Paul says of the Galatians, for
freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do
not submit again to a yoke of slavery. It tells them in chapter
four. When the fullness of time had
come, God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the
law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might
receive adoption as sons, and because you are sons, God has
given the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you were no longer a slave,
but a son. And if a son then an heir through God, notice that
it says there that because we are sons, we are given the spirit. In Romans, Paul writes to the
Roman church when he says these words, so then, brothers, we
are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh,
for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But
if by the spirit, you will put to death the deeds of the body,
you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are
the sons of God. For you do not receive the spirit
of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have been. You
have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba,
Father, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that
we are the children of God and of children than heirs, heirs of
God and fellow heirs of Christ, provided we suffer with him in
order that we may also be glorified with him now. That song that
we sing, Abba, Father, I've had people. From time to time, Sam,
I'm just uncomfortable with it. It's too impersonal to call God
Daddy. What do you think Abba means?
Papa. It's the most intimate term of
endearment that one could say to their father and say, Daddy,
God is the father, is the daddy, the all concerning, all seeing,
all knowing, all benevolent, ungracious, kind daddy to his
children. I ask you to turn to Titus and
look at chapter two as we embark on our journey here in. And last week, we began to see
in chapter two, the audience of this instruction of the sound
doctrine, and then we saw that Paul has instructed Titus as
well as the elders that he placed in Crete to therefore teach what
sort of accords with sound doctrine, teach that which is sound doctrine
that brings out the produce, the producing of what is sound
and doctrine. And so here Paul plays on the
word doctrine, not only in that which is taught, but that which
is lived out from what is taught. And so back to the little phrase
that we are using for our series in Titus and that right teaching
produces right living. Otherwise, the teaching and the
living do not correspond. And last week, we looked at the
different audience, the older men and that they are to be teachers
and they are to be humble and the older women who ought to
teach the younger women and the younger women who ought to love
their husbands and submit to them and be busy with their hands
and profitable in their homes as they govern their homes and
younger men who are to have self-control and not be quick to anger and
keep their mouths closed. Let someone accuse them of evil.
And then he gets to verse nine and follow with me in verse nine
through the end of the verse fifteen. Bond servants are to
be submissive to their own masters and everything they are to be
well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, not showing, but
showing all good faith so that in everything, listen, they may
adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior. For the grace of God
has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, training us to
renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled,
upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our
blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and
Savior, 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. Declare
these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority and let no
one disregard you. I don't care how old you are,
how young you are, how smart you are, how smarter you might
be. I want everyone to pay attention,
including my children in the front row. Because there's things being
taught in the Word of God that though they might not be comprehensible
to the abstract conscience, they are planted by the Spirit of
God and thus fruitful and profitable. Never, ever, ever fall prey to
the ideal that children must be taught on their level. You
know what the level of teaching for children is? Jesus in the
face. They tried to remove the children
from the sound teaching of Jesus because they were in the way.
And so they would say, oh, no, no, no, no, don't do that. And
Jesus said, suffer not the little children unto me. I memorized
that verse way back. Do not discourage them from coming
to me, for unless your faith is like theirs, is like that
of a little child. There's a metaphor there. Similarly,
then you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Friends, it
does not matter the abilities of one's mind. It matters the ability of the
God of heaven. And the preaching of God's Word
into the ears of what may seem like bored children has more
power in an hour than you could study and teach them in their
face at their level with their craft in six billion years. The world's up with him. I have
yet had to defend why children sit in church again this week. Friends, listen to the lies,
not listen to the lies of the devil, but hear them and recognize
them for what they are. Children, you will be saved through
the hearing of the word of God. Your love for Christ will come
through the teaching of the Word that you get from your home that
is reinforced in these seats. Any parent who affects change
or who desires change in the life of their children based
on someone whom they do not even know or hear has sadly disobeyed
God when they expect someone else to teach their children
the things of God. And we look now to this and you
might say, well, where does that relate? Where are we relating
to this children introduction? It's not really introduction
to this, but I would say to you that now Paul has pointed his
attention to slaves. I want you to think about this.
This is an Ephesians, chapter five, he says, children. Children,
obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. This is the
first commandment, a promise that you may live well and long
in the land. And fathers, do not exasperate
your children, but rear them or raise them in the admonition
of the Lord, teaching them to obey the Lord in all things,
at all times. And I'm paraphrasing now. So now he turns to another group.
Why did he command children in Ephesians? Because it was unheard
of for children to have been separated from the teachings
of the word of God. It's blasphemous. It is the abomination of abominations
for us to think that when we worship as the people of God,
that we are to take our legs and arms off and put them into
another place that they may have leg teaching. The same is true for these slaves.
Older men, younger men, older women, younger women, now you
slaves among us. Notice that he turns to them,
he says, slaves are to be submissive to their own masters and everything.
