What is the Church's Mission?

Introduction:

Roles and Responsibilities in God's Mission:
(Titus 2:11-15)

1. God's part: Saving and Changing people. (Titus 2:1-10)
   1. Justification: I Was saved from the Penalty of sin. (Titus 2:11)

2. Justification: I Was saved from the Penalty of sin. (Titus 2:11)
3. Sanctification: I Am being saved from the Power of sin. (Titus 2:12)

   1 John 3:8-9 - Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God'’'s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.

4. Glorification: I Will be saved from the Presence of sin. (Titus 2:12)
5. Security: I'm Forever saved from the Possesion of sin. (Titus 2:12)

   John 10:28 - I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

2. Our Part: Preaching and Responding to God's Word. (Titus 2:15)

   Matthew 28:18-20 - And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

   Acts 17:30 - now (God) commands all people everywhere to repent...

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  Pastor Jeff:

  00:47-00:50

  Amen, we're in this series called Church 101.

  Pastor Jeff:

  00:50-00:51

  Like, what are we doing here?

  Pastor Jeff:

  00:52-00:53

  Well, that's why we're in this series.

  Pastor Jeff:

  00:53-00:55

  What is the church supposed to be about?

  Pastor Jeff:

  00:55-00:59

  Today, we are going to talk about mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:02-01:05

  And I'm always fascinated by mission statements.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:05-01:17

  And I mean like church's mission statements specifically, the other, you know, other businesses, companies not really interesting to me personally, but I'm always fascinated to see what a church's mission statement is.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:17-01:19

  And here's a few that I found online.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:21-01:26

  I don't mean this in a overly critical way, but I just, these are ones I found online.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:26-01:31

  I took the name of the church out, but these were fascinating to me.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:31-01:33

  And I just wanna share why with you briefly.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:33-01:40

  This one, this church's mission statement was, "Making new, making great." That's their mission statement.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:42-01:46

  And I read that, I'm like, "Making new what?" What are we making?

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:46-01:48

  Are we making cinnamon rolls?

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:48-01:57

  Are we making, I don't, and making great, like I think what's not great is that mission statement.

  Pastor Jeff:

  01:58-02:02

  Here's another one, to reach up, reach out and reach in.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:04-02:07

  I'm not sure about that one either.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:07-02:11

  I think they're kind of reaching to make that their mission statement.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:12-02:12

  What else do we got?

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:13-02:16

  We have, we are the voice.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:17-02:18

  Now this is a church's mission statement, okay?

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:20-02:23

  You're like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, you're so critical." Stay with me for a second.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:24-02:30

  We are the voice and the hand that encourages people to change their lives with hope, comfort, and peace.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:33-02:35

  Hope, comfort, and peace are not going to change anybody's lives.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:36-02:37

  Jesus Christ changes lives.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:38-02:42

  And with Jesus, you get those things, But those things come from Jesus.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:43-02:46

  Are we changing lives apart from Jesus?

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:46-02:48

  I don't like that one, F.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:50-02:51

  Okay, sorry, that was too critical.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:52-02:52

  Yeah, too hot, sorry.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:53-02:56

  Aaron always tells her, "Coming in too hot, coming in." Okay, sorry.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:56-02:57

  Gonna back that one up a little bit.

  Pastor Jeff:

  02:58-03:04

  Okay, and here's, I think this one's good because this one's ours.

  03:05-03:06

  (congregation laughing)

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:07-03:09

  Do you want me to be honest or not?

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:10-03:12

  This is our church's mission statement.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:14-03:19

  To glorify God by fulfilling the great commission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:22-03:25

  We're gonna talk about the great commission in a minute or two.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:26-03:29

  In the spirit of the great commandment.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:30-03:31

  What's the great commandment?

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:31-03:34

  Jesus said, it's to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:34-03:37

  And he said, the second is like it, it's to love your neighbor as yourself.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:37-03:40

  So the great commandment is loving God and loving people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:41-03:52

  And our church's mission is to fulfill the great commission that's make disciples by loving God and by loving people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:52-03:53

  That's our church's mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:54-03:54

  All right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  03:56-04:00

  And do you know why I'm so fascinated by these mission statements for churches?

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:00-04:01

  And I read a lot of them this week.

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:01-04:02

  Do you know why I'm so fascinated?

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:03-04:10

  I just don't, I don't understand why churches think they have to come up with a mission statement because it's been given to us, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:11-04:17

  Are there really a group of Christians sitting around the table going, "What should our church be about?" Do you know God wrote it down?

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:18-04:19

  It's all right here.

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:19-04:21

  He told us exactly what we're supposed to be doing.

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:22-04:25

  Why are we wondering what we're supposed to be doing as a church?

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:27-04:28

  It's so clear.

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:28-04:33

  Our job is to glorify God by fulfilling the great commission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:33-04:38

  That's the who and that's the what and here's the how in the spirit of the great commandment.

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:40-04:46

  So we didn't think too hard about it because that's what it is, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:48-04:49

  Let's talk about the mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  04:52-05:01

  You know, when we're saved, when God saves people, why don't we just immediately go to heaven?

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:03-05:04

  Because ultimately that's where we're gonna be forever.

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:05-05:12

  So wouldn't things just be a lot easier if the minute you receive Jesus Christ, it's just like, whoop, right to heaven.

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:13-05:14

  Wouldn't that be so much easier?

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:16-05:20

  So why doesn't God do that?

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:24-05:28

  Well, he leaves us on the earth for the mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:30-05:38

  He leaves us on the earth to tell the world and like we talked about last week, show the world that God is a saving God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:39-05:40

  This is the message.

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:41-05:42

  This is the mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:44-05:46

  Salvation in Jesus Christ.

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:46-05:50

  Now, we're gonna talk about salvation here for a little bit.

  Pastor Jeff:

  05:51-06:00

  Now, when I say salvation, that is a very generic, general catch-all term, honestly.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:01-06:03

  Salvation, what does that mean?

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:04-06:06

  What does it mean to be saved?

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:08-06:13

  And how exactly does the mission happen if God wants to save people?

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:13-06:14

  Those are the questions we're looking at.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:15-06:17

  What does it mean and how does that happen?

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:19-06:27

  Well, on your outline, if you're taking notes, and I always encourage that you do, these are roles and responsibilities in God's mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:27-06:29

  Everybody needs to know who do and what now.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:29-06:32

  And first of all, number one, write this down.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:32-06:33

  This is God's part of the mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:35-06:37

  God's part is saving and changing people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:38-06:41

  Saving people and changing people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:42-06:44

  So today, like I said, we're gonna do a little theology.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:46-06:54

  Because when we talk about salvation, again, it is kind of a generic term, but salvation really has three aspects to it.

  Pastor Jeff:

  06:57-07:01

  past, present, and future.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:03-07:07

  And those are the fancy theological terms.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:07-07:08

  Maybe you've heard them.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:08-07:09

  Maybe this is the first time hearing it.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:09-07:10

  So you're gonna learn something today.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:11-07:17

  But it's justification, sanctification, and glorification.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:17-07:19

  Justification has to do with the past.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:20-07:22

  Sanctification has to do with the present.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:22-07:26

  And glorification has to do with the future, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:26-07:36

  And that's exactly what we see in this text as Paul, you know, older preacher telling younger preacher, here's how to conduct business in the church.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:36-07:38

  You know, now we're getting to the mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:40-07:43

  And he says, here's God's part, it's saving and changing people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:43-07:44

  You ready to do a little theology?

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:44-07:47

  First of all, letter A, let's talk about justification.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:49-07:50

  What does justification mean?

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:51-07:55

  It means this, I was saved from the penalty of sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  07:57-08:01

  I was saved from the penalty of sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:01-08:02

  Look at verse 11.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:05-08:07

  After what might be one of the longest introductions ever.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:08-08:10

  For the grace of God has appeared.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:12-08:14

  The grace of God has appeared.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:14-08:20

  Look at this, bringing salvation for all people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:22-08:24

  Stop there for a second, let's talk about justification.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:25-08:26

  Listen, this is the gospel.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:27-08:52

  Jesus Christ, who we believe is God in the flesh, we're gonna see that very clearly here in this very passage, He came to this earth, not only to teach us about God, about the kingdom of heaven, but He came ultimately to die on the cross for our sins, and to be raised from the dead to give us eternal life.

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:55-08:58

  What makes the death of Jesus so significant?

  Pastor Jeff:

  08:59-09:06

  Because on the cross, Jesus was literally experiencing the wrath of God for your sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  09:07-09:14

  In other words, when Jesus was on the cross, he was paying the penalty that you deserve and that I deserve.

  Pastor Jeff:

  09:15-09:17

  He was taking that on himself.

  Pastor Jeff:

  09:19-09:20

  You're like, well, what do I deserve?

  Pastor Jeff:

  09:23-09:26

  Honestly, biblically, what we deserve is hell.

  Pastor Jeff:

  09:27-09:30

  Hell is eternal separation from God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  09:31-09:39

  It's a place of eternal, forever, conscious, constant torment because you're cast out of the presence of God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  09:42-09:50

  And you see, when Jesus was on the cross, yes, there was the physical pain, and a lot A lot of people talk about that, but interestingly, the Bible never does.

  Pastor Jeff:

  09:53-09:59

  There was something far worse going on than the physical pain, if you can believe that, and that was the spiritual pain.

  Pastor Jeff:

  10:02-10:06

  Jesus experienced that separation from God when he was on the cross.

  Pastor Jeff:

  10:06-10:14

  In other words, Jesus literally experienced all of the pain and torment of hell while he was hanging on the cross.

  Pastor Jeff:

  10:15-10:20

  "You don't understand what I mean." Like, "Are you saying Jesus was in hell?

  Pastor Jeff:

  10:20-10:23

  "Jesus was on the cross while he was hanging there.

  Pastor Jeff:

  10:23-10:53

  "He was experiencing what hell feels like "because he was experiencing the wrath of God, "not for anything that he did, "but for all the things that I've done "and all the things that you've done." And then he rose from the dead to defeat death, the promise of eternal life. And you, you are commanded to receive Him.

  Pastor Jeff:

  10:56-11:15

  You are commanded to turn from your sin, all this selfish stuff that you've been living your life for, you're commanded to turn from that and say, "I'm done living for my stuff that dishonors God, I'm turning to and receiving Jesus Christ.

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:15-11:19

  I'm believing that Jesus Christ died and rose for me.

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:21-11:29

  And when you do that, the Bible says that God justifies you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:30-11:30

  What does that mean?

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:33-11:34

  He pronounces you not guilty.

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:38-11:40

  All of the sin that you've committed, God says you're not guilty.

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:42-11:45

  And understand, church, nothing else can do that.

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:46-11:48

  Nothing else can take away the guilt of your sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:48-11:57

  Not your good works, not you trying to be a better person, not your good intentions, nothing can take away the penalty of your sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  11:58-12:00

  The guilt of your sin, nothing else can do that.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:02-12:05

  Except for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:07-12:14

  And when you believe in Jesus, you're no longer God's enemy because of your sin, you are now an adopted child of God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:16-12:19

  And I love this, it says the extent of this salvation.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:20-12:24

  It says bringing salvation for all people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:26-12:27

  Like who's the salvation for?

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:28-12:30

  Tell me, who's the salvation for?

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:31-12:31

  All people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:34-12:36

  It's for anyone.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:38-12:42

  You're like, but you don't understand that the horrible things that I've done doesn't matter.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:44-12:46

  Pastor Jeff, I've made a lot of really terrible mistakes.

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:47-12:50

  Okay, haven't we all?

  Pastor Jeff:

  12:52-12:57

  No matter who you are, no matter what you've done, your sin can be taken away and forgiven.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:02-13:06

  But there's really only one sin that cannot be forgiven.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:09-13:13

  And that's the sin of not coming to Jesus to be saved.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:15-13:17

  Anything else can be forgiven, but that one cannot.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:20-13:23

  And I mean, that necessarily makes sense, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:23-13:27

  Like if you went to a doctor and the doctor said, "Hey, I got some bad news for you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:28-13:29

  "You got a terminal disease.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:29-13:33

  "It's going to kill you in two weeks, "but I got some good news.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:33-13:39

  "I got some medication that if you take one of these for a week, it will eradicate the disease.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:39-13:40

  Here, take these.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:41-13:44

  These are the only, this is the only medication that'll destroy your disease.

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:44-13:45

  What would you say to the doctor?

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:46-13:51

  Would you say, stop pushing your beliefs about pharmaceuticals on me?

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:54-13:55

  You know what, doctor?

  Pastor Jeff:

  13:56-14:23

  I hear what you're saying, but I really believe that I'm going to conquer this disease myself, because I'm a good person, and I believe, doctor, "that I don't need the medicine, and I don't want it." And you walk out without it, the doctor's like, "You're gonna die, "because you've rejected the only thing "that can cure the disease." And that's how it is with Jesus.

  Pastor Jeff:

  14:24-14:30

  Listen, if you got some other plan to deal with your sin, it's not gonna work.

  Pastor Jeff:

  14:32-14:38

  Only Jesus Christ can take away your sin, And when you receive Him, you are justified.

  Pastor Jeff:

  14:39-14:43

  And you can say, because of Jesus, I was saved from the penalty of sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  14:44-14:46

  Letter B, sanctification.

  Pastor Jeff:

  14:47-14:48

  What's that?

  Pastor Jeff:

  14:48-14:52

  I am being saved from the power of sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  14:53-14:57

  Okay, justification has to do with the past and we're gonna get to the future.

  Pastor Jeff:

  14:57-15:05

  But understand, when we talk about salvation, I think, honestly, most Christians only think of it in terms of past and future.

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:06-15:07

  Like, are you saved?

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:07-15:09

  I got saved in '95.

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:11-15:12

  Well, are you saved?

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:12-15:14

  Yes, someday I look forward to going to heaven.

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:16-15:20

  But understand salvation has to do with right now, right this minute, today.

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:24-15:24

  Look at verse 12.

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:25-15:26

  This is exactly what he's talking about.

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:27-15:42

  He says, "Training us," talking about the grace of God, it appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:43-15:44

  Pretty clear, isn't it?

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:46-15:56

  One of the things that God's grace does, not just saving us from the penalty of sin, but training us.

  Pastor Jeff:

  15:57-16:00

  God's grace becomes a teacher for us.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:00-16:05

  Specifically, it's God's Holy Spirit living inside you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:05-16:11

  The Bible says that when you receive Jesus Christ, God's Spirit comes and indwells you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:11-16:13

  You become the temple of God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:14-16:25

  And you will never convince me that the God of the universe can come and indwell a person, and that person doesn't change radically.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:26-16:34

  You'll never convince me that there is not a complete transformation when God shows up in the heart of a person.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:35-16:38

  And that's exactly what he's talking about here.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:39-16:46

  You become a new creature with a new nature, and you have new appetites.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:48-16:52

  You have new appetites, and you're not a slave to your sin anymore.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:55-16:56

  Look at what John says about this.

  Pastor Jeff:

  16:57-16:59

  This is from 1 John 3, verses 8 and 9.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:02-17:09

  He says, "Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:11-17:25

  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy, was to destroy the works of the devil." Look at this, Christians.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:27-17:30

  No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:33-17:36

  For God's seed abides in him.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:36-17:37

  That's God's Holy Spirit.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:37-17:38

  He lives in us.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:38-17:42

  Look, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:44-17:57

  One of the, couple of the biggest evidences that you have truly received Jesus Christ, that you're truly saved, is not only how you feel about Jesus, how you feel about your Savior, but also how you feel about your sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  17:59-18:03

  Now listen, yes, we struggle with sin sometimes.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:05-18:06

  Yes, we do, we all do.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:08-18:10

  But the key word there is struggle.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:14-18:16

  We don't love our sin like we used to.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:17-18:19

  We don't live for our sin like we used to.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:19-18:22

  We don't live in our sin like we used to.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:22-18:29

  Our sin disgusts us now because God's spirit lives in us and gives us new appetites.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:31-18:36

  That's exactly what he's talking about here in verse 12 in Titus 2.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:36-18:38

  We're being reprogrammed.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:40-18:50

  And he says, when we come to Christ and God's Holy Spirit lives in us, he's teaching us to turn from things in turn, two things.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:50-18:50

  Do you see that?

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:50-18:52

  There's some negatives.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:52-18:53

  Look at verse 12 again.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:53-18:54

  Here's the negatives.

  Pastor Jeff:

  18:55-19:03

  He says, "We renounce," two things here, "ungodliness and worldly passions." Ungodliness, that's lack of reverence for God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:04-19:06

  That's what ungodliness is.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:06-19:14

  We live our lives, we have no reverence for God, no thoughts of God, no thoughts of prayer, no thoughts of my life is accountable to God, nothing.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:14-19:18

  It's just we live our life as if God's not there because we don't live like that anymore.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:19-19:20

  We know better.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:22-19:28

  We renounce that kind of godless living, that practical atheism that we used to, we don't do that anymore.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:30-19:35

  The other one here, you see, worldly passions, that's just like living the way the world does, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:36-19:37

  Living the way the world does.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:39-19:45

  You know, I used to just go along, all the sins the world does, yep, I'm just like everybody else.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:45-19:46

  "No, I'm not anymore.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:48-19:54

  I don't live like that anymore because that's not who I am." So we renounce those things.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:54-19:55

  Look at the positive.

  Pastor Jeff:

  19:56-20:01

  He says, "To live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives." Self-controlled.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:02-20:04

  Self-controlled is something that you have now.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:05-20:13

  You didn't have that before you came to Christ, but now that you came to Christ, you have self-control because self-control is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:15-20:15

  You know what that means?

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:15-20:17

  That means you don't have to sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:17-20:18

  You don't have to.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:22-20:23

  You have self-control.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:24-20:29

  Upright, that's obeying God's word in a way that makes an impact on those around us.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:29-20:31

  That was like last week's sermon, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:32-20:36

  And then godly, again, that's the opposite of ungodliness.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:37-20:42

  It's a life that is constantly aware of the presence of God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:44-20:54

  Now, Christians aren't sinless, but we should sin less, because we know why Jesus died.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:54-20:57

  We have God's Spirit living within us, changing us.

  Pastor Jeff:

  20:58-21:09

  True Christians absolutely must see a growing walk with Jesus Christ in their lives, bearing fruit in keeping with repentance.

  Pastor Jeff:

  21:09-21:45

  sanctification. I'm being saved from the power of sin. Thirdly, letter C is glorification. I will be saved from the presence of sin. Do you see this? Past, present, and future. Was saved from the penalty. Justification. I am being saved from the power of sin. That's sanctification. Here's glorification. I will be saved from the presence of sin. Look at verse 13 where he says, "Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

  Pastor Jeff:

  21:46-21:48

  Notice how he refers to Jesus as God there.

  Pastor Jeff:

  21:51-21:51

  Right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  21:53-21:53

  But this is future.

  Pastor Jeff:

  21:54-21:57

  Someday we will be delivered from the presence of sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  21:58-22:04

  He says that's in the meantime we're waiting, waiting for the appearing of our God and Savior.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:06-22:20

  So whether it's by your death or by the return of Jesus Christ, we eagerly anticipate being with Him in glory, where there is no more sin and no more of the pain that comes with sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:23-22:25

  Things are not always going to be as they are now.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:29-22:32

  Someday we're going to be saved from the very presence of sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:36-22:41

  And then finally, I mean finally under the first point here, don't get excited.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:45-22:47

  That's one of the things that preachers say just to get people to kind of perk up.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:47-22:48

  "Oh, finally, okay.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:49-22:50

  I can listen for the last couple of minutes.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:51-22:52

  It's a trick.

