Titus: The Gospel is a Wheel

So we've been going through the book of Titus in between being in and out of town.

So this is the third message in the book of Titus, the third chapter in the third message.

And so I want to do a bit of review, perhaps for my sake as well as for your sake, because I think the first message was back in June sometime, and the second one is the beginning of July.

Now we're toward the end of July.

So the first message, what we talked about is we said that the gospel, the good news of the Christian message that Jesus died for you, that this is a totally different way of thinking.

If you remember, we talked about a seesaw.

Do you remember this?

And we we talked about how on one side you have Christian legalism, and then on the other side you have Christian license.

And we said so often what we how we tend to think about Christian living in the gospel is that, well, just we need to get the balance.

We need to be in between legalism and license.

If we can just get it balanced right, then we'll be okay.

And we talked about all the problems with that way of thinking, and what we talked about is that the gospel is actually it's a totally different way of thinking, that we have the wrong metaphor when we're thinking about it that way.

And perhaps a better metaphor is to think about the fact that Christian legalism is heading north on I-75.

Do you remember this?

And license is heading south on I-75, and we said, well, the gospel in Christian living is actually a totally different road.

It's like I-20 out heading west.

I mean, it's just it's a different path.

And the new thinking, the new way is this: it's I no longer perform, I no longer obey as to be accepted.

I am accepted, therefore I obey.

And that's the new way.

That's the gospel thinking.

So that was first message, Titus.

Second message, we talked about that God's grace doesn't just save us into relationship with him, it actually transforms us.

And that we need it this way.

Because we're never transformed enough.

I've never been lying in bed at night, roll over, look at Christy, and say, Christy, I just think I've done it.

I just think I've arrived.

You know what?

I I've just been contemplating and I just think I have hit the pinnacle of selflessness.

I no longer struggle with impatience.

I have really don't have any issues.

I'm very content.

I'm extremely humble, as you see in this moment, that like that conversation has never happened.

Christi would never allow it to happen.

It can't happen, right?

It doesn't happen.

It can't happen for you, it can't happen for me.

And so even while God's grace is transforming us, we have to have God's grace rescuing us because we're never transformed enough.

Okay, so in that message, do you remember the question I asked?

Well, I didn't remember it, so I had to look it up actually.

Uh this was the question is do you ever feel like you haven't changed enough?

Do you ever feel like man, I was like this when I was 16?

I was like this when I was 12.

I was like this when I was 25, and now I'm 50.

I was like this when I was 30, and now I'm 60.

Do you ever just feel like you haven't changed enough?

Like you should be better at this point in your life.

So on my three-week sabbatical, I think what hit me week one was I was just reflecting back over the just the load of work leading up to it as we bought our building, and then you know, we're working with architect, and then we're having those vision tours, and a lot of y'all came through to hear what we want to do, and I'm pitching what we want to do and how we can do it, and I have all this confidence and all this, and I get week one in sabbatical, and I just get flooded with doubt.

Like, re like really?

You're you you're gonna do that?

And you with them?

Like, like, and just flooded with doubt about all of it.

And and just and going, I I really, and you're gonna take three weeks off?

Like right in the middle of this?

Like it's kind of a crucial time.

You you probably need to log back on, you probably need to pick the phone back up, you probably need to open that laptop, you probably need to be hitting it hard.

And behind that was this question for me is is can I really trust God with something?

Or do I need to control that building?

Do I need to control that church?

Or maybe do I need to control that relationship?

Do I need to control that parenting?

Do I need to control that job?

Do I need to strangle that thing so hard that I actually will end up killing it?

But I'll be in control.

And he's asking me the whole time uh, what do you really use to define yourself?

Why can't you let go of that?

Why all this urgency?

Why why why is so why is there this addiction to control and self-dependency?

Here's how this relates to Titus.

Because it's this question, how do I safely and honestly without fear process something like that with God?

See, I can.

