[Music] welcome to Truth For Life where today we begin a series called for goodness sake we find out what it means to be good and we discover the purpose of our good works alist beg Begins by focusing on the public duty we have as Christians and the Inseparable link between our beliefs and our [Music] Behavior Titus read and verse one remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities to be obedient to be ready to do whatever is good to slander no one to be Peaceable and considerate and to show True humility towards all
men at one time we too were foolish disobedient deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and Pleasures we lived in Malice and envy being hated and hating one another but when the kindness and love of God our savior appeared he saved us not because of righteous things we had done but because of his Mercy he saved us through the washing of rebirth and Renewal by the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ Our Savior so that having been justified by his grace we might become hes having the hope of
eternal life this is a trustworthy saying and I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good these things are excellent and profitable for everyone but avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law because these are unprofitable and useless warn a divisive person once and then warn him a second time after that have nothing to do with him you may be sure that such a man is Warped and sinful he is self- condemned as soon as
I send emus or tius to you do your best to come to me at nicopolis because I have decided to Winter there do everything you can to help Zenus the lawyer and apollis on their way and see that they have everything they need our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives everyone with me sends you greetings greet those who love us in the faith Grace be with you all amen well let's pause once again and ask for God's
help our gracious God we thank you that you have preserved us and brought us safely to this evening hour we thank you that we are able to bow down before you a good God who has made himself known in the pages of the word of God and we pray that as we turn to it now that the spirit of God will be our teacher and that we might uh both understand and believe that we might obey and Trust indeed that we might be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we
pray amen here's a quote that I keep in my preaching book uh from the four loves by CS Lewis it reads as follows those like my myself whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty we easily imagine conditions far higher than we have actually reached if we describe what we have imagined we may make others and make ourselves believe that we have really been there and so fool both them and ourselves I keep that uh in the fly leaf of this little booklet that is an Inseparable friend to me I keep
it as a constant and necessary reminder of the Inseparable link between faith and practice between belief and behavior a link which is inseparable uh for all who teach the Bible and for each of us who listen to the Bible being taught and this in able link between profession and practice is the very theme of this little book of Titus this letter that Paul has written to Titus charging him as you will see when you do your homework in chapter 1 charging him with the responsibility of getting things in order the church in creit was presumably
established on a fourth missionary journey that we don't have record of in the acts Titus himself was apparently a convert from paganism and he had been charged with the responsibility of giving leadership to the believing people on the island of creit which is sits out there in the Mediterranean in a place that some of you may well have visited the focus uh for our time is inevitably limited and we may not even get as far as I have planned to get as I look at my time this evening but what I want us to recognize
and this I'm going to have to give to you again to follow blow up on I want you to recognize that at the heart of this instruction is a solid and unequivocal commitment to goodness to goodness you will notice that the word goodness or good comes again and again in these three chapters it comes in both of its forms in Greek both as Callos and also as agathos and on both occasions it is at the very heart of what Paul is saying and in verse 14 of chapter 2 he reminds the readers that Jesus Christ
gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness to purify for himself a people that are his very own and what are those people to be like they are to be eager to do what is good eager to do what is good and if we were giving a title to our study this evening it would simply be energetic in goodness energetic in goodness ready verse one of chapter 3 ready to do whatever it is good ready to do whatever is good and this in direct contrast to the influential false teachers who are identified for
us in chapter 1 and sadly are described in verse 16 of chapter 1 as those who claim to know God but by their actions they deny him they are detestable disobedient and unfit for doing anything good so here you have a fledging situation you have a church that is being established the leadership needs to be put in place many of the bits and pieces have to be uh set in motion and this is the charge given to Titus he is to exercise this responsibility in an environment which mitigates against it and not least of all
on account of those who are high sounding who are big talkers who like arguments who engage in discussions but in actual fact their theology does not jive with with their practice and so they are according to his designation unfit for doing anything good and in contrast those to whom he writes are to be those ready to do whatever is good so in other words profession and practice are found to be in Conflict uh with each other and Paul doesn't mince his words uh the these folks are not high on his list of people that he
