The Ministry of Confrontation

Introduction

A criticism I’ve often heard is that preachers today, thinking primarily of famous preachers who have a large following, preach in a style that is soft and vague. They present a Jesus that preaches grace and forgiveness neglecting those moments when Jesus confronts sin and condemns the wicked. They soften sin so that sin becomes brokenness, rebellion becomes struggle - this softened inclusive language that draws a large audience - it’s big tent unity.

There is famous interview where Larry King goes one on one with the popular pastor Joel Osteen, who at one time had the largest church in America - I don’t know if that’s still the case, but in the course of the interview he wants Osteen to clarify something, and asks if, in his preaching, Osteen uses the word “sin.” Osteen says that he doesn’t need to use the word sin because the people that come to his church already know they are doing things that are wrong and he wants to focus on bringing change.

We want the good old days. When men were strong, things were black and white, people disciplined their kids, when someone was wrong they were called on it.

A time when we had fiery preachers who weren’t afraid to confront sin.

A couple of years ago I read a book about the Great Awakening - this was in the 1700s mostly in the New England area of the United States where fiery preachers spread through the colonies preaching the Gospel, and these men weren’t afraid to confront people with the truth.

There were many great preachers that came from this movement - men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. In Edwards’ most famous message he says that “God holds you over the pit of hell much as one holds a spider over the fire”…he goes on to say, “Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a Reason why you don’t this very Moment drop down into Hell.”

There are many that say preachers are too soft today, but even the men of the Great Awakening would get it wrong.

While the Great Awakening was led by many great men, there were also those that presented the Gospel incorrectly and represented the gospel message poorly. One of these preachers was James Davenport. In Davenport’s efforts to confront sin he had been arrested for disturbing the peace, deported, and barred from nearly every pulpit in Massachusetts. After one particular episode a church council met and censured Davenport giving him five months to repent or face banishment. Davenport dismissed the council and joined a revival movement only days later. One night, during this revival, Davenport announced that the people were making idols of their clothes - apparently he believed that they were too well dressed. He ordered the people to throw their clothes into a large fire. Women threw their cloaks and shawls and anything with more than one colour. Men threw in their wigs and velvet collars. Davenport claimed they were not going far enough and to prove his displeasure even took off his own pants and threw them into the fire. Apparently this caused all kinds of confusion and many began to turn on Davenport - one man even claimed he was going to throw Davenport into the fire because, sarcastically, he claimed that he idolized the preacher himself. Another man at the revival confronted Davenport and accused him of “making a calf” of the so called idols - so in effect he accused him of making an idol of the idols.

Presenting the Gospel message correctly and confronting those who either soften or sharpen the good news for their own gain has been a challenge for the church since its inception. We are reminded of its importance here in the last part of chapter 1 of the letter to Titus.

In the first part of this letter, Paul urges Titus to appoint elders in the churches so that the church can submit to godly leaders, so that these leaders can rebuke false teachers, in the hope that families and communities and grow in their understanding of God and relationship with him.

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.”

Pray

Part 1: The Problem in the Church - Ungodly leaders cause confusion and division (v. 10-11)

Titus 1:10–11 “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.”

Paul points out to Titus that the problem of insubordinate believers is not only a very real problem but a widespread problem. It was for this reason that elders or pastors, overseers were needed in the churches of Crete. Godly men needed to be raised up to confront this ministry of insubordination and division. The qualification for elders that was listed previous to this passage, which we spent time going through last Sunday, was of grave importance to stop the spread of a false Gospel.

Paul also identifies that the source of this division was coming from the Jewish believers. These were not Jews making an attempt to stop the spread of the Gospel, but believers and church leaders who were twisting the Gospel message.

He points out to Titus that these church leaders needed to be silenced and he identified their errors by pointing out problems in the walk, their talk, the effect they were having on the church, and also in their motives.

First, he identified issues with the way they are walking out or practising their devotion to the Gospel - he does this by calling them insubordinate. One of the strongest disqualifying marks of a church leader is one who is insubordinate - someone who wants to work independently, refuses correction, rejects authority and accountability.

