← ArchiveSunday, February 25, 2018DateFebruary 25, 2018Speaker—Text—Passages in this sermonEphesians 422:45TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00we are starting a new series this morning and um some of the book of titus so if you want to go ahead and begin to attempt to find that book it is right after 2nd timothy and before philemon and0:28hebrews very short book it's got three chapters in it and so if you want to go ahead and turn there the theme for this whole entire series that we're going to start on it's really amazing how this kind of works out i started the last sermon series too and so i'm starting this one and so every time josh is is out and by the way he's in israel they're having a really good time there and i'll be praying for them and their safe travels back and everything but every time he's gone it seems like0:56i start a series and so this is fine with me um he has he does a great job and everything of getting these together and um so we are we're definitely blessed to be going through this series out of order um if you've ever had anything out of order is frustrating um if you was to walk in my house right now um and go to my refrigerator and try to get something out of it it would be kind of warm refrigerator broke uh this past week and um and and and so if you also to go outside and and look at my1:25car i have a flat tire and i also have my mother-in-law living with me too amen she's not watching right now she is with my father-in-law that is also i'm in rehab right now um and so uh so anyways things are kind of out of sorts right now uh for our family and uh so i know a lot of you've been praying for us and everything and so things a little a little out of order and so my father-in-law has a saying if1:52sometimes you just can't help but to laugh at your situation and so that's kind of where we at we just kind of surround us kind of laugh um and then sometimes we cry um but anyway um today we're going to begin this short series on the book of titus and this is apostle paul's writing uh letter to titus and titus was a missionary mentored by paul and he basically was a missionary mentored by paul and he is getting prepared to plant a church on an island called crete now crete was one of the probably one2:21of the most immoral places of that particular time um it was in the mediterranean it was the hub for for piracy and so if you could imagine um this young guy creating basically planting a church on an island with the set and the characters of the pirates of the caribbean that's kind of what you're you're looking at here is a very immoral place a place that literally um2:45piracy was going on lying was celebrated art form there as a matter of fact there's a saying that to crete was a slang to lie um and so lying basically was an art form um and so historians have said that nowhere in the ancient world where politicians were more corrupt than crete um the public policy uh tilted toward people in power um even it says in titus verse 123:11uh of the same chapter verse 1 chapter 1 even one of their own prophets has said cretins are always liars evil brutes lazy gluttons and verse 13 says this testimony is true and so paul is affirming that he's affirming that hey you know these guys are rough they're they're horrible they're they're they're liars they're evil brutes they're lazy guttons and so if you think about that3:37some of you are like hey that's most of my friends some of you may even say you know what hey that's my family some of you may say you know what that's that's where i work that's my workplace um sometimes that that we we end up in places that where we work and it's not very comfortable and so how do you live out the faith in a really difficult immoral place like crete and so this3:59message is very relevant for us today we're living in a day where you can't believe what you hear because of all the lies there's so many lies you can't you you can't really listen to the tv and and listen to the news and go is that really is that true um don't get me started on facebook i mean you really can't believe anything on there and so it's very very hard to get the truth4:27um even our friends sometimes it's very difficult sometimes when we have friends that you know is that really true i'm not sure if that's true or not does it sound true i'm not sure if it's true and so there's all the lies and there's this evil around us and then laziness has become a epidemic so we live in a day where trusting anyone is a challenge even if they say that you're they're your friends and everyone is suspicious of someone what they're doing over there you see the neighbors4:55i don't know about them i'm just not too sure what's what's going on over there when we also live in a day where kids are plotting murder if you haven't heard what's going on in our society today with with our children and the schools and and different things man be praying for our teenagers be praying for our children so we live in a day that is just evil there's lying and then there's laziness5:18we live in a day where laziness has become a sport people will work hard to get out of work they will work hard to get out of work and so how do you live out your faith in a very really difficult and moral society that we live in today and so if you look around you can realize that something is out of order something don't seem right in our society as you walk through our society at work5:47as you have the friends that you have as you listen to the news you can't help but to think man something is not right here something is out of order something is broken it's broken so how do you respond when christianity is constantly despised belittled and even made fun of so paul writes to titus not only to answer some of those questions but to equip and confront6:15the culture and so there is an order taking place and we need to see this order take place and we can kind of see a glimpse of this and don't you think about this for a second paul was once saul saul was knocked off his horse in damascus on damascus road and that event set in motion a life of godliness that leads to a life of service that leads to engaging the culture there's an order there's this there's this order that things6:45kind of happen naturally so we see saw become paul had encounter with with jesus we see him going into service we see him serving we see him learning we see him being godly then all of a sudden we see him engaging the culture so the gospel always pushes and presses into the culture and we're going going to see that that's our responsibility is to lead and change culture as believers in jesus christ as7:14christians we are never called to sit idle and do nothing and it's completely contrary to to