We're in the last run of Titus,
and because of this letter, I have been pressed to do several things,
and it's been very frustrating for me personally. It's not an
excuse, but just a confession of sin. Most frustration is sin,
whether you like it or not. But as you look at the power
of the gospel, first in the life of the apostles, then through
their message to those who are then the church, the children
of God, then from the children of God, the leaders of the church,
the elders, the teachers, the overseers, the shepherds of the
church, then to the church in distinct categories such as men
and women older and younger, then also to those who are openly
invisible to us in this culture and even here, which would be
slaves and children and others of that nature. And as I begin
to think through that, I think sometimes church staff is an
invisible entity within the body of Christ. And for those of us
who have served on church staff, we know what that feels like.
You work for us, but we're not your family type attitude. And
then all of us Bowling together, make the body of Christ, each
distinct in individual call and individual gifting and individual
roles, but unified in purpose and in a sound faith that we
are one body, exalting and worshiping and living to the praise of His
glorious grace. And now we're going to begin
to see how the church is to relate to the people of the world and
specifically the governments and then the culture and the
community. But as I've been looking at this and I look at myself
and I think, wow, how far do I have to go and how much more
frustration is it going to be as I see the Word of God and
then wholly be reminded that I must completely depend upon
the grace of our Savior, not my own works, as Brother Davis
read as we get through the rest of this text. And so because
of that, not not just individually, but coupled with many other things
culturally and then ecclesiastically that we've been dealing with
as a church over the last year and then with our community and
that rise of false teachers, the rise of false doctrine. Where
does it come? Where does it? To what end and
to what head does it come? And I think, wow, I could give
my life to polemics. I really could. I could sit here
week after week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, all for the weekend
and everything and stand here and beat my chest and beat the
pulpit and beat your brow and we could all stand with thick
sports and torches raised and burn the heretics. We could just,
we could get there. And we would feel good and we
would feel justified. And we'd go and find our protects
and Titus. And we hear Titus say, these
people must be shut up. And I'm like, yeah, that's my
kind of language. MMA style. We're going to shut
them up. We'll kick and chop and kung
fu whack and everything else we can think of. We're going
to stop these people. And if we just pulled out the
pieces of this text that we liked and would drive our polemic mindset,
our rugged attire, our pioneer, let's keep America, America and
God first and then country attitude, we could really make a good ministry
to appeal to the masses. So the more I look and the more
I see and the more God shows me there. Paul has come to the end of this
beautiful letter, and he's he's he's brought to mind slaves to
be submissive to their masters. And then he brings to mind the
reality that we as the church are all slaves to righteousness
in Christ Jesus, who is glorified because he subjected himself
to creation to be a slave, thus is exalted. So in like manner,
we're to have that mind among us, which is ours in Christ.
So how are we to live our lives in this way? How are we to come
to this place we call Babylon? But this is America. No, this
is Babylon. And I'm not saying that in a literal sense of saying
that's what this is. You know me and you know what
I believe about eschatology and you know that I don't believe
in a rigid damning principle of exposition
and exegesis in the sense that we don't interpret scripture
based on the newspaper, we interpret scripture based upon scripture.
And so I don't want to I don't want to sit here and become polemic
just to my attack against people who believe that. But you know
me, and that's not what I mean. But what I do mean is, is that
what are we to do when we look at the world in which we live
and we realize that it's pagan at heart? In the middle of the 20th century,
we might have put in God we trust on our money, which I think is
the ultimate irony that the enemy has allowed us to dare do. For the love of money is the
root of all evil. So we love money. So in some way to objectify
a sense of worship with what we love as our treasure, we put
his name on it. And I'm not here to bash the
United States of America. I'm very thankful to be there.
You see the point? I mean, this could chase rabbits
from hill to hill and back and never make a point. We could
just keep running in circles and never really come to conclude
what Scripture teaches us. But thankfully, by the grace
of God, Scripture is very clear. Scripture is very explicit and
Scripture is very concise when it comes to concluding that which
the church should be doing and how we should be relating to
the culture in which we live. We don't want to become relative
to the culture. There's nothing relative about holiness in a world of
pagans. And we live in a pagan world.
We live in a world that rejects the gospel of Jesus. We live
in a world that redefines who God is based on interpretive
ideals and philosophies of man. We live in a world where so-called
churches stand and people stand in the pulpits and say that their
pastor is called of God to exposit the Word of God. Thus saith the
Lord, this is Jesus. This is the gospel. This is how you're
saved. This is what we should be doing. And yet there is no
proof anywhere to be found except in error with the Word of God. So what do we do? Well, we recognize
first that we do live in a pagan land. God has never ordained
for any government to be the church. Not even Israel, especially
Israel. And so even though we may have
a fondness for Israel, we have a fondness for Israel in the
same manner, for the same cause. We have a fondness for Africa
or we have a fondness for Asia or we have a fondness for any
other continent. And then the governments or the people in
which who live upon them. Because they're human beings,
and Jesus says that all the world has going to be drawn unto him
so that every peoples of the world shall know salvation, but
not every distinct person in the world. As a matter of fact,
he says that that broadens the path at least to destruction.
but narrows the gate that leads to righteousness. Few will find
it. Nicodemus, one of those righteous walkers, was on a very narrow
path, but he was still on the path that led to destruction.
