How to live in a pagan society (PARt 2)
Titus 3:3-8
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Preached on a Sunday Service (Mar. 18, 2001)
by Bro. Jurem Ramos
at the Soli Deo Gloria Church, Juna Subd., Matina, Davao City
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Review
In Tit 3:1-2 we saw how Christians are to live in within a pagan culture and society. If we are to know how to live in a pagan culture, we have to...
remember our duty.
Paul's teaching was not limited to the way of salvation only. It also included instructions concerning the practical implications of that salvation for daily living. Paul was not content to have believers know they are saved and enjoy it. Because Christians still live in this world, they are to live in such a manner that unbelievers will see their transformed life, and thus make the gospel believable. Believers in Christ do this, not only by how they relate to their fellow Christians but also by how they live within society itself.
We Christians have a duty to government.
1. In verse 1, we are to be subject to rulers and to authorities. "To be subject" implies voluntary acceptance of this position of submission. We willingly submit to both the president and those of lower position but still rule over us.
2. Next, we are to be obedient. Whatever the law says we comply and we obey. Obedience is the result and visible demonstration of their attitude of submission. The context implies obedience to the particular demands of government, though the practice of obedience is not to be limited to these areas. It is assumed that the obedience demanded does not contradict explicit Christian duties.
3. As good citizens, we Christians e are ready to do whatever is good. We are eager to do every positive good. Take note of our attitude: It is doing good with eagerness and not with reluctance. It is not because we are being forced to do so or because we just afraid of punishment. We are glad, eager, anxious to pursue every good deed we can within our society.
"Christians must be prepared and willing to participate in activities that promote the welfare of the community. They must not stand coldly aloof from praiseworthy enterprises of government but show good public spirit, thus proving that Christianity is a constructive force in society."
Believers also have obligations to pagan neighbors.
4. Negatively, they must slander no one. We abstain from hurling curses or revile or speak evil of people even of those who offend or injure us. We don't malign them nor defame their reputation. This is appropriate for those who claim to be followers of Christ, who did not revile when he was reviled (1Pe 2:23).
5. Furthermore, they must be peaceable (lit., "non-fighting"). Christians refuse to engage in quarrels and conflicts. We are not contentious, we are not combative, we don't fight, we don't pick fights, and we don't retaliate. We are not belligerent and quarrelsome. We are not pugilists.
6. Positively, Christians must be gentle. They are not harsh nor violent, not stubbornly insisting on their own rights but acting in courtesy and forbearance. Christians are to be considerate of human weakness and very patient with sinners. We are to be sweetly reasonable and graciously kind.
7. Finally, Christians should continually show true [lit. "all"] humility, (NASB "showing every consideration"). This is an attitude of mind that is the opposite of self-assertiveness and harshness. Humility or consideration is not to be exhibited only in dealing with fellow believers but must be shown "toward all men," including those who are hostile and morally perverse. This is a difficult test of Christian character but it effectively proves the genuineness of our Christian profession.
So if we are to know how to behave in a pagan society, first of all Paul says, we must remember our duties. It is in fulfilling these duties that produce a powerful witness. What makes the gospel believable is not fighting Christians, not protesting Christians, not politicizing Christians, not Christians in a hate campaign towards anti-Christian groups, not Christians who damn and curse and consign to hell the media and other godless sectors of society. What makes Christianity attractive is winsomeness -- demonstrating the loveliness of Christ to all through courteous and gracious behavior.
Remember your former condition
Now let us turn to v.3. What can motivate us to fulfill those Christian duties? Unless our conduct is supported by very weighty motives, we will not see that those duties are possible or even necessary. One of the things that can motivate us is by remembering our former condition before we became Christians. This is what Paul does in v. 3: He reminds the believers of their former condition before they were saved. (v.3-"At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.")
