Testing, testing. Okay. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Testing. One, two, three, four. Five, six. All right. Hopefully you guys have had a very good discussion. I was having a lengthy discussion with Pastor Peter earlier today. And we're kind of in the middle of a discussion about how to do this.

And we're kind of talking about how, like, for the both of us, in this passage, there's a lot that we have to take out of the presentation because there's a lot in here. Okay. So most likely I'm not going to be getting to every question that came up and everything that even I deem important.

I'm just going to share with you some things that I feel like would be helpful a little bit to kind of tie everything together. And the goal of inductive study is not to get every answer. The goal of inductive study really is to dive deeply and to start digging to see really how God would have us live.

Right. So the first thing, and you've seen this before, this is just a list of descriptions that in the beginning everything was highlit in purple. Okay. From last week, you know, there are empty talkers, receivers, circumcision, upsetting whole families, teaching for sordid gain, liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. And then today Jewish myths turn away from the truth, defiled, unbelieving, defiled, there's a proper profession, an improper practice, detestable, disobedient, worthless for any good deed.

Detestable in some translations is actually abomination, abominable. All right. So, man, these people are abominable is what it's saying, like damnable. Right. So this is the description of the rebellious men. And what is Titus commanded to do? Rebuke, reprove. How? Severely. Right. So we're going to be looking at this.

So here in verse 13 it says, "This testimony is true and for this reason, reprove." Okay. And you guys might have had many colorful discussions about this already, but I'm just going to look at a parallel passage in 1 Timothy 1 and 2 Timothy 2 and kind of see the heartbeat behind why we reprove.

All right. 1 Timothy 1, 3 to 7 reads, "As I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines." Okay, there's a similar theme. "Nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith.

But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions." So we are surrounded by religious people who think they know a lot of stuff.

And the call, whether it's the church or the individual Christian, okay, I haven't gotten there yet, but it's to reprove. But the goal is what? Love. But when we're usually out to reprove somebody, ooh, love is a little harder, right? We want to be vindictive. We want to win an argument.

Some of you guys I know in here, you don't care about the truth as much as you care about winning, okay? That's not the attitude that's supposed to be surfacing. 2 Timothy 2, 23 to 26, "But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations knowing that they produce quarrels. The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition.

If perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive to him to do his will." So here, just, this is a parallel passage, okay? What we're being called to do really is with Christlike love and compassion, correct.

Even if they are enemies of the church, the goal is not like judgment and vindication. The goal it is really to love. And the scriptures point out, seems like there's a possibility that they can be brought over and won over, okay? So I think modern day Christians, when it comes to like false prophets and health and wealth gospel teachers and stuff, we want God to just judge them and condemn them.

But the goal is not that. It's always to bring them to restoration as well, okay? Is that likely? Usually not, okay? But that's the heartbeat of the Christian. And that's why for elders and leaders in the church, you can't be chip on your shoulder, vindictive, pugnacious. It takes a mature man to be able to get yelled at and spit on and chewed on and being called dumb and ignorant and bigoted and just to continue to speak in love, right?

So that's why the list of elders or the qualifications of elders remains very important. Here it says, "But rebuke them sharply." And when I see this, like instinctively I think emotion, right? If I rebuked my child sharply, you're thinking that there's yelling and screaming, right? Or like a stick.

Like, "Rawr, rawr, rawr." Like, is that what Paul is saying? Like, just do one of these, like shaking them and like, "Snap out of it." Is that what that is? And something that I found was the word severely is only used two places in the entire New Testament. And so I kind of did a little bit of a just exploration into this.

And it's also used in 2 Corinthians 13.10. And this is what Paul says. And this is the other place where he uses severely, okay? "For this reason I am writing these things while absent so that when present I need not use severity in accordance with the authority with which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down." I don't think this is an emotional word.

This word has more to do with authority than any kind of like emotional like, right? "What is wrong with you, you false prophet?" It's not that, okay? So is this charge for church leadership or for all believers? By what standard? All right? I'm not necessarily going to come up with all kinds of clear answers.

But I want to point you to some scriptures that will give you some insight, okay? Matthew 16, 18 to 19, Peter makes a confession of the identity of Jesus. And Jesus says, "I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." So there's an important role that Peter and the church plays here on earth in regard to eternity.

You guys understand that? Okay? God ordained the church for a specific reason that has ramifications to eternity, all right? Verse 18, it talks about Christian and Christian conflict and if there's a sin, someone has to rebuke them, okay? And that's the context of the next passage. If he refuses to listen to the two witnesses, two or three witnesses, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. "Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." Why do I bring this up?

