most beautiful presentations of the grace of God to be found in all of scripture. He describes what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, having loved us, saved us, justified us, and adopted us into the family of God. In relaying all of that in such a beautiful and magnificent way, Paul then says to Titus, “I want you to keep emphasizing that; keep hammering that home to people so that those who believe in God will be careful to maintain good works.”
The passage then teaches us two things. It teaches us that the fruit of the Christian life is good works, and the root of the Christian life is the grace of God. Rooted firmly in his grace, we are then to produce good works. I want you to look at this passage of scripture in detail with me today with your Bibles open because it will have more meaning if you can see the words as we think about those two ideas: the fruits of the Christian life and the roots of the Christian life.
1. The fruit. The first thing I want us to consider is the fruit of the Christian life. What do we mean when we talk about fruit in the Christian life? What do we mean when we talk about being careful to maintain good works? Well, most often we think in terms of deeds of kindness and acts of benevolence. We think about that Good Samaritan who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he found a man wounded and left half-dead by the side of the road. He stops and binds up his wounds and he transports the man to a place of safety and security. He pays the bill. He takes care of all of the man’s needs. Ordinarily, when we talk about good works we think in terms of acts like that. Acts of kindness, acts of benevolence.
But when Paul talks about good works in this passage of scripture he is talking about something altogether different from benevolent deeds. He is talking about being a good citizen, of doing your duty as a part of a community in which you live, and of being positively and constructively related to other people.
Look at verse 1. He says, “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready for every good work.” Paul says that you are to be a dutiful Christian. He meant that you are to put yourself under the authority of those duly elected officials who are charged with the responsibility of governing society.
The apostle Paul recognized that these Christians were rebellious and contentious by their very nature. He also recognized that you cannot live in a society without some kind of law and order, otherwise there would be continual chaos and confusion. So his admonition is that if you want to bear good fruit, if you want to do good work, then part of that is fulfilling your duty as a citizen by respecting those who are in authority and by obeying the law. But he moves on from talking about our duty as citizens to talking about our responsibilities to one another.
He says that we are to act in positive good will toward all people with whom we have contact. In verse 2, he says, “To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing meekness unto all men.” As he talks about our responsibility to relate in a positive, constructive way to all men, Paul says there are three things that are important good works.
Speak evil of no man.
He says first of all, that we are to speak evil of no man. He makes reference to slander, gossip, and uncharitable or unkind things that we might say about one another. So the good works that he makes reference to are works of the tongue. These works include words that we say, and the attitude and the disposition that we might have toward one another. More than one person has cut down another person because in some way they think that it lifts them up. They try to build themselves up in this way. But the admonition of scripture is that we speak evil of no man.
Don’t be a fighter.
There is a second thing that Paul mentions, and it is that we not be a brawler. That means that we should not be a contentious or quarrelsome person. We must try to get along with other people. We must not go around with a chip on our shoulder, ready to get in a quarrel, ready to be in a fight, or always contentious with other people. I think if there is a word that Baptists need to hear about getting along, it is this word that you not be a brawler, that you not be a contentious and quarrelsome person. We are by our very makeup people who easily get in contention with one another. I am not suggesting that we can go through life without ever getting in a quarrel, without ever having a disagreement, or without ever arguing about things. There are times when we must stand resolutely and clearly for an issue and we must speak out. But it is possible for us to argue without the argument becoming a quarrel. It is possible for us to disagree without being disagreeable. The admonition of scripture is that as the people of God, we are not to speak evil of one another, and we are not to be a quarrelsome and contentious people.
When I was at the convention a few weeks ago, I heard a story that illustrates the Baptist tendency in this direction. A man went to the Catholic priest to apply for membership in the church, and as they talked together about membership, the man said, “I think that I must be honest with you and tell you that I was kicked out of the Methodist church, and before that I was kicked out of the Baptist church.” The priest inquired, “Will you tell me how that happened?” The man explained, “Well, I was once an active member of the Baptist church, and one day the preacher paid a surprise visit to my house, opened the refrigerator, and saw that I had a six-pack of beer, and he kicked me out of the church for drinking. So I joined a Methodist church, became active in that church, and served on the finance committee. In one of those finance committee meetings we got in a quarrel about the budget, and I socked another man in the nose. And they kicked me out of the Methodist church!” The Catholic priest smiled at him and said, “Well, my friend, if you had just done your fighting in the Baptist church and your drinking in the Methodist church you could still be a member of both of them.”