really wants to spend time with at all that becomes apparent these folks are U ruining households he says in verse 11 of chapter one The reason they're ruining households is because they're teaching things they ought not to teach and you will notice there is a mercenary element involved in this because they're engaging in this kind of proclamation is tied with dishonest gain or with shameful desires for money and so at the end of chapter chapter 1 he finishes up by pointing out that these characters with whom Titus has to deal are marked by 3DS they
are detestable they are disobedient and they're derelict detestable disobedient and dereli I I um I'm not sure what Paul would have made of our great concerns for being politically correct uh in our day he's very skillful you noce because when he points out just how bad a place uh cre is proving to be he quotes one of their own profets I mean if you're going to run England down choose an Englishman who's run it down don't run it down as a scotman if you have something derogatory to say about America choose an American who said
something bad about it but don't come in as a resident alien and try and do that it's not wise I know because I've done it in the past I've stopped doing it a long time ago I stopped I stopped at 5:00 this evening by what he recognizes and what what tius obviously knew was that creit was proverbial for its moral DEC decadence it was just a pretty bad place in fact uh creit gave a verb uh to the Greek language the verb CDO which means to tell lies and that came directly out of creit because
people were so untruthful that they became a by word for telling lies and contemporary historians uh recorded how it was quotes almost impossible to find personal conduct more treacherous or public policy more unjust than in creete let me just give that to you again the historians of the day recording the context in which Titus is to give this instruction to these people under his care they found it almost impossible to find personal conduct more treacherous or public policy more unjust than incre now this should be helpful to us because some of us live with the
notion that if somehow or another we could just rewind the video and go back to the first century my what a wonderful time it would be back there when we didn't have all of these Dreadful 21st century problems to contend with if we could just zip right back in time we could go back to the time when it was so wonderful and things were far more organized and so on well of course that just belies the fact that we don't understand things at all we neither understand our Bibles nor do we understand church history because
the context for Titus is one that put huge demands upon him he has if you like moral decadence that is pressing him from the outside and then he has religious dogmatists that are causing confusion on the inside and he's on the receiving end of the instruction to encourage these people furthermore and if that wasn't bad enough Paul wants him to be an example in doing what is good in fact the literal translation of the Greek I'm now in Chapter 2 and in verse 7 where he says in everything set them an example by doing what
is good the Greek actually reads in all respects a model of Good Works in all respects a model of good works and then you put the verb to be at the end of it if you wish so here he is charged with this responsibility not only of exhorting and encouraging the people under his care but being charged by the Apostle Paul himself with becoming the very model of goodness which he is then to challenge and encourage his listeners too and in the framework there is no time for debate and there is no place for diffidence
that's how very vers 15 reads really of the end of chapter 2 these are the things you should teach encourage rebuke with all authority and don't let anyone despise you now why is that because of his personality no because of his position now Paul recognizes that entrusted with this leadership position that Titus has a job to do and in much the same way that Paul writes to Timothy and he says let no one despise your youth but be an example to the Believers in life and in speech in conduct and so on it's a high
and holy calling it's a dreadful position especially in recognition of the fact that the person who fulfills this role will answer to God for every word out of their mouth for every example set and not only for every sermon preached but for the motivation which underlies the preaching that on the day when the records are established whether it is wood hay and stubble or gold and civil and precious stones is not going to be determined by the extent of the influence of the proclaimer but will be determined on the strength of the motivation of the
proclaimer heart in doing what God has told him to do that's what makes it such a tremendous thing for Titus to find himself in this circumstance and so it is then uh his charge to make sure that he exercises a Ministry of reminder to remind the people one of the things that's good to notice how many times the Bible tells us to remember it's saying again and again I want you to remember the ministry of the poopet is not so much the ministry of innovation as it is the ministry of reminder indeed chasing after Innovation
uh will probably lead people up all kinds of deadend streets and so it is that Titus as Peter as Paul as uh the others of the Apostles are to remind people of certain things now what we have here in verses 1 and to is a lesson in Civics a lesson in Civics can I just ask did anybody here take a class in Civics yes so it is an American it is an American use of the terminology Civics so we understand what it was those of you do the class at least understand what it was and
namely the rights and duties of citizenship as a subject of study the rights and duties of citizenship as a subject of study now it is quite fascinating and not surprising that in the context in which Titus finds himself that Paul should be so concerned about the civic duty of the Believers that they should by their lips and by their lives stand out from the surrounding community that they should be distinguishable from the false teachers whose practice does not match their profession and they should be immediately observable in a community that is marked by immorality and
