Titus 3:14

the book of Titus, chapter 3, reading verse 14 for our text and study tonight. And let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful. May God bless to us His sacred and holy word this evening. General Norman Swartner. once described his experiences at West Point Academy in this manner. He said when he became a plebe, duty, honor, and country was just a motto he learned. But by the time he left, these values became his fixed stars. He felt a tremendous liberation. He said the Army. with its emphasis on rank and promotion and medals and so forth and efficiency reports, made it easy to become someone who was consumed with ambition to get ahead, to move up in the ranks. Some officers spent all their time curring favors and worrying about the next promotion. He said, that’s a miserable way to live life. Swartzcoff said, West Point saved me from that by instilling within me the ideal of service above self. To do his duty for his country, even if it meant no gain, no promotion whatsoever. And this gave him far more than a military career, he said. It gave him a calling. Now, as a believer, the scripture reveals that we are soldiers of Jesus Christ. Your whole goal in life is not the exaltation of yourself and your own gain, but service to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has called you to be a soldier. You are to be committed to serve you the Lord, that whatever you do, we are to do it heartily. as unto the Lord, as Colossians 323 says, not unto men. Paul has spoken of God’s gracious salvation of his people in this chapter in verses 3 through 7, and he has proceeded to address the need for believers to do good and profitable things unto men in verse 8. Specifically, he told Titus to continue serving on Crete until another spiritual leader arrived that he could take his place so that he could meet with Paul in Greece, and to carefully provide for Zenus and Apollus, faithful servants of God, who were engaged in labors elsewhere, but who had stopped off at Crete and was presently, they were presently there, as verse 13 indicates to us. Now in a more general fashion, in verse 14, Paul commands that all the saints live a productive life. So you are to live a productive life. Let me begin by saying this. you as a believer commanded to perform good works. He says, let ours here. Now, in light of the context, ours has to refer to our people or our folks. In other words, to believers, to the church. Or as he has said in verse 8, to those who have believed in God. You learn here that the first condition, of any good work is you must be a believer. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And thus whatsoever is not a faith, the scripture says in Romans 14 is sin. Cannot possibly be good work. Jesus taught, make the tree good, and the fruit then will be good. Matthew 1223. Only good trees can bring forth good fruit. Unless there has been a gracious work of salvation in your life, regeneration by the Holy Spirit that we read about in verse 5 of this chapter, you cannot do a single thing that would be pleasing to God. And this verse would not apply to you. The heart of man is the inner spring of all his actions. If the heart is defiled, if that spring is corrupted by the fall in Adam, nothing good can come out of that person. You remember the second miracle that the prophet Elisha performed? That was the healing of the spring. of the city of Jericho. Now, what was wrong with the spring? Well, it was a nice spring that they had at Jericho. The only problem was you couldn’t drink the water. The water was poisonous. Anyone who drank the water of that spring died. Any ground that the water was poured upon became barren. Wouldn’t bear any fruit. Elisha took a cruise filled with salt. pours it into the spring and miraculously heals the poisonous waters. And here’s what he said. I have healed these waters. There shall not be from hence any more death or barrenly. And from that point on, the spring produced good water, which the people could drink and use for agricultural purposes. Now, your heart is the same way. It is a spring. And I don’t know. regenerate heart poisons. All that it conceives, all that comes out of that heart is corrupted. It cannot produce anything good. Only a renewed heart, you see, can produce something good working by faith. So if you’re an unbeliever, you don’t have the Holy Spirit within you. There’s no way you can produce any of the good things that the Bible talks about. It’s impossible. possible. You remember the story of Kane and Abel in Genesis chapter 4? What do you find? God first had respect unto Abel and then he accepted his sacrifice. And it was just the reverse with Kane. God did not have respect for Kane, and therefore he did not receive his sacrifice. Now think about that a minute. If you’re unsaved, you can’t even contemplate pleasing God by doing good works in his sight, it’s impossible. He doesn’t receive your person. Therefore, anything you would do, any offering you would make by way of good works is not acceptable to him. First, you must be acceptable to God by regeneration. And then, what you do will be a good work acceptable to the Lord. So, if I could say this, you have to start with this. