and authorities to be obedient,
to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid
quarreling, to be gentle and to show perfect courtesy toward
all people. For we ourselves were once foolish,
disobedient, let us stray slaves to various passions and pleasure,
passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating
one another. But when the goodness of the
love 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 same is trustworthy, and I want to insist on these
things so that those who have been 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. When I send Artemis or Titicus
to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, where 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. I have
to I have to be honest, there's there's a lot there that I think
if the Lord lets me, I'd like to tear that into about five
more sermons. Those last few verses, last few thoughts, but
for the sake of where the Spirit is guiding me today, I think
it may come to a close. So now the battle is either I
do what I want to do. I do what God wants to do to
discern which is which. Today's sermon is entitled Avoiding
Self-Condemnation. Now, with a title like that,
it can often create the sense of frustration, the sense of
fear, the sense of aggravation, because you hear things like
that. Well, and you would automatically suppose, well, he's going to
tell us how to not be self-condemned. And one or two things may be
true. You may be self-condemned. Or you may know someone who is
self-condemned. But something else could also be true. You
may be self-condemned and sit here in ignorance of the fact.
You may say to yourself, well, I know I'm not self-condemned,
so he's talking to someone else. And you may even get to the point
where it's so frustrating that the redundancy of the preaching
that you heard in the last 10 to 12 weeks, you'd say, I know
this, I get it. Well, by the very nature that
you say that means that you don't, because remind them of these
things. We ought to be reminded constantly. Very seldom do I
preach and the group go, oh, my gosh, I have just seen a vision. Very seldom do I come to the
table of sermonizing, and I see everybody just sort of pass out
and faint in epiphany. It just doesn't happen. Most
of the time, it's just a stark and strong reminder of that which
we already know. That's what preaching does. That's what learning
the scripture is. Yes, the first days that were
there, the first moments that we see a specific truth and maybe
even a truth that we know, but we see it reiterated in another
text. We go, oh, that's so strong.
It may be overwhelmingly satisfying to us, but very seldom is it
new. Very seldom is it strangely just
amazing that I just never knew. I never saw it. I never thought.
But I will tell you that even the things that you've always
seen, that you've always thought, that you've always known, when
the Spirit of God reveals them to you once again, it's brand
new in your spirit. It's brand new in your heart.
So as we preach these last things in Titus, I want these last things,
which are very much just an outline of the things that we've already
heard, be a fresh reminder of the gracious, loving kindness
of our God. And I want you to see the severity of what false
teaching does to the church and how we are to confront it and
be reminded of the things that Paul has commanded here for young
Titus to attend to and create. I want you to see that there's
an organization among the church that is set forth by God through
the power and the authority of the apostles. That the Holy Spirit
would endow his people to live in such a way that they are submissive
to his word and submissive to the teaching of his word and
submissive to one another as they submit to Christ. And I
want you to understand that when we say we're going to avoid self-condemnation,
friends, that is an impossibility. We are not going to be the ones
who can avoid being condemned, but we are the ones, if we are
truly in the faith, that can avoid being self-condemned. And
I want you to know that there is a lot here that if we're not
careful, we will we will come very pragmatic with. We will
get to the place where I've got to do this. I've got to say this.
I've got to act this way. I've got to dress this way. I've
got to think this way. I've got to sing this way. I've got to walk this
way. And we'll just get so bound up. And it's really what we want.
We've had discussions just this week about how children thrive
in structure. They thrive in order. We as human
beings, as adults, as teenagers, as older adults and younger adults
and everybody in between, we also thrive. We want to know
what we're doing tomorrow. We want to know what time we're
supposed to get up. We want to know what time is
best for us to go to bed. We want to know what time we're
supposed to eat. Isn't it amazing that very few people in this
country eat when they're hungry? They eat when it's time. We thrive
for structure, and when we miss lunch, even if we weren't hungry,
we go, oh, I missed lunch. And so we make it up at six when
we have dinner. So what's going on in our world?
It's the same thing that's going on in Paul's world. And if we're
not careful, we want that structure. We'll say, OK, this is the best
sermon I've ever heard because it'll teach me some things that
I can write down, stick them on my refrigerator, and I got
it together now. Friends, I don't want you to
got it together. I want you to get the understanding of the
power of the gospel that gets you together and not in a sense
that you think it gets you together. It takes you from death to life.
It takes you from Hellion to Saint. It takes you from wicked
to holy. Like that. From wickedness to
righteousness, you are not one who has been left on your own
at regeneration to figure it all out. The power of the gospel
is indeed the power of God, not just the salvation, but to teach
us all things about who God is, that we should know and understand
the depths of the riches of his mercies that are new every day. It's to empower us to live as
a people and not play games and call it churchmanship. But we
are to live as a people who care for one another, even when we
are sinning against each other and even when there's strife.
The gospel not only commands it, but empowers us to overcome
those differences. If we cannot, then we are no
better than the loss of the world. So when we think about what we're
about to hear today, I want you to see. That it's not about the
practical. It's a reminder of the teaching
that accords with sound teaching. Sound doctrine that accords with
sound doctrine. Those of you who don't really
grasp that, you need to go back and listen to the sermons, because
that's where we've come. That's where we are today. In
about, I don't know, what, 14 hours of teaching on Titus already.
It could have been better, but it's just what you got. By the
Lord's grace, He will effect that in you. That you will become
more Christ-like, that you will become more loving, that you
will become more worshipful, that you will become empowered,
and that we as His people will quit looking at the idols of
our lives and think that we have our lives together because we
live in a moral state, and we have a good job, and we have
a good marriage, and we have good children, and we have good
things, and we have good ways, and there's always light at the
end of the tunnel, and we live in a great nation, and all of these things
that will pass away at the blink of an eye when the Lord comes.