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:53-22:58

  There's so much more than a couple of minutes." We're honest here, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  22:59-23:00

  Letter D, security.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:04-23:07

  I'm forever saved from the possession of sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:09-23:09

  Security.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:10-23:17

  I had a hard time with this because I write these outlines and I'm like justification, sanctification, glorification, security.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:18-23:20

  So it's okay if you write on your outline, securification.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:22-23:23

  Go for it.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:24-23:26

  That's a word that we will coin here.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:28-23:30

  The doctrine of securification.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:34-23:39

  What that means is I'm forever saved from the possession of sin.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:39-23:40

  Like, what are you talking about?

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:40-23:41

  Look at verse 14.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:42-23:49

  He's talking again about Jesus Christ, look, who gave himself for us to redeem us.

  Pastor Jeff:

  23:50-24:04

  That's buy us back from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:07-24:12

  You become the possession of Jesus Christ when you are saved.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:13-24:18

  And I can't even begin to tell you what that should mean to you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:19-24:21

  You literally become his possession.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:22-24:25

  We went through the gospel of John not too long ago, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:25-24:27

  And I remember John 10, verse 28.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:28-24:29

  Remember Jesus said this.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:30-24:34

  He said, "I give them eternal life." We have that verse?

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:35-24:36

  Did I not put it in the notes?

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:38-24:38

  Oh, okay, that's all right.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:39-24:39

  No, that's all right.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:40-24:43

  Sometimes I forget to, I go through and edit and I leave them out.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:44-24:47

  "I give them eternal life." Jesus said, look at this.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:48-24:54

  "They will never perish "and no one will snatch them out of my hand." When you belong to Jesus, you're in his hand.

  Pastor Jeff:

  24:55-25:15

  And Jesus said, "Nothing can take you from His hand." You can't lose your salvation because whoever could take it or whatever could take it from Jesus would have to be more powerful than Jesus.

  Pastor Jeff:

  25:17-25:20

  To be able to rip you from His hand, I don't see that happening.

  Pastor Jeff:

  25:24-25:33

  So you see, we're saved not just from hell, we're saved from being the possession of sin to a life of purity.

  Pastor Jeff:

  25:35-25:38

  A life that, as he says here, is zealous for good works.

  Pastor Jeff:

  25:40-25:50

  That when you know Jesus Christ, I mean like when you know Him, when you're walking with Him, you don't serve Him out of some begrudging obligation.

  Pastor Jeff:

  25:51-25:56

  Like, okay, I'll get involved in one of the ministry teams at the church, okay.

  Pastor Jeff:

  25:56-26:00

  You know, you're passionate about serving Him.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:00-26:05

  You're like, I belong to Jesus Christ and nothing can ever change that.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:05-26:10

  What a glorious Savior He is and what amazing love He showed me.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:11-26:14

  So I'm going to joyfully do whatever He would have me do.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:14-26:20

  I will gladly do whatever I can to advance His cause because he's awesome.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:21-26:23

  That's why we should be zealous for good works.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:25-26:25

  Right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:26-26:32

  So, when we talk about salvation, this is what we're talking about.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:33-26:39

  This is the stuff that God does when he saves people through Jesus.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:42-26:42

  Right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:43-26:47

  But, roles and responsibilities, there's our part too.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:49-26:51

  One more verse, are you with me?

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:51-26:52

  We do one more verse?

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:54-26:57

  Here's our part, preaching and responding to God's word.

  Pastor Jeff:

  26:59-27:01

  Preaching and responding to God's word.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:03-27:06

  You're like, what would you have done if we all said no?

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:08-27:10

  That's a really good question.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:11-27:13

  What should we do if they say no, Taylor?

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:15-27:17

  That's a good, we'll have to talk about that this week.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:18-27:19

  (sniffling)

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:20-27:23

  Our part is preaching and responding to God's word.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:24-27:25

  Look at verse 15.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:27-27:29

  He says, "Declare these things.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:32-27:35

  "Exhort and rebuke with all authority.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:37-27:42

  "Let no one disregard you." This is our part of the mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:43-27:46

  Our part of the mission is to get the word out, and he tells us exactly how to do it.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:48-27:49

  It's through preaching.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:52-27:52

  I get it.

  Pastor Jeff:

  27:54-28:02

  Look, from a earthly perspective, from a purely human perspective, this just doesn't seem like a good idea.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:04-28:24

  I get up here, Pastor Taylor gets up here, or Mark or one of our other preachers gets up here, Justin, we get up here and we stand and we talk at you for 30 or 50 minutes, about something that was written a couple thousand years ago and like, why do we do that?

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:26-28:29

  All I can tell you is it wasn't my idea.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:30-28:31

  It just wasn't.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:31-28:33

  This is what God says to do.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:34-28:36

  This is the God ordained method.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:38-28:42

  And to be honest with you, I don't question it because I feel privileged to partner with God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:43-28:46

  I'm like, I don't know why he would use me because I am less than nothing.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:47-28:52

  But what an honor it is to be able to partner with God in this work that he's doing.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:53-28:54

  So I'm not gonna question it too hard.

  Pastor Jeff:

  28:56-29:05

  And right now somebody's looking at this verse, like okay, I can start packing up and putting my stuff away because I'm not a preacher, so this doesn't really apply to me.

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:07-29:11

  Well yeah, this verse really is about the preacher, but it's also about the listener.

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:13-29:21

  This verse says a lot to you as a listener, as a member of the congregation.

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:23-29:27

  Look at the phrase, all authority.

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:28-29:29

  Declare these things, exhort and rebuke.

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:29-29:32

  Look at this, with all authority.

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:33-29:36

  This is not just opinion, okay?

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:37-29:45

  And woe to the preacher who gets up and spends his time in front of God's people saying this is my opinion about things.

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:51-29:53

  This isn't about opinion, this is about the authority of God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  29:55-29:58

  And that's why he says, "Declare these things." Declare what things?

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:00-30:02

  Messages from the Reader's Digest, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:03-30:06

  Eh, how about preach from that love language book?

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:07-30:08

  Remember when churches were doing that?

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:08-30:10

  Like, we're preaching through the love language book.

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:10-30:12

  I'm like, we're preaching through the Bible.

  30:12-30:13

  (congregation laughing)

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:15-30:17

  Not that there's anything wrong with a love language book.

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:17-30:21

  I get through that stuff with couples when I do premarital counseling and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:21-30:23

  But we're not gonna preach that.

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:25-30:33

  We're gonna preach this, because this is what God said to preach, declare these things, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:35-30:42

  And when he says declare, that's a military term for command, a military term.

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:44-30:51

  So if you're a veteran, if you have been in the military, you understand more than anybody the weight that this word has.

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:54-30:57

  That the preacher's job is to command people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  30:59-31:07

  So while we're throwing out woes, woe to the preacher that gets up there and says, "You know what, church?

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:07-31:10

  "God's just asking you to do this.

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:10-31:16

  God's just asking you if you would please, pretty please, with sugar on top, God is asking.

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:18-31:20

  God's not asking anybody to do anything.

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:23-31:25

  God doesn't make requests and He doesn't make suggestions.

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:28-31:32

  God only speaks in one way, and that's with all authority.

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:34-31:40

  So everything He says is a command that we should be deadly serious about.

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:45-31:48

  You know, wouldn't it be nice, church?

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:49-31:51

  Wouldn't it be nice, church, if we all just...

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:53-31:56

  These are commands that God is telling us to repeat.

  Pastor Jeff:

  31:57-32:04

  So listen, if the word of God is being taught, you are obligated to obey it.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:04-32:05

  That's on you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:06-32:14

  You have a God-given command to obey what the preacher says so long as the preacher is communicating the word of God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:19-32:20

  It's part of the Great Commission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:22-32:22

  You know that?

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:23-32:29

  The Great Commission, Jesus says, "Go command people." Right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:29-32:31

  Let's look at the Great Commission since we're talking about mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:32-32:36

  And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven." all authority, that sounds familiar.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:37-32:40

  All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:41-32:42

  Here's the command part.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:43-32:54

  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:55-32:55

  Do you see it?

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:56-32:58

  Jesus said, I'm commanding you to do things.

  Pastor Jeff:

  32:58-33:01

  Now you go command other people to do those things.

  Pastor Jeff:

  33:03-33:07

  And here's the glorious promise, behold him with you always to the end of the age.

  Pastor Jeff:

  33:09-33:10

  That's the mission.

  Pastor Jeff:

  33:11-33:24

  And we carry that out not only here, not only through several short-term trips that go on, but if you're new around here, our church is very active in a growing, vibrant ministry in Thailand.

  Pastor Jeff:

  33:24-33:34

  And I asked our missionary in Thailand, Barnabas, my hero, if he would just send us a quick video introducing himself and update, And he sent us a real quick one.

  Pastor Jeff:

  33:34-33:35

  If we could show that, please.

  Barnabas:

  33:37-33:48

  Dear Christian brothers and sisters, this is Barnabas sending greetings from Michigan land, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

  Barnabas:

  33:52-33:58

  I've been serving the Lord in the ministry for more than 30 years by now.

  Barnabas:

  34:00-34:13

  I use my multi -language preaching the gospel, especially here in Thailand, Lisu, Aka, Lahu, and Thai.

  Barnabas:

  34:14-34:23

  As I speak, Burmese also preach the gospel, start new churches there in Myanmar.

  Barnabas:

  34:28-34:34

  For all my life, I invest my life in teaching the gospel until today.

  Barnabas:

  34:36-34:45

  I wanted to say thank you for your prayers, for your support until today.

  Barnabas:

  34:45-34:53

  And I would like to ask you to support this ministry in order to reach more people.

  Barnabas:

  34:55-34:56

  Thank you very much.

  Pastor Jeff:

  34:59-35:05

  Now, in that video, Barnabas was talking about a language gift.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:05-35:08

  And what he means by that is he speaks seven languages fluently.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:09-35:12

  And he believes that that's a gift from God, and I believe that too.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:13-35:22

  It allows him to be able to go through, because it's more than just, it's not just one little church, it's 21 churches, and there's more being built right now.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:22-35:24

  There's four children's homes.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:25-35:28

  It's all over that area of the world.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:30-35:34

  What a privilege it is to be able to partner with God in supporting something like that.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:37-35:39

  So how do we declare these things?

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:41-35:47

  We really are finishing up here, honestly, but I gotta explain a couple more things here.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:47-35:48

  He says exhort.

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:49-35:59

  Exhort means to preach in an understandable way that anytime the sermon is preached, it should answer questions like, so what?

  Pastor Jeff:

  35:59-36:02

  Like, how does this apply to my life?

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:02-36:03

  What should I do with this?

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:05-36:08

  We need to encourage people, like here's how to reflect this truth in your life.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:08-36:11

  He also says to rebuke, rebuke.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:12-36:14

  That's to create conviction.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:14-36:17

  That's to say, hey, stop doing what you're doing.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:17-36:17

  It's wrong.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:18-36:19

  It dishonors God.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:20-36:23

  You need to change the way that you think about this.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:24-36:26

  Part of the job is to rebuke people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:27-36:28

  Say, knock it off.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:29-36:33

  If you don't apply this, there's going to be spiritual consequences.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:35-36:37

  God's going to discipline you for your disobedience.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:38-36:41

  And you might be shocked to hear this, but people don't like hearing that.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:44-36:49

  And that's why he says, last phrase here, that's why he says this, let no one disregard you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:53-36:55

  That word disregard is so interesting in the Greek.

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:55-36:56

  You know what it is literally?

  Pastor Jeff:

  36:57-37:06

  It means to think around, because that's literally what a lot of people do when the word is preached.

  Pastor Jeff:

  37:07-37:08

  They think around it.

  Pastor Jeff:

  37:09-37:20

  Meaning, yeah, I hear what he's saying, but that doesn't really apply to me, because Pastor Jeff doesn't know my situation.

  Pastor Jeff:

  37:20-37:27

  I know what he's saying about it's wrong to flirt with somebody that's not my wife.

  Pastor Jeff:

  37:28-37:32

  But Pastor Jeff doesn't understand how cold my marriage has become.

  Pastor Jeff:

  37:35-37:37

  You know what you're doing when you're thinking around.

  Pastor Jeff:

  37:38-37:51

  Like I heard what he was saying about when I'm at work I should work hard, but he doesn't understand my job, that there's periods of time that there really isn't, you know, it's okay.

  Pastor Jeff:

  37:52-38:23

  because we start to justify why it's okay for me to be lazy at work. What are you doing? I'm thinking around. That's what we're doing. And that's why Paul says here, "Let no one disregard you." Hey, no one's exempt. No one's exempt. No one gets a pass on any of this. No one can say, "Well, this doesn't apply to me. You Who needs to hear this message?

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:23-38:25

  My sister needs to hear this message.

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:25-38:25

  Nah!

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:26-38:27

  This is for you!

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:28-38:29

  Let no one disregard you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:32-38:34

  Can't make it any easier than this.

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:34-38:49

  Acts 17 30 says, "Now God commands all people everywhere to repent." God commands all people everywhere to repent.

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:49-38:50

  Are you a person?

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:52-38:53

  Are you somewhere?

  Pastor Jeff:

  38:56-38:58

  Then God is commanding you to repent.

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:00-39:03

  Turn from your sin and turn to Him.

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:04-39:07

  You know, we have a mission in church.

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:08-39:13

  If we aren't intentionally going after the mission, what are we doing?

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:14-39:15

  What are we doing here?

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:16-39:19

  I'm like some really weird glee club.

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:23-39:25

  And we know what the mission is.

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:27-39:41

  We have our part, it's preaching and responding to God's word and God has his part, which is saving and changing people.

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:44-39:56

  And I really believe that if we're willing to be faithful to do our part, I don't think there's any doubt that God's gonna do his, right?

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:57-39:58

  Let's pray.

  Pastor Jeff:

  39:58-40:07

  Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the gospel.

  Pastor Jeff:

  40:10-40:39

  God, I pray that you would give us understanding Sometimes we have a very hazy view of what salvation means or a very overly simplistic view of what salvation means, but your word's very clear that it means so much about our past, our present, and our future.

  Pastor Jeff:

  40:42-40:45

  Father, we do thank you again for the privilege of partnering with you.

  Pastor Jeff:

  40:48-40:55

  And I pray specifically for us today, because God, we're not in any doubt that you're gonna do your thing.

  Pastor Jeff:

  40:56-40:57

  We have no doubt.

  Pastor Jeff:

  40:58-41:07

  I just ask that you would give us the strength to do our part, to be faithful to preach your word and to be faithful to respond to it.

  Pastor Jeff:

  41:12-41:21

  Your work, with Your Word done Your way, Father, is going to get Your results, and that's what we want. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Titus 2:11-15

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. How is salvation brought for “all people” if some people refuse to come to Christ to be saved (Titus 2:11)?
   

3. How does a person’s attitude toward Jesus & their attitude towards sin reveal the condition of the heart? Can a sincere Christian live in unrepentant sin? Read 1 John 3:8-9.
   

4. What does it mean to be “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14)?
   Be real: scale of 1-10, how “zealous” are you for good works? If you are on the low end, how do you restore a zeal for good works?
   

5. BONUS: What is the mission of Harvest Bible Chapel?

Breakout
Pray for one another, and pray for HBC to stay on mission.

What is Expected of a Church Member?

Introduction:

What is Expected of a Church Member?
(Titus 2:1-10)

1. Live what you believe. (Titus 2:1-10)
   1. Older Men . (Titus 2:2)
   2. Older Women . (Titus 2:3-4a)

   Proverbs 10:18 - ...whoever utters slander is a fool.

   Psalm 101:5 - Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy.

3. Younger Women . (Titus 2:4b-5)
4. Young Men . (Titus 2:6-8)
5. Employees . (Titus 2:9-10)

2. Invest in others. (Titus 2:3-4, 6-7)
3. Shine on. (Titus 2:5, 8, 10)

   Matthew 5:16 - let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:47-00:49

  All right, Titus chapter two, are you there?

  00:53-01:09

  A lot of you know I served as an associate pastor of a church up in Butler for 11 years, and there was a man there, his name was Lou, and he went to be with the Lord a few years ago.

  01:10-01:16

  But Lou was, he was such a pillar in that church, and such a character.

  01:16-01:20

  He always, always, always spoke with this gruff tone.

  01:21-01:24

  Even though he was being very kind, he always talked to you like this.

  01:25-01:26

  He can be saying the nicest thing.

  01:26-01:29

  He can be saying, "Have a nice day." But it would just be like this all the time.

  01:31-01:32

  And I loved Lou.

  01:34-01:43

  And one particular Sunday, when Aaron and I were going in, and for worship, we had this crazy idea.

  01:45-01:47

  You're not gonna believe this.

  01:48-01:49

  We had this crazy idea.

  01:49-01:53

  We're like, let's sit somewhere completely different than where we normally sit.

  01:55-02:01

  Some of you looked like shocked by that, but believe it or not, you can do that.

  02:03-02:04

  You can sit anywhere.

  02:05-02:06

  So we had this crazy idea.

  02:07-02:12

  Usually we sat on the pulpit side, but we're like, let's go sit on the other side, and we ended up sitting right behind Lou.

  02:14-02:19

  And it was during meet and greet time, you know meet and greet time, the thing that everybody hates about church.

  02:19-02:29

  It was during meet and greet time that Lou stood up and turned around, and he, as he often did, just laid into me.

  02:29-02:43

  I had a shirt and a tie on, and Lou's like, I'm gonna say something, and I don't wanna hurt your feelings, but back when I was an elder in this church, you wore a shirt, a tie, and a suit coat.

  02:44-02:48

  I'm like, "Well, Lou, I got a shirt and tie on, right?

  02:48-02:49

  "Two out of three ain't bad, right?

  02:50-03:11

  "According to Meat Loaf, right?" He's like, "Shirt, tie, suit coat." And I'm like, "Well, you know, I think, yeah." "Shirt, tie, I know I'm hurting your feelings now, "but shirt, tie, and suit coat, "that's what was expected when I was an elder in this church." And I'm like, "All right, yeah, yeah, okay, "thank you for that." And then meet and greet time was mercifully over.

  03:12-03:22

  And Pastor Bob got up to preach and Lou sat down and within the first couple minutes, he was out.

  03:25-03:30

  And I don't mean like, whoo, I nodded off there for a second, which nobody here does.

  03:31-03:35

  I don't mean that, I mean, R-E-M, out.

  03:37-03:40

  And if you know my wife, you could probably guess what she said.

  03:41-03:46

  She leaned over to me and she said, "When he was an elder, did they say anything about sleeping during the sermon?"

  03:46-03:47

  (congregation laughing)

  03:47-03:48

  Like calm.

  03:51-03:52

  I'm like, "You're so right, Aaron."

  03:53-03:54

  (laughing)

  03:55-04:01

  But there were very clear expectations on the leadership.

  04:02-04:06

  Shirt, tie, suit coat.

  04:08-04:15

  And that's what we're seeing here as we go through Titus, not the shirt, tie, and suit code, but we're seeing expectations of a church, right?

  04:16-04:22

  And in chapter one, we saw that there were expectations for church leaders.

  04:24-04:30

  And as we get to chapter two, we're going to see that there's expectations for the congregation.

  04:33-04:37

  In other words, there's expectations for you, right?

  04:38-04:46

  This ain't the movies, where you come in and take your seat and observe the things that are happening and then leave.

  04:48-04:49

  There's expectations for you.

  04:49-05:01

  And if you call this your church, whether you're an official member or not, if you call this your church, you have to understand, there's expectations and not ones that me or the elders of this church have written up.

  05:01-05:03

  It's in the word of God.

  05:04-05:07

  God expects something from you in a church.

  05:10-05:11

  So that's where we're going today.

  05:12-05:14

  On your outline, write this down.

  05:14-05:17

  What is expected of a church member?

