Titus 3:1b-2

Titus chapter 3 verses 1 and 2, we’re looking at the second part of verse 2 and all of verse 3 tonight. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. God bless to us, He is sacred and holy word this evening. 1784, there was a Boston newspaper that printed the following in a missing persons advertisement, ran away from his wife and helpless family. On Friday last, John Spriggs, by Tray to Taylor, age 35, a wide mouth, zigzag teeth, and nose of high burnt brick color, with a lofty bridge, swivel-eyed, and a scar, not an honorable one, on his left cheek. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, Mr. Briggs had some specific vices that his wife mentioned also. he primes and loads, which evidently means he takes snuff and tobacco. He is so loquacious that he tires everyone in his company but himself. In order that he may entrap the sinner and the saint, he carries a pack of cards in one pocket and the practice of piety in the other. He’s a great liar and can varnish falsehood with a great deal of art. As you read that, you wonder why she would want to be a lot. him back. He’s such a poor character. Your reputation is important because it really defines who you are, to some extent at least. As a believer, your character and behavior are of utmost value because your life is to reflect the gospel of Jesus Christ. And for this reason, repeatedly throughout this epistle, John or Paul continues to come back to Christian character. The problem with the Christians on Crete was there was a gap between what they claimed to be and what they actually were. And that was not tolerable. So we lay out, we have laid out for us, I should actually say, basic Christian character here, and basic Christian duties in this section of Scripture. He begins by saying here at the end of verse 2, you are to be ready for every good work. Now the first thing we should recognize here is that you, you should consider yourself subject to every Christian duty. This phrase corresponds to the words, be zealous of good works that we find in chapter 2, verse 14. And it’s the opposite of what we read in chapter 1 and verse 16 about the ungodly that, under every good work, they’re reprobate. So he’s telling us what we should be. Having addressed your responsibility to those in authority in civil matters, Paul now speaks generally of your obligation to all men. Now, every Christian is called upon. to do good works in the sense that he or she is to be subject to every Christian duty as revealed to us in the scripture. For any work to be good, one, it has to be done in faith. Secondly, that action must be in correspondence with what the scripture, or the law of God says to us. And thirdly, it has to be done for God’s glory. Those are the three basic things. that relate to good works. Our Lord in giving the Great Commission emphasized that his disciples must be taught to observe all things that I have commanded you, all things. So we don’t have the freedom as Christians to pick and choose what we want to obey, but we are to do all that is commanded us in Scripture. Now, the Bible reveals that God, does indeed take note of your good works. He’s paying attention to what people do. The Holy Spirit in the book of Acts declares a Bophthorcus. This woman was full of good works and alms deeds. We read about the Roman believers that they were full of goodness, that the Hebrew believers we read about, that God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. many of the good kings of Judah were highly commended, for they did good in the sight of the Lord, we’re told. Whenever they did something that was contrary to that, they might be another statement that says, but they still didn’t take down the high places, or they still didn’t obey this particular commandment, or maybe they made a covenant with God’s. enemies and so forth. God also recorded and noted that. Likewise, in speaking of the people of God in Asia Minor, remember that Jesus Christ takes knowledge of the many good things they had done. You remember the letters to the seven churches and how when Christ speaks to the church, let’s say, at Ephesus, he says, I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them that are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and has found them liars, and has borne, and has patience, and for my namesake, has labored, and hast not fanged. I’m taking note of all that you’re doing, but few escaped those other words, nevertheless, I am somewhat against the, and he points out some problem that they have in the problem that they have in the church. Do you see the greatness, then, of your obligation to whatever God has said in his word is something we should be doing? At chapter 2 and verses 2 to 10, he talked about the various age groups and the various particulars that they should be focused upon. And we talked about that in some detail. Now, it may be true that you’re diligent in coming to church every Sunday. You don’t forsake the assembly. of the saints. You come to worship God. But there are also commandments about your mate, about how you do your work, about your family, about your family, and things of this nature. So perfect church attendance, but being a poor husband or wife isn’t faithful in every good work, you see. Sometimes you and I have to be reminded what Jesus told the Pharisees, these things you ought to be ought to be, to have done and not left the others undone. Yes, I commend you for doing these things, but don’t let the other things go by