A Word of Warning and How the Gospel Influences our Behaviours – Titus 1:10-16

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Our passage for today is Titus 1:10-16.

For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

Like I said in the Introduction of Titus – This particular passage is about proper handling of error in the church life.

After giving instructions to Titus on appointing Elders in the church, Paul is now addressing some practical problems within the church.

In today’s sermon, we will understand these problems in its original context, and the solution Paul offers, and after which we will learn how it applies to us today.

The church in Create was growing in numbers, the ministry of Paul and Titus was flourishing, and the Gospel was impacting the lives of many people in that region.

But alongside the growth of true believers the church was also filled with many who were

• disobedient to the leaders,
• empty talkers – people who had everything to talk about in the world except god,
• deceivers – people who wanted to deceive the true believer from their genuine faith in Jesus,
• people who were upsetting others by teaching for shameful gain – either to gain money or materials things from them.

And Paul specifically mentions about especially those from the circumcision party. If you remember in 1 Timothy, these were the people who were distorting the gospel and asking the people also to get circumcised to become a true believer.

Then some people had a bad reputation of being liars, evil, lazy and gluttons.

People who were professing to know God, but denying him by their evil works.Now, It is no surprise that even today in our generation, churches across the world is filled with these kinds of people who have the form of godliness but are corrupt, deceivers, selfish and carry a bad reputation.

In verse 15-16 Pauls says: To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

You might ask, why does the church attract these kinds of people?

Number one reason I would say is that the enemy, the devil – the prince of this world is after the church of Jesus from growing & flourishing healthily. He will do anything to corrupt the hearts of believers by any means.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 – The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

The second reason I believe we attract these kinds of people with selfish gain into our churches is when the gospel is incorrectly preached and presented.

Galatians 1:6-7 – I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

The promise of the gospel is not health, wealth, and prosperity – It’s not that when you become a Christian all your problems will go away, you will become rich, or you will become famous.

The promise of the Gospel is salvation from sin and eternity with Christ. The church and its leaders should exhibit this truth in their message and through their lives.

When the gospel is presented as a means for earthly gain, then we will attract people who join the church for earthly gain. Therefore, we need to be careful how we share the gospel with our unbelieving friends. We need to watch our words and heart intent.

The goal of the church is not to get the church filled with people for the sake of numbers but to reach out to people who genuinely need savior Jesus.

The truth is – Any which ways we will have people in the church who will have wrong motives, who will be a lover of self, and deceivers. The question we need to ask is how do we guard our hearts and protect the body of Christ.

A word of Warning

Firstly I believe this passage is a warning to all of us. If, anyone of us, whether knowingly or unknowingly have been allowing Satan to use us in such a manner to destroy the body of Christ, then we should repent.

According to the scriptures, the areas we need to watch for are our attitude towards the elders, our conversations with each other, our heart motives and our behavior in general.

Paul’s instruction to Titus is to silence the evil doers and rebuke them publicly – It is the responsibility of the elders in the church to silence, rebuke and corrects those about whom it is mentioned as evil doers in verse 10-11.

It is one of the key responsibilities of an elder, and he shouldn’t be ignorant.

The elders should be unbiased and willing to let these people go even if they are the ones whose financial contributions make a huge difference to the church offertory.

The elders should be truthful to Gods word and faithfully teach them to the people.

Embrace the true Gospel

The second and I believe the most important way in which we protect our heart is by embracing the true Gospel.

The greatest deception in the churches during that time which the false teachers were teaching was Jesus is not enough, his sacrifice is not enough – They said you need to be circumcised a well to get approval from God.

They were infiltrating (diluting) the gospel by adding stuff to it. They said you need to do this and you need to do that to be saved.

When you look at our history, you will see how this deception had got into the fabric of Christian churches today. The sacraments of the catholic church, the rituals and the chanting’s of the orthodox believers, the unscriptural practices, and rules in some of the so-called Christian churches.

We focus and talk about everything else except Jesus and the Gospel.

Titus 1:13-14

Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 – The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, BECAUSE THEY REFUSED TO LOVE THE TRUTH and so be saved.

When God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden of Eden, they sinned against God by disobeying his command. They became sinful because of which God cast them away from his presence.

And because we are their children we are sinful too in nature. Our hearts are corrupt; our minds are corrupt, our behaviors are corrupt. From the time we were born, we were deceivers and sinful just like Adam and Eve. No one taught us to cheat and lie – we naturally cheated, lied, disobeyed. We are thugs, robbers and filthy people in the sight of God.

No matter how many good works we do on this earth, nothing can save us from God’s anger and his wrath.

But the bible says God loved us, and he sent his only son Jesus to die for us.

And the only way we can receive forgiveness for sins is through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, the son of God, who came down to this earth, lived a righteous life and took our sins upon the cross and died on our behalf – mending our relationship with God the Father once again.

All we need to do is REPENT of our SINS and believe in the GOSPEL – nothing else.

It’s a lie if you hear people say – Oh, but you also need to do this and do that to become a true Christian.

No. Jesus is enough.

It is the often the distorted view of the Gospel Truth that puts us in an ugly position with God, and we need to be careful.

It is so easy to forget this truth and try to work out our salvation on our own strength. We will fail, and we will fail miserably. The reward is Jesus and Jesus alone. Nothing more nothing less.

As a church, we need to protect this gospel truth primarily for two reasons

1. So that our hearts are fully fixated on Jesus and help us live a Gospel-centered life.
2. So that our hearts are protected from the evil one.

The Church of Jesus is the hope of the world. Remember, we are the light in this dark world, our light should shine before others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to the Father who is in heaven.

But if the light in us is darkness, imagine how great is the darkness.

And therefore, let this passage remind us and convict our hearts of our self-centered lives, empty words, foolish behaviors and our ignorance of the true Gospel.

May I encourage you to come before God and ask him to heal our hearts and purify our minds so we can live for his Glory.