Crete

Good morning.

Today's reading is from Titus one verses ten through sixteen.

For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

One of the Cratons, a prophet of their own, said, Cratens are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

This testimony is true.

Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.

To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.

Both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.

They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Welcome to church this morning.

It's already been wonderful to worship with you all.

Did I say do I have the wrong slides then?

Because I noticed.

Oh, okay.

Sorry about that.

Anyway.

Today we are continuing through our series in Titus, and we are looking at uh Titus 10 through 16.

Uh uh This is where Paul is describing to Titus how it is that he should um rebuke the Cretans in order to protect the freedom of the gospel, so that the freedom that Christ has purchased for these people might be secured and would not be threatened by false teaching.

So uh let's uh pray together and then we'll begin moving through our text.

Lord Jesus, you say that if we abide in you and you abide in us, that we will bear much fruit.

For apart from you, we can do nothing.

Lord God, I pray that you would teach our hearts to abide in you, to rest in your great accomplishment on the cross, to have our consciences bound only by you and your truth, and that we might be freed by the sacrifice that you have made, which procures for us a free conscience and assurance of your love.

Lord, I pray that you would build a strong defense in our hearts to protect that truth, that we might sing and remember in truth as we sang this morning, that you paid it all.

Lord, so we are clean in your sight.

You purchased for us an eternal glory, so that we might be called co-heirs with you.

Lord, that our your spirit testifies with our spirit that we are sons of God, so that we might cry out, Abba, Father, and it be true.

And you have pity on us as a father, and you guide us and care for us and provide for us.

You paid it all that we might have this incredible privilege to be sons of God.

Father, we praise you for this, and we pray for your protection as you protected those in Crete by the words of Paul, that you would do that this morning for us here at Redemption Church Denver.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So last week John wonderfully preached through the previous passage in Titus, in which Paul explains that the reason that he left Titus in Crete was so that he might appoint elders.

And he describes the type of men that are to be appointed as elders in Crete, and he describes these men of strong character who are able to care for their households well.

And in their care for their households, what he what Paul is seeing is this is a model for how the church is cared for.

Because as we are adopted into God's family by the adoption of Christ, we become family to one another.

And we become brothers and sisters in Christ to one another.

And so the analogy of family management, as God had designed it from the beginning of the world with the creation of Adam and Eve, is the analogy for church management.

And so there's this fatherly role of the elder, which is to be demonstrated for the care of the church.

And I thought John just explained that excellently.

And in this passage, Paul then calls for the sharp rebuke of the Cretans.

And the reason for this is, and this explains why Paul needs men of such strong character.

The last thing that Paul calls for is that they would be sound in doctrine, able to rebuke those who stray away from sound doctrine.

And this is one of the key roles of the elder, of Titus, and of the elders that he would appoint in the church.

Because we see that as Paul explains this, it is the character of the Cretans, the weakness of their character, the selfishness of their character, which actually becomes the means by which false teaching is able to come into the church.

And so Paul understands that the means by which sound doctrine will be protected and cared for within the church is the strong character of those who are leading.

So he sees these as together.

And so as he establishes, as John did last week, the strong character that is needed, he's saying, here's why you need this strong character.

And then this week he's going to lay out what it is that is typical of the Cretans and the threats that these young churches are under, these clear doctrinal threats that are being brought in by wicked men to deceive, as Paul will say, entire families.

So that entire families are living under this deception of a false gospel.

And Paul is desiring to preserve the church.

So he's saying, don't let that happen.

So Paul in this text will use some of his harshest language to describe the Cretans and how they ought to be rebuked by the elders.

In order for us to grasp why it is Paul is using such harsh language, we need to grasp precisely what it is he's rebuking them against.

Why is it that he is calling them to rebuke sharply these people in the church and creed?

And the reason is freedom.

The reason is the freedom of the gospel which has been procured for us by Christ alone.

And what is coming into the church is these false teachings which are described which in which people are saying, in order for you to be saved, you must fulfill the requirements of the law, particularly the Jewish ceremonial law.

And this false teaching is enslaving members, and it is binding their consciences to something which they can never satisfy.

And so instead of these churches being able to live within the freedom of the gospel, knowing that they have been justified by Christ, their consciences are being bound by that which no longer controls them.

Paul explains this false teaching at the end of our text today.

So I'm going to sort of start there.

