Titus 3:12-15

Well, good morning, church.

We are in Titus this morning.

We're wrapping up Titus.

We, as Molly did a wonderful job reading through the book of Titus, it's always surprising at how quickly you can just read through these letters, these these books in the New Testament.

Sometimes we um, you know, don't realize we can read through this in just a matter of a few minutes.

Almost a commercial break or whatever.

You can sometimes read through a book of the Bible, and yet we are hesitant to do that.

But it's good to read through a book.

This is how the church, when they received these letters, this is what they would have done.

They would have read them together in their entirety.

But we're wrapping up Titus this morning.

And as Paul is kind of closing out his letter to Titus, he's giving him practical instruction and kind of a final admonition on how to shepherd the church and how to lead the church.

And Paul instructs Titus listen, you need to strive again for godly doctrine, to believe the right things, and you need to strive for godly living so that your devotion and that your doctrine are fitting.

They're honoring to the Lord and they're the way that Christ has called us to live.

And hopefully, as we as a church are trying to mature in Christ and grow in Christ, you see these things in our life as well.

As we desire to honor the Lord with right doctrine, that we don't just kind of take whatever feels good for us, but we we want to know what Scripture says, and then we want to be obedient to live that out from a genuine heart.

This is our desire.

So that the mission of the church for Titus' day, the mission of the church for our day, is to make disciples, to see people put their faith and their hope and their trust in the Lord and to see them growing in godliness.

So it's not just let's get a bunch of people in a room together so they can hear some people talk and someone say some nice things and then give some money to kind of keep that thing going, but to make disciples.

And that requires that we trust God's word, and it requires us to follow God's word.

So as we kind of wrap up this letter, we're gonna look at just the practicality of life, right?

We're gonna look about just how it works with people and relationships.

The practical side of life is that it's people and relationships, and then again, this reminder of this the church to do good works, and that our good works should produce faithfulness and fruitfulness.

So the practicality of life, people and relationships.

Right?

So again, he's writing to Titus and he says, listen, the first thing he says, I'm writing to you guys, this is the beginning of the letter, because I'm a servant of God, and I want to see God's people grow in their faith.

I want to see people, God's people grow in their understanding of who God is, grow in their desire for the things of God, and to continue to put their hope in their eternity with God.

So their hope isn't in kind of growing a bigger thing or a reputation, but their hope is that they will spend eternity with God.

So Paul's writing to Titus saying, listen, my ministry is about people.

And I have these relationships with these churches, and I'm pouring myself out for this.

And then he kind of instructs Titus likewise.

Pour yourself out for the churches in Crete.

Begin with raising up elders to serve men, qualify men to shepherd the church, to lead the church, to model faithfulness to the church and how they're to care for one another.

This isn't uh find a bunch of executives or find some men who kind of have some good business savvy, not that those things are bad or wicked, but find men who can relate, have relationships with the people of the church and raise them up.

Model maturity, model what it means to pour into other people, to raise up other men as elders.

This is the call to relationship and to people.

It's not a call to just kind of a stuffy office and write papers and read books.

Although those are good things.

That's not the call.

All those things are for us to see others grow and their love and admonition of the Lord.

So this is a relationship thing with people.

Then we see in Titus 2 the instruction that Titus is giving.

He gives instruction to old men, he gives instruction to older women and to younger men and to younger women.

Listen, this is how you're supposed to live, pouring into one another.

The instructions in Titus chapter 2 are very relationship-driven.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

So he doesn't say in Titus 2, hey, go, you know, kind of do your own thing and be nice to people.

His instruction is to love one another, to pour into one another.

Again, the practicality of our life as Christians is around relationships and people.

But life work and people work is hard.

Because we're supposed to treat people a certain way.

Look with me in chapter 3.

It says, remind them to be sub this is verse 1.

This is our us as Christians around other people.

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and to authorities, obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

We know later on chapter 3, verse 7, it says that we're heirs with Christ.

Romans 8 says we're heirs with Christ.

We are with Christ.

And so the calling for us as Christians is not to kind of go and do our own thing and to kind of figure out, well, I'm a Christian, I want to be a Christian, I'm a part of a church, but as far as my life, it's kind of separate from that.

And this is kind of, I do my thing, and I'm, you know, we support the church, the good things are going there, but I'm not a people person.

People aggravate me, people frustrate me.

Well, who do they?

Who's out there?

I mean, I just love people.

They never get on my nerves, it's wonderful.

People are hard.

And oftentimes, you know, it goes like this it's okay if we know each other.

It's okay to know each other, but let's not get too close, right?

This is often people's sentiment, and and we get it.

We we all feel this way.

Like we're all like we appreciate people, but to be honest, people are hard and people are confusing, right?

People they just don't think like they should, you know?

It's it's funny how we just we have our thought of how things should go, and people kind of they divert from that, and it's confusing.

I mean, how often do you think does this not kind of cross your mind?

Why would they do that?

Why would they do that?

You you see someone doing something or saying something, why would they do that?