what a lot of us have maybe grown up and thought about church and the way we do church and the way we we we just do life we need to continually be pressing in on culture and so we're going to look at verses one7:39through four and i broke this up in chunks so we can kind of understand this and maybe hopefully get out of here by lunch so verses one through four titus verse verse verse one one says paul a servant of god and the apostle paul of jesus christ for the faith of god's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness and so that phrase the truth that leads to godliness or at least that is a theme is8:03is to come up over and over and over again in this in this particular entire book of titus the truth that leads to godliness god's purpose in this book in this gospel is to create for himself a loving people that loves him and others that is the gospel that is the purpose of the gospel is to create for himself a loving people that loves himself and others godliness is that is that's the point of the8:31gospel when god saves us he saves us for himself for us to be used for us to be planted for us to engage our culture and our world around us i used to do um accident reconstruction before i became in the ministry and there's always a point8:55there's always a a literally a point where the actual a collision occurred and there's this impact and so you see the impact and what we would have to do is we'd have to reverse engineer the entire thing and so we have this impact and you have to figure out what happened before all of that when you got saved you had an impact you ran into jesus and something happened some change happened9:24and so my question for all of us here this morning is has there been a change has you been have you been affected have you had an accident to the point to where you've been changed verse 2. in hope of eternal life which god who never lies promised before the ages begin so how does the9:47gospel transform us how does that happen what is the mechanics of it how does the gospel transform us the gospel points out our inability to save ourselves it points out our inability to save ourselves we are broken we're hopeless so jesus had to do this work in us in order for us to receive the gift so in the gospel10:09we see that god's making us in the future he has for us he puts us he puts a taste and a hunger in us he puts that in us and so we have this taste and we have this hunger and then we start to grow we start to grow in the lord he leads us to godliness and it's a chain reaction it's a chain reaction it10:37should be it should be a chain reaction here's how here's how this works for titus let's look at titus titus is told about the saving faith of jesus jesus saves titus the truth of the word begins to shape titus which will lead to godliness all of which the rest of the hope of the eternal life in a god that will never lie it's a chain reaction in verse three it says at the proper time manifested in the word11:02through the preaching which i have been entrusted by the command of god our savior so the chain reaction continues it doesn't just stop there it doesn't stop with godliness because if it just stopped with that the gospel would not be complete it wouldn't be true because he says to go therefore and make disciples it doesn't say stay godly learn as much as we11:33possibly can and not do anything with it and so amazingly god has placed the greatest message ever told in our hands in a people like you and me we are to engage our culture with the message of hope so titus is told about the saving faith of jesus more than likely paul led him to the lord12:00he gets saved the truth of the word being against his shape titus through the discipleship of others the church that leads him to godliness and then and then leads titus to sharing about his saving faith in jesus that is how it works that's how it should work and you may say well i'm just i'm just not12:20comfortable with with with sharing um i'm not at some point in time it has to become vocal at some point in time it has to become outward i've heard people say it before i can just live my life and people can watch my life and they can come to the lord never seen that happen12:49you may think well i'm just i'm just gonna live my life i'm gonna live godly and just and just keep going and man people will see me and they'll come to christ you know how crazy that sounds13:12it has to become vocal verse 4 it says to titus my true child and common faith grace and peace from god the father and jesus christ christ our savior titus was a true son in our common faith our common faith and so paul used the phrase true son for timothy also paul was the spiritual father of both timothy and titus he led both boys to faith in christ and so i want to key in on common faith and i think it's important to note that titus was to preach the same message that paul preached13:42it is passed down it's it's continually it's a cycle it is passed down from from from leader to mentor from then the mentor starts to grow in christ and the mentor starts to mentor others and that's how this whole thing spreads and then you have this area that we have called crete so titus was to share in this common faith and have been commanded to go and make disciples14:12verses five through nine we're going to look at this and it's basically the first four verses is a life of godliness paul talks about this life of godliness that that we need to be manifested in us and then verses five through nine and see we see that godliness leads to service godliness leads to service if you are a believer and you you have you have been saved and and you you begin to seek out godliness you cannot help but to read scripture and see that we are to serve others14:41we are to love others verse five says this is why i left you in crete so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as i directed you so our godliness determines how effective the church will be pursuing the lost and confront culture there's an order to it there's15:03an order to how we do things there's an order to to how we live our lives and so if paul said it they thought paul instructed titus to do these things i think it's very important that we look at this and then we say are we really pressing into our culture and if we're not pressing into our culture why is that that and could it possibly be that we don't have the leadership that we need that are stepping up15:30not just here but church in general across this community so our godless determines how effective the church will be in pursuing the lost and confront culture paul has passed the torch on at this point he's passing the torch on the titus and how titus has been charged with appointing godly leaders