A Conversation that Matters

Listen Online:

Transcript:

We’re going to be in Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3. Sunday nights have been so strange the last few weeks.

This is the message I had to check yesterday and say, have I preached this one already or not? It looked familiar. The notes looked familiar, and I didn’t know if it was because I’d written them or because I’d already preached them.

Last week, I finished up my message from Sunday morning on the Holy Spirit, and the two weeks before that, we didn’t have church on Sunday night because of weather, so I barely remembered what we were doing. but this is the last message that we’ll have on the book of Titus, at least in this series. It doesn’t mean I’ll never mention Titus again.

But from this series, it’ll be the last that we have. And we’re going to look at Titus chapter 3 tonight. And just to go back, especially because I like to read the whole chapter for context, but especially because it’s been a few weeks since we’ve talked about it.

We’ll start from verse 1 and then look at just a few verses starting in verse 8. But in verse 1, it says, 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 diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

But after the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by 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 Savior, that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

And I’m going to stop there for just a moment. We’ve read through, at this point, all of the book of Titus up to this point. And we’ve seen how he starts out.

We’ve seen some of the things he talks about in the beginning. And interspersed all throughout the book are references to the work that Titus was to be doing in Crete. His job that Paul sent him there for was to start churches and to make sure that churches got off on a healthy footing.

They needed godly leadership in these churches. They needed godly elders. They needed godly teaching as well.

And I’ve given the example several times that there are places in this world that, you know, if we were given our choice of where we’d like to minister, there are places we’d just as soon not go. And I think we all have our preferences. Crete would have been, now today I’ve seen pictures, it’s a beautiful Mediterranean place, looks really nice.

Crete in his day, I’m not sure that it would have been anybody’s choice assignment, because you read some of what is said about the people from Crete, and they were not the easiest group of people to minister to. As a matter of fact, he refers back in chapter 1 to one of their own writers, Epimenides, I believe, who said that all the people of Crete, all the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. That’s him talking about his own people.

This was not a cushy assignment to go to Crete and say, we want healthy churches in operation, Titus, why don’t you go take care of that? This would be the assignment where you’re going in, sort of like the church at Corinth where Paul writes to them in 1 Corinthians, and just the wickedness from that city that had been brought over into the church with the people when they came, and infected the church, where they had all sorts of things going on that Paul had to approve and say, you need to stop this. There were some bad things about the culture on Crete, and a lot of the people were bringing those habits with them, even after claiming to have become Christians, were bringing these old ways into the church with them, And Paul said, you know, you’ve got to make sure you get the people behaving the right way and for the right reasons.

We read all through the book of Titus, and there’s always this connection between right behavior and right belief. And we need both of them, don’t we? We still today need both of them.

The church needs to be taught that there is a right and a wrong way to live. I sort of hit on this this morning in talking about the storytelling. There is right and wrong, and a lot of times that’s missing from the preaching in churches today.

There is right, there is wrong. You know, with all due apologies to the President or the Supreme Court or whoever else, I’m sorry that you think God’s standards have changed. They have not.

There is still right, there is still wrong, and it’s not up for majority vote. God has said it, and that settles it. There’s right and there’s wrong.

and churches need to be proclaiming the message to their own members and to a lost and dying world that there is right and there is wrong and there is sin and there is judgment and God will deal with these things God takes them very seriously but just to proclaim a message of live this way, do this, don’t do this without any gospel foundation behind it is meaningless you will end up with a lot of moral, well behaved people ending up in eternal hell fire you don’t want that either And so there’s always this connection between right belief and right behavior. If you’re teaching right belief and not right behavior, you’re essentially telling people as a church, it doesn’t matter what you do or how you live as long as you profess to believe the right thing.

If you’re telling them it only matters what you do and we’re not talking about these doctrinal issues, then you’re telling them it really doesn’t matter what you believe. We see both of those things going on in churches today. It does matter how we live our lives, and it does matter what we believe.

And the two go hand in hand. You can’t build, and we’re going to hit on this in chapter 3, you can’t build a strong, unified church as a body of Christ cooperating together if we have all sorts of different ideas about what’s true and what’s false. I’m not saying we can’t ever disagree.

I’m sure we could throw out some subjects here and talk about them tonight and probably find some areas of disagreement, but there are some fundamental truths that we’ve got to be agreed on. There are some things it does matter what you believe. Even on the areas where we can disagree, the bottom line is somebody’s right and somebody’s wrong.

And our world today doesn’t like to hear that you might be wrong. I hear the phrase, well, my truth is that your. .

. That phrase is just foreign to how my brain works. your truth, my truth.

