Our text for this morning's message is taken from Titus chapter 3 verses 9 through 11. But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. reject the device of man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned." There's an area of Christian piety that is frequently neglected. by professing Christians. It's particularly so in the kind of day in which we live, where the tendency, where a generalization can be made, that the tendency of our day is likened to that of the day of judges, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. When people are following the impressions of their own hearts, rather than the testimony of God's Word, the tongue is put to many uses which are contrary to the will of God. Now, as biblical Christians, we often would testify within our own hearts that we are careful not to steal. And we are careful as God's children to deal with the lusts and the temptations of this life as we seek to do battle and as we seek to commit ourselves to lean on the Spirit of God in this battle between the flesh and the Spirit that we might call on the Lord for help. We are careful. to keep our tongues from speaking lies. The truth is important to us. But there is a frequent danger that comes for the children of God. And that is that we fail to observe an axiom that was once taught to little children in a simple little song. Oh, be careful, little tongue, what you say, for your father up above is looking down in love. So be careful, little tongue, what you say. The tongue we are warned about is a very dangerous member of our body. It's like a wildfire. We've read on the news in recent times and more particularly even this past week, Santa Barbara, 80 homes were burned by a wildfire or more. And that's destruction from this unchecked burning. And so it is that there is a burning of the tongue and much harm comes by the careless use of the tongue. And here the Lord speaks to us in verse 9 of Titus 3, but avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. This is not just another rule that God is trying to give his children. The concern for what we would do with our tongues as we speak flows out of always the beginning of the letters that are written to us as God's children. The beginnings of the letters speak of God's grace to us in Christ Jesus. It speaks of the marvelous redeeming power of God's grace in the heart of a believer that through faith in Jesus Christ, we are set free from sin. that we have been brought then to serve Him out of love, not out of a keeping of the law, but out of a manifestation of the Spirit's power in our lives as people who have been born again by the Spirit of God. And so as we ponder this specific instruction regarding the use of our tongue, we mustn't fall into the trap in the sense of thinking, this is just another rule for me. But rather, to see it as a living demonstration of Christ's life in us. And the Lord Jesus, that is concerned To give us a guideline for our conversations. That the use of our tongues might be profitable for the kingdom. That we might join with the Lord Jesus in seeking to build up rather than tear down. That we might join with the Lord Jesus in seeking to gather rather than to divide and to scatter. So the Lord gives us, yes, a gospel precept. Not simply a commandment, don't do this, but it must be seen in the light of the grace of God. So he says to us, avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law. Again, the original Greek language is helpful, not so much to change in any sense the meaning, but rather to flesh it out and give us a deeper understanding. He says to avoid, and the word in the Greek language is the idea of standing aloof, is standing around. Sometimes we think of standing around as that we're standing around and eavesdropping, as it were, to catch and sear in some evil that's going on. But here, it's the standing around and the sense of avoiding. You're withdrawing from the intimate circle of where evil speaking is going on. And you are not participating. You're drawing back. And what is it that we're drawing back from? Well, it's foolish searchings. Foolish searchings. The word there for foolish is the word transliterated into our English language, moron. Moron. Stupid! Foolish! And so, the devil himself seeks to take God's children and draw us aside to things that are unprofitable for our souls, that we might be enticed away from our gracious Savior. So he warns us against these moronic questions where we're looking after stupid things. And past this, decades there's been little debates over, you know, How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Can we gain any scriptural knowledge if we give us insight into such stupidity? Some think so. And the Lord is trying to tell us to stay away from that which is foolish, that's unprofitable. It's silly. It brings no benefit. He tells us to stay away from genealogies. In the Old Testament, the genealogies were important. They had certain purposes and used to certain ends, and we'll talk about them more. But they have no great profit in the kingdom of Christ, where the Lord has broke down the division between Jew and Gentile. It's no longer important which family of Abraham Which family of Jacob's twelve sons is the one that you have come from? The Lord warns against strife, against that contending, against the battles that arise with reference to the law of God. Let us look at some of the things he warns us against in our conversation to avoid these foolish, moronic searchings. 