Titus

Well, life in Britain is often at the moment extremely painful. There is an increasing polarisation in Britain. We divide ourselves into tribes. We know that I'm part of this tribe, but I'm not part of that tribe. I belong to this group of people, but we don't like them. Sometimes people say things or do things that can be really deeply hateful. While other people can show great acts of kindness, only to have it repaid by the person they were being kind to reporting it as being a hate crime.

We're becoming more and more aware these days of the dangers of fakes. Whether that is fake news, fake banknotes, fake holiday advertisements, fake job listings, fake concert tickets, deep fake videos claiming to be somebody that you trust speaking, or fake designer goods. Just this past week, police forces across the country raided hundreds of tiny shops on high streets up and down Britain, confiscating large quantities of counterfeit vapes. They might have been stolen as well, I don't know, but they were fake.

Divisions and arguments are always ugly. They don’t belong in families or in business, but they are especially unseemly in Christian churches. We’re supposed to be the first glimpse of a new humanity, united under Jesus’ gracious rule. We’re supposed to be doing good to others, not squabbling amongst ourselves.

And yet it’s all too common. Churches that are focussed in on themselves, arguing away, tragically divided, doing little good to anyone else.

Here are some of the headlines from the past week: UK unemployment total up by 15,000. A German court convicts a 94-year old former guard at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews. Fears of new arms race after Iran nuclear deal. Many NHS hospital patients complain of lack of dignity.

God’s grace is a wonderful thing. It runs all the way through the Bible, from beginning to end. God’s blessing, his kindness, his goodness, his forgiveness are not things we could ever earn. We don’t have to, because God delights to give us these things free of charge. We don’t even get to chip in and pay for the drinks. God’s kindness is free. All we have to do is say yes, and receive it.

Who do you think you are?

We all need to know our identity. Where have we come from? What are the decisive events in our past that define our story? Where are we going? What are our ambitions for the future?

We all have a story. Where we’ve come from. Where we’re going. What we hope for.

And Christians are part of a very particular story. What does it mean to be a Christian? What is our identity?

Titus chapter 2 will answer that for us. We’re going to look to the past first, then to the future, and then see who are in the present day.

You hear people say from time to time that the problem with the church is that it’s full of hypocrites.

It’s quite true, of course. None of us lives completely consistently with what we believe.

Which is what makes the jibe so painful. We want our friends to follow Jesus. There’s nothing wrong with him. We don’t want them to be put off because his church is full of less than perfect specimens. So it hurts when we are part of the problem.

And it’s tempting to make one of two false moves.

One of the buzzwords of modern society is tolerance. Whatever else we believe or do, we must tolerate other people. We mustn’t be intolerant.

In passing, I’d point out that ironically Britain is becoming more intolerant. There’s nothing more intolerant than a society that has tolerance as its mantra. But that’s an aside. This morning I want to think about the church.

Because this has all affected the church. The church in this country aims to be tolerant.

One of the most wonderful privileges of being a Christian is that God uses us to do his work.

If you were here last week, we looked at the opening few verses of Paul’s letter to Titus. There we saw that God is regularly called “God our Saviour” in this little letter. God is a rescuing God. His favourite work is rescuing people out of hell, for heaven, for all eternity.

Today we start a series of sermons looking together at the letter of Titus. It’s a short letter, written by Paul. Most of Paul’s letters were to churches. Titus was written to an individual, Titus. Although, as we’ll see, he very much expected the church to be eavesdropping.

I think it’s going to be really exciting to look at Titus. But it’s just possible that not everyone shares my excitement. So I thought we’d think today about why this is such a good way to spend the next few Sundays.

It might seem an odd to look at a letter written by Paul.