That way we know what it is we're talking about.

In Titus 1.15, Paul says, To the pure, all things are pure.

But to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.

But both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

And it set them apart in this cleanness, so that there were certain foods that they were permitted to eat, and other foods which they must not eat.

There were certain practices which they must participate in, and others which they must never participate in.

And this becomes to the teachers of the law understood as a means of salvation.

That if they were merely able to attain perfection in the eyes of the law, then they would be saved.

But this yoke no one is able to bear.

And so as the early church grows mostly out of the synagogues which had spread over the whole of the Roman Empire, then you can understand why there would be this syncretism that would develop within the churches, where there are Jewish converts who are seeing something of the reality of Christ, but they are not understanding the fullness of what Christ has accomplished.

So they see something like an openness for Gentiles to come in, but they're saying you are coming in not by means of Christ and his sacrifice, which welcomes you into the people of God, but you must be brought in by the old practices of the old covenant, not recognizing that those have been completely satisfied in Christ.

And so the syncretism becomes something like an expansion of the law.

And we see this happen.

This is one of Jesus' main combatants throughout his ministry, which is the Pharisaical tendency.

The Pharisees, Christ is not condemning them because of their strict adherence to the law.

They have gone beyond the boundary of the law, and they have replaced the law with the traditions of men.

And they are saying these traditions of men are the things which ultimately must bind your conscience, and you can have no confidence in your salvation unless you adhere to these traditions of men.

So we hear Jesus say in Mark 7, 15, just as Paul says here, to the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure.

What Paul is saying there is that whatever, you can eat whatever you want.

This is not, that is not where the distinction of your justification comes.

It is not your marker as a Jewish person in either these cultural means or these genetic means, which brings you into the people of God.

It is Christ alone.

In faith in Christ alone, which brings you into the people of God.

As we sang this morning, Jesus paid it.

Yeah, so we don't sing Jesus paid it most.

But there's some other ceremonial laws we have to do.

That's the types of songs that they uh were trying to sing in Crete.

And Paul was saying, don't sing those.

Rebuke them sharply.

Jesus says in Mark 7.15, there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him.

But the things that come out of a person are what defile him.

You can almost always tell a non-Christian story of salvation or a non-Christian description of the world, because what will happen is they will take one aspect of creation and idolize it.

And they will take another aspect of creation and demonize it.

And then this places the narrative of salvation is already structured because if you simply idolize the good part of creation and serve it, then you'll get salvation.

But if you demonize the bad part of creation and stay away from it, then you will avoid hell.

But that is not where.

So you can understand this in the ceremonial law.

If you adhere to these clean parts of the world, then you will be saved.

And if you avoid these unclean parts of the world, then you will be damned.

Or will be saved.

Do you see what I'm saying?

The Christian story says that all of the brokenness in the world finds its origin in the hearts of humanity.

And so what must be changed is not our mere adherence to some external factors, but our hearts must be transformed.

It is the sin is us.

The fallenness is us.

It is not that humanity anxiously groans for the revealing of the redemption of the world.

It is that creation anxiously groans for the redemption of the sons of God.

In our redemption, the world is redeemed.

In our fallenness, the world has been broken.

So what needs to be transformed is our hearts.

It is not what you put into yourself.

It is not your adherence to these, to the law or to those things which go beyond the law, particularly those things which go beyond the law that will save us.

And so Paul is, of course, extremely covetous of the freedom of the gospel.

Because he sees that the hearts and minds of entire families in the church and creed are being bound by these false teachers.

By this man-made religion that idolizes aspects of creation.

And we can do this in all sorts of ways.

You can idolize your own religiosity, as they were doing, or you can pick some other value, you can idolize your own tolerance, or you can make some other ultimate value in the world.

And when that becomes the means of salvation, then you have completely changed the narrative of the gospel.

And you do not realize that you are dead in your sin and you had to be rescued by a Savior who would transform you.

When we're talking about freedom of the gospel that is being defended here, we have to talk about what is it that binds our conscience?

What is it by which you would reflect on yourself and say, this is right, this is wrong.

The freedom of the Christian is that our conscience is only bound by God.

We all stand in our conscience before the Lord alone.

But when we submit our conscience to anything outside of what the Lord teaches, to some area of the world in which we say the Lord has no say over this here, then our consciences become unduly bound, and we become enslaved to that thing which we have idolized, which we thought would promise salvation.

