In Titus 1, Paul writes, “for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior” (Titus 1:1–3).
Pastors, as platitudinous as this sounds—we were made for this moment. We are pastoring in one of the most seismic socio-cultural shifts at scale that the world has ever seen. We are guiding souls across the “new Roman roads” of a global age. Yes, it’s complex, confusing, and exhausting, but the essence of our job description remains, transcending the shifting sands of time—shepherding and feeding the flock, connecting with and confronting cultural narratives, and fulfilling the longings of an unsatisfied age. So it should be impossible to hear this encouragement as overly simplistic, arrogant, or even ignorant. Pastors, we were made for this moment. Let us now consider for a moment how we are to respond.
At the beginning of his letter to Titus, Paul gives a sweeping declaration of who he is and what the Lord has called him to do. He was set to live and lead into his moment in redemptive history. Now pastor, a great confidence should arise from Paul’s words, “before the ages began.” This changes everything about what we do, because it means that our work is woven into a timeless covenant propelled forward by a sending God—three in one—with a plan, an eternal plan to redeem. A missionary God coming to a people, His church, to bring them into His work. And we, pastors, like Paul, get to do what the entire cosmos hangs in the balance upon—preach His Word, “entrusted by command of God our Savior,” with the “grace and peace” given to us in Christ.
Paul goes on in his letter to exhort Titus to teach new believers “to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:10). But can something so grand and glorious as the gospel be improved? What does it mean to adorn it? Charles Spurgeon helped get at the question when he said that, “The gospel is best adorned when most unadorned.”[1] We need a little bit more, so maybe a picture from home will illustrate.
My wife has a knack for “urban treasure hunting.” Step into the dim, golden glow of our living room—books and trinkets from around the world—yet nothing stands out more vibrantly than a 19th-century Victorian painting. Meet Bianca, an elegant woman complete in form, substance, and beauty. Yet what allows Bianca’s Victorian majesty to shine is actually the frame: gilded, regal, floral in pattern, perfectly complementary.
The frame doesn’t steal from the glory of the painting; it adorns it.
As we read on we see that this is Paul’s point. Believers are to display its beauty through the way that they live. It is this witness that makes the gospel truly shine. Pastor, let us consider our work of adorning the gospel in three movements—training, waiting, and declaring. And I want to give you a glimpse of how each one of these is at work in a part of the world renowned for its grandeur and indescribable beauty. A place that is spilling over with common grace, set within a meticulously crafted, Baroque-lined frame. Can the doctrine of God our Savior really be adorned in a place like this?
Grace Trains Us
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” (Titus 2:11–12).
Grace has appeared. Grace is a person—Grace is Jesus, who pitched His tent and tabernacled among us (John 1:14).
Grace isn’t a detached gift given by God; grace is personified and He has come to us. This changes everything about our ministry—our preaching, our care of souls, our equipping of the saints. And it is through His training that He is bringing salvation for all people. To put it simply, our work is about displaying His rescue plan by our conduct. And as we labor, emitting the aroma of His love through our joy, mercy toward enemies, integrity, patience, and forgiveness, we show our people that adorning the doctrine of God our Savior is worth giving our lives to. Grace trains.
One living example of grace training a people appears in the 5th Arrondissement of Paris—one of the most consequential neighborhoods in the post-Christian West. A collision course of culture and history—Roman ruins, Baroque-lined streets, an influential university shaping Western thought. A place where the beating drum of expressive individualism finds some of its earliest articulations, where the mantras of our age were formed: “live your truth,” “you do you.” But its allure cannot satisfy.
In 2025, people are tired, lonely, and parched from moral disarray. They need to encounter grace that trains. This is exactly God’s plan for the 5th through the birth of a new evangelical church: L’Eglise de la Montagne. Housed in an old cinema, the training begins on Launch Sunday in full and glorious display. Pastor Philip Moore stands at the entrance, black-rimmed spectacles and warm grin, welcoming guests into a lobby permeated with the sweet smell of pastries and coffee. The theater fills. Praises ascend in French. A handshake between the sending pastor and Philip becomes a vivid reminder that churches plant churches, and that meaningful partnership—sending and receiving—is still the way of mission.
