“A Man's Home is His Mote / Titus 3:1-7

Talk about embarrassing.  A fellow and I became best friends, and he ranks as one of the best I’ve ever had, bar none.  In 1985, I moved and there was no contact.  Ten years later a man comes up to me and shakes my hand like he’s so glad to see me and I ask, “And your name is . . .?   He tells me his name and I realize, “It’s him!”  He hadn’t changed any, not noticeably so.  You talk about being humiliated and embarrassed, I haven’t gotten over that to this day.  It still pains me to think about it.  I forgot.

There’s an important law God put into the world when man fell and we’ve given a name to this law, “The Second Law of Thermodynamics.”  That’s a mouthful, but it describes something we see everyday, everywhere, even in our own homes.  This law says that things always tend toward disintegration and disorder if left alone.  You see it your lawn and flower beds; if you leave them alone, disorder results.  Weeds take over the flower beds, the grass grows over the sidewalk until, if left alone long enough, you can’t see the sidewalk.  Untended, the grass gets as high as an elephant’s ear.  If you don’t intervene, your house falls apart.  Blame it on Adam. 

Your life is like that—your life gets out of control if you don’t tend to it.  If you’ve ever experienced your life getting out of control because of some sin pattern, you know it’s not a good feeling.  That’s where Titus 3 comes in and the duty of the teachers in the church.

“Remind them . . .” (Titus 3:1)  Peter said the same thing when he wrote to another group of believers, he said that he was writing to “stir up their remembrance.”  (II Peter 3:1)  Do you think I’d have been humiliated if I’d just kept in touch with my friend?  No.  Because each contact would be a reminder of who he is and what his name is. 

If I were to ask you to finish the line, “Love me tender love me _______” you could do it because you heard the song over and over again.  The reason you remember “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder _______  _________ ______” is because you’ve heard it over and over again.   Each time you heard it was a reminder of the words.

If your attendance to the Word is by fits and starts and then drops off, you’re putting the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics into your life and things can get out of control quickly.  So, when you come to church, you might not gain some new nugget that day, but you will be reminded of certain truths you need to be reminded of. 

Somebody once observed that a good way to judge the character of a society is by the way it treats those who are helpless.  The most helpless of all are unborn babies.  (They aren’t totally helpless after they’re born because they can scream at you to get you to do what they want.) 

I recently heard a doctor who performs abortions say that he made $600 every 15 minutes the procedure.  That’s a $2,400 hourly wage.  Then one day, as he was doing an abortion, he looked at the two arms and two legs he’d torn off an unborn baby and stacked up for inventory, and it made him sick to his stomach at what he was doing.   That’s a dramatic example of those who are helpless.  But what about those that aren’t so dramatic?

Basically, you could boil vss. 1-2 down to the fact a Bbile teacher is to remind you that you’re to be courteous to ALL, not only to believers.  Ever know someone who’s a “fighter” and proud of it?  They fight with everyone.  No matter where they are, they start fights.  There’s a word for them, they’re “pugnacious.”  They love it!  They start fights over the phone, in person, and any way they can think of. 

One Sunday afternoon, a waiter at a restaurant phoned me and started on a rant about “church people.”  He said, “No wonder nobody here wants to work on Sunday and deal with church people—they’re rude, demanding, and stingy and the people I work with hate them.” 

The “church people” knew something.  They know the server can’t fight back.  She’s helpless.   She has to take the abuse if she wants to keep her job.  (It’s to your credit that every time I’ve gone to a restaurant with any of you, you’re very polite to the help and that’s a testimony for Christ.) 

Unfortunately, there are those types of believers who are proud of the fact that they “chew people out.”  (Meaning they were rude to people who can’t fight back.)  They may chew them out over the phone when they call, or they may chew them out at their door when they come to the door.  When you do that, recognize that once you do, you’ve crossed a line—you will never be able to give them the gospel because they won’t spend one second listening to you.  (If you say, “I don’t care.”  Then you have a deeper problem.)

You already know to be courteous to all, but you need reminding or the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics will swing into operation.