And he says, you know, I'm of the Pharisees and we know that
you are from God, for no one can do the things you do except
God be with him. But Jesus said you must be born again. And so
I come today to pull something out. And I think and I've been
thinking, you know, and I've started a lot of writing projects
through the years and I've got a lot of half written books and
outline books. And I just and I find myself
getting bored with it and frustrated with it. I don't really want
to publish it because I don't want to hear what people have to say about it. And so
but ultimately today, and I say this to you as a way of accountability
after I'm done with Titus, before we go to what I believe will
be the book of Acts, I want to preach a series entitled The
Devil in the Pulpit. And I want to look very clearly
at Titus and Timothy and 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians. I want to look
at some of the things that we talked about this past Tuesday night in our
Q&A on spiritual gifts. I want to look at what the Bible
commands and illustrates as truth when it comes to the pastor and
to the church. And I want to suggest this idea
that instead of beating our heads against the proverbial pavement
of wondering why so-called Christians won't stand up and grow, I think
it comes back to the food source, and I believe their shepherds
are feeding them garbage, so garbage in, garbage out. There's no way
around it. You cannot have sheep coming out of a non-shepherded
pasture. So by the Lord's grace and with
the utmost of prayer and humility, I pray that I may successfully
give you 10 weeks or maybe 12, and then each would correlate
to a chapter that I would publish so that other people can see
it. Maybe anonymously, I don't know. But something has to be expressed.
Something has to be addressed. Paul and the apostles wrote the
New Testament, primarily not the Gospels, but every letter
was written to to deal with some false teaching. Every letter
was written to deal with some false teachers. Every letter
was written. And it wasn't just that bad.
Look at the bad. It was that's bad. But you want
that's wrong. But you're right. This is error,
but you are in the truth. And these are the arguments of
the apostles in the New Testament. And so because of that, in order
for the church to be qualified and then equipped to do the work
of the ministry, they must have teachers who teach them, thus
saith the Lord, in truth, not error. And so if that's the case,
we've seen here in Titus. That the elders of the church
must govern the word of God and handle it rightly so that the
church may be fed and empowered to live as a people of God of
whom they are a part of. They are part of the body. They're
not like a bump that sits on the ear. They are part of it. And so now Paul gets to this
place where he really starts at about 16,000 feet in chapter
three, verse one, and he says, remind them, and he three falls.
Right to the end, grace be with you all. And it's too much. It's really a lot. And I don't
want to labor. I will not preach a verses that
we read them. They will not be preached. We're
specifically going to look at the first two. But as we start, I want you to
keep in mind three things. Three things. First. And as Paul is coming to this
letter to these people, he's writing to the church. He's writing
to them. He's writing for us. So this
instruction was specifically to the Cretans. But it is for
us as we engage the word of God and by the power of the spirit
of God, we are then transformed by the hearing of this word.
It is supernatural. There's no argument or example
or illustration that I could expose to you that will help
you grasp this any different. Children in the room, you're
not going to grasp it any differently if I did a flaming magic trick
and had a dog and pony show here. If the Lord God has purposed
for you to understand that He has empowered you to live wholly
and to pursue righteousness by the gospel, then you'll hear
it. And children, you know what that
means. Why should I do these things? Because Daddy says so.
Why should I act this way? Because the Bible teaches us
so. And not just acting, but being empowered to act, having
an affection to act. And that's where Paul's getting
now. He's getting to that place of testing the root of our faith.
So keep in mind that this is written for you, church. Secondly,
keep in mind that we do live in a pagan culture. Don't address
the Cretans as the people of that day several millennia ago. Don't fall prey to the idea that,
oh, those Cretans, they were bad and we're not quite like
that. We are quite like that. We're just like that. Our culture
as Americans, and I'm not saying the church, but our culture as
Americans, especially as Americans, we are evil, lazy gluttons. And
we love the quick and easy. We think we're hurting when we
can't keep the luxuries burning. We think we're frustrated because
we don't have the right type of water or the right type of
milk or the right type of meat or the right type of clothes
or the right type of fuel. Oh, I have to put low octane
in my car. And then we blame the government.
It's the government's fault. It's my neighbor's fault. It's
the communist's fault. Remember that? When I was growing up,
it was always Russia's fault. It was always Russia. And now,
since they're not at fault anymore, we'll just blame somebody else.
Just spin the wheel of blame. That'd be a cool game show. Whose
fault is it? Anyway, we combine a bunch. The wheel of blame. You come
out and decide, we don't know who to blame, but I'll tell you
who we should blame. We should blame ourselves and our own belief as the church. And then finally, I want you
to understand that there's no guilt condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So when we look at this stuff today and we go, man, that's
me, I'm really wicked and I'm guilty of these things. Praise
God that you can't affect salvation for yourself, but that God in
his grace and his loving kindness towards you has given you faith,
has given you repentance, has given you the light of the gospel,
the face of Jesus Christ, that you may believe and thus be transformed
by his power. So let's begin. Chapter three. Verse one, remind them to be
submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, 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. Now. In first three, he begins
to show you why. You should act this way, but
it's just a recap of what he's already shown you in the first
two chapters. So we don't need to preach verse
three through eight in this sermon today because it's just a recap. So you know why? Because of the
gospel has appeared to us. The glorious grace of God has
appeared to us, and therefore, because it has appeared to us,
it has appeared to all men. And we looked at that. We know
that that means that the gospel is given to every peoples. But
it's only effective in certain peoples. Who are those peoples?
