You'll find Titus chapter 2 if
you haven't found it already. In the days in which we live,
it's very easy to see a few things that can occupy our minds. When you think of the culture,
you think of the world we live in, what's wrong with it? Who'd like to begin? If we started
now and we begin to make a list, when the Lord comes back, if
it's ten thousand years from now, the list will continue to
be going. The perpetuity of problems in
the world today will never cease. The cultural issues of our society
will never diminish. And no matter what we think about
what we think, The truth is, is that until the Lord Jesus
comes to establish peace forever and put all things under his
feet, we will see the problems that are in the world. Now, the
answer to these problems is where I believe the church and doctrine
and an application began to separate. We know what sin looks like.
We know what wickedness is. We know the reality of the human
condition. We understand the holiness of
God and his judgment and wrath there upon the earth. And we
realize the gospel of Jesus Christ as it establishes peace and hope
and affection from the Lord through Christ that we might be made
right. And we know that it is the gospel that sets these things
correctly in the world. But I believe it's a misnomer
when we come to the place in our Christian faith and as the
church come to a place where we think that through social
change, we can actually establish a better world. How about you? Do you see that
there's a possibility of social change through benevolence? Do
you see that there's a possibility of cultural transformation through
certain programs or ministries? Now, you may say, well, you can't
say that that's not the case. I'm not saying that lives cannot
be changed and that behaviors cannot be modified. I am saying
very succinctly, though, that the scripture teaches that the
morals and the heart through which might change behavior will
not be transformed apart from the preaching of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. So no matter how smooth we are
or how culturally relevant we are, we're never going to see
transformation in the world, except when the word of God pierces
the heart of a sinner and makes that one alive in Christ. Therefore,
then that which was dead is now alive, so much so that his heart
and mind and passions and affections will also be transformed. There's
this attitude in our culture today when the church tries to
say, hey, is that becoming of a Christian? Is that really how
you ought to be thinking? Is that really how you ought
to be acting? Is that really what you ought
to be saying? And people have this mindset to say, I have the
right to do that which I please. That's none of your business.
To which I would reply, it may not be my business, but it's
our business. Because the church of Jesus Christ
is a reflection of his wisdom and glory, has been commanded
and empowered to pursue holiness, purity, righteousness. So not
only is it just not my business or your business the way each
of us live and act and speak, but it's our business collectively,
because my hand cannot go and do that which my body does not
desire. Because if it does, it must be
lobbed off and thrown into the fire because it's wrong or it's
damaged or it's diseased or it's rotted. So someone else could
say in this very vein of thinking, I have a relationship with God
and I can have a relationship with God on my terms and my relationship
with God is nobody else's concern. And you might think, who in the
world would say that? But if I ask all of you, you
probably have heard someone say something like that very recently
in your own life. You've probably been in a place
and maybe someone in your own home or family or work environment
or maybe even in a church, hopefully not this congregation, but somewhere
in your past, someone has said such things. I can have a relationship
with God in my way and it's no one else's business. Well, it's
the business of God and God himself is in the business of revealing
himself to humanity and only through the special revelation
of Jesus Christ, through the written word of God as given
through the apostles. And so if one comes and says,
I know God and that person knows God, not through the word of
God as taught in sound order, then that person knows not the
God of scripture, but the God of the earth. And we know that
the God of the earth blinds the eyes of unbelievers to keep them
from seeing the light of the gospel. But God is faithful to
shine the light in darkness and the darkness will not overcome
it. Some people would say, I know God and I have a relationship
with Jesus. I chose years ago to follow Jesus. But I'm not giving up this and
I'm not giving up that. And no one's going to tell me
how to run my life. No one's going to make me feel
convicted when they preach. I'm not going to be a part of
that type of ministry. Well, why then do you call yourself
a child of light if you walk in purposeful darkness? That's
none of your business. I've heard people say, I know
the truth. Just recently I heard someone
say, I know the truth, and I say, well, the Bible says this. Well, then you're wrong in your
interpretation. Well, what do you think it says?
Well, it says what you said it says. Then your truth is wrong. Well, the Bible is made up of
men anyway. Made up of men, whatever that meant. I think she meant
written by men, which she's right. But the Bible is the truth. Jesus is the truth. And he undergirds
the written scripture from Moses to Matz and says that all of
these things speak of me, point to me and reveal me. So you may
know the truth or one may know the truth and it might not be
the truth. Others have said to me very recently,
well, I'm a Bible scholar. To which I reply, Oh, well, then
you should know what I'm talking about. Much like Jesus said to
Nicodemus in John chapter three, who was a Bible scholar and Jesus
very sarcastically reminds him, do not marvel that I say to you
these things. Are you not the teacher of all
Israel? And yet you do not understand how indicting is that when someone
claims to be a Bible scholar, but stands in ignorance of truth.
who would come to say, well, this is what the church should
be doing today, because what we see in the Bible was for yesterday. And friends, those of you who
know me, one of my pet, pet, pet places of worship and doctrine
is the immutability of God, not so much even in the character
of God and the nature of God, but in the word of God, even
in translate, even in understanding and transmission. God is absolutely
immutable. And so if God changes, then the
word changes. And if the word changes, then
God changes. And if that's the God we serve, he is no God. Some people have even said to
me this past Friday, well, I'm a scholar and so is my friend
here and we know what we're talking about. And I just smile and. Deep in my heart, I ask the question,
if a scholar is a scholar, then how come the scholarship is so
poor? Well, no matter how great our scholarship is, without the
Spirit of God, there is poor scholarship. There's poor truth.
There's poor understanding. There's poor recognition of things. There's poor application and
there's poor teaching. And as we looked at last week
in the week before, we saw these false teachers here in Crete
and they were teaching doctrinally. They were teaching bad things.
They were saying, thus saith the Lord, this way or the Bible
teaches this or God says this or Jesus does this. Or maybe
what would Jesus do or how would Jesus speak or what would Jesus
wear? I heard a comedian years ago
in 1988 talking about this very issue, about how people fight
over issues in the church and how we should apply certain doctrine.
Well, how much lipstick should a woman wear if she loves Jesus?
