Sermon Tone Analysis

*Professing but not Possessing (Titus 1:15-16)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on July 8, 2008/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

/ /

In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul says “*test* yourselves … *examine* /yourselves./”

I’ve never been one who really enjoyed taking tests or undergoing any type of examination.

I suspect most of you when you were students didn’t especially look forward to “exam time.”

As a young person and student, I feared examinations and tests because I inevitably and invariably wasn’t ready, which I confess to my shame.

This passage speaks of a type of test we can’t afford to not be ready for.

Look at the verse … are you ready for this test?

/ /

2 Corinthians 13:5 (NASB95) 5 Test yourselves /to see /if you are in the faith; *examine* yourselves!

Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you *fail the test*?

[this uses the same root word as “examine” or “test” with the a-prefix meaning opposite, you failed the exam]

/ /

This test is an open-book test, you can take it with open Bible, an open heart examination with no less than eternal destiny at stake.

This is a pass-fail only test.

It’s not graded on a curve and your score is not based on how others around you or others have done.

Will you pass or fail (NKJV “disqualified” – with marginal note “do not stand the test”)?

Test yourselves to see if you stand the test and are truly in the faith, examine yourselves to see if you are truly saved.

It’s one thing to be present /in /Christ’s church this morning – it’s quite another thing to have Christ present /in you, /and that’s the question-of-questions in this test or exam

 

-         “Is the LORD Jesus in you?”

-         Do you know /about/ God, or do you /know God/ savingly?

-         What is the basis for your belief that you are saved?

-         Is it something /you did/ in the past, or is there clear evidence of what the LORD Himself /is doing inside of you in the present/?

-         Is Christ this year making you more like Himself because of the inner transformation that is continually taking place by His grace?/ /

 

It’s one thing to have information in your mind about Christ, it’s quite another thing to have the mind of Christ within you, as Scriptures say true believers do, growing you to think like Christ, talk like Christ, live like Christ.

It’s one thing to profess salvation, it’s another to possess it.

Now turn to Titus 1.

I have a great concern and heavy burden on my heart as we approach this text, which I believe is the same great concern Paul had for the Corinthian church as well as the Cretan church that Titus was assigned to minister to.

There were people sitting in church, maybe even every week:

 

-         who /assumed/ they were in the faith, for whatever reason(s)

-         who were /sure/ they were saved and going to heaven

-         who /professed/ to know God (and even did know some things about God)

-         who /knew/ the right things to say about Jesus

-         who even /believed/ the right facts about Jesus in their head

-         who /understood/ good works can never save anyone

-         who in the words of Hebrews 6, have at least some degree of being /enlightened /to more truth than other unbelievers and have /tasted /of some of the benefits of being around the things of God and people of God and have /partaken /at least to some degree in spiritual things

-         who in the words of James 2, they /say/ they have faith, but their lack of good works proves otherwise

-         who in the words of Jesus (originally written by Isaiah), /honor Him with their lips/ but their hearts are far from Him

-         Or who in the words of Titus 1:16 they /profess to know God/ but by their actions deeds they deny God and show that they do not possess a true relational knowledge of God

 

*Titus 1:15-16 (NASB95) 15 **To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.**

**16 **They profess to know God, but by /their /deeds they deny /Him/, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.*

They profess but they do not possess saving knowledge of God.

Verse 15 describes them as “defiled and unbelieving” (v.

15) but v. 16 says they think they’re believers and profess they know God.

The biblical word “know” goes beyond intellectual understanding or mental assent and includes an intimate inner relationship that manifests itself outwardly in actions that flow from our hearts.

Vance Havner has said: “Salvation does not come from the assent of the head but by the consent of the heart.”

As 1 Samuel 16 says, God looks at the heart.

Has your heart consented and repented?

I am sure there are people sitting in this room this morning who if they died today they would miss heaven by 18 inches (the distance between their head and their heart).

You have a mental acknowledgment and understanding of the gospel and many Bible verses up here, but your heart has never bowed in repentance to Jesus as Lord.

If you’re honest, your will has not been surrendered to His will and your heart does not truly love Jesus or long to obey and please Him

 

This weekend our country remembers what happened on July 4th, in the year 1776, in the original colonies and government of what would come to be known as the United States of America.

A year probably as not familiar to you is 17*46*, some 30 years earlier, which from a spiritual vantage-point, came on the heels of perhaps the most significant event to ever take place on the continent of North America – the Great Awakening, which brought spiritual liberty to thousands as God’s sovereign grace moved across this land through preaching that exalted Christ and expounded His Word by the enablement of God’s Almighty Spirit.

The human instrument especially used by God in this movement was a man named Jonathan Edwards.

Last month in Southern California, there was a conference called the Resolved Conference (see www.resolved.org),

which is named after Edwards and his famous resolutions that he began writing as a teenager (and I shared many of those with you at the start of this year).