And so that is the true freedom is that we are free in our conscience before the Lord, unbound.

This is the difference between a cult, as we use the word, and Christianity.

In a cult, the leaders, and this is what is sort of developing in the church in Crete, and this is the threat of the church in Crete, the leaders of the cult are seeking to be the ones who bind your conscience.

They are seeking to say, here is the way of salvation.

It is this thing that you do in appeasement of me.

And once you have satisfied that, then I will be able to grant you salvation.

The leaders of the church of Christ say, Christ alone is the judge.

And he is alone the means of salvation.

So you stand and fall before him, follow him, trust in him.

And that is the purpose of the leader of the church, to be constantly pointing towards Christ.

He is the one, he is the judge.

Where is your conscience?

Like you feel bad about this particular thing or how it went, or you feel uh condemned in this particular relationship, where is your conscience before Christ?

This is where your freedom lies.

So Christian freedom is on the line in Crete.

So now that we understand the nature of what the unsound doctrine is, we understand that the stakes are the freedom of the gospel, then we can see the we can better see, I think, the reason for Paul's sharp rebuke of the Cretans.

Here's what he instructs Titus in verse 10.

For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

So he had just established we need elders that are of strong character, who can sharply rebuke those who don't teach sound doctrine.

For, now that's where we are, because there are many who are insubordinate in Crete.

They're empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

So they're insubordinate, which means they're not following the teachings of Paul.

They are not acknowledging the truth of the gospel which has been handled to them, but they are seeking to become insubordinate to the authoritative teaching which has been given to them.

And then they become empty talkers, where they're spinning these ideas and they're and you can see how easy this must have been to do.

Like we have the the world is full of empty talkers today.

It is very difficult to discern reality in our world because of the layers of deception that we live within.

But you can imagine how that the strength of this empty talk, I think it's goes far beyond the strength of any empty talk that we hear today, because the circumcision party would be able to do this.

Um, Genesis 17 says, be circumcised, to be in the covenant.

Is this no longer the word of God?

Can you imagine to a sensitive conscience of a new believer who learns to accept the word of God how difficult it would be to understand that this has been fully satisfied in Christ.

And so the strength of this empty talk is it has this particular danger to it.

And they are, Paul calls them deceivers.

Now, to deceive, you must know the truth and then deny it.

And so they know what ought to be done, but they are seeking for shameful gain to take advantage of those who are within the church to bind their consciences and tie them to something other than Christ alone.

And Paul, of course, is especially concerned with the circumcision party as he he references here.

Oh, one more note.

That's not what Titus will be facing.

For Timothy, he's like, okay, I gotta set up like two coffees.

For Titus, there are many.

This has infiltrated and become a deeply present culture within the church in Crete.

As he will go on to say, upsetting entire families.

Okay, and he says, especially those of the circumcision party.

So these are the ones that are saying it, you must be circumcised in order to be saved.

Because you must take on all of the requirements of the law, of which circumcision is a marker, and then by your satisfaction of the law, you will be saved.

But by your satisfaction of the law, well, remember, Jesus paid it all.

So thankful we sang that song.

Jesus paid it all.

It's so interesting that he sends Titus into this world of a strong circumcision party.

And that he doesn't send templates.

Timothy.

Timothy is circumcised.

So he would be able to come into this and be like, look, I know I am.

You hear me.

I'm like you in this way.

But I know that this is not necessary for salvation because it has been accomplished in Christ alone.

But he doesn't send Timothy.

He sends Titus, whose very presence is offensive to the circumcision party.

He sends the one who is only, who, when he stands, he just by his presence alone, he is saying he is a testament in his body to the truth that is being proclaimed.

That it is by faith alone that he might be saved.

Paul continues.

Verse 11, he says, they must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

They must be silenced.

You can hear Paul's heart for this.

He says, they have to be silenced because they are upsetting whole families.

And you can understand the difficulties that would that would be taking place.

The fathers and mothers who are saying, I guess we have to circumcise our child now, and you have to be circumcised in order for us to participate in this.

We heard this wonderful hope when Paul and Titus were traveling around, but in order for us to participate in it now, we realize that there's this tremendous yoke.

Well, I don't want to lose that wonderful hope that we've heard.

And if that means bearing this yoke, then I guess we must.

