back to indexBerean Community Church: Wednesday Night Bible Study | Titus 1:13-16
Chapters
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0:4 Group Discussions 1. Share the inductive questions and observations that you made from 1:13-16.
5:18 Titus 1:13 Severe Reproof
12:26 Myths & Arrogant Commands
15:23 Titus 1:14 Unspecified "Ear-Tickling" Teachings
20:13 How Does One Become Sound in the Faith We have no hope outside of Christ
23:32 Titus 1:15-16 Pure vs. Defiled
32:4 For (Wednesday 10/20) 1. Read Titus 2:1-5
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Hopefully you guys have had a very good discussion. 00:00:38.000 |
I was having a lengthy discussion with Pastor Peter earlier today. 00:00:43.000 |
And we're kind of in the middle of a discussion about how to do 00:00:52.000 |
And we're kind of talking about how, like, for the both of us, 00:00:54.000 |
in this passage, there's a lot that we have to take out of the 00:01:03.000 |
So most likely I'm not going to be getting to every question that 00:01:07.000 |
came up and everything that even I deem important. 00:01:10.000 |
I'm just going to share with you some things that I feel like would 00:01:13.000 |
be helpful a little bit to kind of tie everything together. 00:01:17.000 |
And the goal of inductive study is not to get every answer. 00:01:21.000 |
The goal of inductive study really is to dive deeply and to start 00:01:25.000 |
digging to see really how God would have us live. 00:01:29.000 |
So the first thing, and you've seen this before, this is just a 00:01:34.000 |
list of descriptions that in the beginning everything was highlit 00:01:41.000 |
From last week, you know, there are empty talkers, receivers, 00:01:44.000 |
circumcision, upsetting whole families, teaching for sordid gain, 00:01:49.000 |
And then today Jewish myths turn away from the truth, defiled, 00:01:53.000 |
unbelieving, defiled, there's a proper profession, an improper 00:01:58.000 |
practice, detestable, disobedient, worthless for any good deed. 00:02:02.000 |
Detestable in some translations is actually abomination, 00:02:07.000 |
So, man, these people are abominable is what it's saying, like 00:02:14.000 |
So this is the description of the rebellious men. 00:02:32.000 |
So here in verse 13 it says, "This testimony is true and for 00:02:42.000 |
And you guys might have had many colorful discussions about this 00:02:46.000 |
already, but I'm just going to look at a parallel passage in 00:02:50.000 |
1 Timothy 1 and 2 Timothy 2 and kind of see the heartbeat behind 00:02:58.000 |
1 Timothy 1, 3 to 7 reads, "As I urged you upon my departure from 00:03:03.000 |
Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain 00:03:13.000 |
"Nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies which give 00:03:16.000 |
rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration 00:03:24.000 |
But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a 00:03:33.000 |
For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to 00:03:39.000 |
fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law even 00:03:45.000 |
though they do not understand either what they are saying or 00:03:49.000 |
the matters about which they make confident assertions." 00:03:54.000 |
So we are surrounded by religious people who think they 00:04:02.000 |
And the call, whether it's the church or the individual 00:04:05.000 |
Christian, okay, I haven't gotten there yet, but it's to 00:04:14.000 |
But when we're usually out to reprove somebody, ooh, love is 00:04:24.000 |
Some of you guys I know in here, you don't care about the truth 00:04:29.000 |
That's not the attitude that's supposed to be surfacing. 00:04:32.000 |
2 Timothy 2, 23 to 26, "But refuse foolish and ignorant 00:04:37.000 |
speculations knowing that they produce quarrels. 00:04:41.000 |
The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome but be 00:04:47.000 |
kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with 00:04:54.000 |
gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. 00:04:59.000 |
If perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the 00:05:04.000 |
knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and 00:05:09.000 |
escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive 00:05:16.000 |
So here, just, this is a parallel passage, okay? 00:05:20.000 |
What we're being called to do really is with Christlike love 00:05:30.000 |
Even if they are enemies of the church, the goal is not like 00:05:38.000 |
And the scriptures point out, seems like there's a possibility 00:05:41.000 |
that they can be brought over and won over, okay? 00:05:45.000 |
So I think modern day Christians, when it comes to like 00:05:48.000 |
false prophets and health and wealth gospel teachers and 00:05:51.000 |
stuff, we want God to just judge them and condemn them. 00:05:56.000 |
It's always to bring them to restoration as well, okay? 00:06:08.000 |
And that's why for elders and leaders in the church, you can't 00:06:11.000 |
be chip on your shoulder, vindictive, pugnacious. 00:06:16.000 |
It takes a mature man to be able to get yelled at and spit on 00:06:20.000 |
and chewed on and being called dumb and ignorant and bigoted 00:06:25.000 |
and just to continue to speak in love, right? 00:06:30.000 |
So that's why the list of elders or the qualifications of elders 00:06:38.000 |
And when I see this, like instinctively I think emotion, 00:06:43.000 |
If I rebuked my child sharply, you're thinking that there's 00:06:56.000 |
Like, just do one of these, like shaking them and like, 00:07:01.000 |
And something that I found was the word severely is only used 00:07:06.000 |
And so I kind of did a little bit of a just exploration into 00:07:16.000 |
And this is the other place where he uses severely, okay? 00:07:20.000 |
"For this reason I am writing these things while absent so that 00:07:23.000 |
when present I need not use severity in accordance with the 00:07:29.000 |
authority with which the Lord gave me for building up and not 00:07:39.000 |
This word has more to do with authority than any kind of like 00:07:51.000 |
So is this charge for church leadership or for all believers? 00:08:00.000 |
I'm not necessarily going to come up with all kinds of clear 00:08:03.000 |
But I want to point you to some scriptures that will give you 00:08:09.000 |
Matthew 16, 18 to 19, Peter makes a confession of the 00:08:16.000 |
And Jesus says, "I also say to you that you are Peter and upon 00:08:19.000 |
this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not 00:08:25.000 |
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever 00:08:29.000 |
you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever 00:08:33.000 |
you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." 00:08:38.000 |
So there's an important role that Peter and the church plays 00:08:49.000 |
God ordained the church for a specific reason that has 00:08:58.000 |
Verse 18, it talks about Christian and Christian conflict 00:09:02.000 |
and if there's a sin, someone has to rebuke them, okay? 00:09:08.000 |
If he refuses to listen to the two witnesses, two or three 00:09:13.000 |
witnesses, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the 00:09:17.000 |
And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you 00:09:25.000 |
"Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have 00:09:29.000 |
been bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall have 00:09:37.000 |
Because there is something about a severe rebuke, if it's not 00:09:46.000 |
Does the church have authority basically not necessarily to 00:09:51.000 |
condemn but to judge somebody severely, to almost declare and 00:10:12.000 |
2.15, speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. 00:10:18.000 |
So Titus, Paul's true child in a common faith, he's been given 00:10:28.000 |
He's not an apostle but he's almost given the authority to be 00:10:39.000 |
Chapter 3 verse 8, Paul again says, speak confidently. 00:10:49.000 |
So as I'm digging through these things, and I'm not gonna have 00:10:52.000 |
time to expound on all this, there is a place that God has 00:10:57.000 |
given to the church to anathematize false teachers. 00:11:04.000 |
Okay, now that's been abused in many way, shapes, and forms 00:11:09.000 |
because the goal was not love, it was just a, you know, I've 00:11:16.000 |
And I'm gonna leave you here spiritually constipated so you 00:11:21.000 |
