Our faith
in Jesus Christ needs to make a visible positive difference through our actions,
behavior and relationships if it is genuine.
I’m not talking about moral perfectionism we all make mistakes, we all have
our faults and foibles, we all get it wrong. But if there is no discernable
difference between the behavior of Christians and the Society around us, then
we are either in a place that can only be described as the Kingdom of God, and
Hallelujah or there is a disconnect between gospel truth and gospel living in
our lives. We need to ask the question, is the church simply an extension of
the culture and climate it lives in, or an expression of the Christ it claims
to live for?
“True Christianity”, Francis Schaeffer told
the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974, “produces beauty as well
as truth. If we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other, then in the
eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the
truth we proclaim.”
We are
working our way through what are known as the pastoral epistles, and in
particular Paul’s letter to Titus. Looking at what Paul can tell us about both
Christian living and Christian leadership as he writes to encourage his
coworkers in maturity and ministry. Paul had sent Titus to Crete to finish the
task of establishing the Church on the island, and for the church in Crete how
the Christian faith was to be lived out in society was as major an issue as it
is for us in our changing society today.
After a
long introduction, in his letter Paul tasked Titus to appoint leaders, elders
and overseers who were able to model and teach how the Christian faith was to
be lived out. Titus was tasked with teaching the Christians how to be an
example of Christ like living in whatever place and strata they found
themselves in their very structured society: He applied the gospel to the Roman
household Code, when we looked at it in our café service we talked of God’s
call to ‘lead where you are’. Now in the passage we had read out to us today,
Paul tells Titus to remind the believers on Crete that God’s salvation plan was
a call for them “to devote themselves to doing what is good.”
The passage
is set out in a very Jewish thought pattern, the central thing is in the center,
in this case it is an expounding of God’s salvation plan. Paul calls it a trust
worthy saying which means that it is not necessarily his own words, rather it
maybe an earlier formula of the gospel that the Cretans would have been
familiar with, that Paul then uses as a rational for God’s people being about
the common good. That is bookended by two different sets of relationships. The
first is with the wider society, how they are to relate to civil government and
interact with people in the public domain, outside the household. Then in the
end he applies it to how they are to relate to the false teachers who have been
causing disruption in households and the church on Crete. Because it’s a letter
the whole thing is wrapped up with personal information and greetings.
We are used
to the images of before and after, that we see in ads for all that weird and
wonderful fitness equipment and sure to work diets. Paul uses that formula of
before and after to talk of the difference the gospel has made. At one time he
says… Before… “ we too were foolish,
disobedient, deceived and enslave by all kinds of passions and pleasures, we
lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating each other.” Just like the
images in those commercials we are not supposed to like the before image that
is painted. We individually may not have been like that whole description and
it is not saying that humans are not capable of
great good outside of Christ, rather Paul paints a picture of the state
that we all have found ourselves in, it is an expression of the fallen state of
humanity … foolish speaks of a life lived without reference to God. Atheists
often speak of not having their own annual holiday, and jokingly I suggest
April 1st, because in psalm
14;1 it says “ a fool says in their heart “there is no God”. Moving on the rest
of Paul’s list is the damaging opposite of the Christian faiths call to obedience,
self-control and loving one another.
Paul then
talks of what God has done to change the situation. It’s not a fitness machine
and our own efforts, but Christ’s death on the cross and his effort for us that
makes us fit into God’s family. Because of God’s kindness God sent our savior
Jesus Christ, not because of what we have done right, but because of God’s
righteousness and mercy. The savior has washed us clean of all we have done
wrong, which is symbolized by our identifying with Christ’s death and
resurrection in baptism, and has poured out his Holy Spirit on us to renew us.
That we may have the hope of eternal life: That we are heirs, welcomed into the
family of God, and have the hope of eternal life. Here is the good news of
Jesus Christ in a nutshell.
But with that
formula perhaps what’s missing is the after image. People can view it like you
would an insurance policy for the afterlife, or maybe even like one of those
fitness machines that are so easy to fold up and store away that we fold them
up and store them away under the bed and forget its there and you don’t’
change, and occasional you’ll say Oh yeah I bought that one I must pull it out
sometime. No says Paul here is the picture of what its like after, we’ve been
called to devote ourselves to doing what is good. We are not saved by good
deeds we are saved for good deeds, for showing Christ like love and compassion
and care, and that says Paul is excellent and profitable for everyone. Its for
the common good.
It’s to be
worked out in the public arena, in how we relate to government and wider
society. It’s a call Paul says to obey and be subject to rulers and
authorities. On one level it’s about compliance, keeping the laws and paying
taxes. Social structure and order is a positive for society, that Christians are
to uphold. In Roman 13 Paul talks of government being appointed by God, with
the purpose of defending the innocent, acknowledging the good, and punishing
those who do wrong.
