Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Titus Touch – Titus 1:4-5*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on May 4, 2008/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

I want to begin by telling you about a missionary friend, someone I consider to be a true ministry friend from afar.

I don’t have a close personal relationship with this man, but I do consider him to be a great personal example and encouragement of the godly commitment of a fellow pastor.

He is also a young pastor, although I don’t know his exact age, he is very mature spiritually.

He hasn’t had all the formal training, but he has a lot of hands-on experience in difficult ministry and controversies in the church.

He may not have the academic degrees that would impress the world, but he has the dedication and the heart of a true servant-leader that God looks for.

If you were to talk to him, I think you would be impressed with his genuineness and godliness.

This brother in the Lord was saved under the ministry of a very well-known minister, an evangelist and preacher who you would all recognize if I said his name.

He was not only converted under the teaching of this evangelist, but he was also personally discipled by him and ministered under his tutelage for some time.

This young pastor according to all who know him, has great people skills, but more importantly, unimpeachable integrity.

He is someone you can count on, a clutch player every coach would want on his team and every pastor would want on his staff.

He has an unusual knack for dealing with problems in churches, and for being a great encouragement and comfort to others when they are spiritually downcast.

He's one of the few who can really walk the tightrope of church problems without falling into the errors on either side, someone who can deal with false teachers, divisive members, and different ethnic groups.

One thing I appreciate about him is his earnestness and his affection for God's people.

He is just one of those refreshing people, who revitalize you when you're around them, who brings a smile to your face, someone who endears himself to you.

He's on a missionary assignment right now which I believe is his first on his own - the island where he is serving is pretty remote, it's a difficult place where the church is very weak and the native people are notorious for their wickedness.

He's not really a traditional church-planter per se, but his ministry is more of a church-strengthener.

His primary focus is finding godly men who can lead the church so he can get out of the way, but in order to get the church where it needs to be, he needs to help teach them the principles taught by Paul and the NT writers

This man I’m telling you about I’ve never actually met in person, I’ve only met him on the pages of the Bible.

This man lived in the first century and his name is Titus, and this book that we’re studying was named after him and written to him.

I want to introduce you to him today ... let's turn to Paul's letter to this man and see what lessons God might want us to learn from the life and labor of Titus.

Titus 1:4-20 (NASB95) \\ 4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

5 For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you, 6 /namely, /if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion.

7 For the overseer must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, 8 but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled,

9 holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. 10 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not /teach /for the sake of sordid gain.

12 One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”

13 This testimony is true.

For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.

15 To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

16 They profess to know God, but by /their /deeds they deny /Him/, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.

We’re going to look mainly at verse 4-5 in detail today, but when you read the whole rest of the chapter it helps you see the flow and context of Titus the man and his mission on the island of Crete.

-         As v. 12 says, the people on this island describe themselves as all liars and lazy beasts and gluttons (that’s not what their outside enemies call the Cretans, the Cretans admit it!)

-         Not only liars and lazy, but legalists were there, including those of the circumcision (see end of v. 11)

 

This was a difficult situation.

How is a man of God or woman of God to handle a difficult situation?

Titus gives us a good example.

You can tell by reading this first chapter that Titus was in a difficult circumstance.

He truly had his work cut out for him.

This was no easy assignment or task for the faint of heart or someone seeking an easy 9-5 job or a fun or enjoyable ministry.

Today the island of Crete is a place where some choose for a holiday at sea, but for Titus this was no vacation on an island.

-         Verse 9 says there were those doctrinally contradicting that needed to be refuted

-         Verse 10 describes the many deceivers (3:3 “deceived”) who are rebellious men and empty talkers

-         Verse 11 says they are disturbing entire families with their deviant teaching that needed to be silenced (suggesting this is going on in the churches and needs to be addressed)

-         Verse 15 describes the people as defiled

-         Verse 16 describes them as denying God, detestable, disobedient even though they profess to know God

-         2:5 suggests that there may have been some dishonoring of God’s word by women not fulfilling their god-given feminine roles, and there was a real need for discipleship among younger men and women by those with greater maturity of the same gender

-         It seems some were disregarding Titus (see 2:15)

-         3:9 says some were debaters and disputers about the Law

-         3:10 says there are divisive people that need to be warned

/ /

/In summary, you have doctrinal errors to be refuted, deceivers who are many as well as those who are deceived, there is disturbing of entire families, defiled consciences plague the people, there’s detestable, disobedient ones among professing believers who are denying God, there’s a discipleship lack that’s contributing to dishonoring of God in gender roles, there’s disregarding of authority, debaters, disputers, and divisive people to be dealt with./

/ /

This is not a ministry opportunity where when you ask for volunteers you have to tell everyone not to raise their hands at once.

