Good morning, church. Turn with me to Titus chapter 3. We're going to be in verses 3 through
11 this morning. chosen this text because it it
deals with several issues that uh... that i have been uh... working through that james and
i have been talking about things that have been affecting our
church several things it's very convenient that it hits all of
these issues but i'm gonna read it and then
we're gonna we're gonna jump in titus three starting in verse
three 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. But when
the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared,
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness,
but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration
and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly
through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by his
grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal
life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these
things so that those who have believed in God may be careful
to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent
and profitable for people. But avoid foolish controversies,
genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they
are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up
division after warning him once and then twice have nothing more
to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful,
he is self-condemned." So in order to understand Paul's
letter to Titus, we've got to understand a little bit about
what its purpose is. Why did Paul write this letter
to Titus? What is Titus' situation? What is he dealing with? So Titus
is a letter written from Paul, an apostle, to Titus, who was
a pastor. Titus was a pastor on the island
of Crete, and Paul charged him with establishing churches in
all of the towns there on the island. Paul writes in the very
beginning of this letter, he says, this is why I left you
in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and
appoint elders in every town as I directed you. Two guiding principles here.
Two things we must recognize as we read Titus. So first, that
is that Titus is a handbook for establishing the local church. Titus is written as an instruction
manual to a pastor who lived on an island that didn't have
churches yet. It was an island that didn't
have churches, but it had believers. And so Paul instructed Titus,
go, appoint elders, establish these churches in all of the
towns on Crete. We see instructions and expectations
for what churches ought to look like, what church life should
look like. There are commands and exhortations
to guide elders in planting and leading the local assembly, and
commands and exhortations for you, God's people, who are part
of these assemblies. The second thing we need to understand
is that this context laid out by this first principle is the
only context in which Titus really makes sense. Okay? There's some sense of general
equity that can be applied from the instructions in Titus, meaning
that, you know, there's some sort of, there are moral principles
that sort of undergird, that lay the foundation of Paul's
specific and particular application here. But Titus is written to
and meant to be applied and understood in the context of a local church.
So there are many instructions in this letter that don't make
sense apart from that. There are many instructions here
in Titus that can only be meaningfully applied in the context of the
local church established by God. And this shouldn't be a new principle
for us. We know that the gathering of the assembly is not only commanded
of us, right? It's commanded in Hebrews 10,
where we're commanded not to forsake the gathering together
with one another. But further, this assembly, the
church, this is the primary identifier of God's people in a collective
sense. This is how the outside world,
the unbelievers, the lost people, identify us collectively, that
we gather together. Now don't get me wrong, the primary
way that you are identified as an individual member of the body
of Christ is by your profession that Christ has secured redemption
of his people, by his work in his life, death, and resurrection. But collectively, as a whole,
the body of Christ is identified as a united collective of individuals
who share that profession. This is something many churches
today and throughout history have missed. We identify with
each other by our common profession of the one true gospel, but many
make the error of marrying their church identity with their profession
of the gospel. You'll hear people say things
like, when asked the question, you know, how do you know you're
saved? What does it mean to be a Christian? And they'll tell
you what church they go to. How do you know you're saved?
I go to Grace Truth Church. If that's how you know that you
are saved, you're not saved. And so while we do gather together
and we share this common identity as members of Grace Truth Church,
that is not what really unites us, right? We are united by this
profession of the gospel of grace. And Titus 3 is the concluding
summary of this letter, and here Paul reminds us of that profession. Paul reminds us of the thing
that ties us all together. He reminds us of who we are apart
from Christ, and he reminds us what Christ has done for us and
who we are to be as we persist in him and as we live together
as the church. And so Paul begins. Here he says,
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. So we begin our
study with an examination of the nature of man. Paul often
takes great care to give these very elaborate descriptions of
human nature, doesn't he? The state of those apart from
Christ, the curse of our father Adam. When we talk about human nature,
we often talk about how it relates to the doctrine of original sin
in terms of free will or something like that. And so let me begin
with this. Free will, libertarian free will,
the liberty of conscience, these are mostly extra biblical words. These are ideas that are brought
to the table of Scripture by men. Now, don't hear what I am
not saying. A word or phrase that isn't native
to the language of Scripture is not necessarily wrong or false
or heretical. I mean, we have countless examples
of language that we use to better understand Scripture that isn't
actually biblical language. But the issue here is that Paul
rarely speaks in terms of the will of man. And he usually prefers
to tell us what man does, apart from Christ, rather than what
man's will is like. One of the few times that Paul
ever actually talks about the will of man is in Romans 8, verses
5 through 8. He says, those who live according
to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. Those
who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things
of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh
is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for
it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who
are in the flesh cannot please God. So here, Paul actually just
comes out and talks about the will of man, how man's desires
and abilities have been altered through the curse of Adam, through
the fall of man. Now, men have invented all manner
of false interpretations of this text in Romans 8. You may hear
things like, this is probably one of the most common, uh...
