Titus, lesson 10 begin
Titus · Mike Doyle · Dec 17, 2023
Titus, No. 31
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261933366753

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK, one verse today. Interesting. I wrote down in my notes, I liked Weymouth's translation. He said, these things speak, exhort, reprove with all authority, let no one disregard you. Or I think it's New King James. Thus speak, exhort, reprove with all impressiveness that no one make light of your authority. So the first question is a grammar question. Take a look at the verses. The verse. And there are three imperative verbs there.

You know what an imperative is, right? Who doesn't know what an imperative is? Raise your hand. An imperative is a command. It's a command. And the question was, the imperative verb grow in intensity. Can you see how that works out? What are the three verbs? It's only one verse. It's not hard. Speak, exhort, and reproof. And they're very interesting because to speak involves simple communication, right? But then exhort adds an element of urgency to it. See that? And then the command to reprove is the last level of intensity involving the correction of those who do not respond to the exhortation.

One of the interesting things about this method is in our study of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians on Wednesday night we discovered in 1st Thessalonians Paul speaks and encourages the Thessalonians to live a certain way and when we get to 2nd Thessalonians some of them have ignored what he said so now he commands them and he says to them little tidbits like if you don't work you don't eat That's a command.

And he says, if you won't come around, you're to be shunned by the rest of the church. And I thought to myself, well, that wouldn't work today, because you just go out the door and go to the church down the street. But think about that. I mean, Paul the apostle is very aggressive about the way believers ought to function. And if they won't do it, within your body of believers. You're not to treat them as an enemy, but you're to have nothing to do with them. That doesn't seem very Christian to me, but that's what he says. And hopefully, as we go through these, maybe there will be some light shed on that.

So Courtney taught, or Miles taught 11 and 12. Courtney taught 13 and 14. Hopefully, you guys can remember. And so I asked the question, how would you summarize 11 through 14? If you had to put it in one sentence, how would you say? What's the basic of 11 through 14? What's it all about? What's the topic? You guys were here last week? The week before?

The topic is grace. The topic is grace. Grace has appeared. And grace is the kind of thing that is the motivator for the Christian life. Grace should be the result in the Christian present obligation to deny ungodliness and what he detests and pursue what he values.

Now, Reformed theology would have you go at it totally the other way. You got to find out what the rules are and obey them. But as we know, and as Roger's been teaching, what does law do? You put yourself or you're under a law system. What does it do to your sin nature? Amplifies it. Yeah, it energizes it, it causes it to explode. Okay? I would not have known desire except the word, the law said you can't desire. And when it said that, voila, desire everywhere. Okay?

So what's grace designed to do? It's designed to teach us how to live and to keep the sin nature from activating. That's what it's designed to do. Not law, but grace. Grace is the thing that will keep us from sinning. Pretty cool. There was a rehearsal not too long ago, and I think it was, I hope I get it right, but it was, the law says, love God. Grace says, God loves. I think that was a good, kind of succinct summary of what the law does. It says, love God. Yeah. And the other, grace is, God loves. Yeah.

So what's, it's, I was thinking, you know, we taught that grace class some time ago, and I was looking at Macaulay's website this week, and I think he's printed a book in relation to that, a booklet, 13 pages. So I'm going to order it tomorrow, and that might be something we can do again. Yeah. That's the one thing that we're Holly Hills and every group I've ever been involved in, the one thing they're ignorant about is how grace works. Donna. My thought on that was, you know, when it says teaching, it's not teaching to do, it's teaching to be. Yes. That's good. You know. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll, I've got some quotes here if we get to, I hope we do. from John Darby that were just... Well, I'm going to jump nine questions ahead and ask you this question.

When did the world begin in terms of the mindset of the world? In the mindset of the world? Yeah, the world system. When did it start? When Adam sinned. Yes. A year before then. He did not live in the world system that we live in. Isn't that interesting? So just keep that, I mean, the way he says it, I thought, oh, wow, that's right. I guess I had in the back of my mind, it's always been this way. No, it hasn't. Because has it been that way in God's, in God's world? Nope.

He creates Adam and Eve, puts them in the garden. There's no world system. There's no opposition. you know, that permeates everything. There's no death. It began that day. So, we see God's grace both in His past provision of salvation in Christ and in the prospect of God's future return to take us with Himself forever. Everything is grace.