There is an expectation here to Titus that slaves are to be
taught the word of God. These were not even people who
owned themselves. They were property, much like
this microphone or this Bible. They were to do that which they
were purchased to do. And in doing so, most of the
Christian people of this day, especially in this Roman era,
they did not even feel they were qualified to even think of their
slaves as human beings. And sadly, most of the people
in that category in this day were women. Wives. And all they did was spend their
days adorning their masters, dressing them and bathing them
and bathing their children and adorning them with the garments
of the day and tending to their needs and cooking their food
and cleaning their homes and whatever else that they needed
to do. And they were forgotten people. And I think Paul spends
more time in the introduction of slaves here because he aligns
the church as a whole as slaves. And so in that pay close attention
when he says. These things to slaves. And there's
a lot we're going to get through this whole text down through
verse 15, but we're going to spend most of time dealing with
number 10. The second part. So that in everything they may
adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior. That passage blew up
in my face like a billboard every mile. Adorn the doctrine of our
God. Let's see, if you were to ask
a Jew during that day to find that for me. They would have
contemplated the idea of the mosaic principles of the phylacteries,
where they would hide the word of God, wear it on their hearts
and on their garments, on their outer, always keep it in their
face. So they have these phylacteries that they would have. There was
these containers that they made out of their garments and they
put the word of God in them and they put them over their over
their chest that was close to their heart. And then they would
hang the phylacteries also in front of their eyes so that there
was this dangling thing containing God's word always in front of
them, that they were always mindful, no matter what they looked at,
that they should be thinking about the word of God. Not a
bad habit, I should say. If it was a reminder of the word
of God, sort of like we like to wear bracelets today to remember
things or back in the day, you put a bow on your finger. So
I'd have to put a bow on this finger and a bow on this finger
to remember why I put a bow on this finger. So I just hold bows all
over the place. We would probably hear from these
Jews, oh, to adorn the Word of God is what we do. We wear it. That's not it. And the word that
Paul is using here to adorn, it means to put on and to present,
to wear it and to present it, that it may be seen, adorn. And
so when you think of adornment, if you will, think of how we
fixed ourselves today for those of us who did. That we brushed
our hair or we brushed our teeth or we put on makeup or we curled
something or we lipstick something or we wipe something off or we
did something, we adorn, we put on certain clothes and shoes
and accessories and things of that nature. We adorned ourselves
with some apparel so that we would be presentable in some
way. Well, I'm not that picky. Yes,
you are. If you reach into the drawer. Now, some of you guys
might not, because, you know, if we reach in the drawer and
there's a hole in the sock, we'll put it on the shoes, cover it. So
it doesn't really matter, especially if it's early and the sun's not
up. Ah, heck with it. Toes sticking out. But for you
ladies, if the hose is run, it's done. It's done. And as long as I can remember,
as a little boy, you know, Sunday mornings, mom or grandma or somebody's
go and run into the store to get a second pair of hoes because
everything in the whole cabinet was like a cat got in there and
swept it. Because no one's going to adorn themselves with garb.
They want to adorn themselves to be presentable. Adorn yourself
with the doctrine of God and everything. That's what Paul's
saying. Guys, I am still in awe of this. It's just not possible for us
to really rest mentally and consciously and go, Oh, I got it. Check.
I think this is part of the forever learning as a Christian, forever
learning as the church is that we go together and we're taught
right doctrine that accords with right doctrine. And in doing
so, now he is teaching that you are to adorn the doctrine. in
everything. And if you if you sneak down
to chapter three, verse eight, you see these words, the saying
is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, Titus,
so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote
themselves to good works. These things are excellent and
profitable for people. So what we've got here, as we've
already discussed, is is a highly practical teaching held together
by a dynamically and divine supernatural truth. That's what we're doing. What we cannot do is say, oh,
he's just saying to have this attitude. He's just saying to
walk this way. He's just saying to look this way. He's saying
to speak this way. He's saying to think this way. I'll work
on that. No, Paul doesn't teach that way. No, nowhere does he
teach that way. It's incorrect. There's no place
in Scripture where Paul teaches behavior. Paul teaches who Christ
is and the outcome of knowing Christ is the behavior. Test
yourself, model yourself, do these things because Christ is
yours. That's not the way, what does
he say to Ephesians? That's not the way you've learned Christ. You
haven't learned Christ as sexually promiscuous, as greedy, as haughty,
as angry. You haven't learned Christ. Don't
act like that. You know better. That's not Jesus. Adorn. The doctrine of our God
and Savior. He's turning to these slaves,
as I said, because they are not the norm of society, they are
the forgotten norm of society, and these slaves are being now
addressed. For the purpose of several things
that I've been thinking about first, I think Paul begins to
address the issue of slaves, not because he condones slavery.
Because he already tells the Corinthians, if you can get your
freedom, get it. If you can't be content without it. Because
God did not leave you here to fight for your freedom. He left
you here to adorn the doctrine of God. And we're not going to
get into an American ideal. It's not the point. The law in
the United States allowed for no slavery. So therefore, they
exercise those rights and we're glad that they did. But for the
church, we've got to be content in all things. So I think one
thing that the reason Paul turns to slaves is to recognize them
as human beings of a larger family, is that Paul now is saying, look,
the slaves that you haven't even thought about, Christian, those
people who are sort of like furniture in your house that do the things
like your vacuum cleaner, that they are people, they are your
brothers and sisters in Christ. Just as I might have mentioned
last week in passing, Paul's dealing with Philemon as he talks
about Philemon's slave, Onesimus, who stole from him and fled in
fear of his life. He pilfered. He stole something
small and fled, and the penalty of stealing as a slave was to
be put to death. And if the slave owner had mercy, he could sell
him off to somebody else as a bad slave, sort of like a lame horse.
We'll just use him to give little rides to little girls around,
but he can't be as purebred anymore. I can't use him for any kind
of racing. We'll just, you know, maybe it's a glue factory. And Anesimus is addressed as
a brother by Paul, because in his flight he meets Paul and
Paul, through the preaching of the gospel, God saves, he sees
the salvation of Anesimus. And Paul writes to Philemon and
says, you treat him when he comes back as though it's me coming.
