Episode 283: Titus Overview | Tim Henderson

Introduction

Hey everybody, good morning. Hope you guys are doing alright.

Alright, so if you guys were here on Good Friday, then you might recall that I made the suggestion that the three most important books in the New Testament are what? Do you remember what I said? Romans. What else? Hebrews. Hebrews and? John. Leviticus is in the Old Testament, it’s very important. Okay? Right? Now you can disagree or you can disagree, that’s fine, whatever. I mean, except you can’t disagree about Romans, but you can play with the rest if you want. But John, Romans, and Hebrews, I think are the most foundationally important books, so much insight, just in terms of bang for the buck, so much good stuff in there.

However, when I was 22 years old and freshly married and just kinda beginning life as an adult, if you’d asked me then, what’s your favorite book in the New Testament? Do you know what I would have said? You just said because you look at the bulletin. Right? You just look at the bulletin. Don’t look at the cheater. Dan is a cheater. Okay? The answer is Titus, which I think may have been an unusual answer to give because it’s kind of a little bit of a forgotten avenue in the New Testament. I don’t think we get, I don’t think we tend to teach a lot from Titus or draw a lot from Titus, but I loved Titus.

And the reason that I loved Titus is that year in my life, I decided I, I don’t know. I don’t remember exactly why I picked it, but I decided I would pick a book and then study it. I remember I had this red three-ring notebook binder thing, and I would print up the text, would type it up and print it up with like broad spacing and like big margins, like double space so there’s lots of room to write on it and then like a paragraph at a time I would just go through it and just like stare at it until it gave up its secrets. I wasn’t using commentaries and stuff, which I use all the time, I love commentaries, but I just wanted to observe this thing and then just kind of, with repeated, read it, memorize it, look at it, compare it, and figure out what it meant.

And as I did that, and as I learned things, it’s like I noticed things and made discoveries of things, those discoveries were really sweet to me because I’d figured them out. And there’s something, I don’t know if you had this experience, but the thing is, there’s the vast majority of what I know, somebody else told me. But there’s this handful of things that I figured out all by myself, and those things are particularly sweet to me.

Do you know this phenomena? Okay. So I fell in love with the book of Titus because I had just done the work to figure it out. And I think it’s full of insights and full of jewels and I wanna share with you what I think are the two secret keys to Titus. If Titus is gonna give up its secrets to you, if you’re gonna understand the message of the book, I think there are really two things to notice. And so I’m gonna try to recreate like months of study in about twenty minutes and walk you through and help you have some of the pleasure of discovering what’s going on in the book of Titus. You with me? So if you have it, could turn there. All the T’s, by the way, in the New Testament, this is just kinda we get lucky on this. All the T’s are together in alphabetical, numerical order. So if you find Thessalonians or Timothy, you’re close. Okay. And I’ve forgotten my password. Okay. There it is. Okay. Great. Like this I’m sure this is right, but that will be my phone and not my iPad.

So we’re gonna be in Titus chapter one and I just want you to read—we’re gonna read the first four verses—and when we do, I want you to listen for something that’s weird, that’s surprising, that’s unusual, that might where the needle might skip on the record for you. Okay? Here it is, Titus one.

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time. And at his appointed season, he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our savior.

Verse four, to Titus, my true son in our common faith. Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior.

Now, depending on how familiar you are with Paul’s writings, that may not have had anything that was like, wait a minute, what? What just happened here? But if you are very familiar with Paul, if you’ve read Paul’s letters, if you’ve read Romans and 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, all the rest, and you know them, then something just happened there in that first little opener that was a deviation from normal. Where what Paul does every time, always, constantly, consistently, the pattern that he sets, he changed right there in that letter.

Now, it may or not be obvious to you yet, but let me get you up to speed really quick on the way Paul opens all of his letters. Okay. So go to Romans. You’ll see these. I’ll put these on screen, you can follow along if you wanna note it. Listen to Romans one. This is verse seven.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you live up to 1 Corinthians 1:3, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You go to 2 Corinthians chapter one, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at this.

