If you're new here, my name is Ricky. I'm one of the pastors here at the church. And before we jump into the message today, I want to give a short State of the Church update because we are considering actively a building project for us as Cross of Grace. But very clearly, we felt like the Lord said before you focus on your physical wall, you want to focus on your spiritual walls. That's what we want to prioritize. So the physical wall thing is in the middle of a study where we're working with folks that are going to help us study that issue, that help nonprofits with building campaigns to see if this is doable, if this is what the Lord has for us. But in the meantime, some immediate things require our help.
Now, I notice maybe everybody's breathing a little bit easier in this service and you're thinking, oh, this is good. I found a seat. It wasn't that bad. This is our SP spring break church, right? So this is everybody who didn't go out of town for spring break. If you've been here the last few weeks, you'll have felt full services, especially this service last week with the daylight savings change, right. A little bit harder. I saw people sitting where they've never sat before and it really threw me off. I didn't know where to look. And so a few State of the Church updates.
Our services have been very full the last few weeks and we praise God for that. And we need your help. We need you welcoming people in. Please don't do the thing that people do on airplanes where they try to look big and like, they don't have a seat next to them. You know, they got their bag out or whatever. Please don't do that. Welcome people in. Move to the center row if it starts to get full. Especially second, our parking lots have been full, which is wonderful and a great blessing from God. But we're asking you if you are able bodied and can walk a bit further, please use the back parking lot. Use street parking so that we can create room in the front for families that have babies, lots of stroller stuff and older folks. Third, we have a lot of new faces and they are more faces than we can greet. I've seen new faces every week and we want people to experience what Mike did, which is a welcome of the church. So please join the hospitality team. We could use some reinforcements there. But also, even if you're not on the hospitality team, you're on the hospitality team. Welcome to the hospitality team at Cross of Grace. Please greet those around you and see if they need anything. And fourth, this has been a little painful. Our kids ministry has hit capacity in several classes over the last few weeks, which is a great problem to have, but doesn't feel like it when you have a two year old or a four year old that you weren't planning to sit with you in the service. So as parents, please be patient with the volunteer. Remember, they've got their hands full as well. And if they do have to graciously encourage you to let your child sit with you in the service, remember that's all of the kids trajectory is being in here with us. And it's a good thing at times when they get to see a glimpse of the whole church together. They get to see, I was Talking to my 6 year old about this. They get to see that mom and dad are in Bible class just like they are and get to see it's just one big classroom.
So with that, our big need, I think you've seen, is that our attendance has outpaced a number of our resources. Specifically, our attendance has outpaced our volunteer base across nearly all of our Sunday teams. So this is hospitality, this is kids ministry, this is ushering. And so if you have been coming for a while, let me give you an encouragement. The encouragement that my parents often give to people that come over for dinner. This is what happens. My parents have always been very hospitable, very generous with their home and time and with meals. And so the first time you come to my parents house, if you try to get up and help, they'll tell you no, you're not. Just stay there, we're going to bring you a coffee, we're going to bring you a dessert. Thanks so much for coming over. And you're like, oh, this is great. I just feel the hospitality. Second time, same thing. We're so grateful the third time. If you come over a third time, you get handed a dish rag, right? All of a sudden they're like, go ahead and bring those plates. And you start getting bossed around, right? And part of it is that once you've come for a bit and you've experienced the hospitality, then they're like, great, you get to help us welcome other people now. And that's what we want to be at Cross of Grace. We want to be the kind of church that when you come in, you receive the warm welcome of Christ through the church. But then if you stay and if you say, this is my church family, then we're gonna hand you a dish rag. We're gonna say, hey, welcome to the hospitality team, the kids team, whatever team. We need your help now to welcome others.
And so we really are in that kind of a moment where we've had a number of folks have been here for a bit, and we still have new people coming in. And we need those of us, those who consider this their church home, to pull out the server's apron, pull out the coffee machine, pull out the kids ministry lesson and help us welcome others. Because it seems like, guys, God's doing something in our church that is unique. And I've been here for a number of years, and it does seem unique even across everything I've seen. So we want to lean in, as we've been saying, and join the Lord where he seems to be at work. Amen.
Well, Titus, chapter one, now is where we're going to turn. Titus, chapter one. And as you are turning there, I want to give you and encouragement that John Calvin gave about this passage. He said, based on verse nine, where elders are encouraged to give instruction and sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradict it. Calvin said that the pastor or the shepherd has two voices, one to gather the sheep and one to ward off the wolves. And so last week, in a sense, was a gathering the sheep passage. This passage, I'm going to warn you up front, had a bite to it. This passage is punchy. This passage, there is a warning present, and we don't want to tone down that warning. We want to receive it, because this passage is also the very word of God. Amen.