So Paul, he didn't condone slavery. The Bible doesn't say slavery
is good. I've had that argument with people recently that if
we were biblical, we'd have slaves. Come on, folks. grow up and quit
trying to be a redneck Puritan. That's a good T-shirt. Am I a redneck Puritan? Somebody
write that down. There's a fundraiser in that.
I'm so sorry. These slaves are people. They
are in the family of God. And so Paul writes to them and
draws his attention there because of that. He wants to recognize
them. Secondly, he talks about slaves for the purpose of correcting
their behavior in the Lord. These slaves were coming to faith,
not purposefully, I don't believe, but hearing and sitting down
and worshiping with the church. But as the church worship, the
slaves are taking care of everybody. And so they're in the vicinity.
They're listening. Much like the atheist that I
saw in Akworth, Georgia, just this week from a friend who is
hanging out. who was sort of arguing a few
weeks ago with this open air preacher. Now they're hanging
out and he's listening and he's telling people, you need to come
hear this. This man's going to possibly come to faith because
of the preaching of the word on the open street. So the slaves come to faith and
Paul wants them to know they have an obligation and commands
as well. That because of their new creations in Christ, there's
an expectation of their behavior. Because in this day, the expectation
for slaves was that they're rebellious. They're trying to steal from
you. They're trying to cheat you. They're trying to get away and run off. And
so Paul's telling them, he's saying we want to correct the
behavior of those slaves who are in Christ. Because they need
to live as though they're in Christ, not as though they're
in Crete. Because we also know, we all know by their own philosophers,
by their own prophets, that they're lazy, wicked, evil, liars, gluttons,
right? And then Paul says, and that's
a true statement. They are. So we know these false teachers
were becoming Cretans and these slaves were becoming Cretans
and everybody in Crete was just wicked. We all talk about Sodom
and Gomorrah in the Old Testament. Crete is the place in the New
Testament, along with Corinth and some other places. And so
Paul addresses them for the purpose of correcting their behavior,
but also for the purpose of correcting behavior toward them. As I mentioned,
if I leave mine, I won't, I won't expound on that. Fourthly, I
believe he acknowledges them for the purpose of showing that
the lowly are the ones who shine the brightest as the adorners
of the doctrine of God. So when the lowly things that
he taught, this is the first Corinthians. So I'm grabbing
a lot of Pauline doctrine and paraphrase. To bring it to mind
here, because Paul says the Corinthians chapter one is the lowly things
of this earth, the nothings of this earth that God uses to profound
the wise. So if you will, if you will give
me the liberty, it's the stupid things of the world that profound
the wise. It's the weak things of the world that overpower the
strong. It's the nothings of the world that brings nothing
to things at all. That's almost a direct quote there. Corinthians
one, first Corinthians one, starting verse twenty two, somewhere in
there. And so this is this is to show that the lowly ones shine
the brightest to show the glorious power of God for those who can
do, as Jesus said, because you say you can see your guilt remains.
You don't need my help. You can see. So you just keep
on seeing where you see you keep on walking where you walk and
keep on going where you go and you don't need my help. I did
not come for the righteous, but for the for the sinners, for the
lost. I did not come for the well, but the sick, Jesus says.
So now Paul is putting great emphasis on these slaves who
are nothings and that they will adorn the doctrine of God, our
Savior. And finally, I believe that Paul
is turning his attention away from the norms to the not so
norms to the slaves to show that the practice of truth is truly
the production of Christ and the power of doctrine, the power
of knowing Jesus. So there we go. Paul's turning
away from the norms. He's focusing on slaves for those
reasons. And then something else we need to see here is that Paul
is teaching that the doctrine of God without practice of this
doctrine or out of this doctrine is nothing but idle and worthless
profession. We go back to what the teachers,
the false teachers say. They must be silenced. They're
upsetting whole families. They're empty talkers. They're
insubordinate. They're deceivers. So Christians who live now, we've
we've talked about teachers, specifically those who purvey
through teaching false teaching, thus producing false living,
thus becoming false churches, teaching false Christ and preaching
a false gospel. And that seems to be the cookie
stamp, the cookie cutter of America. Now, Paul is turning to the idea
that as we who are in Christ live, falsely. We're also false
teachers by the way we live. We're adorning a false gospel.
You see that? So this worthless profession
Must not be for the Saints because the Saints love the truth of
God. It is through the truth that they are set free from the
power of sin. It is through right teaching, right learning, doctrine,
that the church is set free from sin, that the world becomes the
church. Also, because it is through the
truth that they are set free from the penalty of sin. So the
power of sin we are set free from, the penalty of sin we are
set free from. We no longer have condemnation.
because we were in Christ Jesus. Jesus took all the sin on him
so that we could become the righteousness of God. So the songs that we
sing today talk specifically about that.
That Jesus on the cross died alone. Do you know what that
means? The Father turns his back on
him. We can't comprehend that. He
died alone. He suffered alone. He bled alone. He agonized alone. He had no
hope in sight except for the promise of the Father to bring
him through it. There was nobody cheering him
on. And if there was, it was just a mortal man weeping at
his feet, watching the blood run out of him. Right teaching produces right
living so that the people of God could be seen to adorn Jesus
Christ as they're taught. It's very frustrating sometimes
because we can have very doctrinally rich sermons and we can have
very practically rich sermons. And for some of us, especially
in our circles, we love doctrinally rich stuff. We love to get deep.
