Be Sound in the Faith | Titus 1:1-16 | Guarding the Gospel and Living It Out
Watch This Sermon: “Be Sound in the Faith”
What we believe shapes how we live—and the book of Titus makes that connection unmistakably clear. In this sermon on Titus 1:1–16, Pastor Mark begins a short series through this pastoral epistle by focusing on the link between doctrine and discipleship. We are reminded that faithful preaching, godly leadership, and spiritual discernment are essential to the health of the church. Whether we’re elders, parents, teachers, or simply followers of Jesus, we’re called to guard the gospel and live it out with faithfulness and love.
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what we believe matters. This is a very important truth that we come away with from the New Testament. And the concern is that if what we believe about God does not line up with what we see revealed in Scripture, it'll create problems in how we live our lives in the world. And what we see is that we can end up with one of two problems usually. Instead of living in freedom because of what Jesus has done for us, we can so easily become slaves. We either can become slaves to our sin, or we can become slaves to legalism and thinking that by our works we are earning our salvation.
and due to the part of the country that we live in, I think we've all been in a circumstance where we've been driving down a relatively narrow road and it's snowy and it's icy. And you want to make sure that you stay on the road because there are deep ditches on either side. And when you're in that type of circumstance, you don't focus on the ditches, right? You focus on the road. You make sure that you stay on the path. And that is the desire that Paul has for us, that we will focus on the road, because if we focus on the road, we stay out of the ditches.
And we see that he has given this book to a young man named Titus. And we're going to be spending three weeks here as we finish up our reading of Ecclesiastes and then head into Genesis in a few weeks. But here in Titus we see some very important things. We see that we're called to trust in God and hold to what we see in the pages of Holy Scripture. This short book is focused on helping us to see that there is a foundational link between what we believe and what we do. That's what we're to see here.
And this is why we're concerned with what we believe, because what we believe shapes us. It forms us. It changes our loves. It changes our desires. And that's why we want to be in the Word of God, because that's how the Holy Spirit works in us, to make us holy, to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. And because we understand that there is a deep connection between faith and practice, the book of Titus tells us to be on guard, to be on guard for false teaching, to make sure that what we believe lines up with Holy Scripture.
And Paul tells us to see the things that God has given us to help us to be sound in the faith. He's given us means to do this. And so we have three important points that we're gonna come out of Titus chapter one today. And the first one is that Paul believes that God uses preaching to bring the truth of Christ to his people. Paul is a servant. and he preaches, and this is going to help us see why Paul is so serious in this letter. He says some stuff that comes across as pretty harsh to us, but he believes that if the proclamation of the word is the means by which God brings people to himself, that he wants to make sure, absolutely sure, that the proclamation that is going out is accurate and it is true.
And so he wants it to be protected. Secondly, we're going to see that God uses elders to do this work. And so there is a standard that they are to be held to on how they exhibit the Christian faith. Our lives are to look a certain way because it shows us who God is. And then lastly, we see that we must be on guard for false teaching. We can't always assume that all teaching in the name of God is truly speaking the truth of God's word. And Paul has some harsh words to describe those who are teaching falsely.
And so we see it's important that we take this idea seriously because we want to protect our hearts and our minds. And so, as we work our way through this letter to Titus, we arrive in the first chapter, and it starts out like many of the letters in the New Testament. We find Paul here not only announcing himself, but he gives us a substantial insight into what he believes about what he's doing. First, we see that Paul understands his role is to be an apostle, but as an apostle, he's a servant. Notice that word, servant.
He doesn't see himself as a big shot because he's an apostle. He's a servant of God. He does what he does to serve God and to serve others. And that is the true Christian attitude because the one that we follow, the Lord Jesus Christ, was a servant. You know, we just celebrated Christmas. And we always see in the midst of all the celebration and all the gifts, there's a theme that comes out if we pay attention to the story. Jesus was a servant. Look at how he arrived. He didn't arrive with the typical fanfare of a royal birth, did he?
He wasn't paraded around for the world to see and then delivered to a palace where he would be raised with the finest of things. Instead, he was born among animals. He was placed in a manger. And even though he was God in human flesh, he didn't spend the majority of his time in Jerusalem rubbing shoulders with the higher ups in the Roman government. He didn't even go into the temple and say, hey, this is just going to be fulfilled in me anyway, so I should be in charge. Instead, He was primarily teaching off the beaten path.
And he was with those who are generally considered to be the lowest of society. And so we are to serve others because the Lord Jesus Christ is a servant. And he showed this to us because he first served us in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. So we serve others in gratitude. And we see that this servanthood that Paul exhibits to us is for a certain reason. It's to a certain people. It's for the sake of God's elect, he says. He serves because God has made a people for himself and he wants them to have this knowledge of the truth of who God is.