And his response to that, I don't know. It depends on her lips. Well, how long should a dress
be if she really loves Jesus? I don't know. It depends on the
length of her legs. We're not making light of modesty. We're
not making a lot of. But is that really where we are
in the world today? Is that really the banner of
the church to stand and make a mantra out of what we look
like and how we behave and how we walk in such ways to look
the right part? And no one, unless they have
this color on, is of God. Well, that's what we saw that
to the pure, all things are pure. Not just the pure understanding
of pure things, but the pure effectual living because of these
pure things, we see pure lives. Friends, this is the absolute
quintessential expression of the test of discipleship, that
you are born again and that you pursue purity. And that's where
Paul is here, writing to Titus in Crete. And that's why he is
saying, just as Epimenides said, that the Cretans are liars and
evil beasts and lazy gluttons. Your own prophet says these things,
and this is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply. Friends, Christians should strive
for purity in all ways. And friends, striving for purity
is not legalism. Legalism is thinking that the
effect of your purity grants you favor with God. Legalism
considers your effectual sanctification as a banner to be worn, as a
badge of honor, as one who has made it or arrived. Not only
is it legalistic, it's very haughty, very proud, and by the very nature
of Jesus' teaching, he says that God opposes the proud but gives
grace to the humble. The meek shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are the lowly, those who mourn, for they shall be
comforted. But look at chapter two, verse one. But as for you,
here's a contrast, the contrast now begins with Paul sort of. In the summary of chapter one,
verses 10 through 16, now in verse one of chapter two, he
says, but there's a contrast. But for you, these people think
this way. These people do this way. These
people are teaching this way and these people are living this
way. These people are affecting this type of living and understanding
and these people. But as for you, look what he
says here. Teach what accords with sound
doctrine. Now, we're going to spend a lot
of time on that verse right there. It would be very easy to say,
OK, he's just repeating himself by saying that the elder must
hold fast to the trustworthy word is taught. Well, that would
be good, but is he really saying that? He's not repeating himself
in that regard. He's saying, teach what accords
with sound doctrine. Just as he said earlier in the
in the beginning part of this letter, when he says, call a
slave of God and the apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake
of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth,
which accords with godliness. So now we see this phrase twice,
almost in just a few sentences, that which accords with godliness
and teach that which accords with what sound doctrine. So
what does he mean? How do you teach what's teachable?
That's teaching. How do you teach soundly what
sound teaching? What does he mean there? What
does accord with God in this mean? What is accord with sound
doctrine mean? It's not doctrine teaching. Absolutely. Let's look at this for a second.
This contrast between the false teachers of chapter one and the
true elders that Paul has said for Titus to establish here in
Crete may seem like just this Just this simple thing that we
just sort of, OK, we get it there to be this way, there's to be
this way. But I think there's a deeper essence here that Paul
begins to express through the remainder of his letter. He's
not just saying standard right doctrine, because then right
doctrine is up for grabs, is it not? We see the foundation
of that doctrine in chapter one. We understand the sovereignty
of God. We understand the preeminence of Christ. We understand the
eternality of the Trinity. We understand the creation of
the world. We understand that God's holiness
and his righteousness must be upheld and that because of that,
the condemnation of sinners, not sin, but sinners must be
put on the table. And then we see God in his mercy,
causing people to be born again through Jesus Christ to a living
hope, period, being set to the right side of the Father with
Christ for where the head is, the body also is. And now we
see all of these things and it would be very, very simplistic
of us to just say, OK, we got that. We're not this way. And
sound teaching means that. But then what about the rest
of it? What about the rest of the sound doctrine? OK, we get
the reality here. But what about what these people
were saying? Paul even made comment in this first chapter that those
who even spoke maybe what would be right in their wording were
wicked in their speaking and vain in their speaking and worthless
in their speaking because they were false teachers. They had
no validity. They were detestable. They were
disobedient. They were insubordinate. And so what we see there is this
teaching and this action, very much like Jesus says to listen
to what they say, but do not do what they do. For they honor
me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And not
just as much because we see this quote circumcision party attitude
that they felt that their circumcision or their Judaism was a badge
of honor, not unto justification, but a greater level of spirituality,
not the not the Judaizers, but but the circumcision. And because
they were a little bit more spiritual for a little bit longer, they
felt that now this Christianity would come into a place. So from
their very teaching, they taught from a deceitful way and they
taught in a way that was shamefully gainful for them, which would
put them not just financially in a place where people would
follow them, but most certainly would put them in a powerful
place where people would look at them and esteem them and go,
oh, if I could just be like that. Shameful game. But not you. But as for you, teach what accords
with sound doctrine, teach what accords with sound action, teach
what accords with sound teaching. Not just the right stuff on paper,
but the right stuff in your shoes, not just where you're looking
with your eyes, where you're walking with your feet, not just what you
say with your mouth, but where you go and what you do with your
hands. Not just what you tell people is true, but what truly
comes out of the heart. It's not what goes into the mouth
that defiles a man, but what comes out. For where your treasure
is, there also is your heart. What is the point? The point
is. Paul, for Titus' sake and for
the elders' sake, for the sake of Jesus Christ Church, those
who have been given the knowledge of the truth through the authority
of Christ given to Paul as the apostle, he's saying to them,
there's a marked difference between you and them. There's a marked
difference. And sound teaching, what is our
little catchphrase for Titus? Produces sound living. Right
teaching produces right living. But right teaching is not just
pulpiteering. Right teaching is not just instruction.
Right teaching is example. Right teaching is saying now
that this is true, therefore, this follows. And that's what
Paul's about to do. It's not just saying stand right on the
issues of justification, stand right on the knowledge of redemption,
stand right on the proper understanding of God's holiness and his salvation
through Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter that our systematic
theology book is closed and sealed and perfect. If our feet don't
walk out of that, into obedience and purity and light. We are
liars and we do not practice the truth. You see the first
John there. Practicing the truth is living as Jesus lived. Because
he affects us in us. We put to death the flesh. Why? Because he's already crucified
it. And when it's alive in us, it's because we've given it a
place to sit. We've given it a place at the table and we've
even dipped food for it. So there's a marked difference
between You and them, Paul says, the others were insubordinate.