I mean, obviously with our kids, I think this a lot, but but we're talking about like adults, you're observing, like, why would they do something like that?

Or what were they thinking?

Like, what were they thinking when they put that thing together?

Or what were they thinking when they said that thing?

Or what were they thinking when they kind of organized things this way?

What were they thinking?

Or how could they be so oblivious?

How can how can someone be so oblivious that this was hurtful?

Or how can they be so oblivious that this didn't affect all these other people?

And so it's so easy for us to just kind of say, man, people are confusing.

I don't get why they do what they do.

And because that they're confusing, and because it's hard, I'm just gonna keep them at a safe distance, right?

I'm gonna love you.

You can love me, that's fine.

That's good, let's do what the Bible says, but you can kind of do it from over there, and I'll just stay over here, and this will be good, and it'll be easy for us.

But that's not the life that Paul writes to Titus about because it's not the life that Christ modeled.

That's not the life he called us to, to keep people at an arm's length.

Now I get it, it's hard, it's difficult to say to someone, man, here's my life, and here's my mess, and here's my junk.

But this is what God has called us to.

I don't want to be insensitive or unrealistic here.

It's easy to kind of say something boldly from the pulpit, and then it's a whole nother thing to go and live it out.

It's a very difficult thing to embrace people who have just a lot of past hurt, or they have messy emotions, or are they struggling to mature in their faith.

It can be hard to kind of embrace those people and love those people and do life with those people.

That's because it's all the more difficult to minister and serve those people when we have all the same problems.

When I have all my own hurts and my own wounds and my own messy emotions and my sin struggles and my immaturity.

And I'm gonna bring all my stuff, and I'm gonna settle up kind of close to your stuff, and we're gonna do life together, and this is gonna be good?

Like, whose idea was this?

We feel guilty that we're not much more mature in our faith.

We feel like we should be further along.

After all, we've been at this for a while.

Shouldn't I be more mature than this?

I don't want to get close to this person because they might realize that I'm not as mature in Christ as maybe they think I am.

Or I don't want to get close to this person because their issues, man, that might trigger my issues, and I just don't want to deal with my issues.

I want to keep my issues back there.

And people, again, they're difficult.

What if I lay myself out there and then they burn me?

They hurt me again and again.

How many times must I kind of do this thing?

This is insanity.

Did Christ really call us to this?

It's hard because we are often confused by our own emotions and desires.

And again, we're just discouraged in our own faith.

That we're still struggling with things.

But this is not a time for us to pull back and say, well, you know, I'm just gonna kind of work on me for this season, and then when things are better, then I'll kind of press into some other people.

Then I can do some some good, then I can serve the church.

One, that's not that's a false narrative because you need the church to minister to you.

And secondly, it's actually a very, very arrogant thing to think.

Well, I can get myself ready, and then when I show up, I'll be ready, and they can then I can serve them.

That's not how the Lord has designed his church.

We need to be aware of our inadequacies, our shortcomings, and our struggles.

We we need to be aware of those things.

Not so that we can beat ourselves up or kind of loathe ourselves for them, but rather to know that Christ has paid the price for those, that Christ's blood has covered those things, and that we can then walk in obedience to Him among His people.

God has redeemed His people.

We cannot pull back and just keep people at a safe distance or draw a line and say, hey, just don't just don't cross that line.

We need to press in.

Say, what's the New Testament?

What do we see in the life of Christ?

What do we see in the early church?

Its relationship.

There's nowhere in the New Testament does it say, and nowhere does it imply.

Keep everyone at a convenient distance as you follow Christ.

It just doesn't happen.

What we can't say, well, we'll keep them close enough to kind of know one another, and I can pray for you generally, but I'm not gonna know your struggle.

It's to invite people in, it's to say, man, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, and this is my struggle.

I love Jesus Christ, I'm trying to follow him, but here's where I'm weak.

Here's an area I need you to pray for me.

Here's an area I need you to encourage me.

Here's an area I need you to rebuke me in.

That's what it means to push yourself and be vulnerable with the people of Christ, the church.

So it's something, it's interesting because all those things make us pull back.

But there's something exciting about when things are happening, right?

When things are moving.

Whether this is a church or a church plant or just something in your life, like man, something kind of out there is happening and it looks exciting.

People are, stuff's moving, stuff's growing, multiplication is happening, and it's exciting to see these things.

Now, for for some people, change brings anxiety, right?

Let's not change anything.

We just like it the way it is, right?

For some people, when things don't change, it brings you anxiety.

It's like, are we still here?

Are we still just doing the same thing it's been three weeks?

Like, let's get on with this.

But there's something about when it's kind of outside of us a little bit, we're a part of it, but we're we're not, and it's growing, and we kind of forget a little bit about our problems.

And this can be a good thing in that when the the church things are happening and we're we're kind of putting our shoulder into it, and we're working hard together, and we're kind of forgetting ourselves in a good way, and we're just serving others.

But there's also a bad side to this because this can happen, and we begin to kind of long for this exciting thing to kind of just take over so that we don't have to deal with any of our own issues again.