There was a famous church leader, who is still quite prominent today, who failed in this regard. I won’t mention his name because the story has not been independently verified, but how it was relayed is that the pastor, who was passionate and hot-tempered, was also fiercely independent. His church elders identified that he was a gifted teacher but needed mentorship. So they confronted the pastor about this. He rejected the idea but they pushed him and than finally in a fit of anger said that he wouldn’t be mentored by anyone that didn’t have a church larger than his.

Church leaders - elders, pastors and overseers must show humble service - we see this qualification in verse 7 which we read last week.

Insubordination has it’s root in the original sin - the deepest problem of humanity - pride. For those without the Holy Spirit detest authority for they want to determine truth themselves.

Next, Paul takes issue with what they were saying. They were empty talkers and deceivers - they’re talk may have sounded appealing on the surface but it was empty.

When people talk about false teaching I think we often think about spiritual poison. But more often it’s disguised as spiritual candy - we often refer to these men as “cotton-candy preachers.”

Cotton-candy preaching gives people sweetness without nourishment. It sounds pleasant. It usually carries with it a hint of truth, but it serves no purpose other than the selfish motives of the one who’s preaching.

We see this frequently and unashamedly in those that preach the prosperity-gospel and “Word of Faith” preachers whose message may include references within the Bible but focus primarily on health, success, and realizing your personal potential. They take small pieces of truth and twist it into something that pleases our ears and teaches us that God’s primary mission is to obtain a better life in the here and now.

This is not the Gospel that Jesus presented. In fact, when Jesus presents the Gospel to his followers in John 6, many of them grumble that the message he was presenting was too hard. In response Jesus does not soften the message he confronts those who were grumbling with the truth and many stopped following him.

One of my favorite stories about Jesus is when he’s confronting the Pharisees in Luke 11. He points out the hypocrisy in the Pharisee’s teaching and in response there are some scribes who come to Jesus and point out that in his accusations against the Pharisees he is actually also accusing them. In this moment Jesus doesn’t soften his message, instead he starts blasting into the scribes as well.

Though Jesus says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light doesn’t mean that receiving Christ makes for easy living - it means that the message of the Gospel teaches that salvation can’t be earned - it’s the free gift of God through Jesus his son. Jesus promises grace and strength - he gives us good commands and is not oppressive but it demands that we submit to him, and for many this is where they fall short.

Next, Paul points our the effect these leaders were having on the church - families are being torn apart because of their teaching.

The way Paul describes this is by explaining that the church leaders are “upsetting” households. Now upsetting doesn’t seem to put enough weight behind what is happening. In fact the word Paul uses here is the same word used to describe Jesus when he was “upset” about the money changers in the temple and we know that the result of Jesus being upset at that moment caused him to take violent action and he physically overturned the money-changer’s tables.

The seriousness of what these church leaders are doing reveals why Paul so quickly says that they must be silenced.

Paul goes on to identify why are they teaching these things - greed and self-promotion.

This is a universal problem of sinful man, and we see that it’s an ongoing problem. Whether it’s the accumulation of wealth or the accumulation of the admiration of those around us it’s rooted in pride. Crete, it appears, was full of church leaders who were building their ministry on pride.

Polybius, the Greek historian, said of the Cretans: "So much in fact do sordid love of gain and lust for wealth prevail among them, that the Cretans are the only people in the world in whose eyes no gain is disgraceful.”

This sounds a lot like our culture.

This is especially sickening when this comes into the church. John Calvin gave a specific warning about such church leaders when he said:

“For as soon as they give themselves up to the pursuit of gain, they must labour to obtain the favour and countenance of men. This is quickly followed by the corruption of pure doctrine.” John Calvin

Once we care about man’s favour above God’s favour we are no longer serving God; we are serving man.

An easy and helpful way of understanding how the Gospel can be misrepresented is either in creating additions to the Gospel or by subtracting from the Gospel.

We see this addition in countless ways through Scripture. In order to be saved you need Jesus plus circumcision, or Jesus plus the Mosaic dietary laws - these were likely the exact issues that Titus was combatting in Crete. Jewish Christians adding to the requirements of faith based on the Mosaic law.

We see this in the early church where they would argue that you need Jesus plus some kind of secret knowledge (gnosticism), or Jesus plus adherence to a particular creed.

Today we see people argue that the gospel is Jesus plus speaking in tongues, or Jesus plus a perfect family, or Jesus plus voting for a particular political party.