There wasn’t a big waiting list.

A search committee would not get many resumes if they advertised this position online.

This is a tough task in a tough environment.

This is not a job for Mr. Rogers to come and take off his shoes and sweater and just smile and relax.

Spiritually speaking, this is not the place for a weak man to come with a weak message for a weak church.

This is the place for strong men of God, giving and living strong doctrine.

The need of the hour is for strong men with strong family life, men with strong personal character, men strong in God’s Word, to give a strong message with strong conviction and grace.

That’s exactly the big idea of this chapter.

That was the need addressed in Titus 1.

The need is still the same in our day – God inspired these words not only for the 1st century, but for the 21st century.

Not just in Crete but in California and our country as well.

*5 **For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you*

/ /

Today we’re going to get to know Titus, the man and his mission, beginning with the mission.

Verse 5 really summarizes the mission and in some ways summarizes the main point of the whole book.

/ /

The historical setting is Crete, as verse 5 says, and we’re going to spend some time on the historical context today because context is always critical to understanding and applying scripture.

We’re going to spend most of this message introducing ourselves to Titus and Crete, not primarily for /mere information/, but to aid our /interpretation/.

And we need to take the time to study the original setting to help us get the original meaning, which is always what we want.

The key starting question is not “what does this mean for me,” but we need to start with “what did Paul mean when he wrote this and what did it mean to Titus when he received it and read it.”

And of course, we also want to know what did God meant and intended when He inspired it, knowing that others would also be reading this letter, beginning with the early church in Crete.

*Titus 3:15 “**All who are with me greet you.

Greet those who love us in /the /faith.

Grace be with you all.”*

So we know that all Scripture is profitable and has applications for God’s people of any time, but we must always remember the original reader and writer and so let’s look at the background.

/SEE SLIDE SHOW/

* *

*SLIDE 1 – Paul’s 3rd missionary journey* (Titus written after)

Crete is roughly equidistant from Europe, Africa, and Asia and because of its strategic position, many nations in past millennia wanted to claim it as their own.

In the 20th century it has been a part of Greece, except for a period of German occupancy during WWII.

* *

*SLIDE 2 – Modern map*

Crete is situated approximately 60 miles SE of Greece and 110 miles SW of modern Turkey.

In 2003, its population was about a half a million.

The length of the island is approximately the distance from Sacramento to Reno, to put that in a little perspective, and of course there weren’t any highways and there were mountains and rugged terrain that made travel more difficult then, so it would take some time for Titus to do what verse 5 says.

* *

*SLIDE 3 – SATELLITE PHOTO*

Crete is an island (also called Candia today) that is one of the largest in the Mediterranean, some 140 miles long and up to 35 miles wide in some places, a lot less in others.

*SLIDE 4 - LANDSCAPE*

You can see in the background that there is a lot of agriculture as the land is fertile and it always has been.

You’ll notice in some ways Crete looks a little like parts of California.

Some of its mountain peaks are at elevations about 8,000 feet,  which is comparable to some of the peaks around Lake Tahoe.

But the spiritual terrain was even more rough and tough to navigate.

We already read the true reputation of Cretans in verse 12 “liars, lazy gluttons, evil beasts” and you can read a number of ancient writers who were not even Christians who were very disgusted at the detestable deceitful character of Cretans.

It’s been said “"the moral level of its inhabitants was deplorable.

Their ferocity and fraud were widely attested; their falsehood was proverbial; the wine of Crete was famous, and drunkenness prevailed."

Into this ungodly mission field Paul had planted Titus to organize the church ("appoint elders in every city") and to "speak and exhort and reprove with all authority" (Titus 2:15).

*SLIDES 5 & 6 – WIND IN NT TIMES (CF.

ACTS 27)*

 

The wind was strong around here, as we learn in Acts 27 where Paul’s ship gets blown off and shipwrecked here.

But it was not only ships that would get blown in, the various winds of doctrines and ideas and beliefs and religions would also get blown in, causing immature Christians to be tossed to and fro (cf.

Eph. 4)