There’s just truth, right? I thought that was just a basic principle of logic. There’s just truth.

There’s not my truth, your truth. Well, for you, the sky may be green, and for me, it may be orange. Somebody’s right, and somebody’s wrong.

And the somebody who’s right is the one who agrees with God’s word. And it does matter what we believe. It does matter what we teach.

And it does matter what we do with it, how we act as a result of what we believe. And so he goes all through the book of Titus. And Paul writes to Titus and reminds him of these things.

Get them straightened out on doctrine and get them straightened out on behavior. And he comes back in chapter 3 and reminds them because as I’ve said a few times now in this series, we can get so far removed in time from our moment of conversion that we forget where we came from. And we forget, we start to think, well, I’ve been serving God all these years.

I’m just wonderful and I’ve got my little halo. No, we don’t. We are sinners saved by the grace of God.

And we forget where we’ve fallen from. Not where we’ve fallen from. Excuse me.

We forget where we’ve come from. I think I’m mixing two biblical phrases there into something that doesn’t make sense. We forget where we’ve come from.

And we drive the lost world away by our self-righteousness. We stop caring about the world outside because of our self-righteousness. And Paul says, don’t you dare forget where you came from.

Verse 3 is a bleak picture of chapter 3. Verse 3 is a bleak picture of who we are apart from Christ. And yet we all, to some extent, were there. We all, to some extent, were there.

Now, I’ve told you many times, I accepted Christ as my Savior at the age of 5. And not only was I a 5-year-old who was raised in church, but I was a 5-year-old raised in church who was afraid of my parents and still am a little bit. How much mischief did I have time to get involved in?

Not a lot. And yet there was still that sin nature in the heart, even at five years old. Was I foolish?

You better believe at times I did foolish things. Was I disobedient? Uh-huh.

Was I deceived? You know what? You know what?

Anytime you are disobedient to God or those in authority over you and you think you’re going to get away with it, there’s deception right there. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that does he also reap. Serving diverse lusts and pleasures.

Now we look at that and say, oh yeah, the world out there, how they do that, how they serve the diverse lusts and pleasures. Do we not chase after the things that make us happy? Sometimes to the exclusion of what God has told us to do.

That may not be the same as what we would call lusts and pleasures that the world outside chases after, but do we not put our own happiness ahead of what he’s told us to do? Living in malice and envy. All I have to do is sit in traffic to be reminded of who I really am.

I can be the most peaceful man. Well, we need to give them the benefit of the doubt. We need to extend grace.

We need to do this. I get in traffic, and the thoughts that pop into my head, well, you’d be ashamed. Malice and envy.

Right there. I don’t know if you’re shaking your head because you’re ashamed of me now or because you’re right there with me. hateful and hating one another.

And folks, this is even after Christ. We still have that sin nature. And apart from Christ, it runs rampant. But don’t let us get so far removed from our.

. . And I’m not saying we need to stay down there in the mud so we can remember where we came from.

Don’t let us get so far removed from thinking about that moment of conversion and the grace that it took to save us and the grace that he exhibited when we did not deserve it, that we forget where we’ve come from and treat the lost world any differently from who we are and who we were. And then that word in verse 4, but after that, but, after that, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. We didn’t deserve it.

It was out of His kindness that He sent Christ to save us. God didn’t owe us salvation. God didn’t owe us a second look.

Not by works of righteousness, which we have done. There is nothing in salvation that we have the opportunity to boast in. Well, but at least I had the foresight of believing the gospel.

Well, yeah, there is the element of believing. There’s the element of faith. And we have to have faith and reach out for God’s offered mercy.

But when a man is drowning in the midst of the ocean, and somebody, a lifeguard swims out there and throws him a flotation device, who’s hailed as the hero at the end of the day? Who’s on the news? Who’s in the newspaper reports hailed as the hero?

Is it the one who swam out and risked his life, put his life on the line to save the other? or is it the one who just wasn’t so dumb that he swatted him away? Yes, I believe the gospel.

Do I have anything to brag about in that? Did I somehow earn my salvation? No.

As the song says and as the scriptures say, Jesus paid it all. And he shed on us abundantly this grace in verse 6, which was shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. God doesn’t give us just enough grace to get us there.

He sheds on us grace beyond what we could ever fathom. I feel like I’m preaching the same message I did last time, but you know what? It’s worth repeating.

That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So he goes through and explains in some of the most beautiful language of scripture, I think, the gospel. Starting out with where we were and where Christ has taken us to be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Just a beautiful story of how we start out in the pits of depravity. Because of God’s grace, and he makes this gracious. .

