There were individuals in the churches in Crete who believed and promoted ideas that actually
contradicted the gospel of Jesus and sound doctrine, healthy doctrine as we defined it
last week, that actually produces spiritual fitness.
Paul said that they profess to know God, but their beliefs and their behaviors actually
deny the God that they say they know.
They were a threat to the health of the church, and they needed to be confronted at least,
and if necessary, excommunicated.
I'm calling this the Cretan problem, but we all know that the danger wasn't limited to Crete.
Assaults against the gospel are present in every church.
The Cretan problem is a Cornelius problem, and it will need to continually be addressed in churches
until the Lord returns.
This will always be an issue that we have to confront, maybe even sometimes confront in and of ourselves.
Now, if we're going to understand this text appropriately, we need to recognize Paul is not moving on to a new
topic of conversation here.
He's addressing the same subject that he's been covering in the last few verses,
just from a different angle.
He's dealing with the subject of faithful church elders,
but from the perspective of the false teaching that they will need to confront when it begins to come into the church.
We need to also recognize that Paul is not concerned, at least at this point,
he's not concerned with the pagan culture outside of the church.
He's not concerned with the antagonistic worldviews and behaviors of the culture that would assault the church externally.
He's concerned about that.
That's not irrelevant, but that's not his primary concern here.
Actually, his primary concern in this text is actually the assaults against the gospel that come from inside the church.
People who have taken the gospel of Jesus and distorted it, perverted it, maybe even marginally done so,
but to the harm of their own faith and certainly to the harm of others.
It's the situation of my friend on the bus.
He might have been a true believer, but even the marginal kind of detour from the truth of the gospel
that he was espousing, at least in that moment, was very harmful to others
who might have subscribed as a result of it to something that's not actually true.
So it was crucial for Titus then to take his task seriously.
His task to appoint faithful elders that would protect the flock of God, preserve the gospel of Jesus in its fullness,
and fight against any and all heresies that would contradict it.
Three primary things I want to point out to you in this text as we work through it.
The first thing is we see Paul describing the problem.
Paul is describing the problem.
Look at verse 10.
For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
They must be silent 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,
and this testimony is true.
Well, the opening four in verse 10 links the discussion back to the purpose and qualifications of an elder in verse 9.
Just look at verse 9 with me again.
That these elders must hold firm to the trustworthy word,
that they may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine,
and then also to rebuke those who contradict it.
And then immediately after that, Paul says,
For there will be many who are insubordinate to the gospel.
Titus needed to appoint men who knew their Bibles well,
who were committed to the fullness of the gospel message,
and were able and willing to rebuke anyone who contradicted those truths.
So the fundamental reason for healthy leadership in a church is rooted in the protection and preservation of God's people.
So we spent now, this would be the third week that we've been dealing particularly with this topic in Titus chapter 1.
And you may say that all of this stuff about leaders and polity and the things that we're going through right now,
is it really all that important?
And it actually is very important, at least foundationally important, to the survival of the church.
When I say survive, I don't mean to take the future of the church out of the hands of the Lord and put it into the hands of man,
but that the Lord uses the actions of men in order to accomplish His sovereign purposes.
We see that many times in the Bible.
And it's necessary that there be faithful pastors established,
because there are many enemies of the gospel.
And these enemies will inevitably come from unsuspecting places,
even the church itself.
Jesus said this in Matthew chapter 7.
He said,
Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing.
Inwardly, they're ravening wolves.
But that's not what they look like.
They won't be the people that you first suspect when they walk through the door of the church.
It may take some time to recognize exactly the condition and nature of their theology
and of their hearts, but beware, because it will happen.
There will be people that come into the church that do not actually belong to the flock,
and they will seek to destroy it.
That's a warning from Christ Himself.
Paul says it to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20.
I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you,
not sparing the flock.
And from among your own selves, these are the elders in the church.
He said there may even come a time where one of you start to speak twisted things
that actually turn people away from the gospel.
And what would be the motive in that?
Paul says to draw disciples after them to gain a following for themselves,
to build up a reputation for themselves at all costs.
Well, a pastor who doesn't know his Bible or isolates himself from the flock of God,
the people, will not be able to recognize these things.
He won't be able to confront these things because he won't know that they're there.
So Paul says, Titus, put faithful men there that know their Bibles,
men who smell like sheep, who are going to be with the people,
who recognize these things and will deal with them as they come.