I have been blessed by listening to the powerful messages from that conference, messages that are faithful to the same God-entranced view of God’s glory in all things from Edwards.

Rick Holland said in his opening address that he considered that Great Awakening driven by the God-centered theology and preaching of men like Edwards, that awakening was not only the greatest true revival ever on this continent, but he said it was arguably the greatest revival since the days of Jonah in Nineveh.

The other speakers at Resolved include John Piper, C. J. Mahaney, Steve Lawson, and John MacArthur.

Here’s how the latter described in another message a vital contribution that Edwards made:[1]

In 1746 Edwards wrote /A Treatise on Religious Affections/.

The reason he wrote that was to deal with the problem not unlike the very problem we're discussing …  That publication, /A Treatise on Religious Affections/ had to do with the matter of evidence for true conversion.

The concern of Edwards in writing was to delineate the issues regarding who is really a Christian.

In the explosive drama of 1739-1740, the years of the great awakening, it seemed as though conversions were happening in great numbers.

It didn't take long after those years to begin to realize that there were some people who claimed conversions who were not real.

There were many excesses.

There were people who waxed in to emotionalism and emotional experiences, which would be in some ways a sort of a precursor to contemporary … mania.

There were people who claimed to have had valid and real experiences with Jesus Christ, but whose lives did not demonstrate any evidence to verify it.

There were thus those who were then attacking the great awakening and saying it was nothing but a big emotional bath and there was nothing real about it.

And so, partly in defense of true conversion and partly to expose false conversion, Jonathan Edwards took up his pen and wrote /A Treatise on Religious Affections/.

And his purpose was to present evidence for true conversion.

And summing it up very simply, "The supreme proof of a true conversion is holy affections, zeal for holy things, longings after God, longings after holiness, desires for purity."

And he really did touch the heart of true conversion.

And at its heart it is a set of new desires.

That's what he said.

He said, "Where there is true conversion there is a zeal for holy things."

He had been very concerned about Satanic counterfeits, of conversions during the great awakening.

And so he wanted to distinguish between what he called "saving operations of the Holy Spirit," and "common operations of the Holy Spirit."

Saving operations of the Holy Spirit obviously produced salvation.

"Common operations of the Holy Spirit," he said, "may sober, arrest and convict men and may even bring them to what at first appears to be repentance and faith yet these influences fall short of inward saving renewal."

So the main thesis of this, one of the greatest pieces of American literature, frankly, to say nothing of theology, the main thesis of this classic work is that holiness and the pursuit of holiness is necessarily involved at the very outset of true salvation.

"Grace, saving grace, planted in the heart at the time of the new birth is," he said, "a principle of holy action or practice."

[True believers] have a longing to know God, to follow God, to pursue holiness.

Grace planted in the heart, said Edwards, produces holy action.

In fact he said, "As the principle evidence of life is motion, so the principle evidence of saving grace is holy practice."

He said that true salvation always produces an abiding change of nature in a true convert, therefore wherever a confession of conversion is not accompanied by holiness of life, it must be understood that the individual concerned is not a Christian.

… Edwards said, and this is the thesis of his whole /Treatise on Religious Affections/, "The truly saved pursue holiness."

They aren't always as holy as they ought to be, [but] they pursue it.

They … long to do what is right even if they don't.

They have holy longings, holy aspirations and holy affections.

[Not sinless perfection, but a new direction]

 

He stated then that the evidence for the reality of one's salvation was simply and comprehensively quote: "The love and pursuit of holiness."

That he taught as the enduring mark of a Christian and therefore singularly the best way to get in touch with the reality of a spiritual condition and thus the source of assurance.

He said while the experience of a young Christian may be like a confused chaos, he will still follow holiness and true religious affections differ from false affections in that the true are always related to holiness, that is to doing what is right, to pursuing what honors God.

 

"… When persons are possessed of false affections and think themselves out of danger of hell, they very much put off the burden of the cross, save themselves the trouble of difficult duties and allow themselves more of the enjoyment of their ease and their lusts.

Some of these at the same time make a great /profession/ of love to God [sounds like Titus 1:16] …  Where joys and other religious affections are false and counterfeit, individuals once confident that they are converted have no more earnest longings after light and grace, they live upon their first work or some high experiences that are past and there is an end to their crying and striving after God and grace, but the holy principles that actuate a true saint have a far more powerful influence to stir him up to earnestness in seeking God and holiness …"

 

What he's basically saying is the false Christian makes a profession but has no holy longings.

The true Christian makes a profession and has holy longings.

I don't always do what I want, but I want to do what God wants.

I don't always do what I desire, but I always want to do what God desires.

And when my desire is the same as His, it doesn't mean my flesh is always going to cooperate.