Titus 3:1-8, Goodness/Kindness vs Sins of Hatred (4)

Peter said, This is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men (1 Pt. 2:15).  In the context the “good” Peter speaks about is good done in society by Christian people.  Doing good becomes a great testimony to the unbelieving world.  The life of David in the OT presents us with two great illustrations of this.

·       1 Samuel 25 tells the story of Abigail.  While David was hiding from King Saul his men had done much good in protecting the men and herds of Nabal (whose name means “fool”).  But because it was not rewarded, David and his men were on the way to kill Nabal.  Abigail, Nabal’s wife, intercepts David, showing kindness to him.  She prevents him from doing something foolish, something he would eventually regret.  For this, Abigail gained a powerful testimony of being a wise and good woman.

·       Later, David came to be known as good, for his dealings with Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan and grandson of Saul (2 Samuel 9).  David had made a covenant with Jonathan, a covenant of friendship.  After Jonathan was killed David desired to fulfill that covenant in fulfilling his promise to a descendent of Jonathan.  The fulfillment was through a generous act of kindness, and David became a testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness.

This idea, that through goodness and kindness we glorify God, makes a lot of sense.  Think about this.

·       Before we came to faith in Christ we were God’s enemies (Rom. 5:10).  We were alienated from God and were enemies in our minds because of our evil behavior (Col. 1:21).  We were against God (Rom. 8:7) and hated God (James 4:4).  Many Christians want to deny this, that they ever hated God.  Maybe they try to describe their situation as “riding the fence” or in some way not “all that bad.”  But failure to see ourselves as God describes us detracts from His glory.

·       The reason we say this is because of God’s response to our enmity.  On the cross people hurled their insults at Christ, yet He did not retaliate (1 Pet. 2:23).  He endured the opposition of sinful men.  We were not drawn to Christ by fear of hell.  Rather, it was the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4).  He showed the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:7).  Jesus was the personification of kindness and love (Titus 3:4).  God deserves great glory because of His goodness and kindness to His enemies. 

It is now our testimony to God to respond to those around us with the same goodness and kindness.  In that way we will say, To God Be the Glory!