We love to just almost bog down in the quicksand of truth. and
drown in it. It's like eating a big lasagna,
the whole thing. It's good stuff. You can't breathe. And if you laugh, you might lose
it. That's full. But doctrinally sound preaching
for the sake of doctrinally sound preaching is worthless. Preaching
ought to change us in our seats. We ought to learn who Christ
is and in turn go, wow, I can't do this now. Christ is, therefore
I am. Christ is done, I worship, I
live for his glory. See, each person in his or her
own realm of living and responsibility are required to produce right
living in the world. We are required to produce older
men, older women, younger men, younger women and slaves. Each person is required to produce
right worship. We're supposed to worship in
spirit and in truth by practicing the truth, by living from the
spirit, by being filled and walking in the spirit. All these things
should start to pop and come to light when we hear these words
of Paul. Right living doesn't come from
being taught. Do this and don't do that. Don't
say that. Don't eat that. Eat that. That's
not how right living comes. That's how you look like you're
living right. But looking like you live right with right actions
and not being born again by the Spirit of God is wickedness.
See, but when we do good, Paul's already said about the false
teachers, they do good and it's wicked. They do good and it's
empty. The prophets Old Testament. The
righteous works of man are filthy rags before God. We must produce right worship,
right living comes from who Christ is and what Christ does. Obedience and honor come from
the person of Jesus, the doctrine of Jesus, not the learning of
his actions. We don't want what Jesus do.
We don't care. We're not going to teach people,
what would Jesus do? We're going to teach people who
Jesus is. Now you do. Because of who Jesus
is, you do. You follow. And if you cannot
follow, you are not his. And if you do not follow and
you are his, you're rebellious and you will suffer discipline
so that you can be corrected and set back straight. The right life is evidence of
truly knowing Christ. If you do not know him, you can
still know what he's done and try to follow his ways. But if you do know him, you will
follow his ways. Sound doctrine about Christ,
I believe, is vital to all things holy and heavenly for the sake
of all people, even slaves. And ultimately, where I think
Paul is heading with this is that all people are literally
slaves. What does the Scripture teach?
That we're either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. Nowhere,
even when Jesus speaks, if the sun sets you free, you're free
indeed. But then what? You are a slave to righteousness.
Your bond and your binding is to righteousness as a Christian.
Your heart and your affections are to that which is right and
holy and heavenly. Your focus and your eyes and
your attention is drawn to that which is beautiful and glorious,
not the world, not the ways of the world, not the darkness of
the light. So what are we to do? Here we
go. Adorn the doctrine of God our
Savior. Does that come to mind when it
says to put off your old self, which has been put to death?
You put on your new self, which is yours in Christ, to have this
mind among you, which is yours in Christ, Paul says, the Philippians
church, that though he was God and equal with God, he did not
take equality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself
a slave, obedient even unto death. Therefore, God exalted him above
all names. and sat him at the place of honor,
and that in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every
tongue confess that Jesus is Lord." Friends, we are to put
on Christ because He's ours to wear. And when we wear the old flashes
because we found it someplace lying around in the decayed space,
and we've decided to try it out for a few minutes. I'll remember
these shoes. You know when you're cleaning
your closet out to go get rid of stuff at Goodwill? And you're
in the very back part that sort of doesn't really, you can't
really get, they go, I'm not giving that away. Or you ladies,
when you clean out the closet and we walk in, you're not giving
that away. All right. All right. You haven't
worn that since high school. Well, I'm going to wear it now. 22 years later. My E.T. shirt. Throw that away. That's what we do with the flesh.
We think, that used to fit so well. I'm going to step into
it, see how they look. I'm going to pull out that attitude. You know what? People didn't
give me junk when I was like that. I'm going back to that
for today. Go up the route of St. Roundup,
try to get through the parking lot. You'll find a lot of pieces of
your old flesh. Lying all over. In fact, you realize you folded
up some very neatly in the glove box. Right there. You can get
it. Hey, son, open that glove box. Get my old flesh out. Get that rotted ear out. I think
there ought to be two types of horn in a vehicle. A meep meep
just for uh-oh. Watch out. Be careful. And the
real one. So you can know there's a difference
in the honk. I say that jokingly, but I'm serious, because even
those small little things that we find very funny are grave
issues. A very big sign that we're not
finished yet and we better not take lightly the smallest of
sins. Because the little, small nuance
of frustration that the light turned red before we got there
is a big enough sin to put us into the judgment of an eternal
God. And if that'll put us in hell, what else will? But even if we never get frustrated,
even if we never lie and we never get mad and we never get angry
and we never do sinful things, we're still a sinner and deserving
of the judgment of God. And we cannot put on that which
is not ours to put on. And what I think is happening
here in Crete is these false teachers, by the way of their,
their, their, their, I would just use it being conservative.
Their loose lifestyle, saying they're Christians and their
loose teaching on doctrine, they're enabling slaves to just continue
to walk the way the world's walking. And they were being rude to their
masters. And they were saying, I'm not doing that. And they
were willing to take beatings rather than be obedient. And
these slaves are like, I know what this is. This is Christ.