So we have to figure out, okay, that those plans that we had to eat with our friends who are also Gentiles, we can no longer, we have to cancel those plans because we can no longer eat in the company of Gentiles.

Because we're not those people anymore.

We are, we have this Jewish identity, which is now the most important aspect of ourselves, and if we let go of it, then we are sacrificing this hope of salvation which we have been promised.

And so whole families are becoming upset and bound under this yoke of the law.

Then Paul goes on, and he says they are teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

You can kind of understand how this would take place in churches that are growing out of synagogues, is that the leaders of the synagogue who enjoyed the power of being able to heap unnecessary burdens beyond the law, ones which they themselves perhaps were particularly or uniquely equipped to be able to satisfy, they are able to heap those burdens upon others and gain control over their lives.

So they would be able to enjoy this power that they would have over the weak consciences.

And the gospel comes in and threatens that, and so they clamp down again.

Titus and Paul are leaving.

We're the ones in charge again.

Let's get it back to the old ways, where we were the ones who were able to bind the consciences of those around us.

And no longer would we have to point to Christ as the one who their conscience was bound by, but we could point to ourselves as the ones who have the authority to bind the consciences of the ones who are under us.

They are doing this for shameful gain.

Teaching what they ought not to teach.

I've heard this phrase a lot lately.

I I think there's a name for it, but I don't know the name of it.

It says, never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

Have you heard that lately?

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

I think that's one of those things that like um I think that's not true.

I think that sounds that's one of those things where it's like, that sounds so lovely, it must be true.

It's like if like when somebody says a phrase and it rhymes, and it's like, well, if it rhymes, it's true.

Which makes you, of course, question that phrase because it doesn't rhyme.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

It's sort of like saying, um uh when you assess situations, ignore the obvious incentive structures involved.

That doesn't that sounds less wise.

When you assess situations, the character of those involved in the situation is irrelevant to your assessment.

That doesn't sound like a wise way to live.

Now, of course, I understand the generosity of the phrase, and I hope when I forget to submit a uh uh uh my spending for the month on the church credit card debit card, you know, Dave Ramsey on the church debit card, that Zach is not thinking this James is being malicious.

And I hope he ascribes it to my incompetence.

Although I've had received multiple reactions.

And sometimes I can tell that he is assessing it by the based upon the character of those who are involved.

I understand the the generosity of the phrase, but as Christians, it is so important that we not be naive, that we understand that there are those who desire to come into the church to take advantage of us, to take advantage of you, because they desire power over you.

You have to know that that category exists.

If you live and you think that that category does not exist, that if you cannot say the reason this person is acting this way is for their own shameful gain.

And instead you're just you're just letting them off the hook continually, then you are not living in accord with the truth.

It might feel like graciousness, it is the avoidance of reality for the preservation of false peace.

And yourselves and those in your care will be hurt by it.

And Paul gets this.

Paul knows the yoke that he had grown up under.

Paul knows the cost that was paid for the purchase of our freedom in Christ.

So he will stand to defend that for his people.

So he attributes to malice that which is being done maliciously.

These people are the enemies of the church, and they ought to be treated as such.

Titus 1, verse 12, he begins to describe the Cretans.

Titus 1:12

Now the word Cretan is a sufficient description.

And there's a sense in which it was then too.

We'll talk about it.

One of the Cretans, so Paul says, he's still building this case.

Paul says, one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

Paul does this thing where when you want to say something, and he says, Don't take my word for it.

What do they say of themselves?

They're always liars, they're evil beasts, and they're lazy gluttons.

He's quoting Epimenides, who you probably all read this past week, uh, who was uh one of the great thinkers and philosophers, one of the seven wise men of the ancient world, and he was uh a Cretan himself.

He was from the northern part of the island of Crete.

And this was quoted from his hymn to Zeus, and he is describing the Cretans.

They're always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

I loved John's description last week of the of Crete.

You can think of it as like the Isle of Tortuga in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

This is just like gluttony and thiever and that that sort of thing.

Uh that's a great description of the island.

This is not the only quote that Paul could have used, although, and this is just cool, it it's it's it seems as though Paul liked Epimenides and was uh uh a reader and respecter of Epimenides, because Epimenides is the one who calls for remembering the sacrifice to uh the unknown God.

And he calls his people to remember that sacrifice.

