Show Notes
Titus 2:9-10
Pastor Stephen Laurer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] O Lord our God, as we come to hear your speak to us like Israel by the mountain, we are reminded that you are on high in heaven.
[00:00:12] You are pure and holy, and we are full of sin.
[00:00:18] And so we look to you for mercy, and we ask that you would wash us clean in the blood of your son.
[00:00:26] Lord God, we ask that you would help us to know and feel your peace and your love towards us, that you do not look upon us any longer in our sin, but that you see us as your children in Christ, adopted in him and beloved for his sake, accepted not for anything we do, but because of Christ and his righteousness.
[00:00:52] Lord our God, we praise and thank you that you do forgive us. And we ask that now that you would speak to us in your word, that we would be encouraged, built up, strengthened, comforted, and that we might be equipped by the power of your spirit to serve you to your glory. In Jesus name we ask. Amen.
[00:01:13] Sermon text is from Titus, chapter two. We'll read verses nine and ten together.
[00:01:20] Hear God's word.
[00:01:22] Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.
[00:01:28] They are to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior.
[00:01:45] Please be seated.
[00:02:01] How you serve makes a big difference in the outcome, doesn't it?
[00:02:08] How you do your work, whether you do it with a good attitude and cheerfully and because you want to please those you're serving, or whether you do it out of resentment or begrudgingly, it makes a big difference, both usually in the product, the outcome, your experience as you're doing the work, and also typically in how the people we're trying to serve, how well they are pleased.
[00:02:35] Paul's getting at these kinds of ideas in his instructions to slaves here.
[00:02:41] But this isn't so far removed, I don't think, from our experience that we can't understand it. I think even children can get at what Paul is talking about here.
[00:02:54] How many of you, maybe, except the little babies that are still in their mother's arms, everybody else, I think, has been given this, I hope, has been given this instruction by his parents.
[00:03:07] How many of you have been told, go clean up your room.
[00:03:13] I'm sure you've all heard that, and how it went when you went to clean up your room was shaped very much by the attitude of your heart as you went to go and do the work of cleaning your room, right?
[00:03:29] If you go with a joyful heart saying, this is a great thing, I get to do. I get to serve my parents and my siblings and whoever else uses that room by making it neat and tidy. And when I do so, I please the Lord. It becomes a good experience. Now, I can tell you I didn't have that experience very often in my childhood. I tended to do it a different way. I wanted to be outside playing, not inside cleaning up my room.
[00:03:55] So I went. Tended to go begrudgingly, right?
[00:04:00] Resenting that I had to go do this. I. I went doing it mostly so that I wouldn't get in trouble and get spanked or something else for not cleaning up my room. I went out of fear and with resentment. And the result was that things went poorly, right?
[00:04:18] It usually took me five times as long to clean up my room than it would have if I had done it joyfully. I dragged my feet. I took forever. And the product was also not very good. In other words, as I went to clean up my room, I wasn't trying to do it the right way. I wasn't trying to please my parents and please the Lord, most importantly. And so I did what you tended to do, what my siblings and I called a shove job.
[00:04:47] You probably know what I'm talking about. You take your clothes, you shove them in a pile and you hide those in the closet. And then you shove all your toys under the bed and you hope that mom doesn't come and check on you because then you have to do it again the right way.
[00:05:02] You get the idea, right? How we go about doing our work, how we go about serving others, and the Lord is greatly affects the whole thing, our service.
[00:05:15] And Paul here is telling us that how we serve particularly as instructions to slaves, but as it applies to us, how we serve others needs to be shaped by the truths of the Gospel.
[00:05:30] I've been coming back to that theme because this whole chapter is really about how the Christian life in every area is to be shaped by the truths of the Gospel. That's what you find in chapter two, verse one. As for you teach what accords with sound doctrine. And then he covers all these different categories of people, men and women, old and young and so forth. Last week we looked at how pastors and their work is to be shaped by the Gospel. Here it's the slaves and those who serve others, how their service is to be affected, shaped by the gospel. We'll look at that under three points. First, the service is to be submissive service.