all people have some measure of uh... of god's grace all people
of some measure of god's spirit in them this is at war with their
flesh fighting to bring everyone you'll hear people say things
like uh... yes i understand that uh... you know We have original sin,
we have sin nature, but God helps everyone just enough that if
they want to come to faith, they can. It's not the case. I mean, it says it right there
in verse 8, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But we're gonna get more into
it. The key argument I want you to see here is that when Paul
gives a long list describing the various vices of men, he's
talking about the same thing he's talking about in Romans
8. The mind that is set on the flesh cannot please God. Man apart from Christ cannot
please God. Paul does the same thing that
he did here in Titus 3 and 2 Timothy 3 when he speaks of the last
days. And this is a much more colorful description than the
one he gave in Titus 3. People will be lovers of self, lovers
of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful,
unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control,
brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit,
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance
of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such people, for
among them are those who creep into households. and capture
weak women, burdened with sins, and led astray by various passions,
always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the
truth. Just as Janus and Jambres opposed
Moses, so these men also opposed the truth, men corrupted in mind
and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get
very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that
of those two men. Baldwin does the same thing in
Romans 3, when he quotes the psalmists. You see what we've
got here. We've got Paul talking about,
this is how we once were. You've got Paul talking about,
this is what the last days are going to be like. And then in
Romans 3, you've got Paul quoting a text that's hundreds of years
old. When he says, none is righteous,
no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have
turned aside, together they've become worthless. No one does
good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave.
They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of serpents is under
their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruined in
misery. In the way of peace they have not known, there is no fear
of God before their eyes. In the former days, in the current
days, in the future days, man is guilty, unable to please God. This is the whole testimony of
scripture from Genesis to Maps. that man is unable to please
God and that there are none righteous except for Christ. But we see something interesting
here in Titus 3. Paul talks in the past tense,
right? We were once ourselves these
things. We were once ourselves the man
or the woman described in Romans 3 and 2 Timothy 3. He's describing what we used
to be like, right? Read the list again. Foolish. Have you ever acted foolish after
God saved you? I have. Have you ever been disobedient
to scripture? I have. Have you ever been led
astray by nonsense and error? I have. Have you ever spent your
entire day angry with someone? Like your spouse? Can I get a
witness? Married people? These things still describe us.
For once we were foolish, and we still are. He isn't saying that We once did all these things,
and now we don't. He's not talking about your behavior,
because we still do these things. Paul did these things. Paul said
in Romans 7, I do not understand my own actions, for I do not
do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. What Paul's doing here, he is,
Paul is implicitly making the declaration that God's people,
us, we have been made to be no longer guilty of these things. Even though we still do these
things, we are not guilty of them in the eyes of God. And Paul goes on to explain exactly
how this happens. So Paul describes this list of
sins that is certainly not complete, right? We're guilty of far more
than what is named here. We still do far more than the
particular sins named here. But then Paul says, but when? We used to be wicked, we used
to be dead in our sins. We used to hate God. We used
to be as far from God as we could ever be. But when the goodness
and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, We may be tempted to understand
this appearing that Paul is speaking of as being parallel with the
incarnation, right? I didn't spend enough time looking
for another reference. There are places where when we
talk about the appearing, the appearing of our Savior, we're
referring to the incarnation, right? We're referring to Jesus
coming and appearing to men as a man, taking on flesh, living
his life. That's not what we're talking
about here. This is not the appearing we're referring to. Here, when
Paul says that our Savior has appeared, he is describing here
the particular mode or mechanism of our being called out of darkness. We were once guilty sinners,
but now we are not because of this appearing. This appearing
is none other than the revelation of the gospel of Christ to our
hearts in the work of the Holy Spirit for regeneration. The
testimony of the gospel is precisely this appearing of the goodness
and loving kindness of Christ. So we see that when we used to
be these things lost in darkness, the gospel was preached to us. And through that, the Holy Spirit
regenerated our hearts, opened our eyes, gave us eyes to see. Now there's something that we
need to understand here about God's goodness, this goodness
that appears in the gospel, right? The gospel is called the good
news. So we need to understand something
about this goodness. This goodness is distinct from
God's righteousness. Goodness and righteousness are
not the same thing. They sound like they should be
the same thing, but they're not. Goodness and loving kindness
are describing the manner of the appearing of our Savior in
the gospel, not righteousness. Righteousness speaks of duty
and the fulfillment of lawful requirements. Goodness and loving
kindness speaks of something more, something beyond what is
required. We see God's righteousness displayed,
make no mistake. God is righteousness and he puts
his righteousness on display, particularly in his judgment.