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 4, in like manner the Apostle Paul speaking by the Spirit warns Timothy that he needs to not give heed to fables and to endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in the faith. And you notice the instruction that we're looking at both is directed to a young minister, Timothy, and it's directed to a young minister, Titus. And we might say in a certain sense that these are things that are directed to the ministers. And certainly as the ministers have been told, as we've seen as we went through the book of Titus, this epistle to Titus directing this young minister how he used to carry forward his ministry, it was made clear to him that he was to be an example to the flock of God. The people of God need to be able to look at the elders of the church the officers and leaders of Christ's church to see a godly example. That there's not simply being carried away by make-believe stories about various issues that create questions rather than build up the body of Christ. And again and again, these issues are raised with Timothy and both Thessalians and with Titus because this was a problem in the age in which they lived. Even though they often were ministering in Gentile churches, there was still the influence of Judaism present in the Gentile churches. There had been those who had come who tried to teach that there must continually be the Old Testament practices of circumcision and various keeping of the ceremonial law. The Judaizers and the Gentile churches have been affected by this unprofitable emphasis that was being made by so many from within the church. And so there's this warning against this kind of unprofitable speech that it will not benefit, it will not edify the people of God. It was a preoccupation in their religiosity within Judaism and the corruption that had taken place through the centuries, but particularly while they were in Babylon. And the corruption that went on as you had the the various traditions of Judaism developing. And so these debates over what was right and wrong and debates of ethical instruction for the people continued on back and forth and it continued to affect people in the days of the New Testament Church in some fashion it does for us as well today. It's quite interesting that we find that even pagans can recognize that such discussions are not profitable. We hear in Acts chapter 18, at verse 14, when Paul was standing before Galio, and as he's standing there, he's about to open his mouth, and as Paul's getting ready to give his defense, Hagen, ruler, opens his mouth and says to the Jews present, If it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crimes, O Jews, there would be reason why I should bear with you. But if it is a question of words and names and your own law, you look to it yourself, for I do not want to be a judge in such matters. You see, he saw that he'd seen in his observation within the community where the Jews had their influence, that there's this constant debating all the time. And he says, I don't want to have any part of it. If it were ethical, if it were a legal matter, if it was a matter of right and wrong, I'm ready to do justice to it within the court of pagan Rome. But you can keep such babblings and debates to yourself. So we are warned to avoid these contradictions that are falsely called knowledge. We are to look for the things that are important in life. We see an example in the Apostle Paul. Though he had an experience spiritually, He testifies to in the Scripture of being, whether in body or whether in a vision, of being carried up into the third heaven. You don't hear in the Scriptures, in the writings of Paul, all these kind of wild discussions of what heaven was like, because it wasn't profitable. It was a delight and a joy to his soul to experience what God had given him. But it wasn't profitable for the church because why? God had reserved such things for revelation for a future time. Will heaven not be important to us when we get there? Oh indeed! What a joy! But it's not the subject for speculation among the children of God. Why? Because all our speculation would be vain. It would be simply the strivings of men. As one says, oh, heaven's like this. And another says, no, heaven's like this. And another, heaven's like this. When God wants us to know what heaven's like, He speaks. There's a warning against strivings. Against debating. and disputes within the church. These are harmful. They divide. They create harm to the body of Christ. But we need to realize that not all disputes are condemned in the scriptures. There needs to be a wisdom, exercise. There must be, for those who are in Christ Jesus, a depending on the Spirit of God to operate within our souls, to instruct and encourage us by the Word. And as we look at the Word, though we've read here that we're to avoid these contentions and strivings, we see in the Scriptures that the Apostle Paul often disputed with others. If all disputing is wrong, then the apostle was wrong. Not only that, we see in Jude, the only chapter of Jude, the third verse, these words, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the truth. Contending for the truth! What do we are to argue and to persuade and to seek to bring people to Christ? That's commended to us. But what is condemned we see illustrated in Titus 1.10. For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. We see that there's these contradictions that are falsely called knowledge that he warns us against, where people have gone beyond the word of God to the commandments of men to establish their own reasonings and to speak about things that do not profit the souls of men. The church needs to be careful to not seek to build itself by extra biblical means. About designing things and traditions that have no biblical ground. We see frequently within the church in our day as it was a problem in the day of the apostles. sin being overlooked and biblical morality being overturned by teachings and instructions from those who turned the commandment of God on its head and offered an immoral practice to the people of God. We see the warnings of Peter and the warnings of of Jude, about those who come into the love feasts of the church, who enter into the fellowship of the church, and while there, begin to propagate a pagan morality among the people of God. Striving about such things. The Lord says, don't even let these things be made among you. These immoral practices. Don't talk about them. Don't debate them. He mentions the genealogies. We're