[00:06:11] Secondly is to be pleasing service.
[00:06:14] And thirdly, it is to be adorning service.
[00:06:18] So first, how the gospel is to shape our service such that it is submissive and willing service.
[00:06:26] He says in verse 9 that bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.
[00:06:35] Now, bondservants is a nice way of saying slaves. That's the word we would probably use today. Most commonly, we don't have slaves in our society in the way they had it in Greece and Rome when Paul wrote this letter. But what Paul is saying is to Christians in the church in that day, Christians who were slaves who had become followers of Jesus, that they were to continue submitting to their masters in everything.
[00:07:09] We don't have slaves, thankfully. I think that's a good thing.
[00:07:13] But what did this mean? Well, slaves were servants who were bond servants, servants who, in other words, served someone and they were bound to that service.
[00:07:26] The law required them to work for their masters. That's what service is, is working for someone else. They were bound to work for their masters with no pay, and they couldn't get out of doing their work, and they couldn't get away from their masters. They were bound to do this work.
[00:07:45] In other words, they weren't free.
[00:07:49] Someone else owned them.
[00:07:52] And the work that they did was all for him.
[00:07:57] Whatever he told them to do, that was what they were to do all day long, every day.
[00:08:03] And furthermore, not only was there work in service for him, but they worked without payment.
[00:08:10] Most of us, when we go to work somewhere, we get paid for that work. We work for a customer. He pays us for the job. We work for a company as an employee. The employer gives us a paycheck.
[00:08:24] Slaves or bond servants that Paul's talking about here worked all day, every day for someone else having to do everything he told them to do. They couldn't quit and go find another job. They were stuck with him.
[00:08:36] And they didn't get paid for any of the work they did. Their master reaped all the benefits of their work.
[00:08:44] God says to Christian slaves of that day that they were to obey and submit to their masters in all things. In other words, do what he says.
[00:08:54] If he says that you're to work in the house to cook and clean, then that's what you do. If he says you're going to go work in the fields, that's what you do.
[00:09:04] Now, we don't have slavery in America today. That's good. None of you are slaves. Praise the Lord.
[00:09:10] But we all still have to work.
[00:09:13] And most of us, as we do that work, do that work serving someone else. Now, we do it voluntarily.
[00:09:20] We're free to Quit and go find a different job. But still we work and we serve others.
[00:09:29] And to the degree that we work and serve others, we're called to submit to them.
[00:09:35] And that's really what you're doing in a way. When someone hires you to do a job, you're taking your time and your talents and your efforts and you're saying, okay, instead of doing what I want to do, I'm going to come and do what you want me to do, and I'm going to submit my time and efforts to you to your ends in our day to day in return for payment. But nonetheless, that's what we're doing.
[00:09:57] So in a similar fashion, to whatever degree that we have to submit to others, we're to do it in a way that pleases the Lord, in a way that's shaped by the Gospel.
[00:10:09] Well then, what is Gospel shaped service or submission look like?
[00:10:14] After all, Paul says teach what accords with sound doctrine, the truths of the Gospel.
[00:10:24] What's the gospel say about slavery?
[00:10:27] What's the Gospel say about service and work? That's a good place to start thinking about this.
[00:10:35] The Gospel tells us that everyone on the face of planet earth is born into slavery.
[00:10:43] Jesus says whoever commits sin is a slave to sin.
[00:10:49] The Gospel comes to all of us and says, you're all enslaved.
[00:10:57] But the good news that you find in verse 14 of chapter 2 here, the good news is that the Son of God came and gave Himself for us that he might redeem us from all lawlessness. You were born a slave to sin and the Son of God came and took on human flesh. And he went and he died on the cross that he would set you free.
[00:11:21] He came to buy your freedom from the slavery of sin.
