Over in Titus, the book of Titus, I wanted to read the last verse
of chapter 2 in the book of Titus. Chapter 2 and the last verse,
verse 15. These things speak and exhort
and rebuke with all authority that no man despise thee. You
and I have been looking up until now through this epistle, the
first two chapters, concerning different aspects of the Christian
life, living the Christian life. That's what we've been looking
at. And we've looked at it from different points of view. He
begins there in chapter 1 about life within the congregation.
That's the first thing he begins to talk about. That's why he
left Titus on this island of Crete to ordain elders in every
city. And what's the most important
aspect of a worship service? It's preaching of the gospel,
isn't it? We saw that again this weekend and we witness it all
the time. And Paul said this is something
that's lacking and something that's needful that God called
men come together in the congregation to open up the Bible and hold
forth, he said, this Word of Life. So we looked at that and
how profitable that is. And then here in chapter 2, we
come to life within the family. We've studied that for quite
some time. He begins here with the aged men and their attitude. What kind of attitude an aged
Christian should have? And we see that, that Paul said
he was grave, reverent, and sober. and temperate and sound in the
faith. And that's what an old man should
be. You visit an old Christian in his home, and that's the kind
of person you should find. And then, of course, he goes
to the aged women, and then women with children, mothers with children,
teaching and loving their children. And then he goes to young men.
But he dealt there with life within the family. Boy, I tell
you, Christianity, it affects every aspect of our life, doesn't
it? here in the church life and in the family life. And then,
of course, he went to the workplace. And other places he went into
more detail, but here you remember in chapter 2 he talked about
the servants, the slaves and their masters, and the attitude
the Christian slaves should have. And I've often thought about
this. This has often impressed me. when he wrote to these slaves
the attitude that they should have towards a man who bought
them and who owned them. And it was to be an attitude
of obedience, an attitude of honesty and sincerity with their
masters and don't steal from them and don't talk back with
them. So we see that the Christian attitude, it goes into the workplace
with us, right into where we work and make our living. He comes here in chapter 2 and
verse 10 and He gives us the motive for all of this. Look
at this again in chapter 2 and verse 10. Not prolonging, not
stilling or pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, faithfulness,
obedience, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior
in all things. That's the reason for our lives
lived. We come here to church, we go
to our homes and at work, and we live in such a way that men
may adorn the doctrine of God. That's what we do in our life,
isn't it? We adorn this doctrine. This word adorn, one of the meanings
is to display the beauty and the excellency of. And that's what we do when we
open up our Bibles to teach and to preach. We adorn. We set forth the beauty and the
excellency of the person of Jesus Christ. Have you ever seen anybody
like Him? We haven't, have we? And His
work and the purity of His Gospel and His work, we set that forth.
Why do we set that forth? Because we adorn the doctrine
of God our Savior. And we want other people to do
the same thing. And it's the same way in the
workplace. and in our homes. I hope it is. I hope it is. If you're here tonight and you
know the Lord, I don't think your adorning the gospel of God
and the doctrine of our Savior stops at that door when you go
home. I believe you take it home with
you and you take it on your workplace or in your shopping or wherever
you are. You adorn the doctrine of God
our Savior. God have mercy upon those who
leave that here and go home and go to their workplaces and live
their life without adorning the doctrine of God. You and I have
lived to see the day, and this is so sad, that you can profess
to know God and believe nothing about Him and live in open sin. And if anybody questions your
profession, then you get upset. Have you seen people like that?
We have, haven't we? But that's the day that you and
I live in. The Bible teaches no such thing. He teaches right
to the contrary here. He teaches here in the last portion
of chapter 1 verse 16, they profess to know God. They profess to
know Him. They talk about Him. But in works,
they deny Him. being abominable unto every good
work. I tell you we live to see the day where a profession of
God and His grace has been so cheapened that it means little
or nothing to run into a professor of Christianity, doesn't it?
But Paul said we are to live in a way that would adorn the
doctrine of God. One can be a professor of Christianity
in our day and believe nothing. and live in open sin. But when
the grace of God in Christ shines into our hearts, it begins to
dispel such a darkness and teaches us that denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly
no matter where we're at. Here in the congregation or at
home or at work. And here's the wonderful thing
about it. This is not something that we have to strain at. This
is something that He enables us to do. When the grace of God
shines into our heart, boy, He gives us a new nature, doesn't
He? Gives us new motives and new loves and new desires. We
don't leave the church and say, man, that was good, but I can't
live the Christian life when I go home. Yes, you can. And you do, don't you? And you
love it. We were talking about Some of
us were talking about the kids not wanting to come to the worship
service. You just have to make your kids come to the worship
service most of the time. And somebody's complaining about
that. And I said, there's no sense complaining about that.