6 · Full reading of the primary text (Titus 1:10-16), establishing the scriptural foundation for the sermon's argument about false teachers
Titus, chapter 1, verse 10. This is God's word. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. And one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure. But to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him. By their works, they are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work. This is God's word.
7 · Brief pastoral prayer asking for grace in both the preaching and hearing of the Word
And, Lord, we pray that you would give us the grace to hear your word today. Lord, may your grace be on the delivery of your word and the proclamation of it, but also on our hearing of it. In the name of Christ Jesus, amen.
8 · Childhood story about discovering wanted posters at the grocery store, illustrating the jarring realization that dangerous people are closer than we think
Well, I still remember as a kid noticing the posters that were by the checkout lanes at the grocery store store across, many of them was stamped the big word wanted. And in big letters below it, something like, have you seen this person? And then there would be like a sketch or a photo or a mug shot or something. And I remember being alarmed at this, you know, at the grocery store. So I asked my mom, why are the posters there? Why are these out here? And she said, oh, just matter of factly, she said, oh, so that people can recognize them and, you know, report them to the police. And she just said it and she kept, you know, we took our groceries out. But inwardly, as a kid, I remember having this realization that criminals were apparently just running around in the city. And my mom's just like, yep, yeah, they might be there. And I'm thinking, okay, wait, wait a second, wait a second. This is not an emergency. Like, why are we just going about our days? There are criminals running around. I remember even one was, like, armed and dangerous, you know, aggravated robbery. And I was like, oh, my goodness, this is not. There's no sirens. What are we doing, guys? And I was used to seeing or thinking about bad guys and criminals. I remember thinking, okay, yeah, bad guys, they're in stories. Okay, bad guys, they're on the news. But bad guys aren't in the grocery store. But apparently they are. Apparently every single person in this grocery store could be a criminal. And that was my processing as a kid. And I remember freaking out. My mom was just like, okay, here we go again. So that was the kind of kid I was. You can pray for my parents. But I remember having that jarring insight that. That bad guys weren't just out there somewhere. They might be much closer than I realized.
9 · Connects the childhood illustration to Titus's warning that false teachers may be present within the church itself, extending the danger to digital spaces and one's own heart
And that kind of jarring insight is what we find in the book of Titus today. The letter begins with this big mission of God bringing the truth of the gospel into the world. And then it continues with Paul giving directions for appointing faithful leaders so that we can have a strong church. And then, bam, right in the middle, there's this jarring, serious warning that bad guys might even Be in the seat next to you at church, you should look around and just see just that person. You don't know them, you know, I'm just kidding. But that's the effect of this. It's Paul saying, watch out. Even among the church, even among people who quote Bible verses or carry Bibles or go to church, there may be danger there. And we as a church need to know how to spot it. And not just in the church, but on our social media feeds. Not just there, but in our YouTube videos and our podcasts, right? Just because somebody's out there quoting Bible verses doesn't mean they're safe. And not only do we need to be good at spotting the bad guy on the wanted poster, we also need to be good at spotting the bad guy in the mirror.
10 · Recent pastoral experience with a church attender who appeared on a most-wanted list, illustrating the passage's purpose to prevent self-recognition as the dangerous person
A number of years ago, there was a guy that had been coming to church and was trying to turn his life around. And I found out that in the Sunday paper, you know how sometimes they would run that section of El Paso's most wanted, and he was there. Like, his picture was there. And so I reached out to him and I was like, bro, what is going on? And he goes, oh, man, I almost forgot about that. He's like, yeah, I need to report in. You know, I haven't had a chance yet. And so you're like, oh, no, that's not what we want, right? We do not want to look at Titus 1 and go, oh, my goodness, that's me. Right? So that's why this passage is in our Bible.
11 · Announces the sermon's four-part structure, beginning with the profile of false teachers described in verse 10
So we're gonna look at four things today. The first is the profile to watch out for. The profile of what you watch out for. Just like every wanted poster, we'll have a sketch or a photo or a description. Paul gives us one up front in verse 10.