I can do Galatians without even looking. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You may wanna make a guess on how Ephesians begins. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now admittedly, when you get to Colossians, it’s gonna read, grace and peace to you from God the Father, full stop. But then if you look, there’s gonna be a little letter next to it, and if you look down to your footnote it’ll say, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay? And what that means, by the way, is that the manuscripts are different. We have early copies of Colossians that say, grace and peace to you from God the Father, and we have early copies of Colossians that say, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Which means either, one of the following two things is true. Either Paul broke from his pattern and he just wrote, grace and peace to you from God our Father, but the guy that was copying it for, like, no, to send it to the next church just was habituated to writing, and the Lord Jesus Christ, because he always does that. Or Paul originally wrote it and somebody just biffed it and they missed it. But either way, it makes the point. This is how Paul begins all of his letters, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, when he writes to Timothy, he throws in a mercy in there, grace, peace, and mercy to you, God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. But this is his universal pattern until you get to Titus. So listen again to what he says in Titus. Again, this might have just kinda like washed over you. You don’t notice these things. But he says in verse four, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior.

What’s the difference? Savior rather than Lord.

Okay. Now, you could look at that and be like, okay, blah blah blah, you’re wasting our time here. Why is that a big deal? Well, here’s the thing. I think it is a big deal. I think it’s significant. And it’s one of those loose threads, and if you start to pull on it, you realize, oh my gosh, this goes all sorts of places. When I noticed this, I’m like, I wonder why he would say grace and peace to you from Christ Jesus, our savior, instead of Lord. I wonder what is going on with there. So begin to kinda like dig into this and look. And what I noticed is not just that every one of Paul’s letters begins with the language of Lord, but Lord is by far Paul’s favorite title for Jesus. Over and over and over and over again, he calls him Lord.

Now, sometimes we will imagine that when Paul calls Jesus Lord or even when Christians just use the term Lord, it’s kind of a polite way of saying that Jesus is God. Okay? That’s not what’s going on here. Jesus is God and we needn’t be terribly polite in that observation. He is God. He’s always been God. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. The deity of Christ is richly attested to. It’s not what Paul is saying. When he calls Jesus Lord or Kurios, he’s calling him King.

The central claim of the gospel is that Jesus has been made King.

When he says in Matthew 28, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, what he’s saying is he has become king. Psalm 2 is about him becoming king. Daniel 7 is about his enthronement as king. He has become king, and it is the central claim of the best things in your life. And Paul is not at all afraid to affirm that Christ is king. In fact, 257 times in Paul’s 13 letters, he calls Jesus king. He calls him lord. He calls him curios. He is lord, lord, lord, lord, lord, lord, lord. Endlessly, he is attesting to the reign and the rule and the sovereignty and the power of Christ over the cosmos.

However, he never once calls him Lord in the book of Titus. This is very unusual. Even in little tiny Philemon, which is like a paragraph long, he calls Jesus Lord six times. Okay? But for some reason, it’s not just in this opening line, but in the whole book, he pointedly, intentionally, and utterly avoids ever calling Christ Lord. He never attests to his kingship and to his reign over the cosmos. That’s weird.

And anything weird, whenever you find anything in your Bible that’s weird, slow down. Pay attention. What are you doing here, Paul? Why are you so intent on affirming the lordship of Christ everywhere you go, but not here in this particular passage? Okay. Understanding the answer to that in conjunction with the second key is gonna be the thing that opens up the book of Titus to you. You with me? So zero out of 257 uses of Lord, and instead he has another preferred title that he uses in Titus. Any idea what it is? What does Jesus, what does Paul call Jesus if he doesn’t call him Lord in his letter to Titus? Calls him savior. Now, you can look at this, you can see it right here, and again, in verse four, he says, grace and peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior.

Here’s the thing that I was really interested and surprised to discover. 257 times he calls Jesus Lord, but he only calls Jesus savior a dozen times throughout all of his writings. Okay? So we’re fond of the phrase our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. That phrase never actually occurs in the New Testament. It’s usually one or the other. Overwhelmingly it’s Lord, a dozen times it’s savior. But here’s what’s so surprising: half of the saviors occur in Titus.