On what basis are you to be courteous to ALL?  The basis is to remember that you were once like the unbeliever—“foolish, disobedient (to God), deceived, serving yourself and your sin pattern, envious, and hating.”  What he’s saying is that this is the way the world is.  You say, “No, it’s not; people are generally polite and nice, especially the people in Texas and sometimes Georgia . People are generally civil to one another.” 

But what you need to be reminded of is that “civility” is a thin little coat of paint, one-sixteenth of an inch thick.  All it takes is one little crack and people become little more than animals wrangling over a biscuit. 

Ten days ago, I was standing at the technical support counter of a cell phone store.  One staff person was waiting on me, and standing next to me were a teenager and his mother and a woman was waiting on them.  The mother and son looked like nice people.  They’d waited their turn in line politely and had a problem they needed solved.  It seems that the son wanted to trade his phone and get a new one, free, of course. 

The mother explained the problem with the phone and then the lady behind the counter said, “I’m sorry.  The policy is that we can’t just give you a new phone; if you want one, there’ll be a charge.”  OK.  That’s the policy, certainly it was in writing when he decided to get the phone.  Like everybody else, if you want something else, you pay the price. 

At this, the boy fired back at her and said, “That’s stupid!”  The clerk again explained the situation and the brat, angry at being told “No,” said, “That’s stupid, and I don’t want the blankety-blank phone.”  The clerk calmly explained the situation again, which was unacceptable to the teen who fired back with a sarcastic remark as if she were stupid. 

His mother never, not one time, corrected him and told him to mind his manners when he was talking to an adult.  The clerk couldn’t fight back without losing her job, and he was treating her like dirt.  He was talking down to her, big time. 

The veneer of civility cracked over a cell phone and a one-sided verbal brawl broke out with one person beating up on someone who couldn’t fight back, on someone who didn’t make the policy in the first place and couldn’t change it if she wanted to.  What it amounted to was that when the brat learned that the rules applied to him the façade fell apart.

But, hey, that’s the way you used to be; you used to be rude and condescending, and sarcastic.  Who’s Paul writing to?  Look at Titus 1:12—that’s who these believers used to be.  When Paul writes verse 3, he knows that he was once that way when he was Saul.  He was disobedient to God and hated the church and wanted to wipe it off the face of the earth.  He was a fool.

No matter what Paul writes, he’s always just a few words away from Christ and the cross.  Titus is to remind them to live in the light of God’s kindness.  In verses 3-7, Paul says that because of what God and Christ did for them, they have the basis to live such a life he’s described.  This confronts you with an important issue, doesn’t it?  Do you have faith that grace can change people?  Paul did; it changed the Cretins from the condition of 1:12 to being saved and living the life he’s describing. 

If you believe in grace, you believe that it has the power, not only to save, but also to change lives when believers begin to appreciate the “kindness” and “mercy” of God.

Paul is never but a few words from the cross and he writes the good news that God saved you, “not by works of righteousness which (you) have done . .. . and justified you by His grace,” which means that He declared in court that you are righteous in His sight the second you believed in Jesus.  You didn’t  become righteous, justification means that you were declared righteous.  Like Martin Luther said of all believers, “Just and still sinful.”  You didn’t contribute one thing to your salvation, except your sin. 

If you’re going to be changed by grace your teacher, you need to be reminded of the Cross and grace and God’s kindness and mercy to you.  Paul tells those who teach to remind the believer to “maintain good works and be profitable to people.”  “Profitable to people,” what a thought.  I remember my grandmother saying about her only son-in-law, “He’s been a blessing ever since he’s been in our family.”  What a compliment!

What’s the opposite of that kind of believer?  What does an “unprofitable one” look like?  It’s the person who quarrels over foolish issues.  (vs. 9)   The person who stirs up controversies.   Recently, we invited a fellow to come attend CLC.  He told us in no uncertain terms that he’d been in three churches and had quit all three and, as a matter of fact, had quit “church.”  He said it was because in every church, every church without exception, there was a woman who ran it and she told the deacons what to do, and he was never going back. 

