Okay, I do have a confession this morning. I've been doing some normally I have about three three Bibles at the house and I have three here at the church and the preaching my preaching Bible is I normally leave here at the church but I've been doing some some premarital counseling and I took it with me because it has a lot of my notes in it and things and I tended I actually left it at home this morning, so I grabbed one of the other Bibles that I have on my desk and it's actually a new King James Version. So, okay, all right. So I hope you don't throw me out this morning. And if you'll stay with me, we'll try to make sure that we're on the same page with everything. I don't think it's that different from what you'll have in your lap. But we're going to get into Titus. We have a few lessons to go to finish this little book, three chapters, a little letter that Paul wrote to Titus. And he starts off in the first four verses with a greeting. and explaining his purpose and who he's addressing the letter to. And the letter was going to Titus, who was the reigning elder there over the churches in the little Greek island of Crete. And he tells them, he tells Titus that one of the things that he needs to do to get the churches in order is to establish elders. So he gives him the qualifications for elders. And he needs to look for men that are like this. And then he goes into the responsibility of elders in the last part of chapter one, moving into chapter two. And in chapter two, he gives one of the responsibilities of elders is to reject false teachers and warn and guard the flock against false teaching. But at the same time, he's then to teach the church to do these things. And then it lays out a pattern for Christian behavior within the church. He starts off with older men, and then he moves to older women, and then he moves to younger women, and then he moves to young men. And then he goes to slaves. Well, in that culture, they had many slaves that were part of the church and coming into the church. And also they had slave masters. They had members that owned slaves that were part of the church. So there was there was teaching that needed to be given on how to those relationships are supposed to work in this new faith of Christianity. But we see that today in our current application as maybe an employer employee relationship and some of you that work for others say it's I feel like a slave sometimes and and so that it was not really much of a jump to to see the application there and then last time we finished up chapter 2 was talking about the reason for this behavior and he lays these out in verses 11 through 15 where he talks about how the gospel of Christ has appeared and And that, again, he hits this drum. And you see Paul, not just in this letter, but through the New Testament, continually to beat this drum that Christians, your faith should have behavior that follows it. You are a believer, you should talk like a believer, look like a believer. live like a believer and have good deeds that follow like a believer. There's going to be a difference in a Christian. And so he continues to hit that and hit that. And then he gives another encouragement to Titus in verse 15. Speak these things, exhort, rebuke with all authority, let no one despise you. So this brings us to chapter three. Again, this is a continual flow, but we are breaking it up to get it in, get into the details. But this is a continual flow. What we're going to try to do today is we're going to cover verses 1 through 8, okay? And this is... I've titled this... Okay, yeah, you're up there. I've titled this, A Christian's Attitude in a Pagan Culture. Now, the culture that they lived in was pagan. The recognized lifestyle was wicked. I mean, if somebody was living according to the world on the island of Crete, it was a wicked lifestyle. Remember what he said about Cretans. He says in chapter 1, Paul, bondservant, verse 3, but it hasn't in due time manifested His word through preaching which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior to Titus, a true son in our common faith. Where was it? 5, verse 5, for this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city. That's not it. Where's the verse? Verse 12, one of them, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. This was the norm. So we can look at our culture, we can look at our society and say, are we pagan? Are we living in a wicked world, a wicked culture, a wicked society? But at the same time, we need to recognize the time that this was written in was also very wicked. I think sometimes we can get such tunnel vision in our own experience and think, I was talking to our mechanic dean, the guy that I've been discipling about this, and I said that we are not living in a unique or isolated situation in our current time. There have been many wicked, wicked societies throughout human history. And in certain aspects, worse than ours. And there's certain aspects where ours may be worse than theirs. But we can't sit here and say, oh, it's never been this bad. It's always been bad. Okay? So we decry abortion. And no doubt they're killing babies probably more in number than ever has been in history. But let us not forget that there were times when Paul was writing this to Titus, the common theme was if you had a child and it wasn't the sex that you wanted him to be, if it wasn't a boy or if it wasn't a girl and you wanted a boy or you wanted a girl, they'd just throw it out on the doorstep. The baby would be born, they'd toss it out on the doorstep for either the dogs to get or somebody to take and turn it into a slave. And a lot of times a movement started with Christians in the Roman Empire that they would go looking, some Christian women would go looking for babies on doorsteps so they could take them and raise them and nurture them. But many, many, I mean this was a common theme in the Roman Empire with people. So wicked pagan societies. We live in a Wiccan pagan society. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's read the passage, okay? Let's do that. Let's stick with our custom. Let's read verses 1 through 8 of chapter 3, and then we'll get into the lesson. Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us." through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." This is a faithful saying. And these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men." Okay, so let's break this passage down. He is telling to Christians on how they're supposed to behave. First of all, in chapter 2, he outlines how they're supposed to live in the church. In chapter 3, he transitions from there to how their attitude is supposed to be and their lifestyle is supposed to be towards government and the unsaved world. we no doubt live in a pagan society. We live in a government that is no longer Christian. I think it's harder for Americans to get with these things because this government, and it's, listen, we are a baby nation. We are a short-lived nation. Our nation is only 200 plus years old. We're not even made it to 300 yet. I mean, many nations around the world are a whole lot older than we are. So we look at the founding of our nation with Christian values and Christian men, and even in the 50s, morals were there, and we look at the change today, and we get upset. Our patriotism and our nationalistic attitude raises up within us, and we don't like it, and we want to fight against it because that's what our forefathers did. Even yesterday at the dinner table at Brother Steve's house, eating breakfast, we had conversations about how we were getting taxed ridiculously. I started that conversation for a purpose, because I knew what I was going to be teaching on here. I know, I'm mischievous. I tried to get you all to make yourselves guilty about your own admission. Anyway, no, I'm just joking, I'm just joking. But we see that, and it bothers us. and maybe in a sense it should bother us. But we need to go to Scripture for our direction of how our attitude and how our response to these things should be. And so what does Baal tell us in Titus? Well, I have a couple of notes right here I wanted to read you because I thought they were popular. I mean, we think of, for instance, we tend to line up with a certain, a lot of times Christians line up with a certain theme of politics. And it was probably in the 80s and the 90s that the Christian church and the evangelical church jumped on the political bandwagon strongly. And you have all kinds of organizations that rose up to try to take the country's morality back. Pat Robertson and other guys like that, Jerry Falwell that rose up to try to lead a moral nation back to God. And so now you have today the majority of Christians that whenever they find themselves leaning on one political party and they agree with that. And I think the line gets blurred between how your enthusiasm is towards conservative politics and Christian faith. I think there's one important factor that we need to remember when it comes to our nation, when it comes to politics, when it comes to our response towards the things that are going on in America. And that is this, our responsibility to the lost. What is our responsibility to the unsaved? To love them? To share the gospel with them? Think about this. Every single one of you would totally agree with this, that if somebody was going around Manchester and knocking on doors trying to share the gospel, but every time somebody opened the door up they were in their face saying, you're wicked and you're going to hell, you better come to my church or you better believe, and that kind of attitude. Not one person in here would say, yeah I agree with that. You obviously on the face of it say, no that's ridiculous. Why? Because, number one, it's not Christ-like. Number two, if you talk to a person like that, the likelihood of them even listening to you is very, very slim. Correct? But so many times, in the name of politics, we make the unsaved our enemy. Because they believe a different political persuasion, or they're fighting for a different agenda for this nation, we forget that they are the mission field. and that we are citizens of a heavenly country. John MacArthur said it this way, and I thought, you know me, I like those really just like, getcha statements. So I highlighted it, and I wrote it down later. When Christians become political, sinners become the enemy instead of the mission field. The purpose of a priest, 1 Peter 2.5. Let me jump over that and read the context of that passage. 1 Peter 2.5. 1 Peter chapter 2. Verse 5 says, "...and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood and the world of the ungodly." I'm in 2 Peter, of course. I'm in 2 Peter. Alright, 1 Peter 2. 2 5 and you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices Acceptable to God through Jesus Christ verse 9 of the same chapter But you are a chosen generation a royal priesthood a holy nation his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into the marvelous light and who once were not a people are now a people of God who had obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. The purpose of a priest, as he outlines it in this passage, is to bring God to people and people to God. If we do not lead the lost to salvation, nothing else we do for them, no matter how beneficial at the time, is of any eternal consequence. If we try to make our nation our state, our county, or our community, moral, but neglect the gospel, we are trying to make them more comfortable on their road to hell. Now, that's a strong statement, but it's the truth. It does not matter unless we are trying to reach them with the gospel. So, we see in this passage a couple of points. I'm going to break this passage down in verses 1 through 8. First, we're going to see