Titus: What If Authenticity Comes From the God Who Cannot Lie?

A hunger for authenticity in a world of pretense

You live in a world that repeats the same message on every corner: "Be yourself." At work, in your relationships, in the debates over identity, sexuality, nationality, belonging, the question keeps coming back. You want to line up with what you feel inside. You want to live rightly. You want to live truly. And yet you sense a huge fog surrounding you. By what standard is someone authentic? What does it mean to live in line with what you were made for?

That is exactly the question Etienne raises as he opens the series on Paul's letter to Titus. After several weeks in the book of Exodus, a text written about 3,500 years before us, the church now turns to a much more recent text: a letter written after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A letter that an apostle inspired by the Holy Spirit sent to his coworker Titus, whom he had left on the island of Crete. But as you'll see, it isn't only Titus who's in view. You are too.

Article outline

1. A letter for the whole church, not just for a pastor

Look closely at the last verse of the letter. Paul writes: "Grace be with you all" (Titus 3:15). The pronoun is plural. It's a small detail that changes everything. Paul writes to one individual coworker, but he expects the letter to be read by the whole church. You find the same thing at the end of 1 and 2 Timothy. The apostle wants the entire congregation to hear what he tells its leaders, so that everyone knows how to live as a Christian and what to expect from a leader who shepherds the church.

In other words, this letter concerns you. You aren't a bystander to the conversation between Paul and Titus. You're a member of the people to whom God is speaking. As Etienne says, it takes a little bridge-building now and then to reach across the centuries from the first to our own. But God intended this word to remain relevant 2,000 years later. He intended it for you.

2. The real obstacle to authenticity: the father of lies

Why are you so often out of step with yourself? Why do you see friends around you chasing their authenticity down paths that destroy them? Paul gives the answer in another letter, the epistle to the Ephesians. In chapter 2, he writes that this world is "under the sway of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2).

Humanity isn't only in rebellion against God. It's also being stirred up against him by the devil. And one of the Bible's names for this prince is "the father of lies" (John 8:44). He doesn't merely tempt, he deceives. He offers paths to authenticity that, in the end, produce disaster.

Etienne gives one example, and only one, so as not to stay abstract: men and women who believed they'd be more in line with themselves by physically changing their sex, and who, later, deeply regret having altered their bodies. It's tragic. But it's the logic of the father of lies: promise authenticity, deliver suffering. And the first thing to do when you see people around you led astray in one area or another is to remember they aren't first of all your enemies. They're under the sway of a deceiver.

Don't think yourself safe just because you're a Christian, either. You pray in the Lord's Prayer: "Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one" (Matthew 6:13). You're fragile too. You're tempted. But you have good news that no one else has.

3. The good news: the God who does not lie

Facing the prince of lies, Paul opens his letter by presenting God as "the God who does not lie" (Titus 1:2). That's the melody running through the whole letter. On one side, a world held by a deceiver. On the other, a God who has never lied and who has always deeply cared about making you able to be true.

Etienne sums it up this way: God wanted you, he created you, he loved you, he saved you. And now he's at work in you so that you relearn how to line your life up with what he made you for. You aren't the one manufacturing your own authenticity. He's the one rebuilding you in truth.

4. The counter-testimony that blocks this good news

There's a problem the preacher doesn't dodge. Some accusations leveled against the church and against Christians are well founded, and they act as a real block to the news God wants to announce. Accusations of hypocrisy, of a gap between words and actions, of a lack of authenticity, have wounded friends, and maybe have wounded you too. They're exactly the opposite of what God wants to do in you.

Why this temptation toward hypocrisy? Etienne offers two angles. Maybe you're afraid people will see you're less put-together than you'd like to appear. Then you haven't yet understood the cross. Because the cross of Jesus Christ reminds you of something simple: you're far less beautiful than you thought, but God took your ugliness, your sin, the evil in you, onto the cross. You no longer have to be afraid of being seen as you really are.

Second angle: you can see that God wants to use your life to show himself to the world, and you can also see how hard it is to live a life worthy of him. So you try to close that gap with appearances. You pretend to be further along than you are, so that at least the people watching you find you inspiring. That's hypocrisy. And it isn't exactly what God wants to do. He wants something deeper.