[00:11:29] That's the good news of the gospel.
[00:11:32] Now that good news of the gospel has a further implication.
[00:11:37] Jesus came and he set sinners free from slavery to sin.
[00:11:43] And when he did so, he redeemed you from sin and slavery to sin, but he purchased you for his own possession.
[00:11:51] Now you belong to a new master and Lord.
[00:11:57] Verse 14.
[00:11:59] Again, he came to purify for himself a people for his own possession.
[00:12:08] Sin used to be your master.
[00:12:10] You've been set free from that. Now Jesus is your master and you belong to Him.
[00:12:17] That means a number of things.
[00:12:20] On the one hand, it means that because you belong to him, your whole life belongs to Him.
[00:12:27] Yes, your body and your soul belong to Him. But all of the energy and strength that you have to do things for yourself, for others, all of that belongs to Jesus too.
[00:12:41] So it doesn't matter what work you do in this life, whether it's as a slave, like the people in Paul's day that he was writing to and talking about, or whether it's as an employee or even as a volunteer going and serving someone for no pay in whatever setting, or as a spouse, serving one another as children, serving your parents as a friend, serving another Christian friend. Everything that you do belongs to Jesus.
[00:13:10] You can flip that on its head.
[00:13:13] That also means that who you are and everything that you have to give doesn't, it belongs to Jesus. And therefore it does not belong to a master here on earth.
[00:13:27] Ultimately, and most importantly, the slaves that Paul is writing to that Titus is to instruct about their service, they don't belong to earthly masters. They belong to their heavenly master, King Jesus.
[00:13:43] And because they do, and because you Christians belong to Jesus, you don't belong to your boss at work, you don't belong to your customers, you don't belong to your spouse children, you don't ultimately belong to your parents. You belong to Jesus.
[00:14:02] And that means your work and your service belongs to Him.
[00:14:07] And guess what your new master does?
[00:14:10] He sets you free from sin. And then he sends you out and he calls you to serve in all kinds of places.
[00:14:17] And wherever you are serving, you work for Jesus.
[00:14:23] He set you free. He made you his own possession and now you work for Him.
[00:14:29] Your service belongs to Him. He says you're mine.
[00:14:33] And wherever it is you're serving, whether you're an employee, whether you own a business, whether you're your own man, you own a farm, don't depend on anyone, whether you're a spouse, a wife, husband, child, anything you can think of, wherever the Lord has placed you, he's put you there to serve Him.
[00:14:55] And as he calls you to submit to Him, a part of that is serving and submitting to whoever he's put you under in whatever role he's placed you.
[00:15:08] Now of course, of course, if you're serving King Jesus, you're submitting to him and then serving as a servant or an employee or, or spouse or whatever it might be.
[00:15:19] Jesus never calls you to sin. That's the thing. He sets you free from whatever submission he's calling slaves to here is in good work, things that Jesus calls His people to do.
[00:15:34] Again, verse 14, he purified a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
[00:15:44] He calls us to submissive service.
[00:15:48] But secondly, Gospel shaped service is pleasing service.
[00:15:55] We serve King Jesus, then our service must be, well, pleasing.
[00:16:01] What kind of service are we accustomed to?
[00:16:05] We tend to see around you. And what's your default mode? Usually not pleasing service. Is it our default mode? And everyone around us, their default mode is sinful service.
[00:16:22] It's a service that Jesus calls slavery to sin.
[00:16:28] And what does that look like?
[00:16:32] Well, if you're a slave, like Paul's writing too, you're. You're forced to work at the demands of someone else, at their whims. Do this, do that, and you tend to become resentful and bitter of that, towards that.
[00:16:47] And if you're a slave in Paul's day, you work all day, every day, with no break and no rest for yourself, nothing to give yourself.
[00:16:59] And you do all of this work with no earthly reward.
[00:17:04] Where's your heart going to tend to go?
[00:17:07] You're not going to have any motivation to do this.
