← ArchiveSunday, March 23, 2014DateMarch 23, 2014Speaker—TextTitus 3Passages in this sermonTitus 35:50Titus 3:15:53Romans 1226:38TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00Hurry up, will you come on? We're going to be late for church. Tell you what, take it so long to get ready to find something to wear. Come on! I'm coming. Would you put that phone away and let's go? Wait, we're talking about that new weird kid at school. Nobody likes him.0:30Look, can't you find something nice to say about somebody instead of always cutting people down? Just find something nice to say. Oh, you mean like how you found something nice to say about me? I mean, remember we were just in revival last week. You were supposed to write me that love letter? I hadn't seen that yet. Well, maybe you should remember that you were supposed to say something nice about me too, or maybe even say thank you for things I do every now and then. You know, hadn't heard that yet either.0:59I thought we were supposed to be learning to be humble. Well, maybe you should listen to yourself and be humble. Oh, man. I tell you, you know, maybe we should remember what we learned in revival this week. Yeah, I was just thinking about what we learned in revival with the youth, about how the tongue could be a deadly poison.1:24So I guess I need to stop talking bad about people. Y'all are both right. I mean, I really do need to tell you thank you for all the things you do. You know, during revival, God really convicted me for being prideful. And here I am going right back to my old selfish ways. I'm sorry. I really want to change. Will you forgive me? I'll forgive you.1:54And I need to ask you to forgive me too. I mean, I do need to say how much I appreciate you and how thankful I am for you and how much you do for us and our family and everything. Would you forgive me? Thanks. Yeah, I forgive you. You know, I think we need to pray before we leave. So let's pray. Father God, we come to you now, Father, just God, knowing how great you are. God, how wonderful you are. God, how worthy you are.2:22Father, it's through you, God, that we have these many things that we can be thankful for. God, I thank you for grace. God, I thank you for that saving grace. God, that can save my soul, a wretched person as me. But God, I thank you for that sustaining grace. God, that grace that I can ask for that forgiveness from you, Father, for the things and the ways that I fail you so much. Father, that you would forgive me for that.2:52Father, I thank you for that. Father, may our hearts just remember the things that you taught us during this past week. God, you're in revival, Father. God, that you own everything. God, and we're just managers of those things. Now, Father, I pray that you just be with us as we go into this service today. God, that our hearts would be open to hear what you would have us to hear. Father, we love you and we praise you. It's your name I pray.3:21Amen. Let's go.3:32How many of us could identify with that this morning? How many of us knew that revival was great and awesome, but we're just wondering how long it'd last? Would it be something that would last forever? Would it be something that would last the week? Would it be something that would last the few days? How many wives were looking at their husbands when their husbands were stirred thinking, he'll be the same in no time? Or husbands looking at their wives thinking they'll be the same in no time?3:59In my own heart, I must confess to you as the church, I thought, well, I know there are a lot of people stirred, but I wonder how long it'll take us to get back to the same old, same old. How long does it take us to forget movement of God? How long does it take us to forget God tapping us on the shoulder? How long does it take us to forget the last message that we heard and the response that God called for in our lives?4:26Well, I want to, you know, I want to be transparent with you. As we were going through revival, I guess it was Monday night. I pulled a church member on the speaker. And you said, what in the world are you talking about? Well, I never try to get a sermon ready after revival until I see how God does through revival and what he lays on my heart during the revival to whether or not what I should preach after revival.4:53And so sitting there on Monday night, he was up there preaching and on confession of sin. And I thought I was pretty adapted to that. And it's a joke. But anyway, I began searching and I asked God, I said, God, what would you have me to preach on Sunday?5:16And just as clear as the bell, Titus. And I said, God, I don't preach out of Titus. I mean, you preach out of 1st and 2nd Timothy, you don't preach out of Titus. How many chapters does Titus have? You want me to preach out of chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3? Which one? So I began to look.5:45And there it was. Titus chapter 3. We turn in your Bibles. Titus chapter 3, verse 1. Titus has been teaching in chapter 1 about false prophets and false teachers and how easy it is for them to come in and to teach their lies and dissuade people and the attitude that so many people