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. and now shall be saved, without faith, you can’t even produce any of these things that we’re talking about. So you as a believer are commanded here to perform good works. Let ours, he says. Now, you should know what good works are. When he speaks here of good works, Paul’s already described good works generally by saying that these are the things that are good and profitable, what flows out of a pure heart or a good heart is beneficial to others. He mentioned that in verse 8 of this chapter. Now, in the previous sections of the epistle, if we walk our way through the epistle, we see all the good things he talks about that we should be producing. For example, godliness, chapter 1, verse 1, doing works which please God in obedience to his commands. Blame, having a blameless life, chapter 1 in verse 6 and 7 living so as not to be charged with any wrongdoing by others have a good conscience not only toward God but toward men things like not being self-willed not being soon angry not being a striker chapter 1 verse 7 being a lover of men being sober, just holy temperate chapter 1 verse 8 and while some of these things are spoken of the elder they’re supposed to be example of all believers so whatever they’re supposed to do that’s what the true believer should be like holding firmly to the christian faith chapter 2 verse 2 verse 2 having a good family life chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 being obedient to those whom God is placed over you chapter 2 verses 5 and 9 chapter 3 verse 1 denying ungodliness and worldly lust chapter 2 verse 12 speaking evil of no man being gentle and meek in your disposition chapter 3 verse 2 doing all in your power to make the gospel of jesus christ attractive to others chapter 2 verse 10 you are to live in such a way as to be a blessing to others and give honor and glory to Jesus Christ your Savior. It was a supposedly pious church member who thought himself a great Christian who once visited the junior department of the Sunday School. The superintendent decided he would ask him to say a few words to the boys and girls that had gathered. He stood pompously before them and asked this question, why do you think people call me a Christian? there was an embarrassing silence. So the man asked the question again, seeking to prompt an answer. Finally, from the back of the crowd, a small voice was heard and said, because they don’t know you. Friends, I hope no one would have to ask if we are Christians. I hope that our good works would speak for it. And if they do know us, I hope it wouldn’t be that it would be a negative thing. of a positive thing, they would know that we are people who are following the Lord and producing good works. So you should know what good works are. He has mentioned these things throughout the epistle. Notice this third thought here underneath, under this first heading. Especially your good works are to meet compelling needs. He says here, for necessary uses to do these good works. Paul has just commanded Titus to do all we can to help Zinus and Apollus. Verse 13. Both of these men seem to be faithful servants of the Lord, experts in the law, perhaps and in the Old Testament, as one was a lawyer. But whatever their precise task, they were involved in the spreading of the gospel. They had stopped by Crete, perhaps, as we imagine, to drop off this letter to Titus. Paul requires Titus to see that they have everything they need and that they can be sent on their journey. Paul’s not going to burden them with unnecessary things for these people, but Zenus and Apollus had compelling needs, which had to be met. And so it’s only natural after talking about meeting their compelling needs, and it doesn’t mean that Titus should take care of. this fully. He can participate in this. But for the churches and the congregations to do this on the island. And then that spills right over into the general principle is to provide for those who have needs in this verse 14. Now, believers on Crete could provide for their hospitality, their housing, their financial support, maybe medical assistance, all these kinds of the things necessary for them. James teaches that if a brother or sister in Christ is in need of clothing or food, that are their necessary things, then the believer is to say, not just, well, I’ll pray for you, brother or sister, but what? To meet the need. Right? John says that whosoever has to say, this world’s good and see if his brother have need and shuteth up his bowels of compassion toward him how dwelleth the love of God in this person? Something’s wrong. You remember after making his historic stand at the diet of worms, Mark Luther was heading back home. He had confronted the Roman Catholic leadership, tried to point out the error of their ways and their doctrine. His friends were greatly alarmed about his safety because the Pope was quite powerful, and none too pleased with Luther. Of course, that usually meant somewhere along the line you didn’t make it back home. You got ambush and put to death. Well, as his carriage entered a narrow passage, it was suddenly surrounded five, five, horsemen, mask, and completely armed. They hauled Martin Luther out of the carriage. They threw a knight’s cloak over his shoulders and placed them on an extra horse, and off they went. In a few minutes, all of them disappeared into the forest. Silently, he rode along with these five captors who took them to the castle of Wurtberg, hidden high up in the mountains of Thuringen. And