Welcome to Messages and More, a podcast channel at Watertown Evangelical Free Church.
This channel plays our weekly sermons and other content relevant to our church community.
Well good morning and welcome to Watertown Evangelical Free Church.
I am Bruce Droogsma.
I am the senior pastor here.
If you are visiting or just checking us out, joining us online, whatever, whatever, we
are glad you are here and we are glad you are joining us this morning.
If you are new and would like more information about our church or to get connected, get
on our email list updates, whatever it is, in the seat pocket in front of you, you'll
find one of these bookmarks with a QR code.
If you scan that, that'll take you to a webpage where you can submit prayer requests, where
you can sign up for emails, you can give through that.
There's something else on there too.
Oh, that's where you, if you're new, that's the whole reason I said it.
That's where you can give us more information about you so we can get to know you a little
better.
So that's what that is.
We are glad you are here.
Thank you for joining us this morning and I'm going to open us more to prayer and then
we're going to move into a time of worship.
So would you join me as we pray this morning?
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning.
Lord, we thank you for this opportunity we have to join together with our brothers and
sisters here in worship of you.
So this morning as we sing, God, as we talk about what you're doing in our community,
as we read from your word, God, as we listen to the Choristers, God, may it all be an act
of worship.
God, may we feel your presence here.
We thank you for who you are.
We thank you for joining us here in your house this morning.
We pray this in your name.
Amen.
Well, thank you Choristers and Joelle and Merijo for leading us in worship as well.
And thank you.
You know, one of the things that I think we forget oftentimes is how much effort behind
the scenes goes in on a Sunday morning, right?
Our worship team showing up early to rehearse, showing up throughout the week, our Choristers,
our choir practicing, and our tech team, right?
Serving faithfully every week showing up.
And when do we notice it?
When it doesn't work exactly how we thought it should.
So tech team, thank you for all you do to serve us, the slides, the live stream, all
of that.
Yep, thank you.
And so we're going to dig in this morning and we are looking at this series that we've
called Pen Pals and we're going to be looking at this morning the book of Titus.
So if you have a Bible with you, I would encourage you, whether it's a digital or a paper version,
to turn with me and we'll be in the book of Titus this morning.
For some of you, that might be a book that requires you to go to the front of your Bible
into the table of contents to find the page number.
That's okay, right?
I get that.
I grew up in a school.
When I was in elementary school, I went to a private Christian school.
We did, anybody remember doing sword drills, right?
Where you'd hold your Bible up and they'd shout out, you know, you'd hold it like this.
Couldn't put your, you know, you had to, couldn't cheat, couldn't start doing this ahead of
time.
And they would tell you the reference.
You pull it down and the first one to find it would stand up and have to recite it.
And I remember one time we were all sitting there ready to go and we're all pretty, pretty
proud of ourselves and how quick we could find without using the table of contents, a book
of the Bible.
And then the guy up there said, Hezekiah 416, and we all jumped down.
There is no Hezekiah to be clear.
There's a king Hezekiah.
There is no book of the Bible, Hezekiah.
So anyway, if you ever need the table of contents, feel free, feel free.
I've been humbled on that enough.
So, but we're going to be looking at Titus and we're going to step back in time a little
bit.
Last week we were in 2 Timothy the week before and 1 Timothy.
And we talked about how 1 Timothy was kind of written in a stage of Paul's life where
Paul had gone on, the book of Acts had ended and he had gone on some further missionary
journeys.
And then by the time we get to 2 Timothy, he had done several times in prison and several
other missionary journeys that we don't really know exactly what those looked like, but he
was in prison facing his death.
Well, now we're going to jump back into Titus.
We're going back in time again.
We're going back to around the same time as 1 Timothy.
And we assume that because there's a lot of similar content between 1 Timothy and Titus,
which is actually a great thing.
It gives us a lot of insight into just Paul and who he is.
It's nice to see that Paul is consistent, right?
And what he advises Timothy to do and what he advises Titus to do, we're going to see
a lot of similarity between 1 Timothy and Titus, a lot of things that are the same.
