Titus 1:10-2:1 - Gospel Doctrine
Titus: The Gospel Series • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Handout
Handout
Intro
Intro
Max Sherman’s research made him famous
Who’s that?
A scientist who studies energy efficiency in buildings.
He examined the effectiveness of various sealants for heating and air conditioning ducts.
Dr. Sherman came up with a startling conclusion that was quickly picked up by the Wall Street Journal and other news medias.
Sherman’s discovery was that most of the duct sealants on the market worked with with one notable exception—Duct tape.
Sherman said that duct tape “failed reliably and often catastrophically.”
One news interview went like this:
Interviewer: “How did duct tape get its name?”
Sherman: “I don’t know.”
Interviewer: “What can you use it for?”
Sherman: “Anything but ducts.”
Interviewer: “Do you use duct tape?”
Sherman: “All the time… just not on ducts.”
What our society refers to as “the force that holds the universe together” is great for many functions, except for the very thing is it named to do.
Now we’ve been going through Titus together.
Our first week we discussed Gospel Identity. Our lives are identified in Christ. We are Christ followers.
On May 21, we learned about Gospel Leadership
What is expected in godly leadership and how mature Christian live.
Today, we’re addressing Gospel Doctrine.
The reason I shared the store about Max Sherman is because there are churches and even religious people who serve many good purposes, but not what they are suppose to.
Religious experience does not guarantee meaningful leadership within a church.
This is very ironic.
We learn from Paul’s letter to Titus that those in Crete, who claimed to be the most religious were often the least equipped for Biblical leadership.
So how to we keep from “failing reliably and catastrophically” in a church plant like Graceland Dearborn?
10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. 11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. 12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
Paul had just finished laying out the character for gospel leadership, and now we’re addressing the responsibility of that leadership.
Give sound instruction and rebuke corrupt beliefs
Paul points out that there are many false teachers
These people look legit—“The circumcision party”
These are former Jews that came with the “gospel plus” message.
These are religious people
Follow the law to the T
Moral superiority
The problem is that its not gospel doctrine
They are “empty talkers”
In the words of Shakespeare: these people are “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
They manipulate the Word to serve their agenda and build their own kingdom.
Simple behavior modification is not what God calls us too.
God calls us to live our lives according to His Word
So many are prone to take God’s Word and contort it into their own ideologies and philosophies
Paul takes the testimony from one of their “teachers/prophets,” who gives this sharp assessment of them (v. 12).
Essentially Paul just said, “That guy said it. He’s right, but I didn’t say it.”
Paul usually doesn’t pull punches, but this time he let the Cretan be the bad guy.
Therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in faith!
This shows us that just because they claim to believe in God, does not mean that they believe in the true and living God!
It doesn’t mean their lives are transformed!
Harmful beliefs Christians subconsciously claim
Karma
Weird that karma is always coming for someone else
Never “Karma is coming for me”
Do-gooders
Be more good than bad
Prosperity gospel
“God wants me to be healthy and wealthy”
Find it in the Bible!
“Good luck”/superstitions
Rubbing their lucky rabbits foot and knocking on wood.
We create things to believe functionally that make sense to us
The problem is, these beliefs aren’t biblical!
In the long run, false doctrine harms people (v. 11).
If one person in the family is in danger of having their faith overturned, those in the church ought to pursue their hearts! Correct bad beliefs!
How much more if a whole household were to lose trust in Christ!
Why does correcting bad beliefs matter?
Rebukes lead to healing (v. 13)
Rebuke is a bad word for some people
It simply means the pointing out someone’s mistake for the purpose of correcting.
Most people use rebukes as a bludgeon
They must be used as a scalpel.
Proverbs 17:10 “10 A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.”
Foolish people hate rebukes
They do not like being corrected because they believe they can’t be wrong.
This is not the reality for the Christian.
We understand we’re fallible. We must be open to correction, because that leads us into more knowledge and wisdom, which leads to a more joyful life.
The job of the preacher/pastor/Christian is to encourage one another toward the Truth
We speak the Truth in love because we love the truth.
We believe that this God’s perfect and inspired Word!
The Holy Spirit has preserved God’s Word through men and given it to us to let us into God’s plan of redemption!
You can’t trick someone into heaven!
The way we love Jesus is by knowing the real Jesus!
The way we invited others to love Jesus is by telling them of the real Jesus!
My wife is absolutely gorgeous.
She has beautiful black hair, with piercing green eyes
She’s a little bit taller than me, so she runs a lot faster than me.
She loves sweets and Dr. Pepper
She does not enjoy Mexican food, but she does enjoy some mushroom pizza
All of this sounds super sweet, but absolutely none of it’s true.
That’s not my wife.
My wife has beautiful brown eyes, shorter than me, and won’t run unless there is a bug nearby.
She loves salty food and absolutely repulsed by Dr. Pepper.