What else? Vain, deceptive, greedy, power
hungry. They dealt more with the commands
of men rather than the commands of God. Their minds were defiled. Their hearts were defiled. Their
words were defiled. They were detestable, disobedient and unfit
for any good work. There's a summary of what Paul
said about those false teachers. And so if you're if they're like
this, but you teach. Teach what accords with sound
doctrine. He told he told Titus, he said,
you rebuke them sharply. And then he says, now you teach
what accords with sound doctrine. There's a big difference in the
idea of teaching, especially in this Greek word here and rebuking
sharply. It would go to the point where
even though it says rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound
in the faith, rebuke them sharply is not teaching. Rebuking sharply
is dealing with false teachers and heretics and apostates, not
sheep. We don't stomp all over sheep.
We don't beat up sheep. We come in and we grab sheep
and we keep them from running off the cliff of despair. We
keep them from running into the wolf pack. We beat wolves and
we shoot wolves. We don't shoot sheep. No shepherd
does that. And so the shepherd and the under
shepherds alike teach the words of Christ and the sheep among
them hear the word of Christ. They obey the words of Christ
and they go in and out of green pastures and they are satisfied. Do you see the imagery? Do you
see what John 10 is going to look like? It's all there, everything, it's
all there, the ministry of Jesus Christ and the gospels. is in
every epistle in the New Testament. That's where it comes from. Jesus
didn't give the apostles this obscure stuff that they'd never
heard publicly. He taught them this, and the
Spirit infused it into their hearts and minds. They knew it
in their brains the day He was arrested. They preached it for
years. Peter's like... Jesus is like,
who do you say that I am? What does Peter say? You are
the Christ, the Son of the living God. Blessed are you, Peter,
Simon, for man has not revealed this to you. What does he say?
But the Spirit of God. So now the Spirit of God speaking
through Peter in such a way to profess Christ. But in Peter's
mind, he had the doctrine right, but he denied it. Thomas, the
same way. The other the other disciples,
what did they do? They ran and hid for their everlasting
life in the flesh. John goes to the crucifixion.
But he ran first anyway. So. This teaching, this comparison,
it's not about just having the understanding, it's about having
the feeling of God to effectively walk in the power of that understanding
as Christ has commanded us to walk. There's a comparison between
these two groups of people. Both of these groups of people
are in the church and among the church and confess to be the
church. These aren't the pagans across
the bridge living in open debauchery. These are your good people. Remember
that last week? These are your people who claim
purity, who may even do everything that you've ever desired for
them to do for you with all affection, but Paul says they're detestable.
There's a comparison of their in location. They're still there.
But in a deeper comparison, Paul is comparing them in these ways.
He said there's a comparison between the false teachers and
the church and specifically the elders of the church and the
outcome of the teaching of good elders. There's a comparison
of the teaching and the actions. I'm going to see that that is
which is taught is also lived. There's a comparison between
the speech of the false teachers and the truth of God's word.
There's a comparison of motive. There's a comparison of hearts.
There's a comparison of attitude and there's a comparison of desire.
There's a comparison of influence, not only in the influence of
of of the one teaching, but the influence of those being of those
giving the teaching who influences. The devil. How does the devil
influence teachers in the church? And friends, I use I use the
reality there just real quickly of Thomas and Peter, because
they were with Christ. Don't think that the devil can't
use my mouth. He will. He wants to. The devil will use your mouth,
too. Well, you get that. Well, does God not speak through
Peter when he says, who do you say that I am? And he professes
it, but we know we don't believe it because he walks away. Even
in John six, do you want to leave to the twelve and Peter as a
spokesman? And I imagine they're all standing
around and Peter goes, who shall we go for? You have the words
of eternal life. And all of a sudden, yeah, we're with Peter. Judas
even. Yeah, buddy, we're here. The speaking and God speaks through
Peter and then the devil speaks to Peter because are we going
to go die? I've got to go die so that I
may be glorified, so that you may be saved. I've got to do
whatever... You know, the washing of the feet and everything else,
Peter was just a very hard-headed man. And Jesus doesn't say, shut
up, Peter, you've got it all wrong. Right after Jesus tells
him that upon the rock of his confession, he will build the
church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, Peter grabs
Jesus to the side and says, you don't have to die, I've got you.
And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. God speaks through him, and then
the devil speaks through him. Same daggone sentence. So what are we doing? Who influences
the false teachers? There's a comparison there. The
influence of the false teachers. How does the devil do that? Well,
the devil does that. And this is a whole sermon and
stuff, and I tried to be sort of like more of a discussion that went
nowhere. But the devil influences believers
and unbelievers alike in the same way, through citation. The devil influences when we
take our eyes off the Word of God and we begin to contemplate
too deeply about things that are not revealed to us there.
When we go to places other than God's Word and we hold fast to
what we think God's Word might say because of what Pastor Tipton
said, rather than seeing what God's Word says on our own scene,
we are being influenced by the devil. When we go to the place
where we start to rest and assurance on certain things because we
just have this, we just have this mindset that we're right.
And we're not going to test it out. We've been right about this
for 100 years. We're not going to test this out. We're in trouble.
We're being influenced to be complacent. And the influence
of false teachers, for the most part, looks like the world culture. Here's another one. A heart to
share with people, a heart to give to people, a heart to care
for people. We ought to care and share and give as Christians.
