Read with Me
Titus 3:3-8 (HCSB)
For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love
for mankind appeared,
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.
He poured out this Spirit on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior,
so that having been justified by His grace,
we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.
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.
Listen with Me
The “we” of the opening sentence of this paragraph is not Paul alone, but all those who follow Jesus. Christianity was and is not a religion to gather together the already holy, already “nice” people. Those who are well were not the ones in need of the wholeness that Jesus came to bring. It was the sick, the sinners, the lost who needed him (Matthew 9:12; Luke 19:10). And it was these who flooded into the kingdom in a steady stream.
This meant that the Cretans who came to Jesus with a ton of brokenness and corruption were not outliers or on the fringes of the faith. They were the target audience for the gospel. And when they believed, they did not receive a veneer of respectability to be worn while in Church. They received a whole new heart, a new life, real transformation that made them into as true a saint as Peter or Paul, or any of the other great leaders of the Church.
Paul urged Titus to teach this “trustworthy” saying to all the Christians in Crete so that they could take hold of its truth for themselves. Until they heard this core truth of the faith, they could not believe it. Until they took hold of it and believed it, they could not start living out the new life that their faith in Jesus made possible.
Pray with Me
Father, I sometimes think that we have forgotten that Christianity was not designed principally for the “nice” people, but for sinners who, without the love and sacrifice of Jesus, would be completely without hope. It was that promise of a clean slate, a fresh start, and a whole new life that proved so irresistible to those on the outside that they poured into the door of the kingdom as soon as they were able to hear and understand the gospel. Lord, there are so many in our neighborhoods and communities who are completely without hope because they have made a shipwreck of their lives. We are the ones who possess their only hope. Help us to fully share our good news not only with the “nice” people who seem like the low hanging fruit (but who also seem to be so confident in their own niceness that they are often strongly resistant to the idea that they need to be saved), but also with those who, in their present state, don’t seem to fit the mold. Help us to do so in faith that you can and will save them, transform them, and help them to grow into positive Christlikeness. Amen.