submission to government. We're going to see slavery and unbelief, salvation 101, and then the last point speak these things. I told you I'm terrible at outlines, okay. I'm just happy I got them all starting with S's, but they don't flow at all, okay. But this is what we got. So, verses 1 and 2. And I'm in Peter. I lost my place. Verses 1 and 2, we see submission to government. Submission to government. And I'm trying to do two things at once, and it doesn't work for me. I'm trying to find a... Again, this is also not the normal Bible that I'm using, so it's throwing me all over the place. I'm trying to get a passage ahead of time. Alright, there we go. So, verses 1 and 2, we see this. Remind them. Remind who? The church. Christians. Believers. So, that's you. That's me. Remind us. What are we supposed to remind us about? To be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work. to speak evil of no one, to be peaceful, gentle, showing all humility to all men." So we see first the believer's responsibility, which is submission. This is the same word that we've seen used through all the text of chapter 2. And it is the word being subject or submission. Put them in mind, or subject. Christians, Daniel Aiken said, are not anarchists or rebels. We're not anarchists or rebels. We do not subvert the government or disobey the government unless it brings us into direct conflict with the commands of God. And even then, our disobedience is passive, not active. And we willingly accept the consequences of our actions. This submission is evidence of submission to trust in God. That's not popular in the South. It's not. Not in America. But let me tell you something. You go over to Christians in China, they understand this. You go to Christians in Russia, they understand this. But us Americans, no, we have rights. Really? You're Christian. Your right is to obey this. That's your right. Now, we obey the government. until it breaks the command of God. And we get this principle from Peter and John in Acts, where they tried to accuse them for sharing the gospel. And they said, listen, you judge whether we've done something illegal, but as for us, we ought to obey God rather than men. Now, here's what happens a lot of times with believers. We confuse what obeying God really is. We think the Constitution is obeying God. I know this is really not a fun message. You guys are going to like me today because just wait till tonight. We think that whatever's in the Constitution... Seriously, I think a lot of believers, a lot of believers in the South, Christians that go to church, think that the Constitution is directly taken from Scripture. Therefore, the Constitution is on the same level of Scripture. Therefore, if you violate the Constitution, you're violating God. So I have every right in the world to disobey. That's ridiculous. I had an illustration that I think would be really in my flesh if I used it, because it would make everybody mad here, so I'm not going to use it. It really, really just gets you, but that would be me, not necessarily the Holy Spirit, so I'm not going to go there. So we see the responsibility of the believer. What is it? Submission. Submission. Now it's easy for some of you to obey this command right now, isn't it? Because some of you agree with the president that we have. What about who we got running on the other side? And I'm telling you that regardless of who gets to be the next president or what the Supreme Court hands down, our responsibility is to submit. until it breaks a command of God. We submit. Regardless of what the health care bill was, we submit to it because that's not breaking any command of God. Listen, we may have our opinions and our beliefs when it comes to immigration. But I don't see any command of God in the New Testament being broken with immigration. Now, the homosexual agenda, that kind of stuff, gets into a different territory. And our leadership will approach that as it comes and dig into the Scriptures to make sure that we don't break a command of God here at the church. That's a different story. But we really need to get this in our hearts as believers. Do we believe God? Do we trust God? Do we believe He's sovereign? And do we trust the Word of God? And it is our duty to submit. Now, next part. Responsible to who? We're responsible to rulers? or principalities, I think in the King James it says principalities, and authorities, which in the King James it says powers. This is archaic zeusia. Rulers is a magistrate or rule. This is really a vague term, but it's basically setting up the individual or individuals that are placed in authority. And then authorities or powers is delegated influence, authority, jurisdiction. This pertains to our attitude and conduct in regard to secular government. Chuck Swindoll said, Paul expected Christians to obey rulers and authorities which represent both the offices of government and the people who occupy them. So we were good with saying, okay, I can get my head around it, Brother John, that we need to submit to government, but I'm not submitting to Nancy Pelosi. But Paul doesn't leave it at that. He goes into the people who are in government. Hey, this worked on me before I'm bringing it to you. I just want you to know that. It worked me over. What does submission look like? First, what does submission look like? Verse number 1. He says, subject to rulers and authorities, verse number one, to obey, to be ready for every good work. Now I think your translation says to obey magistrates, right? Okay, magistrates, this is the, the Greek term is a conflagration of the term for magistrate and the term for obedience. So basically the idea, the main idea is, understanding this has to do with government, the idea is obedience. It's obedience. It means to submit to authority, or to authority, hearken, obey. All right? And then he goes to the next thing and he