[00:17:10] You don't benefit from the work you do. Your master does.
[00:17:14] So the selfish default mode of the heart is to argue, to push back. I don't want to do that. That's the wrong way to do that, to make life difficult for your master.
[00:17:28] Now, employees today get paid, but they excel at these things. If you've worked in any job, you've probably run across this. You've probably done it yourself.
[00:17:39] We give our bosses a hard time. We make it difficult for them to do their job. We give them lip. We argue.
[00:17:48] And then he talks about pilfering. That happens, too. Whatever has been entrusted to us as an employee, we think, well, it's the company's.
[00:17:59] It's company equipment. It's company property. We can do whatever we want with it. I used to work with guys in construction, and as we'd be driving around in company trucks with company equipment, they would do all sorts of things they would never do in their own vehicles. And they would laugh and say, company equipment doesn't matter. And so they'd abuse the company trucks and whatever else.
[00:18:24] They take things, whatever is in our control. As employees, we're tempted to misuse, and probably most commonly, we steal the company's time.
[00:18:36] We came and we sold our time and our talents and our energy to the company in exchange for our paycheck.
[00:18:43] And then we sit around and we loaf and we drag our feet.
[00:18:48] The same things Paul's talking about here that slaves were tempted to do, we do today as well.
[00:18:55] After all, not much reward for me in doing more than I can get away with doing.
[00:19:03] Why bother? Why should I care?
[00:19:06] That's a picture of sinful service, and you probably recognize it if you're being honest with yourself.
[00:19:14] And Jesus comes to you and says, see, I saved you from that.
[00:19:18] That's what I came to set you free from the bad attitudes, the wasting of time and resources, the harming of others. I came to set you free from all of that.
[00:19:30] I saved you for myself, that you would serve me and you would serve me well.
[00:19:39] The Christian service has a new goal.
[00:19:42] Not self, not even our boss.
[00:19:48] Here on earth we serve and aim to be well pleasing to the King of Kings.
[00:19:55] Your goal now is to do well to the best of your ability, faithfully to serve whomever the Lord has placed you under.
[00:20:05] And to do so, he says, by all good faith, the word faith there the idea is fidelity or faithfulness.
[00:20:17] All the work that the Lord has entrusted to you through your employer, he expects you to perform with all diligence and faithfulness, as though he himself were there.
[00:20:31] Think of a biblical example.
[00:20:34] Remember that guy Joseph, the end of the Book of Genesis?
[00:20:38] He gets thrown into all kinds of terrible circumstances. He gets sold as a slave, gets bought by that guy Potiphar. He starts at the bottom of his household and he works with all fidelity in everything.
[00:20:53] And the result is that he does well, he pleases his master, and he is elevated through the ranks of the household till he's running the whole house and he's tempted to sin by Potiphar's wife. And he remains faithful to his master.
[00:21:10] And the result is he gets thrown in prison and then he's faithful again there till he's running the prison, and then he's faithful there until he's running the whole nation. Under Pharaoh.
[00:21:22] He worked hard to the best of his ability, not to please his earthly masters, but to please his heavenly master.
[00:21:32] And that reminds us that we're called to serve faithfully as though we're serving the Lord well, pleasing to him not just when things are easy and going well, but in some of the most difficult of circumstances.
[00:21:49] After all, who led you there?
[00:21:51] Jesus. Did he put you where you are? Is it hard?
[00:21:56] Yeah. But he calls you to serve him. Well, there now we think we have it hard. And I know sometimes we do. It can be very difficult.
[00:22:08] But think about the people Paul is writing to.
[00:22:12] Slaves could be beaten.
[00:22:15] They could be beaten not because they didn't do a good job, they could have done a great job. But they could be beaten because their master's having a bad day and wants to take it out on them.
[00:22:26] They could be sold and separated from their wives and children.
[00:22:32] Or worse, they could be sold if you're A Greek slave, you could be sold to work in the mines underground. Very hard work, because he's unhappy with you.