But I only can do it if God's grace rescues and transforms.

If it's not that way, I don't have any safety with Him.

I'll just revert back into my own self-dependency to work harder, or I just I just I'll just be done with it.

I'll just ignore it.

See, here's the great secret.

Whether you're new to being a Christian, new to church, or whether you've been around forever, here's the secret.

A lot of us know it.

I'll go ahead and tell you if you're not clued in.

None of us feel like we're good enough.

None of us are good enough.

None of us will be good enough.

And so there's this huge exhale for us that we can confess over to God all of our issues, and we can trust Jesus' work for us on the cross.

And see, then, then the grace of God which rescues you will begin to transform you.

And even while you're being transformed and you're not getting that much better all the time, or you're not sure if you are, you're being rescued.

Alright, so I just said a lot, a lot of that was review if you were paying attention in Titus 1 and Titus 2, and this brings us into Titus chapter 3.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

And the main point for Titus chapter 3 is this that the gospel, the Christian message, which means good news, the gospel means good news, is not the first step and a stairway of better and better behavior.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

Rather, the gospel is more like a hub and a wheel.

So it's not so much like a ladder, it's more like a hub and a wheel.

So let me read the text.

We're gonna look at the text and we're gonna talk about what in the world does that mean.

All right, so Titus chapter 3, verses 1 through 3.

Titus 3:1–3

Let me reread what Sam read for us.

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient.

So Paul's saying, hey, hey, this is what you should be like.

Be submissive to rulers and authorities, be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures.

And he's saying this is what used to drive us, this is what used to define us, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

And so let me, I'm not, I'm not leaving.

Let me just pull out a couple of things here.

I think we'll.

So this is, you know, you need to change a light bulb.

Um everybody has one, right?

You change the light bulb, pull out your stepladder.

Maybe, maybe you dust the top of your fan blades.

Maybe there's like two of you that do that, most of us don't.

Uh maybe pull it out before, you know, there's a roach on the ceiling.

Anybody just want to go ahead and confess that?

And you've had to do that.

Scary because it might fall on you, scary moment, but you pull this out.

And you step on first step, you go up, second step.

Not supposed to step on the top one, right?

We all know that, but we all do it.

And each step you go, you go higher and you go higher and you go higher.

And it's a ladder.

It's a ladder mentality.

Every step you take, you get higher.

Now, sadly, we can bridge a ladder mentality into Christianity.

And what it looks like is this is that the gospel is the first step.

And then we begin to misuse things like morality, disciplines.

I mean, like good things.

Religiosity to make ourselves feel more godly or validated before God.

And so just take another step, take another step, take another step, and maybe you've been in a church like that or denomination or some religious system, and it's just another step and another step and another step.

And the first step was like, you are loved.

But after that, it was like just get the work.

And it's another step and another step and another step.

And if you've been around that, you know the deal.

It just doesn't end.

There's no end.

And what it does is it reverts back to you the pressure to become better rather than being empowered by some work that's been done outside of yourself.

But this text is totally different.

Because this text is not so much an image of a ladder.

This text is more of an image of a wheel.

So we've been riding bikes like crazy the last few weeks at the beach.

So I've been spent a lot of time on a bike, uh, my little girl's in front of me, behind me.

I've been looking at wheels, sitting on a seat, hot, sweaty at the beach, pedaling, looking down at wheels, and it's all about the hub.

I mean, really, that's what it's about is you know, on a given wheel, the thing that holds it all together to make it work, what you are dependent on is the hub.

It breaks, you're going down.

It's the thing that empowers everything.

The gospel, God's grace to you and the work of Jesus is the center.

It is the hub that holds everything together, and everything else revolves around it, and it's constantly coming back to it, and it is empowering everything else.

So your identity, your disciplines, your morality, your confession, your effort, everything is revolving around this great hub, Christ's work, for you that you are dependent on.

And it's this message, the gospel, the good news that it's over.

That it's over.