It's an automatic. And some people say, well, see,
they're doing what's good. They must be right because look
what they're doing. And that's why so many scholarly churches
who have right teaching, but sit on their behinds and never
evangelize and never care for the world, never care for the
church. Why would you say that they are really in Christ? Do
you not think the devil has right doctrine? Absolutely. And ultimately, there's a comparison
here of driving force, what I would call passion, which is your driving
force. We think about the passion of the Christ. What is the driving
force of Jesus Christ to do what he did? The glory of the Father
for the redemption of the people of God, period. That's the force,
that's the passion through which Christ lived and died in obedience. His passion was to redeem a people
for himself so that the Father would be glorified in his righteousness,
so that his righteousness would be upheld. So what drove everything
that Jesus says and does is his passion. What drives false teachers
is their passion. What was it? Their game. You
can become very popular meeting the needs of the world with your
tongue. And then we're here to the next
word here, but as for you, there's the contrast, the next word there,
teach. Teach this word is different
than and just the sense is not just about instruct. It's not
just it's a milder word that means to speak, speak that which
accords with sound teaching. There's a paraphrase there of
the Greek. Talk that, speak that to the
church, which accord with sound teaching. So this is a contrast
with how to handle false teachers, which is reviewed sharply to
how to handle the church who may or may not be dealing with
things correctly. The church listens to the voice
of God through his word. So teach them. Teach them. Speak to them. Teach them the
works of God. Teach them the soundness of God's
teaching. And teach them, not only that,
teach them the soundness of walking in such teaching. Teach them
what obedience looks like. See how we get that mixed up?
See how there's a lot of times in the seasons of our life, in
certain ministries, certain pastors, certain teachers, that all they
do is teach about how to live like Jesus and look like Jesus,
but they never show us Jesus to start with. And then there's
a lot of others that teach us everything about what Jesus looks
like, but they never want to get to the practical stuff because
they think pragmatism isn't important. Well, it's not. But when the
Bible commands that it is, how are we able to walk? Because
of who Christ is. And who is Christ? So what? Now
we can walk. How do we handle this? This is
speaking, preaching, teaching that is instructive unto good
works, which God has prepared beforehand for us to walk in.
That those under false teaching and producing false teaching
do not see it. They do not see this as good. They don't understand it. They
don't comprehend it. They don't see the outcome of
their teaching producing changed lives. Everyone in the sound
of my voice, if I sit here and gave you 30 minutes of how you
should how you should treat your neighbor, you could go put that
into practice. But if I gave you 30 minutes
on how Christ loved you in spite of your wickedness and for the
glory of the Father, submitted himself in obedience to the cross
as a common slave and criminal and died that the wrath of God
may be taken from you. And that God loves you when you
hated him. And now you're alive in Christ.
We spent 30 minutes on that. And then in the party shot, I
go, you need to love your neighbor like that. I don't have to come up with
12 points on how to love your neighbor. It'll happen. That's
the preaching of the gospel versus garbage. And we emphasize that
which is not emphasized in scripture sometimes, and we overemphasize
that which is not overemphasize the scripture, to the detriment
of Jesus Christ. And I believe that's what that
false teaching looked like here in Crete. I don't believe it
was so far off. Who planted the church there?
The apostles did. You think it was so far off? You think they would come back
and... I mean, look at Galatia. It wasn't so far off. It was,
here's Pauline theology. Here's what these guys taught
us. But you know what we see in Scripture, too, we see in
some of the writing, talking about circumcision and we see
our fellow Jews, they got something we don't. We need that second
blessing. Let's get it. So it's Jesus plus this and Jesus
plus that. We weren't there, we don't know
specifically, but we know from what we get here that in this
argument, that the comparisons reveal that which was happening.
Teach this. Teaching sound doctrine, teaching
what accords with sound doctrine. First, understand sound doctrine.
Sound doctrine requires, let's just review chapter one, a knowledge
of the truth, a rebirth by the spirit, regeneration. And then it requires the fruit
of God. What is it? Humility, understanding,
power, strength, being rooted and founded, rooted and grounded
in love, filled with the fullness of God, a reflection of God's
righteousness, a reflection of God's purity. Where do you get
that? Well, we were in Ephesians for
a long time, Ephesians 3. Paul prays, now, for this reason,
I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven
and on earth is named. And according, what? It says, according to the
riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power
through the Holy Spirit inside of your soul, so that
Christ may dwell in your hearts, Richly through faith that you
being rooted and grounded in love may have the strength to
comprehend what all with all the other saints, the breadth
and the length and the height and the depth of excuse me, to
know the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. All knowledge. That you may be
filled with all the fullness of God. Then there's the doxology.
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than anything
we ever ask or think according to the power at work within us.
To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout
all generations forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3.14-21 So that's the soundness of teaching. That's what's required to get
sound doctrine, is the fullness of God in us. To teach sound
doctrine requires a desire for truth. It requires a desire for
holiness, a discipline of study, a calling of God, a focus on
shepherding, not the behavior, the changing of behavior. It
requires a full faith in the work of God through Jesus Christ,
not one's own teaching, not one's own understanding. But now to
the meat of all this. Teach what accords with sound
teaching. Let's look at it. What does it
mean to accord? Well, the knowledge of the truth
comes through sound teaching. We've established that in chapter
one. The knowledge of the truth comes through right doctrine.
So sound teaching, right teaching. The knowledge of the truth accords
with Godliness. That means it produces that.
It goes with that. If this is given, then this is
the outcome. And so if the knowledge of the truth accords with godliness,
then the knowledge of the truth, if we're teaching truth, we're
teaching rightly, then right teaching produces right living.
So teach what accords with sound teaching. So what accords with
it? Sound teaching brings sound living. The understanding, the reception,
the fullness, the power, the absolute just I don't know how
you set the grace of God complete in the word through the teaching
of the gospel, through the teaching of the apostles puts effectively
and certainly see, this is where I want you to understand. Certainly
and effectively, it produces right. And if you don't have
right living, if I don't have right living, it's because we're
either being disobedient or we're not born again. The knowledge of the truth which
brings what comes with it, according to sound teaching. I hope you
can see the comparison. So in other words, Paul is saying
now to them, teach the fruitful actions of fruitful teaching.
And if we walk in darkness, we're not in the light of Christ. Paul
and John are on the same page, are they not? Teaching sound
teaching has a sound audience. Because what happens is that
we end up in this idea that we're supposed to teach the world.
Listen to me now. We're supposed to teach the world
to act like Jesus. And this is why I started and
I won't get through with this. That's why I started with this
idea of expressly wanting you to think about this cultural
problems. We want abortionists not to abort.
We want homosexuals not to be homosexual. We want drunkards
not to be drunk. And we want drug addicts not
to be addicts. And we want liars to tell the truth. And we want...