All who believe, who fully trust, who are fully born again, those
who are born again as Christ is raised up. He drew them and
the Father has given them. Who are those people? I pray
that it's you today, Church. I pray that you truly are the
saints of God, the children of God who have been adopted out
of the domain of darkness, transferred into the light of his glorious
son, that you've been saved out of death and raised to walk in
newness of life. I pray that is you. And if it
isn't you, that through the hearing of the gospel today, that you
might believe and receive the fullness of life through Christ.
Remind them. Let's look at that. Reminders.
I don't know about you, but we live in a world of reminders.
We live in a place where there's always something flashing, blinking,
beeping, buzzing, something. And for us that don't necessarily
like a bunch of blinking, maybe we have a lot of sticky notes. Or maybe we have a lot of napkins
or maybe we have a lot of stuff and we've got things that are
sitting around reminding us. One of the most effective people
that I have ever met about reminding himself of things is a pastor
that I worked with years ago in Virginia who would do everything
possible to not forget things because he placed them where
he had to walk to get out of his office. It's very, very good.
But the more you put there, I found for me is it's just a bunch of
crap to step over. And so I could just walk over it and forget
that there's ever even a pile there. So it worked for a little
while. And as the pile gets bigger, it's just another blob of garbage.
But what works for you to be reminded? But, you know, more
than that, what spirit comes out of you when you are reminded?
You know, I preached through the first part of Proverbs years
ago, and I still have trouble just pinpointing it. So I've
come up with this really nifty way of remembering the essence
of the Proverbs. And I think it goes something
like this. The fool says, I know. That works for me. I'm not saying it's a relative
interpretation, but I think that works for me to get the counsel
of what the wisdom literature shows us is that the fool says,
I know when the wise see something that they know, they go, thank
you. I needed the reminder. And so the fool here would go,
oh, another one, another one, are we going to hear this again?
Don't be a fool. Don't be a fool. Friends, it
is the utmost of arrogance to shudder under frustration when
we're reminded by the Word of God of the things that God is
and has done and who we are in him. So remind them. Remind them. He's talked about
men and women in the church, young and older. He's talked
about slaves. He's talked about the wholeness of the children
of God, those who are the church. And now Paul is telling Titus,
the elder in Crete who has the responsibility, the grave and
heavy responsibility of putting elders in every city to identify
them, to qualify them according to what Paul taught here. I mean,
Paul wrote this letter and said, take this letter and equip your
churches. That's it. And I would suggest to you, church,
that we don't need a whole lot more than this. And matter of
fact, I say it, I should say a lot more dogmatically than
that. We need nothing more than this. This is it. Sola Scriptura
is very clear. The word of God alone. We don't
need anything else. If Peter is not, if Peter is
true, he says in the second epistle that everything we need for life
and godliness is given to us by the divine power of God. And
according to Paul in Romans one, that power is the gospel. And
according to John one, the gospel is the word that has always been
and always will be. And so therefore, what else do
we need for the word of God? Faithful men to hold it. Faithful
sheep to hear it. If a tree falls in the forest
and no one's there, does it make a sound? I don't know if the
word of God goes out and there's no sheep in the vicinity, is
it heard? According to Isaiah six, it's not. According to John
12, it's not. But what causes hearing the hearing?
So we preach the gospel in reminder, Paul is saying, remind them,
remind them. And that's not just saying, yo,
dudes, remember when we get started, we've got to be submissive to
the rules and authorities. We've got to be obedient and
we've got to work nice and play pretty and share. So. You got
it? If you got it, raise your hand.
You got it? Good. Moving on. How are we going to fill these
seats? How are we going to pay these bills? See, that's where churches
go today. How are we going to appease people? How are we going
to please people? We need to get more folks in these chairs. No, we don't. We need to be obedient
to the God of heaven who will do what He's going to do in His
time. Share your faith. Make disciples of all people.
Do it. Be obedient. As you're equipped
to do the work of the ministry, do the work of the ministry.
God will multiply everything. Remind them that means that forever
in the day, as long as you have breath in, you exhort and teach
and rebuke and edify and build up and teach these things, teach
these things, accord what is what teach what accords with
sound doctrine, teach what comes out of right teaching is what
Paul's saying. Remember that sermon just three
weeks ago? So remind them, in other words, constantly, always,
again and again, redundantly teach them these things that
I've taught you. Remind them over and over and
over again. That's why when we get through
with a text, we don't just forget about it. We keep preaching,
we keep learning, we keep reading, we keep praying, we keep pressing. And what is it that Paul is reminding
us? In a reminding way, we need to
be reminded that there are false believers here. There's false
teachers here among the church in proximity. They're not the
church, but they look like the church. And that now, because
of what's coming out of their mouths and what they say they
believe is different, something's wrong. And then what they do
with their lives and how they act and their affections are
different, something's wrong. So they're false teachers who
are purveying false believers because there's devils in their
pulpits. And Satan is speaking through
these people. He's continuing. But the good
news is, is that the Word of God is not bound. It does not
return void. It does that which has been apportioned
to do and decreed to do. It will accomplish the work of
God. But sadly, there are false teachers
who are not teaching God's Word, but twisting God's Word. using
cunning and twisting so that they may appeal to people and
through that appealing, that people may follow them. It must
have been the mindset of some of John the Baptist's people
when he said, when they said, look, all the world, they're
all going to him. And John says, the bridegroom
gets the bride. I must decrease that he will
increase. God chopped off his head. It
took him home, even in the most volatile circumstances. God is
sovereign. It will not die. The gospel will not fail. Remember, there's false believers
and false teachers, and that I'm teaching you, Paul says,
to live in contrast against them. The church reveals them as a
reminder, the work of God who does the good works within us.
