“The Potential of a Faithful Church”

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

That’s a quote attributed to the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The history buffs in the room will know that no one can confirm whether Admiral Yamamoto actually said that, but there’s a movie about the Pearl Harbor attack from 1970 called, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and considering how the attack motivated our nation to enter into WWII, it’s a fitting line. Prior to that unprovoked attack, our nation had a strong isolationist sentiment - 88% of Americans didn’t want to enter the war against the Axis powers. But afterwards, the full industrial and military might of our nation was marshalled and, as they say, history was made. Whether Yamamoto said that or not doesn’t matter, but the reality is, yes, the potential of our nation was awakened eighty years ago.

Reaching our full potential… I want our time be spent this morning focusing on the potential of a faithful, healthy church. In a sense, this series of messages has been God’s invitation for this church family to rally around what it means for us to be faithful and healthy to the glory of our Lord Jesus. We’re preparing to set out on a journey and when I say journey, I’m talking about a marathon, not a 100 m dash. This journey will be challenging and we will be tested. It will invite us to reach the potential of what God wants First Baptist Church Devine to be. Have you ever considered,

What is the potential of a faithful church?

We’re going to lean in to a large part of Titus 3 to help us answer this question, but let me remind us of a few things. The Apostle Paul is the person who wrote this and he wrote to Titus, a pastor who Paul says he left in a region called Crete. With what we’ve covered thus far, Paul has been telling Titus about how God wants churches to be organized.

And all of the organizing that God desires, as it would turn out, is to position the churches in Crete and this church in Devine, to reach it’s potential. It’s to attain what God has purposed the church for - that is reaching the world the message of the King of glory and grace. We’re going to move through four aspects of faithfulness that will help us realize how we live that purpose of the church out and following that, what our potential is if we would commit to being a faithful church.

If the purpose of this church is to reach the world with the gospel, then the first thing we’ll need to see is that faithfulness calls us to be

Living in Submission and Humility

For pastors in Crete, Paul would have them teach the Jesus followers there to be submissive to what you and I would know today as the civil government. That’s who “rulers and authorities” are: they’re the people who make up and enforce government. For the folks in Crete, this is a charge to honor the leadership of the Roman empire and for folks like you and I in Devine, this is a charge to honor the mayors, city councils, school boards, representatives, senators, judges, and presidents elected to office. Government leadership in Rome was very different than government leadership in the United States, and yet, the Bible makes clear that Christians must submit to the government and its leaders, living lives in line with the ruling powers. And notice, more than simply being subject to them, Paul adds in Titus 3:1 to be obedient to them, so that they would be ready to do whatever is good.

If you had a good study Bible or a commentary on Titus, you’d discover that Cretans had a reputation for a lack of restraint. They were gonna do whatever they wanted! Forget the leadership in the church and forget the leadership of the government! But when God’s grace gets a hold of a heart, that grace leads the follower of Jesus to see that God’s actually in charge of everything. Earth spins on its axis and rotates around the sun, just as God has ordered. The winds and the waves come and go, just as God has ordered. And society, even among non-believing people, is ordered by God through government. The Bible says in Romans 13:1 “there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” That was true for the authorities who rule in Crete and that’s true for the authorities who govern our nation today. God had a purpose when Biden was president as much as he has a purpose with Trump as president. Now, that purpose isn’t necessarily for us to know, but it is incumbent upon us to trust and to submit and to be obedient. This is true for you and I in this republic, it was true for brothers and sisters in Crete, and it’s also true for our brothers and sisters under communist regimes in China and North Korea.

But, I’m sure that raises a question for some of you… Are there limits to this? Is there any point at which Christians should resist government? And the answer’s yes. It’s when those earthly authorities go against what is the will of God revealed to us in the Word of God. There are examples of this in the Bible, too.

In Exodus 1, Pharoah, the king of Egypt, ordered that all the Hebrew newborns be killed, but it says in Exodus 1:17 “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.” As Christians, we advocate for the right to life from conception through natural death based on the fact that God alone gives life. We don’t kill babies and we don’t choose our death date. Life is not ours to take.

In Daniel 3, a trio of rebels named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego wouldn’t bow down and worship the golden image King Nebuchadnezzar had made. As Christians, we are loyal to the One, true God, who has revealed himself as three persons in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We worship him and none other.

In Daniel 6, Daniel prayed to the One, true God even when King Darius had a law prohibiting that. In Acts 4, Peter and John kept preaching even after being told to be silent. As Christians, we promote religious liberty such that government cannot force a belief system upon someone nor can government prohibit anyone from worshipping freely.