And so just as Paul taught us, we live with a great hope and
expectation of the day of the Lord. We work unto that day. We're not working to bring Jesus
back. We're waiting for him to come
back to the praise of his glory. We hold fast in the face of death
with joy everlasting. Stephen and Acts, look, behold,
I see the Son of Man standing at the right side of the Father. That made them mad. It made them
mad because it was blasphemous in their eyes that some man would
actually say there is the Christ Jesus, the man, standing at the
right side of the Father. But I think mostly what made
them mad is that he was not fearful of them and that he did not cower
under their authority and under the threat of death. But he had
joy. As the last breath of that mortal
body went out of him, the next breath he breathed was in the
presence of his Savior, who stood to receive him in glory. Is that
the call of your heart? If it's not, I would seriously
suggest that you reevaluate everything you are and everything you do. And that every moment of every
day, when you see other things that get your heart going, I
can't wait. Is it that? And if it's not,
push that idol off the cliff of boredom. It's boring. to see such things in our lives
when we compare them to the infinite glory of Christ, who is our everlasting
hope and King, who is the Savior, who not just probably saved,
but certainly saves his people without fail, without expectation. He's no discriminator. He does
not sit down and capriciously decide that one is more valuable
than the other. But in his wisdom, he saves his
own and his sheep hear his voice. And if you hear the voice of
Christ and you follow him, you are his. Well, the same is trustworthy. Let's look at this text. And
I want you to insist on these things, Paul says, so that those
who have believed in God may be careful. This is last week
to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent
and profitable for people. Good works. And I told you last
week that I would love to just preach a whole sermon on what
are good works or what is profitable or what, you know, and maybe
we will. We might revisit Titus in years to come. But for today,
I want you to be reminded of what Paul has already taught
us. Paul has taught us that the good works that we are to strive
for, that we are to be careful, that means we watch out to do,
that we watch out that our passions and our hearts and our affections
are placed on these things. We're to carefully devote ourselves
to the affections of goodness and good works out of the purpose
of righteousness that we have been granted. In our justification,
we are declared righteous by a holy judge who has the power
to forgive because he did not let sin go, that he destroyed
and paid the penalty of that sin through the person of Jesus,
his own son. God is not God if he lets sin go. He will punish
every sin that is ever committed and he will punish every sinful
heart that has ever lived on this earth, either through their
own judgment or through the judgment of Jesus Christ who took that
sin on himself. Do you see that? We have a very
bad problem in America. Think of God as this omnibenevolent
creature. that is so perplexed with grief
that he just lets us get away with wickedness. He does not. And when we in the faith sin
against him, what does it say in Hebrews? It's like we're submitting
him once again to public shame for that sin that we commit has
been paid for. The penalty of that sin has been
counted, paid. The judgment, the fullness of
the eternal God and the fullness of his eternal holiness and the
fullness of his eternal wrath has been put on that sin. And
that is what drives us to worship. That's what drives us to righteousness.
It's that spirit within us that drives us. Look at these good works,
faith, humility, kindness, patience. These are all from the text that
we've already seen. Sound teaching that produces sound living, faith,
preaching, teaching, sharing of our faith, the exposition
of the gospel, worship, severe devotion to holy things, a rearrangement
of our affections, a love for each other, the brethren, a love
for the world, the people of the world, not the world's ways. unity among the saints, forgiveness
and repentance, the constant remembrance of the gospel and
its power, obedience to the commands of Christ, ministry to the flock
and to the neighbor who is not part of the church, the resisting
of sin and the resisting of the of the flesh. to renounce the
ways of unrighteousness and wickedness and lawlessness. We're given
these as good works, so we rest in the righteousness of Christ.
We're to have dignity and honor and quietness and submission
and respect while being seen in the same light by others around
us. We are to be well-pleasing and we're not to be argumentative. And there's more. I just don't
want to re-preach Titus. See how easy? Well, I can do
that. I can work on those. Don't work on those. Strive to
see them effective in your life. Work on who Christ is, resting,
and then work in devotion, like we preached last week, to press
on to good works. Not to please God, not to earn
God's favor, but because you please God. You please God already. He doesn't look on his children
with disdain and disgust. He doesn't look at the ones who
have been who have been redeemed by the blood of his son and go,
oh, he does not. He looks on us with an everlasting
love that was here before the world began. God's love is effective. God's love is eternal. All of
these things that we've just talked about, these good works,
they're in contrast to those who teach false things, who teach
false things and are evidenced by not only their false teaching,
but their false living, these false teachers that are false
believers and their false livers. And they sometimes don't even
know it. were to rebuke this false living. The Scripture is
very clear that the elders of the church, as they see it within
the congregation, were to call it out. That's not godly. That's
not right. That's wicked. Why do you stand
that way? Why do you believe that way?
But it's not just a review like we call it. We've got too many
talk shows in our world. We got too many, not necessarily
Oprah. Oprah's a whole nother conversation.
But we've got too many talk shows. It's just sort of snippy and
snappy. We're going to tell them like it is going to keep it real.
Friends, we don't keep it real. Christ kept it real when they
accused him of being a blasphemer and he kept his mouth shut. Christ
kept it real when full, the fullness of his satisfaction, his hunger
was satisfied in being the bread of life to be sacrificed on the
cross willfully willful. It's called the passive obedience
of Christ. If you want to know the doctrine of it and Christ
passively and willfully obey to be subject to the cross. It's
why he came. That's keeping it real. Here's some thoughts about rebuking.
If you have to be right, you're sinful. If you despise those
who are wrong, you're sinful. If we concern ourselves as better
than those who are in sin, then we're sinful. If we think that
our words and our actions will affect redemption of those people,
we're sinful. If we are angry and argumentative,
it's not the Spirit of God at work, but the flesh. If we nag,
we're sinful. If we're frustrated, we're sinful.
If we're bitter, we're sinful. If we're arrogant, we're sinful. We rebuke. Why? Because He says it, so that they
may be sound in the faith. Rebuke them sharply, that they
may be sound in the faith. It's like a kid when you taught
him to eat and they're just, you know, learning to crawl and
you put food down, maybe in a high chair and you put food on and
they eat what you give them because that's all they know and they
eat. Well, when they get out of that chair and they become
mobile, they begin to walk around the world that they live in.
And then they see something that is small enough to eat that may
even be organic and they grab it and they go to put it in their
mouth, but it's it's it's not food. Maybe you were at the park. And you're sitting there at the
park, and the baby's there, and there's a bird dropping, and
the baby picks up the bird dropping, just to put it in his mouth.
It looks like food. It looks like that which they've been eating.