Because there is something about a severe rebuke, if it's not emotional, what is it? Does it have eternal ramifications? Does the church have authority basically not necessarily to condemn but to judge somebody severely, to almost declare and proclaim them anathema? I would say it seems like it. I would have to do more digging.

So what does he say to Titus? What does Paul say to Titus? 2.1, speak the things. 2.15, speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. So Titus, Paul's true child in a common faith, he's been given the authority of church leadership. He's not an apostle but he's almost given the authority to be an ambassador for Paul.

So this is some severe stuff, right? Chapter 3 verse 8, Paul again says, speak confidently. In verse 10, reject a factious man. So as I'm digging through these things, and I'm not gonna have time to expound on all this, there is a place that God has given to the church to anathematize false teachers.

Okay, now that's been abused in many way, shapes, and forms because the goal was not love, it was just a, you know, I've been offended so get out. So I wanna wrestle with this. And I'm gonna leave you here spiritually constipated so you have to like, oh, what's this mean?

So what does it mean to be reproving severely? And is it your job or is it the church's? Ah, okay, is it the church? And then immediately in our context today, the reason this is important is because everyone's all speaking badly about the church. The church is abusive. How many of you guys have heard that?

The church leaders are authoritarian. But God ordained the church, all right? So before I throw out a blanket statement like that, even if the church is abusive, it's the institution that God ordained. I wanna be very careful. Okay, remember, eisegesis is I'm putting my interpretation into a text. Exegesis is I'm looking at the text, I'm taking it out, seeing what God means and trying to submit to it.

Regardless of what the culture around me or what churchianity around me suggests that I do, all right? So I'm gonna leave you here spiritually constipated and I have peace about that, okay? So deal with it. Verse 14, "Myths and arrogant commands," but I just titled it that. I might change it tomorrow, I don't know.

But that's kinda where I landed. And what is this? We don't know for sure, okay? It could be many things. Religiosity dictates all kinds of stuff and it evolves, okay? So some people think it's just genealogies, okay, but what is that? Not sure exactly. It could be rabbinic teachings based on the Old Testament that are a little bit overly legalistic like the Pharisees, okay?

There's some that say that's numerology. They're taking like these Hebrew words, you add them up, they give them a value and there's predictions of like all kinds of different stuff, okay? So some people think it's this. There's a Colossian heresy that was contemporaneous to this. "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with use in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men.

These are matters which have to be sure, the appearance of wisdom and self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but of no value against fleshly indulgence." Okay, so this is basically asceticism. Remember, I mentioned hedonism, which is like just giving in to whatever pleasure, and asceticism are two sides of the same coin.

Legalism and cheap grace liberalism, two sides of the same coin. Both biblical illiteracy. You guys following this? Okay, so when we are exegeting, we're trying to figure out what God has to say rather than imposing our perspective on the text. So there's all kinds of stuff going on, alright?

We don't know exactly what that is, but it's religious practice that is seeking the approval of God, okay? I'm just going to leave it at that. I'm going to come back to that, alright? So I referred you guys before to Mark 7 and Matthew 15, and I'm just going to read you a passage.

Some of you might have already discussed this. This is Jesus confronting the Pharisees and then explaining to the disciples, "But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men." He was also saying to them, "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition." And he was saying, "That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles a man.

For from within, out of the heart of man, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murder, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man." Okay? So what is this commandment of God?

And these are just my words, alright? I just tried to put together like a definition that I would say. "All who have fallen short of the glory of God must humble themselves in repentance and faith and be justified freely and only by his grace and thus be restored to their creator and worship him eternally in spirit and in truth." That's my definition.

What is the commandment of God? To love him. We were created by God and for God to love God and to serve God. Amen? That's our purpose. He doesn't exist for us. We exist for him. Amen? We were created by God and for God to love God and to serve God and that is our purpose and sin is not doing that.

Hamartia. That's what it is. Okay? And what Jewish myths and commandments of men are doing, it's to try to tell you that there's a back door. You can be restored to God by your own effort. And that's pretty much the premise of all false religions. It's works based. You can get to God is every premise for every false religion.

Does that make sense? Okay? Anything that tells you that you can be good on your own is a false religion. It's heretical. And I want to emotionally spell this out for you and my favorite illustration is a mosquito. You guys have seen this before. Here's my question. What can Mr.

Mosquito do to earn your love and be adopted as your beloved child? Never bite anybody ever again? Suck out blood from only bad people and then spit it out into a blood bank? What can Mr. Mosquito do to earn your love and be adopted as your beloved child? Even if he doesn't bite you and he's flying around, all of us, what are we going to do?