So, bringing this into balance, Christians should be model citizens under any ruler or authority, even if the ruler or authority does not honor the One, true God. The special grace that Christians have received in Christ should enhance our cooperation with the common grace of human government, whenever it’s possible. But that’s not the end of how we are to live in society. Notice, Christians are to be reminded to behave graciously towards all people. So that we see first, again, a word about how what we say matters. We are to slander no one. We are not to speak against someone or something with the intent to harm them. Imagine what salt we can be to the earth if we chose to never grumble about others, or malign others, or complain about others, or any other type of verbal aggression towards others…this sort of stuff shouldn’t happen, no matter if we’re doing it to their face or behind their backs. What we say matters and you’re going to have to explain to God how you used your words in your life. Every one of the words you’ve spoken. Take Jesus’ word for it! He said in Matthew 12:37 “for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” And more than this, our behavior shouldn’t be confrontational! We’re not out looking to pick fights because that’s not what Jesus did. We must live humbly, my friends, not slandering others with our words and looking for a fight. What should be our behavior instead? When someone interacts with a Christian, they should leave that interaction thinking, “that person is not arrogant and they’re not cocky.” We shouldn’t have that mind about ourselves because we’ve learned that this life isn’t about us, it’s about Jesus!

And because of that, as faithful Christians, when we participate in public life, we show forth

Transformation Through God’s Mercy

So as we transition from Titus 3:1-2 to Titus 3:3-5, we can think about this in these terms… The rulers and authorities and governments God has provided is to bring order to society. And such order is necessary because we live in the present age that is marked by disobedience to God, evil, suffering, and death. And as a gift of grace, God has provided government, which is necessary because of the fact that not everyone’s Christian. Now, let me say that another way, government brings order to society because not every person is under the rule of Jesus Christ. Last week we talked about grace as a hope and we said that as recipients of God’s grace, we’re looking forward to the age to come where Jesus rules here on earth. We’re looking forward to the day when taxes aren’t necessary because everyone is contributing their part to the overall good. We’re looking forward to the day when no one regards the speed limit on 35 as simply a suggestion.

And until the age to come has arrived, we have an important point for us to wrap our heads around. Because, I don’t know about you, but some times government frustrates me. Some times I fail to see it as a gift of grace that God has given freely to all humanity. And yes, that failure is seasoned by the fact that I just paid my property tax and filed my income tax. But then I’ve got to remember what Paul is telling Titus to remind the people of Crete about here in Titus 3:3. For our benefit, read it with me in the first person Titus 3:3 “For [I was] once foolish, disobedient, led astray, [a] slave to various passions and pleasures, passing [my] days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating [others].” There’s two helpful ways for the Christian to consider Titus 3:3. For those of you who met Jesus early on in life where you struggle every time because this wasn’t fully true for you, being foolish and disobedient and led astray and so on are things God spared from ever taking place in your life’s story. For those of you who are like me who met Jesus later in life, it’s a humbling thing to remember who you were before you met Jesus, isn’t it? When I was in high school, I was the lead singer in a heavy metal band. I think about those times now and I see nothing but foolishness. I sometimes go back and listen to the music we played and my goodness, that music is rooted in rage and hate. We’ve got to consider what God has spared us from or we’ve got to remember what he’s saved us from if we’re to fully appreciate what follows, because it says Titus 3:4–5 “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,”

Jesus, who is the very goodness and loving kindness of God, came to rescue sinners. In fact, let’s think about this rescuing from Jesus. Apart from Jesus, humans will set their aim at being a danger to others but in contrast to fallen human beings, Jesus is kindness and love. That natural desire to be a menace stems from the fact that every human being is born without a relationship with God and that results in a life that is a complete mess. But when Jesus rescues a person, he takes them and all their imperfections and cleans them up and sets them on the path to be changed from the inside-out. He takes what was flawed because there was no relationship with God, mixes in his mercy and forgiveness and love and kindness to make you and I truly whole.

Let me try to explain it this way… Over the Christmas break, someone in my house spent some time in the kitchen baking cookies. And on this particular day, the intention was to make chocolate chip cookies. And as the process went on, the kitchen looked very much like a baker’s pantry exploded. There was a mess all over the counters, the mixer was dirty, but the smell from the oven seemed promising. We were waiting with hope for the perfect chocolate chip cookies to come out… a cookie with just a bit of crisp on the outside, chewy edges, and a soft, melty center. Then timer went off and the wait was over. The oven was opened and inside were the most depressing and pathetic chocolate chip cookies you could imagine. There was no volume to them. They were kinda oily and flat. Those cookies lacked a key ingredient that every baker in this room already knows was missing - flour.