they entered into a castle there, went into the courtyard of the castle, where his church guard was removed, and he was clothed at a knight’s outfit, given a sword, and knighted, christened, Knight George. In the castle, he stayed for the next ten months. He wrote, he translated the scriptures in the common language of the people, because he wasn’t in the history. hands of his enemies, he was in the hands of his friends who decided they were going to kidnap him and keep him safe no matter what was going to happen. They were going to hide him away. Frederick, the elector, he was a German prince, had undertaken this means to protect Luther from the Roman Catholics. He thought it was a necessary deed to do. And he did it, the spare Luther’s life. Good works for compelling reasons should be done by believers. If you love the Lord, then you will love His people. As Jesus once said, if you do these good works, under the least of those who are your brethren, you do it unto me. Whether it’s clothing the naked, visiting the sick, attending to the needs of those in prison for their faith, the hungry Christian, providing hospitality, whatever those things be. He said, you’re doing it under me when you do it under the least, the least, not the greatest, the least of these who are my brother. So specifically, your good works are to meet compelling needs. And notice this also, you must not be unfruitful as a believer, that they be not unfruitful. These are the reasons for the reason for, this is the reason for the formal, the former command. The church is God’s orchard, if you would. It’s God’s garden that he’s planted. And his husbandmen, the farmers, if you would, the keepers, are the ministers. And the people of God are the trees, the trees of righteousness that grow within the orchard, planted by the Lord. And their purpose is to bring forth fruit in due season. So like we read in Psalm 1, or like a tree planted by the rivers of water, so forth, that bring forth fruit. God expects every believer to be fruitful, without exception in this situation. And so we see here the importance here of not being unfruitful. Now, it’s true that God will prune the righteous trees that he has in his orchard in various ways to make them more fruitful so that one would grow in grace and in your spiritual productivity. It’s no good to be a Christian merely by profession and not have any fruit. in your life, you’ll recall that our Lord at one point spotted a fig tree outside the city of Jerusalem. And it seemed to be flourishing. It was full of green leaves, but when he looked at the tree for something to eat from it, he couldn’t find any figs on it. And what did he do? He cursed the fig tree. Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth and forever. Matthew 21, 19. The next day, when they came by, Peter noticed it was withered. He mentioned that the tree had withered. Now, you must not be like the fig tree. That all you have is a profession of faith. All you got is the green leaves. Because God says you should be fruitful. And he’s working to that end in your life. A sound Christian is not discerned merely by leaves, but by the fruit that God produces in his life. And therefore, don’t be content with thinking, well, I didn’t bring any forth any bad fruit. That’s not what the criteria is here. You’re supposed to be bringing forth good fruit. Every true believer brings forth good fruit. Matthew 717. So you are to live a productive life. Now, secondly, my second point is this tonight. How your productive Christian life emerges. And the first, is this that fruitfulness is a learning process. You’ll notice he says here, learn, learn to bring forth good works for necessary reasons and so forth. Have you ever planted a fruit tree, maybe a plum tree, or a peach tree in the backyard or something? You know that it’s not going to be very fruitful immediately. The first few years, you may only get a small handful of fruit. on the tree. You fertilize, you prune the tree back, and so forth, and eventually its branches are drooping with the weight of the fruit that’s produced on these trees. Well, God, when he regenerates you and places you in his orchard, if you would, you find that at that point, you’re just a mere sapling. Your fruit production is limited, to some extent. it may even be uneven in some way. We talked in our study about this in Titus 2, 11, and 12, where grace teaches you. You notice how grace teaches you how to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, right? It is a learning process. First, with regard to yourself, you’re to live soberly, soberly, and have a self-controlled temperate life. In other words, you bring under control your eating, your spending, your anger, your sexual desires, and so forth. With regard to others, you’re to live righteously, you’re to give every person what is right according to God’s word, living by the Ten Commandments, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And you are to deal with… God also, godly. You to live in reverence to God. A fear of violating his commandments. Your desire is not to lose or have the fellowship with the Lord broken. Now, the Spirit of the Lord teaches you things as you go through this life. You learn meekness from the example of Christ. He says, learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. you learn peace by casting your burdens upon the