And it is not the workings of man. He's reminding church leaders,
church members, you need to listen to these things. And now you
need to also understand that you live in the world, but you're
not of the world. And so therefore, there's some
type of responsibility that you have to do these things in the
world against the grain of the way the world lives. It does
no good, church, for Christians to live their faith among the
brethren while living in the world, in the world, living for
the world. The gospel is the imperative
and the empowerment for the church to live in the world. How do
I live in the world? The gospel. How do I know how
to live the gospel? What is the gospel? His name
is Jesus and his word is living and breathing and sharper than
any two edged sword. And it's not about manipulating
behavior. The church is not a people who
act right. The church is churches of people who have been declared
righteous. There's a big difference. Anybody can act right. The devil
can act right. OK? Seriously, do you think Judas
Iscariot cut up and sinned? He probably made Peter look like
a pagan. And if we were to manage our
church like businesses manage managers and employees, we'd
have hired Judas five times. Matter of fact, we think Judas
should take the pastorate here. Let's put him up there. Not only
is he solid in his walk, but the man knows the Bible. The gospel empowers the church
to live among the world, though we are not of it. So what is
he reminding them? Two things. To be obedient, to
be submissive, and to be obedient. Three things. And to be ready
for every good work. And then he gives an example
of what those look like. In some sense, let's look at it that
way. First, to be submissive. Submissive. Let me tell you what this means.
Now, I'm not talking about doormat Christianity. When the government
comes up and says, OK, burn your Bibles, put me in jail. Matter
of fact, I'm going to pretend like I burned them all and I'm
going to hide and give them out at night. Well, that doesn't
stand in for the truth. Yes, it is. Do I want to be right
or do I want to get the gospel out? You think you're going to
walk into Kabul, Afghanistan with a suitcase full of Bibles
and say, what you got in there? I got Bibles. And you got cash taped up underneath
your tunic. Hope they don't search you because
you're about to give it to some people to continue the work of
the ministry. What are you here for? Well, I'm going to give
some things to some people to help them learn. I'm a humanitarian. Well, you should stand for the
truth. OK, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. They martyred for their faith.
How about they go do something with their faith first? Be submissive
to the authorities. It's not doormat Christianity.
Well, every person must do this, and it's against the Word of
God. You don't disobey God. And when you do have to disobey
man, you don't disobey God and disobey man. And this is what
Paul is about to show us. Submissive is a yielding. It
means in spirit and in action and in word. Why do you say young
men? Shut your mouth. Don't speak to where they can
accuse you of evil speech. Remember that? I think if Paul
were writing to us today, I think he'd mainly be talking about
political speech here. And I think for the women, he'd mainly be
talking about gossip. Every man's blaming somebody that sits in
a political office and every woman's talking about those who
don't. Now being that to be funny, y'all didn't laugh a lot when
I ran. Pardon my misogyny. Submissive
is a yielding of one's attitude and heart, one's personal motives
or pleasure. In other words, if we submit
to the governing authorities of the rulers, that means we
do not seek after our own good or our own happiness, but we
seek after the submission and the respect and the honor of
the government. Are you preaching to me? I'm preaching you the
Word of God. Be submissive. I think it comes
back to the idea of what Paul teaches to the Philippians. Christ submitted to the Father.
He subjected himself, became a slave, obedient unto death,
even a death on a cross. Therefore, God has most highly
exalted him that at the name of Jesus, every knee can bow
and every tongue confess that he is Lord. So now we're to submit in our
attitudes to the governing authorities, to the rulers and the authorities,
and then to be obedient to them, to be obedient first to God who
says to obey the law. So it doesn't matter if you're
going to preach to 50 billion people. It says don't speed,
don't speed. It doesn't matter that it's just a dollar. If you
stole, take it back. Obey the law. The law says this. If there's an exclusion, well,
we've got a right to life and a right to speech and a right
to pursue happiness. Well, if your pursuit of happiness
isn't the gospel of Jesus Christ, then repent and believe the gospel.
Don't build your life in this world and expect it to be godly.
It's not godly. And I say that To the ears of
everyone who builds a life in this world. For the glory of
God, hold loosely to the things that we have, for they're not
ours anyway, they belong to God. And God has ordained the government.
He established it. The scripture says that Jesus
created the kings and the kingdoms and have set them in their place
for his purpose. There is no president that's
ever been elected, nor ever will. There's no monarch or ruler or
crazy dictator that's ever stood in power without the blessing
and the authority and the subjectivity of God's decrees. How could God
do that? He's God. He does as he wishes. So why do we fight against it?
Because we know what God's Word, when people are murdering people,
hand over fist, and we have the ability and the calling to defend
them, we defend them. So I'm not talking about doormat
obedience. I'm talking about submission
to the Father. And if God's called you, then
let God call you. Don't let your patriotism call
you to disobey God. To be obedient, to obey the law
of society, which is glorious obedience to Christ. To be ready
for every good work, I started to sort of title this message
today to be ready for every good work. So what does it mean to
be ready for every good work? So here we got good works and
we would all like to have a list. I mean, if we were honest, we'd
all like to have a list of good works. Give us the good works.