And in a similar way, God’s mercy mixes into our lives and when it does, God does a miraculous work in our lives of adjusting and correcting and transforming our mess into something sweet and delicious. It’s in our flaws that we find God’s grace! And Paul wants us to be reminded of this because we can fall into judging others harshly because of their past. It would serve us well to reflect on how God has shown you mercy and perhaps, whether its in our Sunday schools or in our Wednesday Bible studies or at the lunch today today, to allow time for folks to share their testimonies where our brothers and sisters can share about their past or their present struggles and where they see God’s grace in their lives. When we hear others’ stories, we are helped to see their humanity and we’re helped by growing in empathy rather than judgement and when we’re empathetic, we’re much more inclined to give others the same mercy that God has shown us.

It’s the very mercy of God that provides the Christian the ability to be faithful with a

Devotion to Doing Good

And, in a sense, Paul explains who it is that brings the transformation in the life of the Christian and at the same time, who it is that gives the Christian a devotion to doing good. And that is, the Holy Spirit. We will need to reserve an deep study of the Holy Spirit for another time, but let’s just take note of what Paul is telling us here about him. Paul’s told us in Titus 3:5 that the Holy Spirit is who applies the gospel to our hearts, washing and renewing the follower from their sinful state. And as we see in Titus 3:6, Paul adds that the Holy Spirit is poured out richly upon the follower through Jesus Christ. That pouring out is intended for you and I to picture something like a cup just overflowing with water. When God gives us himself, he doesn’t just dab us or dribble a little bit of himself on us - God lavishes us with himself. God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

And this is where we have go to take note of something… The Christian faith isn’t about simply absorbing information about God. There are countless people who know the word of God but do not know the God of the word. The Christian faith is a lived out reality as God’s otherworldly love compels and propels Christians. Let me unpack that idea for us. There is a tension between what we believe and what we do. Some people believe that what they do, so long as it’s the kind of stuff we see Jesus doing in the Bible, can be sort of like a bank account with God where we can make deposits of goodness and kindness and if we deposit enough, God will forgive us for our sin against him. That idea doesn’t have a leg to stand on because, as we look back for a second at Titus 3:5, what does it say there? “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy…” So, it’s not what we do that saves us, but God’s act of mercy in sending Jesus to atone for our sin. So then, all we have to do is say we believe and that’s it, right? Not so fast. What does it say in Titus 3:8? “… those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.” What gives?

When the Holy Spirit brings us to the place where we are convicted of our sin and convicted of our need to be saved from our sin and convicted about the fact that Jesus Christ is the only One who can save us from our sin such that we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, we see from our text that the Spirit washes us, regenerates us, seals us by lavishly pouring the Holy Spirit in our hearts, (Titus 3:7) justifies us and makes us people who will inherit eternal life. And because of all that the Holy Spirit has brought about within us, doing good is a product of the Spirit’s activity in our lives. Elsewhere in the Bible, this tension between what we believe and what we do is explained as James 2:26 “faith apart from works is dead.”

And of course, if the gospel has been applied to you through faith in Jesus, that should include things you do for the Lord in and through the church. Work days, serving meals, mission trips and the like, but we also have to recognize that when the gospel has been applied to any one of us, the love of God himself is within us. And this is an otherworldly love, brothers and sisters. When I say otherworldly, I mean a love that doesn’t exist naturally on earth. This is a love from heaven that would overcome even the deepest of divisions we could imagine. A love that would bring Israeli Christians and Palestinian Christians to accept one another and worship alongside one another. A love that unites North and South Korean Christians. A love that brings compassion in American communities with a rocky racial history. A love that is not contingent upon whether you voted for a Republican or a Democrat. This is a love that changes a Christian-killer named Saul into a Christian evangelist named Paul.

And dare I say it, it is a love that humanity longs for and in depositing that love into us, God expects us to carry this message of God’s love and grace and mercy to the ends of the earth. And because of this, our faithfulness demands that we are mindful to

Avoid Distractions

Paul gives Titus a brief list of distractions that would have existed in those churches in Crete in Titus 3:9. It would appear as though that among the membership of those churches, there were Jewish Christians who still had their minds set on very Jewish concepts that the gospel corrects. I’ll borrow from something from our contemporary news to explain the mention of genealogies here. For Jews, there’s a sense of birth-right citizenship…that if you’re born a Jew, you’re a citizen of God’s kingdom, so it would’ve been customary for Jews to be able to recite who their ancestors were for generations. But the New Testament makes clear that natural birth isn’t what makes someone a kingdom citizen. Being born again as the Holy Spirit gives true life when there’s faith in Jesus is what brings kingdom citizenship. And all that to say, Paul’s warning Titus: “Don’t get caught up in controversies and debates about that stuff, Titus, because they don’t profit anyone involved.” The point being that when a church gets caught up on those things, the church is distracted from its mission to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

And, quoting a pastor whose ministry has been of great value to me, this is where it would suit us well to always “keep the main things the plain things, and the plain things the main things.” I’ll say this again, we must “keep the main things the plain things, and the plain things the main things.” And when we do, we avoid worthless distractions.

