The Gospel Is Worth Insisting Upon

The truth of the Gospel, when it is believed, is to find expression in the behavior of those who have come to trust in God. It is, in other words, “truth for life”—not just a head knowledge but a soul-transforming understanding.

This reality is well encapsulated in Titus 3:8, where Paul tells Titus, “The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things.” What is the saying to be insisted on? It is the truth of the Gospel expressed in the previous verses: “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us…” (vv. 4–5). And what is the point of insisting on it? It is, as Paul goes on to say in v. 8, “so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.”

This is practical advice for preachers wondering what they should teach. It also reveals something about the fruit of the Gospel of grace. When the Gospel—the good news of God’s gracious salvation that is “not because of works done by us in righteousness” (v. 5)—is truly preached and received, it results in good works, and it is good for those who hear it.

Clear Marching Orders

Paul is not vague. He gives Titus an unmistakable directive: “Teach this.” Titus is exhorted to saturate those who are under his care with the truth of the Gospel. He should aim to give them a solid, working, living understanding of its nature.

The Gospel is not simply a door through which one walks in order to become a Christian. No, the Gospel is why we are daily accepted by God. As Tim Keller has written, “It is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of the Christian life.”

When people don’t have a clear awareness of what the New Testament teaches concerning their union with Christ, they will seek to find assurance somewhere other than the Gospel. They will stake their acceptance on a past experience of conversion, their own sincerity, or the relative infrequency of willful sin. All of these represent empty promises.

But when men and women understand that Jesus has perfectly obeyed the law of God; that His active righteousness stands in the place of our rebellion; that Jesus has unequivocally and absolutely satisfied the justice of God; that He has exhausted the wrath of God; that He has removed our sins from the presence of God; that He has redeemed us from the curse of God—that He has, in short, reconciled us to God—they will know true assurance. They will understand that they were accepted because of what Jesus did, and they continue to be accepted only and always on the ground of what Jesus did.

Our One “Thing”

It’s no surprise these days to visit a church that describes itself as a place to “meet new friends and hear positive, practical messages.” A church may be geared toward young professionals, families, or traditional worshippers—even bikers or cowboys. A pastor may be a proponent of global missions, local community, or serving the poor—something that he’s settled on as his “thing,” the hallmark of his ministry. All of these are good aims in their own right. But each must flow from first answering the essential and indispensable question: Who is Christ, and what has He done?

“The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things.” That is the role of a church and the vocation of pastor. Every Christian ministry ought to be Christ-centered, Christ-dominated, and Christ-filled. Every minister ought to be intoxicated with Christ. His heart and mind ought to be saturated with the Gospel. Every preacher ought to put aside the idea of the merely positive, practical message and present Christ constantly and passionately to all who have ears to hear so that they may look away from themselves and from their own sorry predicaments and say, “I cannot be saved by my own righteousness, but through Christ I may be washed in the Holy Spirit and made an heir of eternal life.”

Every Christian ministry ought to be Christ-centered, Christ-dominated, and Christ-filled.

Every good thing will overflow from a vital relationship with Christ through faith. When God sets to work in a heart, the hands will set to work for good. As God sanctifies, a man or woman may become a fount of friendly fellowship, practical encouragement, missionary zeal, hands-on service—yet none of these things, as the starting place, can save a person.

More than Mere Words

The Gospel that Titus was to insist on is not an abstract principle. Paul describes its truth as “excellent and profitable for people” (Titus 3:8). This is in direct contrast to the false teachers, who were actually “unprofitable and worthless” with their “foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law” (v. 9). These are the same kinds of people Paul warns about in 1 Timothy 1:6–7: those who “have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.” The ministry of Titus, by contrast, was to be marked by the Gospel, and his authority was to be derived from the Gospel—not from the force of his personality, the cleverness of his rhetoric, or the brazenness of his self-confidence.

The aim of the Christian life to become a theological egghead, impressing everyone with big words and clever ideas. Paul says that our grasp of the Gospel will be revealed in our life, and those who have been grasped by God’s kindness in the Gospel will reveal themselves by the overflow of God’s goodness from them. 

False teachers are good at embroidering and supplementing the Word of God. They are more apt at mythology than at theology. They are better at producing human concoctions than obeying God’s commands. They distract and divert with lengthy debates about dates and definitions. What they are missing is the insistence on the Gospel and the fruit that shows God at work in their life: a devotion to good works (Titus 3:8). The verdict for such a person is a strong one: “After warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him” (v. 10).

A Trustworthy Message

Our mantra ought to be “The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.” What do we know for certain about the Scriptures? What does the Bible tell us clearly? That Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and we are sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). The message of the Gospel is a trustworthy message, and we should insist on it constantly, because it has God’s power to transform those who hear.

Those who have been grasped by God’s kindness in the Gospel will reveal themselves by the overflow of God’s goodness from them.

We ought never to be diverted and distracted, running down side roads of theological speculation and word games. The Bible is a deep ocean, and theology is a wide field in which to run—but it is all in service of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must be totally clear concerning the Gospel, certain of its truth, and aware of the fact that its authority is grounded in God’s Word and its power flows from Holy Spirit, who makes it “excellent and profitable” to us.

This article was adapted from the sermon “Debates and Divisions” by Alistair Begg.