  05:18-05:18

  This is for you.

  05:20-05:23

  Number one, live what you believe.

  05:28-05:29

  Live what you believe.

  05:31-05:33

  Look at verse one in chapter two.

  05:33-05:41

  He says, "But as for you," he's contrasting with, you know, the passage that Pastor Taylor preached last week about, you know, what do we do about false teaching?

  05:43-05:45

  And Pastor Taylor told us that.

  05:45-06:01

  And now he says, "But as for you, Titus, teach what accords with sound doctrine." Notice he didn't say teach sound doctrine.

  06:01-06:03

  He already covered that in chapter one.

  06:04-06:04

  Already covered that.

  06:06-06:12

  He says to teach what accords with sound doctrine.

  06:13-06:14

  What accords with.

  06:18-06:28

  Meaning not only preachers should you teach the word of God but you need to help people understand how they should reflect this truth in their lives.

  06:29-06:29

  That's what he's saying.

  06:30-06:31

  It's more than information.

  06:31-06:38

  It's more than somebody standing up here saying, let me give you a bunch of Bible factoids that'll be very interesting to you.

  06:38-06:43

  It's saying, hey, here's what God said, therefore, here's how you should reflect this in your life.

  06:44-06:47

  That's what he's calling Titus to do.

  06:47-06:51

  How do I specifically go after this truth in my life?

  06:52-06:55

  And you're going to see as we go through here, he has something for everyone.

  06:56-06:58

  All right, we're gonna go through this rather quickly.

  06:58-07:00

  First of all, he addresses older men.

  07:01-07:04

  All right, so basically we got like five sermons in one here.

  07:04-07:06

  So older men, look at verse two.

  07:07-07:22

  He says, "Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, "self-controlled, sound in faith, "in love, and in steadfastness." Stop there, older men.

  07:24-07:30

  Now throughout this passage, as he's addressing men and women, He talks about older men, older women, and younger men and young women.

  07:30-07:36

  And I know right now you're thinking, what is the criteria for being older?

  07:39-07:42

  There's no magic number, all right?

  07:42-07:46

  But you're going to see in the context here, it's going to be pretty obvious what he's saying.

  07:47-07:53

  He's, when he's referring to older people, he's talking about those who have finished raising their kids.

  07:54-08:01

  And when he talks about younger people, he's talking about those who are still having and raising kids.

  08:01-08:04

  Again, that's gonna be very clear here as we go through.

  08:04-08:11

  But to the older men, he simply says, you need to live a mature life of faith.

  08:13-08:15

  Not extravagant, not unstable.

  08:15-08:25

  Like look, as an older man in the church, as someone that the younger guys are looking up to, and we're gonna get to that in a second, He says, you need to be done with the goofy kid stuff.

  08:27-08:28

  You need to grow up.

  08:28-08:30

  You need to act like a man.

  08:32-08:36

  Then he moves on to older women, verses three and four.

  08:38-08:48

  He says, "Older women likewise are to be reverent "in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.

  08:49-08:54

  They are to teach what is good and so train the young women.

  08:55-08:55

  Stop there.

  08:57-09:00

  You're like, well, what kind of a person should the older woman be?

  09:00-09:03

  He says, did you see that in verse three?

  09:03-09:11

  Likewise, older women, likewise, like the same kind of person, an older man is.

  09:14-09:14

  Right?

  09:15-09:19

  The maturity, the godliness, the example that you're setting.

  09:22-09:27

  Same kind of person, but he adds something here as he addresses the older women.

  09:29-09:30

  Did you catch that?

  09:30-09:37

  He says, "Not slanderers." I wanna talk about slander for a second.

  09:39-09:44

  You know the Greek word for slander here is the word diabolos.

  09:45-09:49

  It's a word that's used 34 times in the New Testament as the name for Satan.

  09:53-09:56

  And we studied this when we were in the book of Revelation.

  09:56-09:56

  Remember that?

  09:56-09:57

  That was a fun year.

  09:57-10:00

  Revelation chapter 12, verses nine and 10.

  10:00-10:01

  You don't need to turn there.

  10:01-10:09

  But Revelation chapter 12, verses nine and 10 says that Satan is a deceiver and an accuser.

  10:10-10:11

  Do you know what that means?

  10:11-10:32

  as a deceiver, Satan goes before man and says, "God is bad." And as an accuser, Satan goes before God and says, "Man is bad." That's what Satan does.

  10:34-10:37

  That's why the word slander is attached to his name.

  10:40-10:53

  Because catch this, Satan is constantly trying to make man think negatively of God, and constantly trying to make God think negatively of man.

  10:54-10:56

  That's what slander is.

  10:57-11:04

  Slander is telling or repeating lies in order to hurt someone's reputation.

  11:07-11:16

  And slander typically travels around with a family member, you know, has annoying little cousin called Gossip.

  11:19-11:22

  Slander is, it's mean-spirited.

  11:27-11:31

  Slander's desire is to make someone else look bad.

  11:33-11:36

  Slander's goal is to be divisive.

  11:37-11:41

  And it ultimately affects many more people than you think that it does.

  11:44-11:51

  There's nothing that you can do that is more Satan-like than slander.

  11:53-12:05

  And going to other people to talk about someone else, to paint them in a negative light, to make them think differently about this person that you're talking about.

  12:06-12:08

  That's what Satan does, all right?

  12:10-12:16

  And if you're involved in it now, you need to repent.

  12:19-12:23

  And I could do a whole sermon series just about slander.

  12:23-12:25

  That's not where we are right now in God's word.

  12:26-12:31

  Because the truth is, God says so much about slander.

  12:32-12:40

  So if you're involved in it now, if you're right now, if you're like trying to justify it in your mind or minimize it in your mind, I just wanna tell you two things about slander.

  12:41-12:53

  If you're involved in speaking negatively about people, trying to get other people's opinion to change about someone, here's a couple of things that God says about slander.

  12:54-13:09

  Proverbs 10, 18 says, "Whoever utters slander is a fool." If that's what you're doing, If you're going around spreading information to drag somebody else's reputation down, you're a fool.

  13:10-13:14

  And I'm too shy to ever call somebody a fool, but that's what God said.

  13:15-13:15

  All right?

  13:17-13:18

  It gets worse.

  13:20-13:23

  If you're involved in slander, we're in a church 101 right now, right?

  13:23-13:24

  Let's talk about Psalm 101.

  13:25-13:26

  Psalm 101 verse five says this.

  13:28-13:39

  "Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly, I will destroy." And you're like, "What does that mean?" I don't know.

  13:40-13:41

  But it's not good.

  13:43-13:44

  And I wouldn't want to find out.

  13:49-14:05

  Paul tells the older women, "Look, it has no place in the church." Only those of you who call yourself a Christian, a mature Christian that other people should look to, it doesn't have any place in the church.

  14:09-14:10

  All right, younger women.

  14:12-14:17

  Younger, okay, so the older women are to, it says, where were we at here?

  14:17-14:36

  So train the young women, verse four, to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, old, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." Stop there.

  14:36-14:37

  Younger women.

  14:39-14:39

  Younger women.

  14:40-14:44

  If you're married, listen young ladies, if you're married, you need to love your husbands.

  14:46-14:54

  Like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, you don't know my husband." And I would reply with, "Well, you don't know my God "because he doesn't make suggestions.

  14:56-14:56

  "He makes commands.

  14:57-15:02

  "And he says, 'Love your husband.'" Listen, love is a commitment.

  15:03-15:06

  And your marriage isn't always going to look like a rom-com.

  15:09-15:10

  Did the kids still say rom-com?

  15:13-15:14

  Somebody help me out.

  15:14-15:14

  No?

  15:14-15:19

  No, okay, Stacy's like, "Yeah." Okay, that was, I just found out what that meant.

  15:20-15:21

  I'm embarrassed to admit that.

  15:22-15:22

  Romantic comedy.

  15:24-15:25

  One of them Lifetime movies.

  15:28-15:28

  Hallmark.

  15:29-15:32

  Yeah, I'm sorry, Lifetime, no, that's the, no, no, not Lifetime.

  15:33-15:37

  Those are completely different, those aren't romantic at all.

  15:40-15:41

  Hallmark, thank you, Jay.

  15:43-15:44

  This is what happens when you go off script.

  15:46-15:47

  We're just gonna start over.

  15:50-15:53

  Your marriage is not always going to look like a rom-com.

  15:54-15:55

  It's just not.

  15:58-16:00

  So love your husbands, also love your children.

  16:01-16:08

  If you are a mom, God has an absolutely unique ministry for you.

  16:10-16:13

  And your highest calling is raising godly kids.

  16:15-16:16

  Now listen very closely.

  16:17-16:24

  I am not saying that working outside the home is wrong, ladies, I'm not saying that.

  16:24-16:29

  But I am saying that not making your home a priority absolutely is wrong.

  16:31-16:34

  There's no other job in the world, moms.

  16:34-16:42

  There's no other job in the world that you could have that will make a bigger impact than loving and raising your kids.

  16:45-16:46

  All right, so what else does he say?

  16:51-16:53

  Submissive to their own husbands.

  16:56-16:58

  I have a lot to say about that.

  17:00-17:03

  Young ladies, you need to be submissive to your own husbands.

  17:06-17:10

  I have a lot to say about that, but I'm not going to.

  17:14-17:20

  because there's actually an upcoming sermon all about this.

  17:21-17:22

  And you're like, when is that?

  17:23-17:23

  I'm not telling.

  17:25-17:27

  Because I want you all to be here for that.

  17:29-17:33

  And if I tell you, you will find some reason not to be here, ladies.

  17:35-17:36

  So it'll be a surprise.

  17:39-17:39

  All right?

  17:42-17:42

  Younger women.

  17:42-18:23

  on then to address the young men. Look at verse 6. Verse 6, he says, "Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us." Stop there, men, this kind of cracked me up a little bit as I was reading it this week, it's like, giving all of these commands and exhortations to all these people, and then he gets to the young men, and do you notice it's like one thing, just one thing. It's like self-control.

  18:25-18:39

  Young men, control yourself, men, come on. Like, okay Paul, what else? Don't worry about anything else. Okay, just, just that self control, just work on that. Control your appetites.

  18:40-19:00

  Can you just focus on that? That is so hard for young men because young men are very strong and they're very appetite driven. Now when I say appetite driven, I'm not talking about food. You know, I have two teenage boys and I know it is impossible to control that appetite, Right?

  19:00-19:04

  Can I get an amen from anybody else who has or had teenage boys?

  19:05-19:05

  Okay.

  19:06-19:08

  Like how many times a day does your son eat?

  19:08-19:10

  Like just once, but it's for 18 hours.

  19:12-19:12

  (congregation laughing)

  19:14-19:15

  True or false?

  19:16-19:16

  True.

  19:16-19:19

  I don't think he's talking about those appetites.

  19:19-19:21

  I think he's talking about sexual appetites.

  19:21-19:25

  Those impulsive drives, the temper, you know, the young man stuff.

  19:25-19:31

  He's like, hey, you need to urge the young man, Be self-controlled, all right?

  19:32-19:34

  We had a whole sermon series about some of that stuff.

  19:34-19:35

  What was that, back in January?

  19:38-19:44

  So young men, listen, you need to control your appetites, not the other way around, not letting your appetites control you, okay?

  19:45-19:51

  And then, let's, letter E, employees.

  19:52-19:55

  Employees, now bear with me here, employees.

  19:55-20:02

  He says in verse nine, "Slaves are to be submissive "to their own masters in everything.

  20:03-20:19

  "They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, "not pilfering, but showing all good faith "so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God, "our Savior." Like I didn't say anything about employees in there.

  20:19-20:26

  Well, he's addressing the last member of the first century household, right?

  20:26-20:32

  There would have been in any home, there would have been older men and women, younger men and women, and they had slaves.

  20:32-20:43

  Now, this is not a commentary on slavery, but Paul just had to deal with it as the reality that it was in that culture.

  20:43-20:44

  It was just part of the culture.

  20:45-20:47

  So he wasn't just gonna pretend that it wasn't.

  20:49-20:55

  But the reason I have employees here, as you see these same principles that he gives the slaves working in the home.

  20:58-21:01

  These are principles that you should have where you work.

  21:03-21:03

  Right?

  21:03-21:04

  As employees.

  21:05-21:08

  And he tells you, look, as an employee, you need to do what you're told.

  21:10-21:12

  Don't talk back, don't mouth off.

  21:12-21:15

  He says, as an employee, you need to be honest and loyal.

  21:17-21:21

  One thing in particular that stands out to me, he says, not pilfering.

  21:22-21:25

  Obviously not stealing stuff, right?

  21:26-21:33

  But I would encourage you that this includes all forms of stealing.

  21:34-21:37

  Stealing is more than just taking money out of the cash register.

  21:41-21:49

  Stealing is also working an hourly job where you're being paid by the hour, but you're not working, you're slacking.

  21:50-21:51

  That's stealing.

  21:53-21:56

  Work hard while you are at work.

  21:57-22:00

  I know, so much shocking stuff today.

  22:00-22:09

  Sitting in a different place in church, wearing a tie, submissive to your own husbands, and while you're at work, work!

  22:11-22:13

  Not wasting time, not slacking.

  22:15-22:17

  You're being paid to work, so do your job and do it with a good attitude.

  22:18-22:19

  That's what he says.

  22:22-22:31

  You see, back in chapter 1, verse 16, Pastor Taylor covered last week, he talked about those who profess to know God, but they deny Him by their works.

  22:32-22:36

  Some people claim that they know God, but their life looks anything but that.

  22:38-22:40

  You see, that's all he's saying here in this passage.

  22:41-22:42

  He says, "You claim to know God, right?

  22:44-22:45

  You claim that you know God.

  22:47-22:49

  Do your works say that you do?

  22:50-22:53

  It's like that, remember that old saying, how'd that go Mark?

  22:53-22:59

  Something like, if you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

  23:02-23:03

  Same point.

  23:06-23:10

  You profess to know Christ, do you act like somebody that knows him?

  23:12-23:14

  And see church, what are your expectations?

  23:14-23:15

  Here's number one expectation.

  23:16-23:20

  Number one focus has to be your personal walk with Jesus.

  23:21-23:23

  That's your number one thing.

  23:25-23:28

  Are you seeing growth in your walk with Christ?

  23:31-23:32

  You gotta live what you believe.

  23:33-23:34

  That's number one.

  23:35-23:36

  What's expected of a church member.

  23:36-23:38

  Number two, invest in others.

  23:41-23:42

  Invest in others.

  23:42-23:44

  All of this stuff needs taught.

  23:44-23:45

  Yes, absolutely.

  23:46-23:53

  But I want you to see how, and I want you to see by whom, by who, by whom?

  23:53-23:54

  Is it who or whom?

  23:55-23:56

  Whom is with it?

  23:56-23:59

  Okay, I was right the first time, should've went with it.

  24:00-24:03

  All right, let's take another run at that.

  24:03-24:07

  All of this needs taught, yes, but look at how and by whom.

  24:09-24:12

  Older men discipling the younger men.

  24:13-24:17

  older women discipling the younger women.

  24:18-24:22

  And if you're right now saying, yeah, Pastor Jeff, I'm still on the fence about older and younger.

  24:23-24:26

  I actually saw something this week that really will help you with that.

  24:27-24:33

  If you're not sure if you're an older person or a younger person, just go to a public place and fall down.

  24:35-24:39

  If people laugh and point, you're younger.

  24:41-24:48

  If people gasp and run to help you up, you are otherwise.

  24:52-24:58

  But he says in verse four, train, verse six, urge, verse seven, model.

  25:01-25:05

  Listen, I wanna talk to the older people here, okay?

  25:06-25:09

  So hopefully you did a little exercise in your head and you know if you're older.

  25:09-25:12

  But I want to talk specifically to the older people right now.

  25:15-25:16

  Bless you.

  25:18-25:20

  You have a God-given responsibility here.

  25:21-25:23

  This isn't an option.

  25:30-25:39

  And so often in the church, especially in our culture, there's this consumer mentality that people come to church to get.

  25:42-25:44

  And that is a completely unbiblical mindset.

  25:45-25:47

  You should look at church as a place to come and give.

  25:48-25:49

  Again, older people.

  25:53-25:57

  You need to see this as a place to come and give of yourself to the younger people.

  26:01-26:03

  And yes, we gotta teach sound doctrine.

  26:03-26:06

  We certainly strive for that, whoever's standing up here.

  26:08-26:16

  Yes, we want to urge, he says, urge people to live in a way that honors Christ, but you got to model this.

  26:19-26:23

  You know, we stand up here and we say, okay, you need to wait on the Lord.

  26:25-26:27

  When you're going through trials, you need to wait on the Lord.

  26:28-26:32

  Listen, older people, you got to show the younger people what that looks like.

  26:35-26:38

  You know, we stand up here and say, you need to love your wife.

  26:41-26:49

  Older men, you need to show the younger men what that looks like, to pour yourself out, you know, self-sacrificing for your wife.

  26:49-26:50

  You need to show them.

  26:52-26:54

  You know, we say, submit to your husbands.

  26:56-27:02

  Older women, listen, you're gonna show the young ladies what that looks like.

  27:05-27:08

  'Cause it's one thing for a middle-aged dude to stand up here and say that.

  27:10-27:20

  But it's a completely different thing, older ladies, for you to show them the blessing that comes when you honor God's word.

  27:24-27:32

  And right now, if you're like, I hear what you're saying, and I see what Paul's saying, that's how you as a pastor, I'm single, but I'm single.

  27:33-27:43

  Okay, then you show single people and you show teenagers what trust and contentment in God looks like as a single person.

  27:43-27:45

  Show them what that looks like.

  27:47-27:54

  Because you see all of this stuff, it's just conceptual, right?

  27:55-27:57

  Wait on the Lord, love and forgive.

  27:58-28:05

  It's all conceptual until you older people Demonstrate for the younger people what it looks like.

  28:09-28:12

  And sadly in the church, older people are just so often disregarded.

  28:15-28:20

  I've heard pastors talk about this, like, "Yeah, we're just after the young people.

  28:20-28:27

  "We're just targeting the young people." And they kind of push the older people out the door, because we're for the younger people.

  28:29-28:32

  Lame, your church is going to be lame.

  28:36-28:39

  Because older people should be one of the greatest blessings in this church.

  28:40-28:45

  Because older people have something that younger people don't have.

  28:46-28:51

  Older people have something that young people are unable to have.

  28:52-28:53

  And do you know what that is?

  28:55-28:55

  Experience.

  28:58-28:58

  Experience.

  29:00-29:02

  Older people, they took their lumps.

  29:03-29:05

  They tried things the hard way.

  29:05-29:06

  They learned from their mistakes.

  29:07-29:07

  They've traveled.

  29:09-29:10

  They've buried friends and family.

  29:12-29:15

  Older people have seen prayers answered specifically.

  29:17-29:20

  Older people have learned what it means to deal with difficult people.

  29:23-29:28

  Older people can give testimony of being a good steward.

  29:28-29:58

  with God's stuff. Through growing in Jesus Christ, older people have learned how to control their impulses, how to control the words that come out of their mouth, how to control their temper. They're confident in their faith. They're not self-centered. Over time they've learned patience. So if you're an older person, you should be involved in one of the ladies' ministries here.

  30:02-30:05

  You should be involved, older men. You should be involved in the fishermen group.

  30:07-30:09

  Our older people should be our small group leaders.

  30:14-30:15

  You should be involved in a ministry team.

  30:17-30:19

  There are so many young families here.

  30:20-30:31

  And without you showing what it looks like to faithfully follow Christ over time, it's a concept on a page.

  30:34-30:36

  Older people, you've got to train up the next generation.

  30:38-30:42

  I would just lovingly encourage you, don't abandon the post that God has assigned you.