So what does it mean to be reproving severely? 00:11:34.000 |
And then immediately in our context today, the reason this 00:11:37.000 |
is important is because everyone's all speaking badly 00:11:49.000 |
So before I throw out a blanket statement like that, even if the 00:11:53.000 |
church is abusive, it's the institution that God ordained. 00:11:59.000 |
Okay, remember, eisegesis is I'm putting my interpretation into 00:12:04.000 |
Exegesis is I'm looking at the text, I'm taking it out, seeing 00:12:11.000 |
Regardless of what the culture around me or what churchianity 00:12:17.000 |
So I'm gonna leave you here spiritually constipated and I 00:12:23.000 |
Verse 14, "Myths and arrogant commands," but I just titled it 00:12:38.000 |
Religiosity dictates all kinds of stuff and it evolves, okay? 00:12:44.000 |
So some people think it's just genealogies, okay, but what is 00:12:50.000 |
It could be rabbinic teachings based on the Old Testament that 00:12:54.000 |
are a little bit overly legalistic like the Pharisees, 00:13:01.000 |
They're taking like these Hebrew words, you add them up, they 00:13:04.000 |
give them a value and there's predictions of like all kinds of 00:13:13.000 |
There's a Colossian heresy that was contemporaneous to this. 00:13:16.000 |
"Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to 00:13:20.000 |
things destined to perish with use in accordance with the 00:13:24.000 |
These are matters which have to be sure, the appearance of 00:13:26.000 |
wisdom and self-made religion and self-abasement and severe 00:13:29.000 |
treatment of the body, but of no value against fleshly 00:13:35.000 |
Remember, I mentioned hedonism, which is like just giving in to 00:13:39.000 |
whatever pleasure, and asceticism are two sides of the 00:13:42.000 |
Legalism and cheap grace liberalism, two sides of the same 00:13:51.000 |
Okay, so when we are exegeting, we're trying to figure out what 00:13:56.000 |
God has to say rather than imposing our perspective on the 00:14:00.000 |
So there's all kinds of stuff going on, alright? 00:14:04.000 |
We don't know exactly what that is, but it's religious practice 00:14:18.000 |
So I referred you guys before to Mark 7 and Matthew 15, and I'm 00:14:24.000 |
Some of you might have already discussed this. 00:14:26.000 |
This is Jesus confronting the Pharisees and then explaining to 00:14:30.000 |
the disciples, "But in vain do they worship me, teaching as 00:14:35.000 |
Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition 00:14:40.000 |
He was also saying to them, "You are experts at setting aside the 00:14:44.000 |
commandment of God in order to keep your tradition." 00:14:47.000 |
And he was saying, "That which proceeds out of the man, that is 00:14:53.000 |
For from within, out of the heart of man, proceed the evil 00:14:56.000 |
thoughts, fornications, thefts, murder, adulteries, deeds of 00:15:01.000 |
coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, 00:15:07.000 |
All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man." 00:15:16.000 |
I just tried to put together like a definition that I would say. 00:15:21.000 |
"All who have fallen short of the glory of God must humble 00:15:27.000 |
themselves in repentance and faith and be justified freely 00:15:31.000 |
and only by his grace and thus be restored to their creator and 00:15:36.000 |
worship him eternally in spirit and in truth." 00:15:44.000 |
We were created by God and for God to love God and to serve God. 00:15:55.000 |
We were created by God and for God to love God and to serve 00:15:58.000 |
God and that is our purpose and sin is not doing that. 00:16:05.000 |
And what Jewish myths and commandments of men are doing, 00:16:10.000 |
it's to try to tell you that there's a back door. 00:16:14.000 |
You can be restored to God by your own effort. 00:16:19.000 |
And that's pretty much the premise of all false religions. 00:16:24.000 |
You can get to God is every premise for every false religion. 00:16:32.000 |
Anything that tells you that you can be good on your own is a 00:16:39.000 |
And I want to emotionally spell this out for you and my favorite 00:16:50.000 |
What can Mr. Mosquito do to earn your love and be adopted as your 00:17:02.000 |