Eeeeee! That's what we're going to do. And how many of you guys would be upset if someone next to you kills one of these? Nobody. If you got upset, I would judge you. If there's a mosquito in here flying around and someone kills it, I would laud you. I wouldn't be like, eeeeee!

Do you guys understand this? It'd be weird if someone was affectionate toward this mosquito. Especially if this area had dengue, Zika, right? Malaria. So what can Mr. Mosquito do to earn your love and be adopted as your beloved child? No matter what it does, that will never happen. You guys following this?

The distance between me and God, the distance between me and mosquito, what is the greater distance? Infinitely between me and God is a greater distance. So for man to say that I can appease holy God somehow is the heartbeat of every heresy. It's the heartbeat of the Jewish myths.

It's the heartbeat of circumcision. It's based a little bit on truths that we may have heard in the past. But there's no thing that you and I can do to make ourselves more lovable. And to teach that we can is utter arrogance and heresy. That's the emotion of it.

Not sure if you guys get that. What can he do? What if he buys you a flower? First of all, that's impossible. He would get killed on the way there, okay? Impossible. But that's our lot. This is us. Poopah. It's called poopah but I prefer the term poopah. It helps to emphasize.

This is us. Ephesians 2 calls us children, the technon of wrath. We only deserve wrath. So to say that these guys can do something good to you is utter stupidity. Us to please holy, holy, holy God by some kind of morning prayer, by some kind of cutting, by some kind of donation or offering, by some kind of service, by some kind of manipulation is not just utter stupidity, it's arrogance.

And that's why that kind of teaching needs to be slapped in the face. In love. Okay? So how does one become sound in the faith? We have no hope outside of Christ. And this is not just me proselytizing here. This is Titus. And I'll show you where. The problem is in the heart.

So sinners cannot purify their own hearts through ritual, deed or effort. Amen? You guys following that? You can do nothing. You need a new heart is what the Bible teaches. Fortunately God gives it to you. He takes away your heart of what? Stone gives you a heart of flesh.

Not only that, he changes your spiritual DNA. He implants himself into you to effect change. You cannot be a Christian and not look like a Christian. It's impossible. Okay? Those with new or pure hearts now cannot help but to engage in good deeds. That's a teaching of Titus. And I will show you where.

Okay? This is a slide I had for the first week. Alright? In every chapter there is an incarnation of Christ. You guys notice this? And he's always called our Savior. God our Savior, God our Savior, God our Savior. It's unique to Titus. It comes out again and again. Chapter 1 verses 1 through 3.

God promised this. Chapter 2, 11 to 15. God redeems. God purifies. Right? Where does it say? Who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself. And chapter 3 verses 4 through 8 is the third Christology there. God washes, God renews, God justifies.

So any Jewish myth and the commandment of men that basically commands you to do something to appease God is what needs to be rebuked. Okay? You guys follow that? It's all over Titus. And we just finished chapter 1. That you cannot get to God by your own effort. Now, some of you, the immature thought may be, oh, then good deeds are not important.

Right? There's nothing I can do to get to God. Amen. But good deeds are all over the Titus. Okay? Now, before we get that, I'm just going to briefly talk about verse 15 and 16. And I mentioned every false religious system is a works-based righteousness. And that's arrogance. And the sin that God hates the most is arrogance.

Well, what's interesting is inner purity, and this is kind of touching upon launching off of verse 15. Inner purity always produces outer purity. Measurable and good deeds. You will look like your spiritual father. It's impossible not to. Okay? So for someone who is pure, all things are pure. All things are pure.

What he does doesn't affect that status. But he's got the spirit of God not only as a pledge and as a promise, but it's a sanctifying, effectual work that God's spirit is doing. And he will produce good deeds. Because the bridegroom takes ownership of the bride and purifies her for himself.

And look at how many times good deeds is used. Verse 16, deeds, worthless for any good deed. Verse 2, chapter 2, verse 7, example of good deeds. Redeem us from every lawless deed. 14, zealous for good deeds. Be ready for good deed. Verse 5, he saved us on the basis of deeds.

Chapter 3, verse 8, carefully engage in good deeds. And verse 14 is the second to last verse. It's the 45th verse of Titus. It says, "Our people." So just in case you guys didn't get it, our people, Titus, must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs so that we will not be unfruitful is what he says.

So are good deeds important? Absolutely. You cannot have a Christian life without good deeds. But you can't get to God on the basis of your deeds. And that's kind of how you can sum up the latter part of chapter 1 and what it is that we are supposed to go head on against, okay?