This is this new Christian crud. And you brought this into my
house. I've got a mind to kill you. You go ahead and try. There's
enough of us to stand up. Can you hear that? Is that what
Christians say? Is that what Christian missionaries
say when they're at the edge of a spear proclaiming the gospel
and someone threatens to take their life and take their children
and burn them in front of them and cannibalize them while they're
in a cage watching their child be eaten? They go, you're the
man in this cage, I'll show you. No, they say, oh, for God's sake,
have mercy. And when the spear is put to
their chest, they walk into it for the sacred gospel. This division of homes, of families,
I believe a lot of it had to do with slaves. who were not
acting like godly Christians, but who were acting like the
rest of the world. Friends, we all are just like that if we're
not careful to listen to the words of God. Slaves are told
to obey their masters in everything, even their ungodly masters obey
them. And we're not going to have to
go to the caveat. We know that we don't sin when we're told
to sin. He said, do do. Be well-pleasing. Go above and beyond to serve
your master. Serve those who are ungodly among
you. Serve your enemies. Love your
enemies. Bless those who persecute you. Feed them when they're hungry.
Pay their bills when they're broke. Be polite. Be content. Be cooperative. Don't be argumentative. Be cooperative. I don't like
the way you did that. I like the way you said that
is that we can't even think like slaves. We can't even pretend
to think like that. We don't know what it means to
be a slave. Neither does anybody in the world that lives today
and are in our circles know what it's like to be a slave. If there
is, it's a very rare person. But I would say that there are
slaves in the world today who are truly property of another
person, who are freer than most Americans because they understand
and have been saved by the power of God's glorious grace. And sometimes we take pity on
them because of their captivity when they are freer than we. Don't steal anything, he says. Don't pilfer. What's pilfering?
Ah, that's a nice pin. That's enough. He won't miss
it. I like that. Oh, I forgot. I'll just keep
it. I see me. That's failing me. It's the hardest
thing. It's just a pen. Is it? Or is an indicator of a conscience
that's not as open to understanding that it wasn't ours? I'm not saying drive 20 miles,
return a pen, but in your heart, you're blessed. I kept that man's
pen. And not even just like a little
big pen that's Usually free to get at a counter, but you know
what I mean. Don't pilfer. Show good faith in everything. And by doing so, you adorn the
doctrine of God in all things. Now, let's get to the practical.
What does it mean to adorn the doctrine of God? First, look at how it's titled. Adorn the doctrine of God, our
Savior. Whose doctrine is it? Whose clothing is it? It's God's. It's God's doctrine. It's our
Savior's doctrine. God is our Savior. Our Savior
is God. It's his doctrine. We are to
adorn it. So God, who is the Lord, who
is the owner of all things, gives this teaching, this grace, and
he is the Savior and the master of all his own. And so living
cooperatively and obediently and humbly reveals that we are
God's people, that we have learned Christ, that we are living Christ
and we are loving as Christ has taught us to love. Teaching is
not just comprehending. Teaching is really measured by
the truthfulness of the action. Love is not knowing love or feeling
love. Love is laying down your life
at the cost of everything you are so that the other person
may see the wonderful affection that you have for them. There's
no greater love than this, that a man would lay down his life
for a brother. And we can't hardly lay down a biscuit. As Jesus said, follow me. As
a command, he wasn't asking anybody. Everybody was commanded to follow
him, who he said that to. He'd say, will you? He's not
standing at the door and knocking like in Revelation with tears
running down his eyes because it won't get opened. Follow me and I will make you
pictures, men. Follow me and you will have treasure in heaven.
Follow me and you will bear much fruit. Follow me. I got to go
bury my father. The father is dead and the people
who are burying him are dead. Let them bury the dead. Let the
dead bury the dead. You can't put your hand to the
plow and turn back and be fit for the kingdom of heaven. You
cannot follow Jesus unless you take up a cross. And you can't
take up a cross for Jesus if we can't take up a cross for
each other. You can't take up a cross for
anybody if you can't take up a cross for your brother. Or your enemy. What is the cross? Something heavy, huge, hard?
Yeah. But most importantly, it's a
life of death. You become a nothing so that
those around you may become everything. You give up everything so that
those around you may have everything. You supplant yourself or you
up plant, uproot yourself for the sake of putting roots in
the world. so that it may thrive and live. This adorning of the doctrine
of God, this doctrine is not just about God, it is God. This
doctrine is the breath of God, the breath of life who created
you, and the breath of God who breathed out his word so that
you may be recreated in Christ. And the breath of God, as Jesus
says in John 11, Lazarus, come out. And he waddled out in his
stinching gray clothes, and Jesus says to them, unbind me and let
him go. We've been let go by the doctrine
of God, and then we've been grabbed by it and put out for the world
to see. The breath of God, the doctrine
of God is creative, the doctrine of God is corrective, it is truth
that powerfully motivates and powerfully moves and powerfully
manipulates change us and transform us into
the people who God has commanded us and created us to be. Not
to be as in the possibility, but that we are. The doctrine of God, it is God's
alone to give, and he gives freely by his grace to all who are his,
to those who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And believing
is an unreserved, absolute commitment to. It has nothing to do with
comprehension and agreement of truth. Believe, every time you
see it, has everything to do with the sacrifice of one's life
for the sake of that which they believe in. Example, the fire
starts to brew, fire alarm goes off, and we go, oh yeah, there's
a fire, believe it! We sit here and keep preaching.