That's precisely what was happening in Crete.
And it was Titus's responsibility to set things in order for the good of the church in the long term.
And then Paul tells him in the midst of this,
this is how you can spot these false teachers in the church.
And he gives four things, I think, here that are helpful.
Number one, he says, notice their talk.
Notice their talk.
Look at verse 10.
For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers,
especially those of the circumcision party.
The first thing that must be examined is,
what are these people actually saying?
These people that are trying to influence you with their teaching and with their ideas,
listen to what they're saying.
What is their talk?
Paul doesn't describe, at least at this point, the precise error.
He deals with it more from a general teaching perspective.
And he names three things.
First, he says they're insubordinate,
which in this case is not a rebellion against leadership directly.
It's a rebellion against the truth of the gospel,
the full fundamental message of the truth of Jesus.
That's what they're insubordinate against.
False teachers rarely outright deny the gospel,
but they are never satisfied with the gospel either.
So watch for it.
They may be saying Jesus.
They may be saying baptism.
They may be saying all the things.
They're using all the words that you would like to hear,
but listen to what they're actually saying.
Are they satisfied with Christ alone,
or are they happy to accommodate Christ
so long as they can add their own kind of twist to it as well?
They're insubordinate to the gospel,
at least to the faithful message of the gospel.
He says they're empty talkers.
This is the idea of worthless, unhelpful speech.
The things that they talk about,
you might feel motivated,
or maybe because of their charisma,
it might help you feel a little bit better,
but you're not exactly sure what they actually said.
Just a cursory scroll through Facebook will show you many examples of this.
People kind of blindly share statements that don't really make any sense,
and they're very excited,
and you're not really sure why they're excited,
because you can't really understand what's actually happening,
what's being said here.
Well, the truth is nothing's really being said.
Donald Guthrie said they are empty-headed in their teaching,
doing much talking, but saying nothing.
They're empty talkers.
Then he says they're deceivers.
They're those whose doctrine leads people away from knowing the truth.
They're self-deceived,
and in many cases will be willing to fabricate lies to gain a following
or give the appearance of spiritual elitism.
We see this primarily in the cults.
The Joseph Smiths and the Mariette Bakers
and those who would fabricate entire lies
in order to gain a following that they can then domineer over,
that they can then establish for themselves,
not actually based on the truth of God.
Of course, there's other versions to see of that as well.
So we look at their talk.
Number two, he says, look at their effect.
Look at their effect.
Look again at verse 11, just the first part of it.
They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families.
What's the effect of their teaching?
How does that affect the unity of the church?
There's only two other places in the New Testament
where this word or this phrase for upsetting is used.
One is in 2 Timothy 2.
Paul says that because they were teaching
that Jesus' second coming had already occurred,
that Hymenaeus and Philetus were upsetting the faith of some.
The second time it's used is in John 2 and verse 15,
when Jesus was flipping tables in the temple.
And it's this same word for upsetting.
The idea here is that the teaching of these people,
what they're doing, maybe in the things that they're saying
or maybe in the way that they're saying it,
it's like flipping over the faith of people in the church.
It's destructive.
It doesn't edify the church.
It doesn't unite the church around the person and the work of Christ.
It actually divides the church.
It's destructive.
Then he says, check their motives.
What do their motives seem to be in their teaching?
What are they trying to accomplish?
Well, Paul says they're upsetting whole families
by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
The implication being they know it isn't true.
They know they shouldn't teach it,
but they're teaching it anyways to benefit themselves in some way.
Paul had warned Timothy that there would come a time
when the churches would accumulate to themselves
teachers having itching ears
that will scratch whatever their particular itch was.
that he would teach them whatever was accommodating
to their desires and passions.
And here he says there's going to come men
who take advantage of that situation,
who will recognize that there are people
that just want to be taught what they want to be taught,
and they're only going to find the people who will do it,
and they'll pay good money for those who will.
These people will abuse the church.
Brian Chappell said this expression
communicates their mercenary intent.
What drives such men is the base motive
of selfish advantage.
They're taking advantage of the people of God
rather than actually seeking to shepherd the people of God.
Finally, he says look at their model.
Look at their model.
Verse 12, this is where he makes the statement
quoting, I can't remember the man,
if I tried to pronounce his name,
it would probably be wrong,
but this prophet from Crete,
about 600 years BC, made this statement,
Cretans are always liars,
evil beasts, lazy gluttons,
and this is true.