And even when you see verse 15 that says, these things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority and let no one disregard you." What's he saying? You, Titus, need to be teaching grace and you need to be talking about it and exhorting people about it and reprove those that reject it. Question three, so few believers submit to this exhortation.

Did the Lord Jesus anticipate this And I said, go look at Luke 1711. Anybody, without looking there, you remember what that was about? Luke 1711 is about the Lord Jesus healing the lepers. Ten of them. And I'll cut it down to starting at verse 13. And they raised their voices, the lepers. Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourself to the priests. And as they were going, they were cleansed. Now, one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at his feet, giving thanks to him, and he was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus answered and said, weren't there ten of you? that were cleansed. But the nine, where are they? And then he says, was no one found who returned to give glory to God? Except a foreigner. And he said to them, stand up, go, your faith has made you well. So what's really interesting about this is that here comes God's grace in the body of Christ. So you take 10 Christians, how many of them are thankful? According to this formula, one out of 10. 10%. And I really think it's because we don't teach it. Those that are teachers, just the mindset of grace is not taught.

We're too busy with the influx of the world system in our mentality. We've got to be doing this. We've got to be doing that. Donna? You know, it's interesting. I have studied this, but I just think that word made you bold. Faith has made you bold. That word is suzo, which means to save, salvation. So was he the only one that was saved?

They were all cleansed? Yeah, isn't that interesting? I don't know. I don't know. That's a good point. The other nine probably aren't lepers anymore, but are they saved? He was saved, yeah. That's interesting. I never noticed that before. That's good. Make a note. Okay. We're moving along. We're doing good.

So what this question 4 says, what makes Titus 2.11-14 notable for its balance between doctrine and living?

So if you start with the first phrase that says, the grace of God has appeared. And you relate this doctrine to a life that denies evil and practices good, not in the future, right now. That sees it in the return of Christ, the incentive for godly conduct, looking for that blessed hope in verse 13. that realizes in personal holiness and good works the purpose of the atonement, verse 14. I think as William Kelly said, this passage is one of the most concise summations of the entire New Testament of the relations of gospel truth to life.

And it is. When you really focus in on those four verses, it does lay out, in four verses, doctrine and living. Paul's epistles always have both of those things in them. There's never a time when, well, it's just doctrine. Forget about the living, it'll come later. No, it's part of it. See that?

I think sometimes we get, because we don't understand grace or we're not taught grace, we can't get straight in our mind, well, gee, there's the commands there that I'm to do this and do that, but I'm concerned about I might do it out of the flesh. I don't know the difference. because I really don't know what grace is. In other words, how do I get motivated to live the Christian life? What gives me the want to? I want to do this, and I don't want to do it out of my own energy because I know it's impossible.

It's grace that does that, and it teaches us how. So when we get to verse 15, what we're looking at is a concluding verse that concludes the instructions that how the church ought to operate as we learned out of chapter 2. Five. What was the basis of Paul urging Titus to speak, exhort, and rebuke?

Somebody quickly turn to Timothy 4.12, 1 Timothy 4.12. I'm asking the question, what was the basis of Paul's urging Titus to speak, exhort, and rebuke?

Somebody read 1 Timothy 4.12.

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. So it's interesting. Paul is telling Timothy here, you have been gifted by God to be a carrier of the message. And he's saying, don't let anybody disregard you. Don't let anybody shame you down so you shut up because you have a divine revelation and your life must be consistent with what you say.

See that? It's one thing to know the doctrine. It's another thing to live it. But they go together. Grace goes together with the Christian life. Do you see that? You don't see it. So Paul urges Timothy, or Titus, to speak exhort and rebuke. Why? Because that's what he's been called to do. Now. I do have one thought there. Yeah, go.

Well, I know that you're going to be getting to authority, but standing on the authority of God's word creates an opportunity for a believer to rebuke, to exhort. If you don't have the final authority of God's word, then you're simply encouraging people out of your own motivations, right? You're a cheerleader. But when you're standing on the authority of God's word, Obviously, in the environment of grace, that is a much different thing for a believer to have confidence in than purely trying to rally the troops, so to speak. Yeah, and that's a partial answer to the next question, which is, where does a minister's authority rest? Where does it rest?

Well, I think that's really important for us as even as believers, as we relate to Timothy, while we're certainly not in the exact same boat as Timothy was at that particular point in time, it is our confidence in the Word of God that allows us to speak to others confidently.

And when they take issue with that authority, it's not yours. And that's a really important thing to recognize because when we correct people, no one wants to be corrected. Certainly, Timothy was probably pretty, you know, could have allowed himself to be stressed out about the thought of rebuking these men and challenging them. But he didn't do so on his own authority.

