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Sunday 08/24/25
Title: The Good Work of Obedience to Rulers
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The Good Work of Obedience to Rulers
Well, last week we wrapped up chapter two in the book of or letter to – Titus.
As I told you following the message – it didn’t record so we have no record of that teaching. I didn’t even really stick with my notes. So I took my notes and placed them on the website and had our built-in “reader” provide a spoken record of my notes. It still does not represent all I taught, but it at least provided something from Titus 2 as representing the message from last week. It was also from the reading of those notes that I made the YouTube video for last Sunday’s message.
So THIS week we have some remnants left over from my actual notes that I never taught. So we will back up a little into Titus 2:11 and touch on these issues.
Beginning in verse 11 is right after Paul finished telling Titus what is expected in the life and behavior of the older men and the younger men, the older women and the younger women as well as the servants and employees. These behavioral instructions lead into what he says in verse 11, which begins with the word “For”.
Saying, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”
As I told you last week, THIS is the reason Paul gave the former instructions regarding behavior.
In many places in the New Testament, we are taught that how we act, the way we live, the character we have should be such that honors the God Who saved us. That we should have “a walk, worthy of the Lord and of the calling we have received” – Ephesians 4:1.
This provides us with ONE of the TWO major reasons why our behavior is important, subsequent to salvation. It is in fact, the primary one because it is a living demonstration of a heart that is grateful to the God Who “so loved, that He gave”!
However, in this chapter, Paul presses a secondary reason for maintaining these good works which he just got done clearly stating as pertaining to men, women, children and workers and that is so that we might adorn, with corresponding works, the grace of God which has already appeared to all people. That our living testimony of a life changed by God’s grace, might demonstrate before a watching world, the power of the grace of God in those who have embraced the Gospel by faith.
God has desired our union with Him from eternity past and so our primary reason for living lives of evident gratitude is to honor Him in that desire.
The secondary purpose however, is indirectly associated with the first in that it is THE means by which God has chosen to evangelize the world – through your living testimony of a life changed!
We are currently being prepared as a habitation for God in the spirit [Ephesians 2:18-22]. So everything we do has got to have that razor focus.
So with the work of the Holy Spirit of God within, the seed or nature of Jesus Christ being deposited on the inside of us – we live out a nature which is conformed to His likeness.
Our inner nature has been changed at the New Birth.
Following this, we work out the salvation of our mind, our will and our emotions by receiving the word of God – engrafted into our hearts, which is able to save our souls. – James 1:21
As we live that out, the word of God begins a lifelong work of altering the way we think, feel and live.
The world, before whom we live as light and salt – certainly don’t know God to the degree that we do. All they can know is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s really all that’s being revealed to them.
God is not telling them about the deep things of His person and nature. He’s talking to them about the surface things of His person, like we read in Romans chapter one. The invisible attributes of God. Things like His divine nature and His Godhead. Meaning convicting their conscience that there is a God and of some of the basic characteristics of His character and nature – these are impressed upon their soul through the things that He created.
In other words, if you could use this Bible here in my hands, as an example of God and what could be known of Him, then the entire contents of the book are open to us as His children. To the world however, God is a closed book. Continuing with the same analogy, the world is barely able to get the atoms off the top of the closed cover of the book. That’s all they get! It’s enough to entice them to come, to seek and find, but it is little more than an introduction to the possibility of real, relational knowledge.
What they have been offered is a handshake that causes them to wrestle with their conscience to come to a place of admitting a need to own the fact that there is a God and that He can be known. There’s more to the story than what they’ve known. All of this is intended to generate inside the heart, a diligent search for God.
THAT is what the grace of God has effected regarding salvation to all people. It is what it means when we read that “the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all people”.
We know that it couldn’t be referring to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I bore down on that last week pretty hard because the gospel of Jesus Christ hasn’t appeared to all men. Not even now, 2000 years later. There are STILL people on this planet who have never heard the gospel. So it is quite impossible that Paul could have been referring to that in his bold statement that “God’s grace has appeared to all people“.
Paul is here affirming to Titus, 2000 years ago, that the grace of God has appeared to all people, independent of where they live, what they’ve read, what religion they’ve been exposed to. It has appeared to all!
God’s direct influence upon every heart. So that you and I, as older man or younger man, an older woman or younger woman, as a slave, as an employee, as a servant – as we live the gospel before the world, it will wind up being a testimony that immediately connects.
Our testimony already has an inward connection with them because the grace of God has already shown up there. It’s already begun to do its work of convincing them there’s a God to be reconciled with and that reconciliation is possible.
It is because that work has already been accomplished in every single heart across the planet that when you and I walk in as salt and light, they can identify you as the embodiment of the answer to the internal question God’s grace is evoking within them.
So we’ll read that again.
Paul is telling Titus to press upon the believers in Crete to live in this way because the grace of God that brings salvation has already appeared to them,
“teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age.”
I want you to notice here the two things that grace begins our instructions with – a call to godliness and a call to depart from worldly lust.
Two polar opposites are represented here.
Grace teaches us to embrace God and His character and deny anything that is unlike Him.
The part about denying “worldly lusts” touches upon what we read just a few weeks ago in the book of James.