the wayside, as if we’re half obedient. We have to admit that despite our general faithfulness, God usually has somewhat against us somewhere along the line. We fail in some capacity. We never fully arrived spiritually, so there’s always something more to do. I find it interesting, and we used, when we were looking and through Thessalonians, Paul says he congratulates them for certain things, and then he says, but I want you to abound more and more. You know, like this is not enough yet. You know, you should abound even further in this. You’re doing what’s right, but abound in it. Take, let’s, you need to go further with it. So consider yourself subject to every good work. Now he says here, be ready to perform every good work. The word ready here carries the idea of preparedness, a willingness, an eagerness to do what God has commanded. Use hospitality one to another without grudging. Now, we could show hospitality and obey what God commands us, but do it grudgingly, and that’s not being ready, you see, to do it. You’re sort of reluctant to do it. Call the Sabbath of delight. not a drudgery. Not that, well, yes, I obey the Sabbath, but, you know, I can’t wait for it to get over. God loveth a cheerful giver. Not it would be right to give the Lord, but being ready to give means we give cheerfully, not reluctantly. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of thy life, the scripture says, not just put up with the old ball and chain, as people talk about. or as the three stooges used to say in one of their shorts, when they were doing the census, they asked the question, are you happy or are you married? As if you couldn’t be both. The scripture says you should delight in the wife of your youth. Deuteronomy 2847 says, Because thou servest not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart. For the abundance of all. things, therefore thou shalt serve thine enemies. You couldn’t be thankful. You couldn’t be joyful. You couldn’t be glad in what the Lord has provided for you. Therefore, you’ll serve others. Jesus once told a story about a man who had a traveling acquaintance who happened to stop by one night, I guess unexpectedly, and the man wished to provide food and shelter for this person. However, the man didn’t have enough provisions. what was he going to put on the table to feed his hungry companion? Now, this was before, you know, the super Walmarts and the 24-hour giant eagles and so forth. And so what could he do? Well, he made a quick trip over to his friend’s house, and he asked to borrow some food. He knocks on the door repeatedly, but the hour was late. The Bible says it was midnight. It was his friend. family were all in bed. He keeps knocking and finally wakes up his friend. And his friend responds, Trouble me not. The door is now shut. My children are with me in bed. I can’t arise and give it. I don’t want to get up. But the man keeps knocking. He keeps persisting. The friend grudgingly gets up, raids the kitchen for whatever food he can find, the bread that he needs, loaves of bread, and he gives it to the man. And now this man’s friend here was really not ready to every good work. He wasn’t willing to follow Christ’s command to give to him that asketh. It just wasn’t convenient for him. So we begin to realize that we can do good work, but we can do without with the wrong spirit. So they were not really ready. There’s no willingness or eagerness to do it. Do good works have to be wrung out of you? Do we have to be coaxed to do it? force to do good works. You can go to the house of God and still offer the sacrifice of fools. Your heart isn’t right. You can be outwardly obeying the Sabbath, but inwardly be thinking like they did, I think is in Amos. When is it going to be over? You can give to the church or others out of necessity, but not cheerfully. You can regularly read the scriptures, but not be like the man in Psalm 1 who delights in the scripture. You can treat your wife properly, but not love her as Christ loved the church. You can help others, but despise your loss of time in doing so. I can go on and on, but you get the point here. Be ready in every good work. So you’re to be ready for doing good. Secondly, he says you are to speak evil of no man. verse 2, the very first phrase. Now, you must consider this a general rule. Obviously, the meaning of the tax cannot be to prohibit any declaration of evil of another person. Otherwise, you would be forbidden to say one negative thing about someone else ever. Paul has just spoken evil. If you look at verse 21, 12 of chapter 1, the Grecians are always liars, evil beasts, low bellies. That’s speaking evil, isn’t it? There are times when you have to speak evil of someone. If you have to go to a court of law as a witness to some crime or some evil action that has taken place, to see that justice is done, you see a man steal a car or rob a bank, you’re going to have to testify against him. You’re going to have to speak evil. of him. I saw this man break into the car. I saw this man with a gun. He robbed the bank. Whenever there’s a false prophet who’s out deceiving people about the things of God, we have to speak evil of the man. We have to say this man is not of God. He’s a false prophet. Beware. Paul does that in chapter 1 of this book. Paul speaks of Hymenaeus and Alexander who deny the resurrection of the dead made shipwreck of their faith, he speaks evil of them. You’ll recall the harsh words. He spoke about Alimus, the false prophet, O full of all subtlety, and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the ways of the Lord? Acts 13. 