He did it on the authority of God's word, which is a different level of confidence. And when things are taken up with that authority, It's important for those of us that are, you know, putting ourselves in Timothy's or Titus's shoes, rather, that they're taking issue with God Himself.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think that, maybe say it this way, the minister's authority rests in the nature of the message. That's where the authority is. It's in God's Word. You know, it's not that I'm an authoritative person. It has very little to do with that. If I'm a minister and you're a minister of God's Word, which in a sense we all are, we don't want to be like Miles Stanford told me one time when he invited me to come to this church 40 years ago.

That's where the frozen chosen are. Well, you may have the truth, but you're frozen. You can't be frozen. You're cold and lifeless in delivering a heavenly doctrine and precepts if you are indifferent to things. If there's an urging or an exhorting, exhorters like teachers are earnest in what they do. You know, if I or you were to exhort me, it isn't that you're trying to get me to comply with something that you think is right.

It's because it's in God's Word, you know, that I should live godly, you know, deny ungodliness that goes into it. So again, the focus is on the character of the one who brings the word. You often say, God said it, that settles it. Yeah. And that's where Titus had to be in that place himself before he could exhort in that same attitude, right? God said it, and that settles it.

And that's the authority that we can have as well. And it's not an arrogance. appointing to the final authority and that's that's what there's a lot of rest in that to be honest yeah yeah there is and what you find is is that I think if you're in this kind of a position you find it's very demanding you can't slide you know I Again, another story, I remember I was visiting Miles down in the Springs one day and Cornelia wasn't there. And then she came in and she was giving Miles the update of what she'd been doing. And she said, well, so-and-so's son's going to go to law school. And he said, oh, we're going to have to talk to him.

I thought, what's the matter with being a lawyer? He said, the problem was being, and I asked him, I said, what do you mean you're going to talk to him about going to law school? He said, the problem with the law is you have to take a vow at the end of law school that you would defend a client no matter what. He said, you can't make that. As a Christian, you can't say that. I thought, wow. I'm glad I'm not going to law school no matter what.

So speaking, exhorting, and reproving must all have its place in faithful service. And you know what's cool? I've noticed that in faithful service and these three things, they do work out in a church, a body of believers, in a Bible study group, or your Christian friends.

The ones that really love you are the ones that will tell you. take you aside and say, look, you know, I see an issue here. You're not being loving or something like that. And it's hard to do if you're the one that has to take somebody else aside, you know. I mean, think about how difficult it would be. We're so tuned to be politically correct for Let's say Cheryl did something to somebody and she needed to be reproved about it. Who would step up and do it? Who would step up and do it? For Cheryl's benefit, not for yours, for her.

You see that? It's a very tough thing, but it comes out of grace. And if the receiver of the rebuke is living under grace and the giver of the rebuke is living under grace, it works. You see that? OK. Seven. Is there opposition to speaking from God? Here's the problem we got. The truth needs to be spoken from God for the believers to know. I had breakfast with a guy this week, and I think he's a believer, and it's the first time I've had breakfast with him. He's a young guy.

He said, well, I was going to a men's, well, they call it a Bible study, a place called Downing House. It's part of Cherry Hills and he said, the problem is I stopped going. I said, why? And he said, well, they, they call it a Bible study, but no one ever brings a Bible and no one ever studies. It's all the storytelling time for an hour. I said, well, I'm sad to tell you, but most Bible studies are like that. They are, you know, they don't get into God's word and find out what he has to say.

So. Here we are as believers in this wonderful world we live in. The flesh, the world, Satan, are putting as many hindrances to God's Word in front of us as they can. And so there's always an opening and a need for exhortation. I think this guy, he actually invited me to breakfast. I think he knows who I am. He was introduced to me. Well, actually, I sold him his house 10 years ago. And I think he needed somebody to exhort him.

Do you get that? We had a young lady come over to our house this week and just sat there for 35, 40 minutes. You know why? When she left, Donna said, she just needed to be exhorted. She came here for that. It looks like she just dropped in, but no, she was there for a purpose. Because she's out hitting it in the world all day long. She just shows up midday. And for somebody to tell her, exhort her a little bit.

Don't you find that true in your life? You know? So reproof is one of those things that is designed for someone who's aggressive or someone who's a slacker. Donna calls me a slacker all the time. The careless or the rebellious, all authority is thoroughly consistent with all humility. How do I say this? Trouble. I wrote down trouble. I think this is from William Kelly.