I was the same way. I grew up hating to darken the
doors of the church. And I knew I couldn't live the
Christian life. And nobody can until this grace
shines through into their hearts. And then it changes us. It absolutely
gives us a new nature. We can sit here and adorn the
doctrine of God our Savior. We can go to our houses. We can
go to the workplaces. We can go shopping on vacation
and adorn the gospel of God our Savior. That is what we are to
do. And therefore Paul said here in verse 15, these things speak. This is what we are to speak.
Tell them these things. Declare these things. unto the
church. Tell them about these things.
And that is what Paul said, that I have not shunned to declare
unto you all the counsel of God. There are two things in these
epistles that we always look at. Usually we start out looking
with the doctrine that we are to believe. And then we go from
there to the precepts, the way we are to live our life because
we believe the doctrine. And Paul said, Speak these things. Tell them what I've told you,
Titus. But not only he says you're to
speak these things, but then he goes on to say, exhort them. And exhort somebody simply means
you get up next to them. You walk along beside them and
you're encouraging them. You're advising them and sometimes
even warning them. Exhort. It's not enough for me
to come here and us go over these things one time. I tell you,
we just have to keep going over it, don't we? We have to keep
going over it. We have to keep encouraging one
another. I don't know how many times you
folks have encouraged me. I call one of you and you'll
say, well, Pastor, be encouraged about it. Don't get down about
it. Be encouraged. I have to have
that. And you have to have it too, don't you? You have to have
it too. Then he adds something else to
this rebuke. Rebuke. Now boy, this is more
difficult, isn't it? To rebuke. That means to tell
somebody their fault. Now it's easy if you ever had
the Mormons to come to your house, it's easy to tell them where
they're wrong. I've dressed the Pope down I
don't know how many times, but he's over there in Rome and we're
here in Newcastle, Indiana. That's easy to rebuke the poor
Pope standing there. I tell you when it's more difficult,
when it's a dear friend that's error. When it's a dear friend
that's got out of the way and you have to tell him his fault.
I wonder how difficult it was for David to go to Nathan or
Nathan the prophet to go to King David and said, David, you're
the man. You've fallen into sin. You've
brought shame on God. I bet that was difficult. But
you know, it's supposed to be difficult. It shouldn't be easy
to have to rebuke somebody for some wrong. If it was easy, we'd
be doing it all the time, wouldn't we? Get ourselves in trouble.
It usually starts with this. And this is a good rule. Paul
told Timothy to preach the Word, be instant, in season, out of
season, reprove and rebuke. Reprove is much milder than a
rebuke. That's where we should always
start. Before you scream at your children, try reproving them
first. Before you holler too hard at
Steve Wonder, try reproving them first. Be easy. That's what that reprove is.
Be easy. Then if that don't work, rebuke. She didn't tell me anything,
Steve. She didn't tell me anything. Then rebuke. But it's not easy,
is it? It's not easy. And he adds here, do it with
all authority. That word all means full authority. With all authority. And where
do we get our authority? From the Word, don't we? We get
our authority from the Word of God. I ain't allowed to rebuke
anybody for anything unless it comes from the Word. That's where
we get our authority. And if the Church leaves the
Word, you know why the Catholic Church has no authority today.
They get their authority from tradition and from the writings
of silly popes and things like that. They have no authority.
Here is our authority. And I tell you, you have that
authority. It ain't just, well, the pastor's got authority. No,
he don't. I don't have any more authority than you have. We both
get our authority from the Word of God. We buke with all authority. Let no man, he says, despise
You. This word despise has a long
range of opinions. It means to have a low opinion
of. And if I don't come up here and
tell you the truth, I mean, it may hurt you a little bit. Some
things I can tell you hurt your feelings because these things
in the Word of God that buddy hurts me. But if I don't tell
you the truth, you know what you're going to do? You're going
to despise me for it. you're going to lower your opinion of
me. And if I tell you the truth and I don't tell you in love,
I'm just hateful with you, you're going to lower your opinion of
me. So I'm not to let anybody despise me. I'm to tell them
the truth. And you know what? Some people
may despise us here for telling the truth, but they can't do
it in a just manner. And there's coming a day when
they'll wish they hadn't. But they despised our Lord, didn't
they? He said, the world can't hate you, but it hates me. Why,
Lord, does the world hate you? Because I tell them of their
sin. The world is sinful, and when
I tell them that, they hate me. Boy, we shouldn't despise anybody
that tells us the truth in love, should we? Boy, that's a friend. A friend loveth at all times,
and sometimes the rebuke of a friend, boy, that's alright, ain't it?