I don’t know about the Methodists and their drinking, but I do know about the Baptists and their fighting. A guy can fight and get along quite well in the Baptist church. But Paul is saying that by our nature and our temperament, as the people of God we ought not to be quarrelsome and contentious people. He says in another place, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18). That is part of the good works that are to be characterized in our lives.
Be gentle and meek toward others.
Having stated the truth in the negative—that you not speak evil of any man, and that you not be contentious and quarrelsome, he then puts it in the positive by saying that you are to be gentle and meek toward all men. That word gentle means that you are to be considerate, that there is to be a sweet reasonableness about you and me. The longer we pursue the Christian life and the more we grow to be like the Lord Jesus, the more there ought to be a sweet reasonableness about every one of us.
Then he says that you are to be meek toward all men. The word meek can be translated, “to live in perfect courtesy toward all men.” The word meek literally describes controlled strength. It is the picture of an animal like a horse that was once wild and untamed and it was filled with strength, power, and spirit. Then one day it was captured, corralled, and saddle-broken by its owner. When you have saddle-broken a horse so that the master can ride it, and it responds to the reins of the one who sits in the saddle, it can be described as a meek animal. It has all the strength and spirit that it once had. But that strength and spirit has been brought under the control of the master who sits in the saddle and controls the reins. When the Bible talks about meekness, it describes controlled strength. It is the life that has been brought under the reins of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is an illustration of that kind of meekness in the life of David in 2 Samuel, chapter 16 of the Old Testament. David was the king of Israel. He was a great man—a man of strength and a man of spirit. But he suffered a lot of hardship in his life. His own son Absalom rebelled against him, and because of the rebellion of Absalom he found it necessary to leave the capital city of Jerusalem and go out into the wilderness area to live. As he was traveling from Jerusalem to the wilderness, he passed by the house of one of the descendants of King Saul. King Saul had been his predecessor. The descendants of King Saul had an intense hatred for David. As David was fleeing from his rebellious son, this descendent of King Saul cursed him and threw stones at him. Some of David’s men wanted to decapitate him, but David said, “No, let him go, for I rightly deserve what he is saying to me and what he is doing to me.”
David was a man who had the power to take the life of another but refused to do so because he felt that he was being justly treated in this situation. That’s the idea of meekness that is being depicted here. A meek man endures a wrong and suffers injustice without getting even or trying to retaliate, even when it would be within his power to do so.
Put all of this together and it sums up what Paul is talking about when he mentions good works. The fruits of the Christian life are that you respect and obey authority, that you do not speak evil of any man, that you are not a quarrelsome and contentious person, that you are kind and gentle in your dealings with all people, and that you always act in perfect courtesy. When Paul talks about the fruit of the Christian life, he is talking about that kind of behavior. He is saying to those of us who believe in God that we ought to be careful that we always give priority to living this kind of good works.
2. The root. All of this is rooted in the grace of God. How does a man live this kind of life? How do we produce this kind of fruit in our lives? The apostle Paul teaches that such rich fruit must be rooted in the grace of God. He tells us in Titus 3:3-8 that it is from the grace of God that such a life flows. Look at verse 3 as he describes what we used to be and then in verse 4 when he describes how God has treated us: “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared.”
How can we deal kindly, patiently, and graciously with other people? It is because we remember what we used to be, and we remember how God dealt with us. There was a time when we acted foolishly. We were blind to the things of God and to the things of the Spirit. Thus we were disobedient and rebellious against God. Our lives were controlled by our own lusts, appetites, and desires. Our lifestyle was characterized by hatred, anger, envy, and malice. But when we were like that, God acted kindly and gently toward us, and he redeemed us through the Lord Jesus Christ. He has justified us and made us heirs of all that he possesses.
It is because of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ that we in turn ought to love one another and be kind and gentle toward one another. He is talking about the root from which this fruit of good works grows. That root is the grace of God.
I want you to look in verse 4 through verse 7 at four things God has done for us that are expressions of his grace. Paul tells us in verse 4 that God loved us. In verse 5 he says that God saved us. In verse 7 he says that God justified us and adopted us. In those four statements, you have an idea of what God has done for us. He has loved us. He has saved us. He has justified us. He has adopted us. Now if God dealt that way with us, we ought to deal kindly with one another.