You are made right with God based on Jesus' work, and he has no condemnation toward you.

So in this text, what we get in these first couple verses is in verse 1, we see Paul calling us out to be, you know, be submissive, be law-abiding in our society.

Then Paul says, be willing to lend a helping hand.

He also says, have a big heart.

Have big hearts and be kind.

In verse 2, he talks about speaking words of love.

See, this is what the gospel is creating in us, not all at once, but little by little, maybe without you noticing.

See, remember, grace relieves our hearts.

So we don't have to be afraid anymore.

We don't have to live reactive to fear all the time because we're already accepted, so we don't have to use our words and use our actions to try to constantly earn acceptance, which means we can be law-abiding, we can be submissive, and we can use our words to love people.

We can risk love.

We can risk love because we've already been loved.

Now, this is where I'm a huge work in progress because I still use my words to impress people constantly.

Let people know I'm smart, or I think I'm smart.

Let them know who I am, who I know, where I've been.

But when you're resting and you're coming back to the hub that you should be dependent upon, you don't need to be using your words that way.

You don't have to use your actions that way.

You can live a different way.

And see, from that hub, that core inner peace that is in Christ, that's where the change comes.

This is how God creates change in us.

And creates a gentle and kind and humble spirit.

So because Paul knows we're gonna take these things in verses one and two, we're gonna build a ladder, because that's what we do.

We go, oh, well, this is what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna be humble, and then I'm gonna be submissive, I'm gonna use kind words, I'm gonna do this really good, and he knows we're gonna do this, so he immediately brings us back away from that ladder mentality, back to a wheel mentality.

In verse 3, he says, you know what?

You you're morons, you're stubborn, you're foolish, but God stepped in.

That's what verse 4 says.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

By the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, which means this there is nothing you have done to earn God's love.

It's by his work.

And that work washes you, and his spirit lives in you and is working in you.

And then we get verse 7, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So all of this makes us right, makes us complete, blameless, holy, his children, which gives us life now and gives us life forever.

See, are you seeing the pattern in Titus?

The pattern in Titus is this Paul keeps telling us about the fruits of the gospel, what our lives should look like, and then he immediately returns us back to God's grace for us.

So it's like he takes us from the hub of the wheel out to the outside edge of the wheel, and he takes us out to this outside edge, and then he knows we're gonna kind of like turn the outside edge into like a ladder, so he takes us back to the hub to remind us that no, you always are coming back.

That this is what generates the power, this is your stability, this is where everything rests.

So last week when we were at the beach with Christy's family, there's 17 of us in a house all together, big house.

Thank you for that.

That's a lot of people.

And so one day we had uh Beach Olympics.

Anybody play Beach Olympics on their family vacation?

So we played Beach Olympics one day as we have a whole bunch of little kids, and so we had stuff like um water balloon toss, spoon egg relay, uh cornhole, right?

That's maybe more common to you guys.

Uh we had shaving cream cover somebody in shaving cream, then they had to go run down and wash off in the ocean and come back.

And so we had all these events.

Well, the last event, the last event was uh um a cup that had a hole in the bottom of it, and you had to, uh your team is all lined up in a row, and you pass the cup all the way down the row, and then they dipped it into the ocean, and then they pass the cup back up, and so water's coming out, and then you're trying to fill a bucket and then back and forth over and over again.

I think I misjudged the amount of time this would take because as we're going, the adults are kind of looking at each other like, should we figure out a way to cut this short?

And we just kept doing it.

The only way to win this, the only way to win it is to keep returning to the ocean.

This is the only way to win it.

There's no other way.

That's it.

You have to keep dipping into the ocean.

Martin Luther, the great reformer, the writer, the writer in the 1600s, he said this to progress is to always begin again.

It's the only way.

So I started to think about thinking about you know, I was trying not to think about this when I was on sabbatical, but inevitably I was.