This is a book that has a very strong, a very unique, a very particular focus on Christ, not as king, but as savior. Trying to tease out why that is, is gonna be really important to us if we’re gonna understand what Paul is doing, what he’s trying to communicate in this book. Okay?

He, listen to what he says. This is the savior language from Titus. In chapter one, verse three, at his appointed season, he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our savior.

Titus 1:4,

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior.

Titus 2:9,

teach slaves to show that they can be fully trusted so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our savior attractive.

And by the way, if you’re thinking to yourself, wait a minute, those are about God, those aren’t about Jesus per se. Well, true, but hold on. Titus 2:13,

while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ.

Paul is affirming fully the deity of Christ. He is God and he is our savior who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own eager to do what is good.

In Titus 3:3–5, he really fleshes it out.

When the kindness and love of God our savior appeared, he saved us. Not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

And then finally, in Titus 3:6–7,

whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our savior, so that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life.

You guys, Titus is a letter, a book with an unmistakable and undeviating focus on Christ as savior rather than Christ as lord. He is lord. He’s not denying it. He’s just not talking about it and he’s got a reason that he’s not gonna talk about it. We’re gonna figure out what that reason is, okay? You with me so far? You got the first key? It’s a double key. It’s the Lord savior thing, that’s one.

The Second Key: Doing What is Good

Here’s the second thing. I’m gonna read you several passages from Titus. He has a term, he has a phrase, and it recurs over and over and over again through this letter. No matter what, he just keeps coming back to this, and back to this, and back to this theme.

Listen to this. Titus 1:8 says, this is about elders, this line.

Rather, the elder must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

Titus 1:16,

they claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good.

Titus 2:3,

likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.

Titus 2:7,

in everything, set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching, show integrity, seriousness, soundness of speech.

Titus 2:14,

is about Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Titus 3:1,

remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good.

Titus 3:8,

this is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

Titus 3:14,

Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives.

Anything jump out at you? Good. Right? It could be the term good or it could be the phrase do what is good. Do what is good. Do what is good. Do what is good. Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good. Do what is good, do what is good, do what is good.

I don’t know if any of you remember this, do you remember in the nineties there was a debate about lordship salvation? Can Jesus be your savior if he’s not your lord? Yes. Paul’s answer to that in the book of Titus is that the question is wrong. We do not obey Jesus because he is the lord. He is the lord. Whether you acknowledge it or not, he is the king and he reigns over the cosmos. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him and that has been settled. But it’s not the reason we obey him. We obey him because he is the savior. We obey him because of his love and his grace and his mercy and his kindness. We love him because he gave himself for us.

It is, you have two—you have two competing possible motives here. It could be because Jesus is king, because he’s got a scepter, because he’s got a stick, don’t step out of line. And if you do, he’s just gonna whack you upside the head because he’s the king, I tell you, so bend the knee. Right? Or there’s a different motive that says he is the savior, he is the gracious one, he is the one who loved you when you were his rebel and an enemy. He’s one who’s shown you endless mercy and grace and kindness.

And Paul, what he’s going to do here, well, let me give you the context for Crete. So Paul’s writing to Titus. Titus is the pastor of the church in Crete. And Crete’s a mess. When we did our series on 1 Corinthians, we kinda made the case that, you know, the Corinthians were just a disaster. They were acting, that the church was acting more like Corinth and not very much like Christians, and Paul is writing them to say, hey, more Christian, less Corinth, that’d be that’d be great. Okay? Same kind of a vibe going on here in Crete.

Crete’s a mess and Paul is writing to the pastor Titus in Crete to say, listen, if we’re gonna reach this island for Christ, if we’re gonna transform this place, it is imperative that our people learn to live upright lives. Our people need to shine and sparkle. There needs to be a goodness that just permeates the church in Crete. He’s basically expanding on what Jesus said.

You don’t take a light and then put a bushel over it. No. You take the lamp shade off and you light it up and you let it illumine the whole place. Put it on a hill.

He says, you people, you Titus, you need to tell your people that they’ve gotta live lives that are good. We must do what is good, do what is good. We must learn to devote ourselves to doing what is good. We must love what is good. Our lives should be marked by this.