And remember, it is Paul who begins his sermon on the Areopagus, um uh Mars Hill, it's in Seattle, was he begins his sermon to on the Areopagus to uh um by saying that look, you have this you have this um statue to the unmown to the unknown god.

I can tell you who that is.

So there's a cool Epimenides connection there.

But he also could have quoted Polyvius, who said, Cretans are the only ones in whose estimation no profit is ever disgraceful.

If it makes a profit, it's never disgraceful, no matter what it is.

There is that that's called a one bottom line company.

But we all have three triple bottom.

I don't understand triple bottom lines, it doesn't seem measurable.

But there's no profit is ever disgraceful, or Cicero, he could have quoted, who said, the Cretans consider highway robbery to be honorable.

That is what it was like.

This is the culture of the island of Crete.

Or he could have just used the verb Cretize, which which gained this colloquial meaning of to lie.

So if you lie, you Cretize.

Okay, so listen to what one of their own prophets said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

Now, Paul quotes that, and then what you would expect him to say next, excuse me, is not all Cretans.

And although Epheminides judged this culture in such broad strokes, we ought not to judge cultures.

That's their culture.

Who are we the ones to say whether or not their culture is right or wrong?

We have been so trained in this idea that if it is deeply nested in someone's culture, then it is not sinful.

Because cultures are basically incomiserable, and there is nothing that goes over all cultures by which they might be judged, so we are not able to offer any judgment upon any culture.

But Paul does not say that.

Paul says of Ephemenides' quote, this testimony is true.

Titus 1, 13, this testimony is true.

They're liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

Now, a way to understand this is, and Sebastian, we were talking about this in the car, a way to understand this is that uh that assessment of the culture, of course, does not apply to every particular Cretan.

You can, of course, meet a Cretan who is who will tell you the truth, who will not rob you on the highway, who is not a lazy glutton.

Of course, that is true.

But the way to think of it is if you were to meet that Cretan and say, Cretans are liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons, then that Cretan would say, yeah, they are.

Because he is able to accurately assess the world that he is a part of.

That's why the generalization can be made.

We have internalized this deep sense of cultural relativism because we have not understood that morality comes from one place.

It comes from God who tells us what is good.

That all goodness is found in him and what he shows to be good.

Therefore, he is the one who determines right and wrong.

There's sort of like these two issues going on.

There's the circumcision party, the Judaizing, which is taking place.

But there so that's something like a hyper-religiosity, but that hyper-religiosity is contaminated by this licentiousness.

So the religiosity just becomes a means of pursuit of shameful gain.

So the Jewish leaders in Crete have the character of a Cretan, which they'll say, like, we'll do whatever it takes for shameful gain.

There's no prophet that is wrong.

There's no means of gaining power that is off limits.

But the tool that they use to do that is by heaping the requirements of the law upon those who've actually been freed from it in Christ.

This is why it is helpful to look at extremes.

That often, if you see utter licentiousness, you should look for a radical tyranny.

Those go hand in hand.

You know, the uh Francis on the mind, they had a revolution of their own shortly after ours.

Sequel's never better.

And in their celebration of a no authority and utter licentiousness, what immediately follows their revolution, we call it the reign of terror.

That well, that doesn't seem very good.

Look at the protests that take place in our world.

Who is who where do we see these odd bedfellows of the tyranny of a graceless religion like Islam being joined in support with the licentiousness of the LGBT movement in our culture?

These are the extremes.

It's like who's doing LSD in the 60s?

Hippies and the CIA.

Do you see that this is what's happening in Crete?

You have to look for these extremes that come together.

This is why freedom is in Christ alone.

When you see that he is Lord of the conscience over everyone.

Because you cannot secure your freedom by the adherence to your law, and you cannot secure your freedom as the Cretans might in their abandonment of the law.

The law is determined by God.

He is the one who binds our conscience.

His salvation alone is that which can free our conscience.

My sister is a high school teacher, and she taught through Things Fall Apart.

Have any of y'all read that book?

Uh Chinua Achebe?

I read it in high school.

I this isn't gonna land.

It's a great book.

It's uh it's um uh written by an African man.

He describes this uh uh man who grows up in an African culture, and then with the Igbo people and the um missionaries show up, and he describes these this transformation of cultures as these are interacting.

One of the sort of pivotal moments in the story is in the Igbo culture, uh twins are a bad omen.

And so when you have twins, you take the twins and you set them in the wilderness, and then you leave, you abandon them so that they will die.