They don't know the difference. But you go, no, no, no, don't
put that in your mouth. That's not food. This is food. You clean
that off and you give them something to eat that's food by preventing
them from putting that which is not food in their mouth. That's
what a rebuke looks like. You don't yell at the baby and
go, you stupid fool! You're eating poop! Now your
breath stinks. Nobody likes you. You're a dookie
eater, dookie eater, dookie eater. And just all the time making
names, poking fun, making t-shirts, I'm a poop eater. You know, see
how absurd it is? And then that illustration is
so funny. But that's what we do. That's what we do. Friends, we rebuke so that they
may be sound in the faith. And rebuke includes It includes
teaching what is right, not just slapping what is wrong. Paul
says to do good works, but he also says to not do bad words. Friends, when we call out the
wrong thinking and wrong living and say, this is what you should
be doing, not this. It's gracious. It's affection. It's love. Because if we don't
teach the child to eat, to not eat bad things that may just
be gross, one day they may pick up something that's toxic and
kill themselves. The same is true for doctrine in life. So what are we to avoid? Verse
nine, avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, quarrels
about the law. So let's look at this. What does it mean to avoid? Now,
just sort of stay away from, well, the word of the word there,
the verb there in the Greek, if it would really translate,
it's hard to translate some of these words. So let's bring this
sentence. It's just frustrating. I want to teach all this stuff
and I'm not really an expert anyway. But avoid, if I were
to say what it really means, don't stand in the presence of
it. Don't stand around it. Resist it. Because we're supposed
to be careful to do good works and the antithesis of being careful
to do good works. Part of that is what resisting
wickedness. So then for we do not stand around
false teaching, we do not stand around quarreling, controversies,
genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law. We don't stand
around them. We avoid them. We don't argue about things that
are wrong, because when we argue about things that are wrong,
we're playing into the realm of false teaching. We're giving
credence to that which is wrong, and all we do is talk about what's
wrong. I was rebuked many years ago
by a young man, and after a couple of days of visiting with us,
and I've known him for a while, he looks at me and says, do you
have anything positive to say about anything? And we're just
laughing. I'm going to put you on a plane
and send you back to wherever you came from." But he was right. He said, my spirits, my spirits
grieved. I came here for ministry and
for the last two days, because of a specific theme, all you've
talked about is what's wrong with the world, what's wrong
with the church, what's wrong with the false teachers, and what's wrong
with this, what's wrong with that, and what's wrong with this. And
nowhere he goes, and I'm not a Bible scholar, but I've never
read that we're supposed to do that. I don't want to punch myself. You see, it's about the heart
of the issue when we don't pay attention to the teaching of
Scripture, when we just run on that roller coaster of rightness.
It's not, I think I can, I'm coming for you. That's what we're
saying. I'm coming for you, I'm coming for you, I'm coming for
you, get it! And we're just running over everybody, arguing about
these things as wrong, and it plays in the realm of falsehood.
It's wordless, foolish, vain, empty arguments, controversies,
all of them. Spurgeon has some interesting
words to say about this particular text. About this particular thing
about avoiding foolish controversies, listen to these words. There
are plenty of thorn about and there are certain professors
who spend half their lives in fighting about nothing at all.
There is no more in their contention than the difference between Tweedledum
and Tweedledee, but they will divide a church over it. They
will go through the world as if they found a great secret.
It really is not any of consequence, whatever. But having made the
discovery, they judged everybody by their newfound fad and so
spread a spirit that is contrary to the spirit of Christ. There
are hundreds of questions which are thought by some people to
be very important, but which have no practical bearing whatever,
either upon the glory of God or upon the holiness of man.
We are not to go into these matters. Let those who have time to waste
take up these questions. As for us, we have not time enough
for things that are unprofitable in vain. That's what Paul's saying. And you might say that the man
who has been heralded still to this day as the prince of preachers.
Probably knows a little bit of thing or two about a thing or
two about Titus. A letter written to a preacher. What does this look like? I've
come up with a long list, I started to write a long list, but friends,
let me just tell you the ones that I've been involved with.
Let me just confess some things to you that I've been involved
with that would fall into this thing that I should have avoided
open air debates and arguments. Always in a coffee shop. Never failed. I'll be doing a
Bible study. Somebody come up to me and they
just stick it. They stick their finger right
in my mashed potatoes. You want that? You know what? I'm going to break your finger
off now. You stuck your finger in my food. The Scripture says
I should give it to him. Show me something that Jesus
said. That's what the Muslims would
always say. Would you show me in your Bible something that
Jesus said? And I read letters. John got
it. Look at all that. He goes, No,
that's what John said. Jesus, show me something Jesus
wrote. And you know what I do? Show me something Muhammad wrote.
He pulled out his Quran, show it to me, and I said, I can't
read that. I don't read that language. He'd pull out the English
one, he'd show it to me, and I'd say, oh, Muhammad said that?
How do you know? It's right here. He was illiterate
and couldn't write or read. Historical fact. His wife wrote
that. That was wrong. Why would I do
that? Because I wanted to push his button. And it did. Oh my
gosh, it was cool! I won! What are you going to
do now? He's mad, he's throwing it off. You tell him, man, Jesus
is king, man. It felt good. It's not right.
So avoid those open air debates and arguments that just put more
focus on the wrong than rather than proclaiming the gospel.
Fighting over doctrine. Now, friends, sometimes you can't
avoid it, and I'm not talking about fighting over doctrine
that's necessary, but fighting is not necessary. We are to continue
to teach, we are to continue to strive, as you see how Paul
deals with it here in a moment. We're to deal with bad doctrine,
but we're not to fight over bad doctrine. We're not to fight.
Is it the spirit of Christ when the Lord opens the door for us
to see the beauty of his grace and then we go around punching
everybody in the nose for the next two years? It's like Pastor
DeYoung says a few years ago when we were in Orlando. He says,
when you first come to understand God's grace, you need to be locked
in incarceration for two years. You just need to be locked away
in a prison somewhere where you can't see anybody or talk to
anybody because you want to change everybody's opinion about everything
they've ever known. And then I'll add my little part in there.
We go around calling everybody's baby ugly and wonder why nobody
likes us. And it may be the very reason that so many people would
apply that to me and to you as Grace Truth Church, because for
so long, so many people like us have been in here calling
everybody's babies ugly. Now we come into town and we're like,
oh, those baby haters. I'm not tired of her, but we wouldn't
do that. But the shoe fits, so they're going to make us wear
it. Another thing is a cynical attitude
toward other people who believe differently than us. Cynicism.
You know what I'm talking about? That's what that young man was
rebuking me for. The cynical mindset. Everything's fine. The
sky's fallen and I don't care that you've got a scaffold to
hold it up. It's not going to work. Well, that's failure to
believe in the gospel. It's a symptom of unbelief. How
about searching the Internet? Here's here's what we get the
Facebook and I still understand the psychology of this. And if
I had time to waste, I would literally go in a cave and just
study this. I think it's an amazing phenomenon that somebody you
don't even know can put something on Facebook and it makes you
mad. That's like walking down in a carnival and seeing a note
that somebody wrote to somebody else and you think that that's
just ridiculous and it frustrates you to the point of anger. How
dare he say that to her? I don't even know who they are.
And then you start fussing at everybody. That's what the Facebook
fodder is all about. And there's a psychology to it,
that if I could care less about everything good, I could spend
my life just studying because it's really interesting. It's
like seeing an amoeba for the first time under a microscope.
Oh, my gosh. You know, I bet that guy lost
sight in that eyeball. I mean, you know, he just never
wanted to look at anything else. But it's not important in the
scheme of what God has called the church to be. We don't get
online and look, this is a false teacher, that's a false teacher.
Friends, if you look hard enough and I can give you a couple of websites
to go to, you can find my name in a false teaching place. I
just don't have a platform big enough to put it on, to get it
where people are actually creating junk to fight against me. But
it's not Godly. Stay off that trash. Stop looking
at it. You spend an hour looking at
these polemic things and getting a... Okay, so I hate this pastor. But you already knew you hated
him. And you shouldn't hate him. Oh, and I don't hate him. He's
a false teacher. You already knew he was a false teacher.
