Undaunted—John Goodliff (23 August 2026)

And I'm reminded actually of what kind of spirit it is that God gives us.

And you might remember if you were here back in January that Tim introduced the year with this.

God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind, of self-control and sound judgment.

And today's passage is all about the spirit of God enabling us to live in freedom, to do good things.

And so we're going to dig into the passage.

and we're going to encounter God's Spirit right at the heart of it.

This is a letter that Paul, the Apostle Paul, St. Paul is writing to his friend Titus and his church community.

And in spite of their sin and their enslavement, much like an addiction or a way of thinking about things that entangles us, God's grace and mercy were there with these people in this place, Crete.

And I'm interested, just before we dig in a little bit further, why Paul feels the need To tell these people to do good, to subject to authority, to slander no one, avoid fighting, show consideration, gentleness.

He talks, this is in verse 3, of how they were foolish, disobedient, divisive, enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.

They were living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

I sort of think, well, are they not pretty obvious things not to do? Surely anyone could see that.

But you might remember, if you were here a few weeks ago, Sarah introduced this series to us with a bit of context to what it was like in Crete at the time.

And these guys in Crete were pretty wild.

The way that Paul talks about them is really a distinct opposite to the way that he just talked about God's standard for good, healthy Christian leadership in the previous chapter.

I love this.

In my big, fat study Bible I've got here, it says this.

Crete was known in the ancient world for its moral decadence.

The ancient historian Polybius said, wrote that it was almost impossible to find personal conduct more treacherous or public policy more unjust than in Crete.

And Cicero also said, moral principles are so divergent that the Cretans consider highway robbery honourable.

So, not great.

And I thought, actually, that's not a great thing to have on TripAdvisor, is it? Come to Crete, this is what people are saying about us.

And I actually discovered, I thought this was interesting, that the word kretizo is a Greek word which means to be Cretan, and it came to mean a liar.

And so actually, even the people's identity was wrapped up in this thing of actually they're liars, they deceive people, they're so divergent, they have no morals.

And Paul actually, interestingly, even though he sees that the Cretans are in this really terrible state, he identifies himself with them.