Y'all better go, you're gonna burn. Yeah, we're gonna get there
in a minute, let's get a cup of coffee. If you believe there's
a fire, you're breaking down the door. If you believe in Jesus
Christ, you're walking in His ways. The doctrine of our Savior, this
is effectual and exclusive. Christianity is not a religion
to be compared with the world. It's not this man made ideal. There's no two roads that lead
to salvation, only one. And it is the doctrine of God,
our Savior, who is the doctrine, who is the Savior. And it's effectual. It is exclusive. It's not inclusive. The doctrine of Jesus Christ
doesn't go out and just embrace the world. The doctrine doesn't
embrace Buddhism. The doctrine doesn't embrace
decisional regeneration. The doctrine of God does not
embrace all this plethora of wide views, of wide philosophies
of humanism and modernism. It doesn't. It says Jesus alone
is the living God of the universe who came to die to save sinners. And he is the only way to the
father. He's the only way to truth. He's the only way to life
because he is the truth and he is the life. He is the place
to which we desire to go as the church. Heaven is not a place
where we get to hang out and see Jesus. Heaven is Jesus. And if we're desiring to get
something that Jesus has over himself, we're laboring for a
perishing, rotting religion. The doctrine of our Savior. This
is not religion, but a royal adoption. This is God, the King
of Heaven, reaching down into darkness and saying, Be made
alive! Wake up, sinner! Come here, O
child! This is a Savior who stepped
out of glory into slavery. and die, shed his blood to save
the slaves of sin. We are to put this on. And we're to wear it. And we're
to wear it from God who made it so. Because we are a new creation. And our heart and our mind and
our soul have been made right. I want you to see a few things
in closing. The obvious, that the doctrine
of God our Savior makes him the owner, but it also makes him
the essence. God our Savior is the essence
of doctrine. It is him. He is the gift. He is the substance and the object. He is the teaching. He is the
one whom we know, not about whom we know. And we know him. Through this
doctrine, we know Him through His person. We know Him through
His power, through His plans, through His pleasure to save
a people, through His purpose. And we are to know Him through
each other, through the people of God, should see each other. And then in seeing each other,
we should see the doctrine of God. We should see the Son and
the work that He's done. We should see the glory of God,
our Savior, in each other's lives. Do we see that? I want you to see that the doctrine
of God is given to the slaves to wear, given to the poor to
wear, given to the dead to wear. Those who cannot see, those who
cannot know, those who cannot comprehend, those who cannot
own anything of value and those who do not even own their own
lives. For Jesus says, for those who
want to seek after me must deny himself and take up a cross.
For what good is it? What profit it a man? What profit
is it for a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul? You must be willing to lay down
your life, take up a cross. For he who loses his life for
the sake of the gospel will surely find it. But he who seeks to
save his life is dead and stays there. Nothing but a Fear of impending
judgment. We are the children of light
because God has saved us from being the children of darkness.
We do not own our life. Christ bought it. And we did
not own it before he bought it. The devil owned it. And I could
really argue that that's not a true statement, but for the
sake of our example, let us stand. We once were, like the rest of
humanity, objects of destruction. And I want you to see this. Adorning the doctrine of God
our Savior is putting on Christ. How do we do that? This is the
practical portion of the sermon that frustrates me. Because I don't want you to hear
and then go, oh wow, now finally something I can do. No. This
is what Christ does in us and through us. OK, but yet the scripture
teaches practical things in matters of doctrine because of spiritual
doctrine and truth. So therefore, we must preach
it. It'd be really easy for me just to spiritualize it all.
But that's bad hermeneutics. When we put on Christ, several
ways I could look at it, but I want to look at it for today's
text and say it this way, that means that we Do what is counter
to the ways of the world. Let's just do that. Slaves were
rebelling, Paul says, slaves obey. Slaves were haughty, were
exercising some type of entitlement. And Paul says, slaves be humble
and make peace at all times. Slaves were stealing because
they weren't, they felt like they were due something, small
things, not big things. Nobody ever noticed. And Paul
says, don't pilfer. Don't do that. You don't deserve
that. That's not yours. Don't take
it. Just like you don't deserve the adornment of Christ that's
been given to you and put on you. Live in it. Does God steal
it back? No. Don't steal. So we do what's counter to the
world. How do we do that? We obey when the world stands to rebel. We obey God when the world rebels
against him. We don't say it's just the sign
of the times. We stand firm, even if we're
not able to do anything else in this world freely. We obey
God. We obey. We are humble when the
world takes a place of honor, when the world stands and goes,
look at this glory. We stay humble because Christ
humbled himself. Therefore, God set him in the
seat of honor because it was his. We rest in the position of slavery
with all the knowledge of knowing we're really free. That's how
we put on Christ. Christ was the God of creation,
was, is the God of creation, and he walked this earth as a
mere man. And John says we've seen the fullness of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Paul says the same thing, the
second Corinthians four, six. And that from seeing the fullness
of God in the face of Christ, sinners are made alive. We put on Christ. We hope in
the fact that we have been made slaves to righteousness. He who
had no sin became sin, that we might become the righteousness
of God, that we might be the righteousness of God. Jesus became
sin so we could become righteousness. Friends, that is the adorning
of Jesus Christ when we strive for righteousness, when we hope
for righteousness, when we rest in righteousness, when we pursue
righteousness, when we practice righteousness, not lawlessness.
We don't give way to temptation. We don't give way to the flesh.
We don't give way to sin. We set no occasion. We make no
occasion at the table for the flesh. The doctrine of God continues
to teach us. The doctrine of God continues to motivate us.