He said, trouble to those who despise Christ in the least of the servants whom he sends. Even the apostle did not escape the slight of a rebellious. First Corinthians 1437, if anyone thinketh himself a prophet or spiritual for What will not vanity think of self, but him recognize the things which I write to you that it is the Lord's commandment. Interesting. Cool.

Eight, how does this verse combat this opposition? If you look at this verse, it combats opposition to grace. How does this verse do it? I think by the tense of the three verbs. Not tense. They're imperatives. And they're participles. These things speak, exhort, and reprove with all authority. That's how it combats opposition. That's how it combats the world system. And he's telling Titus, and you know, I don't need to repeat, we've done enough through the class. The cretins were awful people, you know, liars and stealers and just terrible people. And so when God's word goes in there through Titus, he knows that there's going to be huge opposition just from the world system.

Can't you imagine Paul writing a letter to the Corinthians and he starts to give them, or to the Ephesians, and he starts to give them instructions on marriage? Especially a husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. I mean, I could see these guys going, what? They thought of their wives as like we went to the Dumb Friends League and got one. If they don't like it, we'll get another one. So we've got about five minutes.

What's the standard for men to live godly lives? What's the standard for men to live godly lives? Not a true question. Christ is the standard. Say that again. The Lord Jesus is the standard. His life is our standard. That's right. And why is it our standard? Because it's the life we have. See that? The life of Christ doesn't need to be improved. Do you get what I'm saying here? This life that we have was revealed when the God-man showed up on the earth. He brought this life with him.

And it functions a certain way and it does not function based on rules. Based on principles, yes, but not rules. Do you see what I'm after here? The thing is, this goes much further than your conscience, which may make a man do right. One who is godly is not governed by the world, nor by the motives of the world around him. He has Christ's mind. And that mind tells him how to conduct his life. He's indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He knows. He has the life. He's going through the world to manifest this life that he has, who is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what?

That life is suited for heavenly things, but not suited for the earth. not suited for world things. Does that make sense? So, a lot of, I think you could wind down into this verse, speak, exhort and reprove. It's the old saying, you know, how I live speaks a lot louder than what I've ever said. And it exhorts and it reproves just because it's Christ's life being lived through us. And there aren't any, you've got to do this and this and this and this and this to get the tenets of that life going. Should I read God's words?

Yeah. Got to find out about it. Should I live by faith? Yes. I believe him about it. I have the resurrected life of Christ. I do have that. I am totally, and so are you, suited out for heaven. We don't have to leave here and go to a training course in order to be qualified for heaven. We're ready now. Do you see that? We have the life now.

Mike, it's kind of expanding on that. Sam Dalton used to say, catapulted in shoe leather. I mean, that's easy to say, but what does that mean? I mean, we all have the same life of Christ in us, but he's telling us, you know, exhorts, reprove and all that, but I think a lot of it is in the verses that we covered in 11 through 14. That's right, that's where it is.

For grace is a period bringing salvation to all men, so that's bringing the life to all men. But what does that do? Then it goes on, and it instructs us to deny ungodliness worldly desires, to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope. It goes on that, you know, who gave himself to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession.

It's him, I think is the... There you go. But it's through that salvation, through the life in us, that we are able to deny ungodliness, worldly desires, and all that. That's the process, I guess, of conforming us to the image of Christ as shedding the fleshly part of us. We'll always have those purposes. No, I think you're right. I'm going to close by reading a paragraph I got from John Darby. Eternal life was displayed in the world when Jesus Christ came. The world shrank from it because it was too good for it, the life of Christ. And God placed it on his throne as the only place good enough for it.

It's difficult to have the heart so full of love that the things of the world cannot narrow it. The world constantly is trying to fill your heart. That is all it can do. That's the desiring that Roger's talking about. What a narrow thing is selfishness. If only we could put our hearts into deep consciousness of what this life is, what Christ is, and then what the world is, what a poor little wretched thing it is, How glad should we be to go on as strangers and pilgrims, declaring plainly that we seek a country. This life is not of this world and can have no affinity with it.

Pretty strong, but pretty truthful. All right, let's close. Father, how we thank you. I thank you for this one verse and for actually these last five verses. They have been so informative about who we are in your Son, the Lord Jesus, and the life that we do have and how it's manifested. And we're so thankful. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.