Take note of the phrase "We too were". This shows that the condition described applied to Paul and Titus as well as to the Cretan Christians before they became believers. This is a fact that is true of all believers everywhere. To have a proper response in a pagan culture and to compassionately deal with the unsaved in their depravity, it is helpful to remember our own past moral condition.
Before you get slanderous, before you get angry at those in authority in your country and those around you who are in sin and those who have an immoral agenda, before you get hostile and slanderous and angry and before you court those kinds of emotions that lead to venomous kinds of acts and thoughts of vengeance, before you become inconsiderate, before you fight for the cultural Christian agenda, before you attack the ungodly and attack the unsaved, Paul says remember once you were one of them. Did you forget? Did you forget that you used to be like that and you couldn't do anything about it?
Matthew Henry's Commentary:
Consideration of men's natural condition is a great means and ground of equity and gentleness, and all meekness, towards those who are yet in such a state. This has a tendency to decrease pride and work pity and hope in reference to those who are yet unconverted.
In verse 3 we have another one of those lists that Paul loves to give. Just like the lists found in Rom 1, 1Co 6, Gal 5, and Eph 4, he is another list that defines the universal and comprehensive depth of human fallenness. Paul reminds his readers that all of us were like that. Let's look at v.3
1. you were once foolish.
What does that mean? "Foolish" here means without spiritual understanding and lacking discernment of spiritual realities because of the darkening effect of sin on the intellect. They don't know what they're doing. Eph 4:18 says basically the same thing, that the Gentiles are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the darkening effect of sin on the intellect. 2Co.4:4 gives us another reason for this foolishness, "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
MacArthur said,
I suppose you thought that somehow the more intelligent people came, the more likely they were to approximate a biblical morality...wrong, absolutely wrong. If you want a good insight into that, pick up a book written by Paul Johnson called The Intellectuals. He is probably the foremost historian in our world today of western civilization and you will go through the most unbelievable morass of filth in reading about the intellectual philosophical architects of contemporary western culture and you will find out that those men who were smart enough to design the whole culture in which you live were the most debauched human beings on the face of the earth...and their lives would make a black mark on a piece of coal. Intelligence and education has nothing to contribute to morality.
You look at the gay agenda and you watch the homosexual pride parade and you listen to all the lesbian advocacy and you see all of the Playboy mentality and the filth and the pornography of our time and you watch this agenda being pushed on the social institutions and taught to your children, everything from sex education to passing out birth control devices and all of the stuff going on and something in you becomes hostile to all of that and you've got to stop and realize that the people doing that are doing it in utter ignorance.
2. Then he says they're disobedient
"Disobedient" is to be uncontrolled and unpersuadable, willfully disregarding authority. They are disobedient to God and to His word. They laugh and mock at the Bible openly or secretly. Consequently they are disobedient to all authority instituted by God. They are displeased, annoyed and irritated to be under any human authority.
There is in the heart of man rebellion. It is bound up in his heart. It's bound up in his fallenness. That's why you spank your children, to bring their rebelliousness under some control. But where the Spirit of God isn't there to restrain it, lawless resistance to truth and virtue will run amuck That is just what depravity does. They are disobedient.
3. Next he says they are deceived.
"Deceived" pictures active straying from the true course by following false guides. "Deceived" literally means they are led astray.
4. Enslaved
By allowing our conduct to be dictated by a wide variety of personal "passions and pleasures," we inevitably became enslaved to them. What the man of this world thinks that if he can do anything he likes he is really free and be truly happy but God calls it bondage or enslavement. These men who think they are enjoying their passions and pleasures are really serving them as taskmasters and tyrants. And those who are slaves of sin have so many masters - all kinds of passions and pleasures.
The are enslaved "by all kinds of passions and pleasures." It might be by money. It might be by sex. It might be by lesbian sex. It might be by homosexuality among men. It might be by power. It might be by food. It might be by alcohol. It might be by drugs. It might be by murder. It might be by rape. It might be by who knows what. They are driven by passion or lust.