12 · Detailed exegesis of verse 10's four characteristics of false teachers: insubordinate (unsubmitted), empty talkers (self-impressed), deceivers (hiding), and legalists (adding requirements to the gospel)
For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. Now, four qualities to watch out for in others and in ourselves. The first is insubordinate. Essentially, that means unsubmitted. One of the emphases in Titus is that every Christian is submitted first of all to Christ and then to others in appropriate ways, right? Paul introduces himself as a slave to Christ. This is a significant theme in the letter and talks about later being submitted to church authorities. There's home, there's governance, all that stuff. But the first quality to watch out for is those who are unsubmitted Christians, people who don't listen to others, who aren't under the appropriate authority. Of anyone else. Paul says, watch out for those kind of people. Second, empty talkers. These are people who like to hear themselves talk, who are impressed with their own ideas, their own perspectives. Proverbs says that where words are many, sin is not absent meaning among those who like to talk and talk about themselves and their perspectives, often there's sin in the mix. Third, deceivers. These are people who hide things. Hiding motives or shading the truth or bending the truth. Most commonly, I think it means hiding parts of themselves from others. And let me just tell you this. Over the years, I've observed something that every fallen Christian leader that makes a splash in our lives or online. Every fallen Christian leader begins their slide by hiding parts of their life from others. That's how it starts. You begin to carve out a part of your life that nobody else shines a light into. Paul says, watch out. Fourth, and you might think this is a surprise, but it's very related. Fourth, watch out for legalists, it says, especially those of the circumcision party. Now, this is a reference to a particular group subgroup in the New Testament of those who received the message of Jesus Christ but said, hey, in addition to Jesus, you also need to follow these other laws or regulations. You need to. We need to go back to circumcision. We need to go back to these ritual purity laws. We need to do all of these things so that you're really accepted by God, so you're really in with the family of God, and it's deadly. Legalism is any teaching that says you get right with God or you gain standing before God and others with good works if you obey extra laws.
13 · Doctrinal assertion that digital-age Christians face unique challenges in discerning false teachers through screens, and Scripture prioritizes flesh-and-blood local church leaders over digital influencers
Now, here's the challenge. Okay? We're told to look out for those insubordinate, those empty talkers, those deceivers, those legalists. But one challenge is this. In our particular age, we cannot spot the problems as easily when they're being taught by a phone screen in front of us. And what I mean by that is many of us will have favorite teachers or channels or Christian leaders or whatever. But we, let's just be honest, we have no idea if any of these qualities are present. If somebody was like, hey, is this your favorite teacher? Do they fulfill the requirements of Titus 1? Are they a warning sign person? In at the end of Titus 1, we would say, I have no idea. I just see. And here is where an appropriate caution is. Scripture sets up that the most influential leaders in our lives, the most influential Bible teachers in our lives, those who influence us most in our walk, should not be on a screen somewhere. They should be flesh and blood around us. They should be the people that God has placed us among.
14 · Application of the previous claim: reduce influence of unknown digital teachers and increase reliance on local believers with observable godly character
And so this is both a caution about inappropriately placing those who you do not know and we do not know in a place of our lives that they were never meant to fulfill. It says caution. But also those around you that love Jesus and love their Bible. They may sit in home group with you. They may be around you. Lean into those people, Let them influence you. If you can commend their character, they may not have the great turn of phrase the guy on YouTube does, but, man, if they love Jesus and their families follow them. That's what this calls us to do. All right? That's the profile.
15 · Structural pivot to the second major section: why false teachers are dangerous, reusing the childhood wanted poster urgency
Second, the danger to others. Why is it so important that we spot people like this? Because of the danger they pose to others. Just like I was so alarmed as a kid that there are apparently armed and dangerous people that we haven't caught. In which case I would just say, let's just. We gotta stop. What are we doing? Nobody go to work. Nobody go to school. We're just gonna catch them, right? Paul is saying, okay, listen, there are dangerous people, but you need to understand why they are dangerous.