Suck out blood from only bad people and then spit it out into 00:17:08.000 |
What can Mr. Mosquito do to earn your love and be adopted as your 00:17:15.000 |
Even if he doesn't bite you and he's flying around, 00:17:26.000 |
And how many of you guys would be upset if someone next to you 00:17:36.000 |
If there's a mosquito in here flying around and someone kills 00:17:46.000 |
It'd be weird if someone was affectionate toward this mosquito. 00:17:50.000 |
Especially if this area had dengue, Zika, right? 00:17:57.000 |
So what can Mr. Mosquito do to earn your love and be adopted as 00:18:05.000 |
No matter what it does, that will never happen. 00:18:12.000 |
The distance between me and God, the distance between me and 00:18:24.000 |
Infinitely between me and God is a greater distance. 00:18:27.000 |
So for man to say that I can appease holy God somehow is the 00:18:44.000 |
It's based a little bit on truths that we may have heard in 00:18:48.000 |
But there's no thing that you and I can do to make ourselves 00:18:56.000 |
And to teach that we can is utter arrogance and heresy. 00:19:25.000 |
It's called poopah but I prefer the term poopah. 00:19:32.000 |
Ephesians 2 calls us children, the technon of wrath. 00:19:38.000 |
So to say that these guys can do something good to you is utter 00:19:45.000 |
Us to please holy, holy, holy God by some kind of morning 00:19:49.000 |
prayer, by some kind of cutting, by some kind of donation or 00:19:54.000 |
offering, by some kind of service, by some kind of 00:19:57.000 |
manipulation is not just utter stupidity, it's arrogance. 00:20:02.000 |
And that's why that kind of teaching needs to be slapped in 00:20:27.000 |
So sinners cannot purify their own hearts through ritual, deed 00:20:37.000 |
You need a new heart is what the Bible teaches. 00:20:47.000 |
Not only that, he changes your spiritual DNA. 00:20:50.000 |
He implants himself into you to effect change. 00:20:56.000 |
You cannot be a Christian and not look like a Christian. 00:21:03.000 |
Those with new or pure hearts now cannot help but to engage in 00:21:28.000 |
In every chapter there is an incarnation of Christ. 00:21:37.000 |
God our Savior, God our Savior, God our Savior. 00:21:54.000 |
Who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and 00:21:58.000 |
And chapter 3 verses 4 through 8 is the third Christology there. 00:22:09.000 |
So any Jewish myth and the commandment of men that basically 00:22:14.000 |
commands you to do something to appease God is what needs to be 00:22:29.000 |
That you cannot get to God by your own effort. 00:22:32.000 |
Now, some of you, the immature thought may be, oh, 00:22:51.000 |
Now, before we get that, I'm just going to briefly talk about 00:22:55.000 |
And I mentioned every false religious system is a works-based 00:23:02.000 |
And the sin that God hates the most is arrogance. 00:23:09.000 |
and this is kind of touching upon launching off of verse 15. 00:23:28.000 |
So for someone who is pure, all things are pure. 00:23:40.000 |
But he's got the spirit of God not only as a pledge and as a 00:23:43.000 |
promise, but it's a sanctifying, effectual work that God's spirit 00:23:53.000 |
Because the bridegroom takes ownership of the bride and 00:24:00.000 |
And look at how many times good deeds is used. 00:24:02.000 |
Verse 16, deeds, worthless for any good deed. 00:24:07.000 |
Verse 2, chapter 2, verse 7, example of good deeds. 00:24:19.000 |
Chapter 3, verse 8, carefully engage in good deeds. 00:24:29.000 |
So just in case you guys didn't get it, our people, Titus, must 00:24:33.000 |
also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs so 00:24:38.000 |
that we will not be unfruitful is what he says. 00:24:45.000 |
You cannot have a Christian life without good deeds. 00:24:50.000 |
But you can't get to God on the basis of your deeds. 00:24:55.000 |
And that's kind of how you can sum up the latter part of 00:24:59.000 |
chapter 1 and what it is that we are supposed to go head on 00:25:04.000 |
So most of the world around you, the people at your work and at 00:25:09.000 |
your schools and your families, they don't think they're an 00:25:19.000 |
Yeah, Emily, I'm a little more moral than, yeah, her. 00:25:30.000 |