not into trying to discover where our family tree is to be traced. Certainly there's nothing wrong with knowing your family tree. When you make it a spiritual principle, It becomes a problem because we no longer need the genealogies to determine how to carry out the Old Testament ceremonial practices as to who can be a priest and who can be a Levite and who can serve in this capacity or that capacity within the kingdom of God. And we don't need these genealogies. to trace the lineage of our Savior any longer. We've seen it, we understand it, and we follow it through. But it's not a matter of debate. We're not looking for the Messiah. Is He the Messiah? Is He the Messiah? Is He the Messiah? And having that traceable genealogy that would make clear that the one who had come was a descendant of David. So genealogies are not that big a problem for us, perhaps, unless we do get caught up in it in an ungodly manner so that we spend more time tracing our family tree than we do pursuing the kingdom of God. So let's move on. He mentions against contentions and strivings about the law. In post-Babylonian Judaism, there was a lot of litigation that went on in a legal sense between the schools of Hillel and Shemaiah. As you look at, if you ever picked up a Jewish writing that described the tradition that was going on, the various traditions that were going on, you'll find one rabbi saying, that this practice is okay. And another one, disagreeing with him because he could find certain reasonings why that it would be all right and he can define the circumstances when it would be suitable to act in what appeared to be an immoral fashion. You see these strivings back and forth represented so strongly in the Misha and the Talmud. as these various debates go on. This is what the Lord is warning His people against. Against this human code that's been written that's contrary to the Word of God. We see an example of this. When the Lord Jesus is ministering here on earth and He reproves the people because they traded the commandment of God for the traditions of men, particularly when he speaks of the practice of Corban, whereby someone's been told by the various Jewish leaders that if you devote all your possessions, your wealth, to the Lord, you can continue to use it. But when your mom and dad come in their old age and say, I need help, you know, all my resources are gone. You say, sorry, I can't help you. All that I had that I could have helped you, I've devoted to the Lord. And Jesus reproved that ungodliness on their part, whereby they used an ungodly tradition of these pagan Jewish leaders. to subvert the righteousness of God. Well, these are the things that the Lord is saying to the leaders of the church, to Titus, to Timothy, avoid these things. But we have to ask ourselves, well, what's the church's response then when they hear this instruction to the elders? Well, we see that this is a preset for the church as well. These elders These church leaders, these evangelists are examples of the flock of God. And so, when we see that they are not to engage in such things, but to withdraw, and to not get caught up in discussions about such things, we see that the members of the body of Christ, likewise, are to avoid foolish discussions, to not become engaged and such things. We see this warned again in a couple of different places, directed to the whole church and not just to the elders. We see in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1, he says, And I, brethren, would not speak to you as spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food, For until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able, for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, you are not carnal, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, I am of Paul, and another says, I am of Apollos, Are you not carnal? He's saying, here's a debate. Now they're not debating the legal strivings here regarding the Jewish tradition. But what they've done is they've fallen in as Gentiles into a similar kind of problem. Instead of looking to Christ as the head of the church and his officers as mere servants of Christ, to see them in the proper light, what have they done? They've begun to establish human traditions. One person listens to one minister and seems to be greatly helped by that man's preaching. And so he becomes a follower of that man. I'm of Paul. Oh, but no, I'm of Apollos. I think he's much more elegant than Paul. And I like his preaching. And it really ministers to me. And I'm a follower of Apollos. Another, I am a Peter. And what argument does he give? Well, he's more down to earth like I am. Perhaps that's what they're saying. Or, he's the one who first confessed Christ. He's one of the preeminent apostles. I'm a follower of Peter. Another who, seeking to be much more spiritual than the others says, I'm here to tell you I'm much better than all of you. I'm a follower of Christ. And while there's an element of truth in this one saying, the real one that we're to follow is the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a distortion even in that testimony. Because that one also is seeking to divide the church by his pride. I'm better than you. I am of Christ. So the church is warned against such foolishness which our hearts have a propensity towards. We are warned both by the Lord Jesus and by his apostle Paul to be careful what kind of conversations we engage ourselves in. our New Testament lesson that we read, at verse 29 we heard these words. Let no corrupt communication or word proceed out of your mouth, but what is necessary for edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. That's God's standard. God has warned us through the Lord Jesus himself speaking in the ministry and the testimony that he bears in the gospel that there is coming a day when we as God's children will stand at the judgment throne of Christ and have to give an account for every word that's come out of our mouths. As God's children, this is not going to keep us out of