That seems to be a bit of a departure
from what Paul is saying, isn't it?
Like where does this come from in the text?
Why is he actually making this statement
at this particular time,
and why does it seem to be so insulting?
Well, he's saying that what I've just described
to be true of these false teachers
is actually showing that they're modeling
their lives after the culture around them,
not actually after the scriptures
and the things that Christ has modeled for us.
He says this is true because it was true.
Cretans were known for their lies.
Their most famous lie was that
they possessed the tomb of the god Zeus.
They were known so much for their lies
that there's a Greek word established
hundreds of years before Christ
that came from the word Crete,
and it means to lie.
The Greek language was shaped around the fact
that Cretans were known to be liars.
He says they're evil beasts.
Crete was known to not actually have
any wild animals on it.
It's an island.
Didn't have wild animals.
But other people, even secular,
non-Christian writers of that time,
acknowledged that though they did not have wild beasts,
I think this was Plutarch said this,
though they did not have wild beasts,
the people themselves took the responsibility
of behaving like wild beasts.
It's what they were known for as a culture.
Paul says this is exactly what these
false teachers are like.
Cretans are liars,
and he's already called the false teachers deceivers.
Cretans are evil beasts.
False teachers are upsetting whole families.
They're ravaging the flock.
Cretans are lazy gluttons.
False teachers were,
they're just concerned about shameful gain.
You say, well, what does this mean for us
in Cornelius, North Carolina?
Well, we have our own culture.
We can identify its markers.
Materialism is one of them.
Pride and arrogance would be another.
We can start to establish this is all the things
that would identify the Western American culture
that we live in.
And then we start to look at the teachers
that we've put,
the influencers that we've allowed
to come into our homes and into our churches.
And we say, what is their life
and ministry actually modeled after?
Does this look like Christ?
Or does this actually look like the world
in which we live?
He says, this is an identifying marker.
You need to watch out.
Well, there's many enemies of the gospel.
Identifying markers are the same.
Churches need faithful shepherds
who will help God's people recognize error
and confront these teachers
when they assault the gospel.
That's the point here.
So he describes the problem.
Second, he tells us how to deal with the problem.
How to deal with the problem.
Paul says the only proper way of dealing with it
is direct confrontation.
Something that most of us probably are loathe to do.
I mean, who really likes confrontation?
You're weird if you like confrontation.
That's not normal.
Modern sensibilities would push against
Paul's methods and language here.
But we need to understand what's at stake.
He wasn't advocating for arrogance.
He's not advocating harshness.
But he knew that tolerating error
would destroy the church, not preserve it.
That's what's at stake.
We look at the big picture here of Titus.
Paul's concerned that this church will survive,
that the gospel will be preserved in the long term,
not just in the time of the apostles.
A friend of mine wisely, I think, said a few years ago,
avoiding hard conversations doesn't preserve unity.
It fakes it.
It doesn't preserve unity.
It fakes it.
The lowest common denominator idea of doctrinal fidelity
is not the path to unity in the church.
It's not going to actually produce unity in the long run.
Error needs to be confronted.
And the text provides two ways for us to do it.
The first way is redemptive rebuke.
Redemptive rebuke.
Look at verse 13.
Therefore, rebuke them sharply, he says,
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.
It's interesting, in this instance,
Paul, he's coming short of demanding excommunication.
That's different from how he commanded Timothy
in 1 Timothy in dealing with the false teachers there.
That suggests that the issue in Crete
wasn't quite as developed as it was in Ephesus.
But Titus was to rebuke these false teachers
and their doctrines with urgency and with authority.
We see the authority actually in chapter 2.
Look at verse 15 of chapter 2.
Declare these things, Titus.
Exhort and rebuke with all authority.
Let no one disregard you.
So there was a spirit with which Titus was to lovingly,
graciously, but firmly, authoritatively
deal with these false teachers in the church.
This was going to set a pattern for these elders
that he was establishing.
Something that would be intended by Paul then
to continue on in the way that error is dealt with.
But there's two questions that I think have,
that we need to consider as we think about this idea of rebuke
and especially sharp rebuke.
The first question is this.
We need to ask, what merits rebuke?
What actually, that's a strong word.
And the way that Paul uses it here, rebuking sharply,
is that he's using rebuke in the most severest sense possible.
So what actually merits this?
What is it that we should be concerned
to rebuke in this way?