That's good. Now chapter 3, right quickly,
let's go to chapter 3. And here he deals with the life,
the believer's life within the state, within the civil society,
the community. And look what he says here in
verses 1 and verse 2 of chapter 3. Boy, this is just as important
as life within the family or even life within the congregation.
Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers
to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak
evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness
unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy and hateful and hating one another.
But after the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man
appeared, not the works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ our Lord, that being justified by His grace we should be made
heirs according to the hope of eternal life." I paraphrase this,
verses 1 and verse 2. I took a bunch of translations and I put them together. And listen to verse 1 and verse
2. Remind them to be submissive
and obedient to their rulers and those who are in authority,
to be ready and prepared and willing to do any upright and
honorable and good work, not just in the church but in civil
society. And verse 2 like this. and don't
speak evil of anyone. Don't slander or abuse or insult
anyone. Don't have an argumentative spirit. Avoid being contentious and quarrelsome,
but forebearing and yielding, mild and gentle and conciliatory,
and show all meekness and unqualified and perfect courtesy towards
Everyone. Now boy, that's a good translation.
I could write my own translation like that. But doesn't that tell
us something? When we read words like that,
doesn't that tell us what the Lord intended His church to be
in this world? He never intended His church
to be anything but law-abiding people and a peaceful people. That's what he intended his church
to be. It's easy in our day, and you'll agree with me on this,
to get caught up in this contentious and quarrelsome attitude. It's
there, isn't it? And how easy it is to get caught
up in it. This insulting, hateful language
that's so prevalent all around us. The political issues, isn't
it easy to get caught up in that? the social issues, and we have
social issues, and even the religious issues. It's so easy to get caught
up in these and get in the attitude that the world is in right now
and get so insulting and get so hateful. Isn't it possible
to get there? And this is the very attitude
that He's warning us against here and encouraging us not to
get into. God's people above all people
should be the most gentle and forbearing and peaceful and conciliatory
and approachable and understanding people in the whole world. Do you know anything about the
Westboro Baptist Church? Has anybody in here seen anything
about the Westboro Baptist Church? It's a Baptist church down south. They make up their hateful signs.
And when they bring a soldier back that's been killed in the
war, Iraq war and Afghanistan, they would show up at these funerals
with these hateful signs. It says, God hates soldiers. And they would scream that where
they couldn't even hardly have the funeral at the gravesite. They finally passed a law they
had to stay. Is that a Christian attitude?
They make up their hateful signs that they go out and fuss and scream at people with
their hateful rhetoric. That's just not the Christian
attitude, is it? It's just not the Christian attitude. You see
them sometimes with their banners painted with their hateful slogans
and they go out and shout their mean rhetoric at people whose
lifestyle they disagree with. Well, there's a lot of people's
lifestyle you and I disagree with. But we don't go screaming
at them, do we? Especially out in public. Those
rotten bunch of gays, they're going to get just what's coming
to them. What if we get what's coming to us? It's repulsive to me to think
that somebody would abort a little unborn baby, but to stand on
the street corner with some hateful sign screaming at some mother
that was going even to do that awful deed. That's just not becoming
a Christian attitude, is it? Boy, we sometimes get so upset
with our politicians. and talk about what crooks they
are, and what criminals they are, and how vulgar they are,
and what bottom feeders they are, and scum buckets they are.
And they are! But who makes you to differ?
Who makes us to differ? You know why we differ from them?
You know, don't you? And sometimes we get mad at people.
because they've treated us wrong and they've done us evil. And
boy, I'm just waiting until they get what they deserve. Have we
ever done anything wrong to God? Have we ever treated God awful?
We have no room to be unkind to anybody, do we? To be hateful
and mean? I don't care what people do or
what kind of attitude they have. Paul said to her, Be kind, be
tender, be gentle. To who? All men. To all men. Do we children of God have any
right to be hateful and mean and insulting and hurting to
anybody in this world? We don't. Can we be justified
in having any attitude but one of gentleness and meekness towards
all men? We can't, can we? We can't. Our text here gives us two motives
for maintaining such a Christian attitude. Look at these two motives
and we'll go back in the weeks ahead and maybe look at these
one verse at a time. look at it closer, but look at
these two motives He gives the Christian for having a kind and
meek attitude towards all men, towards magistrates, towards
rulers, towards your neighbors, towards family members, in the
workplace, and everywhere. A meek and quiet and gentle attitude. And He gives two motives for
doing it. Look in verse 3, first of all, what we were ourselves. When he says there to speak evil
of no man and so on, he said, for we ourselves were sometimes
foolish. That fool! Were you ever a fool? That deceiver! Were you ever
deceived? That disobedient person! We were
serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and hateful
and hating one another. Paul said, look where we were. Hold that right there and look
over in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 11, just over to your left.