So that's where we're digging in this morning.
So before we go though, I do, and really dig in, I want to start this way.
I want to start by reading right away.
First, I'm going to do that all morning, I can tell.
Titus 1, 1 through 5.
Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith of God's elect
and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness.
In the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning
of time, and which now at his appointed season, he has brought to light through the preaching
and trusted to me by the command of God our Savior.
To Titus, my true son in our common faith, grace and peace from God the Father in Christ
Jesus our Savior.
The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished
and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.
And I want to start there because, well, first of all, I do think we should all maybe introduce
ourselves like Paul introduces himself.
Can you imagine writing an email in I, Bruce, pastor of Watertown, evangelical free church,
entrusted with the command to preach the gospel to all people?
If I started every email that way, a little wordy maybe, but that's how Paul starts his
conversation.
And it's tempting, I think, when we read through these books repeatedly to kind of skip that.
It's just kind of introductory information.
Let's just skim on to the real important stuff.
Don't do that.
There's some good stuff in there.
I mean, aside from noticing what we do right away, that Paul is the one writing it, and
he claims like he does in Timothy, it's not only a personal letter to Titus.
He's also writing a pastoral letter.
He's claiming some apostolic leadership, some pastoral leadership of Titus.
And we see that he's writing it to Titus, who he has left in Crete, which is interesting.
This is kind of where we get some of this stuff surmised from church history and from
these books.
Acts doesn't talk about Paul going to Crete at all.
When did Paul go to Crete?
Right?
So we have all of this information in there that it's really tempting to just kind of
skim over, go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get to the important stuff.
Let's get to it.
Don't skip over it.
It's all important stuff.
And he talks about this, you know, he says the elect, right?
Which we could get into a debate about what that elect actually means, where he says,
to further the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness.
But I want to kind of focus on that whole sentence.
So the elect kind of is this idea of those that are chosen by God.
And what exactly he means by that?
We could argue and debate and there are some in this room who, you know, really want to
hammer down on what that word means.
And I'm going to set that aside simply to say, look at the flow here of what he's talking
about.
This idea of knowledge leading to godliness.
For those who follow Jesus, knowledge leading to godliness.
This is going to be a theme for Paul in this book, for Titus.
If I were to give this book a main idea, I think it would be based on this concept.
This is potentially his thesis statement, if it will, that our actions and our hearts
need to be aligned with our beliefs.
In other words, we need to be people of character.
That's what that means, right?
When we act in a way that's in alignment with our beliefs, we'll say somebody has integrity
or somebody has character.
When somebody acts outside of their beliefs, when somebody lives out the mantra, do as
I say, not as I do, right?
We tend to say that person lacks some character or lacks some integrity.
And so this will be our defining theme this morning as we look at Titus.
We're going to look at this idea of being called to be people of character where our
beliefs and our heart and our actions are all in alignment.
And we see that consistency through and through.
That is the challenge as followers of Jesus.
And in theological terms, we would call that idea sanctification.
Big fancy word, go ahead and use it at work and press your friends.
Sanctification, the idea that we are being made more and more like Jesus, that we are
being made holy, that after we have come to a saving knowledge in Jesus Christ, we then
pursue becoming more Christ-like.
In fact, as we talk about the word Christians, the idea is that we are little Christs to
our friends, our neighbors, our family members.
It's that idea that we are becoming more and more Christ-like.
And we know ultimately that we will all fail time and again that I will not accomplish that
in this life.
But someday I will experience that, but I don't have it all together.
But we continue to pursue that, right?
To be little Christs, to be Christians.
As we see Titus is getting this letter, we don't know much about Titus.
He's mentioned a few times in other passages.
We see that he is Greek in Galatians, excuse me, we see that he is Greek in Galatians.
And in 2 Corinthians, we see him mentioned three times, showing him as a trusted worker
with Paul who was sent to work in a difficult situation.
So here is Titus sitting in Crete, which we don't know a ton about it except for what
is written to Titus and what is kind of mentioned in other books.