Why are you still looking to see how much more false he is? Or then you get in there on YouTube
or Facebook or whatever, and you say, well, I know what I'm
going to do. I'm going to search the web for the next six weeks, and I'm going
to get every bad example of this guy's stuff, and I'm going to
put it all together, and I'm going to give my life to showing
this man's faults. Well, guess what you've just
done? You've pervaded his teaching. Because when you stand in a group
of people and a bunch of, you know, masculine folks who love
their mamas dearly, and you say, hey, y'all, your mama, somebody's
going to fight you. Is that what we want? No. I would
say even on large matters that are good to understand that need
to be corrected, the fighting and the arguing and the cynicism
has got to stop. And that's what he's talking
about, false teachers, that's what the letter was written for
false doctrine, false living, false teachers, I mean, serious
stuff. Serious stuff. This is what you're
to be about. Let's be about this. This sermon
is for me. Is it for you? Because it's a symptom of a bigger
problem. The false teachings, we can't fix that. What's the
bigger problem? Unregeneration. Abortion, what's
the bigger problem? Unregeneration. We can tell abortion
is wrong, but say it and move to the good stuff. What's going
to change somebody? The gospel. What's going to change
sinful behavior? What do we want? A moral society
or people in glory? I don't want a moral society.
I don't want a bunch of false believers walking around living
Christianly. I mean, that's not a proper adverb,
but I don't want to walk. I don't want a Christianly nation.
I want a regenerate nation. I don't want a church that walks
the line. I want the true church. We need to stop preaching behavior
modification and preach that Christ has crucified himself
on the cross for the sake of saving wicked people. And because
of that, the Spirit of God, through hearing the gospel that God came
to earth and gave Himself for us, will bring to life a dead
sinner and then will go, I don't love sin anymore. I don't love
drunkenness anymore. I don't love sexual immorality
anymore. I don't love abortion anymore. I don't love homosexuality
anymore. I don't love any of it. I love
Christ. Who's going to change Him? Us
or Him? Him. You see the trick of the devil?
He's a liar and he's always been a liar. The enemy is a liar,
and he's lying to us today. He's lying through our culture.
He's lying through our churches. He's lying through the benevolent
ministries of the world and saying that we just love everybody.
He's lying through those who have a sound fight in the game,
saying, I want to stop this false teaching. There's nothing wrong
with the heart and the desire to stand against wrong. But Christ
has already stood against it. So to fight the fight as though
we're Christ is saying just this, that I need to work for my salvation
and I need to work for those around me. Paul had the heart
to say, I would give up my salvation for the sake of my brothers,
my Jewish brothers. But he couldn't because it wasn't
his to give away. It wasn't his to lose. It was
God's salvation given to him on the road to Damascus when
he had rejected the gospel. He had killed Stephen and he
was sanctioning the arrest and the disposal of Christians all
across Palestine. And Jesus showed up and said,
Saul, why are you persecuting me? And blinded his eyes, but
gave him eyes to see. Paul's remedy here is to preach
what is true. Correction means teaching what is true, not debating
what is false. Now, there's foolish controversies,
genealogy, dissensions, quarrels about the law, what are these
foolish, the word there is moros. Sound familiar? It's where we
get our word moron from. Foolish, weak in understanding,
stupid or lacking judgment, confused, not worthy of consideration.
That's what it means. So it's a it's a controversy
not worthy of consideration is controversy. And I'm not saying
that issue is not worthy to be dealt with, but the controversy. We are to see the outcome of
bad doctrine, which is bad living, and so Paul's more talking about
the evidence of bad doctrine rather than the bad doctrine
itself, is he not? They say they love you, but they
don't. They say they're in Christ, but it's sort of like a recap
of 1 John without all the direct commands, without the argument
that John would give. Bad leaving, disobedience, an
unloving spirit. So the outcome of false doctrine
is false living. The outcome of bad teaching is
bad living. We do not have to debate the false doctrine because
it's proven false by the outcome of the lives of those who loathe
to it. People might say, well, what
about all this Armenian and all this Pelagian and all this kind
of stuff? You don't know why that is good. You haven't taken church
history yet. It's OK. But church history is important because
it's where a lot of the junk got fought. It's not news, not anything,
just people's names got stuck to it. What about all those folks?
Well, what about them? They've been here for hundreds
of years. They're going to be here until Christ comes back. So when they
show up at your doorstep, then deal with it. I never understood
snake hunting, rattlesnake hunting. Let's find a hole and stick a
stick in it and hear if he's rattling and then dig him out.
How about he's good enough? He's fine. Let's just let him
sit right there. We're 16 miles out of town and
we want to dig him up and kill him. They're dangerous. Why don't
we just not dig him up and bring him to town? Why don't we just
let him sit out there? And when they come to town, then
we'll kill them. I don't take it literally. I'm not saying
when Paul's teachers come to the church, we kill them. I'm not saying that, but I am
saying, let's deal with what's in front of us first. Here, if we want to understand
what controversies are in the language here in the Greek, it's
actually dealing with things that are philosophical debates, things
that are philosophical and that end in trying to win the fight
rather than find the truth. See the difference? controversies
or philosophical debates that one comes into the table or comes
into the discussion so that they can win, so that they can be
proven right rather than seeking the truth. It's not wrong for
somebody to say, you know what? I don't believe Jesus was God
until after he rose from the dead. And this is why. And you
go, wow, that's pretty significant. Let me show you what the Bible
says about that. And then you show them and they go, man, I'm
so glad you cleared that up for me. But what happens? Somebody says,
hey, Pastor, can I ask you a question? This is what most people do.
Several people who've been kicked out of churches, you know, I
believe that I believe that the Bible is reading out of John,
I believe that the Bible teaches that only those that the father
gives the son can come to him, and I think that means that only
God can bring repentance and faith in the life of an individual.
You heard, you know, and throw him out of the church and you
think that's crazy to throw on church. Pastor Luke was fired
for such teaching. Well, not fired, he resigned,
but they tried to vote him out. We want to find the truth, not
win the fight. These controversies are seen by false teachers who
continually bring the fight to the table, don't they? They don't want to deal with
us. They don't want to talk to us. And then when they leave us, they
don't want to work with us. And when they leave the church,
when people like that leave the church or depart from certain
groups, call themselves the church or whatever, then they go out
and their mission is not to continue the mission of the gospel, but
their mission is to bring them down. Like a tabloid writer. Let's put as much dirt on these
people as we can. Friends, that happens. It's happened. The church that I served in Brunswick,
that I found out a year later by one of the men, that they
had a friend in the federal courthouse who actually pulled criminal
histories on me and my family without our knowledge. Just to
see if there was anything. An old DUI, an old something.
