by How often does your pastor’s message sound repetitive, or how many times has he made the same point? I thought of this after Wednesday night’s service as we reviewed what we believe in our Constitution. This brought me to Titus, a Pastoral Epistle instructing Pastors, where Titus 3:1 starts out, “Put them in mind,” setting the context of the chapter on remembering. It is the God-given job of a pastor to not only teach and preach the depths of God’s Word, but also to continuously remind members of things we already know.
Titus, as Pastor, is instructed by Paul to “Put them in mind” to be upright citizens, how to be a “Christian” by God’s standards and not by the world or religion. Why should we remember this? Because we are first and foremost citizens of Heaven, left here as God’s “ambassadors for Christ” (II Corinthians 5:20). As ambassadors, we show our heavenly citizenship by how we live as citizens in this foreign land, on earth. In other words, we are here to recruit citizens for Heaven by revealing Heaven to them through us. We are to be demonstrating “the kindness and love of God our Saviour” (Titus 3:4).
A Christian citizen should be an influence for good in a community where “every way of a man” seems wicked, yet “right in his own eyes” (Proverbs 21:2). How do we do this? Only by the grace of God, by revealing His grace through our lives. Look at the verses leading up to Titus 3:
- At Easter, “the grace of God” was revealed to all men when “Jesus Christ … gave himself for us” (Titus 2:11)
- After Easter, “the grace of God” continues to be revealed as we “live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:12)
The point of Titus 3 is thus. Since our natural tendency is to backslide, we must often be reminded of a few things in our lives so this wicked world can continue to see the grace of God. If we are going to effectively reveal Christ to them, we cannot forget who we really are, born-again believers, Christians, citizens of a far away land.
Here is an outline of Titus 3:1-7 concerning this:
- Put Them in Mind: WHO WE ARE before the world (3:1)
- Put Them in Mind: HOW WE ARE before the world (3:2)
- Put Them in Mind: WHAT WE WERE before the world (3:3)
- Put Them in Mind: WHAT WE ARE before the world (3:4-7)
Let’s do our utmost to live the grace of God before the world this week.