That's what you do when you have twins.

And my sister asked, was this right or wrong that this culture has this practice?

In her class, the majority responded that it was okay that they did that.

Because that's their culture.

Now the appropriate response to that is, huh.

How deep has our relativism gone?

What is the lord of our conscience?

Chesterton says, the modern world, he says it Britishly, the modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad.

The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.

Thus, some scientists care for truth, and their truth is pityless.

Thus, some humanitarians only care for pity, and their pity, I am sorry to say, is often untruthful.

Do you see the generosity of cultural tolerance?

I hope everyone says yes.

Do you see that when that is alone and the only value, that you might find yourself committing unthinkable atrocities and saying, that's fine?

What atrocities do we smuggle into our culture under women's rights?

This will be a main issue over the next couple of months.

Well, it's a value that is so deeply nested in our culture, how could it possibly be understood as sinful?

What is binding your conscience?

Seems as though it is not the law of the Lord.

God is the one who determines what is right or wrong, no matter how deeply a practice is nested within a culture that offers no justification.

Sin is sin.

If you want to receive the freedom of the gospel, which is your conscience being made clean by the sacrifice of Christ, then you must understand that he paid it all, and that all is a reference to a real thing, which is your sin before him.

And if you see that he is the one that determines what is sin and what is righteousness, then you see he is the one who can free me.

When you see what he did on the cross in Christ, then you see he has freed me, you see how precious it is, and if anyone comes in to take the preciousness of that freedom by heaping another burden on you, you rebuke them sharply.

Therefore, rebuke them sharply, Paul says.

This testimony is true, therefore, rebuke them sharply.

Though women in our church will have a better understanding of this because you y'all have been going through Galatians.

And this is the same issue that's happening with the Galatians.

But whereas Titus is getting the instruction to rebuke sharply, in Galatians we get the benefit of just hearing how Paul would do it.

So here's some of Paul rebuking the Galatians.

Galatians 3 1.

Foolish.

Galatians.

Who has bewitched you?

And we got a letter from the apostle.

Galatians 5, 2 through 3.

Look.

I love it when people start sentences with look.

Look.

I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

Galatians 5, 12 had to do it.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

That's a generous translation.

We're talking about circumcision.

Says, I wish those who unsettle you would finish the job.

That's a sharp rebuke.

And it might seem just like I don't know, unnecessary combat or something.

Well, what is at stake?

The consciences of these people being bound and enslaved to some principle which is not God's, and not understanding the freedom which has been purchased for them in Christ.

Here's the opportunity for these folks.

These sinners, like the rest of us, they can be made perfectly clean in the eyes of God, and their consciences can be utterly free.

And instead, they are living bound and enslaved by these tyrannical virtues that become tyrannical when they wander alone.

But look, this is back to verse 13.

This testimony is true, therefore rebuke them sharply.

Just wanted to hear what Paul, what those sharp rebukes might sound like.

That they may be sound in the faith.

What is the purpose of the rebuke?

It is soundness in the faith.

The purpose of the rebuke is a restoration, that they might become sound in the faith.

Look, Paul is not so naive as to look into other cultures and say, well, now that I'm looking into another culture, who can tell what is right or wrong?

And then he would dance away.

That's the way I picture the end of that scene.

Thanks.

I'm here for the kids too.

We ourselves, he's not saying like now that I'm looking cross-culturally or something, I understand that all morality, morality is ultimately relative, and I just think what's right and wrong just because of where I happen to grow up, and they think that because of where they happen to grow up, but who knows?

Let's just do no harm.

And the only value is tolerance and inclusivity, and all of a sudden we're in a reign of terror.

So he's not so naive as to play that game.

But he understands the absoluteness of the power of the gospel.

So that he does not look at Crete, the Cretans.

They Cretize.

You're gonna go there and preach the truth among those people?

The blue cities.

He says the gospel will work here.

They'll be restored.

Yes, the they have depths of sin that are culturally embedded, that are, that are in a sense like perhaps even invisible to them.

And it is a wicked culture.

It's bad.

It's a bad, wicked culture.

The gospel is sufficient.

They will be restored.

They're bound under the law of God more than they know.

And they will be freed.

Because the one who the law belongs to satisfied all the requirements of the law on their behalf.

Paul will go on at the end of this letter.