And I think the first answer is we have to acknowledge
that not every disagreement necessitates
the kind of rebuke intended in this text.
In fact, I think we'd all agree that
not every disagreement requires rebuke at all
or dressing at all.
It's not the Bible's way of giving us permission
to just let everybody know what we don't like about them
and how they need to be more like us.
I tell Julie all the time, if everybody was just like me,
that's not really what's happening here.
Sometimes we will take passages like this
and we'll kind of use this as an excuse
to just constantly confront people.
That's the weird people that like confrontation
for some reason.
That's not really what he's saying to do.
In fact, too much division happens
when self-appointed watchdogs
castigate other believers
for disagreements that are unrelated to the gospel.
If there's anything we've learned
in the last two and a half years,
it's that Christianity is prone to this.
Taking things that are not directly related to the gospel
and elevating them to the level of the gospel
so that we start to castigate,
even publicly through social media,
all the things we don't like
about what all the other Christians are doing
that actually doesn't have anything to do with Christ.
Some of you are in the medical field
and you understand what medical triage is.
Medical triage is a pattern.
It's a systematic way of looking
and assessing a patient's needs
to determine which order
and with what level of urgency
those needs need to be met.
It prevents us from looking at someone
with a broken finger
and treating them with the same kind of urgency
as timing as someone who has cardiac arrest.
Okay, there's a difference.
You understand that.
Al Mohler routinely encourages churches
to institute what we would call
spiritual triage or theological triage
where we systematically,
with a disciplined effort,
look at the controversies that are around,
that we look at the issues that arise in the church
and we helpfully and prayerfully discern
which thing needs urgent attention,
which thing needs attention,
but maybe not urgently,
which things don't need really attention at all.
They're going to be fine.
They're going to heal themselves over time.
I think we would be helped to do this as churches.
We would be helped to do this as believers.
Maybe before you decide to rebuke somebody,
maybe here's some questions you could ask.
Does their belief or behavior deny or distort the gospel?
Is it a gospel issue here?
And if it is, it needs to be dealt with.
It has to be confronted.
If it's not confronted, they may be okay,
but everybody that's listened to them will not be okay.
For the good of the church
and for the good of the preservation of the gospel,
those things must be dealt with.
Is the disagreement a secondary issue that's important,
but doesn't necessitate a sharp rebuke?
Maybe a passionate discussion,
but not a sharp rebuke.
We need to be able to discern the difference in those things.
Are they committed to willful, blatant sin against God?
That's a gospel issue.
Those things need to be confronted.
We have plenty of help in the New Testament to discern that.
Is the issue a matter of conscience?
Or is it plainly revealed to us in the Bible?
And by plainly revealed,
I don't mean you have to jump through three or four hoops
to get to your position.
I mean, it's just like the main things are the plain things
and the plain things are the main things, right?
Is the Bible actually very plain that this is wrong,
that they have a wrong position on this?
And it's not just that we disagree
in the way that we've come to our conclusions.
We need to ask ourselves that.
Are they leading people away from Christ?
Needs confrontation.
Is it a speck and beam type situation?
Remember when Jesus talked about judgment,
he said, some of you are going around,
you're trying to take the speck out of people's eyes
and you got this log coming out of your head.
He says, go deal with the log that's in your head
and then you can come and deal with other people's issues too.
You're trying to clean everybody else's closets.
Barry Bond said one time, he said,
you're trying to clean up everybody else's closet.
You need to go clean your own closet first,
then you can go deal with somebody else's closet.
He said, he's a great theologian, Barry Bonds.
Maybe the last question would be,
do I really understand what's happening?
Do I have a full understanding of exactly
what this person thinks and is doing
and is participating in?
Or am I kind of just making some assumptions
that I probably shouldn't make
before I create division and contention?
Those things will be helpful to us, won't they?
In the context of this passage,
sharp rebuke is reserved for anything
that contradicts verse nine,
the trustworthy word of the gospel
and sound doctrine that produces spiritual fitness.
Those are the things that require the rebuke.
That's the measure that Paul gives us
for the things that we actually need to confront.
So that's the first question,
and we need to think about it.
What merits this kind of rebuke before we do it?
The second question is this.
What's actually the goal of our rebuke?
What are we trying to accomplish in this?
Well, Paul helps us here.
Look again at verse 13.
Therefore, rebuke them sharply
that they may be sound in the faith.