says, be ready for every good work. This is good works. Newt Larson said, not only must the Christian be willingly obey those in authority, he must also be ready to do whatever is good. The Christian should comply with the rules and obligations of government, and then work for the benefit of the community and his fellow citizens." This was convicting as I approached this, because I don't find myself doing that. I mean, ease up off of you. I'll let the Holy Spirit work on you. But for me, this was convicting. MacArthur writes, Paul is not speaking of reluctantly doing what we know we should do in this society. but of willingly and sincerely being ready and prepared to perform every good deed toward people around us that we have the opportunity to do. Verse two, he says, speak evil of no one. or no maligning. This is the term, the Greek term blasphemo, which we get the term blasphemy. Now listen, get ready. All right, so he says, don't blaspheme people. Don't speak evil of those, of no man. When Paul wrote to Titus, Nero was on the rampage. It would have been natural for persecuted Christians to speak evil of him. Such, however, was not the example of Christ." You know who the Roman Emperor was in the time of Christ? A guy named Caligula. Wicked, wicked man. How many times do you know of in the Gospels did Christ ever refer to Caesar or Caligula? I can think of one time. Remember they were taught that the Pharisees came to him about paying taxes? What did he tell them? Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, render to God what is God's. That was his prime opportunity to tear down the leader. How ungodly, how wicked he was. But that was not the example of Christ. Nero was the leader when Paul was writing this. He was burning their brethren. He was taking church congregations and sticking them on torches to light his gardens. Falsely accusing Christians of acts of terrorism within the empire, within the city of Rome. And what did Paul instruct them to do? Obey them and don't blaspheme them. Don't talk evil of them. We should remember this whenever we're watching Fox News and before we post or repost something on Facebook. Is this becoming of a Christian? So, not speaking evil of anybody. John Phillips said, oh no, that was, I read that quote. Chuck Swindoll said, blasphemy is any manner of speech that disregards or disrespects the status of another. No contention. No contention. Number four. He says, verse two, speak evil of no one, to be peaceful, gentle, showing all humility to all men. No contention. This is no brawlers. Do you have brawlers in your text? Okay. No brawlers. This is the interesting Greek word. It's amachos. Machos. A is the negative prefix that negates it. The word is, the Greek word, get this, is machos, which means a fighter. Physically a fighter. We get the English term that we use in our language as somebody being macho. Okay? But the term here was somebody that went around looking for fights. He says, I'm machos. Don't be like that. when it comes to this realm, when it comes to this idea. Don't be that way. The Apostle taught us by example that when we disagree with someone, we do not have to be disagreeable, said John Phillips. What was Paul's reaction whenever he was before Festus? Remember when Brother Steve went through the book of Acts and he talked about Paul being before Festus? And he gave his testimony. And what did Festus say to Paul? He said, Paul, thou art Mad, yeah, crazy. He said mad, which means crazy. Mad in the KJV. But he said, you're crazy. Now did Paul look at him and say, no sir, you are crazy? Nope. He said, O most noble Festus. He paid him respect and gave a very polite reply of his sincerity. That's Christ-likeness. Do we have that kind of attitude when it comes to Political leaders that we disagree with We have no right to become hostile when I'm a believers act like unbelievers I If God so limitlessly and unconditionally loved the world that He sent His sinless Son to redeem it, how can we, as sinful recipients of His redeeming grace, be callous and loveless toward those who have not yet received it? Now, just so you know, this is not the only passage on the Christian's response to government. Peter talks about it in 1 Peter, and he says it's the will of God for you to obey the authorities that are over you, and he's talking about government. Paul says in Romans 13, listen to this passage, What does that mean? It means That Nancy Pelosi is there because God put her there. It means that whatever the next presidential candidate or whether it's a second term of the current president becomes the leader, God put it there. And so what is he saying? God's telling you, submit to him and obey him because I put him there. And when you don't submit to him and you don't obey him, you're saying you know better than I do. Okay. He goes on in verse 2, "...therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good, but if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain." for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil." You say, but John, we have a government that is endorsing evil. Do you think that we have a government currently that is endorsing evil any more than what Paul existed in at that time? Again, it was Nero. We haven't got that bad as far as our government goes. And what did he say? We just read. He says, God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. God says, I'll take care of them. I'll take care of them. Verse 5, "...therefore you must be subject not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to who customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor." That's the Bible. That's Scripture. Alright, so then he says, gentleness, and then he says, showing all humility to all men. And this is being humble. Why? Why do we act like this? Why is it necessary for believers to act like this towards unbelievers? Because think about it, if those in government are behaving wickedly and supporting wicked laws or wicked agendas, most likely they are themselves wicked and unbelieving, right? So why are we to respond that way instead of sort of a righteous indignation at it. And this is the reason. Watch. Verse 3. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. In Johnology's terms, how dare you? because you were once there. You were once an unbeliever. And then he goes on, by the way, and before you start thinking better of yourself to say, yeah, I was an unbeliever, but I came to Christ. Verse four, but when the kindness of the love of God, our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done. He says, you didn't come to Christ because of anything in you. This is why you were to behave this way because you got no room not to behave this way because you were once there. And you did not come out of that state because of your own merit or your own intellect or your own something that became inside of you that just recognized the truth. No, it was God that worked it in you. I'm skipping a lot of my notes just to hit that point. Slavery and unbelief is this verse 3. Paul slips a connecting conjunction into the text to set his readers straight on the reason for extending grace to non-Christian authorities and neighbors. Our previous state, we were unbelieving. Our previous actions, we were disobedient. We were deceived. We were, what does he say, deceived, serving various lusts. Is it serving in the King James? Serving various lusts. Yes, Miss Sue's shaking her head. All right, that is the word douleo. Remember, it's from the Greek word doulos, which means slave. You were enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. Lust, pleasure is the word hedonai, where we get the word hedonist, somebody that lived for Pleasure only. Malice. You were there for malice. Envy. John Phillips says, this denotes the terrible feeling of displeasure we are capable of feeling when someone else is preferred, honored, promoted, or extolled. This is the life of the unbeliever. And then hatred. He says, hateful and hating one another. Now, hateful is the word stigmatos, which means to hate, and hating one another is the word meseo, which means to detest or to love less. That's not a very good person, is it? But that's what the Bible characterizes us as when we are in our unbelieving state. We can't stand on our political high horse and say that we're moral and we're righteous and therefore they're wicked and we need to do away with them. No, we were once that way and because we were once that way and the mission that we have been given by our Savior who saved us, we need to evangelize the immoral and unbelieving. And therefore we have to be very careful about making them our enemy. Because they are the mission field. Salvation 101, verses four through seven. Let's see where we are in time. All right, so let's go. But when the kindness of the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, what was the prerequisite, what was the causality of the Savior coming to us? Simply this, the kindness and love of God. Not by our works. It was not by our works, but what was it by? It was by God's mercy and the Holy Spirit. And then we see the price of salvation. That was the accomplishment of salvation. The price of salvation, which is the death of Jesus. Verse 6. Whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. He gave it abundantly. And then the result of salvation, verse 7. That, having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to hope of eternal life. It's all by His grace. Again, it's reiterated here in this text. It's nothing within us. It's nothing within us. And so then he says this, verse 8, speak these things. First, this is a faithful saying. This is a trustworthy. Some believe that the statement from verses 4 through 7 might have been a song or a hymn that they sung in the church because of the way that Paul says it in verse 8. What he just quoted, it was almost like a quote that Paul gave and he said, this is faithful. This is a trustworthy statement. And these things I want to affirm constantly." Affirm constantly means to confirm thoroughly through words. Why does he want to affirm it? Why? That those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. He wants to affirm it, first of all, because it's faithful. He already said that. It's a faithful saying. Second of all, for the motivation. What is the motivation? That believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. The drum is hit again. Why? For good deeds. That's what you're expected. That is the Christian's expectation. Good works. And lastly, it's profitable. It's profitable. Verse 8, these things are good and profitable to men. What is the Christian's attitude toward a pagan society? Submission, good deeds. Why? because we were once pagan, and He saved us to good deeds and evangelism. That's why. Now, we have some ideas that we're going forward with this coming year, and we want to ramp it up a little bit with the evangelism. And so, we're working out some details with my wife and Brother Steve, and Vision Sunday, we want to submit some things to you that's going to be a little bit more work. We've already talked about it in the business meeting. One of them is the Good Shepherd's Children's Home and their ministry there. And that's going to consist of us doing some legwork. Okay? And so we're going to try to put these good deeds to action here. But that's that. We'll do the next couple of verses next Sunday. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us. You are a great, wonderful, loving God. And it is our desire that as the Word speaks, we believe it. And as we believe it, we obey it. We love you. And we give you all the praise and glory and pray that what comes next will give you praise. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.