16 · Reconstructs the historical false teaching in Crete: ritual purity emphasis, ascetic rejection of material/marital life, secret knowledge claims, and payment requirements — showing the subtle progression from plausible to destructive
Now, I want to bring you into the danger, but first you need to understand what the teaching was so you can see why it was dangerous. Because at first, I'm going to warn you, it doesn't seem that dangerous. Doesn't seem that big of a deal. Okay, here's what it looked like. First, these false teachers emphasize ritual purity. Well, that's good, right? I mean, they want to be pure. Being pure is good. And they began to emphasize more and more Jewish purity laws that had been set aside, that the apostles said, we no longer have to fulfill these because Jesus has fulfilled them for us. And we can be. And they're like, well, but maybe not all. Let's. Let's do these things. Let's. Let's. We think we, you know, really. The really spiritual ones still do the loss. Do you know that the really spiritual ones still follow A, B, and C? You know that, right? So that's how it starts. And then second, it was mixed in with Greek and Roman asceticism, which in the. In that day considered the material world, the. The flesh and blood world around us unclean or less spiritual. So it seems as though that they were teaching that really spiritual people, the really godly people have nothing to do with the flesh. In fact, that means you should not get married. In fact, it means you shouldn't be physically intimate with your spouse. In fact, it means probably you should separate from your spouse altogether if you're going to be really spiritual the way Jesus was, right? Do you see? You're like, oh, wait, that sounds kind of right, But. But it begins to slide. And then they coupled that with this, what they called secret knowledge. So Paul references that the endless myths and genealogies. These are people that are finding other texts or finding legends or finding mythological things, secret, speculative things that other people don't know, but they know. They know these things, but other people don't know them, but they do. And then last, they required payment to learn these special secrets to become. To help you become really spiritual. Really, really a real, A level varsity follower of Jesus. Right? Do you see how you're going at first? Like, okay, not bad, not bad. Then all of a sudden, it's off the rails.
17 · Introduces the concept of syncretism — the dangerous pattern of adding to the gospel — and traces its three-step progression from 'Jesus and X' to 'X and Jesus' to 'mostly just X
Notice the danger. All of this is covered and can be covered in Bible verses. All of this can be covered in spiritual talk. It seems spiritual, it seems good, but it is deadly, according to Titus 1, deadly. And the word here that I'd want to introduce is syncretism. Syncretism is taking Christian things and marrying them to other things in a way that distorts the word of God or distorts the gospel. And so here is the progression of syncretism. It's like, okay, here's the gospel, here's Jesus. And then what happens is, step one, well, let's believe in Jesus and this other thing that I think is really important. And then step two is those switch places. So the other thing goes first, but still Jesus. And then step three is it's mostly just the other thing. Right? Do you see how subtle that is? It begins and it begins simply, but it ends in disaster.
18 · Catalogs six contemporary forms of syncretism: cultic (adding texts to Scripture), Catholic (tradition equal to Scripture), health-and-wealth (American Dream over Scripture), political (platforms reinterpreting Scripture), therapeutic (pop psychology distorting Scripture), and New Age (occult practices replacing Scripture)
Now, I'm going to give six examples today because I realize we do not have the same temptation with Jewish purity laws, but we do have the same temptation in other areas of syncretism. And I'm going to walk through six of them that I want to just raise a warning flag about. First, cultic syncretism. This is where you find things like the Mormon faith, the Jehovah's Witness faith, other things. And the common denominator with these and other offshoots of Christianity is that they add to Scripture. Okay? So it's not just the Bible. It's the Bible and the Book of Mormon or the Bible and the Watchtower or whatever else it is. And then it flips, and all of a sudden it becomes mostly the other thing. And then eventually it interprets and reinterprets everything in the Bible as it sits above it. You see the danger? Cultic syncretism. Second, I want to raise the flag of Catholic syncretism, Roman Catholic syncretism. One danger of the Roman Catholic Church teaching is that it explicitly makes. This is not an overgeneralization. It explicitly makes church tradition equal to Scripture, and both are equally authoritative. And so what happens then is you wonder, okay, how do you get to a doctrine like Purgatory that is not clearly in the Bible? The way you get there is Jesus or the Word and tradition. Tradition begins to override the Word, and then all of a sudden, you have these doctrines that are nowhere in Scripture. Third, health and wealth syncretism. This is where essentially you take American greed or the American Dream and match it with Scripture. And what happens in the end is Christianity promises material wealth in this life, and they demand faith at a certain level, money at a certain level. And it looks like anytime somebody says, if God, God really wants to give you a blessing today, but in order for him to give that blessing to you, you need to give blank to God. Right? You see how simply it starts, well, isn't it good to give to God? Yes, but what happens is health and wealth is over the Bible and reinterprets everything in it. Fourth, political syncretism. This is where Scripture is bent by political beliefs or platforms that function as equivalent to Scripture and end up distorting Scripture as a result. So you. I saw a number of people this week concerned that a Texas politician was saying, using Luke 1, he was saying that Luke 1 supports abortion rights. People were rightly saying, well, that's wrong, but how do you get there? You get there when any political platform becomes the thing that sits over the Bible and reinterprets the Bible. That's how you get there. Fifth, therapeutic syncretism. This is where pop psychology gets baptized into Christian language. And what happens is that those beliefs outside of Scripture can twist and distort scripture if they're placed alongside Scripture or over Scripture. So, for example, something I've seen is people saying, okay, you know where Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, really, the emphasis should be loving yourself. And that loving yourself then becomes the grid through which you read all of the Bible. It's not the meaning of that text. Six New and last New Age syncretism. This is where New Age ideas creep in. People turn to astrology or crystals, and all of a sudden Jesus and crystals becomes crystals and Jesus. And then it just becomes mostly Just crystals, right? This is what happens.