Does it motivate you? What can make you see and love
holiness? I want you to understand that your
love for the love of God for you should be enough. What? Your love for the love of God
for you. For God, in his great mercy,
because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive
with Christ. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only son. Friends, the love of God for
you is enough for you to be motivated to put Christ on in everything,
to adorn yourself with the doctrine of God. John Piper wrote a book years
ago called God is the Gospel, entitled God of the Gospel. I'd
highly recommend it. And you try to talk to people
about the doctrine of God being God. And it frustrates us as humans,
because we really do. We really do systematize facts
from people. Well, ask yourself this question,
how are you known? If one were to ask, without them knowing
you were around, what do you think about so-and-so, speaking
of you? And you were able to hear, what
would they say? Or if someone asked you, who is so-and-so? How would you ask that question?
Oh, I know him. He does this and does that and
does this and works here and has these children and does these
things. There are nothing but facts about that person, but
that's how you've identified them in their character and nature.
That's how you've explained them as who they are. If Jesus says
in John 17, this is eternal life, that they know you, the one true
God and the son Jesus whom you have sent. How do we know God? Through doctrine, through teaching
of who God is. But it's not the teaching. in
the mind that comes to this place of understanding that we work
through it and get it right. It's the power of God through
teaching of God that brings us to the light of God, that brings
us alive because of God. So if that's it. Stop separating
scripture from who Jesus is. That's why John is clear when
he tries to make the parallel, when he says that the word in
the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the
word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. When
Jesus says that the scriptures speak of me when Jesus says that
I fulfilled all prophecy, when Jesus says that Moses spoke of
me, that Abraham longed for my day. The Scripture is not just
the writing, it's the revelation of God unto eternal life, unto
worship, unto holiness. And that's why, as I beat my
head against the proverbial wall, so often, not only for you, but
for myself, and know that it is just through the study of
his word that God will affect change radically in my life and
radically in the lives of those around me, and that it will impress
upon me the power of prayer for others and that God will move
based on his will and his desires graciously out of the overflow
of his working in me, his word and prayer for you. There's still
the small little whisper. That goes, what else can I do?
What else can I say, where else can I, how else can I get in
there? So the power of God's regeneration
who made you alive is the power of God. For everything, for all
for life and for godly living, second Peter. I guess the question now is,
as we close, is do you despise these things? Do you hate the
Course? You're like, I don't want to
do this anymore. I'm tired of trying. Good. Quit.
I had a very weird guy. He was a mentalist, literally,
for a living. A mentalist. He wanted us to
see his show one day in the parking lot in Alameda County, California. Me and one of my students. I can't remember what
I was going to say there. Standing there, he says, I'll
come see me this Thursday. And he goes, the intern says,
we'll try. And he turns around, he says,
try. He said, would you show me a
try? Could you describe it to me?
Could you give me one? He said, you're either going
to do it or you're not. You're either going to be filled
with the Spirit of God and live it out or you're not. You're
not going to try. You're not going to affect change
in you. You're not going to affect change in your life. You're not
going to affect change in your home. You're not going to affect change in
your community. You're not going to be able to try to do anything
because the more you try, child of God, the more God will allow
you to keep doing and he'll show you the fruitlessness and the
frivolousness of your trying. He's God, we're not. We know that we do. Nobody went,
oh, I never thought that. You have taught me something
today. I'm not God. Gee. Could I have a V8? No. We know that. But there's that
small hair that says, what else can I do? Let me show you this. Look at
this text. Look at verse 11. I believe when we say, what else
can we do? It's even if we're a child of God, most of us are.
And we say, what else can we do? We are actually not believing
on Jesus Christ at that moment. It's not a loss of salvation,
it's not a loss of redemption, it's not a loss of justification.
It's just that moment in our weakness, we think there's something
else, there's something more. It's like if somebody told you
today, there's five magic hand gestures that you could do and
a million dollars cash would appear right in front of you. Really, what are they? No, that's not, that's too easy. That's not it. But even that's
not a good analogy because there's not even a hand gesture, there's
not even an action, there's not even a work that we can accomplish
to move God in any way on our behalf. God has already done
all of that and he has effected salvation for us in Christ Jesus.
And we are his and we have been bought and paid for. Look at
verse 11. Trust in Christ, for the grace
of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training
us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. to live self-controlled,
upright, and godly lives in our present age, waiting for our
blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and
Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from
the lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his
own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these
things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one disregard
you. So every question that you just had was just answered. How
do I adorn it? What am I to do? You work out
that which God is already working in you. There it is. It's so frustrating. I don't
know about you, but I knew what was coming and I was still tense.
How am I going to do it? How is it going to play out in
my life? When am I ever going to get it right? Just know that
God has righted it already. OK? For the grace of God has
appeared. It has been given to you. The
grace of God has been given unto you in Christ, for the sake of
Christ. God's mercy has been given you. It's granted. It's not dangling
like a carrot that you can't reach. It's been awarded to you. after you were already dead,
before you were alive, and now forever. It's been given to you. And it's
not just salvation, it says, for all people. Now, we know
that every person in the world will not be saved, for Jesus
says, broad is the way of destruction, narrow is the path that leads
to righteousness, few will find it. He also says that not everyone
who says to me, Lord, Lord, bring the kingdom of heaven, but only
those who do the will of my father in heaven. What is it that we
must do to be doing the works of God, Jesus says in John 6,
believe on the sun and may I sin. Have faith that the Son of God
is enough, that his flesh and his blood has satisfied the wrath
of God against us, that that is all that we need, because
the grace of God has appeared and his name is Jesus Christ.