Just something, so they could get us. You believe that? Sounds like something off of
Law and Order or, I don't know, Mission Impossible. People don't love the church,
who are not the church. Why not fight? Well, because
Scripture commands it. We also, when we fight, we become like
them. Bad doctrine is important. Let me give you just a few things
in Scripture to help you see what problems it causes. Bad
doctrine is deadly. It actually devours the soul.
Listen to Acts 15. Since we have heard that some
persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words,
unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instruction.
So here we see that bad doctrine unsettles the mind. It unsettles
the soul. It causes people to start to worry and think about
things that they know that they had not thought about earlier. First Timothy, Paul, teaching
Timothy's as I charge you and entrust to you, Timothy, my child,
in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that
by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a
good conscience. By rejecting this, some have
made shipwreck of their faith. So bad teaching. Causes a fight
with one's own faith. They shipwreck their faith. As
a matter of fact, he names two of them. He says, Hymenaeus and
Alexander. Among them are Hymenaeus and
Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn
not to blaspheme. So we still see the elders exercising
discipline within the church and the body expressing discipline
in the church. It's not just the elders. It's
the elders going before the church saying, we must expose this person. We must this person, because
they won't repent. And we do have not had to, but
we, as a congregation, all agree that church discipline is biblical
and we follow it. 2 Timothy 2 says, but avoid irreverent
babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness.
It's a seed of bitterness. It's a hidden, deceptive root
that holds in our heart. And when we start, I mean, do
you know what it feels like to be in a continued, frustrational
fight, rather, with someone else over doctrine or over church
matters or over relationships or over something? You know why
there's churches or congregations named Red Door and Blue Door
Baptists? Because they couldn't decide
what color the door is going to be, so the blue door folks
quit and went across the street and got their own door. And that's
an actual example in this state. I've seen people that change
worship services because they can't come to terms on what type
of music they're going to sing. Whether it's going to be guitar
and whether it's going to be turned up to four or nine. So it would be very much akin
to the flesh that we have, that if that was an argument in a
church today, then we'd have First Baptist Church somewhere
in the USA, and then across the street it would be Volume 9 Baptist. We'd turn it up! I mean, you
know. Avoid Reverend Bapple. It will lead people to more and
more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. And
he mentions Hymenaeus again and Philetus, who have swerved from
the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They're
upsetting the faith of some, and it ruins the fellowship,
doesn't it? Titus one, he must hold firm
to the trust with the word is taught so that he may be able
to give instruction and sound doctrine and rebuke those who
contradict it. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty
talkers, deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced since they're
upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain. What they
all want to teach. And we looked at that shameful gain. It's power,
it's pride, it's being puffed up. Look at who all's following
me to my Pied Piper church. Rebuke must be done, but debate
and fighting cannot be done by the church. That's not the same
thing. So verse nine, but avoid foolish
controversies, genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law for they're
unprofitable and worthless. So we know that these foolish
controversies, we know what they look like, but very quickly in
our smooth to the close, what are genealogies? Well, we would
just have to suppose that this is it doesn't make any specific
things. Some commentators and some church theologians and some
historians have said that it's probably this idea where people
were starting to. It's not the genealogies of scripture
now. Those are good and profitable for all scriptures God breathed.
Even the genealogies. Why? Because they prove who Christ
is. And they prove the sovereignty
of God over the history of man. So these genealogies, their personal
genealogies, and a lot of people believe that it was they were
using them and showing this man's kind of this guidance. And then
they were looking into the pages and looking between the lines
and coming up with all this mystical connection with things. But there
was this argumentative idea of the spiritual fulfillment of
this or this mysticism, maybe even rank or esteem or eschatology
or last days prophecies being fulfilled, sound familiar. Oh, look at the newspaper. See
Revelation? Look at Titus. Look at the map
down here on the backside of this. And you see, you count
five lines down from the first section of Genesis 1 and you
go to the Table of Contents. You spit in the air. If the wind's
blowing north, poof! Alright, Vladimir Putin is the Antichrist.
And he's tend to this guy and he's tend to that guy. And we
just go on back. And you know, there are people
who give their lives to that kind of stuff. And they've never
preached the gospel in their life. But they got more money, more
people in the seats, more followers, and more fools following around
because brawl is the way that leads to destruction, but it
narrows the gate that leads to righteousness if you will find
it. These theories and conspiracies
that are not shown in Scripture. We have no time for this. It's
a lie of the devil. He is at work. Why is it a surprise
that there's conspiracies? I mean, me and Brother Mike had
this conversation a few weeks ago. Why are we shocked when
we start to uncover things that the devil is doing? He's doing
it. Don't worry about it. Stand firm against the devil's
schemes. Proclaim the gospel. The gates of hell cannot prevail
against the gospel, against the church. We've won. Let's march
right on. He can't trip us, he can't kill
us, he can't stop us, he won't. The Word of God cannot be barren.
Put us in prison, people get saved. Kill us, people get saved. Matter of fact, if it weren't
for the killing of Stephen, you and I wouldn't be saved today.
Christianity would be just another Semitic religion. It would have never left Jerusalem.
But the killing of Stephen dispersed the church. That meant a stoning,
and a long time, Rome prohibited it. And then they stoned this
dude, Bartholomew Sanhedrin, Maim Saul. They laid the jackets
down to him as a sense of approval and submission to the Sanhedrin
court. They couldn't even go into that
court in the temple. You realize that? Rome took that
space away. They could not even enter that
spot during the days of Rome. They could not have their own
courts on issues of capital crimes. And all of a sudden, right there
in the yard, They stoned Stephen to death and everybody else is
like, oh, we're in trouble. They left, not all of them, but
most of the church dispersed. Dissensions, what does this mean?
Competitive and suspicious, the self-centered rivalry, and it's
not of God, it's spread in the heart of man. It's not the spirit
of God, this rivalry. There's no place for humility. There's no place for patience
or affection or understanding with those who may disagree.
This is sin. Friends, we're called to teach others, make disciples. You know what that means? That
doesn't have anything to do, nor has it ever been in any proper
understanding of the commands of Jesus that has never had anything
to do with say, would you accept Jesus Christ today? What does
that mean? When the whole of the narrative
of the New Testament, every time it said someone accepted him,
Jesus said, no, they didn't. We teach people the Word of God,
making disciples is to teach them to what? Obey everything
that I have commanded you. Faith, repentance, faith, repentance,
faith, repentance and the outcome thereof. Sound doctrine and all
that accords with sound doctrine. Paul says that I, an apostle,
a slave of Jesus Christ, have been saved for the sake of what? The faith of the elect that accords
with godliness. Remind them of these things,
Titus. Put elders that will remind them
of these things. You, brethren, are to be equipped
to do the work of the ministry, which is the Word of God reminding
each other of these things. We don't have to worry. We don't
have to fight. We don't have to be unforgiving.