. Not only do we not deserve salvation, we don’t even deserve that he would consider saving us. Yet he sent his son to die on the cross, to pay the price for our salvation, to do everything that was necessary.

And now all we have to do is believe, trust him, throw ourselves on God’s mercy in Jesus Christ. And he gives us this salvation that we don’t deserve. And beyond that, doesn’t just make us the servants in his kingdom. I always go back to the story of the prodigal son.

Doesn’t just make us the servants in his household when we come back repentant. He takes us in as his children. It’s an incredible picture of God’s mercy.

And Paul writes this to Titus and says, this is what you need to teach them. And then says in verse 8, this is a faithful saying. Everything I have just presented to you, this is a faithful saying.

And these things I will that thou affirm. When? Constantly.

On Sunday morning in the message? Only? No.

Constantly. Everything we do. I’m not saying you can’t have a conversation about anything else.

May I take your order? Do you know that Jesus died for you? And by the way, I’d like.

I’m not saying we can’t have a conversation about anything else. We’d never get anything else done. But ladies and gentlemen, everything we do should affirm this truth.

Everything we do should point people toward the cross and not away from it. The gospel should be on our minds all the time. These things I will that thou affirm constantly.

I want you to constantly be affirming this message of what Christ has done. That they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. Why maintain good works?

So they can earn their salvation. That negates everything he’s talked about. But we need to be constantly reminded of the gospel, not only from the pulpits, but in our own minds.

We need to be constantly reminded of the gospel that we might be careful to maintain good works. What that means is we need to be reminded of where we came from and what Christ has done for us, that we out of gratitude for the salvation he’s given us might then turn around and serve him. I don’t earn my salvation by serving him either before the moment of conversion or after.

I’m certainly not wrong to serve him out of a life of gratitude for what he’s done in that conversion. These things are good and profitable unto men. It’s to our benefit.

It is to our benefit, spiritually and otherwise, to live that kind of life. Everything’s got to be centered around the gospel. Everything, our teaching has got to be centered around the gospel.

If we’re teaching people, and I said this this morning, I’ve said this already tonight, I will probably say it several thousand more times before I die. If all we are focused on is teaching people, do this, don’t do this, and everything we’re teaching is not centered on the gospel, we’re teaching them how to live, we’re teaching them Bible facts, but it’s not centered on the gospel, then we’re going to have a lot of well-educated and well-behaved people in eternal hellfire. It’s all got to come back to the gospel.

That’s why instead of this morning just telling you the story of the Hebrew midwives and Pharaoh, we brought it back around to talking about how God delivered. How God delivered his people. How God delivers his people still.

That’s why in every story I’m telling or at least every group of stories I’m telling to my middle schoolers we’re bringing it back around to the theme of redemption and saying how does this teach us something about how God interacts with us? How does this prepare our minds to understand the cross? How does this prepare our minds to understand either sin or the payment that was made for sin?

everything that is not centered around the gospel, however good it may be, is ultimately meaningless. If we’re not pointing people toward the cross, it really doesn’t matter what else we get right if we get that one thing wrong. And so he tells him in verse 9, where we left off in the reading, but avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain.

Avoid foolish questions. There are a lot of silly questions that can be asked. I hear people say all the time, there are no stupid questions.

Clearly, you’ve never been a teacher. Do we have to wear pants on the field trip? What?

Of course, the question really they meant to ask was, are we allowed to wear pants on the field trip instead of skirts? But the question that I was asked was, do we have to wear pants on the field trip? And I just, really?

Or is, which one was the 51st state, Hawaii or Canada? I don’t even know where to begin. There are questions that we can call foolish.

But you know what, there are also questions that we may look at and say, well, that’s foolish. Of course, everybody knows the answer. Well, of course you know the answer when you’ve been studying God’s Word for 20 or 30 years.

It’s somebody who’s just starting out. It might not be a foolish question. Not at all what he’s talking about here when he says foolish questions.

One of the questions I answered, I don’t answer questions every Wednesday in chapel. We have different speakers, but the last couple months when it’s been my turn to speak, I’ve been speaking. The kids had so many questions that I wasn’t able to get through all of them in Bible class.

I said, write them down. We’ll take care of some of them in chapel. So we’ve been doing apologetics the second Wednesday of every month in chapel.

And one of the questions that was asked was asked by one of our younger elementary school kids who said, why is the Bible so long? And I thought, what? The Bible could have been much longer if God included everything we ever wanted to know in there.

