Sermon Tone Analysis

*How is Christianity to Impact a Pagan Society?

Titus 2:15-3:2 *

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on August 24, 2008/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

* *

There are many different answers given to the question of how Christians are to impact an ungodly and even anti-God culture like ours:

- Pacifism (no engagement)

- Political activism, lobbying and trying to legislate morality

- Protests and marches with placards, even violence to abortionists

- Picketing and making as much noise and trouble as we can

- Pretending in the church to be like the world as much as possible to supposedly win them to Christ in the process

- Professional marketing of Christianity by corporate techniques to reach the demographic by finding out what each customer wants

- Pulling out our family from any contact from the world

 

Somehow what is rarely brought up is praying, paying taxes, preaching the gospel and practically living our faith before others.

As always, we want to know what God wants us to know in His Word.

*Titus 2:15-3:5 (NASB95) 15 **These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority.

Let no one disregard you.**

**3:1 **Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed,** **2 **to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.** **3 **For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.**

**4 **But when the kindness of God our Savior and /His /love for mankind appeared,** **5 **He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy …                              *

 

HOW IS CHRISTIANITY TO IMPACT A PAGAN SOCIETY?

 

#1 By Lifting up Scripture Courageously (2:15)

#2 By Living as Submissive Citizens (3:1-2)

#3 By Loving other Sinners to Christ (3:3-5) – /this one next week/

 

#.

*By Lifting Up Scripture Courageously *

* *

*15 **These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority.

Let no one disregard you.*

Every part of the church has been addressed, and now this verse summarizes the role of Titus, and by application, all who seek to lift up the Word of God as supreme, with their delegated authority.

“THESE THINGS” would include everything Paul has said in chapter 2, if not the entire letter.

It is /these things /that will make an impact in a pagan society, as he’s taught in chapter 2, godly older men mentoring men in the faith, women doing likewise, younger women being keepers at home and loving their husbands and children, younger men being self-controlled and an example to all

SPEAK – picks up the same verb from 2:1, perhaps rounding out this whole section, or this verse may look forward or cover the book as a whole as well, and by application, all of God’s Word.

EXHORT – we’ve discussed this word before, which means to come alongside to help, encourage, admonish, often positively

 

1 Thessalonians 5:14 (NASB95) 14 We urge you, brethren, *admonish* the unruly, *encourag*e the fainthearted, *help* the weak, *be patient with* everyone.

The Puritan Richard Baxter has written in the vein of Titus 2:1-10

 

See also that when you are [ministering to individuals] your own manners reflect the

character of what you are communicating.

So speak appropriately, and therefore

differently, to each one.

To the dull and the obstinate, be blunt and earnest.

To the

tenderhearted and the fearful, be gentle, and insist on the need of their spiritual

direction.

To the young, lay more stress on the enticements of sensual pleasures and

of the great need to have control over their passions.

To the old, prepare them for

death and for the need to withdraw from the foolish ways of this present world.

To

the young, be free; and to the old, be respectful.

To the rich, preach self-denial and

the deceitfulness of prosperity.

To the poor, show the glory of the Gospel.

Note, too,

the temptation of each group, each sex, each profession, and each one's employment.

Be as simple and humble before them as you can.

Give them scriptural evidence for

all that you may say.

Then they will see that it is not just you, but God who is

speaking to them.

Be serious in all things, but especially in the way that you apply

the truth to their specific needs."[1]

REPROVE – This is the word we’ve seen before in Titus for rebuking or refuting error in doctrine or living.

It’s the other side of the double-edged sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

I believe it’s Vance Havner that said: “God’s Word both comforts the afflicted and it afflicts the comfortable.”

That’s what it does.

These words in Titus 2:15 are used of God’s Word itself and why and how it is to be preached this way.

Look a few pages earlier:

 

2 Timothy 3:16-4:3 (NASB95) 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for *teaching, for reproof, for correction*, *for training* in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for *every good work [also in Titus 3:1 at end]*. 1 I solemnly charge /you /in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 *preach the word;* be ready in season /and /out of season; *reprove, rebuke, exhort*, with great patience and instruction.