We don't have to be fearful. We don't have to quit. We don't
have to stress. We don't have to work for our
salvation, for the righteousness of God is ours in Christ Jesus.
The mind of Christ is ours, and He was God, and He died on the
cross, and so can you. Quarrels about the law. Now I
could get bogged down here. What's a quarrel? Well, the word
there actually, it issues itself to the mean of the word war,
a constant, dragged out, ongoing battle. A quarrel about a continued
and constant discussion, argument, debate, constitutes war. The
idea of the word quarrels is caught up in the word war. Another
word that is often translated is the word that we get the word
polemic from, which is an aggressive battle against a principle of
a certain person or a belief or an opinion of a certain individual. The debates on the law, fighting
over the practice. When is it a matter of freedom? Oh, free
from the law. Oh, happy condition. You know
about hymn? It's in six, eight times, so we'll never sing it. It bounces like a circus clown,
but it's a beautiful song. You could juggle to it. I just
have a pet peeve of things like that. But free from the law. Moses. Law was fulfilled in Christ. We are bound to holiness out
of regeneration in the new birth. As a result, we strive for righteousness.
We do not practice shadows and artificial commercials of precepts,
the shadows that point to the one who came. We don't practice
those things. We can celebrate them. We can
look at them and go, wow, look at that. It's so cool. Let's
let's see that. Let's let's love that. Let's
cherish that. Let's praise God for it. But
we're not bound to them. There's nothing wrong with knowing
what the Seder is and actually having one in your home, but
it doesn't affect anything. It's already fulfilled. Nothing wrong with circumcision.
If you happen to be half Greek, half Jew and going to minister
to Jews in Ephesus. But in Galatia, he said, if you
want to circumcise it, emasculate yourself. For you'd be far better
off. Well, I stopped there. That's Paul's words. And he called
them foolish people, and they had been bewitched and believed
a lie. And if they stuck to that, they'd be cut off forever from
Christ. You think he chose those words
on purpose? Fighting over circumcision? and cut off forever from Christ?
Yeah. That was from the beginning.
Paul tells Timothy, Now we know that the law is good if one uses
it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down
for the just, but the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly
and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike
their fathers and mothers, for murderers. And he keeps on going. Why shouldn't we not argue this?
Because he says they're unprofitable and worthless. He's already said
we should strive and have a passion for good works so that they profit
the people. They profit all people. We should
be kind to all people, gentle to all people, patient with all
people, submissive to the Lord in the presence of all people. Because if we're not, all these
other things are worthless. The people of God are to engage and
be ready to engage with these things that are profitable and
building up of the body. We're not to be the police of
God. We are not the Knights Templar. We are not on crusades for the
moral balance of the world. We are not the victors for the sake of Jesus. We're not the ones to bring the
victory, rather. We are the victors. We're the redeemed sheep who
listen to the voice of their shepherd, who says, do these things. Why? Because we don't have time
for this. Symptoms are symptoms. Let's quit trying to put band-aids
on symptoms and get to the cure. The gospel is the cure. Christ
and Him crucified saves dead men. Men aren't sick and need
to change. Men are dead and need to be brought
to life. Jesus is not an inoculation to better. He's a creator who
rearranges and starts anew. New birth is not a better change.
New birth is a new change. New birth is a new you. The old
is dead. All of it is dead. We don't need battle. We don't
need war. We don't need debate. We don't need argument. We need
to pray that God will use the seeds of the gospel to produce
birth and growth. I prayed that the Lord would
help me understand a couple of things on how to really close
this text out. I found myself considering the
idea that some people might get angry when they hear this type
of preaching, when they hear this, because it does fly, friends, this flies
in the face of the majority of my life, this stuff. And although
it may not be evident in the present day, in the present season
of my ministry, it has been evident in the prominent seasons of my
ministry. In the most of my ministry has
been the polemic, the fighting, the apologetics, the constant,
the going, the just... And I found myself when I first
saw these things, I was angry. I want to hear that. That guy's
an idiot. He's a fool. How dare he say
that all that I've ever done is not what God has called me
to do, because that's what the Bible is teaching us, you see.
It's really awesome. And it's really cool for us to
look at the prophets. And it's really cool for us to look at
some of the stuff that, you know, Paul puts in our place. And it's
really cool for us to take the pastoral letters and pull out
all these rebukes. But we take them out of context
and we build them up to become a cake that's actually not even
there's not even a recipe for. And it's improper handling the
word of God, it's scripture twisting and it's sinful. James 3.1 should
scare the crud out of us when we think about it. For not many
of you ought to be teachers, dear brothers. For those who
teach will be held to a stricter standard. And actually, the word
there should be a higher judgment. We shouldn't do this, we shouldn't
get angry. Because we who walk in the spirit,
we don't stay angry long, but when we hear God's word, although
it may frustrate us, the outcome of knowing this is joy and peace
and repentance. We continue faith. Have nothing
to do with foolish, ignorant controversies, for you know,
they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome,
but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring. When
I saw that for the first time, I sat on my face and I wept.
Because for years as a shepherd, I was not patient with anybody.
I wasn't patient with my family. I wasn't patient with my parishioners.
I wasn't patient with other pastors. If they didn't think the way
I thought, I had no time for them. By the way, every example of
false teaching that I've given you today is something that I personally
dealt with in the church. The guitar, the door colors,
the divinity of Christ. The issue of election, the issue
of God's grace, justification, the faith. patiently enduring evil, correcting
his opponents with gentleness, God may perhaps grant them repentance,
leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their
senses and escape the snare of the devil. You know how people
come to their senses? Not through me winning the argument.
They come to their senses through God saving them and rebirthing
them in the power of His Holy Spirit, through the hearing of
the Word, through the finished work of Jesus Christ, after being
captured by the devil to do His will. When the body of Christ enters
a dissentious argument, she acts like a creep. The lost world. And we're set apart, church.
We're not like that. The gospel is at stake when we do these
things because the power of God is at work and it is proven through
our ability to continue in the work without being fallen prey
to these fights and these arguments. So when we engage like this,
we're making God to be a liar who says we are the way he says
we are. And what we end up doing is excusing
our sin. When we engage in these arguments, we reveal that our
heart is not for the lost or the ignorant or the blind, but
for our own rights and our own rightness. And it's pride. We know best, so listen to us.
We got it. And if you don't believe what
I believe, then you're lost. You ever heard that? If you can
find them, go listen to some sermons I preached back in 2002
or 2003. I've said things like that. Not necessarily a bad statement
in some regards, but it sure is wicked. Even though Paul says
it. I'm not Paul. We really need to flee the debate.