  30:46-30:48

  Don't leave the young people without an example.

  30:50-30:52

  All right, invest in others.

  30:53-30:54

  Invest in others.

  30:55-30:57

  And finally, number three, shine on.

  31:00-31:02

  You crazy dogman, shine on.

  31:02-31:20

  Okay, we covered what to teach and who to teach, and we covered how to teach, And we also see in this passage why, why?

  31:22-31:26

  The end of verse five, he says that the word of God may not be reviled.

  31:28-31:34

  The end of verse eight, he talks about an opponent being put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us.

  31:35-31:43

  And verse 10, he says, "In everything adorn the doctrine of God our Savior." The result of godly living obviously benefits the church, obviously.

  31:45-31:47

  but it's also about our witness to the world.

  31:50-31:56

  Because when Christians aren't following Christ, the world loves that.

  31:58-31:59

  The world loves to see that.

  32:00-32:00

  Why?

  32:03-32:04

  Because it justifies their unbelief.

  32:07-32:08

  They're like, you know what?

  32:09-32:11

  I knew they were a bunch of hypocrites and look what they're doing.

  32:12-32:12

  I knew it.

  32:14-32:17

  And the result is they end up blaspheming God.

  32:19-32:21

  That's what he talks about in verse five.

  32:21-32:24

  The word of God being reviled, that's what happens.

  32:26-32:28

  When you say you're a follower of Christ, but you don't act like it.

  32:31-32:39

  How can the world believe that Jesus changes people when those who claim to follow Jesus aren't changed?

  32:41-32:48

  You know, when there's fighting in the church there's gossip and there's sex scandals and there's leaders stealing from the church.

  32:48-32:51

  What do we have to offer the world when we act just like them?

  32:54-32:57

  That's why verse 10, I love this, this should be underlined in your Bible.

  32:58-33:01

  There'll be somebody at the door checking your Bibles on your way out to make sure that you underline this.

  33:02-33:10

  He says, "So that in everything they may adorn "the doctrine of God our Savior." You know what that means?

  33:12-33:31

  That means you need to show people out there, your unsaved neighbors, your unsaved coworkers, you need to show them the greatness of God by showing that following Jesus Christ is your greatest joy.

  33:33-33:36

  The biggest blessing in my life is knowing my Savior.

  33:37-33:42

  That is far greater than anything that I've ever experienced or ever will experience.

  33:42-33:44

  They need to see that in your life.

  33:45-33:50

  You are a billboard, like it or not, you're a billboard for following Jesus Christ.

  33:51-33:56

  And you're either good advertisement or bad advertisement for Jesus.

  34:00-34:07

  That's why Jesus said, Matthew 5, 16, "Let your light shine before others." I shine on, right?

  34:07-34:17

  "Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." That's exactly what Paul's telling Titus right here.

  34:19-34:22

  Show them, show them the beauty of the gospel.

  34:25-34:32

  Show them that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came to this earth to teach us about the kingdom of God.

  34:35-34:49

  He suffered and died on the cross, taking our sins on himself, taking our place on the cross and bearing the wrath of God so that through believing in him, anyone can be forgiven.

  34:51-34:52

  It doesn't matter who you are.

  34:53-34:54

  It doesn't matter what you've done.

  34:56-35:00

  God loves you and he sent his son to die for you.

  35:04-35:06

  That gift is available for anyone.

  35:07-35:09

  You can become a child of God.

  35:13-35:14

  You need to show people.

  35:16-35:21

  Show people that we love each other in here.

  35:22-35:24

  When we mess up, we make things right.

  35:27-35:28

  We forgive.

  35:30-35:35

  We're not people that lie to each other, or mess around with each other's spouses.

  35:37-35:39

  In here, we work hard.

  35:40-35:41

  We don't complain.

  35:44-35:45

  We don't lose our tempers in here.

  35:48-35:49

  We're not greedy in here.

  35:50-35:51

  In fact, it's the opposite.

  35:52-35:58

  In here, we're looking for who has need, so that we can rush to meet that need.

  35:59-36:00

  That's what we do in here.

  36:03-36:05

  We always strive to put other people ahead of ourselves.

  36:07-36:08

  They need to see that.

  36:10-36:19

  Show them, show them that we have a joy because of the promise of heaven and a God who will never leave us or forsake us.

  36:20-36:26

  And while the world is falling apart around us, have you noticed we have peace?

  36:28-36:32

  knowing that things are not always going to be as they are now.

  36:35-36:38

  We believe it and we live it.

  36:41-36:49

  People are evaluating the claims of Jesus Christ on the way that you live.

  36:52-37:08

  We should live in a way that unbelievers see the light of Jesus shining through us, and they say, "Hey, I wanna know her God." You know, the church has had a lot of evangelism gimmicks over the years.

  37:09-37:13

  I'm gonna give you one more test to determine whether you're older or younger.

  37:16-37:20

  By show of hands, how many people here remember evangelism explosion?

  37:22-37:23

  You're old.

  37:25-37:26

  You are so old.

  37:27-37:31

  And if a young person had their hand up, it's because an older person told them about it.

  37:34-37:35

  That was an evangelism gimmick.

  37:36-37:38

  All right, old test.

  37:39-37:42

  Raise your hand if you remember Chick tracks.

  37:46-37:47

  It's the senior tour with their hands up.

  37:50-37:51

  I used to love Chick tracks.

  37:51-37:53

  They were so over the top.

  37:53-37:55

  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you gotta get your hands on one.

  37:57-37:58

  It was an evangelism gimmick.

  38:00-38:02

  More recently, how about the Way of the Master?

  38:02-38:03

  Do you remember the Way of the Master?

  38:03-38:05

  How many people, show of hands, Way of the Master?

  38:05-38:07

  You might still be younger and know about Way of the Master.

  38:07-38:09

  Few of you know that, the Ray Comfort thing, right?

  38:10-38:12

  Okay, an evangelism gimmick.

  38:14-38:24

  And younger people today, you know, it's all about websites and podcasts and apps for your phone, and...

  38:27-38:35

  But there is not an evangelism gimmick that ever was or ever will be that works better than this one.

  38:37-38:37

  You ready?

  38:38-38:43

  Followers of Jesus actually following Jesus.

  38:45-38:47

  That's what the world needs.

  38:48-38:50

  And that's what's expected of a church member.

  38:51-38:54

  All right, you bow your heads with me please as the worship team comes up.

  39:02-39:03

  We're going to pray.

  39:07-39:11

  So often it's just easy to get off track.

  39:15-39:23

  And sometimes the church, we sort of get in our holy huddle and sort of get self-focused start to think things are about us and our preferences.

  39:26-39:30

  That's why I'm so thankful for the word of God to give us a word like this to say it's not about us.

  39:31-39:33

  This place is about Jesus.

  39:35-39:45

  The exaltation of the Son of God, changing us so that we can be examples to the next generation and so that we can reach a lost world.

  39:49-39:52

  by living a Christ following life without hypocrisy.

  39:53-40:03

  Father in heaven, we live in a day with just so many new opportunities for gimmicks and fads.

  40:03-40:24

  And we also live in a day that evil and just horrible wickedness is not just happening, but it's being so grossly promoted.

  40:32-41:06

  Father, the world needs right now the church to be the church, sincere followers of Jesus Christ. So I pray, Father, that you would grant repentance to us where it's needed. And that Father, we would lose all of our silly expectations for the church and just focus on what your Word says we are to be and we are to strive after in this church.

  41:12-41:17

  And use us, Father, to be the light in this community.

  41:20-41:22

  We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Titus 2:1-10

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. What benefits come from older women discipling younger women & older men discipling younger men (Titus 2:3-4, 6-7)? Name an “older” person that the Lord has used in your life.
   

3. What exactly is “slander” (Titus 2:3)? Why do you think people are so strongly tempted to hurt another person’s reputation? How should you respond if someone is speaking to you and slandering another person?
   

4. What does your conduct have to do with the church’s evangelism (Titus 2:5, 8, 10)? How can that “make or break” a church’s outreach efforts?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

How Does the Church Deal with False Teaching?

Introduction:

The Truth About False Teaching: (Titus 1:10-16)

1. It cannot go Unnoticed . (Titus 1:10)

   2 Timothy 4:3 - For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

   Acts 17:11 - "they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so."

The Four Levels of Theological Disagreement:

1. Heresy
2. Destructive Thinking
3. Ignorance
4. Difference of Opinion

2. It must be Silenced and Rebuked . (Titus 1:11-14)

   2 Timothy 2:24-26 - And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

3. It should Serve as a Warning . (Titus 1:15-16)

Luke 6:45 - "For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of."

Jeremiah 6:16 - This is what the LORD says: "Stop at the crossroad and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path and you will find rest for your souls."

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:47-00:53

  All right, as Justin said in the video, you can open to the book of Titus chapter one, Titus chapter one.

  00:53-00:57

  And as you're turning there, I wanna ask you, who would say that they're a gullible person?

  00:58-01:01

  You're easily tricked, you can buy into things, hook, line, and sinker.

  01:01-01:04

  All right, now who are the people that think that they're hard to fool?

  01:04-01:06

  You're really hard to trick.

  01:07-01:13

  Okay, like three of you raised your hand for the first one and none of you raised your hand for the second one, so you're all in the middle somewhere, I guess.

  01:14-01:22

  Well, as kids, we can all admit that back then, we were all easily fooled and we bought into a lot of things that were totally untrue and ridiculous.

  01:22-01:26

  What are some things that kids buy into that aren't true at all?

  01:28-01:28

  What's that?

  01:29-01:31

  Step on a crack, break your mama's back.

  01:32-01:33

  Anything else?

  01:35-01:38

  Another one is if you pick your nose too deep, you'll touch your brain.

  01:39-01:42

  Or if you make a silly face, you'll get stuck that way.

  01:43-01:46

  Yeah, if you eat a watermelon seed, it'll grow in your stomach.

  01:46-01:47

  How about that one?

  01:47-01:51

  Or how about teachers don't have their own wives, they actually live at school throughout the week.

  01:53-01:54

  Now, growing up, I have an older brother.

  01:55-01:59

  We shared a room for about 10 years, and he loved to prank me on a daily basis.

  01:59-02:04

  He loved to throw out these wildly false claims to me, and I would just buy into them.

  02:05-02:07

  'Cause he was older than me, and I wanted to impress him.

  02:07-02:08

  I wanted to think that I was cool.

  02:09-02:16

  And one of these wildly false accusations was that every single banana in the world has a little tiny cockroach egg at the bottom.

  02:17-02:23

  And if you eat it, it'll hatch in your stomach, it'll crawl out your throat and escape out of your mouth.

  02:24-02:25

  And I bought it.

  02:25-02:28

  And to this day, I still can't eat an entire banana.

  02:29-02:37

  I start to freak out, start to gag a little bit because I know it's not true, but I still have that mental image in my mind.

  02:38-02:39

  I'm a 32 year old man.

  02:40-02:49

  A 32-year-old husband, pastor, and father, I can't eat a banana, the whole thing, 'cause of a lie my brother told me when I was six years old.

  02:49-02:53

  And my parents would get really mad at my brother, and they would tell me, Taylor, use your brain.

  02:53-02:56

  Don't believe everything that he tells you.

  02:58-03:03

  Well, in Titus chapter one, verses 10 through 16, the apostle Paul gives us really similar advice.

  03:04-03:08

  He calls us to be discerning and not believe everything that we hear.

  03:09-03:17

  There are a lot of lies, there's a lot of false teaching in this culture, and even in the church world, that we have to be wary of and not accept.

  03:18-03:31

  Last week, Pastor Jeff unpacked the purpose of elders and church leaders, and this morning, we're gonna focus our time and attention upon how church leaders should deal with false teaching and those who spread it.

  03:31-03:38

  So this morning, we're gonna focus on the truth about false teaching, the truth about false teaching.

  03:38-03:41

  Number one, it cannot go unnoticed.

  03:42-03:44

  It cannot go unnoticed.

  03:48-03:59

  So as a refresher, this entire letter is an instruction manual for how the church should be run, given by Paul to Titus, one of his mentees in the faith.

  03:59-04:05

  At this point in his life, it's Titus' mission and purpose to oversee and pastor the church on Crete.

  04:06-04:09

  Now, Crete back in Paul's day didn't have the best reputation.

  04:09-04:12

  And so Titus really had his work cut out for him.

  04:12-04:15

  He needed all the help that he could get.

  04:15-04:21

  So let's listen to Paul's advice for how Titus should handle false teaching when it rears its ugly head.

  04:21-04:24

  Let's start with Titus chapter one, verse 10.

  04:25-04:39

  Paul writes this, "For there are many who are insubordinate, "empty talkers and deceivers, "especially those of the circumcision party." So first and foremost, Paul calls out specific false teaching in Titus' hometown.

  04:39-04:45

  He specifically calls out the circumcision party, or as they were also called back then, the Judaizers.

  04:46-04:53

  Now the circumcision party, they taught that a Gentile man had to be circumcised in order to be part of the family of God.

  04:53-05:01

  They said you still have to obey the Old Testament law in order to be saved, in order to join God's family.

  05:02-05:11

  So the salvation math equation for the circumcision party was faith in Jesus Christ plus obedience to the law equals salvation.

  05:13-05:21

  The circumcision party was a massive problem in Paul's day and he wanted Titus to be ready to knock down this false teaching like a game of whack-a-mole.

  05:23-05:30

  Apparently there were many people in the Cretan church who were rebellious and wouldn't submit to Titus' leadership and teaching.

  05:31-05:34

  Tyson just had to deal with a few of these people, but a bunch of them.

  05:36-05:40

  And Paul labels many of these false teachers as empty talkers and deceivers.

  05:42-05:44

  In other words, they're smooth operators.

  05:44-05:45

  They know how to cut a phrase.

  05:46-05:49

  They can rap bad theology and fancy theological language.

  05:51-05:53

  We don't see any of that happening in the church world now, do we?

  05:55-05:57

  By your laughter, I'm sure you all understand that that's very true.

  05:58-06:09

  There are so many pastors and preachers throughout this country and throughout this world who have massive church buildings, they have Scrooge McDuck swim in a bank vault filled with gold coins, kind of wealth.

  06:10-06:15

  They're excellent communicators, but their messages have no substance.

  06:15-06:18

  Their messages are ultimately hollow.

  06:19-06:31

  They twist the word of God to suit their own agendas and purposes, and intentionally or unintentionally, they are wooing people into believing incorrect teaching that twists the word of God.

  06:32-06:37

  And Paul speaks of this phenomenon in one of his other pastoral letters, 2 Timothy 4, three, he says this.

  06:38-06:47

  "For the time is coming when people "will not endure sound teaching, "but having itching ears, they will accumulate "for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

  06:48-06:53

  "Many are content to only listen to preachers "and teachers who tell them exactly what they wanna hear.

  06:54-07:00

  "They're like dogs with itching ears "who are looking for someone to scratch them and make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

  07:00-07:03

  I promise you that's not gonna happen here at Harvest.

  07:04-07:06

  It is not our goal to make you feel good.

  07:07-07:10

  It's our goal for God to make you holy and mature.

  07:10-07:11

  And guess what?

  07:12-07:14

  True happiness will come out of that.

  07:15-07:17

  We're not gonna teach people what they wanna hear.

  07:17-07:20

  We're gonna teach what God wants them to hear.

  07:20-07:24

  And what God wants you to hear is his unfiltered and his unchanging word.

  07:25-07:27

  And I refuse to put words in the God's mouth.

  07:28-07:31

  I refuse to take words out of God's mouth and say that he didn't say them.

  07:32-07:34

  This means that we're gonna ruffle some feathers at times.

  07:35-07:39

  This means we're gonna present some really challenging truths that you may not wanna deal with.

  07:41-07:46

  But in those moments we find ourselves disagreeing with God's word or frustrated with God's word, guess what?

  07:47-07:51

  We're wrong and he's right every single time.

  07:52-07:56

  In those moments he's calling us to change our thinking and submit to his ways.

  07:57-08:04

  He's calling us to be men and women of the word whose beliefs, thoughts, and opinions are shaped by this book and this book alone.

  08:06-08:14

  For Pastor Jeff, myself, and other preachers around here, our goal isn't to wow and impress you with our sermons or give us a pat on the back and think that we're great.

  08:15-08:16

  That doesn't help anybody.

  08:17-08:25

  Our goal is to help you get a greater glimpse of who God is, a glimpse of who he's calling you to be and what he's calling you to do.

  08:25-08:31

  Our goal is to help you realize that you can read, study, to understand this book for yourself.

  08:33-08:36

  We want you to be as wise and discerning as possible.

  08:38-08:43

  In Acts chapter 17, the apostle Paul travels to a place called Berea and he begins to teach there.

  08:43-08:49

  And the Bereans like what Paul had to say, but they didn't just take his word for it without doing any research.

  08:49-08:51

  And we're told this in Acts 17 11.

  08:52-09:00

  The Bereans received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

  09:00-09:03

  So the Bereans heard what Paul had to say.

  09:04-09:10

  It sounded godly to them, but they still checked the Bible to make sure that it was true.

  09:10-09:11

  They just do it one time.

  09:12-09:12

  How often did they do it?

  09:13-09:16

  Daily, this was a habit for them.

  09:17-09:22

  I want every single one of you in this room to not just be a Pittsburgher, but a Berean as well.

  09:23-09:29

  I want you to know this book so well that you can spot the lies of the enemy like that.

  09:31-09:37

  Check everything that you hear by scripture and make sure that it lines up with the teachings of God's word.

  09:38-09:42

  Be discerning about big deal issues and small deal issues as well.

  09:43-09:50

  And part of this discernment process is being able to recognize the different levels of theological disagreements you'll have with other people.

  09:50-09:56

  We have to be careful not to lightly and flippantly throw the words heresy and blasphemy around.

  09:57-10:03

  But also, we need to recognize there are some teachings we cannot afford to allow or ignore.

  10:04-10:12

  So I quickly want to go through the different levels of theological disagreement with you, ranging from extremely serious to not so serious.

  10:13-10:16

  The first level of theological disagreement is heresy.

  10:17-10:17

  Heresy.

  10:20-10:24

  This is the emergency or death confive level.

  10:24-10:34

  This isn't just a matter of preference, but a matter of life or death, heaven or hell, saved or unsaved.

  10:34-10:43

  When you're saying that something is heresy, you're not just saying that it's unbiblical and unhealthy, you're saying that this belief has eternal consequences.

  10:44-10:49

  You're saying a person cannot hold this heretical belief and be a born again Christian.

  10:51-10:56

  This would be true of someone who says that we're saved by a mixture of God's grace and our own good works.

  10:57-11:02

  Jesus sacrificed on the cross, paid some of the way, but we gotta earn the rest of our way.

  11:03-11:06

  What a slap in the face to our Savior who laid it all out there for us.

  11:09-11:10

  It sacrificed everything.

  11:12-11:16

  Heresy about the Trinity and the nature of the Bible has been around since the beginning of Christianity.

  11:17-11:22

  There are more people than you think who would say, yeah, the Bible's the word of God, but it's filled with a lot of historical errors.

  11:22-11:26

  It doesn't really matter, because most of those stories aren't true.

  11:26-11:28

  They're just allegories that teach us really important lessons.

  11:30-11:32

  Here's another one, open theism.

  11:32-11:34

  Who's ever heard of open theism?

  11:35-11:35

  Not many of you.

  11:36-11:37

  Good, 'cause it's really not very good.

  11:38-11:42

  This view holds that God is not perfect and all wise.

  11:43-11:50

  He's imperfect like us, he makes mistakes, he drops the ball, but don't worry, over time he's getting better, he's becoming a better God, and he's learning.

