Adorning the Doctrine

I'm speaking on the subject of
adorning the doctrine. If you'd like to follow in your
Bibles, I invite you to turn to the book of Titus, chapter
2, verse 10. Just the last phrase, Paul says
that you may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior. Now, in 30
years of preaching and traveling about this country, I have met
many church members who seem to me to be in love with doctrine. They love theology. They like
to discuss theology. They love the old books and the
old writers and what they call the truth. They like to discuss
theology and eschatology and ecclesiology. They like to dig
into the mysteries of God's Word. And you can't shock them. You
can preach sermons on total depravity absolute predestination, divine
sovereignty, divine election, even reprobation. You can preach
these sermons and not disturb them in the least because they
love the truth, they love doctrine, they're sticklers for right order
and right methods and right doctrine and right discipline. And sometimes
I find them to be a very critical people of those who don't have
the right order and the right doctrine and the right discipline
and the right methods. But they love doctrine. And we
must have a good foundation. The foundation is very important. It's important that we have the
right foundation upon which we build our house of faith. And
then I've met other people who don't like doctrine. They turn
their heels and run from any sermon that even smacks of doctrine. I hear them say things like this,
now we don't want to hear doctrine, we don't want to hear theology,
we just want to hear about Jesus. That's all we want to hear. We
don't want you to dig into the deeper truths of God's word or
the mysteries of the Bible, we just want to hear about Jesus.
We don't want to fellowship around doctrine and theology, we just
want to fellowship around Jesus, leave the doctrine off. Now then,
I must confess, I don't know how you can do this. I don't
know how you can have the great teacher without his teachings,
do you? I don't know how you can have
Christ and not have his commandments. I don't know how you can have
the justifier without justification. How can you have the sanctifier
without the work of sanctification? How can you have the Redeemer
without the work of redemption? How can you have the mercy of
God if it's not based upon the justice of God and the righteousness
of God. How can you have the love of
God without the wrath of God? You see, my friends, what Christ
did depends upon who Christ is. He's the only one who can do
what he did because of who he is, the infinite, eternal, immutable
Son of God. And what Christ did not only
depends upon who he is, but depends upon why he did it. And it also
depends upon who gave him the authority. I am come in my father's
name, as my father sent me. It depends a great deal on who
sent him, who ordained him, who anointed him, and to whom he
offered the sacrifice. So the conclusion that I draw
is this. Now you listen carefully. Preaching
doctrine without practical, daily, godly holiness will lead to dead,
dry orthodoxy, the dead letter of the law. But preaching holiness
and righteousness without doctrine will lead us to wildfire enthusiasm,
and Paul said, zeal without knowledge, or zeal based on ignorance. Now
Paul was a master theologian, no question about that, he was
a master theologian. He studied at the feet of the
Son of God for over three years. When he was converted, he said,
immediately, I conferred not with flesh and blood. I didn't
even go to Jerusalem to talk with those who were apostles
before me. But I went into Arabia, and the gospel which I preached
was not taught me by man, but was taught me by God himself. He was a master theologian. And
you'll find in the book of Ephesians that he gives us a system of
doctrine in miniature. in the first chapter of Ephesians,
not shrinking from the profoundest theme. Take your Bible there
a moment and turn to the book of Ephesians, chapter 1. Now,
listen to Paul here, beginning with verse 3. He talks about
the work of the Father, the work of the Son, and the work of the
Spirit in redeeming sinners. In verse 3 he starts out this
way, "...Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual in the heavenlies in
Christ, according as he chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame, in
love predestinating us to the adoption of children, to be conformed
to the image of God's Son, to the praise of his glory, wherein
he made us accepted in the Beloved. There is a system of theology
and doctrine in miniature, the work of the Father in the divine
covenant of grace in the divine election, in calling his people,
in redeeming his people. Now look at those next few verses,
talking about the work of the Son. And it says of Christ, in
whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin through his
blood. Christ redeemed us by his blood.
And then he goes on and says, Christ made known unto us, or
revealed unto us, the mystery of his will. And he redeemed
us unto an inheritance. Peter said, undefiled, reserved
in heaven, that paid it not away. That's theology, that's doctrine,
that's our foundation. And then the work of the Spirit.