And that's what the church is about. I want you to act this
way. Why? The Bible says exactly that.
The Bible is not written to the lost. New Testament, not written
to the lost. Old Testament, not written to
us. Written to the Jews. We get the benefit from it was
written for us to read. New Testament, not written to
the lost, written to the church for the lost to hear and come
to life. Why don't we see that? I used to think just never even
thought about it, I used to think. by application of how the Word
of God was effective in my life, that I always had it ready and
was boiling up inside of me and ready to be pitched out any time
for the lost or the blind to see. And we see that. Paul tells the church, the preaching
of the gospel, opens the eyes of unbelievers. But the letters in themselves
were not written to those unbelievers, but to the saints. And so Paul
and Peter and James and John and Luke and Matthew and Mark,
at no time in any way, in any shape or form, when they put
pen to paper or scribe to paper, did they ever have an audience
other than the people of God through Jesus Christ to receive
those letters, to instruct in those letters, to actually have
those letters be the grace of God, to be effective in their
life unto right understanding and unto right living. And that's why you see you, those
you are. And then they all wrote to Timothy. He didn't write to those false
teachers. Paul wrote to Titus. He didn't write to the false
teachers. Now, will some false teachers hear Titus letter from
Paul? Yes, because the church is instructed
in these things. And so there may be some among
them. And even then they got reviewed sharply because it was
instructed to Paul from Paul's Titus to do that. And so the audience of this right
teaching, of this right behavior, is the regenerate in Jesus Christ. Paul tells the Corinthian church,
do not judge the world. That's the only place that's
there. Only time you see that, do not judge the world. And the
imperative to say, do not judge with nothing else, with no clause,
with no conditional statement. Is there when Paul says, do not
judge the world, don't you know that God will judge the world? But you should be making judgments
among you. You should be looking at each
other. And we don't like the word judge because we look at
it as some as this. We look at it in the wrong way.
That's what I hate about the English language is it's just
so frustrating. One word can have a billion meanings.
Once teenagers get a hold of it, it means something totally
opposite. It's crazy. Or as they like to say, it's
cray cray. For real, they say that. I don't know who they are,
but they don't say it in my house, but they say it other places.
Crazy. It's hysterical. It's weird.
But if we are to look at judgment, We are to discern within ourselves
and within our brothers and sisters who stand with Christ and profess
Him and ask ourselves, do we all walk according to the instruction
that we've been given? The audience of good teaching
are the people of Jesus Christ in the church. And there's several
groups that we see there. Now, just listen, we don't have
to read all this text again. The audience of the sound teaching
are older men, older women, Younger men, younger women, and younger
men, and then slaves. Who else are there? Dogs, cats,
and cattle. Rodents, and fleas, and ticks.
They're not part of the church. Older men, younger men. Older
women, younger women. And slaves. Who may be all of
the above. As a matter of fact, in some
parts of the culture in the first century Palestine, all women were considered
slaves in some cultures. Even though there might have
been older women or younger women, they were still considered slaves.
So I believe that's one of the reasons Paul puts this here to
Titus, among other places in Scripture. But also there would
be owned slaves, and then there would be those who fell into
these categories, and all of them fell into one of these categories.
And if you want to see how Paul thinks about slavery, go to Philemon.
It'll blow your mind. Though he was a slave, and though
he'd broken the law, and the law said he was supposed to have
been stoned, and killed or put in prison. Paul said, forgive
him because you're in Christ and you've been forgiven much.
And you should treat Onesimus when you see him again as though
it were me coming to your house. He's not your slave anymore,
though you may own him. He's your brother. Treat him
as such. That's powerful stuff. I got
chills now. That's what the gospel is. So
see how stressful it will be for us to stand in the world
I'd be the oracle of modifying behavior and say, hey, world,
do this and love this and let the slave go and pay somebody
else's debts and die to yourself so that others who hate you and
persecute you may live. And they go, what? You're crazy. That's right. They can't see
it. But what if a good portion of
them follow the example and over generations and generations,
they begin to look so much like the church, you couldn't tell
the difference. That's where we are today. How
does this happen? Unregenerate people calling themselves
a church, hiring unregenerate pastors, preaching an unregenerate
gospel, keeping behavior modification top shelf. Thought features. The roles of teaching. require
evidence in living. And as the elders teach the church,
the church teaches itself. Look real quickly here. Older
men are to be sober minded and in the idea here, and we can.
We'll go there. The sober minded, dignified,
self-controlled, sound the faith in love and in steadfastness,
sound in love, sound and steadfastness. Here are these older men who
are instructed in the gospel with right teaching and then
instructed with right application of that teaching. Here's Paul
saying, you older men, you will teach. Somewhat elders, you will
teach. And some of you elders will teach
elders. And those elders ought to be so reminded. The Bible
is commanding them and teaching them that because of the power
of the gospel, because of the grace of God given to you, because
of the grace and peace given through the Lord Jesus Christ,
because of my words which now abide in you, you abide in me,
and you will bear much fruit, and the fruit that you bear is
sober mindedness, dignification, or being dignified, self-control,
soundness in faith, soundness in love, and soundness in steadfastness
or perseverance. Older men have to have these
things. And as they're teaching others, they are teaching others
not just the truth that establishes such, but the outcome of these
things. So it does no good to catechize our children without
telling them that you say you love Jesus. Why did you disobey
me? You said you love me. Why did you disobey me? Some
of the greatest and most public rebukes I've ever received is
people hearing me say that to my children, and when I've told
them something specifically, and then I tell them in public
a few minutes later, you said you love me, and if you love
me, you'll obey me. And I may have to have that conversation
after the service. And then the very same moment
we sit down and we go to Paul's writing to Timothy and he includes
in sexual debauchery and insubordinate and all these other crazy stuff
and drunkenness. He includes disobedient children. And then he tells the church through
Timothy, he says, have nothing to do with them ostracizing. People who live in that way and
won't repent, they're not filled with the Spirit of God, kick
them out of the church for the destruction of their flesh so
that their soul might be saved. Because if you can stay in camaraderie
with the church and all your brothers and sisters and fish
and hunt and enjoy life together and cover dish and pray and worship
and play the guitar and all this other kind of stuff and teach
Sunday school, but if you're just working on your sin, we've
got to get your infidelity under control, we've got to get your
lying under control, we've got to get your drunkenness under control. But
why are you all in this sin? Why don't you just feed the church
of God? No. No. It doesn't work that way. That's why I accept that the
Lord God and His Holy Spirit move in a mighty way across this
world. Congregations like this will
always be small. Because there will be nothing
but the gospel of Jesus to whet the appetite of those who are
hungry. And if anybody wants a different
meal, they can go to the chicken hut. Older men. Older women. Audience
of teaching. Older women. Hold fast to this
truth and out of that truth, likewise, must be reverent in
your behavior. Likewise. Yeah, older men, you
must be sound in faith. You must be sound in love. You
must be sound in perseverance. Holding fast, waiting for the
Lord, as we'll see in verse 13 and 14 in a minute. Well, not
today. Reverent. Older women. You need
to be reverent. You need to live holy lives.