have under circumstances and situations that come up like that.5:57And so when you read Titus, of course, it's a pastoral epistle and it's written to a young preacher that Paul is seeking to encourage. And so in the process of that, he's trying to get him everything he needs.6:27And so he gives him the qualifications for establishing the elders of the church. And then he challenges them in chapter 2 on preaching sound doctrine and sound teaching and how needful that is. Because what happens when that doesn't occur is that people are not grounded. And when people are not grounded in anything, they'll fall for anything. When people don't know what they believe, they'll believe anything.6:55And so, you know, there are certain times and certain circumstances that arise in a person's life and it challenges them where they are. And instead of going back to the truth, they fall prey to emotions or they fall prey to the charisma of the person they're talking to or they just fall prey to their own personal laziness and they fall and they forget. And, you know, the church has seen all kinds of revival meetings throughout the years and years and years.7:21And some of them have been meaningful and we can say and we can point at certain ones and say, you know, I remember this revival because that's the revival I got saved in. And that's exciting, but revival is to revive the body of Christ so that we as the body of Christ are challenged and what God has worked in our heart that we become this huge shining light to the glory of God. And we're all out there witnessing. And we're all out there sharing faith.7:51And we're all out there loving on the people that need to be loved on. And that's what Paul's talking about here in chapter 3. And I want to show you what got my attention is the first two words of verse 1. Remind them. Remind them. Isn't that interesting? Paul says, remind them. Now, I thought to myself, I'm not the scholar that has all the Bible translated.8:14But I began to look and I began to think, what are you reminding them of, Paul? What are you trying to get Titus to remind them of? And so I read the rest of it. And, you know, I read this and I thought, God, there is no way that I'm going to remind these people about this.8:33I'll lose them right off the bat. Listen to what he says. Remind them to be subject to the President of the United States of America. Remind them to be subject to the Congress and to the Senate.8:59Remind them to be subject to the Supreme Court. Remind them to be subject to the governor of the state of Alabama. Remind them to be subject to the police and the state troopers and the fire department and those that are in authority. Remind them. Remind them to be subject to pastors and to those that have authority over them according to the Word of God.9:30Remind them to be subject to their wives, or husbands, wives to be subject to their husbands. Remind them. That's not what he says. Don't remind them to be subject to their wives because that's what we heard all week. And so these wives are coming here today going, oh, no, another word on submission. But he says, remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one.9:59That means we can't choose because we don't like politics to degrade the president. How unpopular is that today? That means that we, no matter how angry we are at a particular political figure in our community,10:21that we can go out of here and talk about them. You know, sometimes we don't even wait until we get outside. To malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. You know, I got to looking at that and I said, you know, God, if real true revival has come to the church, this should not be a problem.10:51Because for the most part, when revival comes, it just hits us where we are in one particular area of our life and we find some freedom in that area and then it's real easy to move on. For some reason, sometimes we read the scriptures and we come to the place and revival may remind us as men of God that we need to love our wives and we realize that we're not loving them like we should. And so we come forward, we confess and we go back and we love on our wives and we tell them how great they are.11:17And that's the only area of concern that we really focus on. And sometimes that we may, like was challenging this week in giving, we realize that, you know, in my giving I haven't really understood the importance of God owning everything and me only being a steward of what he's given me and I've hoarded and now God needs and I need to give out of the abundance of wealth that I have or maybe I need to give out of poverty because I've not trusted God with my life.11:44So I've come to confront that, God's confronted that. I've surrendered that and that's okay. And then that's all we look at. But God said, I want you to know when revival comes to my people, all of truth begins to permeate their life. It doesn't mean that I can pick out truth that I like. I want to tell you something. If there's any fallacy problem, serious event that's taking place in the church,12:12it's that we will all stand up and go, whoa, I love truth, certain parts of