And this truth helps them to live in godliness, we read. It's not only our servanthood here that's rooted in the truth of who God is, it is also how we exhibit the character of God. And it shows us that we have a hope of eternal life. And for Paul, this is not a promise that was made just yesterday. This is a promise that God made a long time ago, we read. In fact, he tells us that this promise of salvation that we have in Christ is from all time. It's from before the ages began. And so what we see is that we can trust this promise because God made it and he doesn't lie.
He will keep it. He has promised not only today to save you but from eternity past and into eternity future to save his people. And what Paul is saying here is that it's now been revealed even though it is true for all of eternity. Paul is saying God has revealed himself at a certain point in history through Jesus. And this isn't spelled out for us in the clouds. It isn't a sign for us written in the stars. It isn't on a flashing billboard in the middle of a freeway. It isn't breaking news bulletins on Fox News.
And it isn't even the latest story on the Drudge Report. God has entrusted his eternal message to be heralded by people. And real quick, I think we need to unpack this because we need to think about these details here. It tells us that God has an elect people that he's created for himself. And this truth is beyond time. It's so important that God took on human flesh, came and was revealed at a specific point in real time and space history. But like I said before, it isn't coming to us through signs and wonders in the sky.
And it isn't coming to us through some secret direct download. It's spoken by God's servants. It's spoken by Paul and all of those who proclaim the gospel. It's any believer that proclaims the Word of God, whether that's from a pulpit or whether it's when you tell your children the gospel as you sit on the edge of their beds at night. It's how God has entrusted this message to come. And it's the message that we proclaim. It's the message that Titus received. And it's the message that we have received. And we see here it is the primary way in which we serve God.
We proclaim the Word, and it's how God brings people to faith in Christ. It's through the power of the Holy Spirit. And it isn't fancy. In fact, when you think about it, it's rather simple, isn't it? But anyone can do it. And it's portable. It doesn't matter where I am or how I do it. I can serve God by proclaiming the truth anywhere. Sure, I could be on the radio, I could be on TV, I could be on YouTube, or I could be here. I could be with you in your home. I could be in the middle of nowhere.
It's portable. All you need is the truth of the Gospel and the Word of God and the Spirit will show up It doesn't even need a huge budget. It just needs words. It just needs a voice. It just needs the gospel of Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension to be proclaimed. And this is how God has entrusted that his gospel will go out into the world. And if this is true, if this is the means by which God has promised to work, we want to get it right. We want to make sure that we get it right.
And this leads us to our second point for today, that God uses elders as servants to do this work and to protect the message that we proclaim from being distorted. And we see that this is why Paul left Titus in Crete. That's why he's sending this letter, because in order to protect the truth of the gospel, Paul wanted elders there. He wanted them put in place Now when it speaks of elders here, and it's talking about a group of men who were put in charge of spiritual oversight in the local body of believers. And we see that he also uses the word overseer as we read through this passage.
It's interchangeable with elder, and it refers here to those who were put in charge of the spiritual care of the congregation. And it refers to what we would call elders, but it also refers to pastors. So it's not just the gentlemen that are serving as our elders who are on the hook here. It's also me. This is the qualifications. This is a list of things that we're to be concerned with. It's not just for elders. It applies to pastors, but ultimately applies to all Christians. And now I want to tell you that While it may seem like it, I did not intend for this passage to come up today.
I mentioned this last week that we were supposed to be done with Colossians at the end of November and then have Advent and then start with Titus last week. Well, we had a Sunday cancelled because of snow back in March, like I mentioned last week. Last week was great. The end of Colossians was perfect for a perfect passage for a sermon at the end of the year before we go into the new year. And now here we have another beautiful sovereign surprise. As we're going to ordain and install elders today, we have a passage about elders and what it entails in their office.
And we see that they are called to protect the spiritual health of the church. And they're to have certain qualifications. We read here, they're to be the husband of one wife. And what he's talking about here is marital faithfulness. And it's likely that in Crete at that time, and anywhere in the Roman Empire, there would have been serious issues in that pagan culture of polygamy. There would have been people coming in with all kinds of relationship circumstances. don't What Paul was saying is that the elders here could not be polygamists or they can't be involved with other sexual morality because he wants the elders to exhibit God's design for human flourishing in marriage.
He wants the lives of the elders to show the people what it looks like. The elders must model God's design for marriage between one man and one woman. And we also read that an elder's children were to be believers and not known for not being open to a charge of debauchery. I'll be honest with you, I thought I knew what that word meant, but before I figured, before I used it in a sermon, I should probably look up. I was close to being right, but what that word means is it means excessive involvement in sensual pleasures.