You need to pursue purity. This shows that men, too, must
be reverent, holy. A sound faith requires reverent
behavior. And the outcome of that, according
to Paul here, to Titus, he just said, one thing I see with some
of these men is they don't stand fast. They're not loving. They
may be sound. I've got my doctrine right. Get
out of my face. You know, you've seen that. You
need to be loving. Loving is not a feeling, it's
an action. God in his loving, what? Kindness. In his loving mercy, in his loving
gentleness. God doesn't slap people with,
I love you! I mean, I love you too. I just don't, it doesn't,
we know what that means. We understand that it's a behavior.
Love is a behavior. This sound faith in the older
women is just not to be slanderers. You know, a better translation
there would not be murderers with the mouth. No gossip. What is gossip? I don't know. I think a lot of times gossip
disguises itself as prayer request. Yeah, I pray for brother John,
he's got back on the crack. Because his daddy's a crack addict
and his mom was cooking him. You know them people, they're
all like that. His granddaddy was the same way. You know what
I'm saying. That's not edifying. That's not
even encouraging. Matter of fact, if I heard that,
I wouldn't be able to pray. I'd be so disturbed that now
I look at people, look, oh man, I didn't know this guy. We had
him over last week. No wonder I got sleepy after I ate. It was a
crack on our cookies. I mean, it just damages, it murders
the reality of that person's existence. It tears them down,
not builds them up. I'm not saying there's not a
time to confide in someone about truth, but we know when our mouth
is overloaded. We know when we've said the wrong
thing and everyone under the sound of my voice, including
my own ears, we've all done it. I ain't gossiping a long, long
time. Well, be careful with that type of attitude because you
may just do it before you leave here today. What about people
you don't know? I call it the tabloid syndrome.
You ever been to the fast food mart or the grocery store? What is that thing called? The
grocery store. And you're there and you're standing there checking
out and you see all these catalogs, newspapers and things. You've
got Batman and Elvis together and all this stuff and the weird
stuff. It's not true. You know, E.T.'
's real. Oh, who knew? And then you look
and you see some others as tabloids and it's got these really famous
people and they look terrible or they're five times the size
they were yesterday or, you know, or you find out they're actually
illegal aliens or aliens or whatever. And it's just this tabloid that
the people, they like to have somebody up here and they feel
bad about who they are. So they tear them down and it
makes them feel better about who they are. I call it building
stairs out of people so you can get ahead of them. We step on
them. That's what gossip is. It's murder. Peter says it's
murder. Because the only reason we gossip is so that we can tear
someone down. So be very, very, very, very careful. And Paul's
even saying older women, do not be slanderers. In fact, it's
an actual commandment. Do not bear false witness. Most
of the time, gossip's not always true. And we share things. That's
where it gets me. I may express something that
I don't even know if that's true. It may be a general knowledge
and I may say something about it and I go, you know, I don't
even know that's true. Forget I said that. I need to look it up. I just heard somebody
tell me that the other day and I took it as true. You ought to be able to teach
what is good. Sound doctrine and lesson and example. Teach
what is good. The role of the older men is to be able to teach
and stand and step fast and sound in love, sound in faith. Older
women ought to be holy and righteous and stand with their hearts geared
toward heaven, not being gossips, be able to teach what accords
with sound doctrine. Younger women ought to be trained. I love this phrase. But then
when we get down there to younger men, it says likewise. Younger women, be trained. That
means to be taught, to be encouraged, to be advised, to urge. Some
translators say urge. Urge the younger women. For what? They all need to learn truth
and be taught to live the truth. Not just this is what the Bible
says, but this is what you must do. Friends, these are the things
that marriage counseling and psychological testing and all
of this stuff and psycho Drugs would probably be a thing of
the past for Christians if generation after generation, if we invested
in gospel teaching and gospel accountability with some people.
The only time you see this other stuff is if there was true illness. I don't want to hurt anybody's
feelings for that, but I'm serious about it. Marriage counseling
through the years, even in my own home. You know, wow, if we
had just had somebody that when this stuff happened, they'd have
been so close to us and went, what the heck are you doing?
And it just takes somebody like that. Somebody to say, you are
wicked. Sitting in the car one time with
a fellow pastor, two fellow pastors and another brother who was mentoring
us. Brother in the back seat started talking bad about his
wife. Pastoring the church. You don't know my wife. You don't
know what I lived through. You don't know what this... And God told him,
he said, you need to hush. You need to be quiet. He said,
you need to die to yourself and love your wife as Christ loved
the church and die. If you die as you're loving your wife, then
you're doing what God asked you to do. You don't have a stake
in it. Well, you don't understand it!
This guy, 6'4", 300 pounds, turned around and broke my feet and
got in his food space and put him in such a place, I don't
even speak my wife's name around him. But that's what it is. Sometimes it takes that type
of tenacity. Where are the older men who would teach the younger
men? Where are the older women who would teach the younger women? Well, we're all busy. Women ought to be trained to
learn to live these things out. They need to be taught to love
their husbands and love their children. Love is not a feeling. Never is love a feeling. Ever. An emotion has nothing
to do with love. That is a lie from the devil
who came up and started to get this mindset to say, hey, we'll
teach them to listen to their feelings and we'll call it love.