It’s more
than just compliance however says Paul, we are called to make a positive
difference, to be ready to do whatever is good. When the people of Israel were
in exile in Babylon God’s word to them through Jeremiah was to seek the peace
and prosperity o the city where they lived. AS Jesus put It is about being slat
and light. On a large scale John Stott talks of how historian say the Wesleyan
revival saved England from a savage and bloody revolution like the one that
happened in France, the reawakening of Christian faith lead to social reforms
like the abolition of slavery, the end of child labor, the call for universal
education, people needed to know how to read so they could read the bible
themselves, public libraries and patronage of the arts, the establishment of
the RSPCA and animal welfare measurers. We see it today with the mana in which
groups like the salvation army are treated in a New Zealand society that tends
to be suspicious of Christianity. On a smaller scale we had Steve Farrelly
speak at our mature and marvelous service at the start of October, who when he
heard of all the reports because of his Christian faith went to a decile one
school to ask how he could help and now runs breakfast clubs in well over seven
schools round the city and country, and genuinely makes a difference. It was
great at the pizza and planning gathering last week to hear the desire for us
to be involved in various ways with the issue of poverty in New Zealand. In his
concluding remarks Paul brings doing good down to the very practical level of
helping and providing hospitality to Itinerant Christian leaders Zena the
lawyer and Apollos. That in doing that they will use their resources to provide
for other peoples needs and not simply use them for indulgence.
In 1 Peter
2:11-12, Peter uses the metaphor of being an alien in a strange land to speak
of how Christians were to act in society, maybe into days political climate it
is important to see what is being said here in terms of us being migrants from
the kingdom of God. Like many migrants we are very aware of wanting to be good
citizens and keeping the laws of our new land but also we want to contribute to
it and make it a better place as well so we bring the best of our culture, in
our case the best of that culture is Christ.
One of the
big challenges of Paul’s assertion of submitting to the government and
authorities is what happens when you find yourself facing a despotic,
oppressive or cruel and corrupt or evil regime. Do we simply submit? Paul’s teaching here is helpful. Firstly, as
salt and light, we should always be a movement for good in society, that acts
as a counterpoint. It is not simply being a people who are opposed to something
but who live out a Christ honoring alternative. Do not says Paul over come evil
with evil rather over come evil with good, secondly the list of attitudes to
people in verse 2 of the passage we are looking at today speak not only to how
we are to treat people in society in a loving manner but how we are to respond
in difficult situations, The Christian is called to have a prophetic role to
speak the truth in love, not to slander and speak ill of people. Peaceable and
considerate speaks of a commitment to a Christ honoring response, and gentle is
the word meek which means that we are not willing to let anything, no slight or
threat or violence stop us from the focus of the common good, God’s preferred
future… Our examples are Christ facing the cross, martin Luther king Jr and his
nonviolence.
Paul also
helps us out in his instructions to Titus on how to deal with the false
teachers who were disturbing the Church. Jesus called us not only to love one
another but also to love our enemies, and Paul gives a balance between that and
the necessity to safeguard the church. He tells Titus not simply to get caught
up in the arguments about genealogies and quarrels about the law. That was of
no use. He was not to let the false
teachers set the agenda. Paul always addresses false teaching and error by
going back to the gospel basics of Christ crucified and gospel living of loving
one another, which in Titus he couches in the virtues of Greek philosophy. He
also gives them a process to work through. One that we find Jesus giving his
disciples in Matthew 18 It kind of has the sound of a process for dealing with complaints
in the work place, a series of warnings then dismissal, and to a certain extent
it is just that, however in the NIV translation using the word warning takes
away from the idea Paul has of admonishing the people who are disturbing the
Church. It isn’t simply stop doing what you are doing it’s a sitting down and
working through it from the gospel, its always with the hope that people will
change and see the truth. It’s only when they proved themselves unwilling to
change that Paul uses the idea of removing them from fellowship. Even then this
is not to be seen as punishment but with the hope of reconciliation and
restoration to the truth.
It’s
interesting that Paul can quickly move from this important teaching about the
gospel and its implications on how we are to relate to the society around us to
simply finishing off by telling Titus news about the movements of other
Christian leaders… It’s the form of a Greek letter to do that, but it speaks to
us that looking to relate our Christian faith to the wider society is lived out
in the everydayness of life. In the midst of our plans for the day and life, and our comings and goings, the
Holy Spirit may speak of people who need our help on practical levels and
Paul’s quick to point out that that is where this doing good for the common
good starts. The kingdom of God breaks into the realms of this world in small
acts of kindness. We celebrated one of our congregation, Dulcie Blairs life at her funeral here on
Thursday and the stories that came to the fore of her 95 years were of service and care, of
hospitality and a home open to all, a welcome for those who were in need and
sharing the precious everyday skills with others (Dulcie cooked for the youth camps Ralph directed for close to forty years, a knack for making people
feel welcome, and for ralph and Dulcie how these things made an impact on the
lives of so many, in this church and through involvement in a wider youth camping with
thousands of young people. That it had ripple effects in the community and
country… A real testimony to how doing simple good deeds impacts the common good. You and I have been loved and saved by God he has poured his Holy
Spirit out on us and calls us to devote ourselves to doing Good, you know what
that is Christian leadership.
No comments:
Post a Comment