She can’t eat enough Mexican food and mushrooms creep her out.
This is the wife I married and love.
The more I know about her that’s true, the more I love about her.
If I’m to love her, it has to be true.
So for Christians to believe in fallacies about Jesus that simply aren’t true is dangerous because we’ve deceived ourselves into loving a Jesus that’s not real and cannot help us.
We’ve tricked ourselves into loving a Jesus that won’t save.
In reality, we’ve fallen in love with lies of the devil.
We have to draw our knowledge of God from the Bible, where God has revealed Himself
This is the role of the Christian—To point people to the life-changing Jesus we find from the Bible.
We must believe what is true about Jesus.
God gave us the Church to protect us from false teaching.
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
Mature Christians are to lead people toward sound doctrine so that we may grow up and grow others into Christ!
If I fail to do my job and defend theology, people may wander to believe anything and they will miss the beauties of Jesus.
I take pastoring very seriously
This stuff keeps my mind at work; I care about what you believe
God draws people through the proclamation of His gospel. Not false gospels.
15 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. 16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
There are ways to claim to be a Christian and live contrarily to the gospel
What do I mean when I say “gospel”?
Creation
God created the whole universe in perfect harmony to display His glory
He deserves honor and praise
Fall
We wanted to be God
We rebelled against our Creator and fractured the relationship with Him and the rest of creation
Now everything is broken
This is why children die from neglect and abuse
This is why people get divorced
This is why people get sick
This is why refugees are dying in the ocean and there’s no media coverage.
The world is broken
Promise
God is patient, loving, and merciful
We broke it and try to hold Him responsible
He gave us a promise that He would send a Savior, a sacrifice to pay our debt of sin and forgive us!
He gave His only Son, Jesus, who was perfect in every way to die instead of us
Jesus took our place to satisfy God’s hatred toward sin!
He took our justice and drank it dry!
God raised His Son Jesus from the dead to demonstrate that sin and death no longer had any power of Him!
Now, through faith in the finished work of Christ, we have been set free from our sin!
Before the world was created, God chose you to be His child!
He gives us the free gift of eternal life and adopts us into His family through faith in His Son because Jesus freely gave Himself to suffer on our behalf!
This is the good news that we gather to celebrate!
This is the good news that we hang out lives on!
This is the good news that changes people’s lives!
This is the sound doctrine Paul refers to in 2:1!
1 But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
Why do I preach expositionally?
We’re Bible people
We hold to and savor the authority of the Scriptures.
God has revealed Himself and His plan of redemption in His Word.
Two types of preaching
Topical preaching
The preacher has something he wants to say
Uses Scripture to support idea
Takes some pieces from the Bible to support the point he wants to make
Expositional preaching
The preacher goes to the Bible first
God has already said something
I’m not impressive
I’m not muscular
Average intelligence
Sometimes I can’t reach the top shelf
The Lord is magnificent!
God’s Word reveals the very character and nature of God!
This book is amazing!
This Book transforms lives!
Nehemiah 8:1-8.
God’s people being moved by God’s Word
What if we had a response like that whenever someone read God’s Word?
What if we were moved to such passion for God that we were stirred emotionally to worship God with our voices?!
What if we developed such a love for God’s Word that people were drawing near to God through it!
Generations of people were moved to the awe and wonder of God
Just because someone opened the Book.
The Book says
He is the Sovereign and beautiful Creator of all things!
He framed the oceans in their place!
He traced the mountains!
He designed the complexities of sound and tastes!
His is a loving and gracious Father!
Before the earth was created, He chose us for adoption as sons!
He forgives us and never casts us out!
He draws us near in our times of distress and failure!
He is the Redeemer!
Jesus is the one who was crucified for the forgiveness of our sin!
Jesus is the one who bore the full weight of God’s justice and wrath
Jesus rose in power from the grave giving eternal life to all who believe in Him!
God has revealed all of these things in His Word.
Concl.
Concl.
You do not have to be a Bible scholar to begin studying God’s Word
This is the way that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us.
Start reading it and praying for the Lord to give you insight into it!
Start reading it with friends!
You don’t have to teach, just read the Word!
There was an instance where Jesus preached a very hard sermon to hear and people stopped following Him.
Jesus looked at His disciples and asked them, “Do you want to go away as well?” (John 6:67)
Peter gave a phenomenal answer: John 6:68-69 “68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.””
Here’s my invitation to you today:
You’ve heard the gospel.
You can walk away and not follow Jesus, electing to be separated from God
You can hold fast to the Word of eternal life.
You can follow Jesus today!
Come talk to me after the Gathering.
Our next Worship Gathering, we’ll baptize someone because they’ve been saved and trusted Jesus as Savior.
We’re going to baptize as a church to celebrate that someone has gone from death to life in Christ.
This can be your story today too.