Instead, he gave us just the things that are profitable towards salvation and godly living. The Bible could have been much longer. Then I realized, too, an elementary school kid, that’s not a dumb question.

And it deserved an answer. It was sort of fun. I got people up at the front, and I made a living timeline.

It said, here’s Moses. Here’s all the way back to Adam and Eve. Here’s us today.

And showed them how just the book of Genesis covered about half of human history. And then by the time you got to the apostles, it was about two-thirds of human history. And I said, how big are all the history books put together that have ever been written?

The Bible could have been much thicker if God wanted it to be. And at first you think that’s a foolish question. But somebody’s really struggling with the answer.

I believe here what the Bible is talking about with foolish questions are some like Jesus refuse to answer. Jesus didn’t answer everybody’s dumb questions. I think specifically of the woman at the well, where he starts talking to her and she says, well, I perceive you’re a prophet.

Because he’s asking her where her husband was. And eventually got around to, yeah, I know you don’t have a husband. You’ve had five husbands and the guy you’re living with now is not your husband, which is a no-no, and she’s all the time trying to change the subject.

Are we supposed to worship on this mountain or that mountain? It wasn’t an honest question. She didn’t care about what mountain she was supposed to pray on.

If she was that concerned about what God wanted her to do, she wouldn’t have been living with some man she’s not married to. It wasn’t a legitimate question. It was an intellectual exercise or trying to obscure something else she didn’t want to deal with.

Those are the foolish questions. When it comes to spiritual things, there’s not a foolish, sincere question, I don’t believe. If somebody’s really dealing with an issue, there’s not a foolish question.

Foolish questions come in, I think by foolish, it means wasting time. Are you asking this because you’re really struggling with this and you want to know, or are you trying to avoid dealing with something else? Are you trying to throw up what they call a red herring?

So he says, avoid foolish questions and genealogies. Do people sometimes get. .

. Now, do sometimes people get tied up trying to get their own sentences out? Do people sometimes get tied up and bogged down in little details?

What I believe the Bible calls straining at gnats. We can get bogged down in foolish questions. I’ve given you the example before of the man I know who won’t come to church because we all have fellowship dinners together.

And doesn’t the Bible say that have you not homes to eat in? When it’s talking about the Lord’s Supper, okay, totally different thing that the church at Corinth was dealing with when Paul said, do you not have your own homes to eat in? But neglects what the writer of Hebrews says about forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.

I’d say that’s a bigger deal than whether or not we’re having lunch together. Because by the way, if we were doing the thing that they did in 1 Corinthians that got them in trouble, some of us would be bringing our food and eating in front of everybody else who was starving and hungry. but we can get bogged down in little questions and we could sit here and debate well should we have fellowship dinners or should we not all the while there are weightier issues that we’re ignoring because it’s easier to get uh yeah I’ll tell you this I said to uh one of the bible classes a while back and I told them I said you need to write that down because that may be the most profound thing I’ve ever said and may ever say in my life nothing else I ever say may matter but this it is easier to argue about things that don’t matter than to do things that do matter.

I may never say anything else that profound again. So mark this day down. It’s easier to deal with foolish questions than to actually get out and do what we’re told to do.

So he says avoid foolish questions and genealogy. Is it bad to study genealogy? I hope not.

I have a subscription to Ancestry. com and I love when I have nothing else to do. Go on there and search through things.

But the problem was so many people in their day were basing their relationship with God on their heritage. Now my parents are both born again Christians, have both been involved in church. I have grandparents who not at all times have been involved in church, but at some point all of my grandparents have been involved in church.

Now am I getting into heaven because of my heritage? No. I’m getting into heaven because of what Jesus Christ did for me and the fact that I believe that, took that on faith.

And children. So don’t get bogged down in, well, we’re descended from Abraham. Well, we’re the descendants of this person.

That’s not going to save anybody. And folks, if we’re fighting over, well, these people can come into the church because they’re descended from them, but they’re not, so they can’t come. That’s what he’s talking about.

Don’t get bogged down in those things. And contentions and strivings about the law. And still today, they will argue over, well, can I do this?

Can I? I remember the debate that was explained to us fairly young about the Pharisees and their Sabbath rules about what constituted work and how large of an object could you carry how far. Does the Bible say that?

That you can pick up enough of something the equivalent of the ink to make this look? Really? Can tensions and strivings about the law anybody?

Can I do that? They’re unprofitable and vain. You want to summarize verse 9?

He’s saying quit arguing about things that don’t matter. Because all the while that the early churches were arguing about things that didn’t matter, there were things that did matter that were being neglected. He says in verse 10, a man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition reject.

