Titus 3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
The apostle Paul wrote this verse to pastor Titus as a depiction of the unregenerate person. It pictures how you and I lived before we knew Christ. We were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to lusts and pleasures, living selfishly, and hating others. That is a picture of the lost world, not the body of Christ. The question this morning is this: Is this still the way that you and I are living? Is this not a reproach to The Name of Jesus when these very same sins are common and accepted as “the normal Christian life” within the body of Christ?
You fully expect that when you go to visit a non-Christian in their homes you will find these things. Go into any secular business, any office, any factory, and for the most part, you will see that all of these things are common daily practices. Unfortunately, and I say this ashamedly, you can see many of these same things characterizing many professing Christians without the least bit of conviction in the vast majority our churches today. We have learned how to display an outward pretense of being loving, but under this pretense of “I love you, brother”, or “You are such a blessing, sister”, there is envying and hating and gossiping. Sad but true; it is not uncommon to find churches divided into little cliques that justify continuing in these sins. And yet, while speaking fluent Christianeze and blind as a proverbial bat of their own sin that they are allowing to go unchecked, they boast about their “concerns” and how sound they are in the faith. This kind of speaking and behavior is soundly condemned in Scripture and must be repented of instead of tolerated because it is a disgrace to the Name and cause of Jesus Christ. Paul is giving to pastor Titus a picture of the lifestyle of the unsaved here. It ought never to be a picture of the lifestyle of how you or I are known to act or speak about one another as followers of The Lord Jesus Christ.
Reader, read this passage again slowly. At the top of the list is the word foolish. Who is a fool? The person who says in their heart there is no God (Psalm 53:1). Out of the heart, one speaks and behaves (Proverbs 4:23). Now ask yourself this question. Was what this verse describes sometimes your lifestyle in the past, or is it still? May God grant to both writer and reader alike the grace to repent and forsake these unloving sins (instead of repeating them) for the glory and honor of The One Who commands us to love one another. Selah