And he knows, okay, we can get here. There’s two ways we can get here. We can go to the whole king with a stick thing and just threaten them, smack them, knock them out, okay? Or we can remind them of the grace and the love and the kindness and the mercy of Jesus. And that looks more expedient, does it not? Like one more time I’m gonna, you know, right, okay. But it doesn’t work. It doesn’t change, it never works. This—the threat of punishment, the demand of obedience—doesn’t work. The way that our lives are constituted, it just doesn’t fix us. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t fix me. Does it fix you? Are you some weirdo? It doesn’t work that way. What works is love and mercy and kindness and grace.

And so Paul, in this letter, Paul who affirms the kingship of Christ says, this particular context, at this particular moment, given the urgency of the thing, you must focus on the grace of our Lord Jesus.

Listen to how he explains it, the grace of our Lord Jesus. Listen to how he’s gonna unpack it. He’s gonna say in Titus 2:11,

for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. What is the it? When he says it teaches us to say, what’s the it? Grace. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It, grace, teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in the present age while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and savior, Christ, who gave—let me tell what it means that he’s a savior. He gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

It is grace that teaches us to say no to ungodliness. Crete was a mess, and the gospel needed to shine brightly there. So Paul says, you’ve got to help these people be good, and the means by which we will accomplish this is a dramatic focus on grace. Speak to them of grace day in, day out, remind them of the gracious, merciful love of God, of the patience and the kindness of Christ who loved them in their rebellion. Don’t threaten them, don’t cajole them, show them grace. For it is grace that teaches us to say no to ungodliness.

Preach grace. Now, my suggestion to you is that this little island, this present moment, is no less debauched than Crete. Have you noticed this? You guys, our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good. The world is awash in a sea of foolishness, rebellion, just vain thinking. We must shine brightly with our lives so well ordered that it compels people to ask us, what gives? Like, explain this to me. How is it that in a universe that just demands falsehoods, you only say true things? How is it in a world that is so antagonistic and so graceless that you—I’ve watched it. I’ve watched it happen—where people are on your back and you do not revile those who revile you. Where do you find the resources to be gracious and kind and compassionate when it’s not even remotely warranted? You want people to say, okay, I know people that are truthful and harsh and I know people that are gracious but they just kinda like, they have no valuation of what is true. How do you do both? Like, tell me your story. What explains this goodness?

Okay. Well how is it that we could become a people who love the things that are true and good and beautiful in a world that reviles all manner of things? Where just endless folly is being spouted forth. How do we do that? What would it look like?

Paul’s answer is that if we ourselves were to live in a rich river experiencing the grace of God, knowing that I am wrong on so many things and yet his love to me is limitless. It continues unabated. If I were to have that experience, if I were aware of what it is to have a savior, then that would resource me, that would equip me, that would enable me to be gracious to other people when they remind me of me. And that we will become a people that are always saying true things, but always saying them graciously, that we never bear grudges, that we are instead kind, we are unrelentingly truthful and inexplicably compassionate, that our lives are good, our experience of grace, and our knowledge of truth leads us to be people that are endlessly gracious.

One of my very favorite literary characters is a mouse named Reepicheep. And if you know the Narnia stories, then you probably love him too because he’s the best. Okay? He’s a mouse, so he’s little, but he’s a talking mouse, so he’s a little bit bigger than little. And he’s valiant and noble, he’s a knight, he’s like a three musketeer kind of kid, and he is always gonna do the right thing, he’s always ready to fight, he’s always ready to draw his sword in defense of things that are honorable and good.

Set apart from Reepicheep is this kid named Eustace, who is none of those things. This is all in the book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This takes place on a ship, and Eustace is just the worst of the worst. He’s a prig of a boy, he’s arrogant, he’s entitled, he is deceptive, he is intensely unlikable. He does one of the low moments of Eustace’s life—he picks up Reepicheep by the tail and swings him over his head. Okay? Which, to anyone, would be unkind to do that to any mouse. But to do it to Reepicheep is such an affront, okay?