But we assume it's a difficult situation.
And Paul is writing him this letter, calling him to be a person of character.
That's not as our challenge this morning.
And so now we will move beyond those first five voices.
And we're going to move into what it means to follow God.
And our first thing is the idea that character counts.
Character counts.
If I were to summarize this book in two words, that is the two words that I would pick.
Character counts.
And if you've been around me, you've maybe heard this.
And again, this is where 1 Timothy and Titus cover some same topics.
So you might even sit there and go, boy, I feel like he said this maybe just a couple
of weeks ago.
There is some overlap here.
But I think there's a reason it's in our Bible two times.
I don't think they would have included Titus if they'd have found it entirely redundant.
Right?
Character counts.
The theme of this letter.
And I think this phrase that you've heard me say is calling us as Christians to be holistic
in our faith.
Right?
To make the hard journey from head knowledge to heart knowledge to action.
We are called to be people of character.
We'll pick it up in verse five through nine.
The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished
and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.
An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are
not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
Since an overseer manages God's household, he must be blameless, not overbearing, not
quick tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.
Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright,
holy, and disciplined.
He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught so that he can encourage
others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking.
You read that and you go, great, Bruce, I'm not an elder.
I'm off the hook.
Except for some of you in the room who are elders, you're not off the hook, right?
Don't take that stance.
The call here is not only elders have to live to this standard.
The call here is that's the bottom rung.
That's the bottom rung for elders, and that is something Scripture also teaches we are
all to aspire to.
We are all to desire those things.
That is the base rung on the ladder.
And as one theologian puts it, it is noteworthy that these qualities are generally unexceptional.
In fact, it is surprising that some of the requirements needed to be specified at all.
So we see a couple of things going on.
First of all, we see kind of a snapshot of the state of the church in Crete.
This is part of the reason we think Titus is left in a difficult situation.
Paul is reminding him, hey, these are the things that are expected.
And we sit there and go, why does he need to mention those things?
Right?
I mean, we read through that and we're like, yeah, not pursuing dishonest gain.
I would hope that's a requirement of being a follower of Jesus.
Some of these, you wonder why they even needed to be mentioned.
In 1 Timothy 3, verse one, Paul reminds us that aspiring to be an elder is a good thing.
We are all to desire to input these things.
And this is, again, that base level.
We are called to this idea of godly living.
So I want to be clear though, I'm not downplaying elders or their role or their leadership.
I'm pointing out simply, it's an interesting list that he lists here and it's stuff that
we should all pursue.
And at the end, we see why this character counts so much.
Why does Paul expect these things of leaders and elders?
Why this expectation?
First he challenges them to encourage others by sound doctrine.
We should be encouraged by hearing good sound doctrine, whether you're in youth group, in
Iwana, in Sunday school class somewhere, in a Bible study in the choir, where here on
Sunday morning in the worship team, all of these should be sound doctrine and that should
be encouraging.
You should be encouraged when you hear good doctrine taught and he wants churches to do
that.
So he encourages his leaders to live up to that standard so that they can teach sound
doctrine to encourage the church.
But secondly, to refute those who oppose it.
We must know God's truth to be able to encourage others and to engage with others.
And we'll dig into this as we go further, but notice the order here.
First then encouraging sound doctrine, then refuting.
I think that's intentional by Paul.
I think we can forget and think that it's all about refuting others outside and forget
that it starts with ourselves.
Can we look at that list and say, yeah, I'm living that out.
We should start there.
Now we don't have to have that perfect to be able to engage with others.
That's not what I'm saying either.
If you come to my family, we are not perfect.
There are moments where I need to remind myself of that list.
In fact, one of them was this weekend.
We had a full, full weekend of helping some others around us, being together as a family.
We had a long day yesterday.
There were some moments in there where I lost my temper.
I need to own that and I need to continue working on that.
Like I said, we have this idea of sanctification working all the way through.
The expectation is not perfection in those areas, but are we working on it?
Are we people of character?
Are we willing to own our mistakes?
And then do we encourage others with sound doctrine?