it. I like truth when truth tells me I'm doing something that I'm doing. But when truth gets on me and where I'm at and what I'm doing and God convicts me, I'm not real excited about truth. I got to watch them.12:42My wife tells me this all the time. Last night, she likes to watch the Hallmark Channel. And so she was watching the Hallmark Channel. And so she watched the show she liked. And then this other show was coming on. And so she's watching. I said, have you seen... Because she's seen them all. I said, have you seen this one? She said, oh, yeah. You know what I'm fixing to say? She said, you get to watch what you want to all the time. You watch your favorite shows all the time. I said, I do not. Yeah, I do.13:12I've watched We Were Soldiers a thousand times. Or no, not really. I'm lying. But a bunch. And then Sergeant York. Y'all like Sergeant York? Console her. You know, there was a place in Canada that had a laugh and revival that broke out. Maybe you want to cackle like that. I don't know. Love you, Emily.13:43But Sergeant York, I was watching it yesterday afternoon. And one of my most intriguing parts is when he's battling whether or not he can go to war. Because the Bible says, thou shalt not kill. And he's struggling with that question. And he's such a marksman. And he's such a sharpshooter. And he's reading his Bible up on that beautiful mountain ledge with his old hound dog.14:09And his mom and his brother and his sister are worried about whether or not he's going to get back home or not because he's been up there so long. And he comes and he reads that part, render under Caesar what is Caesar's and under God what is God's. And you know something? We could probably go back to the history of all the presidents of this country that we've ever had.14:35And we wouldn't agree with all of any of them. But it doesn't say. Just like we can pound on our wives when they are supposed to be submissive to their husbands, that it doesn't matter how your husband treats you, be submissive. Because that's what God says. Paul says, remind them to be submissive to the rulers' authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.15:03To speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, and to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves, listen to this, for we ourselves were once foolish. Wow, they're different now. Paul says, Titus, remind them that they were this way, but now they're different. So I'm speaking to the church, and if you're part of the church, you were once this way.15:32You know what the tragedy is, is that I read that and I go, that ain't been that far removed. So many are still this way. Disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions, pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hatred by others, and hating one another.15:57But when the goodness of the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, I want you to notice what he said. He saved us. Wow. When God appeared, he saved us. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy. In other words, it's just what we learned this past week. We're saved by grace.16:27Not of works, at least any man should boast. The gospel hasn't changed for Titus to share with the people. This is why they can be different. This is why there's such a priority on the differences of their life is because they've been saved. We've been saved. There ought to be a priority in our life to live like Jesus because we don't live like we used to because we're not a part of that person that we used to be. That person died at Calvary along with our sins and forgiveness and mercy that God has shown us16:52when grace has come into life. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing and regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly. In other words, he poured him out. I mean, he came all of him on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.17:16The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. Notice what he said there. I want you to insist. Listen, preachers start insisting, people start getting ticked. Amen?17:47Amen? I'm talking to you guys. Y'all can talk back. But when the preacher insists on something, people get ticked. I don't know if you insist on these things. What? Those things he just read in those first few verses. Quit putting people down. Start loving. We'll talk about it in a minute, but anyway. The saying is trustworthy, he says, but he goes on. And I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.18:17These things are excellent and profitable for people, but avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels. These were things that were going on in Paul's times about the law, for they are unprofitable because people were getting with the Christians, and Christians were talking about grace, and the Jews were talking about the law. As for a person who stirs up division, listen to this. After warning him once and then twice, having nothing more to do with him.18:46Not somebody who's running around on another woman. Not somebody who's running around on their husband. Not somebody who's murdering. Not somebody who is just out there running their