Sermon Tone Analysis

An Elder Safeguards the Truth

Our passage this morning expands on this principle, where we see Titus needing to rebuke those who stand in opposition to God’s word.

In order to protect the church, he must establish Christian leaders of God’s teaching who are willing to defend the truth, for the sake of the building of the faith of the church and so that they may carry out good works.

But before we jump into our passage, I want to look at one question:

Why is Truth important?

Truth leads to Life

This isn’t just Eternal Life: this is also increased benefit in the present life.

Without living according to the truth of God’s word, you cannot complete good works.

But by living according to God’s word and God’s design, good works are able to be accomplished.

And there’s a really important record in scripture of an event that changed the course of human history that underlines the importance of Truth.

It’s where truth was first exchanged for a lie, and death entered the world.

Yes, I’m talking about the garden of Eden.

So let’s turn there briefly to review and refresh our minds on the narrative.

Beginning with Genesis 2, verses 15 through seventeen.

So Adam was given one rule to live by in the garden.

Think of it this way: The Garden of Eden is a temple of God- the place where God is worshipped, and he walks and dwells with his people.

In fact, all God’s temples in the Old Testament, if you think of the Tabernacle, and Solomon’s temple … incorporate garden imagery: trees, pomegranates, so on and so forth.

And in God’s temple, in God’s presence, there must be nothing unholy.

If we need an example of this, we can just look at Aaron’s two sons who were set to be priests in God’s temple, but who offered unholy fire before the Lord and he took their lives for it in order to stress the point of his holiness.

God does not dwell in the presence of sin.

He is holy: his is above sin; he never sins; he is distant from it.

Adam, as a priest in God’s garden temple, was to maintain the integrity of the site: to preserve its upkeep, yes, but also to maintain its integrity: that the place wouldn’t become defiled and corrupt.

And part of that duty meant not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

If Adam disobeyed God, unholiness would enter in before the presence of God, and Adam would be cast out, since God is perfectly holy and does not dwell with sin – and Adam’s path would lead to death.

Adam’s job as a temple high priest is to keep God’s word, to safeguard its integrity.

Adam needed to keep God’s word

We’ll see how well Adam does in just a bit.

So God gives Adam instructions as the garden temple’s high priest, and he also creates a helper for Adam- Eve.

Eve is such a perfect fit for Adam that Adam proclaims: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!”.

Lord, there could be no one more perfect to be a partner in life, a partner in the tasks and duties that you have given to me.

But even though Adam had the perfect helper, did he execute his duties well?

So Eve clearly understands the instructions given to her from the Lord, likely passed on to her by Adam.

But here’s where the serpent shows up:

Now here’s where the lies and deception come in: That the result of disobeying God will not lead to death, and that equality with God was something to be achieved by man.

Eve, don’t you want to be greater than how God made you to be?

To be more wise?

To be like God himself?

And what was Eve’s response?

Deceived by a lie that appealed to her own selfish wants, her own lack of satisfaction with everything that she had, Eve reached out and ate the fruit, and disobeyed God.

She saw something that was desirable, that appealed to the appetite of her flesh.

Rather than trusting in God’s word and its outcome, she places truth aside and gives in to her desires.

And she eats of the forbidden fruit.

But Eve is not the only culprit here.

Where’s the head priest of the garden temple when all of this is happening?

“And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Adam is right there with her!

He sees all of this transpire.

He doesn’t step forward and say to the serpent, this is wrong!

Begone out of here, you deceiver!

He doesn’t step forward and say to Eve, “No, we must obey God and trust him, lest we see death.”

Imagine if he had!

If Adam had been faithful to fulfill the role of keeping and guarding the temple as God had established him to do.

Rather than driving the snake out of the Garden and helping Eve see the truth and life, instead Adam allows this to transpire.

He not only allows it, but he buys into it as well.

Adam wanted his own gain, more wisdom, more understanding to be like God.

He wasn’t content with how God made him to be … he rejected the task that God had given him and desired something more.

And so

So the Lord tries to get to the root of the problem.

But Adam, rather than stepping up and taking responsibility, out of his own fear and timidity, shoves everything onto Eve.

He essentially throws her under the bus.

Was what he said partly true?

Did Eve give him the fruit?

Yes.

But also, did Adam step forward and try to stop her? Did he try to keep the garden, as the Lord had asked him to?

Not at all.

What is the consequence for Adam’s actions?

Look at verse 17

The result of Adam’s sin was death- to the dust you shall return.

The punishment also includes work and hard labor during life.

But the main thing to be noted here is the fulfillment of God’s initial instruction, that Adam will surely die if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam, as the head priest in God’s garden temple, had failed.

Now, there’s much more we could continue on in this Genesis passage.

But for the sake of the message today, the point I want to emphasize is Adam’s failed responsibility to safeguard God’s word.

He failed to and guard what the Lord had entrusted to him: his wife, the Lord’s own word and promise of life and not death.

And because of Adam’s failure, sin was brought into the world.

And this problem with men has persisted through all of human history.

Paul summarizes this well in Romans when he says “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped the creature rather than the creator.”

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

And so, without God’s help, without God’s intervention, man’s result of their sin is death.

They will compromise the truth and buy into the lie every single time.

I am reminded of Ephesians 2, where it says that

And this is the natural state of man in their sin.

It is the result for every man and every woman without God.

And mankind existed in this state, until one man conquered sin and death, never to die again.

This one man has been the exception to the rule of death for all mankind.

And his name is Jesus Christ.

You see, Jesus held on to God’s true word.

Jesus held on to God’s True Word

He was the perfect priest of God: as a human man, he obeyed the Lord perfectly in all things.

He kept and guarded the truth.

The Spirit of the Lord dwelled within him, and he kept himself unstained from the things of the world.

Christ himself became a temple that the Lord could dwell in.

God’s holy presence resided in him.

That’s why, when Jesus died, God raised him to life.

Jesus was not under the curse of Adam- his body would not be doomed to return to dust.

And Jesus broke the pattern of sin and death for his disciples, for those who follow after him.

He sets the example to train new priests in the kingdom of God: those who will obey God’s commands and will cast out the serpent from the temple rather than letting it live and persist.

This is why, when we get to our own passage, that keeping and guarding the trustworthy word as taught is so important for the early church.

Jesus himself claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life.

He guarded and perfected the way of truth.