Jesus plus anything creates a man-centred Gospel. The heart of the Gospel is Jesus - he did it all. Jesus alone saves. We must reject any Jesus plus anything ideology.

Any message that says repent and trust in Jesus but you also need to do this to be saved is a message that needs to be rejected.

We must also be cautious of any teaching that subtracts from the Gospel message. The Gospel message in Crete, as we’re told, had a large disconnect as the men who were preaching the message of Jesus were not living out this message. There was a disconnect between what they were preaching and how they were living.

The saving grace of Jesus will bring change to your life. This change will look different in some than others, but the Gospel calls us to repent, receive God’s saving grace and this will cause us to live a regenerated life.

Consider Paul’s teaching to the Corinthian church who had dramatically misunderstood the effect of the Gospel. 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

And we see this all over our culture, including our Christian culture - where people believe they can live in the sinful lifestyle that Paul describes here and still inherit the kingdom of God. It affirms them on a wide path of destruction when we know that Jesus calls us on the narrow path of truth.

Paul has identified the problem. Let’s look at the prescription.

Part 2: The Prescription for the Church - confront false teaching sharply and redemptively (v. 12-14)

Titus 1:12–14 “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.”

Verses 10 and 11 revealed to us the nature of the problems that were arising in the Cretan churches. We also discovered that the problems were not isolated but widespread amongst these christian communities. The prescription here according to Paul is that these church leaders needed to be “rebuked sharply.”

It’s for this reason that Paul quotes the Cretan philosopher Epimenides with the biting words about the Cretan’s reputation. He needed their attention.

The purpose of this rebuke is to ensure that those who are teaching false doctrine may be sound in the faith. This is a corrective and pastoral rebuke. It is a swift condemnation of the teaching but not the man - for the goal was that the teachers would be corrected, submit to the correction and teach the truth.

The church, let by its leaders, are called to confront false teaching sharply and redemptively. This is the prescription for the church.

Ideally, within the church the leadership doesn’t need to provide this type of correction. It’s for this reason that not long ago church council asked to pastors to provide guidance on issues related to marriage and gender. And then not long after that to provide clarification for the church on the role of men and women. The goal of these teachings is that the church is clear on these matters of current cultural controversy with the goal of avoiding false teaching altogether.

Now all of the instructions Paul’s been giving to Titus has been centred on the leaders in the church. Paul has been asking Titus to raise up leaders to be used to correct other leaders within the church, so where is the role of the church membership? Is it appropriate for a church member to correct a church leader. The simple answer is, yes, but with the same goal in mind. The goal is to achieve a correct and accurate representation of the Gospel both in word and action. AW Tozer instructs those in the church to contend for the truth but not to be contentious.

Rebuke done in correctly should be welcomed - it can be a gift to the church. I welcome the other pastors to correct me. I don’t fear the pastors - I do fear God. I would far rather the pastors provide me correction so that I can be sure that I stand correctly before a holy God.

A doctor who miscounts the amount of medicine to give a patient may kill the patient, which would destroy the body, but the pastor who miscounts the truth concerning sin and man and God will condemn the hearer.

Let us, in unity, work together to contend for truth, and in doing so maintain purity of doctrine in the church.

Part 3: The Purity of the Church (v. 15-16)

Titus 1:15–16 “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.”

It appears as though these religious leaders were saying that they held the key to true purity. These Jewish leaders were saying that they were pure and if you wanted to be pure you needed to follow their example, no doubt this included keeping the Jewish ritual laws.

Paul is saying the opposite. He tells Titus that to those that are truly pure - those that are true followers of Christ, all things are now pure. This doesn’t mean that everything is good and pure to the believer but it means that those things that the Jews in particular abstained from for ceremonial or ritual purposes are pure. What’s on the inside is what matters. This echoes Jesus’s teaching:

Matthew 15:10–11 “And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.””

There’s no religious ceremony or dietary practice that they can pursue to make themselves pure. They can’t do what is good because it is apart from Christ - they are relying on themselves to gain righteousness and this gets to the heart of the Gospel:

The gospel is not outside in it begins inside and moves outward.