mouth, stirring up division. Knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self-condemned. Did you ever read that before?19:15Wow. You know, sometimes I think we ought to just be able to read the Bible and get on our knees and have an invitation and see people get saved and see people get right with God because by the time I get up here and try to expound on what he's just said, I'm probably going to make a mess out of what God just said because God put it about as good as it could be put. The first thing we see is remind them that their actions will speak. Remind them that their actions will speak.19:44Remind them to be submissive. He says remind them to be submissive. It's easy to look at our wives and say, hey, you need to behave. But here God's word is speaking to all of us about our actions toward the government. Now you say, well, let me tell you something. These poor folks were under the rule. Most of them were under the reign and rule of Nero who actually put more of them, the majority of them, were in prison.20:09The majority of them were placed in the lion's dens and were placed in the arenas of life. The majority of them, once they became Christians, were literally being persecuted and killed and murdered, main, bold, and all burned, hung on crosses. And yet Paul has the audacity to stand to Titus and say to Titus, young preacher, when you get in your new congregation,20:38you tell them to be submissive to the authorities that are over them. You know, and I've got to admit something. My wife, I've been doing a, trying to do a self-examination. And so we talked about, she said, you know, Chris, she said in the last five years, your preaching has turned to where it just looks like you're mad.21:06And I said, well, gal, I probably am. I'm more mad than I need to be. And, you know, you say, well, what are you mad at? I don't want to get into that. But I don't mean to speak out of anger. I really want to speak out of the passion of my heart. And folks, if real revival is going to come,21:34God does a sweeping change of heart and mind and soul and attitude and action. And so when you choose to run down somebody that's in authority over you, if I read this correctly and I understand what I've studied with John Phillips and what I've studied with other guys that I fear are a lot smarter than me, then we come to the place where we really must consider how we need to ask God to forgive us.21:57And I think if for the most part, the church of the 60s and the 70s that I was a part of took advantage of the evangelism that was done and disciple the souls that came and we prayed like we should have22:24and we had conducted ourselves financially like we should have as stewards of God, we wouldn't be where we are today. We must be submissive. So he says to be subject to rulers, to authorities. He doesn't just use one word, rulers. He's talking about those big guys over them.22:52And authorities, now he's bringing it down to where these were, were Cretans. And these Cretans that Titus was ministering to were a badly bunch of men. And they really liked to riot and they really liked to cause political upheavals because they didn't like what was going on in their cities by the governments. And Paul's saying to Titus, Titus, make sure you teach these folks to be subject to these people, to be obedient. And you know, that comes to that question then23:22that we really don't have time to get into. How far do you take your obedience to the local government before you sin against God? Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and God unto God what is God's. Caesar can't take my heart. This government cannot take my heart. But it can have my obedience. And so when we cheat on our income taxes, I don't know, y'all know anything about that? I had a guy one time he come to me and he said,23:52hey, Chris, he said, I found another loophole. I said, where'd you find it? He said, you know, you can put down a liquor, how much you spent on liquor for the year. It'll be all right, but I don't know that I spent anything on liquor this year. And some of y'all are going to say, serious, you don't know for sure?24:16But I said, what do you mean, how do you do that? And he explained it to me and he said, man, I do it all the time. I said, do you drink? He goes, no, but they don't check that. Oh, so you can take off stuff they don't check. And so you can lie to your government because you can justify it. You don't have to pay your taxes. And then I met a man, honest to God's truth, that got saved. Had a black box all of his life. A black box is what most business owners who make money and keep money, keep so that they get cash sales.24:46They put it in the black box because it's hard to trace it down. And he said, Chris, when God saved me, I had to open up my black box and pay all my taxes because I read where you're supposed to be submissive and subject to rulers and authorities and render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. And he says to be obedient. And he says, we must be supportive. He says to the rulers, to the authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work. And