Jamie, yeah, she just is like grossly hypocritical. 00:25:49.000 |
You know, I share this is when George Floyd's death happened, 00:25:55.000 |
That night, for some reason, in my prayer, I identified with 00:26:03.000 |
And I was like, there's the bystanders, there's that Asian 00:26:06.000 |
cop, there's the other cop there, there's George Floyd on 00:26:16.000 |
Because that guy probably did not wake up planning to kill 00:26:23.000 |
He just got provoked enough to where the stuff inside came out 00:26:32.000 |
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 00:26:52.000 |
But being justified freely by his grace produces crazy change 00:27:00.000 |
So, that's today's teaching kind of in a nutshell. 00:27:04.000 |
There's a lot that I ended up having to carve out. 00:27:07.000 |
Otherwise, you guys would be here just tomorrow, okay? 00:27:09.000 |
But just sit there spiritually constipated and flesh these 00:27:19.000 |
What is the evidence that you know God or don't know God? 00:27:26.000 |
And this is very encouraging for me to do for myself. 00:27:30.000 |
2 Corinthians 13, 5, examine yourselves to see whether you're 00:27:34.000 |
Don't you realize that Christ Jesus is in you? 00:27:38.000 |
In verse 6, Paul says, "I hope you realize yourselves don't 00:27:49.000 |
We're called to quote Psalm 139, "Search me, O Lord, 00:28:06.000 |
It should be super encouraging because if you look at yourself 00:28:13.000 |
I'm like, I'm still so far from where I need to be. 00:28:17.000 |
But I look a lot more like Jesus than I did 10 years ago. 00:28:25.000 |
It's because God is -- his DNA is coming out. 00:28:29.000 |
So, what is evidence that you know God or do you not know God? 00:28:34.000 |
And the second question is, in what ways are you holding fast 00:28:40.000 |
In what ways are you holding fast to the faithful word? 00:28:52.000 |
If you're doing these traditions like morning prayer, 00:28:57.000 |
Korean peoples, they love their morning prayers. 00:29:01.000 |
They go there early in the morning because the earlier you 00:29:04.000 |
The Lord sees that I sacrificed my three hours of sleep and he 00:29:13.000 |
But if you're going there to manipulate God, that is evil. 00:29:17.000 |
But to go there to seek the Lord, that's honorable. 00:29:27.000 |
No word does it say in the Bible to go pray early in the morning 00:29:31.000 |
Jesus did it in Mark chapter 1 verse 35, I think. 00:29:38.000 |
There are traditions that we have that we pollute, corrupt, 00:29:45.000 |
But the traditions in and of themselves are not what's wrong. 00:29:49.000 |
It's the desire either to offer worship or to manipulate God is 00:29:59.000 |
So there's a lot in here and there's going to continue to be 00:30:03.000 |
a lot because from next week on, we're doing five verses a week. 00:30:06.000 |
We started out with baby steps with three and today we did four 00:30:09.000 |
and some of you guys are like, it doesn't fit in the paper. 00:30:16.000 |
So with the remaining time, just go over this. 00:30:24.000 |
In what ways are you holding fast the faithful word? 00:30:28.000 |
And it's not the same word in the Greek, but they're cousins, 00:30:35.000 |
Let me pray for us and then we'll dismiss to our groups. 00:30:44.000 |
Thank you, Father, for your kindness that has led many of us 00:30:57.000 |
From the beginning of our walk with you to where we sit today 00:31:07.000 |
I pray that you would help us to appreciate it rather than to 00:31:13.000 |
take it for granted, neglect it, and abuse it so that the world 00:31:19.000 |
will see through our testimony that you indeed are a very 00:31:28.000 |
There's a lot of false teaching that is in and around our 00:31:31.000 |
churches and we pray that you would help us to combat them, 00:31:35.000 |
not to self-promote, but really to honor your truth and to fight 00:31:40.000 |
for your truth, remembering that the goal of all this, though, 00:31:47.000 |
So help us to be loving ambassadors to this dying world 00:31:54.000 |
And we thank you, Lord, for just your provision of the couple 00:32:06.000 |
I'm gonna put this up on Facebook, but it's chapter 2, 00:32:09.000 |
No Bible study next Wednesday, but two Wednesdays from now.