Notice the redemptive purpose of the rebuke.
It served the purpose of restoring these individuals
to soundness in the faith.
It was to rescue them from devotion
to Jewish myths and commands.
In other words, it wasn't rebuke for rebuke's sake.
The purpose of the one confronting the error
should not be merely to win an argument
or to demonstrate authority.
His heart's desire should be the restoration
of the one who has fallen.
Every time we see confrontation in the New Testament,
even in the harshest forms of church discipline
in the New Testament,
the spirit of the confrontation,
the end goal of what is happening
is not just to gain a victory over one person,
but to win them for Christ.
To win them to the gospel,
to restore them to faithfulness.
Brian Chappell wrote,
to love the gospel, to fight for it,
and at the same time desire
that its truths capture the hearts of our enemies
is what God requires of those
who would differ from the world.
The world understands hating those who oppose you.
What contrasts those true to the Savior
is the desire that all,
even our opponents,
would come to the knowledge of the truth.
Now, I have to remind myself of this routinely.
That when something comes up
and I want to fire off a pulse about it
or whatever it is,
or want to deal with something
or pick a fight with somebody
that I'm in a discussion with,
a theological discussion with,
I have to fight against my own spirit in it.
Like, what am I actually trying to do here?
Am I actually trying to hurt this person?
Am I trying to just,
is this a prideful action on my part?
Or am I truly loving this person here,
loving them by wanting to restore them to faithfulness?
Well, and routinely,
it's not love that I have primarily in mind.
We need to think about that.
So Paul says there's two ways
to deal with the confrontation.
The first way is that we have to rebuke them sharply.
It's necessary.
We need to do it.
Secondly, he says,
gospel instruction is the other part.
Gospel instruction.
So in verse 14,
he reveals two facets of the Cretan heresies.
Both had to do with those
who converted to Christianity from Judaism.
One referred to myths or speculations
that were at least unhelpful,
and at most were Gnostic,
which would be the idea
that a secret knowledge could be attained
that would alter your standing before God.
It would come to further development after this time,
but there were early notions of it then.
The second facet was human traditions, commandments.
Part legalism, part asceticism,
things that were being encouraged in the church.
The commonality between the heirs
is that they both prominently featured the idea
that religious ritual,
human merit,
was essential
and part of the core of one's relationship to God.
They didn't deny that Jesus was necessary for salvation.
They taught that he alone wasn't sufficient for salvation.
That was the difference.
They're happy with Jesus.
They knew Jesus needed to be a part of it.
They just taught that Jesus wasn't all of it.
That our human works also determine our standing with God.
And by the way,
if we're going to compare this to current belief systems,
this is essentially the same exact view
of salvation taught in Roman Catholicism.
That it's not a denial of Christ,
but it's not all Christ.
That it is God's grace and human works
would be their language
that actually produces salvation
and alters a standing before God.
That's not a new heresy.
That's a heresy as old as the gospel.
If you'll allow me for just a moment,
I think this can subtly belong to us
at times.
At times when maybe
in our presentations of the gospel,
we don't mean to contradict
the fullness of it,
but we may inadvertently do it.
Here's what I mean.
Sometimes we can treat
something like repentance
in an explanation of the gospel
as if it is a work
that is done before
Christ will accept us.
I was listening to a podcast
with Bob Lapine this week
and he told a story
that he knew about Tim Keller
who if you're familiar
at all of his writings,
you know he pastored in New York City
for many years.
He developed this habit
of after his sermons on Sundays,
he would invite people
to come to the front
and he would host Q&As
and it would be open.
They could ask him
whatever question they wanted to ask
and he would answer it
for a few minutes
after the service.
And this invited all kinds
of skeptics and doubters
in Manhattan
to come to these services
and they would hear the gospel.
It was really quite amazing.
I don't think I'm brave enough
to do that,
but he did it routinely.
One Sunday,
there was a lady
who had been there
for a few weeks
and she,
I don't know if they used
a mic or what,
but she said it at least
loud enough
where others could hear.
She said her name
and she says,
I've been coming to the church
now for a few weeks.
Since I'm a lesbian
and I live with my lesbian partner,
I think that I want to buy into this
and I want to join the church.
Do I need to leave my partner
and abandon this situation
before I can be a part of the church?
And you can imagine
the silence that probably entered
the room about that time.
They knew what Keller's position
on homosexuality was,
that it's a sin
that must be repented of
and that the Lord
is not pleased with it.