Philip said that means to be supportive of those.25:16Paul's challenge is hard. Christians were rebellious and hostile people. They hated authority. And listen to what Philip says. To be subject is a military word, one that Paul has already used in connection with women and slaves, and now he's using it. And it's a broad stroke to all of us who want to be unpolitically correct or politically incorrect instead of politically correct.25:43You know, I know what I'm saying is falling on ears that are going, preacher, I wish you'd just get on with the message. But my friend, I am getting on with the message because here's what the message is. Until the church understands the importance of all of God's truth, we cannot be blessed by a holy God on a continual basis accepting only that truth we want to accept.26:19Then he says to remind them to be about good works. Somebody's moved my clock. Oh, there it is. Lord, have mercy. I got to hurry. Remind them to be about good works. Romans 12, 20. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.26:48My friend, the church is battling against the opportunity that God has set before us to do that which is overwhelmingly righteous under the influence of his Holy Spirit. Our fall prey to the manipulating power of an outer darkness that is crept into our lives, however we've allowed it, whether it's through the television, whether whatever it's through, and our anger, however it may be displaced,27:17and we find ourselves not being willing to give anybody any good deed because we're so angry with one or few things. One or two fewer things. So he says, be ready. Be ready to do. As believers, we're always to be ready for action. Stay prayed up, in other words. How are you going to be ready for action? You stay prayed up.27:46How does the military get ready for action? Another, Sergeant York yesterday, they handed him his weapon. I don't know if it was a Springfield. It was World War I, so it probably was a Springfield. And they gave it to him, and he's looking at that thing, and he's going, wow, you know, wow, what a weapon, because he's used to his, you know, his muzzle packer. And he's gotten really good at it, but he's looking at this thing. It's got all these mechanisms in it, and it's got all that stuff, and he really, and he looks at it, and he licks the sights on it,28:15and before they know it, he's knocking the snot out of the dead center on the target, and they bring it back, and he looks up at them, and they question him about his ability to shoot, but his ability to shoot became when he said, you know, well, they said I probably early in life was shooting like that. He don't even remember how young he was. He was prepared, and so they're wanting to prepare them even more,28:46and he understood that, and boot camp comes into play, and all the preparations for a young man to go to battle comes into play, and a young woman, all those come into play, and the closer they get to the opportunity of going to the front lines, the more intense the training becomes, and depending on what their responsibilities are, the more intense that training becomes, and so when Paul says to be ready for good works, it's military readiness.29:16It's stay prayed up. We can't wait until danger is at our doorstep before we start praying, and I fear that's what's happened. That's why the church of the 60s and the 70s, if we'd been praying, if we'd been looking and doing all that God had caused, maybe we'd be better ready for today, but I'm not ready to lay the blame there. The blame has got to be here, because many of us are the ones who make up that church of then. So you stay prayed up. You stay read up.29:45In other words, you don't wait until something bad happens and try to find a passage in the Bible that's going to get you through it. You read your Bible daily. Then you know where to go when things get rough. You know where to find the needful things of life. You're read up. You're prayed up. You're ready to go. The enemy comes in. You know, hey, I know how to handle you. I know I don't have to dance before the devil to get rid of him. I don't have to sprinkle holy water over the door of my house to get rid of him. I don't have to hang whatever you want to hang to get rid of him.30:13I don't have to wear a cross to keep him away from me. I want to tell you, the Bible says you best do this, resisting. Resist the devil if you're free from him. You don't have to go to all the concoctions that this world says resisting. Don't fall prey. How do you know that? Because you're read up. How do you know that? Because you're prayed up. And what's the next thing you do? You're focused. What happened to this family right here?30:44They lost focus. They went through revival. But there was a kid that was on his iPhone reading about a kid at school, and he got focused on that and he wasn't focused on what the lessons for that week were. There was a dad that lost focus or he forgot to write his wife that letter.31:15Now, before you start asking, did I write my wife a letter? I am my wife's love letter.31:41But you stay focused. But you stay focused. Our focus, listen to me, our focus must