He asked the Jewish saints that were scattered abroad.
“Where do these wars and fights come from among you? Don’t they come from your desires for pleasure that war inside your bodies?”
This is another way of referring to “fleshly or worldly lusts”.
James went on to say,
“You war and you do not have, you covet and you cannot obtain. You war and fight and you don’t have, because you don’t ask. You ask and don’t receive because you’re looking to spend it on your own earthly, sensual and worldly pleasures.”
Then James asked,
“Don’t you realize that this affiliation… this friendship with the world, this- not denying worldly lusts, makes you the enemy of God?”
James called this “enmity with God”, which is to say violent hostility against Him.
A visualization of enmity, is to go up to someone and violently shove them back in the chest.
This is what “worldly lust” is, in a believer. We’re doing that to God!
In effect we are saying with that hostile gesture, “Get out of my face!”
James asks them,
“Do you realize this? Do you not know that your friendship with the world is violently hostile against God? Know therefore, that whoever makes it their aim to be friends with the world, make themselves God’s enemy?” This is true even as a child of God!
Then James said,
“Or do do you think that the scripture says for no reason whatsoever, that the Holy Spirit Who God has caused to dwell within us, yearns over us with a jealous heart… But He gives more grace! Therefore, God says that He resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.”
“Therefore, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you and do time.”
So, you can see plainly that there exists a perfect symmetry and synergy between James and Peter and 1st John and the book of Revelation and Titus. They’re all pretty much saying the same thing, aren’t they!
The next instruction which goes hand in glove with all Paul has said to Titus up to this point in chapter 2 is that we are to be continually “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”
That’s the one of the things that causes us to purify ourselves, amen. According to 1 John 3:3!
Then Paul says, “Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed to redeem us from every lawless deed.”
The reason for that is that He might bring us to life and purity.
“and to purify for Himself a people who are truly His, who are eager to do good (works).
(15) So communicate these things with the sort of exhortation or rebuke that carries full authority.
Don’t let anyone look down on you.”
Going on to chapter three now,
Titus 3:1-15,
So Paul equates submitting to and obeying rulers as a good work.
Well, Crete was still under Roman rule!
So there was the Roman emperor and then there were the local magistrates who ruled local provinces in his name. Paul says here to Titus, “I want you to tell the believers in Crete to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work”.
The next thing he mentions is,
“To slander no one”
Isn’t it interesting that he brings up not running your mouth against anyone RIGHT AFTER telling them to be subject to rulers and authorities.
Let me tell you – if there is ANYTHING the modern church is guilty of, it is this – especially in the Western world. They run their mouth and they run down their leaders. Paul says, “don’t do that”.
If you are a child of God, you don’t do that!
Do you have any idea how many people don’t know this in the body of Christ? They are many times more caught up in the kingdom of their particular nation than they are the kingdom of God.
When something happens which they feel they can blame on their political leader they gripe, and scream, and pout, and whine – speaking against them as if they possessed 100% perfect knowledge of all that goes on behind the scenes in their nations capitol. As if they had the slightest notion of what that leader faces day after day or the tight rope they have to walk.
Rather than seeking to believe the best, if that leader is of a different party they berate them and run them down. Blaming them and scoffing at them publicly. They even promote their disgust on the bumpers of their cars and the clothes they wear.
They claim 2 Chronicles 7, without repenting of their sin of cursing their authorities.
These Christians are so scripturally illiterate as to think that 2 Chronicles applies under the New Covenant even though not a single reference to it or prayer regarding it was ever practiced or encouraged by the apostles, the early church or Jesus Himself! 2 Chornicles is an Old Covenant promise regarding the land promised to the Jews IF they would obey the law. God was establishing a nation under the Old Covenant. under the New Covenant God is establishing His kingdom which Jesus clearly told was is NOT of this world. Simply put, 2 Chornicles is NOT a New Covenant promise!
They refuse to believe is that God meant what He said when He told us through Paul,
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God’s appointment, and the authorities that exist have been instituted by God. (2) So the person who resists such authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will incur judgment.” – Romans 13:1-2
These are inconvenient truths which are nearly always explained away – even from the pulpit. We need to realize however, that Paul penned these words by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and he did so while living under the Roman authority of Nero himself!
Jesus said to Pilot that he would have no authority to crucify Him unless God had given it to him. He didn’t say, unless God had established Roman authority in general (which would be true). He said unless God had given that authority specifically to Pilot himself!
The same was true of the Pharaoh who was ruling when Moses called Israel out of Egypt. Exodus 9:16 presents us with a direct message from God to the specific Pharaoh who is holding the Israelites captive. God tells him that he has “raised him up“. Paul in referencing this verse in Roman’s 9 interprets its meaning as “rasing Pharaoh into power” as pharaoh during that time. We are told that despite Pharaoh’s stubbornness, God did this for His Own purposes.
So scripture is not saying God simply created these positions of authority without controlling who occupies them. God personally owns that He alone places them in power. This was true regarding those who took thrones by birth, war or vote!