So most of the world around you, the people at your work and at your schools and your families, they don't think they're an offense to God, right? Because they compare horizontally. Yeah, Emily, I'm a little more moral than, yeah, her. John Lee, yeah, that guy, he's a scoundrel. I'm better than him.

Jamie, yeah, she just is like grossly hypocritical. I'm just kidding. This is all make-believe, okay? But this is how people think. You know, I share this is when George Floyd's death happened, you guys remember, it was about a year ago. That night, for some reason, in my prayer, I identified with Derek Chauvin, the cop.

And I was like, there's the bystanders, there's that Asian cop, there's the other cop there, there's George Floyd on the ground, and there's Derek Chauvin. I'm him. Because that guy probably did not wake up planning to kill somebody and starting a nationwide riot. He just got provoked enough to where the stuff inside came out and he ended up killing a guy.

I'm capable of that. You're capable of that. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You and I are no better than Donald Trump. We are no better than Joe Biden. We are no better than Hitler. That's the teaching of the gospel. We're only justified freely by his grace.

Right? But being justified freely by his grace produces crazy change because God takes responsibility. Okay? So, that's today's teaching kind of in a nutshell. There's a lot that I ended up having to carve out. Otherwise, you guys would be here just tomorrow, okay? But just sit there spiritually constipated and flesh these things out on your own.

What does it mean? Okay? So, here's the application. What is the evidence that you know God or don't know God? And this is very encouraging for me to do for myself. 2 Corinthians 13, 5, examine yourselves to see whether you're of the faith. Don't you realize that Christ Jesus is in you?

Unless, of course, you fail the test. In verse 6, Paul says, "I hope you realize yourselves don't fail the test as apostles." Okay? Later in verse 10, he goes severely, okay? But we are called to examine our hearts. We're called to quote Psalm 139, "Search me, O Lord, know my heart.

See if there's any hurtful in me. Lead me in the way everlasting." So, what is evidence that you know God? When you look at you five years from before, are you a different person now? It should be super encouraging because if you look at yourself now, you're probably going to be disgusted.

I'm disgusted. I'm like, I'm still so far from where I need to be. But I look a lot more like Jesus than I did 10 years ago. And that I can say with confidence. And that's not because I try harder. It's because God is -- his DNA is coming out.

Okay? So, what is evidence that you know God or do you not know God? Is this all religiosity? And the second question is, in what ways are you holding fast to the traditions of men? Okay? In what ways are you holding fast to the faithful word? Now, are all traditions bad?

Are all the traditions of men bad? Not necessarily. Right? If you're doing these traditions like morning prayer, I mentioned that in my group. Korean peoples, they love their morning prayers. Right? They go there early in the morning because the earlier you go, the more blessed you are. The Lord sees that I sacrificed my three hours of sleep and he will bless me.

Is there anything wrong with morning prayer? Absolutely not. But if you're going there to manipulate God, that is evil. But to go there to seek the Lord, that's honorable. That's a tradition of man. No word does it say in the Bible to go pray early in the morning as a command.

Jesus did it in Mark chapter 1 verse 35, I think. He did it. But that's not descriptive. That's what he did. There are traditions that we have that we pollute, corrupt, and pervert. But the traditions in and of themselves are not what's wrong. It's the desire either to offer worship or to manipulate God is what is wrong.

Are you guys following this? Okay? So there's a lot in here and there's going to continue to be a lot because from next week on, we're doing five verses a week. We started out with baby steps with three and today we did four and some of you guys are like, it doesn't fit in the paper.

Right? But starting next week, it's five. Okay? So with the remaining time, just go over this. In what ways are you holding fast? Okay? In what ways are you holding fast the faithful word? All right? And it's not the same word in the Greek, but they're cousins, same root.

Okay? Let me pray for us and then we'll dismiss to our groups. Thank you, Father, for your kindness that has led many of us to repentance. And we are not here because we earned this. From the beginning of our walk with you to where we sit today has all been grace.

I pray that you would help us to appreciate it rather than to take it for granted, neglect it, and abuse it so that the world will see through our testimony that you indeed are a very powerful good God. There's a lot of false teaching that is in and around our churches and we pray that you would help us to combat them, not to self-promote, but really to honor your truth and to fight for your truth, remembering that the goal of all this, though, is love.

So help us to be loving ambassadors to this dying world in both spirit and in truth. And we thank you, Lord, for just your provision of the couple hours that we had to study. In Jesus' name we pray. And this is next week, no Bible study. This is next time.

I'm gonna put this up on Facebook, but it's chapter 2, verses 1 through 5. No Bible study next Wednesday, but two Wednesdays from now. All right? And I just leave you with this. 2, 1 through 5 is the next assignment. assignment.