heaven. If we stand in Christ, we will enter heaven. If we come on the basis of Christ's shed blood, we will enter into heaven. But as the Lord addresses His people, His church, He warns us against doing and practicing such things that are shameful for a child of God. And He's telling us that it is shameful It is absolutely shameful when we should get into discussing and talking about such things that are not profitable for men's souls. See, our tendency when we're being duped by the evil one in our own evil inclinations of our heart to say, well as long as it's not harmful, it's okay. We don't realize that when something's meaningless and unprofitable, when it doesn't help and doesn't aid, it is not okay. We need to be careful that we do not use unprofitable language For these things are unprofitable and useless. They're synonyms that he uses here. You look these Greek words up in a lexicon, they seem to have the same meaning. What's he trying to do? He's trying to place a strong emphasis for us to understand that there's no profit, there's no advancement, there's no gain. And he's saying that the purpose for the tongue that the Lord has put in his child's mouth is to bring profit to the souls of men. Not just to say, well, I didn't do anything bad with it. What does he say to that one wicked man at the judgment that Jesus tells him? He said that he was an unprofitable servant. He was a wicked, unprofitable servant. Because he took the instruments of his body and he used them in a useless fashion. It did not serve the purposes of God. And so, beloved, as we try to give application for this verse to our lives, we need to be careful. that we don't take the attitude of Cain. You remember Cain when the Lord came to him after he'd murdered his brother Abel. He says to Cain, where's your brother? What's Cain's response? Am I my brother's keeper? Now in that context he was specifically saying, do I need to know where my brother is? Why do you come to me to look for my brother? Of course, the Lord was coming for a purpose to convict him of his sin. But, you see, we can have that same attitude. When we open our mouths, am I my brother's keeper? Do I really have to be concerned about what comes out of my mouth? Now, isn't my brother responsible for what he hears? Proverbs 14, verse 15. The scriptures tell us, the simple believes every word, but the prudent considers well his steps. He describes to us the human race. The human race is a mixture of people who are simple minded. If you tell them anything, they're going to believe you. And there are some people who, with the increase of wisdom, have a greater capacity to recognize and discern what's coming out of your mouth. And according to the instruction of the Lord, He says, whenever you open your mouth as His child, whatever comes out of your mouth should be calculated in such a way that whoever hears you will profit by it. It is not acceptable for us as God's children to say, You know, I'm not my brother's keeper. If I say something and don't say it right or accurate, it's his responsibility to sort it out himself. And there's an element of truth for that. But God also says that the one who speaks must be careful what he says. To honor God appropriately, When we speak, there are three different considerations that we should have. Who is present to hear what I will say? How will those who hear be affected by what I say? And ultimately, because no corrupted communication will come out of my mouth. How will they be benefited by what I say? So obviously, we don't like to hear things like this. We've been careful as I began talking about how we'll make sure that That we are faith of the Lord in so many different areas of our Christian walk. But this is one, I believe, from my own personal experience, that our human spirits resist. We don't want to be responsible with our time. We want to be able to just think something and blurt it out. And because we live in an age where, as I said, it's like the age of the judges. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. There often times is among believers an assumption, if I don't feel guilty when I say it, it's okay. But the Lord has warned us in His Word that there's a way that seems right. unto a man, but the way they're up is death. And it's not just a matter of whether you have a clear conscience when you speak something, when there's no twine of conscience that says, don't say that! It's a matter that your words have been tested and tried according to God's word that we consider well what we speak. You see, even how we speak things is important as well. You know, it's a very helpful thing when a building is burning to say, there's fire. However, there could be a fire in a crowded building and someone bellows out, fire! And a message intended to preserve and to help also becomes a message of destruction when in panic people stomp on other people to death to get out the door. It's not only what we say, but how we say it as we seek to minister and to consider what we say What effect will it have on the one who hears? You see, we're not used to doing this. This is where, as those who have been born again by Christ Jesus, by the Spirit, we need to be praying, Lord, help me to live in a fashion with my tongue that is well-pleasing to you. And rather than resentfully saying, well, why do I have to control my tongue? I know it's so hard to control it. Even God says it's hard to control. Why can't I just say whatever I want to say? And the Lord's trying to teach us to exercise godliness through an understanding of His Word. Now you see, in order for us to do what the Lord has called us to do, in shunning foolish conversation, it means putting on godly conversation. And you know what? The Lord has given us tremendous help. Because this that seems so hard to us, is not as hard as we make it out to be. Jesus warned us that the evil that comes out of our mouths finds as its source the evil that's in our hearts. If we have minds that are thinking helpful, profitable things for the