Instruction and exhortations

Text Titus 3:12-15 Time 24/11/10 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

I want us to look this week at the closing words of Paul's little letter to Titus, as found in Chapter 3 verses 12-15. Paul really has three things to say at the end – there are some final instructions, some final exhortation and some final greetings. Let's look at these then and consider the subjects they bring before us.

1. Final instructions to note reminding us of how roles change and the importance of helping

1. Remember that our roles sometimes change
First in verse 12 Paul writes As soon as I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, because I have decided to winter there. Artemas may be short for Artemidorus. We do not know anything about this man at all.

Tychicus gets a few mentions in Scripture – first in Acts 20:4 where we are told that when Paul went into Macedonia He was accompanied by seven men Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy ... and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia. Ephesians and Colossians were written by Paul at the same time and it would seem Tychicus was involved in delivering those letters. In Colossians 4:7 Paul tells them that Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. Paul says of him He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. In Ephesians 6:21 he calls him the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord. Again he will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing. Here Paul is planning to send either this trusted brother or Artemas to Crete to carry on Titus's work. In 2 Timothy 4:12 Paul says that he had sent him to Ephesus where Timothy was and this probably points to a decision to send Artemas to Crete.

Paul wants Titus to join him in Nicopolis. There was a Nicopolis in Macedonia but this Nicopolis is probably the one on the west coast of what is today Greece and that was then in Epirus.

You have seen those films where there is a large table top map laid out in the middle of the room and people are using croupier sticks to push around symbols of armies from one place to another. It is something of a film cliché and only vaguely related to reality. It helps us to see Paul in our minds' eye, however. Winter is coming in the early sixties of the first century. Paul (we learn from 2 Timothy 4:20) has left Erastus to take care of things in Corinth and Trophimus in Miletus just south of Ephesus because he is sick. He has decided to winter in Nicopolis and he wants his right hand men with him and so he wants to pull Titus out of Crete and Timothy out of Ephesus, replacing them with Artemas and Tychicus. Of course, even as an apostle Paul could not command these men to do what he wished. In 1 Corinthians 16:12 he says of Apollos I strongly urged him to go to you with the brothers. He was quite unwilling to go now, but he will go when he has the opportunity.

Now the point to take on board here is probably that things change. At this point Titus is working in Crete. We do not know how long he had been working there. Next he was to be relieved by Artemas or Tychicus so that he could be with Paul in Nicopolis. Our roles sometimes change. I lived my first 18 years in Cwmbran and I was committed to that place. Then I was in Aberystwyth for 3 years before coming to London where I have been ever since – first at LTS, then here (for the last 27 years). At what point it will be time to leave here I don't know. My father-in-law has just celebrated 45 years as pastor of Alfred Place! The important thing is to be a faithful servant in the Lord and to go wherever the lord leads.

2. Remember to do everything you can to help fellow believers

In verse 13 Paul says Do everything you can to help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way and see that they have everything they need. Apollos we know is the powerful preacher from Alexandria who at first only knew John's baptism but was helped to understand things more clearly by Paul's friends Priscilla and Aquila. Beginning at Ephesus he went on to Corinth where he was very popular. Zenas (perhaps Zenodorus) we again know nothing about, including what sort of law he was an expert in Jewish or Roman. Presumably it was these two who brought the letter to Titus. Paul has no specific plans for them after this duty but he urges Titus to do all he can to help them and to see that they have everything they need.

We get these sort of statements in many places and it is a reminder to us that we need to do all we can to help our fellow believers especially those who are ministers of the Word. We must do all we can. For different ones this will mean different things, of course, but we must all play our part.

2. Final exhortations to note reminding us of devotion to what's good and productive living

In verse 14 Paul comes back to what is the great concern of this final part of the letter. So we say

1. Always devote yourself to what is good

Paul says Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good. It is the reference to the need to help these Christians that brings him back to this. Some people want to take this reference in a very narrow way – as if he is just saying he wants the people to follow an honest trade. No doubt this is included but there is surely more too. As believers we must be very careful how we live. Paul had seen how in Thessalonica some had got into the habit of sponging off others as they waited for the Lord's return. Even today there are people who lead a rather strange existence where they do not really put in an honest day's work but are ministers or missionaries or whatever with no really clear role in life. That is not to say that there isn't a place for full time Christian workers of different sorts – but the norm is to be doing some regular job of work and using that money to support the work of Christ, while using our free time in various forms of Christian service. Good deeds are emphasised again and again in Scripture – things like teaching and bringing up children, showing hospitality, what Paul calls washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble (1 Timothy 5:10). Other examples would be generosity and willingness to share, helping the poor in various ways, paying your taxes and submitting to authority. James speaks of looking after orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself from being polluted by the world.

