Titus 3:1-8 - Subject to Grace

Titus 3:1-8

Graces of the Heirs of Grace

1 Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. 3 For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 

4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.

If we claim to have believed and received Christ as our Lord and Savior, then we must carefully pursue doing the good works which God has prepared for us (Matthew 5:16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Colossians 1:10) before we entered this world and certainly before we entered into His grace in this new life by His calling.   This means being subject in this grace to those put in authority over us.  We are not to live in disobedience or hate of these rulers, but are to speak well of our leaders or not at all if all we can do is malign them and bring disgrace on our Lord by our bad works.  We are called to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9) with gentleness and humility as we recall our own past apart from Christ’s grace that trans us from being like those we now would criticize and judge; they have their judge (John 12:48, Romans 14:4, 1 Corinthians 5:12-13, James 4:11) and it is not us.  God and His word are our judges.  Humility should stop our mouths from verbally judging and condemning others, especially those put over us to govern.  We should rather pray for them that they might know that Jesus has died to deliver them as well.  We are therefore to not unearth the old hate and foolish sinful practices we have been delivered out of.  When we meditate on the kindness of God our Savior and His righteousness imputed to we who have none of our own, then we see the mercy of grace which we are subject to and can subject ourselves under the rulers He has put over us for divine sovereign purposes.  By His mercy God has washed us clean from the stain of sin on our souls and regenerated us into new creatures (Galatians 2:20) by the wonderful work of His Spirit!  This Spirit God has lavishly poured out on we sinners in Christ to justify us by the free gift of grace has make us heirs of guaranteed life forever spent with Him and assured us of this inheritance inn his righteousness alone.  Because we know these truths, we should be motivated not by fear of losing what we cannot, but by the thankful boundless joy of salvation to do the good works prepared for us as outlined in scripture that validates them.  This is the eternal profit of our inheritance to do good because of the unmerited good done for us in Christ as we are subject to grace to serve!