Folks, it does matter what we believe. Now I’m not saying, and what we teach, I’m not saying that there should not be grace. that you’re sitting around discussing something in Sunday school and you realize you have somebody in there who has an idea that’s way out in left field.

It doesn’t mean we walk out from Sunday school into church and excommunicate them. No, you deal with those people. And you deal with them graciously.

And you try to reason with them from the scriptures. But it says here, a man who’s a heretic after the first and second admonition. I’ll give you an example.

If I were to come out here and teach something heretical, If I were to teach, for example, that Jesus Christ was a created being, and some of you think, what’s the big deal? Well, if he was a created being, then he’s not God in the same way that God the Father is God. If somebody created him, then he’s not the eternal creator.

And there are churches today that teach that Jesus Christ is a created being. We’re getting into Jehovah’s Witness territory and Mormon territory, which incidentally, if you don’t already know this, they don’t teach the same thing. Anywhere close to it.

But that’s one thing they agree on. They disagree on, well, then who is he? But they at least believe he’s a created being.

If I got up here and preached a message and was talking about him being a created being, folks, that would be a heretical idea because I’m changing who the scriptures say God is. Now, I would hope, I’m not even sure. If I were sitting in the congregation, I’d be sitting there going, that’s not right.

Would I stand up and interrupt church? I don’t know because I was raised you don’t do that. I used to get in trouble for that.

talking to the preacher from the first row when I was five and six. I’d get in trouble for that. But I think I would be there at the back door saying, please tell me that’s not what you meant.

Let’s discuss this because this is a problem. And I would hope if I was preaching something like that, that’s not the only heretical thing that could be preached. But if I was preaching, he’s a created being, God created Jesus Christ and all this, I would hope that some of you would pull me aside and say, please tell us that’s not what you meant.

Please clarify. And if that was what I meant, that you would talk with me and say, let’s look at the scriptures. And folks, if I’m not willing to listen, if I’m going to preach heresy after the first or second admonition, after somebody’s dealt with me about it, you need to reject me as a heretic.

And that goes for anybody. Now I know probably within the confines of this room right now, there are disagreements about secondary issues, I’m sure. I mean, you put, I’ve always heard the saying, put 10 Baptists in a room, you’ll have 11 different opinions on something.

That’s just the nature of it. But there are some things that we can’t let go. And if somebody, not even from the pulpit, but if somebody is promoting things like Jesus being a created being, or you can be saved another way than through Jesus Christ, you know, there are prominent pastors, well-known pastors who are even popular in Baptist circles today in our country, who teach that there is a separate plan of salvation for the Jews.

What? And my head wants to explode whenever I hear somebody say, did you hear what Brother Sohn said? I’ll tell you who it is.

It’s John Hagee. When I hear somebody say, did you hear John Hagee’s message the other day? No, I didn’t hear John Hagee’s message the other day.

Man’s a great preacher. Phenomenal speaker. I wish I could talk like him.

But what he teaches is incorrect. And folks, there are all sorts of things that if it’s going to be promoted from the pulpit, even outside the pulpit, if it’s going to be promoted in the pews, we need to deal with it. because it distracts from the gospel.

And all the while, he’s talking to Titus about the churches on Crete and saying, you’re arguing about these little things and neglecting that there are these big issues going on. There are these big differences, big disagreements going on. I need to move through this more quickly.

A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition rejects. Why? Because heresy undermines the foundation of the gospel, which is what all this is about.

knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself. And then he closes in verse 12, begins to close and says, When I shall send Artemis unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come unto me in Nicopolis, for I have determined there to winter. He’s talking to Titus about sending mutual friends to see him.

Bring Zenos the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto them. He’s saying, take care of these traveling preachers and let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses that they may not or that they be not unfruitful. All that are with me salute thee.

Greet them that love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen.

He ends up talking about the gospel and things that support the gospel, things that point us back to the gospel and things that distract from the gospel. I want to share with you four things real quick. I’ll try to do one of those things where I do it in two minutes or less, and then we’ll get started on our dismissal. First of all, the gospel is a trustworthy basis for all of our other teaching.

If we make sure that everything we teach squares with the gospel, then it’s going to be hard for us to go wrong. Now, if we start teaching things about other, if we start teaching on other doctrines, and what we’re saying is going to require the gospel to be changed, then we need to go back and recheck what we’re teaching because it’s not scriptural. But he says this is a faithful saying. The gospel is true and it’s unchanging.

Hasn’t changed in 2,000 years and never, ever will. And as long as what we are teaching is consistent with the gospel, then we’re doing w