10. There are time when someone may be overtaken in a fault, and you have to be like Paul who had to rebuke, Peter before others, as he tells us in the book of Galatians. In church discipline, you might have to testify against someone who is sinning. Paul spoke evil of the man living in incest in the church of Corinth, you recall. Telling the church not to keep company with such a fornicator. None of these cases, however, are actually considered by Paul as speaking evil. That must not be what means by this particular phrase. The Apostle must have something else in mind. In general, though, you should be very cautious about speaking evil of anyone. But I think the idea is you’re not to speak with a malicious purpose. The word phrase here, to speak evil of is actually one Greek word here. Blasphemeo is the word. You can hear the English word blaspheme. In that word, you can hear the English word. Blaspheme, in that word. and that gives you the idea of what he’s talking about here. To revile, to curse, to blaspheme, to rail against, to defame someone, to speak evil of someone unjustly, to falsely accused, to unnecessarily say something evil, to merely hurt the person, not to help the person. We should never take the light in speaking ill of others or to put the worst construction on what someone has said or what someone has done. Being a tailbearer, being a slanderer, is not what scripture would have us be. If we misrepresent the facts, if we insinuate bad motives, these things are prohibited. Hopefully, you as a believer would not use insulting or abusive language rail for railing for railing and so forth. But I think this command then breaks down two basic heads. Speaking falsely about someone, speaking evil things about someone, falsely. Speaking true things in a false and evil manner, putting the worst spin on the actions of someone. Remember, King Saul had a grand son through Jonathan that we find that David later befriended and he when he became king it was Mapheth you recall that man Mephbetheth was lame on both feet and David appointed one of Saul’s former servants Zyba and his sons to manage the affairs of Saul’s estate, his land, to provide for Maphysa. When David, son Absalom, tried to take the kingdom, David had to flee from Jerusalem in order to escape being surrounded and perhaps killed. So he fled. And Ziba rushes out to meet David and he provides some desperately needed provisions, food, for those who are in the loaves of bread and bunches of raisins and for summer fruits, wine, and things like this. And when David asked this man, where is thy master’s son? What did Zyba say? He slandered pork of Ibizaa say. Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem, for he said, today shall the house of Israel restore to me the kingdom of my father. So in this manner, Zyba ended up acquiring all of Saul’s estate, and it was no longer Baphiseth. Only later did the truth come out that Zyba deserted Mapheth. Left him there, because he was lame, he couldn’t escape. He couldn’t saddle up the horse or donkey or whatever the case may be, the ashtic to escape. Zyba wanted the king to think evil of Maphibbos’ staying behind. And he betrayed Maphethyst’s trust, thus stealing the property of Saul for himself. That’s what it was all about. I was speaking evil. There’s another man in scripture, 1 Samuel 22, his name is Doag. When David was a military leader, you remember King Saul was very jealous of David and wanted to kill him because he was so popular among the people. So David had to flee for his life. And one of the places he went to was Nob, where he visited with the high priest, Ahimelech, seeking some provisions. And he remember he was given the showbred from the tabernacle, and he was given the sword of Goliath. by the priest. One of Saul’s servants, Doag the Edomite, who was his chief shepherd, according to scripture, happened to be present when David arrived and sought provisions. Later, Doag relates all this information to King Saul, only it appears to us that he puts the worst possible construction on it, that you know that David, he was conspiring with the priest over there at Nob to overthrow your kingdom. And what happens is all the city of the priest is slaughtered by no less than Doag himself when the soldiers under Saul refused to do it. But the truth is David had no intentions of undermining Saul’s reign. And he had no plot with the priest to overthrow the king. In fact, the priests were totally innocent. They were totally ignorant of what was going on. They didn’t even realize he was at that point fleeing from Saul. They thought he was his devoted servant. So these are just two examples of this kind of sin. We have to take great care. Because if any man seems to be religious, and bridal if not his tongue, the Bible says that man’s religion is vain. James 126. Do you control your tongue? So look carefully at your heart. If you harbor evil toward any person, be careful that you don’t twist things just because you don’t like this person that you put the worst construction on it. Don’t be a tailbearer. Don’t spread rumors. Take great care when speaking of another not to misrepresent their character or the facts of the case. If anyone provokes you, we should be careful not to return evil for evil or railing for railing and so forth. No wonder the psalmist had to pray that the Lord would keep a watch over his lips because that’s where we often get into