God is righteous to condemn the sinner and God is righteous to
condemn Christ on the cross to redeem his people. Christ's work
on the cross was necessary for our redemption because God is
righteous. God cannot permit the guilty
into his presence, so in order to permit his people to have
eternal communion and unity with him, his righteousness requires
that his justice be satisfied. And it is on the cross wherein
Christ pays the penalty for the sins of his people and his people
alone. This is the gospel that has appeared. This righteousness that we see
in the gospel, this is what has appeared to us. But this is not how it has appeared
to us or why it has appeared to us. It has appeared through
his goodness and loving kindness. God has no duty to have saved
any of us. God will never find in us anything
which he ought to love, but he loves us because he is good and
merciful. God's righteousness does not
compel him to love us as goodness and mercy do. By his goodness
and mercy he has freely chosen to love us, his people, those
least deserving of it. And so it is explicitly at this
time, this appearing, this revelation of the gospel that the Spirit
of God opened your eyes. There was a time when you heard
the gospel preached and you were given eyes to see. Paul's identifying an explicit
moment in time where we went from a state of being guilty
before God, damned for our sins, to being no longer guilty before
God, saved. And everything that follows here
in verses 5, 6, and 7 is a part of this moment. The things that
Paul goes on to elaborate and explain to us, these are all
part and parcel to this salvation that we have. Paul goes on to reinforce what
I already told you. Remember, I said God will never
find in us anything which he ought to love, but he loves us
because he is good and merciful. Paul says the same thing. He
saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness,
but according to his own mercy. Nothing in you pleased God to
save you. Only God was pleased in himself,
compelled by the liberty of his own mercy and love to save you. So the next bit is really interesting.
Paul's going to jump into some more of this sort of, you know,
how we are saved, how we are changed over from the realm of
darkness to the realm of light. There's something easy to miss
about this. It's fundamentally important
to our understanding of the gospel because the most popular so-called
Christian false gospels of today miss this very thing. If you
just read through this passage once or twice without sort of
dwelling on Paul's arguments here, you could miss this. Previously, when Paul said that
the goodness and loving kindness of God has appeared to us, Paul's
not only telling us when Christ saved us, but he's telling us
how. There's more wrapped up in that
word appeared. Our savior has appeared to us
in the sense that light has been shown upon him. Right, we talked
about being blind and then being given eyes to see. When Christ appeared to us, It
was because we were in darkness and then we were taken into light. We were blind and we can see. This is the how. But as Paul
continues, he's very decisively not saying this is what happens
next. Right? Verse five, he saved us. And then verse six is not, this
is what happened after he saved us. Paul is giving further details
into the manner of our salvation, the method of our redemption. He writes, he saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. This regeneration
is properly the cause of our faith. It is the very thing that
enabled us and compelled us to believe. This revelation of the
gospel is the means by which the Holy Spirit performs this
work of regeneration and renewal. So what do we need to make sure
we get here? That the regeneration is, in
a meaningful sense, the cause of your faith. We must often
abbreviate the phrase, the doctrine, as regeneration precedes faith. Right? Apart from regeneration,
what did we see in Romans 8-8? The mind that is set on the flesh
cannot please God. And obviously, faith in Christ is pleasing to
God, is it not? If you are in the flesh, you
have not the ability to have faith. God has to do something
to open your eyes. so that you may have faith. This
is the work of regeneration by the Spirit. And as we know from
John 3, the Spirit blows when and where he wishes. Paul continues in verse six,
the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus
Christ our Savior. This reminds me of Paul's letter
to the Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 1, he writes,
What does Paul mean when he says that we have been blessed in
Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places? Those whom Christ died for have
been blessed in every spiritual way in the heavenly places. Their
sins have been forgiven. God's wrath is satisfied against
them. Christ's righteousness is their
own. They have been declared holy
in Christ. These are the things poured out
on us by the Holy Spirit in our regeneration. We are justified,
sanctified, saved at the time of our regeneration. Further, you cannot receive God's