He's forever and today, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the end. He will not fail. He has succeeded. He will save
every lost sheep in the world. And he's not a particular lover
of any specific people. He loves his church. And He has
saved them. He has paid for their sins. Whether
they know it or not, their sins are paid. It's not every human
being, but it's all peoples. The high people, like the older
men and the older women. The sort of guys that are heading
that way, like the younger men and the younger women. And the
nobodies, the low people, the slaves. The Jews are All people,
there are specific people who have and had a specific purpose. But Jesus is the Savior of all
nations, every tongue, every tribe, forever. He's brought
salvation to you by His grace, not because of who you are and
how high you sit and how wonderfully, amazingly obedient you have been,
but because of His mercy and His love. And what has he taught
us because of that? In his spirit within us, he's
taught us to renounce. What can I do to strive for holiness? You realize holiness isn't ours
to reach for. It's granted to us and it's Christ
to give. And so along the way, what gets
in the way? Ungodliness and worldly passions.
So we renounce those things. That's how we strive for holiness.
We're not trying to be holy. We're declared already. The pursuit
of holiness is a renouncement of wickedness. There's a wicked
option? Not mine. I don't want it. Not
going to happen. The thoughts coming to your mind?
I must love that person. I must forgive that person. I
must pray for that person. You ever pray for a murdering
rapist who's wanted in four states?
Well, me and a brother prayed for one the other night. And our prayer is that God would
catch him and save him before he's killed. And if we were to confess things,
we would have to say, yeah, you know what? When everything first
starts happening, when you know when there's a guy on the loose
and he's hurting people and you think, oh, I hope they get him.
I hope they kill him. I don't want him to hurt anybody
else. What if his hurting of me would
be the very last thing you heard that through that God might save
you. Didn't Paul say stuff like that in Romans? Oh, if I could
just give my salvation away for my brothers. See, that's the heart of Christ. We young men be careful what
you say, because Somebody will speak evil of you if you don't
watch your mouth. That was last week. Those are one of those
things, young men, we get in trouble for when we say stupid
things that are not Christlike, even though they may be good,
as the world sees it. He's looking after folks. What
about that one? We renounce ungodliness. We forgive,
we love, we sacrifice, we renounce worldly passions. We don't love
the world. We see them and we go, what an
idol. Don't want that, God. You've given me righteousness,
now work it in me. Take that passion from me. And
sometimes that passion is so tangible, we can literally remove
it from our homes, from our lives. The gospel, the doctrine of God
has taught us to live self-controlled. It has taught us to live upright
and godly lives. How? Because we're waiting for
our blessed hope, who is Christ? The appearing of the glory of
our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for
us to redeem us from what? All lawlessness. So if we walk
in lawlessness, we lie and we do not practice the truth. If
we practice sin, we're not following Christ. We cannot say we're in
Christ when we cannot live as he has created us. We cannot
say we live like he has made us when we trust in ourselves
to walk in that way. Christ is redeemed of people
for the sake of making them pure. He 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. And let's close. Christ died to redeem a people.
that are pure. To the pure, all things are pure.
But to the defiled, all things are defiled. The outcome of purity
is a pure zeal for purity, is a pure zeal for Christ, is a
pure zeal for holiness, is a pure zeal for good works, which are
the adornment of God. Declare these things Exhort and
rebuke with all authority. You know what I think Paul is
saying there to us? Unsettle the hearts of men. Take
the platform of their foundation, which is the world and which
is dead, and turn it upside down. Teach them that they can walk
this way because of the glorious grace of God through Christ in
them. Unsettle the souls of men. Shake the hearts of men. Rattle
the minds of men that they may repent of their sins and push
off idols from the cliff of apathy. And do it not with your power,
Titus. Do it not within your power,
James. Do it not within your power, church. And not your authority. But do it with all authority.
Authority in the one. who sent me, Paul, a slave of
God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of God's elect and
their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.
See, the thing is just the same argument. So with all the authority of
God, preach and declare these things, exhort those to walk
this way, rebuke those who do not. And through this very preaching,
God can bring the vilest of sinners to repentance and the lowest
of slaves and the darkest of darts to the place of the most
amazing joy that is indescribable and inexpressible. That only
the spirit of God within can explain in the hearts of his
own. Do not disregard this. Let's
pray. Oh, dear God. Give peace to our troubled hearts. Give
peace to our troubled bodies, to our troubled minds. Just as
you've given peace to our dead souls. Lord, as the children
have played and sat and listened I pray that you would so please,
if it is your will, in your benevolent mercy toward them, God, would
you bring them alive in your Son, Jesus, as they've heard
that their sin is only overcome through the blood of the Lamb. Give us zeal for goodness. Not
for the sake of goodness, not for community, though we have
seen that it's for the profit of people. But Lord, for the
most important thing, that it's for the profit of your name and
for the adornment of your doctrine. For the sake of your glory. Make us. In such a way that we
cannot get over this word. That would shake us through the
week every minute of our day. And that the outcome of this
would be an everlasting joy and absolute peace and an unshakable
hope. That we rest on and that we ride
on as you carry us to make us more like Christ until the day
you set us perfect before you. In Jesus we stand and pray and
in his name we go. Amen.