Self-Controlled Lives

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12). What does it mean for you to live a “self-controlled” life? It’s the difference between you living with others, and forcing others to live among you. The latter suggests that you are indifferent as to how much your behavior affects those around you, the former suggests that you are mindful of how you share life’s space. It’s clear from Paul’s letter that we are not to live as those who have to be managed or endured. Rather, our living should enhance the living of others. Additionally, and most importantly, our learning to live self-controlled lives keeps us from bringing disrepute on the faith and the God we confess.

The expectation for older men in the “household code” of Titus 2 is instructive for all of us: “Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness” (v. 2). There is a certain decorum expected of older men, a decorum that comes from having lived longer and learned from that living. The closing triplet, however, offers a clue as to how a Christian of any age can live in a self-controlled manner: “sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.” If our faith is sound, that is, based upon sound teaching (2:1), we will understand who God is, and why the world is the way it is, and why we act as we do, and why we need the grace of God in our lives, and how Jesus Christ expressed that grace by giving “himself for us to redeem us.” Secure in this knowledge we are released to be sound in love. No longer thinking we must win God’s favor by doing good, we can do good out of true love. Lastly, secure in the knowledge of God’s love, freed from looking at the world as something that is there to gratify our needs, we can exercise a constancy that can be relied upon as we serve the church and our neighbors.

Given the reputation of the island, the newly minted Christians of Crete likely needed Paul’s repeated emphasis on self-control. We could argue, however, that our culture is just as focused on self-gratification as was theirs. The challenge, therefore, is to remember that we are not an island unto ourselves. There are people all around us. We must ask God for the grace to live with them and not force them to live among us, so that “in everything [we] may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.”

Becoming Established

I think it not unlikely that when we hear that some one is involved in preaching the gospel we think of an evangelistic effort designed to bring someone to faith in Christ. Paul’s language from Romans 10 tracks along these lines: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved . . . But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” Yet, in this same letter, when writing to Christians, Paul speaks of the gospel being used by God in an additional way: “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ . . .” (16:25). This is what we considered on a recent Sunday: how the message the church preaches, the good news that God has acted to save us from his just condemnation, not only saves us, but also strengthens, or establishes, us.

The goal that God has for his children (and, therefore, the goal that we his children should have for ourselves) is that they would become increasingly mature and steadfast in the faith. According to the apostle, this requires that we not leave the foundational message of the church behind after having been brought into the church by it. God intends to use the reality framing truth that we are sinners saved by grace to continually shape our thinking, responses, motivations, and plans.

How does this work? Well, knowing that all you deserve is hell yet you have been given heaven, and this gift was not anything you earned or bargained for, should temper any temptation you might have to think of yourself more highly than you have a right to think. Such humility will do wonders for your relationships across the board! It will also allow you to be grateful for your successes rather than boastful. On the other hand, knowing that God has expressed his love so profoundly and concretely in giving his son to intervene on your behalf, and that at the cost of his son’s life, should allow you to rest in the knowledge that you are cherished by God even when everyone around you devalues you to the point of virtual non-existence and you are inclined to agree with their estimation. Either response, self-exaltation or self-denigration, will be tempered by a deepening appreciation for the gospel. The shedding of both of these mind sets, along with a host of others, will mark us out as mature, established, strong men and women of the faith. And the source for such transformation is the gospel.