Give us the things that we're supposed to obey in and we'll
follow those. We don't need a new law. We don't
need a list. Obey, subject oneself with eagerness. Be ready, I think, is the more
operative word. We are to be ready for every
good work. He didn't say do every good work.
He said be ready for every good work. So we have an eagerness
there, a willingness there, an affection there, an attitude
that goes with joy. Let's look at those three things
and eagerness. Be ready. That means we get up in the morning
and our plans are to, first and foremost, have an eagerness and
a desire to obey God and to be good and do good works. Why?
For the benefit of all. Why do we do good works? To benefit
the church and to benefit the world. And I don't preach a benevolence
gospel. There is no gospel but Christ.
There is no king but Christ. There is no crown but his. I'm
talking about obedience to Christ who gave himself for people unworthy
of his salvation. I don't really like this sermon.
I'm sorry. What are your goals in life?
And I would say that even as Christians, sometimes it's very
easy for us to get enamored with our goals. I want a ministry
that does this and this and that and this and that. Be willing
to go and do that one small thing that God has called you to do
this moment and quit planning so much to be this great being.
You know what falls the greatest, the largest and the tallest?
You don't want to be the largest and the tallest. You don't want
to be the greatest preacher. You don't want to be the biggest
church. You don't want to be the most effective minister.
You don't want to see the most souls. Well, you might want to
see it, but you don't want to be known for it. And if you look at the pages
of history, do you see the reformers writing about all the things?
Do you see George Whitefield counting? Do you see Spurgeon
writing volumes of all the things that God did and the numbers
and the money? No! You see an absolute historical
record of just exultation of Christ. That's it. But when you sit in
ministry circles in today's world, all you get is, well, how many
of you have teased and said, And I almost want to go back
to Costell and say, what do you mean in the spirit of the water? And
then we have to suck me down their larynx, their esophagus. Every good word, be eager with
our affections, our pursuits, that's what Paul's saying here.
Pursue every good work. Look for opportunity to be good
at working good into the lives of the world and of the church
and of the community. This isn't foreign. Jesus says
to bless those who persecute you, pray for your enemies, love
your enemies, live for, I mean, lay your life down for your enemies.
When someone slaps you, turn the other cheek. That's hard
for me. I want to block and counter.
I just want a sword and everything. I want to beat Hebrews 4.12.
I don't want to be the submissive one. I want to be the warrior. I want people to hear my roar.
Let's just be honest. That's what we want in our flesh.
Is that what Jesus did? He is the Lion of Judah, but
He came as a lamb. So with eagerness, and I believe
along with eagerness comes the second thing of being ready as
a willingness. It's not just, OK, I'm looking,
but I wish I didn't have to. A willingness. We have to have
a willingness to pursue good works, a willingness to see them
and observe and then participate in them. A willingness. How do
we do that? Well, I believe there's four
things that sort of come out like this, but there's a there's a
desire for good works, which is a willingness, a delight in
good works, which is a satisfaction that comes with it. a devotion
to good works and a denouncing of bad words. And that's where
Paul starts. He starts with the negative here. He says, denounce
certain things. Don't have evil speech, don't
speak evil of people and don't be quarrelsome. So let's talk
about those two things for a second. So we're to denounce these two
things. So do not speak evil of anyone. What does that mean? Do not speak
evil of anyone. I know you want me to come up
here with this Greek Mystery message that would say something
a little bit more precise, that would tell you that when it actually
says don't speak evil of anyone, it means don't speak evil of
those except those who deserve to be spoken evil of. I can't
check that grammar real quick, but it doesn't say that. Don't
speak evil. Don't speak evil of the people
we've mentioned thus far in our letter. So if you want to use
the text to prove itself, who have we mentioned? We've mentioned
Jesus Christ. We've mentioned the father. We've mentioned Paul
and the apostles. Plurally, we've mentioned false
teachers. We've mentioned older men and
older women and younger men and younger women. We've mentioned
slaves and then the whole body of Christ, now rulers and authorities
and the community. Thirteen things, people, groups
of people, that Paul said, do not speak evil of any of them.
Now, friends, sometimes we get it good when I don't speak evil
of my brothers and sisters, but so many people who profess the
name of Christ are doing that right now. And the Scriptures
teach us very clearly, do not think it odd when people speak
evil of you, for they hate me. There's a paraphrase in the book
of Vortex there, but you see what I'm saying. They're not
going to love you because they hate me and you're mine and I'm in
you and you're in me, so why are they going to love you? Do not look
after the glory that comes from man, but look after the glory
that comes from God. Seek after it. Evil speech, murderous speech.
Peter says that gossip is murder. Slander is murder. False witness
is murder. It's an encroachment on the work
of God to speak of people in an ill way. Does that mean we
don't say that's evil? No, we do say that's evil. As
a matter of fact, we learn in Ephesians that we're to call
out darkness. We're to point it out and call it what it is.
But is calling out sin, is that speaking evil of people? It could
turn into that. You know what I mean. But instead
of speaking evil, what are we to do? We're to pray for them.
We're to teach them the gospel. We're to make disciples of them. Quarrel, quarrelsome. Do I have
to define quarrel? You know what a quarrel is? That's
when one opinion over here matches another opinion over here, and
the big thing called pride gets in the way, and everybody wants
to be right. It's like the last word. Dumb
and dumber. That's what we should call it.
I'm dumb and you're dumber. Or you're dumb and I'm dumber.