19 · Direct question to the congregation: Do you have anything functioning at Scripture's level in your life? Warning that this always leads to that thing replacing Scripture
And so, friends, here. Here's what I want to ask all of us today. Do you have. Do we have anything on the same level of scripture in our lives? Is there anything with Jesus and blank with you? Scripture and blank. This thing I really need, and it sits alongside scripture. Friends, you have to understand the slide is always that thing becomes the thing over Scripture. We have to fight to say it's Jesus. It's scripture above all else, not alongside anything else.
20 · Exegesis of verses 11-14 showing the concrete harm of false teaching: families being split apart by ascetic requirements, cultural vulnerabilities (Cretan deception) infiltrating the church, and the inevitable progression from 'truth and X' to turning away from truth entirely
And look at what happens when we don't. We don't work carefully to disentangle scripture from other things. Look at verse 11. They must be silenced. Why? Because they're 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 and lazy gluttons. And this testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply that they be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. Do you see what happens here? This false teaching is beginning to upset whole families because apparently some were saying, well, listen, I want to be really spiritual, so I guess that means I have to separate from you and. And. And I shouldn't be doing anything with the flesh. And. And you begin to split families apart. And Paul, I love this Paul. Some people don't think Paul has a sense of humor, but I actually think he does because he quotes one of the Cretan poets, and it's a. Actually, I think a joke among the Cretans because it's a poet that says Cretans are always liars. But if you're saying that, are you telling the truth? Right. You know what I mean? It's like it's one of those catch 22s. But it was a joke on Cretan culture. It's saying, oh yeah, we always kind of bend and, you know, massage the truth. That's who we are. Haha. And Paul is saying, no, no, no, that cultural vulnerability is actually coming through in the church. The problem isn't just out there among the Cretans, it's with you. It's inside the church. And essentially what happens is they devote themselves to Jewish myths. And the end is that you turn away from the truth. Look, you always. False teaching always starts with, you can have the truth and this other thing, but it always ends with you turning away from the truth because you can't have Jesus and anything else at the same level. The word and anything else at the same level.
21 · Identifies two opposite application dangers: (1) hyper-vigilant heresy hunting that elder authority doesn't authorize, and (2) the more common American evangelical tendency to never identify false teaching out of misplaced niceness
Now, there are two dangers in application here, as we think about this. The first danger is that based on this, we might put a sheriff's badge on ourselves and walk through the doors of our home group next week and go, heresy, heresy, heresy. You know, anytime somebody says, I'm wondering about heresy, you got a big buzzer, right? You might go crazy with, like, I'm going to see heresy under every rock and tree. That's syncretism. That's another secret, you know, And I don't think that's the intent of this passage. This was a. A clear violation and interdiction, as we'll talk about. The enforcement of this is given to the elders. So I would use caution there. This is not a badge you can use to run around and tell people that they're stupid or lazy gluttons or something like that. Like, it's not what this passage is intended for. The second danger, though, in false teaching, I think is more insidious and I think is more common. It's not as loud, but it's more common among the American church, and that is this, that you never see false teaching, that you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. You want to believe. Like, everybody's on the level. Anybody uses a Bible verse, they're probably fine. And I think that is dangerous. We need discernment here because of what's at stake.
22 · Structural pivot to the third major section: what to do when false teaching is identified — Paul's two-part prescription of silencing and rebuking
Third section, then the call to action. So when we identify something, a syncretism or something, some other false teaching, what must we do? Well, I love that Paul's prescription is simple but not easy. It's simple, but it's not easy. Essentially, he says, silence it and rebuke it.