I told him that he wouldn’t find such to be the case at CLC, and in so many words, he said, “You’re a liar.”  Now, is that the issue?  It would be easy to get drawn into an argument over that, especially when you’ve just been told you’re a liar or that you’re so stupid you can’t recognize the facts, because, as he said, “There’s one thre somewhere.”  But the issue is the gospel, not whether or not some woman in the church is telling the pastor what color tie to wear, and the issue is not me; it’s Christ. 

Warn a divisive person and if he persists, then warn him again, but after that, don’t waste your time.   He’s hardened. 

Now, let’s put all this together.  Paul has spilled a lot of ink talking about the fact that the believer should be eager to do good works, based on God’s grace to him.  Now Paul has a “good work” for Titus—“Come to me at Nicopolis and spend the winter with me.  Help Zenas and Apollos on their trip, so that they don’t need anything.”  Here Paul expresses a need he has and asks Titus to help on the basis of God’s grace to Titus.

Is it possible to be a Christian and not produce good works?  There are those who say, “No, that’s not possible.  If you’re a true believer, you will produce fruit.  If you don’t produce fruit, you must not have been a believer in the first place.”  But that’s not what the Bible says.  Look at 3:14 —“Our people must learn, so that they may not live unproductive lives.”  Jesus said that it’s possible for a believer to live a life producing no fruit (Jn. 15:2).  Look at it this way, if it’s impossible for a Christian to produce no fruit, there’s no reason to command the believer to do so, if it’s automatic. 

One great thing among many about CLC is all the needs this church has met and is meeting.  We’ve met people’s needs for help, for an education, for a dinner or two or three or four or more.  We’ve gone to see you and help you when you’ve been in the hospital, we’ve helped a family whose home burned down, we’ve sent out and encouraged missionaries, we’ve gone into homes and mobile home parks, we pick up kids for SS and VBS and taken them home.  We’ve given students a pleasant and comfortable environment in which to learn the Word in a seminary and on and on and on, but we can’t be here all day.  And all those we’ve helped, we haven’t asked a thing in return. 

I want to do what Paul says that Titus is to do: remind you of something.  You can’t meet anyone’s needs if you get isolated.  You’ve got to know people, but if you get isolated from others you can’t.  If you retreat into your own little monastery, you become unfruitful. 

Don’t let yourself get isolated; meet, greet, and get to know others and the Lord will use you.  Your home can become your monastery and, inside the moat, you get isolated.  They used to dig ditches around their castles, fill them with water to keep out any invader.  You can do the same thing—your job can become your moat to keep people out because you’re “too busy.”  Your TV, your hobby can become your moat to keep people out.

One of the saddest photographs I ever saw was a picture of Walter Winchell’s funeral.  Walter Winchell was a powerful newspaper columnist and radio personality.  They say that he had a poison pen and tongue.  They say that with a word or two he destroyed career after career of those he went after.  Talk about divisive! 

The picture was of the Walter Winchell’s funeral service.  You look at the photo at the graveside and who do you see there?  You see a minister and a woman, the daughter of Walter Winchell and those are the only ones who are there.   Only one person cared.  The minister had to be there, but he probably didn’t care.   Winchell lived in his own little world and spent his time destroying people.  When he died, who cared?

But there are those believers whom grace has changed.  They get outside the moat, when a need arises and they can help, they’re there.  But they’re there because they have spent time outside their moat. 

So here’s the challenge: Get out of your moat.  Many ways you can to this.  Enroll in one of our discipleship groups, come pray on Wednesday nights, join a SS class, because its in the smaller groups that you come to know people and their needs.  But, having said that, it’s possible that church itself can become a moat.  Paul wrote to do good to “all men.”  Christian courtesy to the clerks, the teen-ager who checks you out at the store, the janitor in your building, all can lead to entrees for the gospel.  Jesus said that He wasn’t taking us out of the world, but that we were to have an impact in it without being of it.

TRUTH TO TAKE HOME: YOU CAN IMPRESS PEOPLE FROM AFAR; YOU CAN ONLY IMPACT THEM UP CLOSE.

* = Free Grace Teacher or Ministry