And I think it's significant that he goes in that order.
And as we go on in this chapter, we'll see the juxtaposition of character.
Verse 11, now he's going to look at those in contrast who are teaching false doctrine.
They must be silenced because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought
not to teach.
And that for the sake of dishonest gain.
Look at the contrast.
And now there is called to have control of their house.
Somebody who is a person of character who is living out a godly lifestyle, the expectation
is you have control of your house.
Again, not control in the sense of I tell them everything and they do exactly what I
say.
Control in the sense of are they following the Lord?
Are you encouraging them in that?
Are you living out your faith at home?
And on the other side, we see that false doctrine teachers are disrupting entire households
that aren't even theirs.
And they're doing that for dishonest gain.
We get the image here of a mercenary.
Somebody who's coming in and for the sake of money, for the sake of prestige, for the
sake of power, they're being disruptive.
They're building an ideology around them and they're disrupting others to do it.
That's the contrast.
Their driving force is not a pursuit of holiness, they're a spiritual mercenary.
The word of God serves not to bring people closer to God, but to support their agenda
and their ideology.
Sound familiar?
Do we see that in our world today?
We have seen it in churches.
We have seen it in the public sphere.
We have seen it in the political world where people jump on things that support their ideology,
not because the Bible says so, but because it supports what they want.
And they use it as a weapon.
This still exists and we must be careful.
Verse 16, they claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.
They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good.
Character counts.
And it counts not just here.
And these are harsh words.
Be careful who we follow.
Be careful looking at somebody who claims to be a follower of Jesus.
Do their actions live up to what Jesus calls us to?
If not, be careful.
Be careful how far you will follow them.
And we see here that Paul is echoing the words of Christ, Luke 6, 43 through 45, no good
tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.
Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.
People do not pick figs from thornbrushes or grapes from briars.
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings
evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart, for the mouth speaks what the heart
is full of.
So let me ask you, when you look at your character, what kind of fruit is being born
in your life?
What kind of fruit is coming from your relationship with God?
Are you a person where you value the integrity of your character, where you are seeking,
again, not expecting perfection, but seeking every day to take the next step to know and
become an act more like Jesus Christ?
Character counts.
And Paul is going to go on here, and he's going to give us the next teaching on character,
and it's the idea of character in context.
And we're going to see that his call to being people of character does not just apply to
leaders, nor does it apply only to the church.
It may be especially important for those who claim to speak for God, and for those who
lead, but it's not just for our leaders.
The call to character for leaders in leadership are sobering words for me as your pastor and
for our elders, but it is a call to the entire church.
For all believers, Paul will repeat his same admonition from 1 Timothy, almost word for
word, which again, I think is great that here is Titus and Crete, and here's Timothy and
Ephesus, and they might not ever see each other or see the letters written to each other,
and yet Paul writes very similarly to them, which affirms that these words are important
and that Paul is a person of character and integrity.
He's calling them to the same things in different communities.
So it is going to sound almost word for word for something we read earlier.
Titus 2, not second Titus, Titus 2, verses 7 through 10.
In everything set them an example by doing what is good.
In your teaching show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned,
so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about
us.
Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not
to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted
so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
And there's a lot to dig into there, and I'm not going to get into it all, which again,
I hope that as we go through this series and you see me, you know, skip over some sections,
I hope that piques your interest to go and look at it yourself, to dig in on your own.
And there's a lot in here and I'm not going to be able to get to all of it, but look at
where it starts, in everything.
As Christians we are called to let our faith impact everything we do, whether we're at
work, whether we're at home, when we're talking about God it should impact everything we do.
You see this in Deuteronomy, this is the call to Israel.
As you walk along the road, as you sit at your home, as you stand up, as you lie down,
impress this on your children, right?
This idea that it's supposed to permeate our life.
And that is our challenge as well.
The word Paul uses here is that idea to impress literally like a stamp.
Set an example.
Like a stamp.
And we don't use stamps like they do as much anymore, although occasionally you'll get
a really formal invitation and it'll have a wax seal on the back.