23 · Clarifies the proper scope of silencing and rebuking: formal authority belongs to elders, but the impulses apply to all believers within their spheres of influence
Now. Important qualification. These two functions were given to Titus and to the elders. So it doesn't mean that everybody equally is just going to run around rebuking and silencing people. There is a governmental function in view here that is appropriately borne by the elders. So if the elders hear about a home group, that's like, you know what? We're going to study the Bible and the Book of Mormon. We're supposed to get in there. I'm sure nobody's going to do that, but, like, that's. That's the governmental task. However, these two impulses are important for us and for those that we have influence with around us. There are times where false teaching just needs to be turned off, and there are times where rebuke graciously, but clearly needs to be brought.
24 · Concrete application of 'silencing': conduct media fasts to turn down competing voices and turn up Scripture, followed by discerning curation
So the first thing Silence. Silence. Look, one of the challenges in our world is that we live in a world of constant noise, don't we? This happens. We have five people in my family, and there are times we're all in the living room and one person's listening to a podcast, and one person's listening to an audiobook and one person watching TV and one person is trying to watch a YouTube video. And it just is like, you know, and at one point, I realized last week, I can't even hear myself think. I don't even know what I'm watching. I don't think anybody else in this room knows what they're listening to either. Right. And so you have to go, okay, what voice should be turned up and what voice should be turned down? And here's the adjustment. We always want to be turning up the voice of scripture in our minds and turning down the other voices. And so let me encourage you, if you need help here, and I think many of us do, I do. I want to encourage you with one practice that's helped me over the years, is to do a media fast, or social media fast even, where you just say, look, for a season, I'm just gonna take a few days and I'm just gonna silence all the other voices around me and listen into the Word. I'm gonna take a devotional, I'll take a Bible, I'll take a worship album. And that's gonna be what I listen to for a couple days here, because I just wanna. I wanna make sure I'm hearing clear, clearly the word of God above everything else in my life right now. And then you begin to add, and here's the fun thing that I found. As you begin to add those other things back in your life, you start to go, oh, I don't. I don't know about that one. Right. That one may not be helpful for me. So silencing it and then rebuking it again, there's an elder governmental responsibility here, but we all have the responsibility to serve one another by graciously and clearly saying, friend. I don't know if that's in the Bible. Friend. Where did you get that? Friend, can I share something with you? Right. We need to be able to bring lovingly and graciously and yet clearly to those around us that we love that what they're listening to are being influenced by may not be the Bible.
25 · Doctrinal assertion that being rebukable is harder than rebuking others and is essential to Christian maturity — requires humility to receive correction
And then the follow up is this. Especially if you're excited about that first one. The follow up is this. Not only do we need to bring rebukes to others when appropriate. We need to be easy to bring rebukes to. And that's a lot harder, isn't it? It's like, hey, I'm cool, I'm happy to rebuke some people. Let's go, let's get in there. But great, you're first. Nope, don't like that. I don't think we should rebuke anyone. And yet that is what it means to be a Christian, to be shaped evermore in the image of Christ.
26 · Specific application to parents and teens: Parents must actively know and help children discern what's influencing them
Now, I want to give one particular application to, if I can, to parents and teens here. And all the teens just woke up. Welcome back, teens. Because they're like, wait, uh, oh, am I in trouble? Maybe? Here's the encouragement I want to give to parents and teens. Parents, let me encourage you. We have to, I think in light of this passage, we have to know what is influencing our kids. Our kids are hearing voices every day from various sources. And you cannot bubble your child up so far that the world can't get to them. You just can't. It comes through everything around us. Books, TV shows, movies, games, friends, everything. And they will be influenced by things. And they need your help. They need you to explain the gospel, explain the word to them, and to listen to what they're listening to so that you can help them discern what they're hearing. And then the other thing I want to say is to teens, teens, look, hear me on this, okay? You may be 15, 16, 17, whatever, and think like, man, I am the smartest person in the room at home, right? And it may. Look, I want to say this, it might be true, but smarts and wisdom are not the same thing, okay? You can be the smartest 15 year old in the world, but you're not yet wise. Because wisdom is the scriptural art of God, of skill in the art of godly living. And you know who've lived before you are the parents maybe in your life or the people in the church around you. And so look, here's what I want to encourage you with. You're smart, but you're not wise yet. But the fastest way to become wise is to get help. And saying, man, here's what I'm listening to. Here's this book, here's this thing. What do you think about that? Talk to your youth leader, talk to your parents, talk to other people around you. You trust and get wise as fast as you can. And here's the. I'll say on behalf of all the parents, we would love to help because we've been Snookered once or twice by syncretism. Too right. We've been there. We knocked our head against that wall and we would love to save you from smacking your face against it. Let us help, alright? That's the third thing. The call to action. Silence. Rebuke.