And he adds pleasures from which we get the word hedonism. They live for what makes them feel good. The main thing in their life is freedom. They just want to follow their impulses, nothing holds them down, nothing quantifies their life, nothing qualifies their life. They are led by whatever they feel. If it feels good, they do it. It's like one of those humorous statements you hear. "I'm on a "sea food" diet. Whenever I see food, I eat."
5 & 6. The next two vices in the list are "We lived in malice and envy." Never finding true personal satisfaction in the pursuit of passion and pleasure, we lived our lives in "malice and envy." We harbored an attitude of ill-will toward others and enviously resented the good fortune of others.
"Malice" means wickedness, deep wickedness, but it has the idea of a malicious wickedness that wants to hurt and harm and take what it wants at the expense of others. To "envy" is to have a feeling of feeling of resentment at another's good. An envious person displease, annoyed or irritated at someone else's prosperity and success in anything, which he would like to have himself.
7. And that leads ultimately to the end of verse 3, being hated and hating one another. They become people who deserve to get hated. And they also become literally consumed with hating anybody who stands in their way. They are self-centered to the degree where they hate anyone that is at all an obstacle to them or a problem to them or anybody who disagrees with them or stands in their way or takes issue with them. And then ultimately they come to the place where they hate everybody but themselves because that's where depravity ultimately goes, it goes to ego and ego says I want what I want when I want it and you get out of my way cause I'm getting it. That's why they can't maintain marriages. That's why parents can't get along with each other. That's why children hate parents, parents hate children. The ultimate agenda of fallen man is pride and pride isolates him from everybody. That's the picture.
Now what do you expect people like that to be?
Sometimes we hear ourselves saying, "Grabe naman! We know there's immorality and homosexuality in the streets, but when it happens in the Congress or when it happens in the Senate, or when immorality happens in the President's cabinet, or to the President himself, isn't it terrible that men who have the public trust and men who are lifted up don't live moral lives?"
We should not be surprised. The tendency of any president is to live the same kind of life that the guy in the street is going to live, they're just going to be more sophisticated at it. That will be their natural tendency because they're blind to God and therefore blind to all spiritual reality, rebellious to God's law and resistant completely to His truth. Utterly deceived about what is true and what is right, in complete bondage to mindless passion and living only for pleasure, they feed on the living by perverse treatment of others so that they are detested by the rest of the egotists and everybody winds up hating everybody.
If you an unbelieving member of your family, a co-employee or boss falls into such sins, you should not be surprised. They are simply living according to their natural tendencies. T the only reason why this does not manifest in others as blatantly is because of fear of punishment or because they haven't been exposed to pressure and hurt. But remove all restraints, remove all punishment, and you will discover that at the slightest provocation, they will quickly fall.
With that kind of people populating the earth, what kind of world do you think are we going to have? And again remember, that you and I were there once too.
And if you were saved, it is all because of the grace of God, and apart from that grace you'd be a part of the same blindness. So before you eagerly rush to mistreat the pagans who offend you, consider your own depravity. They are depraved and so were you before you were saved and you were no different than them. And that's what we may expect.
And so you and I have got to look at them as Jesus looked at them and see them sadly on their way to hell and unable to do anything other than what they're doing. Yes there is a rebellion in them, yes there is an animosity toward God, there is a cruel attitude toward what is true, and yes it is reprehensible and yes God will condemn them and punish them in eternal hell if they don't turn from their sin and believe in Him, but at the same time God so loved the world. And we've got to be able to cope with the sin and see the iniquity for what it is and confront it for what it is without becoming malicious rebels who hate the very culture God has called us to reach. If Jesus could sit and look over at the city of Jerusalem and weep for their apostasy, can we look over our nation and weep? Remember your duty, he says, and remember your former condition.
If we're going to have a proper perspective in a pagan culture we must
Remember your salvation.