Look at those four statements in detail.
First of all, God loved us.
In verse 4, after we lived like we have lived, the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared. That word appeared means that it happened at a definite point in time in history. It has reference to Jesus Christ, and it expresses what Jesus said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that [at a point in time, at a definite point in history] he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The heart of the Gospel is that God loves you and me, and he has acted in kindness toward us. In that definite point in time, he sent his Son Jesus to be our Savior. God loves us.
God has saved us.
He saves us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Paul wants us to understand how salvation has come, so he begins with the negative. It is not by works of righteousness that we have done. You know the oldest and the greatest religious delusion in the world is that a man can work and earn his way into God’s favor, or that he can merit salvation. The basis of all world religion is that man works to gain his standing before God. The uniqueness of Christianity is that God has done it all.
When we were sinners and away from God, still he loved us, acted kindly toward us, and sent his Son Jesus to do everything for us. Salvation is wholly based upon the mercy of God, not upon the works of man. Now, could anything be clearer than this verse of scripture? No doubt about it. Salvation is the result of the love and the mercy of God poured out freely upon us.
God loved us and as a result of his love, he has saved us. It describes salvation in two ways: the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. The word regeneration has reference to the new birth. The word renewing has reference to that new life that comes out of the new birth.
One time Nicodemus came to Jesus and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him” (John 3:2). And Jesus saw right through the heart of this man who was very religious, very devout, very upright, and very moral. He said to him, “Nicodemus, except you be born again, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus was talking about when he mentioned new birth. He understood a physical birth. He understood the first birth. But he had no concept of a new birth. Jesus told him he was talking about a new birth that happens within the spirit of a man, from the Spirit of God. Jesus said that new birth is not optional in the Christian life. You must be born again.
God who loved us has saved us, and that salvation involves a new birth. We have had the washing of regeneration, the washing of a new birth through the Lord Jesus. But there is more than just a new birth; there is also a new life. There is a renaming from the Holy Ghost. Paul said, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). In Jesus there is not only a new birth; there is new life that flows. All of it was made possible and was shed upon us through the Lord Jesus Christ. God loved us. God saved us.
He has justified us.
That word justified means that we have been set free from guilt. Someone has defined the word justified in this way: when I believe and trust in Jesus, I become just as if I’d never sinned. That means I’m free from condemnation. Free from guilt. Free from sin. He declared me not guilty of all of my sins.
He adopted us.
Finally, he says that he has given us an inheritance: the hope of eternal life. He adopted us as his children. And since we are his children, we are heirs of everything that he has and that includes eternal life.
The apostle Peter talked about an inheritance that was incorruptible, undefiled, and does not fade away. He was talking about heaven itself. What God does for us not only relates to this earth, but also to heaven. Not only to this life, but to the life that is to come. God has given us a place in his eternal kingdom. That’s more important than most people realize today.
Sometime ago there was a television mini-series about Benito Mussolini, the racist leader of Italy in pre–World War II days. Mussolini was Italy’s leader during World War II until his death. This man was cruel and evil in so many ways. This man was an atheist with no faith in God, but he had a favorite son named Bruno who was the one most like his dad and the most promising to succeed his dad until he was killed in a plane crash. In the mini-series, there is a scene where Mussolini is at the cemetery where his son is to be buried. He sits in a lone chair. It was the only chair in front of that casket. His wife and other family members are behind him, and he just stares at that casket containing the body of his son. After a while his wife walks up behind him and puts her hand on his shoulder and says to him, “It is time to go.” And he said, “I cannot bear to leave him here alone.” And she said, “But he is not alone. He is with his grandfather and his grandmother.” And this man Mussolini who believed nothing said, “I wish I could believe that.”
Without God, there is no life to come. Without God, there is no hope beyond the grave. Without God, there is no inheritance of eternal life. But in him and through him, all of that is possible. God has given to us the hope of everlasting life. That’s what God has done for us.
The work of grace in our lives is the motivating force and the energizing power for us to be gracious and kind to one another. Grace is the root and good works are the fruit. So God’s word to you today is this: You who believe in God, be careful to maintain good works. Be a good citizen. Do not speak evil of any man. Don’t be a quarrelsome or a contentious person. Be meek and gentle with your dealings with all people. This is the root and the fruit of the Christian life.