Not just to debate the debater. Look at verse 10. Ask for a person. We're not just to flee the debate,
we're to flee the debater. We're not just to flee false
teaching, we're to flee the false teacher. But there's a sense
in how we do it. As for a person who stirs up
division, now you see the point? Paul's already said, hey, these
false teachers need to be shut up. They need to be silenced.
So that they may be sound in the faith. Rebuke them sharply
and they may be sound in the faith. Who's he talking to? He's
talking to Titus. who will then teach this to those who meet
points of elders over the church in Crete. But for a person who stirs up
division after warning him once and then warning him twice, have
nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is
warped and sinful, he is self-condemned. See, there will be persons who
stir up divisions on many counts. And the reason they stir up divisions
is because they fail to trust in the gospel. And it might be
because they're not regenerating. It may just be that they're in
rebellion. So we're to warn them. It's not the issue of look at
these people who think wrongly or think differently and have
nothing to do with them. He said these people who are
pushing it out there and dividing the body, that's the sin more
than the wrong teaching, more than the wrong thinking, more
than the wrong doctrine. They're divisive. And when the divisiveness isn't
stopped, now we've got to do something. Warn them. This is an act of grace, church.
The word warn sometimes is translated in the Bible as admonish. See,
we like that word admonish. It means warn. That's what it
means. Hey, buddy, don't eat that. That's toxic, that's nasty, that's
not good for you, don't go there, don't say that. Say this, eat
this, go here. It's an act of patience, and
it's an active with great expectation. We hope that they hear and learn
our sound in the faith. So what does it mean to warn?
Let me let me tell you what Paul has taught us. We warn by in
some sense, and I don't want you to think about this in the
way that it's normally seen. We beg them to repent. Please. See that what you're seeing now
and what you're saying now and what you're thinking now does
not accord with sound doctrine according to sola scriptura,
according to the Word of God alone. This is not what the Bible
teaches about these things. Let's walk together as we correct
these things. Would you please, dear brother,
walk with me as I help you. And you help me and we'll see
the truth. We're looking to find the truth.
And if I'm wrong or you're wrong, we'll find it because we'll go
to the empirical reality of God, the truth of the Gospel. And we're seeking to find the
truth, not fight against it. So we warn them. We beg for repentance. We make them aware. See, that's
a good word. Warning is to make them, hey,
you're wrong in this. You need to look at this. You
need to see this. Open your eyes. And if they don't
stop saying it and teaching it and continuing it, then what
do we do? We silence them. We make every effort to make
sure they hush. OK, you can't come to terms with this right
teaching, but because you're a brother, keep your mouth shut
as we work through it. Isn't that so far? Isn't that
so far apart than what we do? If we find out somebody thinks
differently than we do, even though they're quiet about it,
they're just kicked out on the curb for so often, aren't they?
So often. If they keep their mouth shut
and not spread it like gangrene, they can stay part of the fellowship
as God's gospel continues to transform them. It's okay to
be confused about things because you haven't necessarily learned. But if they don't silence, or
to refuse them, or to reject them, have nothing more to do
with them, after we warn them twice, we go to them and say, please
abandon these things. Please leave these beliefs. Please
stop acting this way. Please, please come to the glorious
gospel of Jesus Christ and to the grace of the Father. Come
to Christ and if they do not repent, we remove ourselves from
them and we remove them from ourselves. And we see how that
looks in detail in Matthew 18. But why? Because verse 11, knowing
that such a person is warped and sinful, he self condemns.
We know now because they will not repent and will not be quiet.
They're self-condemned, so we have to remove them from the
fellowship. Why? Because they are a cancer and they must be
removed. You can love them, but you don't
want them poisoning the body. Why do we remove them? What does
Paul say? Turn them over, turn them over
to Satan for the destruction of their flesh that they may,
what? Be saved. 1 Corinthians. Why do we do that? Because they're
warped and sinful and self-centered. Warped. They're heretical. You
know what the word heresy means? Of one's own opinion. That means
you decided what you think you believe. Regardless of what the
Bible says. Heresy. It's a perversion. Another translation
of that word is perversion. They're perverse. They pervert
the truth. I say it like that with emphasis.
They pervert the truth, but they are a pervert of the truth. They're
sinful. That means that it's not just
that, oh, everybody's sinful. No, we're not. Everybody sins. But the body of Christ doesn't
practice it. We don't get up and just hope God saves us from
our sin today. We don't get it. Well, yes, we
do. We hope in the fact that God has saved us from our sin
in Christ. But I'm saying we don't just go around and just
living in the world. Well, the Lord, if you didn't want me to
be this and you don't want me to do that, you don't want to think this way. You better
stop because I'm going. We don't practice righteousness because
we've been given the heart and the mind of Christ. It's ours.
But being sinful, that means they're continuing on the path
of perversion deliberately because they've already been warned and
they've already been taught the truth, but they will not stop
talking and purveying their false truth, their false views, which
they should do. So therefore, because they know
and they have been warned and they've been taught correctly
and they refuse to stop, they are self-condemned. They're condemning
themselves. You see, that's what Paul's saying.
And we know that they're self-condemned because they refuse to repent.
The body of Christ repents under the teaching of the word, because
the spirit of God within us testifies that we're his children, and
we love our Father above all things, and the power of Christ
rests in us that we trust in his righteousness as we strive
for righteousness. And so we are sanctified by grace. And we repent. But they're not
self-condemned because of confused doctrine or even holding to false
doctrine. They're self-condemned because of refusal to stop being
divisive. So, how is our heart on these
matters in closing? Let's reflect for a moment. Has the grace of God appeared?
Yes. Has it appeared to you? If it has, then the church would
strive for holiness. You and I will strive for holiness.
We will want that. And when sin does enter our lives,
even, and I would say always, by commission, In that sense,
even when it's an omniscient sin is still we committed the
act of admitting it. We grieve, we hate it. And we
trust in the righteousness of Christ to save us from it. And
the church must strive for holiness as she must graciously keep rebellious
sin from her midst. so that she maintains the unity
of the peace and aborts quarreling and fighting hatred for those
others who are divisive. We avoid the love of the old
ways because God has saved his people. Because I believe this is the
last time I will teach. This is the last sermon on Titus.
I want to close with just this reflection. When we hear the word of God, Remember what Paul has taught
us, Church. Paul says that we hear for the sake of faith that
leads to Godliness, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
for the sake of the faith that God's elect and their knowledge
of the truth, which accords with Godliness and hope of eternal
life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began
and the proper time manifested his word through what? The preaching
with which I've been entrusted by the command of God, our Savior.