Now we won't dig into the details there. You get the idea. And in addition to the concerns about sexual immorality, they're also concerned with their children not being in subordinate. And we see why this was to be this way here. As we move through this, Paul wants the elders to be above reproach. He doesn't want them to be arrogant. He doesn't want them to be drunkards or violent or greedy. And we know what all of those words mean, and we understand what the expectation is there. But Paul just doesn't focus on the negatives here. Being someone who serves as an overseer of the people of God isn't only defined by what they don't do.
They're to exhibit some positive traits too. And we see what they are. They're to love good. They're to be self-controlled. They're supposed to be upright, holy, and disciplined. And this shows us that these servants have the Holy Spirit at work in them. And it shows us the nature of the God who saved us by His grace. In other words, our lives are to exhibit who God is to unbelievers. And we see that all of this leads up to protecting the message that we're called to proclaim. Elders must hold firm to the trust where the word is taught.
We're to stand firm on the word of God and study it so we can make sure that what is being said in the name of God is in agreement with the word of God. We want to be certain that this important message that is being proclaimed in our church, our homes, and our community is accurate. And why is that? because we want to make sure that people are free in Christ, that they're not in bondage. We want to make sure that they're on the right track and not ending up in the ditches. We care about sound doctrine, not because we want to check off all the right boxes and believe all the right stuff and be right.
We care because we love people. We want them to be free in Jesus Christ. and we study God's Word and hold on to it because in it is life, in it is freedom, in it is hope. And we want to proclaim that truth with power and with accuracy and with authority. And we hold the sound doctrine because it is the way in which we can truly love our neighbor and ensure that they're free in Jesus Christ. And this is why we're called to instruct but it also talks about how we are to rebuke false teaching because sound doctrine matters.
And this transitions us to our last point for today. We're to be on guard for false teaching. And Paul has harsh words about false teaching. We don't talk like this. He calls it like he sees it. He's honest. And he starts out by saying that they're subordinate. They don't listen to those who teach them in the truth. They won't let themselves be corrected. And I think we all know how bad this can be when you're trying to help someone to do something correctly. I think we've probably all been in that situation with children. You're trying to show them how to do something right, and they're stubborn.
They don't want to do it, and they keep on figuratively falling on their face as they try to learn how to do something new. We understand what this looks like and this is what Paul is describing. It isn't hard for us to imagine what this kind of a false teacher would look like. They're rejecting the authority of what's being taught. But Paul also says that they are empty talkers and basically what he means there is that they're telling a convincing story. but they're not speaking a message from God. It's empty. It's without true content. And there is a specific group that is the worst here, according to Paul.
It's those in the circumcision party. And we've come across this many times in our time in the New Testament together, this circumcision group. They taught that in addition to Christ, you needed the Jewish rituals. And included in that was the rite of circumcision. They would mix works with faith. They're mixing faith in Jesus Christ with what we do. And Paul uses a lot of ink to write against this teaching in the New Testament because he finds it to be an assault on the gospel. What we believe matters. And all of this is bad, Paul says, because it's upsetting whole households.
Now, when it says that is whole households, he's not meaning that it's upsetting Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura, and Carrie, or whatever the people's names are in a household. Yes, the individuals in a household would have been being upset, but the churches at this time met in the homes of families, and likely, getting entire Christian groups together, and this false teaching was confusing them and upsetting them by teaching what they ought not to be teaching. And then he implies that they're doing it for gain. And we've seen this throughout the ages. This has always been a problem, people teaching false doctrine.
And you would think that wouldn't be good business. But if you look at history, and we have examples in our own age, false doctrine is great for business. You do a little bit of digging, and you'll find that false doctrine not only tickles ears, but it also fills the bank account of the false teachers. This isn't just a first century problem that we find in the Bible. It is a problem that we find now. And that's why we need to be on guard. And now, this next section is probably the harshest for us. It talks about Cretans.
Well, what Paul is doing here is he's quoting an ancient philosopher from about 600 BC, and his name is Epimetidus. And he was considered to be a prophet by pagans, and he said this, that Cretans are gluttons. Now that seems really harsh to us, but what it was talking about is the Cretans were looking for whatever prophetic word they could get. They were looking for these sages of the pagan religions to give them some word from the gods, and they just wanted it so badly. And so what Paul is saying here is that these cretins are continuing what they used to do with their pagan religions.
They want just some word. They're not concerned with whether or not it's truthful. They'll take anything from anyone who claims to be a prophet. And so Paul says, we don't have time for that. We need to shut this down. Paul wants to take care of this problem. And he's not, he's not hoping it's going to pass, but they'll get tired of it and they'll move on. He isn't saying, hey, hey, let's see how this plays out. This might be kind of fun. for the sake of the Christians in the churches there. He wants these people who are teaching this false doctrine and giving the people who want these prophetic words what they want to hear.