So Reepicheep, he makes himself the enemy of this mouse. But then they go to an island, and on this island, some magic befalls him, and Eustace gets turned into a dragon. Much to his terror, much to his fear. And he is, it is miserable. As the other people on the ship, they’re on this island and they discover this dragon, and they don’t know—of course—they’re like, hey, are you Eustace? They just think it’s a dragon that’s gonna kill them all and so they’re all terrified of him. But somehow he manages to convey that he’s not an ordinary dragon, he is their old, we’ll say friend, but really they hated him too, this Eustace. And they, now they’re stuck, can’t leave the island, they can’t leave him behind, but they can’t bring him because he’s this massive dragon. And it’s all quite sad.

Here’s what happens, and I want you to see Reepicheep as an illustration of what our lives should be. Lewis writes, the pleasure, quite new to Eustace, of being liked and still more of liking other—oh, so Eustace softened. In his dragoniness, he’s so sorrowful. He’s hurting so much that he sweetens up a little bit.

The pleasure quite new to Eustace of being liked and still more of liking other people was what kept Eustace from despair. For it was very dreary being a dragon. He shuddered whenever he caught sight of his own reflection as he flew over a mountain lake. He hated the huge bat-like wings, the saw-edged ridge on his back, and the cruel curved claws. He was almost afraid to be alone with himself, and yet he was ashamed to be with the others.

On the evenings when he was not being used as a hot water bottle, he would slink away from the camp and lie curled up like a snake between the wood and the water. On such occasions, greatly to his surprise, Reepicheep was his most constant comforter. The noble mouse would creep away from the merry circle at the campfire, and sit down by the dragon’s head, well to the windward to be out of the way of his smoky breath. And there he would explain that what had happened to Eustace was a striking illustration of the turn of Fortune’s wheel, and that if he had Eustace at his own house in Narnia, it was really a hole, not a house, and the dragon’s head—let alone his body—would not have fitted in.

He could show him more than a hundred examples of emperors, kings, dukes, knights, poets, lovers, astronomers, philosophers, and magicians who had fallen from prosperity into most distressing circumstances, and of whom many had recovered and lived happily ever afterward. It did not perhaps seem so very comforting at the time, but it was kindly meant, and Eustace never forgot it.

Because this is just one aspect of what it means to be good. We who know the savior, the savior, the savior, are to be as truthful as he was and is, and as gracious as he was and is. No grudges. No anger. No meanness. We love like he loves us. And we seek the good of others, even those who consider us to be their enemies. We are kind. We are gracious. We are hospitable, to use Paul’s language. We love what is good. We’re self-controlled. We’re upright. We’re holy. We’re disciplined. We hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught so that we can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

And of course, we are because our admiration is fixed on someone who is all of those things, someone who loves us and gave himself for us. It is his grace that teaches us to be good.

He is a fantastic teacher of such things, and we are but poor students. But we can grow in this. As we gaze on the savior and consider the depth of his love, it resources us to be that for others.

I’m gonna pray for us that that might even be true even today, that it might click up one notch, click that we would become a kinder people, a more compassionate people, a more patient people. Even as we hold firmly to the trustworthy message. Right? We may not say untrue things. We lock in, but we do it kindly. We do it graciously because we know the one who is grace embodied.

And if you, right now, need to come forward, maybe there’s something to confess, you’re like, I have not been gracious. I need to go apologize to somebody. Come and talk to him. He’s gracious to you and your feelings and shortcomings. He loves you and he invites you to a new, refreshed renewal.

And if you’ve never known him, you’re like, I didn’t know he was like that. Come. He loves you, and he gave himself for you.

Jesus, we love you, and we come to you this morning because you are so good at all the things that we are sometimes not very good at. Would you make us, this body right here, to be a people that understand how deeply grace impacts others because we would remember and we would experience how deeply your grace impacts us.

Jesus, we praise you. We exalt you. We know that you are king. We know that you reign. But this morning, we praise you that you are the savior. You are the rescuer. You are the one who suffered the agonies of all that the world could throw at you and the very wrath of God so that we would not. We praise you. We honor you. We lift you up. Amen.