5. God's goal: a purified people, zealous for good works

Etienne takes the church to Titus 2:14 to set out the goal of the letter. It's a verse both weighty and beautiful: "who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works."

It's all there. Jesus did everything. He gave himself. And the reason he gave himself was so that you would belong to him and live a life worthy of him. The more you depend on him, the more you let him transform you, the more the gap between what God wants to see in your life and what you actually are will shrink. You aren't the one transforming yourself through discipline. He's the one who transforms you when you belong to him.

The parallel with Exodus is direct. God had already told the ancient people of Israel: "I will be your God, you will be my people." He has always wanted this. And today, the church is the people who belong to Jesus. The people through whom, listen carefully, God has decided to show himself to the world.

6. The church, a showcase for the God who does not lie

Etienne insists: "The church is the people through whom God has decided to show himself to the world." When people see Christians interacting with one another, when they see the gradual transformation of ordinary men and women, they want to know the word that transforms them and the author of that word. God isn't afraid to say: "I have placed my church in the world so that, seeing it, men and women would see me, know me, and want to enter my people."

It's a weighty thought, but it's the best antidote to hypocrisy. You no longer have to pretend. You simply have to belong to him and let him transform you. Your life then becomes an invitation.

7. A five-movement outline for the whole letter

Etienne closes his introduction by giving the outline of the entire letter, the one that will guide the series week by week.

• Since the church is the people of the living and true God (Titus 1:1-4)…
• … it must be led by leaders resolutely devoted to the Lord (Titus 1:5-9)…
• … who protect the church from those who reject its word (Titus 1:10-16)…
• … and who train it to live according to him, men, women, young and old together (Titus 2)…
• … so that, transformed by his grace and not by the law, it shines with him for the good of others and guards the gospel wherever he has placed it (Titus 3).

Key takeaways

• You live in a world that hungers for authenticity but doesn't know by what standard to be true.
• The real obstacle to authenticity isn't your psychology, it's the father of lies who holds this world under his sway (Ephesians 2:2, John 8:44).
• Facing him, Paul presents "the God who does not lie" (Titus 1:2), who has always wanted to make you able to live truly.
• Christian hypocrisy comes either from a misunderstood cross or from trying to close the gap through appearances.
• Jesus gave himself to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works (Titus 2:14).
• The church is the people through whom God has decided to show himself to the world. Your transformed life is an invitation.

Personal application

• Where in your life are you trying to be authentic by a standard that isn't God's?
• When you see a friend go astray in the name of authenticity, are you grieved for them or angry at them?
• Is there an area where you dress up appearances because you know your life isn't measuring up yet?
• Have you truly let the cross tell you that God knows your ugliness and loves you anyway?
• Is your church a showcase for the God who does not lie, or a showcase of Christians reassuring themselves?

Verses cited in the message

• Titus 1 · the opening of the letter and the God who does not lie
• Titus 2:14 · a people for his own possession, zealous for good works
• Titus 3:15 · "Grace be with you all"
• Ephesians 2:1-3 · the prince of the power of the air
• John 8:44 · the father of lies
• Matthew 6:13 · "Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one"
• Exodus 6:7 · "I will be your God, and you will be my people"

FAQ

Why does Paul write to Titus, and why does that concern you today?

Titus was a coworker of Paul's, left on the island of Crete to organize the young churches. Paul writes him a letter in the first century, but he closes with a plural greeting: "Grace be with you all" (Titus 3:15). The apostle expects the letter to be read by the whole congregation. Two thousand years later, God still wants you to hear it, because what it says about Christian authenticity remains true for you.

How do you know whether your search for authenticity comes from God or from the father of lies?

The question isn't "what do I feel inside?" but "what was I made for?" The father of lies offers to let you define your own truth. The God who does not lie reveals who he created you to be. One telltale sign: the first promises liberation and delivers regret, the second demands death to self and delivers a transformed life that shines for the good of others.

What should you do when you catch yourself pretending to be a stronger Christian than you are?

Come back to the cross. If you're dressing up your spiritual face, it's probably because you're afraid of being seen as you really are. But Jesus took your ugliness onto the cross. You no longer have anything to hide. Ask him to actually transform you rather than adjusting your appearance. According to Titus 2:14, he gave himself to purify for himself a people, zealous for good works, which always comes after the purifying, never before it.