Grace is training a people in Paris. Grace is training a people in your city.
Grace Helps Us Wait
“… waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
As Grace trains us and others in godliness, He also helps us wait for our blessed hope. Have you ever considered the divine hardwiring of human beings to long for something beyond this life? Whether we are in Atlanta or Wichita, Phnom Penh, or Cairo, notice how everyone is living toward an end, a telos. Really, it is that everyone is eschatological, yet this longing for final resolve can only be fulfilled in the gospel.
As that old cinema fills up for the first time on launch Sunday in Paris’ famous 5th, Philip preaches to these very longings. A context far and distinct from ours, yet also so near and relatable. The ‘religious anatomy’[2] of humanity expressing the common insatiable search for meaning in this life—all needing to hear how truth, goodness, and beauty, each finds its fullest expression in God through Christ.
In Paris, on this very Sunday, many who have never heard the gospel listen intently as this news begins to shape their imagination with an invitation to enter His story through repentance and faith. They can now know what they are waiting for: the blessed hope of their salvation, Jesus.
There is a hopeful sense that a new day is dawning for the advance of the gospel in Paris. Protestants of old were persecuted nearly to extinction on these very streets. Calvin’s unrealized vision for France to be flooded with new churches comes to mind.[3] A small, yet resilient community of pastors and their churches waiting in hopeful anticipation that the beauty of Christ will soon burst forth from arrondissement to arrondissement, and even better, He will appear again.
Pastors worldwide, we all know this waiting—this longing for Christ to come again, for His glory to renew our cities, and for His hope to strengthen our people. Grace helps us to wait with hope. The kind of waiting we are called to is proactive. It is individual and corporate; it is patient and urgent. It adorns the gospel in visible display as we gather and scatter.
Grace Authorizes Our Declaration
Paul says the gospel was “manifested in His word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted” (Titus 1:3). He instructs believers to adorn the doctrine (2:10) and Titus, a pastor, to declare the gospel (2:15). Declaring Christ also adorns the doctrine.
In Paris, the declaration looks like a cinema transformed into a sanctuary. Music begins, and praises rise in French. Philip’s sermon on truth, goodness, and beauty declares Christ’s supremacy.[4] The people of Paris hear the good news echo into their historic streets. Pastor, whether you are in a traditional sanctuary on Sunday morning, gathering at a storefront, meeting in a living room, a school, or an old warehouse, you get to declare that He “gave Himself for us to redeem us… and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good works” (2:14).
Pastor, we were made for this moment. Adorning the doctrine of God our Savior is the mission. Grace appeared, grace trains, grace helps us to wait with hope until Christ appears again, and grace empowers us to declare. That means that there is hope for Paris, our town, and our city.
May we adorn the doctrine of God our Savior until that day.
The work of adorning the gospel continues in cities around the world. See it in action in this documentary: Watch now.
[1] Spurgeon, Charles H. “Adorning the Gospel.” Sermons vol. 18 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1872), 377.
[2] Strange, Making Faith Magnetic, p. 27.
[3] Michael A. G. Haykin, “John Calvin’s Missionary Influence in France,” Reformation and Revival 10, no. 4 (2001): 41–42. Haykin notes that by 1562 more than 2,000 Protestant churches had been planted in France, many through the efforts of Geneva trained missionaries under Calvin’s global vision of gospel advance.
[4] From his launch sermon at L’Église de la Montagne, Philip Moore described the church’s vision this way: “We want to be … a church in the 5th arrondissement, for the 5th arrondissement; a church where everyone can encounter God through Jesus Christ; a church where we live out the three values we have chosen for our church: truth, beauty, and goodness. We believe that when we understand the truth about God, we see him as he is—perfect beauty and goodness—and that this experience allows us to live out truth, beauty, and goodness in our everyday lives.”