They knew all of those things.
That's why she's asking the question.
But his response
is actually helpful,
I think,
helpful in considering the gospel.
He says,
I think you're asking
the wrong question.
The question is not
what do I have to do
before I come to Christ?
The question is,
is Jesus who he claimed to be,
who we've said that he is
in the weeks
that you've been coming
to the church?
And if he is,
you need to believe him,
trust him,
follow him as Lord,
and then deal with the implications
that come along with that.
In other words,
the repentance
that Keller was emphasizing
in that moment
is kind of a sweeping repentance
where we are turning
from one direction
and going in the other way.
We're not listing out
all the things
that we're doing wrong
and making sure
we clean ourselves up
before Jesus will accept us.
We're making a sweeping turn
towards Christ
and then in our faith,
acknowledging that
we're going to deal
with whatever implications
come along with that.
Do you see the subtle difference
in that?
And where we might be tempted,
I know I would be tempted,
to in that moment say,
yeah,
abandon your homosexuality
and then things will be good.
You can come then.
But Jesus doesn't actually
tell anybody to do that.
The very act of coming
to Christ genuinely in faith
is to turn away
from all the other pursuits
of your life,
not just your homosexuality,
but every other belief system,
every other selfish thing
that would exalt itself
against the knowledge of God.
I'm not pursuing myself anymore.
I'm not pursuing
my belief systems anymore.
I am turning away
from all of it
in order that I might
pursue Christ
and then I'm going to deal
with the implications
so that as the Holy Spirit
indwells me
and I open up my Bible
and I see what the Bible says
about this particular thing,
I will submit
to the leadership
of the Lord Jesus Christ
in my life
because he has redeemed me
from these things.
Do you see?
The other end of that
is the come as you are dynamic
where you just come as you are,
the implication being
that Jesus accepts you
no matter where you are
and what you are
and he's happy to love you
and there's no real
transformative work
that's happening.
You don't really have
to acknowledge the sinfulness.
You just come
and receive his love
and things are good.
Sinclair Ferguson says,
Jesus doesn't say
come as you are.
He says come in spite
of who you are.
So we're not cleaning ourselves up
before Christ will accept us.
Neither are we coming
in faith to Christ
expecting to remain the same.
The gospel is
that Jesus has done
everything necessary
to forgive our sins
that in his perfection
he perfectly fulfilled the law
that we will never
be able to fulfill
and he doesn't say
do all of these things
and clean yourself up
and then I'll accept you.
He says no,
come to me
and I will change you.
There's a transformative work
of the gospel
but that's what he does for us.
It's his work
in us.
Verse 15
To the pure
all things are pure.
To the defiled
and unbelieving
nothing is pure
but both their minds
and their hearts
or their consciences
are defiled.
So confronting
legalist anesthetics
Paul said that
those who have been
made pure
by the righteousness
of Christ
are no longer
made impure
by eating certain foods
or going through
ceremonial cleansings.
They are no longer
bound by the law.
They are under grace.
Because these legalists
and these ascetics
were saying
yeah, Jesus is great
but you need to be
circumcised too.
Jesus is the doorway in
but if you want to stay in
you're going to have to do
all the Jewish things.
You're going to have to
afflict yourself
in a certain way.
If you really mean it
this is why
it's going to happen.
Paul says no.
No.
To the pure
to the one
who has been
made clean by God
all things are now pure.
you don't have to worry
about the things
you're eating.
It's not going to
make you unclean.
The external things
are not what defile us.
And then he says
believers are no longer
under the law
because Jesus
perfectly fulfilled it.
Therefore all who
come to Christ
are justified
by faith alone
apart from any human work.
Do you remember
in Romans chapter 10
Paul wrote
that Christ
is the end
of the law
for righteousness
to everyone
who believes.
Doesn't mean
that Jesus
was doing away
with the law
that the law
is irrelevant
as far as our
obedience to God
is concerned.
But the law
has no role
in our righteousness.
Christ has brought
an end to that
because he
perfectly fulfilled it.
It is by faith
that he applies
our righteousness
to us.
His righteousness
to us.
Paul then reminded
the Cretans
that no amount
of religious observance
could make them
right with God.
To the defiled
and unbelieving
nothing is pure.
Everything they do
is tainted
by their sinfulness.
Their minds
and their consciences
are defiled.
Jesus dealt
with this.