  11:52-11:53

  Thumbs up or thumbs down, what do we think?

  11:54-12:01

  Massive thumbs down, what an offense to the king of the universe who never makes a mistake, who knows exactly what he is doing.

  12:03-12:06

  I could go on and on with different heresies, but I think you get the point.

  12:08-12:13

  The second level of theological disagreement, there's heresy and there's destructive thinking.

  12:13-12:15

  Destructive thinking.

  12:20-12:29

  This is a step below heresy because I believe that there are some Christians who fall prey to certain lies, but it doesn't necessarily mean that their salvation is in question.

  12:30-12:35

  But this destructive thinking is a huge deal because it gets a lot of things wrong about the Bible.

  12:36-12:39

  A perfect example of this is prosperity theology.

  12:40-12:49

  Prosperity theology teaches that God guarantees an abundance of health and wealth if you simply have enough faith.

  12:51-12:56

  Paul said later on in this passage that those who teach these kind of lies are teaching for shameful gain.

  12:57-13:01

  And they deceive many into wandering down a path that's ultimately a dead end street.

  13:03-13:06

  Many followers of prosperity theology are Christian frauds.

  13:07-13:09

  They're just using Jesus to get what they want from him.

  13:10-13:20

  They view the Christian life as a divine vending machine and prayers are like their quarters that they put into the vending machine to twist God's arm and that he has to drop goodies for them whenever they want.

  13:22-13:26

  But other people who fall into this teaching are Christians but they're sadly gullible.

  13:27-13:31

  And they've bought into a lie that's gonna hurt them in the long run.

  13:33-13:38

  Another destructive teaching that's really invading Christian schools throughout this country right now is theistic evolution.

  13:39-13:40

  Who's heard of theistic evolution?

  13:41-13:50

  It basically means that God has oversaw and guided the process of macroevolution to create all life on earth and even humanity itself.

  13:52-14:06

  Now we can all agree on microevolution or adaptation and changes within species over time, but that's a huge leap to go from there to species changing to other species and us as humans tracing our lineage back to single-celled organisms and primates.

  14:06-14:09

  That's a huge leap.

  14:10-14:17

  Theistic evolution is basically an attempt to merge the creation story with the basic theories of Darwinism.

  14:18-14:26

  And this belief has become extremely popular, but so dangerous because it throws the whole book of Genesis into chaos.

  14:26-14:31

  In the minds of theistic evolutionists, the creation of Adam and Eve is an allegory.

  14:31-14:33

  They're not actually real people.

  14:33-14:38

  They're just metaphors who stand in for the first evolved humans.

  14:39-14:43

  But this is pulling a dangerous thread that unravels the whole book of Genesis.

  14:43-14:45

  At what point does Genesis become true?

  14:46-14:48

  At what point is it truly historical?

  14:49-14:57

  Jesus and the writers of scripture taught and believed that Adam and Eve were real people and that we inherit Adam's sin nature.

  14:58-15:06

  Theistic evolution is an attack on scripture and our status as precious lives made in the image of God.

  15:08-15:13

  All right, the third level of theological disagreement is ignorance, ignorance.

  15:16-15:27

  Sometimes a Christian will believe something out of total ignorance, they don't know any better, and they need someone to come alongside them and just lovingly correct them from the Bible.

  15:28-15:32

  A perfect example of this is one of my biggest theological pet peeves.

  15:33-15:50

  You know, a child or a loved one will pass on, tragically, and someone with good intentions, wanting to comfort the family will say, "Well, you know, God had to take them "because he needed another angel." Who's ever heard something like that?

  15:50-15:51

  We've all heard something like that, right?

  15:52-15:53

  Is that biblical at all?

  15:54-15:56

  No, it's unbiblical for three different reasons.

  15:56-15:59

  Probably more, but I can think of three right off the bat.

  15:59-16:02

  Number one, we don't turn into angels when we die.

  16:03-16:05

  We are completely separate from angels.

  16:05-16:07

  We don't supernaturally mutate into one.

  16:08-16:10

  I'm sorry, this isn't Touched by an Angel and you're not Roma Downey.

  16:10-16:12

  It's not gonna happen.

  16:14-16:20

  Secondly, this line of thinking paints God as a total buffoon who constantly makes angel accounting errors.

  16:20-16:24

  He has to zap people and bring them up to heaven to correct his mistakes.

  16:24-16:27

  As we just said, God doesn't make any mistakes.

  16:29-16:32

  Thirdly, God doesn't need anyone for anything.

  16:33-16:35

  He doesn't even need the angels that he already created.

  16:35-16:36

  Why would he need to create more?

  16:37-16:42

  This line of thinking is obviously false, but it's not a matter of heresy or destructive thinking.

  16:43-16:45

  It's a matter of ignorance that can be corrected very simply.

  16:46-16:51

  And the fourth and final level of theological disagreement is difference of opinion.

  16:53-16:54

  Difference of opinion.

  16:58-17:03

  As you mature and grow in your knowledge of God's word, you figure out your theological stance on a lot of issues.

  17:03-17:07

  And you're gonna find yourself disagreeing with other Christians around you.

  17:08-17:19

  Hopefully you trust what Pastor Jeff and myself and other preachers have to say from behind this pulpit, but I guarantee you at some point, you'll disagree with something that we have to say.

  17:20-17:30

  You'll disagree about our views about the end times or specific spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues or prophecy, or our view of alcohol, or church government.

  17:31-17:31

  And you know what?

  17:31-17:42

  It's okay to disagree with us on matters of secondary theology, as long as you can make a biblical and sound argument for what you believe.

  17:43-17:55

  As Christians, we're never gonna fully agree on every single line of doctrine, and that's okay, as long as we can come together and agree on the big deal issues, like who is God, What is salvation?

  17:56-17:56

  What is the Bible?

  17:57-18:00

  These are the things we need to really come together on.

  18:00-18:07

  And let's not divide and tear each other apart over the things that we disagree with that at the end of the day aren't that big of a deal.

  18:08-18:15

  We can have a difference of opinion on secondary matters of theology, but come together on the big things that God wants us to focus on.

  18:16-18:19

  So many Christians major in the minors and make a mountain out of a molehill.

  18:20-18:28

  God's telling us, yeah, to have convictions, to have a theological stance, but also be loving, be gracious, be kind.

  18:31-18:34

  All right, the truth about false teaching, number one, it cannot go unnoticed.

  18:34-18:38

  Number two, it must be silenced and rebuked.

  18:38-18:41

  It must be silenced and rebuked.

  18:42-18:45

  Let's read what Paul has to say in verses 11 through 14.

  18:47-18:48

  Stopping off false teachers.

  18:48-18:55

  They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

  18:56-19:03

  One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, "evil beasts, lazy gluttons." This testimony is true.

  19:04-19:16

  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.

  19:17-19:24

  According to Paul, it's not enough just to recognize and notice false teaching, something has to be done about it.

  19:24-19:28

  Action has to be taken before it spreads like wildfire.

  19:29-19:34

  Paul says that false teaching can not only upset, but divide families so it cannot be ignored.

  19:35-19:37

  It cannot be allowed to go under the radar.

  19:38-19:40

  But we see all around us false teaching going under the radar.

  19:41-19:41

  How does this happen?

  19:43-19:43

  It's simple.

  19:44-19:48

  By godly and mature people standing by and doing nothing about it.

  19:50-19:57

  You know, after 9/11, the saying, if you see something, say something became very popular.

  19:57-20:09

  In other words, if you're at the airport and you see something really sketchy and weird, you think, huh, that was strange, and you just go about your day, no, say something to someone who can do something about it.

  20:10-20:18

  In a similar way, if you hear someone at Harvest say or teach something that's heretical or destructive, Say something.

  20:19-20:24

  First, you can go to that person and say, "Hey, I really wanna understand what you said "the other day.

  20:24-20:28

  "Can you help me understand what you meant?" And maybe you misunderstood them.

  20:28-20:35

  Maybe it actually wasn't a heretical or dangerous teaching, but maybe you heard them right, and they're digging down into this false teaching.

  20:35-20:39

  If they double down, you can show them from Scripture how this isn't true.

  20:40-20:48

  And if they continue to dig in their heels, it's time to bring this matter to the pastoral staff or to one of the elders before it spreads affects more people.

  20:49-20:57

  Because at the end of the day, Pastor Jeff, myself, and the other elders, we're responsible for protecting the pulpit and the church from doctrinal error.

  20:59-21:06

  And Paul says that elders must not only silence false teaching, but rebuke those who teach it.

  21:07-21:13

  He doesn't just say to rebuke these false teachers, but to rebuke them sharply or severely.

  21:14-21:20

  Now in the original Greek, the word for sharply or severely finds its root in a verb which means to cut.

  21:22-21:26

  In other words, this is a serious matter that has to be dealt with seriously.

  21:27-21:31

  False teaching needs to be cut out of the church like a dangerous cancer.

  21:33-21:38

  This has to be done rightly and done quickly before the infection spreads.

  21:40-21:50

  But notice that Paul didn't say that we should silence and rebuke false teachers with the intention of beating them in a theological contest or grinding them to dust, what does he say?

  21:51-21:56

  Rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

  21:57-22:00

  That they may be sound in the faith.

  22:02-22:08

  Going back to the surgery metaphor, a surgeon doesn't cut a patient to harm them, but to cure them.

  22:09-22:17

  In a similar way, our ultimate hope and cutting out false teaching is to protect the flock and to lead the false teacher to repentance.

  22:19-22:22

  And Paul speaks to this in 2 Timothy 2, 24 through 26.

  22:23-22:31

  And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with what?

  22:32-22:33

  With gentleness.

  22:34-22:46

  God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do their will.

  22:47-22:52

  Now this isn't always the outcome, but it should be the outcome that we hope for, the outcome that we pray for.

  22:54-22:56

  Some of us really need to be reminded of this.

  22:56-22:59

  Other people are not our enemy.

  22:59-23:01

  Let me repeat that for you.

  23:01-23:03

  Other people are not our enemy.

  23:03-23:06

  As Christians, we can't have an us versus them mentality.

  23:06-23:09

  We're the good guys and they're the bad guys.

  23:10-23:17

  We have to know and understand that there's so many people in this world who are under the sway of the enemy and their sinful flesh.

  23:18-23:23

  They are prisoners to the ways of this world and the lies of Satan.

  23:24-23:25

  And you know what?

  23:26-23:26

  So were you at one point.

  23:28-23:32

  If we can't have empathy and compassion for those who are lost, then why are we even here?

  23:36-23:44

  It should be our mission to shine the light of the truth in the darkness of people's lives that they can find hope and they can find freedom in Jesus Christ.

  23:45-23:47

  It's not our mission to win arguments.

  23:48-23:50

  It should be our mission to win souls for the Lord.

  23:53-23:57

  All right, the final truth about false teaching, it should serve as a warning.

  23:58-24:00

  It should serve as a warning.

  24:05-24:10

  As you drive down the road, you come across a lot of construction signs and road signs.

  24:10-24:12

  What are some of the most common road signs that we see?

  24:14-24:14

  Stop.

  24:15-24:15

  What else?

  24:17-24:18

  Watch children.

  24:19-24:19

  Yield.

  24:20-24:20

  Detour.

  24:21-24:22

  Do not enter.

  24:22-24:23

  I have a few personal favorites.

  24:23-24:26

  You don't see as much, but you see them every once in a while.

  24:26-24:27

  Here's one for you.

  24:27-24:29

  Fresh oil and chips.

  24:30-24:32

  It sounds like a menu item at a restaurant, doesn't it?

  24:33-24:34

  But it's definitely not as exciting as that.

  24:34-24:38

  What they're really saying is slow down or you're gonna scratch up your car and all the gravel we just laid down.

  24:39-24:41

  The next one's my personal favorite.

  24:42-24:43

  Falling rock.

  24:44-24:47

  Not to be confused with falling rocks, plural, but with falling rock.

  24:48-24:52

  And as a kid, I used to always think that there's this one pesky boulder that keeps rolling down the road.

  24:52-24:56

  They're like, "Ah, again!" And they push it back up the hill and then one day it'll fall down the road again.

  24:57-24:58

  That's not what it's saying.

  24:58-25:02

  What it's saying is, hey, sometimes rocks fall off this cliff face and smash cars, so be careful.

  25:04-25:06

  These warning signs are there to protect us.

  25:07-25:09

  They're there to keep us out of harm's way.

  25:10-25:19

  In His infinite grace, God fills His word with loving yet stern warnings to keep us from making a total wreck of our lives.

  25:20-25:28

  And Paul offers such a warning in verses 15 through 16 about those who persist in false teaching and refuse to repent.

  25:29-25:39

  While we should seek after and pray for the repentance of false teachers, we should all also learn important lessons from their negative examples and avoid their way of thinking and living.

  25:40-25:50

  You know, over the years, I used to always tell my youth group students, it's great to learn from your own mistakes, but it's even better and much less painful to learn from the mistakes of others.

  25:52-25:55

  So listen to what Paul has to say about this in verses 15 through 16.

  25:55-26:05

  He writes this, "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.

  26:06-26:10

  "They profess to know God, but deny him by their works.

  26:11-26:25

  "They are detestable, disobedient, "unfit for any good work." It's really obvious that Paul has nothing good to say about false teachers who persist in their false teaching and refuse to repent.

  26:25-26:35

  He says that they're impure, their minds are defiled and corrupt, which leads them to say really destructive things and hurt other people around them.

  26:37-26:40

  You know, Jesus once said something that I think about almost every single day.

  26:40-26:42

  I think about it at least multiple times a week.

  26:42-26:58

  Luke 6, 45, "For out of the abundance of the heart, "the mouth speaks." Another version puts it this way, "The mouth speaks what the heart is full of." How people speak gives you a glimpse into what's going on in their heart.

  26:59-27:02

  Our words are like windows into our souls.

  27:02-27:11

  When someone is teaching something that is a perversion of the truth and against the teachings of scripture, it's obvious that something is really wrong on the inside.

  27:12-27:19

  Their hearts are full of stagnant and contaminated water and that just flows out of their mouth like a fountain.

  27:21-27:32

  But the part of this warning from Paul that really just chills me is when he says These kind of people profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.

  27:34-27:43

  There are so many people, preachers, teachers throughout this country, throughout this world, who think that they're saved, but they're not.

  27:44-27:50

  They think that they know and love God, but they only know and love a false version of God that they've created in their own image.

  27:51-27:59

  They think that they're teaching the truth and helping other people, but they're spewing the lies of Satan and leading people down a destructive path.

  28:00-28:14

  These men and women should serve as a warning to be careful of what we allow into our hearts and to our minds, what we allow our children to consume, to be careful of what we choose to accept and believe.

  28:16-28:25

  They should serve as warnings to not buy into the lies of our culture or to place ourselves over the Bible as its final authority.

  28:26-28:29

  We don't stand over the Bible, we stand under it.

  28:30-28:32

  This book is our final authority.

  28:34-28:39

  I wanna close our time in the word with a call from the Lord in Jeremiah 6.16.

  28:40-28:41

  This is what the Lord says.

  28:42-28:44

  Stop at the crossroad and look around.

  28:46-28:50

  Ask for the old godly way and walk in it.

  28:51-28:53

  Travel its path and you will find rest for your souls.

  28:55-29:00

  In 2022, it's always about what's new, what's fresh, what's hip, and God's saying, ignore all that.

  29:01-29:03

  What is the old and tried and true way?

  29:05-29:06

  What's worked for thousands of years?

  29:07-29:08

  Walk down that path.

  29:10-29:13

  As the worship team comes forward, I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes.

  29:16-29:22

  And I want you to take a moment to stop at the crossroads of your life and take a look around.

  29:25-29:31

  Think about all the different worldviews, philosophies, and faiths that people in your life have bought into.

  29:33-29:38

  Think about the different lies and false teachings that many have fallen into that you know.

  29:41-29:49

  There are so many right now who try to find their hope in themselves, their own accomplishments, money, stuff.

  29:50-29:59

  Others think they can build a paradise on this life by embracing what God has rejected as broken and destructive.

  30:00-30:03

  Others believe that true hope, true change is found in the government.

  30:04-30:07

  This happens for men and women in office.

  30:08-30:19

  Let us daily choose to reject these ways that lead to misery and to death, and instead travel down the ancient and trustworthy ways of the Lord which lead to everlasting life.

  30:20-30:34

  In a time marked by societal drift and deception, we need to stay on the tried and true path of God's word and keep our eyes firmly fixed upon who he's called us to be and what he has called us to do.

  30:35-30:35

  Let's pray.

  30:38-30:51

  Father, we thank you that we're not on our own, that you've given us your word as a guide to tell us what to think, Tell us what to say and tell us what to do.

  30:52-30:56

  We thank you for your Holy Spirit who fills us and illuminates your word.

  30:57-31:01

  Lord, help us to be Bereans who are constantly checking everything that we hear by your word.

  31:02-31:05

  That we wouldn't just buy hook, line, and sinker what everybody has to say.

  31:06-31:08

  We'd always say, what does God have to say about this?

  31:09-31:17

  And Lord, if there's anyone in this room who doesn't know you, I pray to you to open up their heart to the truth and they'd finally believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

  31:18-31:29

  If there's someone in this room who's buying into a heretical or destructive teaching, Lord, I pray that you reveal this to them and show them this isn't true.

  31:30-31:36

  They would reject this, they would repent and follow after you and follow after the truth of your word.

  31:37-31:38

  In Jesus' name, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Titus 1:10-16

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. What does it mean to be a Berean (Acts 17:11)? How can you grow in your ability to be discerning about what you hear/read?
   

3. What are the four levels of theological disagreement? Why is it so important to be able to discern the differences between these four levels?
   

4. What are some of the most destructive lies/false teachings that the church has to face right now?
   

5. How do false teachers serve as warnings to us? What should we learn from their negative example?

Breakout
Pray for the leaders of HBC!

How is the Church Led?

Introduction:

5 Musts for Church Leaders: (Titus 1:1-9)

1. You must see yourself as Entrusted by God. (Titus 1:1-3)

2. You must be pouring into Specific People . (Titus 1:4-5)

   Acts 20:28 - Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

3. You must start in your Home . (Titus 1:6)

   1 Timothy 3:5 - for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?

4. You must be Blameless in your walk. (Titus 1:7-8)
5. You must love God's Word . (Titus 1:9)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:47-00:48

  The book of Titus, are you there?

  00:49-00:59

  Titus is a letter from an older pastor, encouraging a younger pastor how to be a faithful pastor.

  01:01-01:12

  And Paul tells Titus, in the church, you need to establish leaders, and you also need to deal with problem people in the church.

  01:12-01:17

  and those two aren't exactly separate issues.

  01:18-01:20

  And today we're going to talk about leadership.

  01:22-01:30

  Because if the church is going to carry out her mission, she's going to need strong leaders.

  01:34-01:40

  And in Titus chapter one, this passage is addressing leaders specifically.

  01:42-01:53

  But I gotta say this, I don't want you to sit back and be like, you know what, I'm not an elder in the church, so none of this stuff pertains to me.

  01:54-02:03

  So this is the week that I can probably, you know, doodle on my sermon outline or text or scroll through Facebook while he's preaching, 'cause this really doesn't apply to me.

  02:04-02:05

  No, you can't do that.

  02:06-02:07

  And I'm gonna tell you why.

  02:10-02:21

  Have you ever been in a restroom at a restaurant and see the sign on the wall that says, employees must wash hands?

  02:22-02:23

  You know what I'm talking about?

  02:25-02:26

  Employees must wash hands.

  02:26-02:36

  Now let me ask you, have you ever stood at the sink and looked at that sign and said, oh, that's for employees, that's not for me.

  02:36-02:41

  And then you walk out without washing your hands, Raise your dirty hands, who's done that before?