And even though I would suggest that should be the motto of any church for the purpose of maintaining our unity, Paul does address the reality that churches will face folks who stir up division. This speaks of someone who will not abide by the gospel message and fundamental, first-order Christian teachings. And Paul instructs Titus, go warn them once and if they keep it up warn them twice about the division their stirring up. We might think of warning here might as being something confrontational, but the better sense is to go have a conversation where advice is offered for perspective and personal improvement. And Paul says, if the divisive actions remain after two times of advice offering, then that church is to have nothing more to do with that person. Why? Because the church is being drug down by those useless controversies and that hinders the church’s mission to carry the good news to the ends of the earth. So, think about this… Gospel proclamation matters that much to the Lord. It matters so much that God instructs his churches to have nothing more with a divisive person who resists advice. And I bet someone might be thinking, “That seems so opposite of Jesus, Pastor Dan. Didn’t Jesus talk about leaving the ninety-nine to pursue the one sheep who was lost?” And that’s true, but the difference here is what Paul tells us in Titus 3:11 about the divisive person. They’re not lost, needing to be found. They’re self-condemned. They’ve warped themselves, are still in sin, and have rejected the Good Shepherd. And I can only imagine the heart-breaking nature it might be for any church to walk through that, but at the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that every church’s heart must line up with the Lord’s heart.

So, a faithful church is made up of Jesus-followers who are model citizens wherever they are, who are living testimonies to God’s mercy in action, who are devoted to doing good and all the while, avoiding distractions from the gospel mission at all costs. Why would Paul coach Titus in this way as Titus was identifying pastors to manage the churches in Crete? Why does this matter to people like you and me today?

It matters because the clearest gospel is seen before it’s heard. The clearest gospel is seen before it’s heard when the Christian isn’t consumed by the outcome of elections. Leaders rise and fall, but Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever reigns from his throne! The clearest gospel is seen when the evidence of the life of Christ is present in your life…when others can see that you’re not who you used to be because an otherworldly love has filled you. The clearest gospel is seen by others when there is a commitment to goodness and lovingkindness in what you do because you’re so wrapped up in Jesus that a great desire is to serve others. And the clearest gospel is seen when the church doesn’t descend into contentious distractions that results in that church getting off mission.

If any church were firing on all those cylinders of faithfulness…if this church were…do you know what the potential would be?

The church’s Spirit-empowered potential is to transform the world

We’re not talking about preparing for a journey of enhancing our facilities for the sake of our comforts or adding a few more amenities so we’d have the nicest country club in Devine. We’re talking about taking care of what God’s provided so that world-changing gospel transformation will continue to launch from First Baptist Devine.

This demands that we each commit to pursuing faithfulness on the order of what our text instructs. And, if anyone doubts this potential, can I challenge you to reflect upon what you understand of Jesus? Jesus the humble, Jesus the meek, Jesus the mild, Jesus who is both God and Man, has changed everything. He’s on a mission to set to rights all that is fallen. His word is true and cuts straight to the heart and struck fear in the hearts of men who considered themselves the most powerful in the world. Herod tried to kill him as an infant. The people in his hometown wanted to run him off a cliff because he spoke truth they refused to accept. Churchgoers in his day loved they way they did church more than they loved God, so they plotted every time Jesus rebuked them.

Don’t go believing the whispers of the devil who’d tell you that this church cannot have that sort of impact. He’d want you to believe our budget’s too small. Or that we aren’t big enough to have such an impact. Or, there’s no way that we can raise money to even take care of what we need to around here. This same Paul wrote to another church about all the ways that he’d been self-reliant and how the Holy Spirit had shown him that all that self-reliance, all of what the world says are strengths, left him weak. When you find yourself there, like Paul, you’re weak because you are in control and you’ve failed to depend upon the Lord, who is source of unlimited power. Did Moses part the Red Sea by his own ability? Did Joshua prevent the sun from setting for a day by his own ability?

Ephesians 6:10 “…be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” Be faithful to him and let’s reach our potential.