This is further witnessed clearly throughout the Old Testament in the rise and fall of kings and kingdoms. God even planned for pagan kings to come to power. God planned their birth and their taking the throne by His sovereign power! Cyrus the Great is a clear example of this in Isaiah 57:4.
So we are NOT to curse or speak against authorities or slander them, but rather submit to their authority and do good. To do otherwise is to resist God! Not only that, but we are commanded to bless them and pray for them.
You will search in vain to find a provision for praying AGAINST them – it doesn’t exist!
But that is enough regarding this for now. I simply like to camp on this topic whenever it shows up in scripture because if there was ever a truth modern believers fail to practice, it is submission to ruling authorities!
Let’s continue on in verse 2…
“(2) to slander no one,
to avoid fighting,
and to be kind,
always showing gentleness to all people.”
“(3) For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, captives of various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.”
The apostle gives these instructions in the same way God did to Israel under the Old Covenant. God told Israel to treat the stranger and resident foreigner with respect and dignity REMEMBERING that they too had once been foreigners when they lived in Egypt.
So it is that Paul tells Titus to command these believers in Crete to be kind and always show gentleness to everyone because all of us were once “foolish, disobedient, captives of various passions, living in malice and envy, hateful and detesting one another“!
Then he points to the grace and goodness God showed to us when we were in such a state, as a reason why we should treat others the same way!
“(4) BUT when the goodness and love for man appeared from God our Savior, (5) He saved us–not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
(6) This Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, (7) so that having been justified by His grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.”
The New English Translation has, “confident expectation of eternal life.”
“(8) This saying is trustworthy. I want you to INSIST ON THESE THINGS, so that those who have believed God might be careful to devote themselves to Good Works.
These are good and profitable for everyone.
(9) But avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.”
These are things God through Paul, insists upon in His church… that He demands in the behavior of His children!
Then as a matter of course, which is always necessary, Paul turns his attention ever so briefly to matters of church discipline.
We see in many of the letters to the churches, including those from Jesus in Revelation chapters 2 & 3, that church discipline is OFTEN necessary and MUST be diligently maintained.
“A little leaven will leaven the whole lump” – 1 Corinthians 5:6 & Galatians 5:9.
This regards not only unrepentant sin, but also the proliferation of false doctrine and divisiveness.
“(10) Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning, (11) knowing that such a person is perverted and sins, being self-condemned.”
Notice that he does NOT say, reject their actions. We are told to reject the devisive person themself, if after they have been confronted, they will not change!
This is precisely the same thing Jesus was addressing in Matthew 18 and Paul addressed in 1 Corinthians 6.
“(12) When I send Artemas to you, or Tychicus, make every effort to come to me in Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. (13) Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey, so that they will lack nothing.
(14) And our people must also learn to devote themselves to good works for cases of urgent need, so that they will not be unfruitful.”
The Apostle Paul here once more presses the need to maintain “good works“, but this time it is specifically in reference to giving.
Contrary to modern opinion, some of Paul’s strongest words were in regard to the stinginess of those who call themselves by Christ’s name. In fact, he once told the affluent Corinthians that he was testing the genuineness of their love and their confession of Christ by comparing their level of giving out of their abundance with the giving of the Macedonians who gave out of their deep poverty.
Try as I may, I cannot imagine such a statement being made in most churches today without severe repercussions. Yet, there it is, right in 2 Corinthians 8!
This is another loaded issue in the western church and probably in most churches in 1st world countries. Recent data shows that only between 15%-50% of regular attendees in churches give weekly or monthly. These figures vary widely between denominations and figures are not limited to those who give the traditional 10% tithe but include all forms of giving.
The basic mean average across all churches is approximately 30% of regular attendees give weekly or monthly. That is a pitiful representation!
It would be interesting to see how many of these often go out to eat before or after services, but seem to have no “extra” money to give to those who have invested so much into their spiritual development and growth in Christ!
The sad pattern is that the most generous giving is often done by those believers and congregations that have the least. Those who are well off, are often very stingy – and do not know that it will be a basis upon which they are judged, both now and in the end.
Paul mentions the need to maintain “good works” – especially in regards to giving to urgent needs so that they will not be “unfruitful”. This almost requires us to turn to 2 Peter 1 and read a few verses there before closing out this wonderful and instructional letter to Titus.
Turn with me to 2 Peter 1:2-13,
“(2) May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (3) For His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him Who called us by His Own glory and goodness.
(4) By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.
(5) For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, (6) knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, (7) godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
(8) For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(9) The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted, and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.
(10) Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. (11) For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly supplied to you.
(12) Therefore I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth you have. (13) I consider it right, as long as I am in this tent, to wake you up with a reminder,”
So the Spirit is saying through Paul and Peter collectively that “fruitfulness“ is directly connected to “good works” and that giving, especially to urgent needs in the body is part of that fruitfulness. Furthermore, that those who are NOT fruitful are near to spiritual blindness and have let their consciousness of the Lord’s forgiveness in their lives grow dull.
Paul wraps up this letter to Titus with this inscription…
“(15) All those who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith.
Grace be with all of you.”
There was much more to this message than is recorded in written form here, so if you wish to benefit from the entire message, I encourage you to give it a listen.
Blessings!
Tri