  02:42-02:42

  (congregation laughing)

  02:43-02:45

  Just wanna thank you, Jay, thank you.

  02:45-02:46

  Thank you for your honesty.

  02:47-02:49

  Okay, and you're getting zero handshakes after service.

  02:50-02:51

  (congregation laughing)

  02:53-03:03

  Obviously you wouldn't look at that and say, "Well, that's not for me, that's only if you're an employee here." Like washing your hands is a good idea for everybody, right?

  03:04-03:14

  And the truth is with these principles that he gives leaders, you can go through the rest of the New Testament and see these commands for all followers of Jesus.

  03:17-03:20

  So there's something here for every one of us.

  03:22-03:22

  Right?

  03:22-03:25

  The standards for leadership in the church are very high.

  03:27-03:32

  But again, all of these things that we're looking at this morning are things that all believers are called to.

  03:32-03:40

  It's just that, listen, church leaders, especially must obviously exemplify these things.

  03:41-03:42

  All right?

  03:44-03:45

  So pay close attention.

  03:47-03:51

  And if you're a leader in the church, you have to really be dialed in here.

  03:53-04:00

  All right, so on your outline, if you're taking notes, which we always encourage, five musts for church leaders.

  04:02-04:04

  Number one, write this down.

  04:05-04:09

  you must see yourself as entrusted by God.

  04:12-04:13

  Look at the first three verses.

  04:14-04:46

  Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness and hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in His Word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God, our Savior.

  04:51-04:56

  You know, you look at the ministry of the life of Paul, and our church spent three years going through the book of Acts.

  04:59-05:01

  He dealt with a lot.

  05:04-05:06

  and he worked hard and he suffered much.

  05:06-05:11

  And you could read the book of Acts and ask yourself, what made Paul so faithful?

  05:13-05:16

  What made him stick through it in hard times?

  05:19-05:20

  Some might say, well, it was the need.

  05:20-05:22

  It was the need for the gospel to get out.

  05:22-05:24

  He saw the need, that's what motivated him.

  05:24-05:26

  Some people would say, well, it's his conversion story.

  05:26-05:28

  I mean, Jesus showed up to him.

  05:28-05:30

  That's probably a big motivator.

  05:30-05:34

  And some would say, well, maybe it was all the Bible knowledge that he had.

  05:34-05:35

  And I think all of those things are true.

  05:36-05:43

  But I think one of the biggest motivators that Paul carried with him is right here in verse three.

  05:45-06:02

  "He saw himself entrusted by God." Listen, if you're a leader in this church, it's not a matter of, hey, hey, Pastor Jeff and Pastor Taylor are counting on you.

  06:04-06:11

  It's not, hey, Harvest Bible Chapel is trusting you, and it's not even, hey, North Pittsburgh needs you.

  06:15-06:21

  God has given you this calling, and God is trusting you to be faithful with it.

  06:27-06:29

  If you're a leader, you've got to see yourself like that.

  06:30-06:36

  I mean, imagine if I entrusted you with this giant pile of money.

  06:36-06:41

  I just had this giant stack of cash, and I said, "Look, hey, I'm going to give this to you.

  06:42-07:00

  "What I want you to do is tomorrow, "I want you to go across the street to the bank, "and you're going to meet Jillian there, "and she's going to wire this money to Thailand." Now listen, this is very important because you realize there are so many families over there that we support.

  07:01-07:07

  And those families and their children and the ministry, everything depends on them getting this money.

  07:07-07:11

  If I handed you that money, I'm trusting you with it, what are you doing with it?

  07:12-07:14

  You ain't going to the casino with it.

  07:17-07:25

  You ain't gonna set it down and say, "Well, I'll just leave it there, "I'll come back for it later." You'd be like, "No, no, no, Pastor Jeff, entrusted this to me.

  07:25-07:31

  Pastor Jeff trusts me enough that he gave me this money because he's trusting me to get it where it needs to go.

  07:33-07:34

  And do you see the point?

  07:36-07:39

  God has entrusted something to us.

  07:41-07:46

  See, God says, hey, people are sinful and selfish and rebellious and wayward and they're heading to hell.

  07:47-07:49

  But God says, I have this glorious gospel.

  07:49-07:59

  I have this, you know, this account of my son who died and rose from the dead, died to take away sin and rose from the dead to give eternal life.

  07:59-08:06

  I have this gospel message and God could, He could broadcast it from the sky.

  08:06-08:08

  He could write it in the clouds if He wanted.

  08:08-08:10

  He could do whatever He wanted, but you know what He's chosen to do?

  08:11-08:13

  He's chosen to say, look, I'm entrusting this to you.

  08:14-08:16

  I'm giving this to you.

  08:16-08:19

  I'm trusting you to be faithful with this.

  08:24-08:33

  And if you're in ministry, any type of leadership, you're gonna follow Paul's example here and take it to that level of seriousness.

  08:34-08:39

  That, hey, I'm not doing this because, hey, there's people down at the church kinda wanting me to help out.

  08:39-08:42

  So God's trusting you with this.

  08:45-08:48

  And listen, when you're in ministry, hard times are going to come.

  08:49-08:50

  It's not always fun.

  08:54-08:55

  And it's easy to bail.

  08:58-09:05

  It's easy to bail when it gets rough or when people go sideways on you or all the complaining wears you out.

  09:05-09:06

  It's easy to say, you know what?

  09:06-09:08

  I don't even know why I'm doing this.

  09:08-09:10

  Here's why we're doing this.

  09:10-09:13

  This is because God's entrusting us with the ministry.

  09:17-09:20

  That's what's going to motivate me to stay with it when it isn't fun.

  09:20-09:22

  That's what's going to motivate me to go the extra mile.

  09:23-09:27

  That's what's going to motivate me to serve the King of Heaven with excellence.

  09:27-09:28

  He's trusting me.

  09:30-09:32

  You've got to see yourself that way if you're in ministry.

  09:34-09:39

  God is trusting me with this ministry.

  09:40-09:43

  Finally, five must for church leaders.

  09:43-09:48

  You must see yourself as entrusted by God, but also you must be pouring into specific people.

  09:51-09:56

  Again, these first two, they're just following Paul's example, but look at verses four and five.

  09:56-10:03

  He says to Titus, "My true child in a common faith, "grace and peace from God the Father "and Christ Jesus our Savior.

  10:05-10:15

  "This is why I left you in Crete, that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

  10:18-10:21

  Paul tells Titus he needs to appoint elders.

  10:23-10:29

  Here again, very clearly in God's word, this is how God says his church is to be led.

  10:30-10:34

  Elders, plural, shepherding the church.

  10:36-10:38

  That is the biblical model for church leadership.

  10:39-10:41

  Okay, not voting.

  10:42-10:44

  You don't see voting anywhere in scripture.

  10:44-10:50

  That's an American democracy concept that we try to force upon the church.

  10:50-10:57

  Everybody gets to say, look, like Lee Greenwood, I'm proud to be an American, right?

  10:57-10:58

  Do you want me to sing that?

  10:58-11:00

  I'm not going to, but yay America.

  11:00-11:04

  But that idea of democracy, it's just not biblical.

  11:06-11:07

  You don't see it in Scripture.

  11:09-11:12

  Nor do you see one man running the show.

  11:13-11:23

  And I've seen so much damage in churches where it's one guy calling all the shots, no questions asked, you know, get in line or get out.

  11:26-11:27

  That's not the biblical model either.

  11:29-11:34

  The biblical model also is not secular business strategists.

  11:34-11:45

  Let's get people who know how to build a corporation and we'll do these corporate events and these secular leadership things and who's up for a trust fall?

  11:45-11:47

  Like that's not it either.

  11:49-11:51

  Is anyone up for a trust fall?

  11:53-11:55

  You're like, no, because Jay didn't wash his hands.

  12:01-12:01

  (congregation laughing)

  12:01-12:04

  Biblically, here's how leadership happens in the church.

  12:05-12:09

  Holy Spirit filled men shepherding the church.

  12:10-12:13

  That's the biblical model of leadership for the church.

  12:15-12:22

  Acts 20, verse 28 says, "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock." Look at this next phrase.

  12:23-12:26

  This is Paul speaking to the Ephesian elders, by the way.

  12:27-12:49

  He says, "Pay careful attention to yourselves "and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which He obtained with His own blood." So, the Holy Spirit is the one who, He prepares and equips people for leadership, for eldership.

  12:51-12:58

  It's our job just to recognize and affirm those whom the Holy Spirit is preparing and equipping.

  12:59-13:06

  That's why at this church, if you're new here, or maybe you've been around and just haven't heard this spiel, this is how leadership works in this church.

  13:06-13:16

  We have a group of elders, a group of biblically qualified, spirit-filled men who are in charge of doctrine, discipline, and direction of the church.

  13:17-13:17

  Those are the elders.

  13:18-13:21

  We also have a ministry team.

  13:21-13:27

  Those are leaders that lead the teams that carry out the work of the ministry.

  13:27-13:39

  That's worship, that's hospitality and children's, all the various ministries, they all have a leader that oversees the discipleship and the work done in each ministry.

  13:40-13:43

  We covered that way back in Acts chapter six.

  13:43-13:47

  You see people were appointed to carry out the work of the ministry.

  13:47-13:49

  Some churches call them deacons.

  13:49-13:51

  In our church, we call them the ministry team.

  13:51-13:52

  It's the same role.

  13:56-14:01

  But that's how the Bible tells us as a church that we should be led.

  14:03-14:19

  If you're a leader, what I want you to see here is that Paul is showing us by example, one of your primary jobs as a leader, you have to be intentional about discipleship.

  14:21-14:25

  In other words, you need to be pouring into someone specifically?

  14:29-14:30

  Because Paul had Titus.

  14:33-14:35

  Now, let me ask you this.

  14:37-14:43

  Could Paul himself have appointed the elders at Crete, got everything what remained in order?

  14:43-14:45

  Could Paul himself have done that?

  14:45-14:46

  Of course he could have.

  14:49-14:52

  But then what about Ephesus?

  14:52-14:53

  What about Thessalonica?

  14:53-14:54

  What about Corinth?

  14:57-15:03

  You see, the gospel was spreading and people were coming to Christ and the ministry was growing.

  15:03-15:06

  Paul couldn't be everywhere doing everything.

  15:06-15:08

  That's why he had Titus.

  15:09-15:10

  That's why he had Timothy.

  15:10-15:11

  That's why he had Apollos.

  15:11-15:17

  He was multiplying himself by pouring into them so more kingdom work could be done.

  15:19-15:20

  See, Paul had Titus.

  15:21-15:25

  And if you're a leader in this church, I have to ask you, who do you have?

  15:26-15:35

  At any time, leader in the church, somebody should be able to come up to you and say, "Who are you pouring into?" And you should be able to give a name.

  15:36-15:48

  You should be able to say somebody specifically, not something generic like, "Well, I have some people on my team and I'm kind of..." You should have somebody that you can name like Titus, like that guy.

  15:48-15:49

  That's the guy that I'm pouring into.

  15:50-15:54

  That's the guy that I'm reproducing, you know, this ministry role.

  15:54-16:01

  I'm teaching him everything so that if something happens to me and I can't be here or whatever, this guy can do it all.

  16:01-16:04

  You should have somebody like that in your ministry.

  16:06-16:15

  The mission of this church is to make disciples and leaders, that's a primary function of your job, pouring into specific people.

  16:17-16:18

  The church is growing.

  16:19-16:29

  And the only way that it's going to continue to grow in a healthy way is if you leaders are pouring into specific people.

  16:31-16:34

  All right, so these first two, these are more by example, right?

  16:34-16:40

  This is things that are must for leaders because we see it in the Apostle Paul.

  16:41-16:46

  But what follows, we go from example to commission.

  16:50-16:55

  He has a high standard, God's word has a high standard for leadership, right?

  16:55-16:56

  We're not just looking for warm bodies.

  17:00-17:02

  So five musts for church leaders.

  17:05-17:07

  Paul tells Titus, you gotta appoint some elders.

  17:07-17:10

  Like who, who should I appoint?

  17:11-17:13

  Let's get specific here, number three.

  17:14-17:15

  Here's a must for a leader.

  17:16-17:20

  If you're a leader in this church, you must start in your home.

  17:24-17:26

  You must start in your home.

  17:27-17:33

  Your ministry starts in your home.

  17:36-17:37

  You understand that?

  17:39-17:43

  Your ministry starts in your home.

  17:45-17:47

  Like, why do you keep saying that?

  17:48-17:52

  Because I think a lot of people in ministry get this idea like, I'm doing this for God.

  17:55-18:02

  And the stuff that I'm doing for God in the church is the most important thing, and home is secondary.

  18:02-18:17

  And you know what, my wife is just gonna have to understand, and my kids are just gonna have to understand, And if they feel like they're second in my life, well, they're just gonna have to understand that because my primary ministry is in that church.

  18:17-18:18

  That is not biblical.

  18:23-18:24

  It has to start in your home.

  18:26-18:28

  Look at what he says, first part of verse six.

  18:30-18:34

  He says, again, qualifications for eldership.

  18:35-18:38

  All leaders really need to pay close attention.

  18:38-18:42

  Every follower of Christ needs to pay attention, right?

  18:43-18:53

  He says, "If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife," stop there, the husband of one wife.

  18:55-18:59

  You're like, is Paul saying that you have to be married to be an elder?

  18:59-19:03

  No, because he could have just said an elder has to be married.

  19:04-19:06

  But this is a very interesting phrase in the Greek.

  19:07-19:10

  Literally, he's saying, an elder should be a one woman man.

  19:14-19:24

  Meaning elders in the church, it should be obvious to all of us that you only have eyes and affection for one woman.

  19:25-19:27

  And that's the one you're married to.

  19:29-19:30

  It has to start there.

  19:34-19:37

  What it means, leaders, you're not flirtatious.

  19:39-19:41

  Not in your conversations.

  19:43-19:47

  Not in sending suggestive Facebook messages or texts.

  19:48-19:59

  Something that, you know, flirty, winky face, smiley face emoji, just trying to test the waters to see how flirty we can get.

  19:59-20:01

  That is completely inappropriate.

  20:04-20:05

  You're a one-woman man.

  20:10-20:11

  Your ministry starts in your home.

  20:12-20:13

  Look at what he says going on in verse 6.

  20:17-20:33

  He says, "And his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination." He says, "If you're a leader in the church, elders, "that means your home has to be in order.

  20:34-20:41

  "You can't lead a congregation "if you can't even lead your family." Right?

  20:42-20:44

  That's what he says, 1 Timothy 3, 5.

  20:45-20:48

  This is Paul telling another pastor, same message.

  20:48-21:13

  "For if someone does not know how to manage "his own household, how will he care for God's church?" So you see, when you're evaluating an elder, when somebody is being considered to come on as an elder, the question is, well, can he lead confidently?

  21:13-21:16

  Can he disciple people?

  21:20-21:22

  The first group you have to look at are his children.

  21:23-21:25

  Like, well, is he discipling them?

  21:29-21:36

  And right now, you know, as many of you know, like about a third of our church is little children.

  21:37-21:40

  And right now I can see a look of panic on a lot of people's faces.

  21:42-21:49

  Because there's some young dads out there right now looking at me, with that look, and they're like, I'm never gonna be able to be an elder.

  21:50-21:58

  And Pastor Jeff knows this because he's been back in the kids ministry, and he knows, he knows my kids are wild.

  22:00-22:01

  I'll never be an elder here.

  22:01-22:07

  Look, calm down here, because look at what he says.

  22:08-22:24

  Again, verse six, he says, "The children are believers "and not open to the charge of debauchery "or insubordination." In other words, he's not talking about toddlers, okay?

  22:25-22:31

  It's not like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, my kid spilled juice on the church carpet.

  22:31-22:34

  Now I can never be an elder." He's not talking about that.

  22:36-22:38

  He's talking beyond the toddler years.

  22:40-22:44

  When things like debauchery and insubordination are possible.

  22:46-22:56

  when your kids take a hard, rebellious stance, when they live a wild lifestyle.

  22:58-23:22

  Look, if you can't disciple in your home, if you have no discipleship influence on the people that you are closest to, the people you spend most of your time with, If you can't make disciples in your most important relationships on this earth, then you are going to be no good in here.

  23:25-23:28

  So leaders, listen, your home is your resume.

  23:31-23:35

  And if you're sitting here and you're like, yeah, someday I wanna be a leader in the church.

  23:35-23:39

  If you're aspiring to leadership, here's where you gotta start.

  23:39-23:40

  You gotta get to work in your home.

  23:43-23:44

  Five must for church leaders.

  23:44-23:48

  Number four, you must be blameless in your walk.

  23:52-23:55

  Okay, we need leaders, we need good leaders.

  23:55-23:56

  What are we looking for?

  23:56-24:08

  Well, before skill, before talent, before any resources that you may have, number one is you must be godly.

  24:12-24:19

  You must demonstrate that you have an intentional, committed walk with Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

  24:22-24:27

  By the way, he says the same thing to deacons of the ministry team.

  24:28-24:30

  Same thing in 1 Timothy 3, verse 10.

  24:34-24:42

  But before you can help somebody else with their walk, You have to have a strong and sincere walk with the Lord.

  24:42-24:45

  You can't lead somebody to where you are not.

  24:48-24:52

  We should see Christ's likeness in your character, if you're a leader.

  24:54-24:58

  You're like, "Christ's likeness, "can you be more specific about that?" Sure.

  24:59-25:05

  He gives five negatives and six positives in what follow.

  25:06-25:09

  And I just plan on spending 15 or 20 minutes on each of these.

  25:11-25:13

  You're laughing like you think I'm kidding.

  25:16-25:18

  No, each one of these could be a sermon.

  25:20-25:21

  But that's really not the point.

  25:24-25:25

  Look at the big picture here.

  25:26-25:27

  First of all, five negatives.

  25:28-25:30

  In other words, don't be this guy, all right?

  25:30-25:30

  Don't be this guy.

  25:32-25:33

  Don't be this guy.

  25:33-25:48

  Verse seven, he says, "For an overseer as God's steward "must be above reproach, he must not be arrogant." First of all, don't be arrogant.

  25:49-25:56

  That's, it's all about me, it's my will, regardless of how it affects you.

  25:56-25:59

  I'm the most important person here, everyone should cater to me.

  26:01-26:05

  My ways and thoughts are always best, And if you don't agree with me, you're obviously stupid.

  26:06-26:07

  And that's arrogant.

  26:09-26:10

  And that's unbecoming of a leader.

  26:12-26:20

  Secondly, he says, or quick-tempered, short fuse, easily provoked.

  26:21-26:23

  As soon as things don't go his way, he snaps.

  26:27-26:29

  No place for an elder.

  26:30-26:31

  He says, or a drunkard.

  26:32-26:34

  It's an interesting phrase in the Greek.

  26:34-26:39

  It's literally continually alongside wine.

  26:42-26:44

  It's just like, oh, you're an elder in the church.

  26:44-26:46

  I didn't even know that.

  26:46-26:47

  I didn't recognize you without a beer in your hand.

  26:48-26:50

  Like that's not, it's not appropriate.

  26:51-26:53

  A leader shouldn't be known as a boozer.

  26:55-26:58

  He goes on, he says, we're violent.

  26:59-27:00

  I mean, that's pretty obvious, right?

  27:01-27:02

  That's pretty obvious.

  27:05-27:13

  You know, it shouldn't be, you know, we'll settle things in the ring.

  27:14-27:14

  No.

  27:15-27:22

  I think that's pretty obvious, but I think maybe sometimes less obvious is violence with words, right?

  27:24-27:26

  I think a lot of leaders are guilty of that.

  27:27-27:28

  Violent with your words.