He says the Holy Spirit, we heard the gospel, the Holy Spirit gave
us ears to hear and eyes to see. And the Holy Spirit sealed us
in Christ. And the Holy Spirit is our earnest,
or our pledge of redemption. So this is doctrine, this is
Christology. This is the doctrine of redemption,
and this is Paul speaking, but the master theologian in the
latter part of Ephesians talks this way. He says, put away lying
and speak the truth. He says, work with your hands
that you may have to share with those who are less fortunate
than you are. He says in Ephesians 4, be ye
kind one to another, tenderhearted forgiving one another as God,
for Christ's sake, forgave you. He says, wives, submit yourselves
unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. He says, husbands,
love your wives. This is pleasing in the sight
of the Lord. He says, children, obey your parents and be not
bitter against them. He says, servants, obey your
masters and do a good day's work. Give a full eight hours' work
for eight hours' pay. Be a good servant, not answering
again or quarreling. And then he says, pray for one
another. So you see here the master theologian, the man who
could preach the profoundest thing, who could dig the deepest
into the mysteries of God revealed will, comes also with a message
of practical holiness, and godliness, and righteousness, and behavior
which becometh a Christian. There's no reason why I should
have to choose between doctrine and practical holiness. There's
no reason why I should either preach theology or preach practical
experience. Preach both. They're both in
the word of God. And then when you come down to
our text, this is where Paul sums it all up. He tells Titus
to take heed to his doctrine. And then he exhorts the older
men, how they should behave, and the older women and the younger
women and the servants. And then he says in Titus 2,
verse 10, look at this, he gives the reason. He says that you
may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. That you may adorn
the doctrine of God our Savior. Now I want to look at just that
one verse for a few moments. There are two important areas
here for me and for you, for all of our listeners, two important
areas. First of all, the name which
our gospel bears. There's a descriptive phrase
here regarding our gospel, the name that it bears. And then
there is, in this verse of scripture, the dress that it wears. Now, first of all, what is our
gospel called? What is the name that it bears?
It's the doctrine of God our Savior. Why is it called the
doctrine of God our Savior? Well, first of all, because he's
the author of it. He's the author of it. Paul said
that in the book of Hebrews, he's the author and finisher
of our faith. It all started with him. He's
the alpha, that's the beginning, and the omega, that's the end,
the beginning and the end. And if you look at Romans 1,
verse 1, Paul, writing to the church at Rome, said this, verse
1 of Romans 1, Paul, a servant, and that word servant is bond-slave.
a bond slave, that's a willing slave, that's a loving slave,
that's a slave that's not being held against his will, but one
who wants to be where he is because he loves his master. He's a willing
servant. Paul, a bond slave of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, and separated to the gospel of God. This is God's gospel. It's the
doctrine of God that we preach. It's the doctrine of God in that
it's of God in its planning God plans salvation. It's an eternal
work. It's an eternal purpose. It's
an eternal plan. It began in all eternity. Back before the foundation of
the world, Christ was the Lamb slain. Back before the foundation
of the world, we were the beloved people. I've drawn you, he said,
with an everlasting love. Having loved his own, he loved
them to the end. So salvation is of the Lord in
his planning. and then salvations of the Lord
in its execution. He sent Christ into the world.
The Father gave the Son. The Father sent the Son. In the
fulness of time, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman. He sent him into the world, and
he sent him to the cross. The cross of Christ was no accident. The cross of Christ was a purpose
being fulfilled, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, you with wicked hands have crucified and
slain. Salvation is of the Lord not
only in its execution, but it is of the Lord in its application.
Paul said, God who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his Son in me. We are the called of Christ Jesus. We are the called of God. Whom
he foreknew, he predestinated. Whom he predestinated, he justified. Whom he justified, he called.
And whom he called, he glorified. It's of the Lord. This is the
doctrine of God that we're preaching. We're not preaching the doctrine
of the Church or the doctrine of a denomination. We're preaching
the doctrine of God. And then salvation is of the
Lord in its sustaining work. We have been saved by the death
of Christ. We are being saved by the death
and life of Christ, and now is our salvation nearer than when
we believed. But it's not in our hands, it's
in his hands, for we are kept by the power of God through faith. In that doxology in Jude, it
says, Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling, and
to present you faultless before his presence with exceeding glory
now unto him. He gets the glory not only for
determining salvation and accomplishing salvation, but he gets the glory
for keeping us safe. And then salvation of the Lord
in its ultimate perfection. Out there one of these days,
God is going to call from the grave all who sleep in Christ.
And just as he called us out of darkness into his light, he'll
call us out of the grave into his presence, but he's got to
do it. That's what I'm saying. We call it the doctrine of God
our Savior because it's of the Lord. He's the author of it. He's the one who purposed it.