That's the stamp we're supposed to think about, to impress.
Like a stamp into hot wax, leaving behind an exact replica.
Set an example.
He calls him to do, by doing what is good.
Be an exact match.
Titus is called to be an example in everything because it brings shame on those who oppose
biblical teaching.
Be above reproach.
And it is reminiscent of a call from Galatians for all Christians.
Galatians 5, 22 through 24.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.
Against such things, there is no law.
We still live that out.
If we live that out well, we may still get mocked.
We may get taunted.
We may get laughed at.
We may get ridiculed.
But it is still how we are called to live.
It is still godly in its character.
While at home, while at school, while at work, while online, no matter our situation, that
is what we are called to.
Character in context.
And this is made clear as Paul goes on to address the role of slaves.
Now, I don't want to get too sidetracked into that conversation of slavery.
We've kind of had it already, but I think it's important to point out that this passage
to Titus, we need to take into context Paul's stance overall on this issue.
Because I think it gives some color to what Paul is driving at here and shows how this
applies to us.
And of primary importance are his similar comments in 1 Corinthians 7, 21.
Were you a slave when you were called?
Don't let it trouble you.
Although if you can gain your freedom, do so.
Now, why do I think that's important to know?
Well, I think a couple of things.
One, it shows that Paul is not here condoning slavery.
He's not saying slavery is okay simply because he mentions it.
He encourages them to pursue their freedom if they can find it.
What we are seeing here is that Paul is saying that in your context, what is most important
is the eternal ramifications of faith, not your current situation.
Even if your current situation is immoral.
If you are stuck in a spot where you know that what is happening to you is wrong, we
are still called to be people of character because God's eternal influence is the most
important thing.
And we can struggle with that and not like that and go, yeah, but what has happened to
me is wrong.
And notice he says in Corinthians, if you can get your freedom, do so.
Do so.
If you're in a spot where something immoral is happening to you and you can pursue your
freedom from your boss, from your school, if somebody is calling you to do something
that you shouldn't, pursue your freedom, but do it in a way that brings honor to Jesus
Christ.
Be a person of integrity even if you're in that tough spot.
Paul calls the slave while living in an immoral situation largely beyond their control to
pursue freedom when they could, but to otherwise seek the salvation of their master.
And we see the same thing in Philemon where here Paul writes a letter to a man who owns
a slave and he tells him this in Philemon verses 15 through 19, perhaps the reason he,
being onesimist the slave, was separated from you for a little while was that you might
have him back forever.
No longer as a slave, but better than a slave as a dear brother.
He is very dear to me, but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother
in the Lord.
So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.
If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.
I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand.
I will pay it back not to mention that you owe me your very self.
Now we read that and it's hard to kind of pick up on some of this, but Paul is being
pretty emphatic here.
Paul led Philemon to Christ and he's basically laying the guilt trip on pretty thick here.
Hey, your slave onesimist should be treated as a brother in Christ.
You don't enslave a brother.
You as a believer in Jesus should not treat any human like that much less a fellow Christian.
So if you won't do it because you shouldn't do it because you owe me your soul.
I led you to Jesus.
And so we see in here this idea that what Paul is calling us to as people of character
is to live out that character no matter which position we're in.
If we're in a position where we are stuck in a spot that isn't good and isn't healthy,
we are still called to be people of character.
It's easy in our society.
We're told to lash out.
Right?
We're told to take vengeance.
We're told to do things to those people that mistreat us, to find ways to humiliate and
embarrass them, to seek revenge.
That's not what Paul is telling us.
Conversely, he's calling Philemon in a position of power and authority to remember his character
counts as well.
So whichever side of the coin you're on, character in our context matters.
As Christians, our call is to be people of character, not controllers and not doormats.
Look again at how Paul ends this section in Titus, in Titus chapter 2, 11 through 15.
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.
It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled,
upright and godly lives in this present age while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing
of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem
us from all wickedness.
And to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
These then are the things that you should teach.
Encourage and rebuke with all authority.
Do not let anyone despise you.