That way it won't be evil of you. Anyway, so I'm the dumber. Sorry. Quarrelsome. Here we go. What is it? What
causes it? We know what it is. Even when
you're right, you're not to be quarrelsome. Don't push it. Don't press it. Unbelief is the
cause of quarrels. What? Selfishness. James chapter four. He says it
very clearly. What causes strife and quarrels
among you? Envy, pride, selfish desires. You have not because you ask
not, and you get not because you ask wrongly, that you may
get what you say you need to spend on your selfishness. There's
a paraphrase for you, James 4. Selfishness, it's self-glory
is what it is, and it results in what? Anger. I want you to
see my way. Is that the way God works? No. Doesn't work that way. Jesus,
if you read the Gospels, you see Jesus at the different feasts
and you see him. He stands there and says, look,
here I am. Repent, believe in me. He tells the Jews, you search
the Scriptures, but it's they who speak of me. He's very clear
who he is and what's expected. But when they say, nah, he doesn't
get in their face, speak evil of them and begin to quarrel.
What's it go? Because the Spirit's work is
the one who... So if Jesus didn't do it, who are we to do it? We're
not supposed to debate? No, I love a good debate, but
a debate's not a quarrel. A debate is a governed, focused,
managed, and legitimate dialogue. Now, you can become quarrelsome
in debates, but where are we quarrelsome? I believe quarrelsome
comes out of hatred. If I'm able to quarrel with you,
it's because I don't love you. Because my quarrelsomeness, what,
does it bring you closer to me? When you say something that's
totally off and the other person comes to you and says, you know
what, you're just an idiot. Or you're wrong, why can't you grow
up? I mean, and you hear stuff like that. You never think that
higher end pastors and high leaders of associations would say stuff
like that. But I had one tell me just last
year, you know, one day when you grow up a little bit and
get a little more mature in your understanding of the Bible, you'll
see things my way and you'll repent. Is that really? And I'm like, yeah, I'm going
to avoid Titus for a couple of months and I'm going to show
you a thing or two. But by God's grace, I didn't show him a thing
or two. What's the opposite of that? What are we to do? To what? Be gentle. We're to be gentle. Friends, gentleness, meekness,
humbleness is not weakness. Though it is, it's not weakness
out of... That's the word I'm looking for.
This doesn't mean that you can't. It means that you don't. You
don't jump up. You don't quarrel. You don't
fight. You don't push your way. You let the Lord do it. Jesus,
it says in Peter, when he was reviled, did not return reviled
with reviled, but subjecting himself to the one who is trustworthy
and who is honest and who is righteous, the Father. In the same way, do that. Friends,
this is a word for us, Grace True Church. Because of all the sheep in this
area, we get beat up a lot. And we must be gentle. And to show perfect courtesy
toward all people, perfect courtesy. To be congenial, to be not complacent,
but cooperative, to look to to just make peace as long as it
is up to us. Paul teaches us in Romans. We
long for that toward all people, that's church leaders and church
members and each other and slaves and the government and the wicked
and the sinful and the unlovable and the hateful and the murderers
and the rapists and the slave traders and the greed greedy
people, thieves. We're to love these people. Now,
don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not preaching. I'm not preaching a complacent,
relative Reality, I'm preaching that with all the power and authority
of God through the Scriptures, we are to stand and proclaim
the gospel, call out sin, and call men and women and children
to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. But what I do mean is
that the core of our heart should weep over sinners who cannot
see the gospel and pray for them and long for them to know the
truth and to beg in some sense through our adoration of God
and through our time of worship that God by some means would
affect grace in their hearts. And not any way should we feel
better than they are. Finally, I would say that being
eager. Ready for every good word, I
think there's a key attitude here in being ready. I've already alluded to it, let
me focus on it in closing. When I say it this way. I think being ready and eager goes without saying that when
we are doing that which we are desiring to do, it is a joy to
us. Because the command of Scripture
is to be joyful. The outcome of the gospel is
I write these things that your joy may be complete. The perfectness
of the love of God is that we are satisfied with complete joy. So there's nothing lacking in
our readiness. So joy, we can't be ready in
this day. I don't want to love these people,
but I will. No, that's like going to the dentist, OK? That's just having a tooth pulled. I got to do it. It's like getting up and taking
a week of vacation because you just want to go to the dentist
every day. Hallelujah! I'm going to sell my car because
I want to pay the dentist to pull my teeth. That's crazy.
That's just how crazy the joy of eagerness to do good works,
especially for those who hate us, is. It defies everything. It's like
Dave Hanson has preached before in California. pushing down in
a nosedive in a plane or breathing underwater when your scuba jump
tears up. It's against the natural order
of survival. It's against the natural order
of the world to have joy. Now, what are we to have joy
in? Well, there's many areas of Scripture where we see what
we're supposed to do for people. And in Timothy, Paul tells us
to pray for the rulers of the world, pray that they might what?
Be granted repentance. Pray for those who are wicked
that they may come to the knowledge of the faith. Paul says it here
in Titus Church. We're to pray for them. We're
to silence them and then teach them the truth that they may
come to the knowledge of the truth. For which I, Paul, an
apostle appointed by the authority and the command of Jesus Christ
our Lord and Savior, who is also our God, has appointed me for
the faith of the elect. So that for the sake of their
faith, I would preach and they would come to know the gospel.