We label love is truly love when you hate everything about them
and you die for them anyway because you love them. Unlovable. There's no greater
love than this, than the man would lay down his life for the
brother. For God showed his own love for us in this, that while
we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It doesn't say we
did so well trying our best to come to God and Jesus just had
to just. Oh, they're so cute when they
do that. It's OK. They put it on the carpet. They're
cute. We have affection for and sentiment
for that which appeals to us, but it's not love. Love is always
giving and acting, even when you feel loving, and most importantly,
when you don't. Love your husbands. Love your
children. Be self-controlled, younger women.
That means disciplined and honorable, just as the older men and older
women should be. Be pure. The idea of purity here in this
text is dealing with sexuality. Be sexually pure. The fourth
thing we see about younger women is to be at work for the sake
of the home. The opposite of that is idleness. Why do you
think, and I'm not saying this to be misogynistic because I
know a lot of brothers who watch these things, but for the most
part, why do you think that soap operas are right there in the
heat of the day? Because their audience is mostly younger women
who are at home. Idling. Idleness. There is no day of rest except
the day we worship God. Six days you shall labor and
do all your work, but the Sabbath is the Lord's." Well, man, it's been a long week.
I sure do deserve to kick back. Bull! Work! There's grass to
cut, and there's things to paint, and there's stuff to fix, and
there's things to deal with. There's dogs to trim, and children
to bathe, and stuff to do. Women and men alike. We're not
supposed to be idle. And when we're idle, we're supposed
to be worshiping. Now, that sounds boring. Repent. Believe the gospel.
If worshiping God is boring, God have mercy on your soul. What about a vacation? I'm going
to take one. But the question is, what do
you want to do with that vacation? I don't know how we can take
a break from God's Word. How can we do it? Have you ever been
on a trip with somebody? I've been on a trip with church
staff. And only two of us out of ten
have a Bible with us. Where's your Bible? Well, I didn't want to mess it
up while we were skiing. A woman is to work in her home,
is to manage her home. The word there is really ruled. Manage, oversee, govern. She's not the head of her home,
but she's the governor. Just as the man has the role to govern
the home, so does the woman. They're one flesh. They have
different roles. And the world says to do that.
It doesn't matter the culture, but the gospel. The gospel produces
what is counter-cultural. Therefore, do not produce an
American ideal or a pioneer ideal or a Jewish ideal to the norm
of this text. What you need to do is you need
to get it out of your head that whatever the cultural rules is
what we're supposed to do. You should put it out this way.
Whatever the culture dictates, the Bible overrules. It's vital
to understand that no matter the plans or the careers of man
or woman or mother or father, no matter what our careers are,
no matter what our desires are, no matter what business we may
have or own or do or whether we got a job in or out of the
home or whatever, it does not trump the responsibility of governing
and leading our homes. And then a step further. Not
only should a young woman be kind, but then she should simply
be submissive to her own husband. So as they co-lead and co-govern
and co-care, he's the head. And the wife must submit. How
does that work? Only through the Holy Spirit
of God. What happens if she doesn't? Then the husband dies to win
her sanctification. You want to know what that looks
like? Go back and listen to those four sermons on. There's a secular application
of management and governing for young women, and then there's
a Christian submission that she gives to her husband. Why? Because if we're false teachers,
we produce insubordination because we as false teachers are insubordinate
to the Word of God. And the Bible says to be subordinate
to the Word and young women, be subordinate to your husband,
submit to your own husbands and all things. Husbands, love your
wife as Christ loved the church. It's not an option. It's what
we do with gladness. We come, we see it because what
it does is it takes the picture of Christ and submission and
subordination of the headship of Christ. is seen in the establishment
of the marriage, which is the picture of the gospel and the
submission of the wife to the husband. Younger men, likewise,
a continuation of complete instruction, be self-controlled. Now, why
would he say that? Because young men do stupid stuff. Their flesh and their anger and
their frustration, it drives them. They sit and they skew
about things. The most godliest of young men can get aggravated
and change his behavior based on his mood. I think the world
would be better if all us men were locked up till we were 30.
Just locked up, not together. We destroy everything. If you
put us in a nothing realm, we'll tear nothing up. We tear it up. And if we didn't tear it up,
we'd fight on to who could do nothing the best. I can do nothing
better than you can. You want a bet? Yeah, look. Right,
there you go. I mean, it's ridiculous. That's what men do. Be self-controlled. Women, be self-controlled. Young
men, specifically be self-controlled. What does that mean? Either the
Spirit is controlling us or the flesh is controlling us. Which
is? Be filled with the Spirit of God. Do not be drunk on wine.
We have the power to overcome the flesh because Christ has
killed it. And then I like these show yourselves.
Look here. Almost done. Show yourself. What are those?
There's four. And then the fourth one has some
implications. Young men, show yourself. I mean,
present yourself. I mean, stand before the world
and let them mark you either this way or not this way. Be
exposed, come into the light, that it may be clearly seen that
your works have been carried out in God. Young men, stand
and show yourself as a model, number one, of good works. What's
a model? A model is the one. See, I've
never understood why they talk about fashion models. Those aren't
models. A model is a direct representation
of how it will look when you buy it. Never. Matter of fact, you can't get
the size on the rack or custom from those models. It doesn't
happen. Male models with a 23 to 24 inch waist. They look all
buff, but it's like that with muscles on it. I mean, it's bad.
I saw an article yesterday, as a matter of fact, I think it
was out of Belgium or somewhere, Brazil, where these fashion models
were drawing their sketches and they actually, to scale, drew
women to fit those sketches and they look like skeletons. This
is what the woman would have to be to fit into this. That's
what they did. It was really grotesque. So a model is not
a representation of what you hope it looks like. A model is
a representation of what it should look like. A replica, if you
will, or a picture that goes before it. Young men, show yourself
as a model of good works. First and foremost, in sound
doctrine. Teaching, submission, obedience, prayer, leadership
in your home through dying to yourself. A leader is not a leader
because he makes himself a leader. I don't know what happened in
our culture where men think they're better than women because they've
been given the responsibility to be the first. Is the kid with
his finger over his mouth at the first of the line for the
lunchroom the greatest eater? No. But if that kid turns left
and goes to the bathroom, the whole line goes. I thought we
were going to eat. We are. The leader is the first to forgive,
the first to repent, the first to pray, the first to submit,
the first to lay down, the first to proclaim the gospel, the first
to preach to himself, then to his family. The head of the home
is not the one who has the rule, because Christ has the rule.