He's the one who carried it out. He's the one who will fulfill
it. And then it's called the doctrine of God our Savior because
he's the substance of it. Now take your Bible there again
and turn to Romans 1 verse 1. Now watch this. It says, Paul,
a bond-slave servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle,
separated unto the gospel of God. Now, verse 2, which he promised
afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his
son, Jesus Christ, who was made of the seed of David. Now, watch
this. Verse 2 is in parentheses. Just lift it out. You do no damage
to the sinners by lifting out this parenthesis. Just take it
right out. And this is the way it reads.
An apostle of Jesus Christ separated to the gospel of God concerning
his son. That's what the gospel's all
about. It's concerning a person. Who he is. What he did. Why he did it. Where he is now. He's coming back again. It's
all concerning Christ. If you take the whole Bible The
truth of this book, and if you could compress it, if you've
ever seen them bale cotton, I was raised down in the South, used
to pick cotton when I was a little boy, and they'd take a whole
wagon load of cotton to the mill, I mean a big wagon load of cotton,
just looked like it would make a hundred bales, and when they'd
press that cotton down into those 500 pound bales, it'd take a
whole wagon to make one bale. And if you took all of the word
of God, from Genesis to Revelation, and compressed it down until
you got the substance of it, and the essence of it, and the
heart of it, it would be one word. Jesus Christ. That's right. Jesus Christ. Who he is, what he did, and why
he did it. He says, Moses wrote of me. The
people of his day, they rejected him, despised him, and they said,
we have Moses. He said, if you had believed
Moses, you'd believe me. Moses wrote of me. That's what
Moses' writings are all about, me. In the wilderness, he is
that rock. He is our Passover. He is the
brazen serpent. He is the tabernacle. He is the
priest. It's all Christ. If you can take
the Bible and read it and not see Christ and his work, then
you're not seeing the Bible aright. Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad. And then
in the book of Acts, chapter 10, verse 43, here's the key. To him give all the prophets
witness. That's what it's all about. That's
what Isaiah is writing about when he says he was wounded for
our transgression. That's what David was writing
about in the Psalms when he says, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest
not but a body thou hast prepared me. That's Christ. This is my
beloved son, the Father said, you hear him. you hear him. And you, my friend, beware of
preaching that does not point to Christ. Beware of preaching
that does not tell you how God can be just and justify the ungodly. Beware of preaching that does
not tell you why to believe and what to believe as well as to
believe. Years I've spent in vanity and
pride, carrying My Lord was crucified, knowing not it was for me he
died at Calvary. At Calvary. By God's word at
last my sin I learned, then I trembled at the law I'd spurned, till
my guilty soul in pouring turned to Calvary. Oh, the love that
drew salvation's plan, oh, the grace that brought it down to
man, oh, the mighty gut that God did span at Calvary. It's the doctrine of God. God
our Savior, because he's the author of it, he is the substance
of it, and he is the object of it. And true gospel preaching
will bring you to look to Christ for wisdom, for righteousness,
for sanctification, for redemption. True gospel preaching will not
bring you to look to yourself, or to the preacher, or to the
law, or to the ordinances, or to the Church, but to look to
Christ. It's the doctrine of God our
Savior. That's the name it bears. That's the foundation upon which
we build. Now, Paul said, see that you
adorn this doctrine that you believe. Now, what does the word
adorn mean? It means to make attractive.
It means to make it pleasing. It means to make it a doctrine
to be admired. Now, there's enough offense to
the cross without you and I being offensive. There's enough offense
to this doctrine. It's offensive to man's wisdom,
to his love of sin, to his love of self, to his pride. There's
enough of that without them being offended by the way we talk and
the way we walk and the way we live. Now, how am I going to
make attractive this doctrine which I preach? Well, I can't
do it by building beautiful buildings and temples and cathedrals. A
lot of people seem to think that. Oh, come to our church. It's
such a beautiful place. Well, your church couldn't compare
with Solomon's temple. What a magnificent, splendid
place he built, but religion was in a depraved condition. And they weren't adorning the
doctrine which they preached by their beautiful temple, and
you can't adorn it with your mode of speech. I hear people
using thee and thou and ye and thine and so forth. You can learn
to use those terms and still be offensive. And we don't adorn
the doctrine by our mode of dress. Someone said hypocrisy under
a big black hat is the same as hypocrisy under no hat. And then
we don't adorn the doctrine with our flowery sermons and our beautiful
music. How can we adorn the doctrine
of God our Savior? Would you listen for a few moments
as I try to tell you? And this is to me and to you.