And he will say this in Titus verses three, Titus chapter three, verses three through five.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.

Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

But we, you know, the Cretans, they're bad.

I'm not so foolish as to say, well, you know, to them it's not bad.

No, it's bad.

Things have gone terribly wrong in this culture.

But things have gone terribly wrong for me.

I was rescued.

Not because of the deeds that I had done in righteousness.

But I was rescued because of the mercy and the love of God.

He saved us.

He saved us.

That is the work of the minister.

To fight the cult leaders that are coming in, who say, I can save you.

And their consciences are bound in some other way, just as they were terribly bound by their by the wickedness of their culture.

The ministry of the gospel is to say, He saved us.

So judge rightly.

Look with clear eyes.

When you right now our culture is in such a state where you need not read any tea leaves.

Just look.

Just look.

We're it's like I'm going to dress up like a demon.

It's probably demonic.

Not a, you know.

There's not like fifty ways to dress up like a demon.

There's like six.

You know?

So that's probably, yeah, you're probably thinking satanically if you do that.

Judge rightly.

Do not judge arrogantly.

To judge arrogantly is to deny the reality of the gospel.

Do not judge hopelessly.

Paul sends Titus to Crete because he understands the effectiveness of Christ's salvation for them.

He calls them to rebuke because he hopes they will be saved.

Remember that he saved you not because of works that you have done in righteousness, but because of the freedom of his love towards you.

Abide in that.

You will be fruitful.

Apart from that, you will do nothing.

You will just trade tyranny and licentiousness.

Our only hope is the freedom of the gospel.

Let us remember it, savor it, and defend it.

Are there any questions?

Can you speak to the differences between freedom as we typically hear it within the story of American history and Christian freedom?

I'm reading a Washington biography right now.

And first of all, that guy was extremely stylish, which I respect.

The interpretations that they were making leading up to the Revolutionary War were deeply Christian.

As they were writing and debating back and forth with one another.

But the way that American freedom is understood in our culture now is the ability to do whatever pleases us.

And to allow for anyone else to do the same.

And the only violation of that freedom is to prohibit people from doing what they would say pleases them.

Christian freedom.

And you can see the dynamic of that because part of what that shows is that we have such an insecure culture.

And therefore we become, it's like our whole culture is codependently enmeshed with one another.

And that's why we're so deeply anxious.

And so we outsource our morality to whatever the culture happens to say at this given moment.

So then, in order for our consciences to be liberated within ourselves, we have to force everyone to say, it doesn't matter what I do.

Do you see that dynamic?

That's why licentiousness and tyranny always come together.

Because it removes the judge, but there's no removing, there's only replacing.

And it replaces the judge with just one another.

Christian freedom is our freedom before God to be obedient to Him.

And we are freed from our slavery to sin, to obedience.

But the only one you can be bound to, who grants you freedom, is your God and creator.

So that is the distinction between Christian freedom.

Our freedom, as we experience it in our culture, tends to tyranny.

Tyrannize one another.

An enslavement towards sin.

But you've been freed from sin.

Freed from the clutches of sin.

Look, you're in battles against sin now.

In Christ, you will win.

He promises your victory.

He has secured it.

This is your freedom in him.

Yeah, exactly.

In 1 Corinthians 11, 23, which I have to pull up because I forgot my Bible when I walked up here because of malice.

Paul writes, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

And he took the bread and he said, This is my body which is broken for you.

And he took the cup and he said, This is the blood, my blood of the new covenant.

And what is that covenant?

It means all of the requirements of the covenant of works have been satisfied in Jesus.

So come and feast and drink upon him, and you will receive all of the benefits that he has given to you.

Come, dine freely with the Lord.

He has purchased your place at his table.

Count on nothing other than the provision of Jesus Christ for your freedom.

And enjoy your freedom in his presence.

Holy Father, I pray that as we come to this meal, that the freedom that you have procured for us in your presence might cast off the chains which so bind us of our sin and of our conscience before others, of that blind us from our ability to judge right and wrong and toss us into a world of confusion.

Lord, let us understand that you tell us what is required to be made right before you, and then you provided on our behalf all that was required.

Transform our hearts to be able to enjoy that freedom to its fullest extent, down to the dregs of the feast that you've called us to.

Lord Jesus, you are worthy of our praise.

We thank you for the freedom that you have given us.

We lift this up in Jesus' name, Amen.