You should aim to let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. Live such good lives among the pagans says Peter that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

2. Do not live an unproductive life

Paul adds in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives. Our lives must count for something. We cannot simply drift through life without any real aim. Rather we must constantly be seeking to be useful. Sylvanus Phelps was a Baptist minister in America in the nineteenth century. In 1862 he published his hymn “Saviour Thy dying love”.

Saviour, Thy dying love Thou gavest me.

Nor should I aught withhold, dear Lord, from Thee.

In love my soul would bow, my heart fulfil its vow,

Some offering bring Thee now, something for Thee.

O’er the blest mercy seat, pleading for me,

My feeble faith looks up, Jesus, to Thee.

Help me the cross to bear, Thy wondrous love declare,

Some song to raise, or prayer, something for Thee.

Give me a faithful heart, likeness to Thee.

That each departing day henceforth may see

Some work of love begun, some deed of kindness done,

Some wanderer sought and won, something for Thee.

All that I am and have, Thy gifts so free,

In joy, in grief, through life, O Lord, for Thee!

And when Thy face I see, my ransomed soul shall be

Through all eternity, something for Thee.

When Phelps was 70 the man who write the tune Robert Lowry wrote to him “It is worth liv­ing 70 years even if no­thing comes of it but one such hymn as "Saviour! Thy dying love Thou gavest me; Nor should I aught withhold, Dear Lord, from Thee." Happy is the man who can produce one song which the world will keep on singing after the au­thor shall have passed away. May the tune­ful harp pre­serve its strings for ma­ny a long year yet, and the last note reach us on­ly when it is time for the sing­er to take his place in the hea­ven­ly choir.”

We are not hymn writers but if we can do just something for the Lord then we have done something worthwhile.

Speaking once to the pastors college Spurgeon said to them

"I have to say to you, go forward in actual work, for, after all, we shall be known by what we have done. Like the apostles, I hope our memorial will be our acts. There are good brethren in the world who are impractical. The grand doctrine of the second advent makes them stand with open mouths, peering into the skies, so that I am ready to say, “Ye men of Plymouth, why stand ye here gazing up into heaven?” The fact that Jesus Christ is to come is not a reason to stargazing, but for working in the power of the Holy Ghost. ... We must have done with day dreams, and get to work. I believe in eggs, but we must get chickens out of them. I do not mind how big your egg is; it may be an ostrich’s egg if you like, but if there is nothing in it, pray clear away the shells. ... We want facts — deeds done, souls saved. It is all very well to write essays, but what souls have you saved from going down to hell? ... To swing to and fro on a five-barred gate is not progress, yet some seem to think so. I see them in perpetual Elysium, humming over to themselves and their friends, “We are very comfortable.” God save us from living in comfort while sinners are sinking into hell. In travelling along the mountain roads in Switzerland you will continually see marks of the boring-rod; and in every minister’s life there should be traces of stern labour. Brethren, do something; do something; do something. While committees waste their time over resolutions, do something. While Societies and Unions are making constitutions, let us win souls. Too often we discuss, and discuss, and discuss, and Satan laughs in his sleeve. It is time we had done planning and sought something to plan. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men. Old Suwarrov’s idea of was is mine: Forward and strike! No theory! Attack! Form a column! Charge bayonets! Plunge into the centre of the enemy. Our one aim is to save sinners, and this we are not to talk about but to do in the power of God."

3. Final greetings to note reminding us of love in the faith and the grace of God

1. Never forget the love we share in the faith

Paul says Everyone with me sends you greetings. Greet those who love us in the faith. We get a clear impression in the New Testament of the great love they had for one another in Christ. It ought to continue today. Let's not forget how many loves us – some who we've never even met – because we have put our faith in Christ. We too ought to love every believer. I watched a video this week of a believer from North Korea now living in South Korea as she gave her testimony and pleaded for her native land. Inevitably my heart went out to her. That is how it should be.

2. Never forget the grace of God we all need

Grace be with you all. This is a typically Pauline ending. How we need God's grace every day. Remember those words

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander - Lord, I feel it! - prone to leave the God I love.

Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.