And so I was thinking about some of this while just sitting on the beach and thinking about this imagery of what it means if the gospel is a hub of a wheel and empowers us, and it's everything we rest in, and and at the same time hearing the waves.

I have these weird, I have weird uh hearing.

I just I hear everything, like these little noises.

Um noises bother me.

I'm sure it's a condition.

Some I saw somebody nudging somebody over here because you're like me.

I mean, I just anything just bothers me.

It's just constantly, I'm just constantly bothered by noise.

It really is a condition.

And the at the beach, I I love the beach because the the waves it just drowns out all the other noises, right?

It's it's it's God's like sound machine, is what it is.

It's so wonderful.

It is constant, endless, persistent affection for my ears, right?

You just sit there and it just lulls you.

And it just doesn't stop.

And maybe this is a better way for you to think about what the gospel is.

Same thing as a hub.

It just doesn't stop.

This good news of God's grace for you.

It is the endless, persistent affection for us, which keeps loving us even though we're failing in our transformation.

And yet that's the very thing that transforms us.

And as we let that great revolutionary truth just get into us, and we rest in it more and more, and we overcome a merit-based kind of ladder mentality to Christianity, we will find a rest that not just relieves us from ungodliness, but actually empowers us to godliness.

That's what Titus is about.

That's what Paul is saying in Titus.

Titus has been so huge for me as a book in the Bible because I just I used to always need the next religious hit.

I don't know if that resonates with you, if you know what I'm talking about when I say that.

I just always needed the next personal transformation.

I needed the next book, I needed the next level of maturity.

I just always needed enough.

And so it's sort of like, well, Jesus is enough, but really today I'm gonna supplement all of that.

I'm gonna supplement that with how I feel about how good I am in response to that work, and that wore me out because I was climbing a ladder.

And I wasn't getting a lot better.

I do wish I was better, right?

I mean, I think all of us wish we were better.

I think as Christians, we should wish we were better.

We should hope to be better, we should want to glorify God and be kind to others.

I mean, we want to be better, and we could we beat ourselves up for not being better.

And every once in a while I catch a glimpse of myself.

Right?

Every once in a while you you catch a glimpse of yourself.

You go, how am I how am I still angry?

How am I still ashamed of that?

How do I still struggle with body image?

42 years old, how do I still struggle with this like I did when I was 16?

Shouldn't I be over this by now?

How am I still so impatient?

Why do I still get frustrated?

Why do I cuss like a sailor when I get stressed out?

Like, how is this still going on?

And then maybe there's some other things you see where you have concern for other people.

A few weeks ago, a friend of a friend's little girl died.

It bothered me for a week.

I used to be like hear something like that and go eat a burrito.

I mean, I'll be honest.

I didn't know her.

It's not much.

Something.

But but even even that, even that fruit isn't anything to hold on to.

I mean, right, that would just be another form of addiction to performance all over again.

Fruit just isn't made to be held on to.

The hub of the wheel is what's made to be held on to.

Don't be paralyzed in life by counting apples and oranges of your life.

Don't do that.

You have to begin again, over and over again.

Return to the hub.

What if the breakthrough you need wasn't you getting better behaviors, but simply remembering how sufficient Jesus is for you?

What if that was the only true way for you to become godly?

From the heart outward.

Bearing fruit, failing, remembering what God has done for you and Jesus, and trusting in it in a greater way.

There's a reason why Paul begins and ends almost all his books with the way he ends this book.

Grace be with you all.

It's because we need it.

Let's pray together.

God, we confess that we are not transformed enough.

In many ways in many ways we're not transformed at all, and in other ways we see great progress.

God, would you help us to turn our eyes from constantly analyzing ourselves to trusting in you in greater ways?

Would you give us great hope of what's possible for our lives and at the same time humility and brokenness?

For all the ways that we constantly need you.

For you are the hub.

On you everything runs.

Would we be empowered by your word for us?

Does it relieve us right with you?

Empowered us.