Paul of which was of that number. I've never seen anywhere in Paul's
testimony, even before the king or before the Caesar or before
any other place or to Dr. Luke, where he says, and on my
way to Damascus, I came to my senses and I decided to follow
Jesus. It doesn't happen. Paul, with
all zeal, standing for all truth, for the historical attitude of
his own faith through his forefathers of centuries, stood with zeal
for the holiness of God. But when the holiness of God
stood before him, he saw not it. He could not see it. And Jesus says, why do you persecute
me, Saul? He took the scales off Saul's
eyes and blinded him in his flesh so he could see the fullness
of his glory. And he believed. He gave him faith. He gave him
repentance. And he leaves and goes to the very city that he
was on the way to, to arrest them. And he knocks on the door
and says, hey, I'm one of you. That's how God saves. So what are we to... What's the
joyfulness here? We should pray with joy. We should
pray for our leaders. We should pray for emperors.
We should pray for our president. We should pray for our congressmen
and women. Yes, write them, talk to them,
whatever. Don't speak evil of them. Don't
speak evil of the evildoers. Don't speak evil of the pastors.
Even if you have to speak evil of what they do, don't speak
evil of them. And if you do, know this truth
here. Pray for the lost. Pray for the
wicked. Pray for those who persecute you. Love your enemy. Why? So that they may come to
the knowledge of the truth. So that false teachers and false
believers may hold fast to the truth and know salvation. So
that God may grant them repentance. We ought to pray for them with
joy. We ought to love them with joy.
And friends, love is not what you think it is. Love is not
what the false teachers of the world would tell you. Love is
not what the Osteens and others like that would say. The love
of God is not this passive mindset of just everybody live, do what
they want to do, and we'll all get along. Jesus demands holiness. God demands holiness and holiness
is not a possibility in the power of man, but it's a certainty
in the power of God through Christ Jesus. And not a perfectionist
holiness here on this earth, but a striving for such things
that we stand before Christ face to face, we will be made like
him. We don't just set aside our convictions
and go, well, I know I should change, but God understands.
We don't do that, church. We throw it away. We put on the
new man. We throw away the old man. We don't pray for people with
pressure. We don't pray for them out of
aggravation, with perturbed hearts. We pray for them with power and
with praise to a holy God who hears prayers and answers them. I think our joy also moves into
our worship. How in the world do we worship
a God who is most effective in power, if we can't even pray
for those who persecute us, pray for those who are lost? and submit
to them with joyful obedience. Joyful submission. Paul writes
to the Romans, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities,
for there is no authority except from God. And those that exist
have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the
authorities resists what God has appointed. And those who
resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to
good conduct, but to bad. You would have no fear Would
you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what
is good and you will receive his approval for he's God's slave
for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid
for he does not bear the sword in vain for he's the slave of
God and avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath,
but also for the sake of conscience. We know. We know what it means
to obey the law, we know what it means to disobey the law that
disobeys God. But even when we have to disobey
the law of man, we do not disobey God in the process. And what
do you mean by that? Even if we have to say, no, I'm not going
to obey that because it defies my conscience before God, we
humbly and prayerfully and joyfully and lovingly disobey. We don't put our fist in their
face. What about the American Revolution? Don't get me started. Another day. He's subject for
the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be the
emperor supreme or governors are sent to him to punish those
who do evil and to praise those who do good, for this is the
will of God that by doing good, you should put to silence the
ignorance of foolish people. Those who talk ill of us, church.
They've got grounds to do it. Because the people of God don't
live as the people of God. Well, I just can't help myself.
Then are you in the faith? If you didn't mean that, then
say, I just rebel against God. Be honest. If you can't just
help yourself, then repent. Believe the gospel. Be saved.
For to say, I just can't help myself, is to say, everything
God says in the New Testament about the Spirit in me doing
the work, Through the power of his word and his grace is ineffective
in me because God just not worked on me enough yet. Therefore,
God's a liar. Just admit it. I have sinned
against you, God. Confess your sins. He is faithful
and just to forgive us our trespasses. Live as people who are free,
Peter says, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living
as slaves of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood,
fear God and honor the emperor. Let's close with these two things. That good works may abound. To be ready for good work that
they may abound. We've already seen that, that
Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all
lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own
possession who are zealous for good works. So therefore, good
works must abound with the people of God. Jesus says to Nicodemus
that the works of the church clearly show the work of God
in them, that they don't come to the light because they've
straightened up, they come to the light because God's worked
in them. Then it may be clearly seen that their works have been
carried out in God, and that's in John 3. So the good works of the church
must abound for the church. We work good works for each other. We benefit and receive benefit
and benefit each other. We are interconnected as one
body. All important. And for those
of you who weren't here Tuesday night, we really got into that.
As Paul taught the Corinthians, that everybody is uniquely gifted
by the Spirit to uniquely minister to the body. And if one person
is missing from that mix, there's a hole there. So we're vital to one another.
And it also goes to say that if our works aren't for the sake
of the church, then we're not really doing works for the Lord,
are we? But it's not just for the church. We've got a lot of
good churches who do a lot of good works for themselves, and
they sit there with the door bolted and the world's dying
at the other side, clawing like at Noah's Ark, when Noah couldn't
open the door because God shut it. But I believe had he had
the key, he'd have opened it and drowned in the process. Because Noah had a heart that
God gave him and it loved people. He did not take joy in the perishing
of the world. So oftentimes we get real folks,
well, are you a member of our church? Well, we don't love you.