to set in motion unity in the church there are two types of15:54offices in the church two types of offices there's elders and there's deacons elder overseer and pastor are used interchangeably in scripture to refer to the same office deacons are to serve elders are to lead out elders are not and i want to get this really straight elders are not super christians and that16:21that that's not what paul is saying here this is what he gives us a list here let's let's read this list verse 6 it says if anyone is above reproach husband of one wife and has and his children are believers and not open to change of debauchery and a subordination for an overseer as god's steward must be above reproach he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain but hospitable a lover of good self-controlled upright holy and disciplined he must hold firm to16:51the trustworthy word as taught so that he might be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it and so that is what a godly leader looks like d.a carson a biblical scholar said it like this the most remarkable feature of this list is that it is17:19unremarkable it contains nothing about intelligence decisiveness drive wealth or power almost everything and i want you to hear this almost everything on this list is elsewhere in the new testament required for all believers for all believers so i want to make something very clear17:49could it be possible the reason why a lot of people are not stepping up and serving in many areas of leadership is that they think that they don't measure up that they feel like that there is a elite list or elite group of people that can only serve in the church18:24and so i don't think that's what paul means to say rather christian leadership demands a focus of the kinds of characteristics and virtues that ought to be present in christians everywhere so this is not unattainable it's not an attainable step of perfection that some people have made it and some people don't because of what christ did for us we should all be striving to be godly leaders because the world's looking18:54for hope and so the way we give them hope is we got to have our business in order as the church and so titus was required to go out and find these godly men and he appointed them in different areas mentored them for the hope that they would begin to set things in order to help fix the broken19:24to go after those that were lost in the pushing on culture could it be that the reason why we feel like we're sort of losing the battle in our culture is because we have curled away we're doing this right here we're like i'm not sure but if we need to say anything or you know i know that i know that they're they're lying about that i'm not sure we need to we need to be involved in that or could it be the the reason why we're not effective in the community as far as reaching people because the church sees us and they don't see anything different19:54been tasking our students to live a godly life on campus that is the only way they're gonna be able to reach their friends because if they're doing the same things that their friends are doing they'll never reach them it's the same thing for us adults if we're acting in a way at the ballpark i step oh am i meddling at the ballpark on the fields20:26at your workplace and they know you go to church here and you act in a fool it don't just hurt your witness but it kind of hurts ours too my burden is to see people saved i've got a daddy i've got family members i got a list of friends that i'm going after20:59i'm not perfect man if you know me you know brad tollis is not perfect but i'm trying the best i can to reach my friends to live in such a life that that maybe someone can see that man you know this guy he he's the real deal he ain't perfect but he's not like everybody else and that's my prayer21:22is that we would be a people that people look at and go man they're a little different there a little different there so these are good men godly character these are men of good godly character not out of not out of obligation not out of obligation but because of what christ has done in their hearts21:46they're not acting like they're godly they're they're godly because of their heart that's where true service happens and it keeps the church unified it keeps the church healthy and so titus is charged to find these guys and here's why the church must be unified when facing an enemy that seeks to devour destroy22:13and if we can't get it right if we if we're not unified and we're not together when it comes to the gospel if we're if we're not if we're off track and we're just kind of you know i'm not sure about this year or this right here and if we're doing things we shouldn't be doing and all of a sudden they see us and they acting a certain way then it's really difficult for us to be effective ephesians chapter 4 says it really well and i love this i love ephesians chapter 4 it's one of my22:45favorite books because it just gives us really clear instructions it says and he gave the apostles the prophets and evangelists and the shepherds the teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for the building up the body of christ until we attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the son of god a mature manhood to measure of the stature of the fullness of christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves and cared about by every wind of doctrine by human23:15cunning by craftiness and deceitful schemes rather speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into christ from the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which is equipped with each part is working properly makes the body grow did you hear that23:39this says that if we live godly lives if we pursue righteousness then the church will grow numbers will be added if we just seek christ24:07when soldiers enlist in the army they're tested to see which service they are best suited for we have a lot of veterans in here we have a lot of men that are in the military the army has four main fighting units infantry armored artillery and engineers however these corps would be unable to fulfill their mission without support from the24:35other corps such as medical transport ordinance intelligence signals and aviation they all work together each corpse needs soldiers to fulfill these roles and all the necessary proper function of the whole furthermore no matter which unit they belong to soldiers are expected to be compact ready at all times able to march into battle and face the enemy25:03we are compared to a loving force the church is compared to a loving force that goes out into the world we are to press in on culture and we have our marching orders and so titus has his troops25:33now