"But" introduces the familiar Pauline contrast between what we once were and now are (cf. Ro 6:17-23; 1Co 6:9-11; Eph 2:2-13; 5:7-12; Col 1:21-22; 3:7-10). God's marvelous salvation, summarized here, must motivate our dealings with the unsaved.
So he says to Titus, you tell them to remember your salvation. Verses 4 through 7 is one long sentence that sweeps over the reality of salvation to remind us that the only reason we're different is because of God, not us.
Nothing is worse than Christians sitting around damning all of the unconverted people because of the fact that we're better than they are. The only reason you're not one of them on the way to hell is because of God's grace. You've got to remember that.
Look at verses 4-7
4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 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, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
The only reason you're an heir and the only reason you have a hope of eternal life and the only reason you're justified and made right with God, and the only reason that you have come through Jesus Christ to receive the Holy Spirit, and the only reason you've been renewed and regenerated and washed, the only reason you've been saved is because of God's initiative. That's what he's saying.
There is so much here you could spend the rest of your life in those verses. It sweeps across the great glorious truths of salvation. And I'm not going to take the time to do that, next time we're going to go back into this thing and look a little more closely at those features. But for now I want you to feel the impact of the whole of what he is saying. Follow me through those verses again.
Salvation was initiated by God, verse 4,
" But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,"
The initiative is with God. He came into the world showing His kindness and His love in the incarnation in Christ. He saved us. Again, His initiation. Not on the basis of something which we had done which was righteous and therefore earned it, but according to His mercy. He washed us, He regenerated us, He renewed us through the Holy Spirit, He poured out His Spirit on us through Christ, He justified us by His grace, He made us heirs and He gave us the hope of eternal life. It's all from Him.
So would you look at the unbeliever like that and would you say to yourself...he's not like me because God has not done for him what He's done for me? Y
You need to view him like that. When you are repulsed by the media and their anti-Christian agenda, when you are repulsed by the homosexuals and the lesbians and the fornicators and adulterers and all of that, and the educators and whoever else, the politicians, will you look at them and simply say...they're the way they are because God has not saved them? I'm the way I am because He saved me. Get the perspective.
Salvation is rooted in the love of God.
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared.
Ephesians 2 talks about the great love wherewith He has loved us. That is why He gave us Christ. It is in God's kindness and God's love that our salvation resides. In Tit 2:10 it says, "God our Savior." In 3:6 it is Jesus Christ our Savior. God who is the rescuer. God came down and rescued us because of His kindness and love.
Verse 5,
5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
We didn't deserve our salvation. We didn't deserve our transformation. Our deliverance from sin and death and hell was purely on God's love and God's kindness alone. Nothing in us was worthy. We made no contribution to His plan, we made no contribution to His choice, we made no contribution to His work of salvation. He looked at us in pity and compassion and love and mercy and saved us. We deserve wrath, we got forgiveness. We received what we do not earn. In fact, His mercy was uninfluenced and His grace was absolutely spontaneous.
All of that is simply to say one thing, look, the only reason you're different than the corrupt society around you is because God saved you. How can you hate those people who have never known the mercy of God? Can't you feel the same pity, the same compassion that God felt toward you?
And then in verse 8 the first little statement, "This is a trustworthy statement." Stop there. That really belongs with verses 4 to 7. That little phrase "this is a trustworthy statement" is a descriptive phrase used five times in the pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. And it is used to identify a commonly known expression that was axiomatic. When you say something is an axiom, you mean it is a self-evident truth that doesn't need proof, it's just obvious.
Apparently in the early church there were a number of self-evident axioms that had found their way into the repetitive vocabulary of Christians and they would frequently recite them. This appears to have been one of those from verses 4 to 7, some think it was a part of a creed, a commonly recited creed in the early church and others think it may well have been a part of a hymn. But it was one of those trustworthy statements. Sometimes you read that same phrase in Paul's letters to Timothy, "this is a trustworthy statement and worthy of all acceptance," it's the same basic phrase. It was something that was self-evident, something that everybody knew and he's simply saying this, you all know this for sure, you all know that salvation is by grace and grace alone. So before you become angry and hostile against the culture in which you live, remember that apart from the grace of God that's you...that's you.