And so we see in here that he said, hey, live in the reality that God is coming back, but
live in your reality.
Pursuing Jesus Christ yourself and doing your best to make him known to those around you.
While we wait, while we wait.
This morning I came in and saw Mike Lorenz and asked him how he was doing and having
a good morning and he said yes.
And one of the things he listed is God is on his throne and Jesus is coming back.
And a great perspective, right?
We should have that in our mind all the time, but we also need to live in our reality as
people of character.
We look to his return and remember his sacrifice on our behalf.
The one who has led like a lamb to the slaughter yet did not open his mouth.
One who was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he
had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Jesus Christ is our model.
If Jesus Christ can face the audacity, the humiliation of the cross, being perfect in
character, what are we called to?
No matter where we are, we are called to be people of character in our context.
And our last thing that Paul is going to remind Titus here is the idea of character in community.
If we see that no matter our personal situation, we are called to be people of character and
now Paul ends with a call to live that out in our community.
Titus chapter 3 verses 1 through 5, remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities,
to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable
and considerate and always be gentle towards everyone.
At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions
and pleasures.
We lived in malice and envy being hated and hating one another.
But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior appeared, He saved us not because of
righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Paul calls us to live as people of character in our community.
And remember that it's easy to look and go, yeah, but our world is so different than Paul's
world.
You're right.
It is.
In some ways, our world, it should be easier.
Remember that Paul is living in a world where the emperor is calling himself a God and claiming
his own divine authority and killing and persecuting actively Christians.
And he still calls them to remember that they need to live obedient.
Not when it's in contrast with the gospel, obviously.
Right?
There are times where if you're at work and your boss tells you to do something that is
immoral, there are appropriate times to stand up and say no.
But we are still called to live as people of character in our community.
We are called to remember that we once acted as unbelievers.
That's that second part.
Don't miss that part as the justification.
We remember where we were when we were unbelievers.
As I look around at the world and I see how un-Christian our world is today, it's no surprise.
They act un-Christian.
That is what they are.
And we need to remind ourselves that there were times where we were that way.
Now, some of you in this room might be like me, where you grew up in a Christian home
and you went to church, and it's easy to forget what it was like when we didn't have Jesus
Christ in our life.
But even as I look at my life where I grew up in the church and went to Bible college
and stepped into church ministry right out of college, it's easy for me to think, well,
I've always had this outlook.
And really, even as I look at my life since college, I've changed.
God has done work in me.
And there were things going on in my life right out of college that I wouldn't do now.
And so we're called to remember how God has changed us and to live in our community as
people of character.
Do what is good.
Do not slander.
Be peaceable and considerate.
Be gentle.
Not meaning we don't hold our stance, but meaning we do it with humility and integrity.
Our goal is not to win the political, social, economic, or ideological battle and lose the
spiritual war.
We should want more than anything that those that disagree with us will someday come to
the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
And remember, that's Paul's primary concern.
At one time, we were wrong, he says, we made mistakes, we held the wrong view.
We've all done it.
Nobody here is perfect.
Instead, seek to walk in the world as people of character.
Again, nowhere does Paul say we don't stand for our faith, but he does challenge our posture
as we do it.
And I'm reminded of Martin Luther's words when he stood before a council that was wrong
and had the ability to kill him.
It's a great example for us to follow.
So here, Martin Luther has come out and made these statements and they've asked him to
recant.
And if you don't know the story, you know, Martin Luther posts his thesis on the wall
and sparks the Reformation and they finally haul him in and they lay before him all the
works he's written and they said, we are calling you to recant or we're going to charge you
with heresy and burn you at the stake.
And he boldly says, give me a day to think about it.
And they go, okay, fine.
And he comes back and he says, well, there's three kinds of works here.
He goes, there's my devotional works which are in alignment with what you believe and
so you can't be asking me to recant those.
Those don't make any sense.
So let's set those aside.
Then there's these where I'm calling us all, myself included, to live better Christian lives
and to follow God's word.
So you can't be asking me to recant those, so we'll set those aside.