[00:22:43] No matter the circumstances. The Christian is called to be faithful and to be well pleasing in all things.
[00:22:51] Now here we come to the reason, if this is what it looks like, what we're called to do.
[00:23:00] How does the Gospel drive us there? Why does it press us into such faithful service?
[00:23:07] We've been hinting at it, but the reason is not because you have such a good earthly master.
[00:23:14] Paul doesn't say that in these verses.
[00:23:17] You're not called to faithful service in all things, no matter how difficult, because your boss is a really good boss and he's really motivating, so you want to please him and serve him well.
[00:23:28] You're working for a great company with good benefits, and you want to keep that job also, not the reason he gives.
[00:23:35] Our standard for service and our reason for service don't come from our earthly boss.
[00:23:46] 2 Corinthians 5, 9. So whether we are at home or away, in life or in death, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Jesus.
[00:24:01] That's our aim.
[00:24:03] He's our standard. He's the one we seek to please. He's the reason we work hard.
[00:24:11] Because the Christian serves his master, Jesus.
[00:24:15] Joseph's aim was to please his heavenly master, and as a result, his earthly masters were pleased because God blessed him and everything that he did.
[00:24:25] You're called to be well pleasing in your service because your service is to the King Jesus.
[00:24:36] Thirdly, Christian service is adorning service.
[00:24:42] It's gospel shaped because it adorns the gospel.
[00:24:47] To adorn something here in this context is to display the excellence, the beauty, the wonderfulness of the truths of the Gospel.
[00:25:00] The servant, the slave, as he serves well in all things well, pleasing to his master is displaying, showing forth the wonderful things of the gospel.
[00:25:14] The gospel is beautiful and excellent.
[00:25:19] It's wonderful.
[00:25:21] Use all the superlatives you can think of to describe the gospel.
[00:25:26] That's what the Gospel is, our obedient service. Faithful service, Paul says, displays or illustrates, adorns the gospel.
[00:25:41] It's good. We get to show it forth.
[00:25:46] Think of it, maybe with one example.
[00:25:52] Women like to take good care of their hair, and they like to do their hair.
[00:26:00] Now, when a woman cares for her hair and puts it up, it's not beautiful because of how she did her hair.
[00:26:12] Her hair is beautiful, and she displays it in a beautiful way, a way that showcases the beauty and glory of her hair.
[00:26:23] We are called to Be well pleasing in our service so as to showcase the beauty and the glory of the gospel. It's beautiful and glorious and we get to show that forth in our service to adorn the gospel.
[00:26:40] How does that work? What does that look like?
[00:26:44] Faithful, well pleasing service adorns the gospel by showing the power of the Gospel to change sinners.
[00:26:54] When Christians serve well without grumbling, without complaining, without stealing and pilfering, Christians show that they are no longer slaves to sin, but now serve a new master, the Lord Jesus, who's changed their hearts. And because he's changed their hearts, they now serve well.
[00:27:16] Faithful service adorns the Gospel by showing the power of Christ to change the hearts of sinners.
[00:27:25] Faithful service adorns the gospel further by showing forth the beauty and glory of King Jesus himself.
[00:27:38] Jesus is beautiful and glorious.
[00:27:41] And there is some small little way in which, as we live our new lives in Christ, little glimmers of Christ and his glory shine forth in our service.
[00:27:54] That's what Jesus is talking about when he says, let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
[00:28:05] A master comes and demands sinful things of his Christian slave.
[00:28:12] And like Joseph, she denies his wicked advances, no matter how painfully and cruelly she might be treated.
[00:28:27] And there you see the purity and the beauty of King Jesus shining in that slave.
[00:28:42] Or maybe think of a modern day example in our own experience.
[00:28:46] When your employer comes and demands your work in a compromising way, when he demands that allegiance to him trump allegiance to Jesus to join in his embezzlement or theft, or his laziness or his breaking of the Sabbath.