27 · Structural pivot to the fourth major section: the self-harm of false teaching, beyond the danger it poses to others
Fourth, danger to themselves. So here's the tragedy of false teaching. The reason we want to keep others from this and the reason we want to keep ourselves from going down this road is that Paul says, in the end, you're not just a danger to others, but you're a danger to yourself.
28 · Exegesis of verse 15 showing the first self-inflicted tragedy: false teaching robs believers of God's good gifts (marriage, sexuality, wisdom, grace, freedom) by treating them as impure
Look at verse 15. To the pure, all things are pure. But to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciences are defiled. The first tragedy Paul is pointing out here is that this false teaching means they're not actually receiving God's good gifts. So here's what's happening by saying, okay, well, anything fleshly is impure. They have people that aren't. Aren't even intimate in their marriages, enjoying the gift of sexuality that God gave them, right? They're not learning from the wisdom of others. They're not receiving the grace of God. They're going back into legalism. They're not living in the freedom that Christ won for them. And Paul is saying with that mindset, all of this stuff that the Lord says is good and right and he wants to give you is being cast away. The tragedy is that they're cheating themselves of the good things God has given to them. And let me just say, this false teaching always robs you of of the good gifts of God. It always will. Legalism will rob you. Syncretism will rob you. You want to receive all the good gifts of God, but you can't with false teachings.
29 · Exegesis of verse 16 showing the second self-inflicted tragedy: false teaching makes believers unfit for good works, sidelining them from God's purposes and rendering their lives unfruitful
Second tragedy is that you won't fulfill God's purposes for you either. Look at verse 16. They profess to know God, but they deny Him. By their works they are detestable, disobedient. Look at his last phrase, unfit for any good work. One of the big emphases in Titus is that God has saved us and given us a purpose and set us out to do good work in the world around us as part of the kingdom of God. And Paul is saying, look, the tragedy is that false teaching sidelines you to where you're useless, to the kingdom of God, to where you're not even fulfilling the purposes God has for you. So not only are you robbed of good gifts, you're not even fruitful. Your life isn't fruitful.
30 · Personal pastoral observation of the pattern: people in this very church who've spiraled into isolation, elitism, relational fracture, and unprofitability through syncretism — regardless of the specific 'X' they added to Jesus
And Look, I wish I could say, okay, this is. This is. I could see this happening in my imagination. No, friends, I've seen this happen with people who've sat in this room. And often the pattern will be that somebody will take. Start simple. It's. It becomes the Word. And this other thing, Jesus and this other thing, they'll go, have you read this book? Oh, you have to. Otherwise you're not a real Christian. Have you. Do you follow this person online? Oh, you have to. Do you follow that person? Oh, you can't follow that person. Are you as informed as me about this topic or this thing? It could be politics or therapy or obscure mythologies or conspiracy theories or even good, sound doctrine. But what happens is eventually it makes you grow inward and you begin to cut yourself off from the good gifts of God. You cut yourself off from the people around you because they're not in the club like you. They. They're not on your level. You stop getting help, you stop getting input, and eventually it leads to relational breaks, and eventually you end up isolated and unprofitable, not fulfilling the purposes of God for you. And, friends, the. The. The Scriptures don't want that for you. They don't want that for anyone. They. Scripture and the gospel gives us the gifts of Jesus and wants to bring us into his purposes, but false teaching will cut you off from both.
31 · Prepares for the gospel turn by acknowledging personal identification with the wanted poster profile — vulnerability and self-implication setting up the need for grace
So that's the profile. That's the wanted poster. Now, I want you to look at that wanted poster one more time, if you would, because maybe you are having the same experience I did this week where I saw Titus 1:10 through 16, and I thought, man, these people sound bad. They're real bad. I'm gonna watch out for them. And then by the end of the week, as I've looked at this passage, I've looked in the mirror and gone, that's a little closer than I'd like. Like my picture and that picture? I see some resemblance. Maybe we're not the same, but we're like cousins, you know, we're siblings, maybe. And I don't think that's good.
32 · Universal indictment: the capacity for syncretism is in every heart, no one is immune, and self-confidence is dangerous
Friends, the reality is this, that the roots of this stuff is in all of our hearts, in all of our hearts. And nobody should think, well, I'd never get there. I'd never go there. Friends, we've all slipped and we're all liable to slip. But the good news of Titus is that the Lord doesn't just take our wanted poster and say, there. There's no hope for you.