  27:30-27:40

  You know, as a leader, you should be known, as a follower of Christ, you should be known as a peacemaker, not somebody constantly ready to fight.

  27:41-27:42

  It's not appropriate.

  27:46-27:48

  And next is a greedy for gain.

  27:50-27:51

  Greedy for gain.

  27:54-27:57

  Some people see ministry as a way to get rich.

  27:58-28:01

  So Paul's like, first of all, don't be that guy.

  28:02-28:07

  Instead, verse eight, be this guy, all right?

  28:08-28:09

  Verse eight, be what guy?

  28:09-28:11

  He says, but hospitable.

  28:13-28:13

  Hospitable.

  28:16-28:19

  Hospitable means you're willing to use your resources to help anyone in need.

  28:21-28:26

  And I'm always amazed in this church at how hospitable so many people are.

  28:29-28:33

  and taking other children into their home and pursuing adoption.

  28:34-28:37

  I was talking to Ryan Stroop last night and he was blown away.

  28:37-28:40

  A lot of you know they're fostering a baby.

  28:41-28:47

  And the support from the church has been almost overwhelming to them.

  28:49-29:00

  He said, "Can you tell the church?" I said, "Thanks." And I said, "I can think of a good place to do that." But you see, it's being hospitable, using your resources to help people in need.

  29:03-29:06

  Next he says, verse eight, be this guy a lover of good.

  29:10-29:12

  Probably don't need to explain that one, do I?

  29:14-29:17

  You sincerely love the things that God loves, right?

  29:18-29:20

  It's not a show, it's not a double life.

  29:20-29:22

  You sincerely love the things that God loves.

  29:23-29:24

  Lover of good, right?

  29:27-29:32

  And next he says, self-controlled, sober-minded.

  29:32-29:38

  You're not an addict to sex or substance or stuff.

  29:39-29:47

  You're just, you're consistent and you're steady in your words, in your temper, in your conduct.

  29:48-29:50

  You have yourself under control.

  29:53-29:57

  Next he says upright, that's, you're just.

  29:58-29:59

  You're just what?

  29:59-30:02

  You're just, you're fair.

  30:05-30:07

  You're always seeking to do the right thing.

  30:09-30:10

  Like what would God want here?

  30:10-30:12

  What's the right thing to do here?

  30:12-30:16

  Not what's best for me or what's to my advantage.

  30:16-30:18

  It's what would God say about this?

  30:18-30:19

  That's being upright.

  30:22-30:29

  Next he says, "Holy." Not worldly, but rather an imitator of God, holy.

  30:32-30:35

  And he says, "I'm disciplined." You're intentional about your walk.

  30:36-30:37

  You're intentional.

  30:37-30:38

  I'm disciplined.

  30:40-30:41

  I'm in the word.

  30:42-30:42

  I'm in prayer.

  30:43-30:44

  I fast.

  30:44-30:47

  I meditate on God's word.

  30:47-30:53

  I have personal spiritual disciplines that I'm constantly pursuing because I love God.

  30:53-30:59

  And this is, my primary concern is my walk with Jesus.

  31:00-31:02

  Should be a natural thing for an elder in the church.

  31:05-31:15

  Now, again, every one of these things could be a sermon, but really, honestly, they're all summed up in a phrase that he uses twice.

  31:17-31:20

  once in verse six and once in verse seven.

  31:21-31:25

  And that phrase is above reproach.

  31:28-31:29

  That means blameless.

  31:30-31:34

  That means there's no room for any accusation against you.

  31:35-31:36

  That's what it means.

  31:38-31:40

  Please hear me, it doesn't mean sinless.

  31:43-31:44

  None of us are sinless.

  31:47-31:50

  We all struggle with something to some degree, right?

  31:52-31:52

  Right?

  31:53-31:54

  Just me, really?

  31:56-31:57

  You're like, we've been waiting to tell you.

  31:58-31:59

  Now's the time.

  32:00-32:03

  Am I the only one that still struggles?

  32:03-32:05

  Sometimes I'm not the person that I want to be?

  32:06-32:10

  Okay, thank you for not leaving me up here after that gentle prodding.

  32:15-32:16

  What does it mean to be above reproach?

  32:19-32:24

  That means that you're living in such a way that people don't call your walk with Christ into question.

  32:27-32:32

  It means there's nothing in your life that somebody could point to and say, "That guy's a leader in the church, really?

  32:33-32:34

  "That guy's a leader in the church.

  32:35-32:43

  "You mean that church doesn't care that he does?" That's living above reproach.

  32:44-32:47

  And right now you're like, yeah, yeah, you know what?

  32:47-32:49

  Yeah, but people shouldn't judge.

  32:52-32:54

  People shouldn't do a lot of things.

  32:57-32:58

  But this isn't about them.

  32:59-33:00

  This is about you.

  33:01-33:03

  This is about your integrity.

  33:03-33:12

  This is about you taking the high road whenever possible so that the work of Christ and his church isn't hindered by your foolish behavior.

  33:15-33:21

  And by the way, if your attitude is, "I don't really care what people think about me," that's an extremely immature attitude.

  33:23-33:26

  And I might look cute as a meme on Facebook, but that doesn't wash biblically.

  33:29-33:31

  We are to live above reproach.

  33:31-33:33

  You absolutely should care what people think about you.

  33:37-33:38

  Living above reproach.

  33:39-33:40

  You must be blameless in your walk.

  33:40-33:44

  And then finally, you must love God's word.

  33:45-33:46

  Look at verse nine.

  33:49-34:16

  It says, "He must hold firm to the trustworthy word "as taught, "so that he may be able to give instruction "and sound doctrine, "and also to rebuke those who contradict it." Hold firm, committed to the authority of God's word, committed to the teaching of God's word, committed to the protection of God's word.

  34:16-34:23

  All of that stuff naturally happens when you love God's word.

  34:26-34:30

  Listen, leaders, you have to personally be in God's word yourself.

  34:31-34:33

  And I don't just mean for lesson prep.

  34:34-34:45

  If the sum total of your time in the word of God is because you're preparing a Bible study or a small group or you're teaching in kids, if that's the sum total of your Bible study, that's a problem.

  34:49-34:57

  If you're not growing in your knowledge of God's word and your excitement for God's word, I have to ask, what are you discipling people with?

  34:58-34:59

  What are you discipling people to?

  35:03-35:09

  And I have a whole lot more that I could say about the word of God and handling it.

  35:10-35:13

  Pastor Taylor's going to be covering that next week.

  35:15-35:16

  I certainly don't wanna steal his thunder, right?

  35:20-35:25

  But listen, being a leader in the church is a high calling.

  35:29-35:33

  It's hard work and it's long hours.

  35:36-35:39

  And it's often a thankless job.

  35:40-35:47

  Leaders, I promise you, nobody truly understands how much time you spend.

  35:51-35:57

  People show up to eat the meal, but they don't see the work that was done in the kitchen.

  35:59-36:04

  And whatever ministry you're in, no one will understand what you put into that.

  36:08-36:09

  Leaders, people can be cranky.

  36:11-36:12

  People can be hard to work with.

  36:14-36:14

  I mean, I've heard.

  36:21-36:44

  But, when we turn our eyes on the love of Jesus Christ, When we consider his sacrifice and his glorious promises that he has for us, when we see what we saw here last week with people making their public profession of faith in Jesus Christ and baptism, when we see lives that are forever changed by the gospel, let me tell you something else about leadership.

  36:47-36:48

  It's worth it.

  36:50-36:51

  Because Jesus.

  36:53-36:54

  Is worth.

  36:55-36:58

  I'd like to call up the worship team at this time.

  36:59-37:01

  If you'd make your way forward.

  37:04-37:09

  And I would also like to call up our elders and our ministry team leaders.

  37:11-37:13

  Hopefully you were notified of this ahead of time.

  37:16-37:24

  But I would like our elders to come up on the platform and I would like our ministry team leaders to stand up here in front of the platform.

  37:30-37:35

  Because as has been said, we are embarking on a new year of ministry.

  37:35-37:36

  Our year starts in October.

  37:39-37:51

  And as God's word talks specifically about leaders, we wanted to take this opportunity to pray for our leaders.

  37:55-37:59

  Regarding our elders, we have a bit of a change.

  38:03-38:08

  Don Saber is stepping down, and he's going to be pursuing other areas of ministry.

  38:08-38:13

  And I would like us as a church to honor and thank Don for his leadership.

  38:13-38:14

  Dawn, if you would stand.

  38:33-38:39

  We love you, Dawn, and I've told you, and I'm sure I'll get an amen, but you're like everybody's dad here.

  38:40-38:41

  Can I get an amen?

  38:41-38:42

  Amen.

  38:42-38:44

  So thank you, Dawn.

  38:44-38:48

  We look forward to your continued service and influence in this church.

  38:48-38:51

  Thank you for all that you've done, and will continue to do.

  38:53-38:59

  So as Dawn is stepping down, we do have one new elder stepping up in Pastor Taylor.

  39:00-39:03

  And you can evaluate for yourself if that was a good trade-off.

  39:04-39:04

  (congregation laughing)

  39:09-39:13

  And regarding our ministry team, there is something new with our ministry team.

  39:13-39:19

  We are now asking for a one-year commitment from all of our ministry team leaders, one year at a time.

  39:20-39:20

  Why?

  39:20-39:27

  Because as elders, we realized we didn't have a good off-ramp for leaders.

  39:28-39:34

  Almost like if you were leading a ministry, you're doing that until you dead or Christ comes back.

  39:35-39:37

  But what was the convenient off-ramp?

  39:37-39:38

  So we thought, you know what?

  39:39-39:41

  People go through different stages of life, right?

  39:41-39:48

  All of a sudden you're newlyweds and then you have, you know, like a year later, you have like 20 kids and there's different seasons of life.

  39:50-39:55

  So we thought it'd be good to give leaders a chance to step back, maybe to do some ministry in their home.

  39:58-40:06

  So, Mike Wolski, we want to thank you for all of your work in the, leading the AV ministry.

  40:07-40:12

  You've been such a faithful and hardworking servant of Christ.

  40:12-40:14

  And Mike is stepping down from the leader of AV.

  40:15-40:16

  So let's honor Mike and thank him for his time.

  40:18-40:18

  (congregation applauding)

  40:27-40:28

  Thank you, Mike.

  40:29-40:32

  And we have some new ministry leaders stepping up.

  40:32-40:34

  And those ones I've asked to be on the platform, I hope they are.

  40:35-40:39

  James Murphy is going to be taking over the lead of AV.

  40:39-40:39

  Oh, there you are over there.

  40:40-40:41

  You're a hard guy to miss.

  40:42-40:44

  He's gonna be leading our AV ministry.

  40:45-40:49

  Mackenzie Blasco is going to be heading up our hospitality ministry.

  40:51-40:56

  And Ashley Satterwhite is officially leading our worship ministry.

  40:57-41:00

  So we wanna pray for all of our leaders.

  41:02-41:04

  As we saw in God's word today, It's a high calling.

  41:07-41:11

  And there is a lot that could derail, and there's a lot that can distract.

  41:14-41:19

  And we all need your prayers to be faithful to the mission that Christ has called us to.

  41:20-41:24

  So I had asked if Mark or if you would pray over our elders.

  41:26-41:28

  Somebody hand him a microphone, please.

  41:31-41:44

  And then after Mark prays over our elders, I asked Pastor Taylor if he would pray over our ministry team, and I would like the elders if we could lay hands on the ministry team leaders while Pastor Taylor prays.

  41:44-41:45

  So go ahead, Mark.

  41:45-41:46

  Lead us in prayer, brother.

Small Group Discussion
Read Titus 1:1-9

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. How would you define “leadership”? What characteristics do you personally look for in church leaders?
   

3. Are these principles for elders only for church leaders, or are they for every believer in Christ? Explain your position.
   

4. How should you confront a church leader who isn’t living by the guidelines Paul laid out for church leadership?

Breakout
Pray for the leaders of HBC!

What Do I Need to Remember?

Introduction:

Solomon's Study Guide for Ecclesiastes:
(Ecclesiastes 12:9-14)

1. My search for wisdom Will be Painful and Satisfying . (Eccl 12:9-12)

2. My life is all about WWorshipping and Obeying the Lord. (Eccl 12:13)

   Ecclesiastes 12:13 - The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

3. My thoughts, words, and actions are Eternally Significant . (Eccl 12:14)

   David Gibson - "Ecclesiastes says that a day is coming when some people will discover that they are not ready for the most important event in the world. And it won’t be a dream. Their life has been one long exercise in avoiding reality and ignoring what is coming toward them – death and judgment are coming."

   2 Corinthians 5:10 - For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:46-00:49

  All right, Ecclesiastes chapter 12.

  00:50-00:53

  Yeah, we're about a month in to a new school year.

  00:54-01:01

  And seeing all these kids head back into the classroom, it's made me really happy that I've retired from the academic part of my life.

  01:01-01:07

  It's hard for me to believe that almost three years ago, I graduated from seminary.

  01:07-01:13

  And I was basically in school my entire life from four years old until 29 years old.

  01:13-01:16

  So by the time I graduated, I was basically in 25th grade.

  01:17-01:25

  And I couldn't wait to never study for another test again, never write another research paper, or endure another brutal finals week.

  01:26-01:28

  Who used to get really stressed out during finals week?

  01:28-01:29

  Anybody else besides me?

  01:30-01:31

  Not many people, okay.

  01:31-01:37

  Well, during finals week, I used to really love the teachers, the professors that would give you a study guide.

  01:37-01:39

  Who else really loved study guides?

  01:39-01:46

  Now, study guides should tell you exactly What you should focus on is you prepare for a test, right?

  01:47-01:53

  But sometimes, you follow a study guide to the letter and it doesn't help you at all.

  01:53-01:58

  The teacher passes out the exam, you look at the first page and you think, this is gonna be really bad.

  01:59-02:02

  Don't know the answer to that one, don't know that one, don't know that one.

  02:02-02:03

  Oh wait, I know that one.

  02:03-02:03

  Actually, I don't.

  02:04-02:18

  You turn to the next page hoping it'll be better, but somehow even worse, and you get that sinking feeling in your stomach, that pin the needle sensation in your legs 'cause you know you're about to blow this really important test.

  02:19-02:23

  I found a meme that perfectly describes misleading study guides.

  02:23-02:24

  I'm gonna share with you.

  02:26-02:32

  What I study and things on the exam, it's like the exact opposite, the flip of what you're supposed to be studying.

  02:34-02:35

  Some of you are just getting the meme right now.

  02:37-02:44

  Like I said earlier, a good study guide tells you exactly what to focus your time and attention upon as you get ready for a test.

  02:45-02:48

  Well, this morning, we're going to wrap up our study of the book of Ecclesiastes.

  02:49-02:57

  And Solomon was very gracious to us, and he chose to give us a study guide that covers all the things we need to remember going forward.

  02:58-03:06

  He reminds us of all the things we need to remember about this book, our lives, and eternity itself.

  03:07-03:10

  So let's go over Solomon's study guide for Ecclesiastes.

  03:11-03:17

  Number one in the study guide, my search for wisdom will be painful and satisfying.

  03:17-03:21

  My search for wisdom will be painful and satisfying.

  03:24-03:35

  So Ecclesiastes 12, nine through 12, Solomon says this, "Besides being wise, the preacher also taught the people "knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging "many Proverbs with great care.

  03:36-03:41

  "The preacher sought to find words of delight, "and uprightly he wrote words of truth.

  03:42-03:47

  "The words of the wise are like goads and like nails, "firmly fixed are the collected sayings.

  03:48-03:50

  "They are given by one shepherd.

  03:50-04:07

  "My son, beware of anything beyond these, "of making many books there is no end, "and much study is a weariness of the flesh." So once again, Solomon talks to us in the third person, refers to himself as the preacher.

  04:08-04:11

  I don't know about you, but I get really annoyed when people talk about themselves in the third person.

  04:11-04:13

  Maybe else besides me, "Oh, Taylor's really hungry.

  04:13-04:19

  "Taylor's annoyed, don't get Taylor started." If you talk like that, I love you, but just knock it out.

  04:19-04:21

  Come on, just talk like a normal person.

  04:22-04:26

  But Solomon isn't trying to annoy us by talking in the third person.

  04:26-04:33

  He's reminding us that he is a preacher with an important message that cannot and should not be ignored.

  04:34-04:42

  Solomon says that he spent a countless number of hours pursuing after wisdom and writing down these wise sayings.

  04:43-04:46

  How many Proverbs do you think Solomon came up with over the course of his life?

  04:47-04:48

  Who wants to throw out a number?

  04:48-04:48

  Anybody?

  04:50-04:50

  150?

  04:51-04:52

  Thousand?

  04:53-04:55

  It's actually 3,000.

  04:56-05:02

  We're told in 1 Kings 4.32 that his Proverbs were 3,000 and his songs were 1,005.

  05:02-05:09

  So why did Solomon spend so much of his life seeking after wisdom or writing down these wise sayings?

  05:09-05:25

  Well, he tells us in verse 10, "The preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth." Solomon knows that submitting to the truth and choosing wisdom leads to lasting happiness and satisfaction.

  05:26-06:03

  You know, God doesn't tell us what to think, speak, say, and do because he wants to make us miserable people, he lays out the path of wisdom before us so that we can live life to the fullest and avoid the potholes of foolishness. But if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you know that the path of wisdom isn't easy to travel. It's filled with unexpected detours and challenges. And Solomon gives us a really unexpected comparison in verse 11. He says this, "The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings.

  06:03-07:03

  They are given by one shepherd." So according to Solomon, wise sayings are like goads. If you're like me, you're thinking, "Well, what is a goad?" Well, a goad is a sharp stick used by a farmer or a shepherd to keep their animals on track, to keep them in the right direction. I believe we have pictures to show you what they actually look like. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are all dumb sheep who constantly get distracted and wander off the path that God has laid out for us. We can become very lazy. We can become very unintentional in our walk with the Lord. We can get stuck in this seemingly unending cycle of making the same simple decision over and over and over again. We Thankfully, our loving heavenly shepherd will use the wisdom of his word to lovingly yet firmly correct us.

  07:04-07:13

  My wife Kate and I have a golden retriever named Murdoch, and he's a lovable goofball, but he can be insane at times, especially on a walk.

  07:13-07:18

  If we're on a walk and he sees a dog that he wants to sniff or play with, he'll just bolt in their direction.

  07:18-07:22

  Or there's this one dog on our street named Athena, it's a Corgi, he hates her.

  07:22-07:24

  He drives him absolutely bonkers.

  07:25-07:27

  So he has a special harness that we take on walks.

  07:27-07:35

  And whenever I tug it, it pulls his legs together, it constricts his movement, and stops him dead in his tracks and keeps him on mission.

  07:35-07:37

  It keeps him on track.

  07:38-07:43

  Now, I don't do this to torture my dog, but I do it to help him.

  07:43-07:47

  I use it to help him go in the right direction.

  07:48-07:59

  In the same way, a goat was never meant to injure or torture an animal, but a shepherd had to inflict some discomfort, some pain, to get the attention of their flocks.

  08:00-08:05

  And as our Heavenly Father, as our Heavenly Shepherd, God can't always handle us with kid gloves.

  08:06-08:08

  Sometimes He has to use pain.

  08:08-08:11

  He has to use discomfort to get our attention.

  08:12-08:18

  Maybe this painful reminder from God is a friend lovingly coming to you and calling you out about something in your life that you shouldn't be doing.

  08:19-08:25

  instead of resisting this helpful word, choose to change and repent.

  08:26-08:36

  Maybe recently God's pulled out the rug from underneath your feet, and he's taken away something in your life that became an idol or took his rightful place on the throne of your heart.