[00:29:07] And you say, no, I serve a higher master, Jesus.
[00:29:14] I must be faithful to him.
[00:29:17] Your fidelity to Christ shows forth his righteousness, his goodness, his glory.
[00:29:26] Your faithful service shows and adorns the Gospel by showing the goodness of Jesus that you have a new master, who's a good master, who's loving and faithful and who cares for you.
[00:29:44] When we serve faithfully in miserable conditions, we have a bad boss.
[00:29:50] Or maybe other things that you go through as you remain faithful in those difficult things and you do well and you endure hardship without complaint.
[00:30:05] You testify to the goodness of your new master.
[00:30:15] You show that you don't serve well because of how you've been treated by those around you. You don't serve well because of the rewards that your earthly boss offers you or withholds from you.
[00:30:27] You show that you serve well because Jesus loves you, because he gave himself to redeem you from Sin from grumbling, from complaining, from misery, to make you his own treasured possession, zealous for good works.
[00:30:46] And so, because you love him and he loves you and he's such a good master, you will gladly suffer for his sake.
[00:30:57] You would rather submit to the King than turn back to the slavery of sin.
[00:31:03] You show what a good master he is.
[00:31:08] You adorn the Gospel in your well pleasing, good service.
[00:31:14] By showing forth the hope that the Gospel offers, perhaps you find yourself with discontentment. Maybe you don't like the work.
[00:31:27] Maybe your paycheck isn't great.
[00:31:30] You'd like more.
[00:31:32] Slaves in Paul's day worked with no hope of earthly reward.
[00:31:39] Their wages were withheld completely by their earthly masters.
[00:31:45] But you work and you serve well, regardless of how well or underpaid you are.
[00:31:53] And you do so not out of a hope of riches here on earth, but you serve well and you work hard because you have a hope of a reward that no earthly boss or employer could ever hope to give you.
[00:32:11] You serve for a reward that only Jesus can give you.
[00:32:17] And as you work hard and you serve well for Jesus, you do so not because you have earned that reward.
[00:32:26] You work hard and you serve well at all times and in all things because Jesus has earned that reward for you.
[00:32:35] That's your hope. And you show that forth to those around you. You adorn the hope of the Gospel. As you say, it doesn't matter what I get here or don't get here.
[00:32:46] I serve Jesus because of what he offers me.
[00:32:50] Eternal life, fellowship with the Father, an inheritance that cannot be touched, moth and rust, cannot destroy, thieves cannot break in and steal. That's where my heart is.
[00:33:05] That's where my treasure is. And so I serve here freely because that's the Jesus I serve. Let's pray.
[00:33:19] Our God and our King. We confess that the end of the day, when we have done all that we are commanded to do, we confess that we are unworthy servants deserving of nothing.
[00:33:35] But Lord, we confess further that not only are we unworthy, deserving of nothing but what we have deserved through our sin and rebellion and our slavery to sin, is that we have deserved your wrath and judgment.
[00:33:52] But we thank you that you are a merciful and kind God, and that you have given us a loving and kind master who has freed us with his own blood.
[00:34:05] Lord Jesus, we ask that you would fill our hearts with joy, that we would know your great love for us, that that would motivate us in all things, that we would be driven out of a desire for you. And to please you at all times not because we can in ourselves but because we know that even as you call us to such service you are the one who works in us, strengthening us, empowering us, helping us to tread down our sin and to turn away from temptation that in you we might conquer and in you we might be found by the Father with your righteousness not our own that we might be found in you and being found in you we might be found pleasing to the Father. O Lord our God, we ask that you would fill our hearts with these truths and that they would drive us forward that as we serve you in all of our callings we would serve you with joy, with hope and that you would use us in little ways, little glimmers to shine forth your love and your goodness and your glory that we might adorn the gospel in a way that pleases you and brings men to turn to Jesus the Savior in whose name we pray. Amen.