33 · Reading and exposition of Titus 3:3-5 as the gospel climax of the book — universal sinfulness met by God's saving mercy through Christ, not works
Titus 3 is what gives us the gospel center of this Book. And it's so relevant here. Look with me at Titus 3:3. This is what. Where all this is going. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. That's all of us. We're all on the wanted poster. But verse four, when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us. He saved us not because of works done by us and righteousness, not with Jesus plus anything else, but according to his own mercy, right? That is the grace of God, friends. That's the grace of God. Amen. Amen. Look, the gospel is this. The gospel is. See the wanted poster? See that? It's your face. But Jesus says, okay. He doesn't give us a plan that we could work it off if we have enough mythology, enough secret insights, enough good works that maybe we'll clean our portrait up. Jesus says, no, give me your portrait and I will place mine there instead. And his mercy and grace substitutes himself for us.
34 · First way the gospel protects from false teaching: It destroys self-righteousness by establishing that only Christ saves, making believers both humble enough to receive rebuke and bold enough to give it without needing approval
And friends, the gospel is the ultimate, is the thing that ultimately saves us from false teaching in two ways. Okay? Number one, the Gospel saves us because it leaves no room for self righteousness or better than ness, right? Nobody gets to say, okay, it's my thing, it's my whatever, it's my perspective. It's Jesus and this. And if people don't have this, they're not as good in me. The cross says, that thing didn't save you, only Jesus did. Did that thing die for you? Did that thing cover your sins? Did that thing give you a new heart? Nope. Jesus did, right? So self righteousness gets banished from the Christian life. And side note, doesn't that make it way easier to get rebuked if you're like, man, I am a mess. I do need help. And somebody goes, can I share some with you? You go, yes, please. I don't know what I'm doing. I was a dead man. Now I'm walking around in Jesus. So yeah, I'd love your help, right? And it makes you bold enough to say, friend, I don't need. I don't crave your approval. And I'm. I'm bold enough in Christ to say, I think this is an issue. Can I help you with this? The gospel removes our self righteousness and regrounds our identity.
35 · Second way the gospel protects from false teaching: When received at full strength without modification, the gospel is so powerful and satisfying that syncretism becomes unnecessary — Christ alone is sufficient
And then here's the great thing. The second thing it does is this. When we receive the gospel in all its fullness without a filter, right? Without modification, that gospel is Powerful and glorious. And Paul's look, his emphasis in this passage is basically this. Let the gospel do its work. Don't filter it, don't add to it. What the world needs is not a gospel plus something. What the world needs is the full proof, full strength gospel of Jesus Christ. Only that will save, only that will change. And only that is the hope of the world, all right? And when you love it and prize it, all of a sudden the other false teaching stuff goes, I don't need that. I don't need it anymore. This is enough for me. This is the hope of the world and the hope of my life. Amen.
36 · Evangelistic invitation grounded in the wanted poster metaphor: everyone here has confessed their guilt and found Christ's substitution — the same is available to anyone listening today
And so, friend, if you've not encountered the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if your portrait looks more like that than you want to admit, come to Jesus today. Look, everybody in this room is not here because we've achieved a certain level of godliness and we're now like out of jv. Christianity and diversity. That's not the gospel at all. The gospel is that every single person in this room has put their hand up and said, yup, that's me on the wanted poster. And I got no way out, right? And so, friends, here's the invitation. Join the club. Join the club. I think we have your picture in the back. We could take it down this afternoon and put Jesus there for you and we'd love to have you join.
37 · Closing pastoral prayer asking for the Word's sanctifying work, for those distracted by other voices to return to Scripture, for unbelievers to come to Christ, and for the church to commit to the full-strength unmodified gospel
Would you stand? And let's pray as we close. Oh, heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that the word that we receive today would do its work in our hearts. Lord, I pray that as appropriate, if there is anything in our lives that that is casting more influence on us than you, than your word. What if we've gotten distracted? If all of our time and focus has gone to something else? Lord, I pray that you would graciously help us today and lead us back. Lord, if there's anyone that is seeing for the first time that they really do need a Savior and them doing it on their own is not enough, I pray that they would come to Jesus as Savior and Lord today. And third, Lord, I just pray. I pray that we would be a church that commits to the unfiltered gospel, but without modification, without additives, at full proof and full strength, because that is the only thing that saves, that is the only thing that changes us. In Jesus name, Amen.