be on the cross. Our focus must be on the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ. When we lose focus, folks, when we lose focus of Jesus, we can be swayed, just like Titus says over in chapter 2. We can become the prey of Satan because he begins to influence our lives.32:11You know, we can become eat up with Bible knowledge but never know how to apply it. You know, you can come to church and you can walk out of here and you can have all kind of breaks. You know, they asked Sergeant York why he didn't wear his medals. Where were they? He didn't wear them. Because he said there were so many that probably deserved the medal that never came home.32:39So he didn't wear his medals, but he told his little brother he'd probably see them eventually. But he wouldn't wear them. Why? He had a unique focus. You know, I believe he was also a man, if you go back and study the history of him, he was a real man, by the way. And his home and everything is just above Crossville, Tennessee, there in Jamestown.33:07And he was a godly man. Because he wouldn't lose focus. Because he wouldn't lose focus. We'll not win the world by becoming like its behavior. But we will be able to speak to the world by the power of the Holy Spirit because of our behavior.33:31But we will be able to speak to the world by the power of the Holy Spirit because of our behavior.33:43You see, if you get called up in the morning at breakfast with your coffee-drinking buddies or whatever, slamming the governor or slamming the president or slamming this or slamming that, there's a good chance they're going to consider you just like them. And you don't have any more spiritual integrity than they do.34:10And then, closing, remind them that it's not radical. It's natural in Christ. Why do we call the natural behavior of God's word radical behavior in the church?34:34Because we've gotten so far away from the natural behavior of Christ that when we act like Christ does, it's radical in the church.34:47This, to me, sums it all up. It's Titus 3, beginning in verse 4. But when the kindness of God, our Savior, and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior,35:16so that being justified by his grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy statement. And concerning these things, I want to speak confidently so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. And the good deeds were letters, words to Cretans,35:43who were used to being rebellious, full of pride, and nobody ever told them what to do. Can I tell you if there's one saying that probably sends more men to hell than any other saying, and that is nobody's going to tell me what to do. Well, my friend, I want to tell you something. Until you learn that it's a lie out of hell,36:14you're never going to know God. Because it isn't until we're submissive and we're subject to the Word of God that we're going to know the joy and the peace of God that passes all understanding and walk in his rest. And you're only going to know that when you know him by his grace36:42and by his mercy. So you see, Paul backs all this up. It's really interesting because what he does is he tells us to be subject to people that we don't want to be subject to. He tells us to be subject to authorities that we don't want to be subject to. He tells us not even to talk about them, but to be ready to do good works on their behalf if we have to. And that's where the church ought to be. The church ought not to let the standards of the world37:09keep them from being about what they need to be because we're the church. But one way you can know for sure that you can do this, Paul says, is because God has come and you've believed and by grace you've been saved. That's how you know you can do what you never thought you could do otherwise.37:39So those good works that you're out there running from, quit running. Let God be a part of them. Quit running. Let God work in your life. Quit running. Find somewhere to do something. Quit running. Quit running from what God has called you to do. And join God in the good work.38:09Because as long as you run, you'll never know. Our testimony depends on it. Let's pray. Father, either you did or you didn't do a good work this past week. If we did the work, we'll forget the work.38:38And God truly, revival will soon pass by. The time will have come and we will be on our way home. Our God, if you did a good work. Lord, you've reminded us today that that good work calls for our actions as much as it calls for our deeds or our words. James said it profoundly.39:09Faith without works is dead. It doesn't mean works is going to get us anywhere in a right relationship if we're lost. God, it does mean if we're saved. We've been commandeered by the Holy Spirit of God to be about the work of Christ till He comes. And sometimes that work is subjecting ourselves to rulers and authorities39:39that we can't stand in our flesh. But God, we're called to love. And how do we do that? Because your Holy Spirit changes our heart and gives us the ability to do what we could never do in our flesh. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen.40:11Amen.More sermons on Titus →