grace in part. God isn't in the business of
giving out half of his grace here and there. Writers and preachers
often like to take God's grace and, you know, divide it into
categories based on the different ways in which we are blessed
by it, usually because if you can figure out 15 different types
of God's grace, you've got 15 different 20-minute motivational
speeches to give on Sunday morning, right? One author divided God's
grace into something like 15 different types of grace, such
as regenerating grace, electing grace, sanctifying grace, relational
grace, financial grace, traveling grace. You'll even find these
divisions in many systematic theologies. The problem here is that if we're
not careful, we can divide God's grace in such a way that in our
minds we see the different ways in which God blesses us as distinct,
unique dispensations of God's grace. We can make the mistake of dividing
God's grace so that we've received regenerating grace, the grace
for regeneration, without having received the grace for maturity. If we think we can divide God's
grace this way, we might see that we're in a place where I
am saved, but God hasn't given me enough grace to grow. God
hasn't given me enough grace to love my brother, But I've
got enough grace to be saved. Paul is clear that this cannot
be. God's grace is given fully in Christ, and this is what it
means that the Holy Spirit has been poured out richly in Christ. Remember back in verse four when
Paul said, but when? Paul identified a particular
point in time when he was saved, the moment he was regenerated
by the Spirit through the revelation of the gospel of Christ. I then
told you that everything in verses 5, 6, and 7 are a part of this
moment. They are in some way something
that happens either preceding or proceeding from it. Paul's giving exposition on what
happens in this moment, and he says, so that being justified
by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of
eternal life. And so here, Paul makes an explicit
statement, an explicit declaration that our justification is a part
of this moment. that we are justified by faith. We are justified by faith that
is the gift of this regeneration. And this justification is had
at this time of faith. All of these things work together
so that we are made to be heirs together with Christ according
to the hope of eternal life. We are heirs together with Christ
through this gospel. We inherit his reward along with
him. Remember, Christ died on the
cross. Christ suffered the wrath of
God for our sins, and he was buried in a tomb. And three days later, Christ
received the reward of resurrection. Christ received life in his body. And then he went
to be with the Father, and we know that Christ receives the
reward of glory. Christ is glorified in the redemption
of his people and in eternity Christ is glorified in his eternal
union with his bride, the church, the elect, his people. These
are the rewards with Christ and we are made to be co-heirs with
him. These are our rewards also. We are made to be heirs together
with Christ according to the hope of eternal life. Now, that was an exposition of
the theology of our salvation. In the next verse, verse 8, Paul's
going to get very practical now. He's laid a theological foundation
for us in this detailed explanation of God's grace working through
the revelation of the gospel. But now Paul shifts to very practical
matters, essentially giving us a so what. This is where we get
to the after the but when, right? The but when where God, our Savior,
reveals to us the gospel. The Holy Spirit regenerates our
hearts to believe. We receive his blessings poured
out richly on us. That is all the but when. And now we are at the but now. So there are really two target
audiences here that verse eight deals with, right? So I'm gonna
deal with the second one first. Paul says, those who have believed
in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. Okay,
you have been saved, you've been called out of darkness, and now
you are to devote yourselves to good works, why? Paul tells
us, it's profitable. It's profitable not in the economic
sense, but it's good for you. It's beneficial for you to devote
yourselves to good works. Right? This is congruent with
what we know about sin. While sin ultimately does have
eternal consequences, that is that God's judgment will be poured
out against all unrighteousness, we know that sin has consequences
here on earth as Well, right? You pay for your sins today.
Sin damages your relationships. Sin can physically harm your
body. Sin, you know, sin can give you
diseases. God has erected governments to
exact temporary justice against sin. Your sin has consequences. So naturally, the opposite is
true of good works. There are very real material benefits to
doing good works. But there are also spiritual
benefits. As we, the church, grow closer in our intimacy with
one another, by serving each other, by loving
each other, we grow closer in our intimacy with Christ. Good works are a good thing.