Lord and your mind being stayed on him. You learn joy from fellowship with the Lord through his word, through prayer, through obedience. And it’s true that God chasens you so that you might learn. He disciplined you by various providences. This is the pruning process. In order to learn humility, God sometimes has to abase us to prune out the pride. To learn patience, God has to sometimes bring us through tribulation, doesn’t he? To prune out the rashness in us. To learn faith, God must put you through various tests to prune out unbelief. And in order to learn temperance, God must make you endure at times the results of your sinful anger, that you might learn not to do that again. Because you see the results of it. So in this two-fold process, one we might call the fertilizing, where we learning things, and the other we might call the pruning process where God is, cutting things out, the negative things out, God teaches you to be spiritually fruitful. Fruitfulness is a learning process. We learn it. Fruitfulness requires devotion. You notice he says, you have to learn to maintain good works. There was a scientist who once conducted an experiment in his laboratory from the ceiling. He suspended an iron ball that weighed one ton. and it was attached to a strong cord. And beside this huge iron ball, he hung a smaller spear that was made out of cork that was hung with just a string from the ceiling. And there was an electrical mechanism that was used to keep this little cork swinging slowly, pendulum-like, back and forth against the large iron ball. Now, after a length of time, as the days went by, slowly but surely, this unceasing swinging back and forth began to have an effect on the iron ball, and it began to move a little bit, just a little, just slightly, in harmony with the little quirkball. Gradually the motion increased until it moved to a wider arc, all because that little quirkball kept tapping against it and kept tapped persistently against this massive ball that was beside it. Now, the scripture says, we’re not to be weary and well-doing, for we’ll reap if we faint not. We have to keep working at it. The productive Christian life requires devotion. The word maintain is the same word it’s used in Titus 3-8. It was once used as a military term. It means, it means that to take the lead, to stand before, to preside over to rule. Often it was used to the vanguard of an army, the tip of the spear, as they penetrated enemy territory. It carries the idea of being devoted to something. If you’re not pressing forward, if you’re not taking the lead, then you’re lagging behind, you see. You’re unenthusiastic about it. If you’re taking your children to McDonald’s or poor dairy queen. Boy, they’re running ahead of you. They got out of the car. They’re all excited. They want to get in there. They know what they’re going to get when they get in there. They’re enthusiastic. Let me ask you, is it the same way when you go to the dentist or the doctor’s office? Are they that enthusiastic by going there? You have to take the lead then, don’t you? You have to take them by the hand and take them in. They’re not happy about going. They hate going there. The English word maintain here that implies the same. idea of steadfastness, like that cork ball, to be diligent, to be consistently doing good works, day after day, constantly. Ever heard someone say this, I’ve done my good deed for the day. I’m sorry, that’s not how it works in a Christian life. Oh, I’m done. I did one good deed today and I’m finished, right? That’s not the way we’re doing. works. You’re to maintain, constantly be doing these good works. You don’t get the rest. Devotion must be a, to good works should be a priority in your life. There should be a single-mindedness about doing these things. Now, to do that, you have to say no to other things. If you’re going to to give money to support a missionary or a gospel ministry or even to help someone who may be in need, That means you have less money to spend on yourself, right? So it involves you prioritizing. Devotion means that we have to be set to maintain what we’re to do. We have to think about what we’re supposed to be doing and doing it. You see Christians enthusiastic about serving the Lord for a time, and then that that eagerness may vanish away. Well, Paul is calling upon us not to be weary and well-doing. To continue to do it. You can never actually say, I’ve done my share for the cause of Christ. You know when you get the rest from your labors, as the book of Revelation says, when you’re done in this life and you’re in heaven. That’s when you rest from your labors. There’s no resting here. We have to continue serving Christ in whatever way we can until we pass out of this way. world. So don’t be lethargic about good works, especially as we’re thinking about here the advancement of the kingdom of God on this earth, as our primary focus of this text seems to be pushing in that direction. Well, General Swartzcoff found West Point instilled with him the ideal of service above self. We’re Christian soldiers and service to Christ above Christ Our own selves is what our focus must be. Is your Christian life fruitful? Is it full of good works? Are you profitable to others? Are you focused on maintaining the good works that you are called to do? That’s what I think the scripture would have us learn in this passage tonight.