Remember the Pharisees
came to him
and they said
why don't your disciples
follow the traditions
of the elders?
Why aren't they
washing their hands
before they eat?
And Jesus
says what comes
out of a person
is what defiles him.
For from within
out of the heart
of a man
come evil thoughts
and sexual immoralities
and theft
and murder
and he goes on.
All these evil things
come from within.
They defile a person.
It's not whether or not
your hands are washed
whether you're
ceremonially clean.
It's has God
given you a new heart
through the work
of Jesus Christ
and if you haven't
got a new heart
through the work
of Jesus Christ
you're defiled
and all of your goodness
is defiled.
Everything about you
is defiled
and there's nothing
you can do to change it.
That's his point here.
What's Paul doing?
He's giving gospel instruction.
He's rebuking the error
and then he's teaching
the truth.
Titus
rebuke the error
and then teach the truth.
It's not enough
just to tell them
that they're wrong.
You have to teach them
the truth
that salvation
is not earned
by what a man does
but it is received
by faith
and what Christ
has already done
and the cleansing
that Jesus provides
is full
and it's complete.
So he describes
the problem.
He deals with the problem
and then finally
and I'll finish
I'm sorry.
Let's look at the danger
inherent to the problem.
The danger of the problem.
Verse 16.
They profess to know God
but they deny him
by their works.
They're detestable,
disobedient,
unfit for any good work.
This is the most scathing
section here.
Earlier Paul seems
to encourage rebuke
to restore
an errant believer
but here he suggests
that the promoters
of the false doctrine
are not believers at all.
the reality is
that both types of people
will inevitably
become a problem
in the church.
You see,
that's what makes
these false teachers
and their doctrines
so dangerous.
It always masks itself
as a friend of Christ
not an enemy.
They profess
to know God.
They say the things
that you would expect
them to say
but the true nature
of their hearts
will ultimately
be revealed
in their behavior.
Two things
that it reveals itself in.
First,
their works are revealed
in how they respond
to the rebuke.
If they're being unfaithful
to the gospel
and somebody takes
their Bible
and sits down
and says,
I think you're wrong here.
This is what the gospel says.
What do they do with that?
Because the Bible teaches
that anyone who knows Christ
has the indwelling presence
of the Holy Spirit
who enlightens us
to his truth
and he fashions us
into the likeness of Christ.
And if I have
the Holy Spirit
and somebody's taking
the sword of the Spirit
and they're saying,
here's the truth.
Look at the truth.
The Spirit's gonna do
this work in me.
I'm gonna turn away
from the error
in order to pursue the truth.
That's a work.
That's a fruitfulness
of the life
that Christ is now doing
in me
of the sanctification
he's doing in me.
He says,
so watch how they
respond to the rebuke.
But then there's
a second part to this.
Remember,
belief always affects behavior.
Paul says,
their behavior
is detestable.
It's disobedient.
It's unfit
for any good work.
Jesus says,
you'll know them
by the fruitfulness
of their lives.
Does their fruit
match their profession?
Beware of false prophets,
Jesus said,
who come to you
in sheep's clothing.
You'll recognize them
by their fruits.
Are grapes gathered
from thorn bushes
or figs from thistles?
So every healthy tree
bears good fruit,
but the diseased tree
bears bad fruit.
We'll recognize them
by their fruits.
Commitment to the gospel
will always result
in godliness.
Always.
Progressive?
Yes.
But it will always
progress forward.
Distortion of the gospel
will always result
in a life characterized
by unrepentant sin.
The individuals are dangerous
because they're so deceptive.
Their doctrines are dangerous
because they lead you
on a path of sin
and unbelief
rather than faith
and godliness.
Now step back
and consider the big picture
of the book now.
What's Paul driving at
in this letter?
You need healthy structures
that emphasize the gospel
because belief affects behavior.
And as the gospel is preserved,
it will produce godliness
in God's people.
But if you start
to let error in,
you're going to see a change
in the way
that God's people live.
They may say the right things,
but what's the fruitfulness
of their lives?
Are they content
to live in sin?
Are they content
to be disobedient
to the Lord?
The Cretan problem
has been and will
be a problem
for every church
and every age.
That's why it's crucial
for churches
to encourage
and appoint
faithful elders.
They'll be committed
to the gospel.
They'll be products
of godliness,
producing godliness
in their teaching.
They will rebuke
promoters of error.
They will rebuke
promoters of error.