So, how are we to live in a pagan society? One, we remember our duty. Two, we remember our former condition, and that helps us to understand they're only acting the way they act because that's the only way they can act. And thirdly, we remember our salvation, that it's only the grace of God that sets us apart from them. And as we have been pitied, so we should pity them. They are in a pitiful condition.
Finally, fourthly, if you want to live the way God wants you to live in a pagan culture,
Remember your mission.
Remember your duty, your former condition, your salvation and remember your mission. Now into verse 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.
Now Paul instructs Titus to remind the church of their mission. He says to him, "I want you to stress these things. What things? All the things he's been writing, certainly since chapter 2 verse 1. "You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. and then he goes and gives him a lot of things in chapter 2 and then in chapter 3. Now comes back to where he started in chapter 2 verse 1 and saying I want you to stress these things. Don't be hesitant, preach these things with boldness and conviction. You are to speak confidently and intensely about these matters of Christian behavior.
That's what the church is about. When church comes together it comes together to be exhorted. He says you speak these things confidently. When the church comes together, the church is to be addressed. You need to be here every week so that you can be stimulated to love and good works. The matter of evangelism is at stake and how you live your life is at stake and you need to be stimulated week in and week out to godliness. So he says, "Titus, you speak these things confidently, these matters of behavior in a pagan culture and these matters of behavior in the church that we talked about in chapter 2, you speak them unhesitatingly so that those who have trusted God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good."
You can speak it confidently because those who take God at His Word are going to respond and be careful to engage in good deeds. They're going to take the lead in doing what is excellent. They're going to give very careful thoughtful devoted attention to the matter of spiritual living. People who take God seriously are going to do that.
Part of the problem in the church today is we've got people who say they believe in God, who say they're Christians, who are in the church and they don't take God's Word seriously. But they're passed off as Christians and that's part of the confusion in the society. You speak confidently and you speak to the Christians those who take God's Word seriously and they'll be careful to engage in good deeds.
And then he says, "These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
What does that mean? They lead to the salvation of lost souls because they demonstrate transformed lives, they bring light and life and peace and joy and salvation.
We have a great challenge in our beloved country. And I think the church is missing the whole approach. We have an increasingly paganized nation and some Christians are jumping on the political bandwagon trying to impact the culture quote/unquote. That's not our goal, that's not our purpose, that's not our calling. Other Christians are trying to come up with more clever strategy for evangelism and feel if they can find all the marketing tools and all of the hot buttons and push them properly, people are going to get saved because the technique is so clever. And so they turn the church into an entertainment center for unbelievers who want to come and be entertained. And hopefully if they're entertained enough to get real happy and real enthusiastic, they'll decide that they want to become Christians.
That's not how it's done, folks. You might get a crowd and you might even preach the gospel and have some people saved, but you're going to have immature carnal ignorant believers whose lives are not going to demonstrate to the culture the transforming saving power of God. When the church comes together, it comes together to be spoken to with boldness and called to holy living and out of the Word of God because those who take the Word of God seriously are going to engage in the good deeds that are going to become good and profitable for the watching world. That's the mandate.
We can't just be sad. We can't certainly be hostile. We've got to pray for those in our culture and our society who are lost. We've got to pity them and love them with the love of God and show them Christ's saving power in our lives. The church does not need now to become more like the world, it needs to become utterly and distinctively the church so that there is such an obvious difference that the world can see it clearly. We're doing exactly the opposite and that's the tragedy. For us here we have a mandate, we can't fix everything but we can be what God wants us to be here. And God will in His grace use us to bring many to righteousness.