If they weren't, they wouldn't be called good, right? It's good
for me to exhort you unto loving each other. It's good for me to exhort you unto killing the
sin that still infects your flesh, right? It's good for me to encourage
you to put to death every day the old man who still hangs on
for life. It is good for me to tell you
not to sin. And Paul tells me exactly how
I must do that. And this is the second target
audience, preachers. Listen up, elders. Paul gives
an explicit formula here for teaching good works to your people. Listen up, anyone who would want
to teach, anyone who would want to counsel a loved one or a friend
who has some sin in their life that needs to be dealt with,
someone who is facing the consequences of a sin that they don't want
to give up, Paul tells us how we deal with that. And it's not
at all ambiguous. Paul explains exactly how you're
commanded to preach about good works to God's people. When Paul
says this saying is trustworthy, what is he talking about? What
is the saying? He's talking about the description of the gospel
that he just gave. This saying is everything that
he just said about the gospel. He's talking about how we were
once lost in darkness. He's talking about how God in
his goodness and mercy called us out of darkness, chose to
love those he would call his people the elect. He's talking
about our Savior who has appeared through the revelation of the
gospel to save us, to justify us, to sanctify us. He's talking
about the Spirit of the Lord and the manifold graces he bestows
upon us. This is the saying that is trustworthy.
And Paul tells you how to teach good works. Insist on these things. Insist on this gospel. Insist
on preaching the fullness of this pure and simple gospel of
grace so that God's people may be careful to devote themselves
to good works. Why should we do good works? Because Christ has purchased
us by his blood. Why should you work to kill the
sin in your life? Because Christ has purchased
you with his blood. This is how we teach good works
to God's people. We insist on the gospel of grace. And what's missing here? What
don't we see here in Titus 3? What of this trustworthy saying
don't we see that is most often associated with the teaching
of good works in churches? This typical hellfire and brimstone,
you better quit sinning or Satan will be winning sermon style
is completely opposed to what Paul is saying here. If I come
up here and I get a much heavier hardback Bible and I pound it
on the podium and I pound it on your heads about how you need to quit this,
that, or the other sin, I am disobedient to the command
of God. You want to teach good works?
Insist on the gospel of Christ. Insist on the righteousness of
God imputed to the elect. Insist on the sins of the elect
imputed to Christ and propitiated on the cross. Insist on these
things. Closed my Bible to hit you with
it. Lost my place. This is the solution. You got
sin in the church, we have explicit instructions on how to handle
it relationally, and we have explicit instructions on how
to preach to the church during that time. I remember when I had only been
here for four or five months, I had been coming to this church.
We had exercised church discipline. We removed a man from fellowship,
right, because of a sin that they didn't want to let go, right? And what sermon did we hear that
day, if you remember, if you were here? Did we hear a sermon
about how this man's sin was something we needed to avoid?
The title of the sermon was The Righteousness of Christ in Church
Discipline. The content of the exposition
was how Christ is righteous and God's people are righteous because
of Christ. This is how we deal with sin. We insist on the righteousness
of Christ. Paul goes on with some practical
instructions for the church. He says, avoid foolish controversies.
Right? The existence of foolish controversies
implies the existence of legitimate controversies. Right? The foolish
ones, let's avoid them. Right? I mean, if you want to,
I don't know, watch the news and see how different talking
heads disagree about stuff, and you want to think about those
things, these controversies, that's fine. But these controversies, these
foolish controversies, they're not worth anything with respect to your
relationships with the body, right? I've got a friend who
we disagree on a lot of stuff. I mean a lot of stuff. And if
we wanted to fight about it, we could fight all day, and none
of it is anything found in this book, right? My relationship
with this friend, my brotherhood in Christ, is far more important
than any disagreement that we have about things that aren't in here
and don't matter. So avoid them. I mean, if you
want to talk about them amongst yourselves, that's fine. But
at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. But there are controversies that
are not foolish controversies. And Paul's going to tell us how
to deal with them in verses 10 and 11. He goes on, he talks about genealogies,
right? I mean, this was probably something
far more relevant to first century churches, something far more
relevant to churches full of Jewish people, right? Genealogies.