by decadence in other words his first emphasis is on the public deportment of a believer that the gospel that has transformed their lives must also be seen to transform their living that they have not been sequestered they have not being removed from the surrounding culture they are placed in the in the mainstream of the culture and in that culture they must live their lives now you don't have to be a genius to say well there is an immediate point of application to us in every generation isn't there and not least of all now at this
point in the 21st century we exercise the responsibilities of Christian citizenship in an environment that in some ways is not dissimilar to the context that is described here in cre and in the Public Square the Christian is supposed to stand out in contrast to the general populace the cretans were notoriously Troublesome they were known to be agitators they were known to be in insurrectionists so in the context of agitation Insurrection and downright troublesomeness the application of Romans 122 is pretty clear namely don't allow the world around you to squeeze you into its own mold we
tend to immediately read that and think it has something to do with playing cards or Jin Ry or going to Bingo or whatever it might be that's just because of where we come from but in this context the temptation to be squeezed by the surrounding culture would be the temptation to take on the guise of those who were the mainstream of the culture by championing the Troublesome agitational insurrectionist elements that were part and paral of this particular environment instead says Paul to Titus you better remind the people that the public duty of the Christian is
to be marked by these things now I've sought to summarize them and in doing so I may have missed something in which case I trust your judgment to fill in the gaps but I have chosen to try and summarize verses uh 1 and two under four words they're fairly straightforward and I think that there is basis for using them as I do remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities to be obedient number one the Christian citizen is to be marked by loyalty by loyalty loyalty if you look it up in the Oxford
English Dictionary is descriptive of quotes faithful allegiance to to the legitimate Monarch or government of one's country loyalty not a loyalty that shifts in relationship to whoever the prevailing political party is but loyalty that recognizes that one of the marks of Christian Civic deportment is going to be seen if you like essentially in patriotism and that this involves respect for authority recognizing that the ultimate source of authority as Paul says both in Romans 13 and in 1 Timothy 2 that the ultimate source SCE of authority within the political structure is none other than God himself
therefore he says the Christian INR is not to be engaged in Civil Disobedience but rather should be exemplary in upholding the rule of law not involved in Insurrection and Disobedience but exemplary in upholding the rule of law now depending on where you're coming from your mind May immediately start to ring little bells for you and they say oh yes but yes but what about the exception that is mentioned in Acts chapter five where they are told they are no longer to preach in the name of Jesus and Peter says you judge for yourselves whether it's
right for us to obey God or to man but we will do this and so on yes that is an exception that is an exception and it is one of the salutary observations of our day and generation that Evangelical Christianity moves in my humble estimation far too quickly to the exception clause and far too slowly to the New Testament demand for the Christian to live an exemplary life an exemplary life so that the rule of law and the establishment of civic duty and the structures are those which are not undermined by Christian conviction but which
are reinforced as a result of a proper sense of loyalty the second word is community this isn't simply the suggestion by Paul that the Christians under titus's care should engage in Acts of Charity but the recurring emphasis on goodness is not goodness that happens in a Wardrobe not goodness that happens in olation not goodness that happens in the privacy of a of a church Community but goodness that is expressed in community living so that the eagerness to do good is an eagerness which becomes a a a a characteristic of the Christian in the population within
the framework of community one of the calling cards of the Christian is to be be seen in their willingness to engage in shared goodness in other words it assumes involvement and engagement rather than isolation and estrangement what is Paul saying here to Titus he's saying that if you're going to engage in Acts of goodness that is going to have an impact on the community you cannot isolate yourself you cannot be estranged from the community you have to be involved and you have to be engaged [Music] aged you're listening to Truth For Life that is aliser
beg urging us to resist being squeezed into the world's mold we'll hear more on this subject tomorrow now if you listen regularly to Truth For Life you know our pattern is to teach directly from God's word and it's our prayer that this daily program helps you grow in your understanding of scripture and deepens your relationship with the Lord Jesus you're able to listen to Truth For Life each day because of the generous giving that comes from other listeners those who listen right alongside you who have reached out to us financially to make this program possible
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and reflections of Believers from four different periods of church history starting with the early church each prayer offers a glimpse into the faith and struggles of those who have walked the path of Faith before us once again the book is called cloud of Witnesses it's yours when you donate to Truth forlife at truthforlife.org donate thanks for listening tomorrow we will learn how we can make our faith visible through radical goodness the Bible teaching of aliser beg is furnished by Truth For [Music] Life where the learning Is For Living [Music]