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but /wanting /to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires

 

That’s an authoritative charge based on an authoritative Word.

It’s because God’s Word is inspired by God for each of those things;  Paul can tell Titus to speak, exhort, and rebuke with all authority.

In Titus 2:15, this word for authority was used in that day for kingly authority – we are a herald or ambassador for the King and if we give the King’s message there is inherent authority and power with it.

Not a human /authoritarian /- the authority a preacher has is not his own, it is from God’s Word as a faithful officer of it.

A preacher can speak with authority when he expounds the truth of God and can say with full conviction “Thus says the Lord.”

Look at Titus 2:15 again – each of these verbs are present tense commands the man of God is to keep on doing as a habit, all of life

 

And do it *with all authority*, it says.

When Jesus finished His first sermon recorded in the gospels, the people all marveled because He spoke as someone having authority, not like their scribes.

WITH ALL AUTHORITY – The source is our Almighty Lord who used the same phrase in His Great Commission: “*All authority* in heaven and earth is given unto me.

Therefore go and make disciples, baptizing them … and *teaching them to obey everything I commanded you.

For lo, I am with you always.*”

As ambassadors for Christ, and spokesmen for Him, we are to teach others to obey everything Christ taught, courageously, fearlessly and without flattery, without hesitation or manipulation – the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God.

We are to lift up the Scriptures courageously even though our world doesn’t want to hear it and may disregard us.

Even some in the church were apparently disregarding young pastors like Timothy as immature or inexperienced, and of course many today would disregard me similarly or would say my teaching is intolerant, irrelevant, ignorant, etc.

 

Paul says here don’t be deterred or put off if anybody despises you, disregards you, or disrespects you, just keep proclaiming God’s Word in season and out, when they want it and when they don’t.

A sin-confronting, Christ-compelled, God-centered message with authority is not popular or always well-received in our culture of T-shirts saying resist authority, question everything, etc.

It was not many years ago when kids had a healthy fear of authorities and respect of adults in general, but we have a generation that has grown up with no respect for authority and much of that can spill over into the church.

God’s Word tells those who would teach it not to be deterred by that, not to tickle ears but to box their ears with the truth where appropriate.

Speak the Scriptures, including the convicting ones, clearly, compassionately and courageously.

What Philips Brooks said in his famous 1877 Yale /Lectures on Preaching/ sounds a much-needed warning.

“If you are afraid of men and a slave to their opinion, go and do something else.

Go and make shoes to fit them.

Go even and paint pictures which you know are bad, but which suit their bad taste.

But do not keep on all your life preaching sermons which say not what God sent you to declare, but what they have you to say.

Be courageous.”[2]

Authority wasn’t popular on the island of Crete, where Paul already said in 1:10 that there are many rebellious or insubordinate men, and there are those who contradict who need to be refuted by godly men.

But we need sermons with authority and courage.

Steve Lawson at the 2001 Shepherd’s Conference called for men of courage to lift up the Scriptures to a dying world and to malnourished churches, and that sermon was used mightily by God in my life to propel me to Seminary, a call I was sensing for awhile but I needed that passionate message to kick me into the ministry.

Steve Lawson is a great example of someone who fulfills Titus 2:15 “with all authority” and he joined his voice that night to faithful voices from the past who called for men to heed this truth.

He first quoted Alexander Maclaren, Scottish preacher of the nineteenth century, who spoke of the authority and passionate and powerful “manner befitting those who bear God’s message.

They should sound it out loudly, plainly, urgently with earnestness and marks of emotion in their voices.

Languid whispers will not wake up sleepers.

Unless the messenger is manifestly in earnest, the message will fall flat.

Not with bated breath as if ashamed of it, nor with hesitation as if not quite sure of it, nor with coldness as if it were of little urgency-God’s Word is to be pealed in men’s ears.’