You know, I could stand up here and be like, I'm descended from
David. Who are you descended from? That's quarreling about
genealogies. It's nonsense. I'm descended
from Abraham. OK, all the Jews were. That's
not important. Today it might look more like,
let's see, oh, I got it. My grandmother's name is on a
plaque on the back of the pew. If you think that means anything,
you need to pay attention. Avoid genealogies, because that's
what it's talking about. Avoid putting your grandmother's
name on the back of the pew. Paul mentions dissensions in
general. This is just conflict for the sake of conflict, right? Quarrels about the law. They're unprofitable and worthless. What would a quarrel about the
law be? I don't know, caring about the minute details of the
Jewish law and how exactly we are supposed to follow it? I
mean, Jews today do things like have timers for their light switches
because you might be working on the Sabbath if you turn your
lights on. So they set their timers the night before. Avoid these things. We are given
this gospel to be united together by this common profession of
the gospel. And this gospel is far more important than anything that would divide
us. But as for a person who stirs
up division after warning him once and then twice have nothing
more to do with him. Remember I said the existence
of foolish controversies implies the existence of legitimate ones. Any time, any disagreement, any
of these controversies affects our common profession of the
gospel. That is not a foolish controversy. That is a controversy
that scripture demands that we rule on. And for the one who stirs up
division with these controversies, contrary to the written word
of scripture, Paul gives us instructions. Warn them once, warn them twice,
and have nothing more to do with them. Now don't make the mistake of
thinking that this is sort of outside the scope of Matthew
18, right? Jesus in Matthew 18 gives the
formula. He gives us the formula for church
discipline, right? In 1 Corinthians 5 and here in
Titus 3, Paul gives us very explicit instructions for some particular
types of sin, okay? These are not exceptions to Matthew
18. These are commentaries on Matthew 18. In both of these
cases, the sins listed, which in 1 Corinthians 5, we'll flip
over there real quick. First Corinthians 5, the sins
listed. Let's see. It's actually reported
that there's sexual immorality among you of a kind not tolerated
even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife.
You are arrogant. Ought you not rather mourn? Let
him who has done this be removed from among you. It's a big deal, right? We've
got this in Titus 3, stirring up division. We've got these
particular sins where Paul gives particular commentary on the
Matthew 18 process. He tells us to exercise it with
expediency. Be swift in your action. And in the case of sowing division
in the church, this is because division happens quickly. We
need to act faster as a church to stamp out division in the
church. Because our sinful hearts aren't
going to slow down. It is the nature of man to find
a way to hate his brother. So that's why Paul is very clear
Someone stirs up division, one of these legitimate controversies,
one of these doctrines counter to the written word. Warn him
once and then twice. Have nothing more to do with
him. Such a person is warped and sinful. Such a person is Romans 3. Such a person is 2 Timothy 3. Such a person is foolish, disobedient,
led astray, slave to various passions and pleasures, passing
their days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one
another. He is self-condemned. And Paul tells us to have nothing
to do with them. Right, but the rest of Matthew 18 still applies,
right? We have nothing to do with them,
but if he listens to us, we have gained our brother. If he listens
to us, if he repents of his error, it is as though we have gained
our brother. From our perspective, we see
the grace of God in the forgiveness for that sin. We see the grace
of God in restoring our unity. And this is the goal of church
discipline, for preserving our unity and
putting on display the grace of God. So I'll just finish out the letter. Paul's final instructions and
greetings. He says, when I send Artemis and Tychicus to you,
do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided
to spend the winter there. Do your best to speed Zenos the
lawyer and Apollos on their way. See that they lack nothing, and
let our people learn to devote themselves to good works. so
as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful. All who
are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us
in the faith. Grace be with you all. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you for your
word and for this exposition on your gospel given to us by
Paul. We thank you that we can clearly
see with our eyes that have been opened by your spirit the work
of Christ in securing our redemption. We thank you that you have chosen
to reveal yourself to us, that you have chosen to relate to
us in a manner of love and not a manner of judgment, that rather
that judgment was put on Christ And we thank you that you have
given us the grace to relate to one another with love. That
when our sin does rear its head and our relationships are damaged,
that you have given us both grace and instructions to repair our
relationships with one another, to preserve our intimacy with
our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we pray that those who are
separated from us, those who have chosen to fight their sin
apart from us, God, we know that it is only
a special act, an extraordinary outpouring of your grace that
can bring them back to us. God, we pray We want, we desire,
we need fellowship with these people. We need fellowship with
all of our brothers, all of our sisters. And God, give strength to those
who are not able to fellowship. Give strength to those who cannot be with us either out
of fear or need. Give them strength. Give them
opportunities to be intimate, whether it be on the phone or
through messaging. Let everyone be encouraged by
your grace. Give us the power to encourage
one another. God bless us as we go. We pray these things in
the name of Christ. Amen.