So we hear for the sake of faith that leads to Godliness. We are
to hold to that. We also here with a hope that maintains an
order among us for the glory of God. This is why I left you
in Crete, Titus, so that you may put what remained into order
and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. For the grace
of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training
us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live
self-controlled, upright, godly lives in the present age, waiting
for our blessed hope, the appearance and the glory of our God and
Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from
all lawlessness, to purify himself of people for his own possession,
who are zealous for good works, declare these things, exhort
and rebuke with all authority, O dear Titus, let no one disregard
you, he says. And he closes out this letter
and you're thinking, where are you going, Paul? So with all
that in mind, listen to how he closes this in this last few
verses. When I send Artemis and Titicus to you. Wait a minute, something must
be missing. We got all this awesome stuff
and this doctrine and the self condemnation and do away with
these people and pray for them and walk this way and teach this
way and look who Christ. And now I'm sending you some
folks. Why is he doing that? Look what he says. When I send
you Artemis and Titicus, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis.
Well, I believe Paul was in Philippi at the time. And during the winter,
he says, I'm going to spend the winter in Nicopolis. I want you
to, they're coming and I want you to do your best to come to
me. And then he says in verse 13, do your best to speed Zenos
the lawyer and Apollos on their way. See that they lack nothing.
So I assumed that they're there already in Crete. And in verse
14, I let our people learn to devote themselves to good works
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. So there's
just so much I could do a series of missions out of this. I mean,
it's really that good. But in closing this letter, I
want you to see what happens. Paul has spent this whole time
now writing to Titus about these false teachers. He writes to
Timothy about the false teachers. He writes to Galatia about false
teachers. He writes to all these places
about false teaching, false doctrine, false living, all this stuff.
And he spends his time writing these letters. But we could read
all the letters of Paul in two hours. So the two hours of writing is
not the ministry of Paul, is it? What's the ministry of Paul?
The ministry of Paul, the people of God. The people of God. Now all of
a sudden this letter, it's a letter, it takes a personal turn because
it's a personal note. Now he's sending two people that
Paul's been training, two priests, so that Titus can take a break
and spend the winter with him and Nicopolis. I want to invest
in you personally, Titus. He didn't say, join me here with
swords and torches and let's get these small tinkerers out
of town. He said, we got to do the work of the gospel. And we
taught you what to deal with. Your job is to put an order and
teach these things and strive for these things. The people
that get in your way, the people that cause division, get them
out of the way. You can do that what you've been
called to do. But the church spends most of their time in
the world today fighting and quarreling and bickering and
hatefulness. And it's not the gospel of Jesus
Church. It's a mockery to the face of
God. It's a mockery to the sacrifice
of the father who sent his son to pay for such as that and sent
right a people who were zealous for good works, who were zealous
for affection. No wonder we had to come up with
methods of salvation and answers to questions and prayers of repentance
and all this other garbage. It's Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Who gives a rat's behind about all that stuff when the world
goes to hell and the face of God is being defamed? We should. We should. And Paul's earnestness is to
send notes and letters encouraging and building and strengthening
the people of God, because grace be with you all, Paul writes,
so that the grace of God may empower us. We don't get God's
grace and power by rubbing elbows and fellowships and good times
together. We get the grace of God by the
Word alone. The Word of God alone. He spent his ministry devoted
to the building of the people of God, the body of Christ, the
teaching of the truth, the camaraderie of missions and the continuation
of the of the gospel, the communication of the gospel for the sake of
the faith of the elect of God and the preaching of the gospel,
which was manifested and given to me by the command of Christ.
I go. Paul didn't want to do this.
This wasn't his dream. He wanted to be a legalist, sitting
on the high throne of the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin, looking down
and going, look at me, Saul of Tarsus, according to the law
of Moses, absolutely perfect. Paul wants to see Titus. When you see Paul writing to
Timothy, he wants to see John Mark and Timothy. And he's sick
and he's in prison. And he's cold. So do your best to come to me
and bring the paper and bring the writing that we've already
started, bring my cloak and bring John Mark, because he's important
to me. Why? Because Paul was in prison
and the only thing he could do now was to write letters, and
so I believe that maybe even there Mark started his gospel. pastoral epistles, the other
letters, Dr. Luke's. I'll send these men so
he can spend time with that. And he says to Titus, do your
best to come to me. He's sending he's already got
two missionaries, Zena and Apollos, and they're at Crete or they're
going through Crete. And he says to Titus, take care of them,
see that they lack nothing. You know what that means? Nothing.
The men of God going to take the gospel? It doesn't matter.
Don't listen to commentators who put speculation about the
importance of being a lawyer. Who cares? Stop looking at stuff
like that. Look at the reality of what's
happening. Paul has trained men to go and do missions to take
the gospel to a dying world. Take care of these men. Send
them out that they have no need of anything, that they're not
lacking. Send them on their journey. Keep them safe. Feed them, clothe
them, give them some money so they might buy food and clothing
on their way. See, the church is to be about devotion to good
works, which is manifested ultimately in the evidence of helping those
urgent cases of needs. Because otherwise we'd be unfruitful
there. Help cases of urgent need not
be unfruitful. And then Paul says, all who are
with me, send greetings. Paul, why did you stop here? Because he needed to do more
in the ministry than write. And there's so much more that
he ever did, if it was written down, it would fill up many volumes,
just as it says, all that Jesus ever said and did would fill
up volumes that the world could not contain. The church is to be about a devotion
to good works. And he greets those who love us in the faith. There's a sermon in that. Grace
be with you all. Because I want you to know that
the outcome of teaching Titus is that you would greet those
who love us in the faith. And when the divisiveness comes,
we do what we can and we see that the Lord would work in those
who are his. And then we go along our way, continuing to do the
work of the ministry for the sake of the continuation of the
gospel and the preservation of the church. Christ will preserve
his people. The question is, are you the
people of Christ? Are you the church? Are you those who love
Christ and thus love his people? And if you are, you don't depart.
You don't run. You don't skip town. You don't
put yourself in a place of thinking that church is just that that
you do. It's who we are. The only way to know that you're
found in the faith is to trust in Christ. And repent of your
sin. Believe the gospel. Not just
today, but forever. Let's pray. God, I have nothing. I have nothing. I have nothing more to give,
nothing more to say. It empties me to think about
your goodness and your grace and your love and your power
and your glory. It empties me to consider just
how far, far, even though we are justified before you, how
far we are from your glory in our life here. Thank you so much. for being a God of long-suffering. Thank you so much for being a
God of giving, that you gave your Son to pay our debt, to
pay our debt, to pay the penalty of your holiness. Be mocked. Rise up in us a great, great
revival. Rise up in us. men and women
and children who stand for the gospel gently, but powerfully. Rise up in us an overwhelming
heart of repentance and faithfulness and striving to have an affection
that puts the world away. Put it in my heart. Put it in
each of our hearts. Lord, as we separate our proximity
this afternoon, we know that we are still closely knit by
the Spirit of God. And Your Word has done its work
and will continue to do its work. Help us to abide in You through
Your Word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.