trouble. And so we have to be careful that to keep the door of our mouth closed at times and not speak evil as he mentions here. You’re to speak evil of no man. The third thing he says here is you’re not to be a contentious person, but gentle, and meek. Not to be a brawler, but the opposite of that. Avoid being a contentious person. Now, a brawler is someone it’s apt to give blow for blow, railing for railing and so forth. I knew a man who claimed to be a Christian, but his reputation was one of being a contentious person. He was a brawler. In fact, his wife once confessed to me that when he was younger, he was always getting into fist fights with people. It happened somewhat later in his life also. As I observed the man, I found that he was always starting quarrels. Wherever he went, he was a troublemaker. He troubled one church after another church. Now, I know that we have to contend for the faith that was once delivered under the saints, but we don’t use coronal weapons to do that. Christians are to be peacemakers whenever possible, not brought. So you must attempt to live at peace with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, is what Paul writes. So we have to be slow to wrath. Contentious words and strife grow out of many times unruly passions, which have to be controlled and not indulged. Christians don’t promote feuds and fights. They’re not. They’re not the type of people should be starting battles because that would be dishonorable to the Lord. You’re not to be contentious. But demonstrate, he says, a gentle spirit. Gentle and showing all meekness. Now here, the idea of being gentle is the idea of a person being tender, who’s yielding, who’s flexible. You’d be a person who’s ready to even yield personal advantage. at times, if necessary. We are to be filled with a spirit of what we might call sweet reasonableness. We’re reasonable people. We don’t always demand our rights or having it our way so that we’re always difficult to deal with. You recall at one point, the flocks and the herds of Abraham and Lot were so great that the land that they were settled on at the time could not support them. And so the shepherds of both men were fighting with one another. This led to all these contentions and they were fighting over the best lands for their flocks. And Abraham, being the elder, being superior, perhaps could have demanded the best lands for himself. And yet you find Abraham truly desiring to put any contentions to rest, came up with a piece of solution. And here was what he said. He just simply said the lot, if you take the right hand, I’ll take the left. You pick whatever land you want to go to and I’ll take what’s left. Whatever which, you go one way, I’ll go mine, will separate, but I’ll let you pick. Now, that’s about as gentle and as peaceable or as meek as you can possibly get. Selfishly, Lott shows the well-watered plains for himself. That would be the advantageous area. But you see in Abraham this sweet reasonableness. Look, I don’t want to have contentious. Let’s not have fight. And look at the Canaanites in the land. They might look at us and say, look at these two people, supposedly serve the Lord. Look how they’re behaving. And let’s put that away. Let’s not fight over these things. So we should be one who is eager to help. Sometimes we have to bear with the natural infirmities of others who have a tendency. to drive us crazy at times with the behavior, maybe their spirit. Consider the fact that there are those who have their flaws and deal with them the best that you can. Closely associated with gentleness is this idea of meekness, this humility, this loving, this mild, this courteous spirit, kind spirit. We’re to show meekness, he says, unto all men. Even Paul, when he writes to, to Timothy. He talked about those who would oppose Timothy’s doctrine. And he says, listen, when you’re dealing with him, deal with them in a spirit of meekness that they may be recovered from their fault. So at first, we always try to deal a meekness with people. We may have to be difficult. We may have to be stronger in our sense that we might have to bring rebuke. But we start out with the idea of being meek. It may be easy to show meekness to some men, but the text doesn’t. allow that either. He says, all men. Even those who Cretians are, who are liars, evil beasts, and slow bellies, or lazy gluttons, he says, even they need a spirit of meekness. Now this, of course, is impossible without God’s grace, because there are people who are born as rough as Esau, and we’re one of them. And it takes the gracious work of the spirit to provide a spirit of meekness. Meekness is one of the fruit of the spirit. So in this, we’re to be like Christ. He says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. He’s our example in this. So you’re not to be contentious, but gentle and meek. Well, the Boston woman who was missing her husband, placed that ad in the newspaper, when she describes her mate, you wonder if anyone will not own up to it, I’m John Spiggs, you know? I’m the guy that she’s talking about. Your Christian character is important because it does reflect the gospel of Christ, and you are an open book read by men. What do they see in you? What do they see in me? Are you ready for every good work? Do you avoid? avoid speaking evil of others? Are you gentle and meek as an individual? These are the kinds of things that Paul would have us be as representatives of Christ as we walk this earth. Let us take that to heart tonight. Let’s close.