He's saying that this needs to stop. He rebukes them sharply because he wants them to be sound in their faith. He desires that they move away from what he calls Jewish myths. And by this, he means old Jewish legends, not stuff from the Old Testament, but old legends. They're not in the Old Testament because they weren't the Word of God. They weren't telling us the unfolding story of God's grace that would come in Jesus Christ. They were just myths and legends. He wants them to turn away from this. He wants this to instead focus on the truth, what actually happened in history, what matters, the truth of the Gospel in Jesus Christ, living, dying, rising again, and ascending for His people.
But because these people have rejected the truth of the Gospel, They are those who are defiled and they are unbelieving. And he says their minds and their consciences are defiled. He's concerned about what they will do to the faith of people. Even though they claim to know God, he says, by their teaching we can see that they actually don't know God. And Paul again uses harsh language here and shows us why keeping the message of the gospel clear and keeping it pure is so important. Because if this is our message, and if it's true, it's all we've got.
We have no other hope. Without it, we are damned. And if that's true, then we must be certain to protect that message. And this brings us to how we can apply this important passage and take it into the world with us this week. The first thing we see from this passage is that we are called to be a servant. We saw that Paul is a servant of God and it was to get the message of the gospel into the world because we can often struggle, I believe, with how we proclaim this important message in our time, in our lives.
I think we would like to share, but we often wonder where the opportunities are. Well, instead of looking for opportunities, we can be a servant of God, and the opportunities to talk about the mercy and grace of God will present themselves in our servanthood. It takes courage, but the message of God's grace is entrusted to us. We serve God when we take that vital message into a dying world. And so serve, and allow God's mercy to exude from you. And the opportunities will come. It might not be tomorrow, and depending on your circumstances, there might not be many.
But servanthood allows you to answer a question of, why are you serving me? With this answer, because Jesus first served me by saving me from my sin. Servanthood gives us the opportunity to share the gospel. Secondly, remember the call on your life to live a holy life. Not everyone is called to be an elder. At some point, each believer in the Lord Jesus Christ finds themselves in a position of spiritual care over other believers. Whether it is in the church, as an elder, or as a Sunday school teacher, a catechism teacher, or whether it's just in your own home, in your family, or amongst your friends, we all find ourselves in a position where we are caring for the spiritual care and spiritual development of someone.
and the book of Titus showed us today how that holy life helps us to show the faith to those under our care by how we live our lives. And we want our lives to match up with sound doctrine. Because if we're going to proclaim it, we want our life to match it. And this is hard. This is hard. Because we're sinful. But here's the truth. When we show a desire for holiness in our lives, We can even use that, our sin, our failures. We can even use that to show the mercy and grace of God, because when we sin, we go to Him and we say, we have sinned before holy God, but we trust that He has saved us and He forgives us our sins.
Our sorrow over our sin and our repentance is a way that we show others how to live the faith. And lastly, be on guard. As we saw, there is false teaching in the world, but I purposely waited until now to make a very specific point. This false teaching wasn't from the world. I was from the church. And while we need to worry about the attacks of the world on our faith, we also need to be fully aware that the dangers we are most alerted to in Scripture are not from outside the church. They are from within.
And in our day, we have access to all kinds of resources for spiritual growth. Many of them are excellent, but we also need to be aware of what Paul said, that there are many that profess to know God, but deny Him by their works. And when he says works here, it includes not only what they do, but what they teach. And it's important to evaluate what is being said in the name of God, and we need to make sure it matches up with the Word of God. And this is why we have things like creeds and confessions, because they clearly summarize the teaching of the Bible so that we can be on guard for false teaching.
And this isn't just about somebody out there. You need to be on guard when you come here. Don't trust that I am going to tell you the truth. Evaluate it. I will give you a Bible. I will give you the creeds and confessions to make sure it's in line, because this matters. It isn't just what's out there. Listen with discernment. And listen to me, too. Like I said earlier, we don't do this because we want to be right. or we want to have all the boxes checked on believing correctly because that's what God's looking for.
That's not what this is about. This is about loving one another. This is done in love. It's because we love God and because He loves us that we want to be free in Christ. False teaching will put you in bondage, but Christ has come to set you free. And if this is true, and it is, the gospel is true, it's all we've got. It is our only hope. And so we want to not only proclaim the message correctly, but we want to believe it with all our hearts, because it's the message of hope and truth that the world needs, and we need it every day ourselves.
So may you Be blessed by God's Word and live in freedom this week. Live in freedom this week of who you are in Christ so that as you live, love, and serve in God's world, you will bring glory to His holy name. Amen.
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