And he goes, and then there's these where I criticize how you've handled the gospel.
And that's really what you're calling me to recant of.
And this is what he finally says.
Your imperial majesty and your lordships demand a simple answer.
Here it is, plain and unvarnished.
Unless I'm convinced of error by the testimony of Scripture or since I put no trust in the
unsupported authority of pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often aired
and have often contradicted themselves, by manifest reasoning I stand convicted by the
Scripture to which I have appealed and my conscience is taken captive by God's word.
I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe
for us nor open to us.
On this I take my stand.
I can do no other.
God help me.
Amen.
That's his response.
I think that's a great model for us of standing there and saying, I'm going to take the stand
where I need to, but I'm going to do so with humility, calling out for your salvation.
Not in anger, not calling names.
And then he stands there.
He stands there knowing full well that they might charge him right then and there.
Take them outside, time to a poll and set them on fire.
I think that's a great model for us.
Stand where we must, but do so with respect and charity.
And then Paul turns his attention inward toward the church as well, the second community
that we live in.
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law because
these are unprofitable and useless.
Warn a divisive person once and then warn them a second time.
After that, have nothing to do with them.
You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful, they are self-condemned.
An interesting shift in his posture when he looks inside the church.
And does it sound familiar?
Because his words to Timothy are almost identical.
Again, I find that reassuring.
Warn a divisive person once, then warn him again, and after that have nothing to do with
them, they are warped.
Now, I think that can be a challenge for us.
We need to take into account what Matthew says about church discipline and how we work
with people.
But I think sometimes we tend to give more grace to those inside the church than we
do those outside the church.
We tolerate un-Christian behavior inside the church from somebody who claims to be a Christian.
And that's the spot where Paul seems to be a little more harsh.
Do not engage, he says.
There is a difference between a constructive conversation of faith in arguments and quarrels.
When it shifts to arguments and divisions, we are called to face away.
We are called to a higher way as Christians.
And here we see Paul's posture shift.
Your brother or sister, one who claims to be a Christian but is being quarrelsome and
divisive, we are to warn them, warn them again, and then have nothing to do with them.
And we saw in Timothy why.
Because our goal is to reach the lost.
And if we spend all of our time bickering and fighting internally, we lose out on opportunities
to share the gospel with people who are actively going to help.
And that is more important.
And so we can disagree in the church, and we can have disagreements.
But when it becomes divisive and argumentative, that's when we need to say, hey, stop.
We're breaking down what the church is about here, and we're getting distracted.
We can continue to engage in conversation, but if somebody won't do that, we need to
step away and say, hey, I'm not going to get sidetracked from what God has called me to
do.
Our goal here at Watertown Evangelical Free Church, and I think we would argue the Christian
church's goal as a whole is to help people find and follow Jesus, and quarrels, division,
and arguments are antithetical to the gospel message.
We are called to be people of character.
We are called to let God's word and the Holy Spirit permeate everything we do.
When we engage with those who disagree with us outside the church, when we engage with
those who disagree with us inside of the church, we are called to be kind and charitable and
people of a character, taking a stand when we have to, but doing so in humility and love,
hoping that they repent where they're wrong, and being open to repenting where we are.
I think that is the call to character that we see in the book of Titus.
So would you pray with me?
Heavenly Father, I pray and ask that we as a church would be filled with people of character.
God, that who you have called us to be, God, what your word says would so permeate us that
every day, God, we would become more and more like you.
God, help us to live out that character in the challenging situations.
God, when we feel trapped at work or at school or at home, God, help us to be people of character.
God, when we disagree with somebody outside of the church, help us to disagree with them
in such a way that they come to see you as desirable and attractive.
God called to repent, but seeing you.
And God, when we disagree in the church, God, help us to continue to be people of character,
who disagree well, God, who model what it looks like.
God, help us to be people of character.
God, help us to truly live out what it means to be a little Christ, to be a Christian in
everything we say and do.
I pray that's your name.
Amen.
The Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites.
Say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.
The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
So they will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them.
Amen.
Go in peace.
Have a great week.
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