The head of the home is the one who shows and reveals the rule of
Christ in his own life. Young men, show yourself a model of
good works. Show yourself a model of integrity
in teaching. Hold fast to the trustworthy word of God. See,
if I did not share the gospel with this, we'd all just throw
ourselves into the traffic and wait two or three hours for somebody
to come by and hit us. Sadly, we live in a place where we just
can't, we can't die by traffic. Hardly. Sixteen cars a day. But it's about the gospel empowering
these older men, younger women, older, younger men, older women,
younger men. You know what I get it. The women
and the men, older and younger. There we go. To effectively live
out these things. And the teaching of sound truth
purposes this type of behavior. But then Paul says, but we also
need to teach this type of behavior. Because this is through which
we are going to measure your what? Your worship. We're going
to measure your confession. We're going to measure your professional
faith. We're going to measure to see if you are indeed in the
faith. Young men should have dignity.
They should have sound speech. Show yourself to have sound speech.
No one ever taught me this. Too late, really. Young men,
especially in their 20s, they know it all. If you don't believe
me, ask them. They'll tell you, I know it all.
Argue with them. Sound speech is speech that cannot
be condemned. What we say, if you ought to
use the old phrase, we're hung by the tongue. Scripture teaches
that we'll be held accountable for every word that comes out
of our mouth. James 3 says, not many of you should be teachers
for those who teach will be held to a stricter judgment. Sticks and stones may break my
bones, but words will crucify me. That's the truth. If you've ever been in a position
where some bad words came your way, and I'm not talking about
profanity, I'm talking about hurtful, harmful, stupid, ignorant, unwise,
belligerent, blasphemous words. If you've ever had them come
your way, you'd wish that person would have hit you. It would have been
easier to heal from. Why is sound speech so important?
And we're going to talk about some of these things in detail
in the weeks to come. Because when a young man speaks
and shows himself as a model of sound speech, he cannot be
condemned. And his opponents may be put
to shame. Uh-oh. What opponents? Opponents to
the truth. So you see, the fullness of all
of these relationships who are being taught, all these different
people groups who are taught in the church, the outcome of
their teaching is that they live and then teach. They live and
then make disciples. 500 people were given the commission
in Matthew 28 to go into all the world and make disciples.
That wasn't just the apostles. That were 500 people there. Go make disciples. All of us
in Christ are to be teaching. Though people may make up lies
and have false testimony against us, if we're guarded in our speech
and wise in our speech, we cannot be condemned and our opponents
may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say. They may can lie,
but they can't tell the truth that evil has come out of our
mouths. And then he goes to bond servants
and slaves, and we'll talk about that in weeks to come. In closing,
a few thoughts. Sound doctrine that accords with
sound doctrine in accordance with godliness, which is revealed
through right living. Sort of a thought there. What does it look like internally? I think it looks like this in
an area of fullness. And there's so much more that
can be said, Just in this, I believe it's a full acceptance of God's
Word is taught. That not just, I want to hear,
I want to learn, I want to know some stuff about the Bible. I
fully receive that Word as my fullness. I accept it. And because I accept it, I believe
it looks like this also, a full obedience to God's Word. For
John says that the law of God is not burdensome. But it's joy. Why? Because we've been transformed
by the gospel. Christ has made us new. We have
new affections, new desires, new vision, new hearing, a new
heart, a new mind, a new soul. And it's daily working itself
into the likeness of Christ by His power for the purpose of
His glory and worship to the grace of His mercy. and His mercy. And so then in that, I believe
that this looks like full empowerment by God's Word. That we, as people,
as the people of God, we're empowered fully by the Word of God that
we obey and accept. And because of that, we want
more. So I believe another one would be a full desire for God's
Word. And then finally, I believe it's a full delight in the Word of God, who is Jesus
Christ, the righteous. See, Christ created a people
that cannot stand apart from him, but that does stand. Listen to this. Don't theorize
too far from what I'm about to say. But I believe Jesus Christ
created a people that stands against the human gene of depravity. I think the church is a stark. Sanctified people that stands
opposed to everything that the world does and believes. Everything. Because we as the church reflect
the nature of God. We display the wisdom of God,
Ephesians 310. We as the people of God, we display
the glory of the work of God. We worship the heart of God. We admonish others in the name
of God. I guess the question is, are
you in Christ? Are you of God? The only hope we have, Church,
is Jesus, the righteous. The only way any of this will
have full effect in our lives is if every day the option comes
for we who are in Christ, we can say no to the flesh and yes
to faith forever, persevering and
steadfastness. We need it because it's been
given to us. And if we fall away, we were
never of the body. So I pray, as we close, that
those who hear the words of God would come to life through them
and fully receive and believe and be set free from sin. Let's
pray. Lord, there is little to be said
that Your Word does not give. I pray that as we depart, the broad blurriness sometimes
of sermonizing puts me in a numbness. God, through your Spirit, there's
a clarity. that comes through that. There's a focal beam of
light that comes through what could seem like such a fog. Lord,
I pray You would lift the fog and take the blur away. I'm not just talking salvificly
for those who are lost, but Lord, just effectually for we who are
in You, we who have been made alive through Christ, that we
would have a better understanding of the beauty of the Gospel.
That we would see Jesus, not just through the lens of scripture,
but through our lives. And that we would rest with this
song on our hearts that, Lord, you are the God of mercy who
has saved a wretch like me. Thank you, Father, for that. We embrace You through Your Word. We see You through Your Word.
We worship You through Your Word. We are empowered through Your
Word. Father, we pray to Your face, through the authority of
Your Word, who is Jesus Christ. In His name and for Your glory,
we pray. Amen.