I mean, we don't ever say that, but that's the way. Have you
ever felt that way? Have you ever been around some
Christians? You know, because you're not
a member of the church, they don't really care if you're on fire. They'll get too close to the
drapes, you'll smoke them up, go outside and burn. I mean,
you know, but it's a serious problem. So the works are not
only for the church, which must be, but also for the community.
I believe it's good to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked
and to visit the sick. I believe it's important to do
that. But we've got an incredibly backwards view of what that looks
like. Well, let's hire some people to do that. Don't know what churches
do. So I came back here. Well, until
I went to California, every church that I've ever been on staff
with, we've had a pastor of pastoral ministries. And I'm not knocking
them. They have a heart for it. But why is it that we aren't
teaching the church to be pastoral? Why do we got to hire somebody
to pay them to love people? That's like an escort service.
I need a date. You want to go to the movies? I'll be $40. I'll
pick you up at 9. Hey, I need some affection. I
need some help. I'm hungry. Hold on a minute. Hey, we need
to get a rent a pastor, rent a Christian. We need a temp agency
for Christians who will serve. We need 20 people to share their
faith tomorrow to make a good show. Sort of like the professional
mourners in John 10 and 11. who wailed over Lazarus' death,
not Nicodemus, like I said last week. Thanks for the heads up. They didn't even
know him. They just were paid, and so they
did what was... Friends, that's not what the church is. That's
not who the church is. The church should have good works for the
community, and the church should have good works, if nothing less
than prayer. If nothing more than praying
for the government. Who is guilty? Don't raise your
hand. We don't have time to count everybody.
We're guilty. And if we haven't said it, we've
surely thought it and we've heard it in our cafes and at our gas
pumps and in our foyers and on our telephones and on our emails
and we've gone, yeah, I'm not going to post that on Facebook, but
I agree with it. And we need the works, good works
to abound for the wicked. Even Jesus says that the wicked,
if their children are hungry and they say, I need some bread,
they don't. And he's being pretty funny here. When they ask for
bread, does it give them a snake or rock? I don't know, I agree
here. Eat this. His teeth fall out. Yeah, stupid
kid, thinking I was going to give him something to eat. No,
he says even the pagans tend to their own. Should the church tend to the
pagans? Yes. That's a hard one. We should
be doing good works for the wicked. And that doesn't mean hang out
where they are and do what they do. But there is a calling to
have good works for the world. Good works appear. So good works
abound in those four areas, I believe. And then finally, good works
appear through four areas. I've already said them, but I
want to remind you of them as we close. Good works appear through
affection. I would call this an inward appearance,
that we who have been transformed by the gospel have an affection
because we've been given a new heart and a new mind. And there's
something internally transforming us to love others. Supernatural,
spontaneous affection is what I call it. Inward works. We see them appear inwardly through
affection. Secondly, we see these good works
appear upwardly through prayer. that we actually have a spirit
within us, Romans 8, that causes us to pray for those who need
prayer, whether they be wicked or saved or hurting or celebrating
or government or not or upon. We have an upward affection of
good works through prayer. Thirdly, Good works appear outwardly
through submission. We have a heart of submission,
an attitude of submission. We subject ourselves with honor
and reverence to the governing authorities, to the leaders of
the churches, to one another as the Word of God has called
us to, husbands and wives. There's a subjection there. Wives
to your own husbands. We see that. Jesus Christ submissive
to the Father. We can't go back through all
those sermons, but I think that's an outward thing. The world sees
it, as the Reformers would use the phrase, Coram Deo, in the
face of God. We, as the church, are living
in the face of God. Are we honoring God? Does God
see His own glory in His people? And if He doesn't, they're not
His. See, this is the stress of it. And then finally, good works
appear. through praise. And praise has nothing to do
with music, but everything to do with praise. Everything to
do with the praise of His glorious grace. And I look at this as
a filling of all things with joy and the worth of who Christ
is and God, whose holiness is a display of His intrinsic worthiness.
We worship through holiness. We can worship God through obedience. We can worship God, Romans 12,
1 and 2. We worship God through study. We worship God through prayer.
We honor God. We show him worth through seeing
the word of God and it bringing us to life. And we are effective
in our faith. Are we effective in our faith? Well, I ask you this, church. Are we a people that look like
that? Are we showing perfect courtesy? Because remember, we
were once a foolish, disobedient, astray slave. And now we are
the children of our Lord and Savior and Father, Jesus Christ. Lord, we are grateful beyond
measure, beyond understanding. We have so much gratitude in
our hearts that we can't even we can't put our fingers on it.
And so we thank you, Lord, for your sovereignty over us and
your power in us and through us. And Lord, I pray that as
we conclude our opportunity for hearing the word. That it would
just be the seeds that have been plowed into our hearts. that would produce great works
for your namesake. God protect us from feeling the
pull of moralism against paganism, help
us to fight against the attitude of like, well, I'm doing what
I'm supposed to. So therefore, the Lord help us to see the fullness
of who the gospel is in Christ, that because we are born again,
we have a hope that is not in this world. And so therefore,
we set our minds on the things of heaven and we walk in that
direction because of salvation, not for it. Father, I thank You that the
Word is planted in our hearts and minds. And Lord, that in
Your time and by Your power, it would come to the fullness of glory, to the fullness of
hope, as we wait upon the Lord Jesus, who is both for us, our
life and our glory and our hope and our righteousness. In His
name we pray, Amen.