In John MacArthur’s commentary on Titus he writes,

Exalting Jesus in 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus They Lack Purity (Titus 1:15)

“When a person is pure in heart and mind, his perspectives on all things are pure, and that inner purity produces outer purity” (Titus, 65). Tragically, the opposite is also true. When a person is corrupt and impure in heart and mind, his perspectives on all things are corrupt and impure, and that inner impurity produces outer impurity.

And it’s for this reason that Paul concludes that based on what he’s heard about the problem in Crete, these religious leaders are “unfit for any good work.”

All of this discussion about false teachers and the harm done by the doctrines they teach can no doubt cause us fear that we may fall into division, that we may need correction, that we may fall into the trap of teaching a false gospel.

In 2 Timothy 3 Paul writes to Timothy in Ephesus where he is dealing with a similar issue of false teachers and in his instructions to Timothy, Paul talks about Jannes and Jambres. Now these characters are not mentioned explicitly in the Bible but Jewish tradition holds that these were the two magicians that confronted Moses before Pharoah. He reminds Timothy that while Jesus promised that there would be teachers and prophets who would seek to mislead the church ultimately God was in control. While the influence of false teachers was a temporarily serious matter for Timothy, and Titus and for us, in the long run they will not get far. Like Jannes and Jambres they folly will be clear to everyone. God, through his word, exposes error.

So what is our role?

Response

So when it comes to the ministry of confrontation what should be our response?

Watch out for false teaching.

How will you know if what you’re being taught is false?

Jesus says in Matthew 7:15–20 ““Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

You will recognize them by their fruit. Does the fruit or outcome of their work honour Christ or does the fruit of their work honour themselves? This is what Paul points out to Titus regarding the false teachers in Crete. Their lives did not match their words and their motives were self-serving. We need to look at what is gained by those who are teaching?

I believe it’s possible for a pastor or church leader to become materially wealthy in their ministry. Perhaps they serve a church well and are generously compensated or sell a lot of books, and the books are God honouring, and they’re able to buy a nice house and go on vacation from time to time. I think this happens, but I believe that the story of Scripture holds that this is rare.

What did Titus gain? Church tradition holds that Titus remained in Crete for many years. At no point did he use the authority given to him by Paul to advance his role for personal gain. There is no mention of material wealth. Tradition holds that Titus lived into his 90s serving the Lord through his ministry to the Cretans. The fruit of his ministry being the growth of the Cretan church.

What did Paul gain? One could argue that Paul gained recognition but this is almost entirely realized after his death. The death of a common criminal as tradition holds he was beheaded in Rome in response to his proclamation of the Gospel.

Compare this some of histories most prominent false prophets. Men who claimed they were teaching the true Gospel.

What did Muhammad, the founder of Islam gain? In his lifetime Muhammad gained incredible wealth and power. It was also Muhammad that taught that his followers could have up to 4 wives, though a special instruction was given to Muhammad by God, Allah, that he alone could have more than 4 wives.

What about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the founders of the Mormon church? Both men also gained wealth and incredible power. Both men also broke away from New Testament teaching and had multiple wives. Both men took wives from women who were already married to other men. There is evidence that Smith had more than 40 wives while Young had more than 50!

Televangelist Kenneth Copeland, whose adherents send him millions of dollars in donations said that the private plane he purchased was such a good deal he couldn’t help but but buy it.

2. Work for unity in the church

I think many of us believe that confrontation and disunity go hand in hand. This isn’t true and I think if you’re honest we all recognize that those we confront the most are generally those we also love the most. For parents, it’s their children, for couples, we often need to confront a spouse, teachers confront their students, etc.

I think that one of the reasons we believe that confrontation and disunity are synonymous is that we’re bad at it. Too often we confront someone only after irritation and hardened into resentment. We speak out of anger instead of gentleness, and we assume false motives rather than asking questions.

We need to work for unity in the church. This doesn’t mean that we seek a false peace and sweep very real doctrinal and moral division under the rug it means that we pursue meaningful relationships and community within the church so that out of love and gentleness we can guard one another against harmful teaching.

So work for unity, and we have some amazing examples of this here in this church: the 100th anniversary celebration was a great event that worked toward unity in the church. The barbeques we hold after the service in the summer, our small group programs, and the list goes on, so get involved in building unity in this community of believers and let us work together to guard the gospel from those that would seek to subvert the truth.