  08:37-08:42

  Or maybe you feel a big wave of conviction as I'm preaching this message.

  08:42-08:47

  As I'm speaking, the Holy Spirit is speaking to you about something that you need to change in a specific way.

  08:48-08:53

  Maybe he's calling you to change how you speak to and about your spouse.

  08:54-09:00

  Maybe he's telling you to stop looking at those websites that you have no business looking at.

  09:01-09:10

  Or maybe he's telling you to stop making lame excuses for why you can't spend more time with him, why you can't serve his church, why you can't reach out to the lost.

  09:12-09:17

  Because choosing to change is hard, but it leads to lasting happiness.

  09:18-09:23

  While choosing to not change is really easy, but it's going to lead you to misery.

  09:24-09:33

  Solomon's words throughout Ecclesiastes are hard, and they're difficult to accept at times, but they're also filled with hope and will lead us to true satisfaction.

  09:34-09:39

  So remember, the 12 chapters of this book aren't just Solomon's own thoughts and opinions.

  09:40-09:46

  They're the wise and authoritative words of our heavenly shepherd who wants to lead us in the right direction.

  09:47-09:50

  So many people in this life are completely directionless.

  09:51-09:53

  That's not true of us as followers of Christ, amen?

  09:55-10:03

  Second, on our Ecclesiastes study guide, my life is all about worshiping and obeying the Lord.

  10:05-10:10

  My life is all about worshiping and obeying the Lord.

  10:11-10:17

  You know, I was thinking this past week, what do you think is the question that most people want answered in this life?

  10:18-10:25

  There's a lot of questions that we want answered, but there's one in particular that we all have asked, maybe we're asking now.

  10:25-10:28

  And this question is, what is my purpose?

  10:29-10:30

  What is my purpose?

  10:30-10:34

  In other words, why am I here, and what should I be doing?

  10:35-10:42

  And you'll hear this seemingly great, but ultimately hollow expression, oh, well, you just need to find your own purpose.

  10:42-10:43

  It's your own personal journey.

  10:43-10:52

  and you need to find what's meaningful for you, pop in any Disney animated movie that will basically be the message of that movie, I guarantee you.

  10:53-10:54

  But why is that bad advice?

  10:54-11:01

  It's bad advice because you're being told to find your meaning, your value, and your purpose within yourself.

  11:02-11:07

  Simply put, your purpose is to do whatever you want to do.

  11:09-11:12

  Again, we always hear people say, "We'll never know truly why we're here.

  11:12-11:14

  We said try to find something that's meaningful.

  11:16-11:20

  Again, that sounds really appealing, but it's really depressing when you think about it.

  11:21-11:27

  If that's true, we were born into this life with no instruction manual, with no guide to tell us what to do.

  11:27-11:31

  That puts a lot of weight, a lot of pressure on your shoulders.

  11:32-11:35

  Ultimately, your life becomes all about you.

  11:36-11:38

  You're the final source of authority in your life.

  11:39-11:40

  And that's a really scary place to be.

  11:42-11:45

  Thankfully, the Bible has a lot to say about purpose.

  11:45-11:48

  And Solomon clearly lays out our purpose in verse 13.

  11:48-11:51

  He says this, "The end of the matter, all has been heard.

  11:52-12:05

  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." So Solomon goes against the grain of our culture and he tells us purpose isn't found within ourselves.

  12:05-12:08

  It's actually found outside of ourselves.

  12:09-12:17

  Your purpose is found in the glorification of someone infinitely greater than you or anyone else that you'll ever encounter in this life.

  12:18-12:23

  You exist to worship the Lord and obey his life-giving commands.

  12:24-12:25

  It's that simple.

  12:26-12:30

  You exist to worship God and live in obedience to him.

  12:32-12:33

  Your life is not your own.

  12:34-12:35

  It belongs to the Lord.

  12:35-12:42

  He expects you to center your life around Him, around His glory, and around His purposes.

  12:44-12:44

  How's that going for you?

  12:46-12:47

  How's that going?

  12:49-12:52

  Is it obvious that your life's all about God and what He wants?

  12:53-12:58

  Or is it abundantly clear to everyone around you that your life's all about you and what you want?

  13:00-13:05

  If you're not sure of the answer to that question, Look at how you spend your time and your money.

  13:06-13:08

  Pastor Jeff talked about this a lot last week.

  13:08-13:14

  Your calendar and your wallet say a lot about who you are, who you're serving, and what your life is all about.

  13:16-13:26

  The sad truth is we can often treat God like our part-time manager at Burger King than the all-powerful king of the universe.

  13:26-13:28

  We clock in at church.

  13:28-13:29

  We clock in at small group.

  13:29-13:30

  Put on the big Christian smile.

  13:31-13:31

  We act really great.

  13:32-13:33

  Everything's great on the outside.

  13:34-13:40

  Then we clock out on the way out, and we become the kings and queens of the rest of our week.

  13:43-13:47

  Listen, God doesn't just want a few hours of your time in church in a small group.

  13:47-13:51

  He wants every single second that you're awake.

  13:53-14:02

  How you conduct yourself at work, how you act at home, should line up with the teachings of God's word and should bring him glory.

  14:02-14:11

  You're called to live in such a way that you show everyone around you how great, how awesome, how fulfilling a relationship with Christ really is.

  14:12-14:13

  So let me ask you again.

  14:15-14:18

  Is it obvious that God is the king of your life?

  14:19-14:22

  Or right now, are you the king of your life?

  14:24-14:32

  All right, finally, on Solomon's study guide for Ecclesiastes, My thoughts, words, and actions are eternally significant.

  14:33-14:37

  My thoughts, words, and actions are eternally significant.

  14:40-14:51

  Solomon could have ended with verse 13, but he decides to zoom out and look at the meaning of life from an eternal perspective as he closes the book on Ecclesiastes.

  14:52-14:59

  Verse 14, "For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

  15:01-15:05

  This is really embarrassing for me to admit, but this is a pretty safe place to share.

  15:05-15:06

  Can I share something with you all?

  15:07-15:07

  All right, good.

  15:08-15:11

  Well, since I was a kid, I've had night terrors.

  15:12-15:13

  Does anyone know what a night terror is?

  15:14-15:15

  Does anybody else have night terrors besides me?

  15:16-15:17

  All right, a couple people.

  15:17-15:19

  Thank you for making me feel less alone up here.

  15:20-15:31

  So those of you who don't know what a night terror is, it's basically an extreme version of a nightmare you to yell out sometimes or even do some things you normally wouldn't do.

  15:31-15:52

  I grew up sharing with my older brother. I would wake him up a lot with my night terrors. And there's one episode in particular he always brings up where I bolted him awake by yelling, "No! No! Not the rocket launchers! No!" Now I don't remember the exact details of that dream, but it doesn't sound very good, does it?

  15:53-15:58

  Now sometimes I even wake up my wife currently with these night terrors.

  15:59-16:08

  She's found me standing on the bed trying to save one of our kids off the ceiling fan. She's caught me inspecting our dresser with the iPhone flashlight.

  16:09-16:13

  She's even caught me petting an imaginary dog. Good boy. Good boy.

  16:15-16:22

  And sometimes in the midst of these night terrors I wake up. I'm like okay I try to get back into bed. Hopefully she wasn't awake but then next day she's like I I knew you, I heard you.

  16:22-16:25

  It was really obvious that you had a night terror.

  16:26-16:28

  But in those moments, I'm snapped back to reality.

  16:28-16:33

  And I feel a huge wave of relief that it was all just a dream.

  16:34-16:35

  It wasn't actually real.

  16:36-16:37

  Now, most of you don't have night terrors.

  16:37-16:39

  We've all had bad dreams.

  16:39-16:43

  Have you ever woken up from a bad dream and experienced that big sense of relief that it wasn't real?

  16:44-16:48

  Maybe you had a bad dream that you were taking a test that you weren't ready for.

  16:48-16:52

  Or you had to give a big impromptu speech that you didn't even know about?

  16:52-16:55

  Yeah, that happens a lot, doesn't it, in your life, a big impromptu speech.

  16:55-16:57

  And you wake up, and you're like, oh, OK.

  16:58-16:58

  It wasn't real.

  16:58-16:59

  I can just go back to sleep.

  17:02-17:15

  But many will pass on and wake up from this life not to experience that kind of relief when they realize that they're going to experience the judgment of Almighty God for all of eternity.

  17:17-17:19

  Listen to this quote that I came across this past week.

  17:19-17:29

  Ecclesiastes says the day is coming when some people will discover that they are not ready for the most important event in the world, and it won't be a dream.

  17:30-17:35

  Their life has been one long exercise in avoiding reality and ignoring what is coming toward them.

  17:36-17:39

  Death and judgment are coming.

  17:41-18:17

  Throughout this book, Psalm is preparing us for the eventual day of our death, and he warns us not shrug off thinking about judgment eternity. Because no matter how old you are, no matter how healthy you feel, you could die at any time. I don't want to be morbid, but you could die on the way home today. None of us know how much time we have left. We all know this as human beings, but we ignore it and we push it down. It's so easy to distract ourselves in the era of social media, to be glued to our phones, to be glued to our TVs, to be glued to our laptops.

  18:17-18:23

  So many people are just doing this to drown out all the questions they have about life.

  18:23-18:25

  They want to ignore these important realities.

  18:25-18:26

  They don't want to deal with it.

  18:26-18:28

  They don't want to face their sin.

  18:28-18:31

  They don't want to face their need for a savior.

  18:33-18:40

  In this passage, Solomon is saying, stop ignoring reality and ask yourself a simple question.

  18:42-18:45

  Am I ready for the day of judgment?

  18:47-18:49

  Sit with that question and think about that.

  18:51-18:55

  Am I ready for the day of judgment?

  18:59-19:04

  It's really tempting for me to assume that every single person in this room knows and loves Jesus.

  19:04-19:06

  I wish that was true, but it's probably not.

  19:08-19:16

  And it'd be a big mistake for me just to not give you the opportunity to finally bow the knee to Jesus Christ and be forever changed.

  19:16-19:18

  Let me ask you some important questions.

  19:18-19:22

  Do you really believe that Jesus lived a perfect life?

  19:22-19:26

  Do you really believe that he died a sacrificial death upon the cross?

  19:26-19:31

  Do you really believe that he rose again to give you new and everlasting life?

  19:32-19:40

  Have you repented of your sin, turned away from your sin, and fully placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation?

  19:42-19:43

  Are you just playing the Christian game?

  19:44-19:47

  Are you just putting on a front, act like everything's great?

  19:50-19:56

  Are you resting in your good deeds and accomplishments, hoping that one day before God, he'll see that your good deeds outweigh your bad?

  19:56-19:57

  Like, hey, come on in.

  19:57-19:58

  You're a good guy.

  20:01-20:06

  Are you riding that fence and not making a decision about Jesus?

  20:07-20:10

  The Bible says that today is the day of salvation.

  20:11-20:17

  Not tomorrow, not next week, not when your schedule calms down, today, right now.

  20:19-20:22

  Don't we another second to trust in Jesus Christ.

  20:23-20:33

  Stop making excuses and choose to step into an intimate relationship with Christ that lasts forever so you can be fully prepared for the life to come.

  20:35-20:38

  Now, many of you are thinking, well, Taylor, I'm a Christian.

  20:38-20:39

  I know that I'm saved.

  20:39-20:41

  This final line really has nothing to do with me.

  20:43-20:50

  Well, actually, it does, because the New Testament tells us that believers will have to stand before the judgment seat as well.

  20:51-20:52

  Some of you just sat up at full attention.

  20:52-20:53

  Wait, what are you talking about?

  20:53-20:54

  What does that mean?

  20:54-21:05

  To be clear, believers will not be judged for their sins before the judgment seat, because all of our past, present, and future sins have already been paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross.

  21:06-21:11

  Those things are no longer held against you, both now and for the rest of eternity.

  21:12-21:15

  If you are in Christ, the Father has no wrath.

  21:15-21:21

  He has no punishment left for you because it was all poured out upon his Son every last drop.

  21:24-21:30

  But on the day of judgment, the storybook of how you spent your life will be laid bare before you and the Lord.

  21:32-21:33

  And he will evaluate your motivations.

  21:34-21:38

  He'll evaluate your deeds to assign heavenly rewards.

  21:39-21:50

  Salvation is a free gift of God's grace given to undeserving sinners, but there will be certain eternal rewards that are given to those who led lives of sacrifice, humility, and holiness.

  21:51-21:53

  Paul speaks to this in 2 Corinthians 5.10.

  21:54-22:06

  He writes this, "For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

  22:07-22:10

  In other parts of the New Testament, talk about these future rewards.

  22:10-22:14

  Not give them much detail, but what they'll be like, but they are going to be awesome.

  22:14-22:15

  They're going to be fulfilling.

  22:16-22:18

  God never gives bad gifts.

  22:19-22:23

  Do you have that aunt or that great aunt who always gives you the worst birthday and Christmas gifts every single year?

  22:24-22:27

  It's always clothes that don't fit or a board game you've had for like 20 years.

  22:27-22:29

  It's like, OK, well, this isn't that awesome.

  22:30-22:31

  That never happens with God.

  22:32-22:35

  Everything that he gives us is eternally satisfying.

  22:36-22:39

  It never loses its excitement or its luster.

  22:41-22:53

  As believers, we're going to have to give an account for how we spoke to others, how we served the church, how we loved the lost, how we spent our money.

  22:55-23:02

  We're told in 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15, that God will reveal the motivations behind our acts of love and service.

  23:02-23:05

  He'll reveal why you went on those missions trips.

  23:06-23:08

  Why did you go on those service projects?

  23:08-23:10

  Why did you raise your hands during worship?

  23:11-23:14

  The motivations behind everything will be laid bare.

  23:15-23:21

  Did we do these things to glorify ourselves or to exalt our great God and King?

  23:21-23:26

  Did we do these things because we wanted to because we felt like we had to.

  23:28-23:32

  So obviously, this future judgment shouldn't cause us to be lazy and do nothing.

  23:32-23:34

  It should actually do the opposite.

  23:34-23:45

  It should motivate us to serve the Lord with willing hearts and to lay up treasures in heaven that can never, ever be taken away from us.

  23:47-23:50

  You're ending this book with a sentence about judgment.

  23:50-23:52

  It seems kind of dark and depressing, doesn't it?

  23:52-23:54

  like a big wah, wah, wah.

  23:55-23:57

  Why does Solomon do that?

  23:58-24:01

  Why does he end with a really encouraging, yeah, awesome, let's go?

  24:02-24:04

  Why does he end with judgment?

  24:07-24:10

  Because if there is no final judgment, then nothing that we do in this life really matters.

  24:12-24:17

  If there is no heaven, if there is no hell, let's just live it up and do whatever we want, because there are no eternal consequences.

  24:19-24:25

  But if there is a judgment day coming, then every single thing that we do matters.

  24:26-24:28

  How you spend your time matters.

  24:28-24:31

  How you spend your money matters.

  24:31-24:33

  How you go about your job matters.

  24:34-24:37

  How you think, how you speak, it matters.

  24:39-24:46

  So many people ignore the reality of death and choose to close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and just hum away, hoping just not to think about it.

  24:49-24:53

  Making excuse after excuse after excuse, but the reality of judgment is still there.

  24:54-24:55

  Death is still coming.

  24:58-25:00

  Solomon's saying, hey, stop doing that.

  25:01-25:02

  Use your time wisely.

  25:02-25:03

  Take your life seriously.

  25:03-25:07

  Deal with those questions that you often don't want to deal with.

  25:10-25:17

  So as you look over your Ecclesiastes study guide, ask yourself, am I living life to the fullest?

  25:18-25:20

  Am I embracing the way of wisdom?

  25:22-25:26

  Am I totally ready for the day of judgment?

  25:27-25:29

  Or am I completely unprepared?

  25:32-25:33

  The band can come forward now.

  25:34-25:37

  And as they do, I just want to talk with you a little bit about baptism.

  25:38-25:48

  As you can tell by this massive tub in the front of the room, we're going to spend some time celebrating with a few people who have decided take this important step of obedience.

  25:49-25:52

  And just to be clear, baptism doesn't save you.

  25:54-25:57

  It's not God giving his grace to you in the baptismal waters.

  25:57-26:01

  It's you saying, I have been saved by grace through faith.

  26:01-26:02

  I love Jesus.

  26:02-26:06

  I'm going to spend the rest of my life serving him.

  26:08-26:11

  It's an outward sign of an inward reality.

  26:11-26:15

  It's an outward sign of an inward relationship with Christ.

  26:17-26:19

  Maybe during this message, you finally took the leap of faith.

  26:21-26:24

  You've placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

  26:26-26:32

  Or maybe you've been a Christian for months or even years, but you've never taken the step of obedience to be baptized.

  26:33-26:34

  Well, guess what?

  26:34-26:38

  If that's you, the tub is here, and it's ready to go.

  26:38-26:41

  You should get baptized this morning.

  26:42-26:44

  I can already hear the excuses churning.

  26:44-26:46

  Oh, Taylor, I'm in my nice church clothes.

  26:46-26:47

  I don't want to get them wet.

  26:48-26:49

  We have a change of clothes for you.

  26:49-26:53

  We have towels, hair dryers, Q-tips, whatever you can think of.

  26:53-26:54

  It's back there.

  26:54-26:55

  There's literally Q-tips back there.

  26:55-26:56

  You can believe me.

  26:57-27:00

  Another excuse-- oh, I want my family to be here.

  27:00-27:03

  We're live streaming this right now, and they can watch it at their earliest convenience.

  27:04-27:07

  Any excuse you give me, I can just knock it right back to you.

  27:09-27:19

  In the book of Acts, Philip led the Ethiopian eunuch to Christ and there by a body of water and the eunuch says, "Here's water.

  27:19-27:21

  What should prevent me from being baptized?

  27:22-27:26

  What excuse is good enough to hold me back from this?" There's none.

  27:27-27:28

  There's no good excuse.

  27:30-27:32

  As I just talked about, we don't know how much time we have left.

  27:32-27:35

  Let's stop making excuses for why we can't serve the Lord.

  27:36-27:40

  stop making excuses for why we can't do what he has called us to do.

  27:41-27:48

  If you feel that push, that pull of the Holy Spirit motivating you to get baptized, please listen to him.

  27:50-27:55

  If you want to get baptized, or if you need to get baptized, better put, Pastor Jeff is in the back.

  27:55-27:56

  I'll also go back there with him.

  27:57-28:03

  As the band plays, you can go back and you talk to one of us, and we'll point you to where you need to go and what you need to do.

  28:04-28:05

  Let's pray.

  28:07-28:12

  Lord, we thank you that you are our great God and King.

  28:13-28:15

  Lord, we know the day of judgment is coming.

  28:17-28:28

  Lord, lift up every single person in this room who doesn't know you, that you would open up their hearts to the truth and give them the faith to believe, and you'd push them to finally confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord.

  28:29-28:36

  And if there's anyone in this room who hasn't been baptized and they need to, Lord, get them out of their seat Push them to make this important decision.

  28:38-28:49

  And for the rest of us, Lord, help us to take our lives seriously, to use our time wisely, and to center our lives around you and what you want us to do.

  28:50-28:51

  In Jesus' name, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Ecclesiastes 12:9-14

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. Why do we get off track so often on our spiritual journey? How does the Lord get our attention and goad us in the right direction (Eccl 12:11)? How is He calling you to change right now?
   

3. How can you tell if you are living for the Lord or for yourself? What are the tell-tale signs of leading a self-centered life?
   

4. Why does Solomon end Ecclesiastes with a word on judgement (Eccl 12:14)? How should this change the way we live from one day to the next?

Breakout
Pray for one another.