Will you listen to me? We can adorn the doctrine that
we believe. First of all, with love. Now
about it, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is
love. They came to our Lord one time and they said, which is
the greatest commandment? He said, the greatest commandment
is thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind,
soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. On these two, he
and all the law and the There's no sweeter words in this world
uttered by any human being or written by any pen or more meaningful
than I love you. I love you. There's no greater
proof of discipleship in this world than L-O-V-E love. That's what Christ said, by this
shall all men know you're my disciples, if you love one another. If you love one another. And
there's no greater balm for troubled waters. than love, not angry
words, but love. And there's no better proof of
hypocrisy than lack of love. Our Lord said this, He that loveth
not knoweth not God. So we can adorn the doctrine
with love, and then secondly, we can adorn the doctrine with
forgiveness. One day our Lord said to the
disciples, this is in Luke 17, 3-5, If your brother offends
you and he repents, forgive him. If he offends you seven times
in one day and he repents every time, you forgive him. And the
disciples said, Lord, increase our faith. It wasn't when the
Lord talked to them of the mysteries of the eternal covenant that
they cried out for an increase in their faith. It wasn't when
the Lord talked to them about the mysteries of prophecy and
the coming kingdom. It was when he talked to them
about the plain, everyday act of mercy, kindness, grace, and
forgiveness. And they said, Lord, increase
our faith. My friends, it's not faith to
stop the mouth of lions that I need, it's faith to stop my
mouth. Isn't that the way you feel?
Faith to stop your mouth, not to say these things that hurt
and that offend and that cause broken hearts. It's not faith
to destroy the walls of Jericho that I need. It's faith to tear
down walls of prejudice and bigotry and an unforgiving spirit. That's
why I need faith. That's what the disciples saw.
It's not faith to smite the Philistines. I've never seen a Philistine
and never will see a Philistine. But it's faith to defeat my own
personal enemies in the pride jealousy, hatred, anger. These are my enemies, and this
is why I need faith. It's not faith to build a great
monument to God and leave my name on buildings when I leave
this earth. It's faith to live, day by day,
in my home, in my office, among my friends, a life that will
project and portray the grace of God. We can adorn the doctrine
with forgiveness. If your brother offends you seven
times a day, and he says, I'm sorry, you forgive him. And then
we can adorn the doctrine with kindness. You know, Christ said,
be ye kind, or Paul wrote, quoting the Master, he says, be ye kind
one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving. Tender-hearted, forgiving. As God, for Christ's sake, forgave
you kindness, be ye merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful,
and as you would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
them." You know, we misquote that golden rule. We said, do
unto others as you would have them do unto you. It says more
than that. It says, as you would that men
should do unto you, as you request them or desire them to do unto
you. then you do even so unto them. And then we can adorn the doctrine
with happiness. I don't know when that a sour
expression and piety became synonymous. I don't know. But you know the
average person thinks if you're going to look like a Christian,
you've got to put on a face about four feet long. You've got to
look sour and sad and morbid. But you know, Paul said, rejoice
in the Lord, and again I say rejoice. This is the glorious
gospel of the blessed God, and Spurgeon said that is the glorious
gospel of the happy God. Paul said, I've learned in whatsoever
state I am to be content. Not sad, not morbid, not with
a sour expression, but content. Complaining is not becoming to
the gospel. Bitterness, a bitter spirit drives
the bones. And that's not becoming to the
gospel. I need to project a happy countenance. I don't know why a preacher started
wearing black and connected that with religion. I don't know where
that started. If you go out in God's creation,
you see yellow and red and brilliant green and purple and orange and
lavender and all these colors. You don't see God's creation
in dark, morbid colors. It's brilliant, it's bright,
it projects him. Happiness, contentment. And then
we can adorn the doctrine with patience under trial. We can
give a good witness. When something happens in our
lives, something tragic, something bitter, something that hurts
deeply, We can show we believe in God's sovereignty and God's
power by bearing it with a cheerful disposition, like Job said, the
Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. While passing through this world of sin, and others
your life shall view, keep pure and clean without within. Let
others see Jesus in you. Your life's a book before their
eyes. They're reading it through and
through. Does it point them to the Lord?
can others see Jesus in you?

Adorning the Doctrine

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Adorning the Doctrine

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