He does this in different places. The Scriptures reminds us when
we have a tendency to look down upon others, lost people or politicians,
that we see such great fault in them. And instead of being
angry with them or insulting to them, This gives us reason
to be kind and tender and pray for people. Pray for people.
Look what he tells us here in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
11. Wherefore remember that you being
in time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands at
that time in your past you were without Christ. being aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants
of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Brothers
and sisters, you and I don't want to ever forget where we
were when the Lord found us. We can't look down our noses
in anybody, can we? We can't boast against anybody
because there is where we were. If I condemn some poor soul out
there, I'm just condemning myself because I was right there. My
sister told me about a man and he was raised in abject poverty
in an old shack. He made it big and he became
a multimillionaire and built a huge mansion. And he went back
and found that old shack where he was raised, and he had it
moved and put it right behind that big mansion. He never fixed
it up or decorated it, just that old shack right there behind
that big, huge mansion. And some days he would just go
out there and sit by that mansion. And somebody said, why would
you have brought an old shack and put it in such a beautiful
ground? He said, I never want to forget where I came from. I never want to forget where
I came from. Brothers and sisters, that's a good motive, isn't it?
A good motive for being kind and tender no matter who people
are. No matter how people treat you
or how dumb they are or how foolish they are. All men be tender and
gentle, the Apostle Paul said. Look back over at our text. He
gives us another one in chapter 3. And here is a motive. What the Lord has done for us.
What the Lord has done for us. Look what He says in verse 4.
But after, but after, here is what makes us to differ. After
that the kindness and love of God our Savior towards man appeared. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. We are saved. He has saved us. But who saved us? Did we save
ourselves? What did we do to compel Him
to save us? Nothing. We've done absolutely
nothing, have we? He saved us, Paul gives you,
for these three reasons, His love and His kindness and His
mercy. He saved us. You are different. You are different from these
politicians. You are different from the people of the world
that's deceived and foolish. But who made you to differ? God
did, didn't He? He saved you. And He saved you
by His mercy. You can't earn it. You can't
marry it. You don't deserve it. He saved you by His mercy. There's a man at my house. a
few days ago and he was raising his voice at me and got my wife
so upset with him and I guess wondered why I don't stand up
to defend myself, why I don't start pointing my finger and
screaming back. Well, here's why I don't. My Lord didn't. My Lord didn't. When they plucked my beard out
and when they put a whip on my back till the whites of the bones
appeared, And when they mock me and me hanging on a cross,
then maybe I'll speak out and threaten and defend myself. But
our Lord never did, did He? When He suffered, He threatened
not, but committed Himself unto Him that judgeth righteously. I tell you, it's because of where
we were. It's because of Him saving us by His mercy and revealing
such unmerited favor to us and saving us. That's why we can't
be hateful and mean and vindictive to anybody. I heard a man say
the other day, them sorry faggots, he called them, sorry faggots.
I thought, that's awful. That's awful. Instead of making
fun of people and degrading them, you know what we should do? Witness
to them. Witness to them. Pray for them. Let your heart go out to people
who are lost. We were there. Let me read you
one passage and we'll close with this. Look in Ezekiel chapter
9. Look in Ezekiel chapter 9. And I guess the day that we're
coming to, this is probably what we're going to be reduced to
anyway. I think we're coming to a time where we can't do anything
about what's coming on us anyway. Sin seems to be engulfing our
country, doesn't it? Every community now has this drug epidemic. It seems like the community is
being overwhelmed and diseases. of all kinds. And it seems like
iniquity is abounding. And I think right here this text
is going to tell us the best attitude that we could have in
this day. The Lord was ready to destroy
Jerusalem. And look what He said. We'll
go back up to verse 1 in Ezekiel chapter 9. All the way back up
to verse 1. He is getting ready to destroy
Jerusalem. And he cried also in my ears
with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the
city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon
in his hand. And behold, six men came from
the way of the higher gate, which lieth towards the north, and
every man a slaughter weapon in his hand. And one man among
them was clothed with linen, with a rider's acorn by his side,
and they went in and stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory
of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon
he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man
clothed with linen which had the rider's acorn by his side. And the Lord said unto him, Go
through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem,
and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that
cry for the abominations that be done in the midst thereof."
What should be our attitude if we see iniquity abounding? I
have no interest to make up a bunch of posters with a bunch of hateful
slogans on them and go screaming at people. This should be our
attitude, brothers and sisters. Get along before the Lord and
sigh and cry for the iniquity of our families and for the iniquity
of our society in this day. I think that would be more pleasing
to our God, don't you, than anything else. Let our hearts be broken
for our children and society in this day. So be kind and be
tender because of what we were and because of what the Lord
has done for us.