Paul Put Himself in the Sentence
Titus 3:3 - For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
Drive up Route 530 into Whiting and you’ll pass a stretch of pine and sand that’s been in the rescue business since 1897: America's Keswick. The Colony of Mercy has been taking in men for more than a century (more than 20,000 of them) on a program that runs a minimum of a 120 days. Every man who walks through the door is assigned a chaplain. Here’s what you notice if you spend any time on those grounds. Many of the men now serving there once came through that same door years ago, carrying the same thing the new guy is carrying. Keswick has a phrase for what brings men there. Life-dominating behaviors. It’s careful way of saying the thing has the wheel and you do not.
Some of you have shaken Ben Sheppard’s hand on a Sunday without knowing any of this. He’s our Tech and Media Director. Today he’s pursuing a blended bachelor’s-and-master’s degree through Kairos University as he prepares for even deeper ministry involvement. He’s also a graduate of The Colony of Mercy. The man making sure you can hear the sermon and sing without distraction has walked that program himself. His life isn’t only a story of what Jesus rescued him from. It’s becoming a story of what Jesus is preparing him for.
Some of the most compassionate people in ministry are people Jesus has carried through deep struggles of their own. They know what it is to need help, receive mercy, and be rebuilt. A man who remembers being there has less room for condescension.
The Apostle Paul knew this long before there was The Colony of Mercy. Look at what sits immediately before our verse above. Paul has just told Titus to remind the church to be submissive, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy toward all people. Toward all people. Including people who dismissed the faith and spoke against it.
Then verse 3 opens with that little word for. It’s a reason. That one explains how anybody manages courtesy like that. “For we ourselves were once…” Watch the pronoun: we. And watch the verb: were. Paul puts himself in the sentence before he puts anyone else on trial. Then he empties the drawer: Foolish. Disobedient. Led astray. Slaves to various passions and pleasures. Passing our days in malice and envy. And notice where it lands: on a relationship. “Hated by others and hating one another.” Whatever else sin was doing to us, it was making us hard to live with and making other people hard for us to love. Sin was never just vertical. It ran horizontally through every room we walked into.
So how does a church become gentle toward people who have no interest in it? Paul’s first answer is memory. Accurate, unflattering, specific memory of what we were before mercy found us. And his deeper answer arrives in the next verse: mercy. We remember what we were, and then we remember what God did.
Which is where the Compassionate Responder is born in a believer. We move toward people with Christlike action because we can still remember being the person somebody had to move toward. But remember the grammar before you take that anywhere. “For we ourselves were once…” Were. Once. Past tense, both of them. That list is a memory now. It stopped being an identity. We were enslaved. Then He saved us, washed and renewed us, justified us, and made us heirs. Of course, that doesn’t mean believers never act foolishly, disobediently, maliciously, or enviously again. It means those sins no longer own us or possess the authority to tell us who we are. Their presence is real, but their reign has been broken!
That’s the whole difference between shame and humility. Shame keeps the list in the present tense and calls it honesty. Humility reads the same list, agrees with every word of it, confesses whatever still clings, and remembers that mercy has changed our Master.
Transformed Thinking: Whose present failure have I turned into a permanent identity while using Christ’s mercy to interpret my own failures?
Transformed Feelings: Ask God to remind you of an honest memory of who you were before He came looking for you. Not to condemn you, but to soften you.
Transformed Actions: Take one wise, compassionate, Christlike step toward a person trapped in the slavery of verse 3.
Prayer: “Father, I’m quicker to remember other people’s failures than my own. Forgive me for talking down to people You’re still moving toward. Thank You that those sins no longer rule me. Give me a soft heart toward someone I have hardened myself against. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
-PK