souls of men, what's going to come out of our mouths? Things that are profitable. The things that are coming to your mouth, I want to share this with this person, I want to share this with this person, is going to be flowing out of the Word of God. Not just an impulse, I saw something, I have a bit of gossip that I want to share, some news that I have that just wants to come blurting out of my mouth, but you know, is there profit for this? In order to have a tongue that serves God, And our Savior, we have a great need as God's children to become wise instead of playing the fool that we've done so often since our childhood. We're told in Proverbs again and again, the tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, but the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness. Proverbs 15.2. We're told in Proverbs 18.2, a fool has no delight in understanding but in expressing his own heart. See, if we want to understand life, like the Lord's design for the child of God, for the one who's been born again, who has a special delight of being called to do good things, to prosper the souls of men, it's our joy to study and to get understanding that so what flows out of our mouth is the understanding of God's Word. rather than simply expressing what's on our mind. People might enjoy us as a conversationalist when we're very talkative, but we've been warned in Proverbs that someone of many words will come to sin because we simply eventually spout out evil. We're told in Proverbs 29.11 that a fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back. Well, isn't that what happens when we say foolish, stupid things, wicked things at times, is we have this impression, we just want to tell somebody. And instead of holding these things back that are unprofitable for other people's souls, you don't tell them. That's what happens with slander. We may be speaking the truth. We've seen something take place that was wrong and we go to tell somebody else and we open our mouths and you say, you know what I saw? I saw so and so doing this. And we sin. Now is it wrong to declare the evil? No, we're told in the scripture that we are to speak about what we've seen. We're to go to the person who's sinned. And our mouths are to freely and private open up and tell them what we've seen and talk about the evil that's been done and seek to make it right. Such conversation is important. Or it may be that we observe some child and we speak to this child about the wrong that we've seen him or her do. And the child's not responsive and we have a responsibility to go to the parents and declare to the parents our concern for their child. That's not slander. That's following biblical guidelines. Responsibility to minister to those who are wreaking harm in their own lives. But you see, those kind of conversations are directed by the Word of God. Proverbs 29 verse 26, we're told, he who trusts in his heart is a fool. And whoever walks wisely will be delivered. You see, just as you think something doesn't make it right, your perceptions are not always right. And the Lord is warning us, you and me, that he who trusts his own heart is a fool. You try everything in your mind and your heart by the Word of God. Crying out as those who have been born again of the Spirit of God, whose trust is in the Lord Jesus. You're asking the Lord to help you discern right and wrong. So that your tongue might be like an apple of gold in a setting of silver. It might be a blessing to those who hear. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things. And an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. And our Lord Jesus says, But I say to you, that for every idle word men may speak, they will give an account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. Oh beloved, don't see this as negative. See it as an exciting opportunity to zealously seek the Holy Spirit's aid, to study the scriptures afresh, to create within your heart a language pleasing unto God that will supply your tongue and your lips with edifying conversation that will help other people. It's our joy and it's our privilege. We are to minister You see, he's directed initially these comments to Titus and to Timothy, that they might guard against this evil as leaders in the church, so that the church might be equipped for ministry. Ephesians 4, we read it. That the church would have these pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, so that the people of God might begin to speak things in such a manner that know Unprofitable word might come out of their mouths, but only such as would build up those who hear. May God grant us much grace to dedicate our tongues to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Shall we stand and pray? Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your love and mercy to us. We thank You that there is mercy for sinners in Christ Jesus, for those who have sinful thoughts, for those, Lord, whose mouths have spouted forth all sorts of evil, and for those who have put those evil thoughts into action. We thank You for the forgiveness that comes through trust in Christ. Lord, we pray that we might see the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to sanctify us. Lord, that we might see the burning within our souls as those who are born again of Your Spirit. Lord, that we would despise wickedness. That we would hate, Lord, the evil that we have done that we, Lord, might have within us a right spirit and a clean heart. That we might sense Your Spirit's presence in us. And Lord, that there might be within us a renewed encouragement, excitement, joy to study the book of Proverbs and the many different instructions that You give us regarding the tongue, that our speech might be to the glory of God, that as we praise you in the worship service with your word, so, Lord, we might praise you with our same lips as we bless those, even as we have blessed you, Lord, who hear us, both here in this place, within our homes, wherever you might take us, Lord. We ask this in Jesus' name.