it's his time to go into battle and here we see the importance of godly leadership in the midst of battle there's these salts teachers no doubt that are persons that are about to persuade attract and trap in verses 10 through 15 we see this this is what it says about these guys for there are many who are insubordinate empty talkers and deceivers especially those of the circumcision party they were judaizers basically they must be silenced i don't you listen to language here26:03should listen to the to the harsh words that paul is telling titus that that needs to happen to these people that are teaching and leading people astray they must be silenced since they're upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought to teach one of the cretians a prophet of their own said cretins are always liars evil beasts lazy gluttons this testimony is true therefore rebuke them26:28sharply and they may be sound in faith not devoting ourselves to jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth to the pure all things appear but to the defiled and the unbelieving nothing is pure but both their minds and their consciences are defiled they profess to know god but they deny him in it by his works they are detestable disobedient unfit for any good work26:57paul is talking about a very religious group of people they're called the judaizers they taught that you had to earn your salvation they offered a jesus plus works salvation the judaizers opposed paul's teaching of it is not by works that we are saved but by solely by the grace of christ they oppose that and so we must confront and engage culture but we must also be careful not to become what27:24what we are confronting because oftentimes what we have is the culture begins to influence society begins to influence and then you have it creeping the church and then paul sends someone like titus that says hey we gotta clean this mess up and so here we are reading this scripture about a broken society in a church that needs to be fixed27:56we must confront and engage culture but we must also be careful not to become what we are confronting in this case the religious religion will never save a lost man religion will never produce true godliness the religion will judge others while superficially serving them those who excel in religion say look28:19at what i've accomplished i'm better than others and there's also an unrighteous competitive competitive spirit i'm not gonna get that out there's also an unrighteous competitive spirit among the religious i want you to listen to this they find joy in others misfortune and failures because when you are down they are up the religious concern with sin is to avoid punishment so you ask how close can i get and still be okay28:49when the integrity of the gospel is at stakes we cannot run we cannot hide we must stand and fight because that is what we are called to do armed with the truth motivated by love we can engage the enemy enemy and rescue the captive so there are people literally around us29:20especially in this area we call the bible belt that have grown up thinking that thinking that they're fine and they become religious and they're following a set of lists and their hearts never been changed their hearts never been affected and you say well how do you know that29:51how can you tell that how do you how can you say that look at our community around us watch the news does it look like we're being effective that's an indictment on us christianity has never been30:22just to overturn a new leaf it's the power of a new life not to resolve to live better better resurrection resurrected life in jesus it's not a set of rules it's not a set of it's not a do-good book it's have you been changed have you had an encounter with jesus and paul is saying that things are broken if if if that's not true30:52and so when there's lack of godly leadership when there's lack of elders when there's lack of deacons when there's lack of men stepping up we suffer our society starts to suffer our culture starts to suffer and people look to the truth look the church and go what's going on what's what's happening and we have to go you know i just we need some order we're broken we need to we need to go to the lord we need to seek him out31:22the heart of the christian message is not that once we're clean ourselves up we we come to god and he accepts us the heart of the christian message is we are unable to clean ourselves up it is impossible to clean ourselves up so jesus came to clean the mess we've made up and so we seek to become healthy a healthy church31:52and that starts with living godly lives that starts just with with seeking out truth it starts with opening the word up and going you know what does it say about living a godly life so here's how it happens32:25young man 21 years old lost agnostic hates the church hates christians makes fun of them someone says you know what that guy i need to need to get him here they invite him to an event32:52he gets saved in turn that young man gets saved and something changes in his heart over time and he begins to seek out truth other godly men pull alongside of him and begin to mentor him33:21they begin to help him they even knock on his door and say man how you doing how's it going they make sure that he's here when he's not they're continually checking they're continually man are you are you living okay why don't you come to this bible study why don't you come to this right here and they're walking alongside of him33:50then he begins to say you know what i want i want to mentor somebody i want to begin to to reach out to some folks so guess what he starts doing he starts doing the same thing that his friends have been doing in the church and that is reaching out and touching folks before you know it he's he's he's reaching folks and he's sharing the gospel with them with folks and he's living a godly life if that cycle stops34:24we die we've got to find an order and so men of the church where are you at in your walk with jesus where are you at in your walk with christ do you have all this knowledge and you're just not doing a lot with it34:54and i hope that the word today has convicted you like it's convicted me and then i've got to start doing more i've got to start pressing in because if we don't in 15 years from now who knows where we'll be and so my prayer for you this morning is that you'll begin today the process35:24the process of seeking out truth the process of seeking out scripture man along that path find some young man that needs help ladies find some young lady that needs some help that needs to grow man our young ladies need some older ladies to come alongside of them and help them let's pray let's pray lord jesus35:53let's pray lord jesus
