Doug McMasters: Secret Bible and go to the book of Titus, chapter 3.
Doug McMasters: We started Titus in March, and we're going to finish in just a couple weeks.
Doug McMasters: Today and next Sunday will be actually our last message in the book of Titus.
Doug McMasters: We're going to be in verses 8 through 11 this morning.
Doug McMasters: I imagine for many of us, sometime this week, you either did or didn't do the most important thing that was on your list when the week started.
Doug McMasters: Some of us might have had a week where you had this list on Monday, but by the time you got to the end of the week, you looked at the list and you said the top priority did not get done.
Doug McMasters: You've had those weeks, haven't you?
Doug McMasters: Maybe at work where the most important thing is put onto the calendar, and all of a sudden you receive an email that talks about a scheduling conflict.
Doug McMasters: And then as you read the thread, the thread drifts away from the scheduling conflict into a whole discussion about scheduling philosophy.
Doug McMasters: And then it gets into a longer thread about the management, organizational management practices of the place where you work.
Doug McMasters: And all of a sudden, that most important thing gets buried.
Doug McMasters: Or maybe you've walked into a meeting about that most important thing.
Doug McMasters: It's supposed to be a 30-minute meeting, turns into a 90-minute meeting.
Doug McMasters: And at the end of the 90 minutes, everybody kind of goes, Well, that was an important meeting.
Doug McMasters: And you realize that the most important thing was still on the table and no decisions had been made about it.
Doug McMasters: Or perhaps you've sat in your office and somebody's come by and they've brought an issue, and it's a significant issue.
Doug McMasters: It needs to be talked about, but you realize, you know, it's been an issue and it's not going to go away.
Doug McMasters: But that conversation becomes a 60-minute conversation, then a 90-minute conversation, and then the whole afternoon's gone, and you're like, what I needed to get done today did not get done.
Doug McMasters: And I say most of us, because I too have had to learn the lesson that there's a big difference between what's important and what's urgent.
Doug McMasters: And oftentimes what's important is not a fair competitor against what's urgent.
Doug McMasters: The urgent things often seem to win the day.
Doug McMasters: And the reason is because what's important often doesn't announce itself with the same kind of clarity and loudness of speech that the urgent does, and it gets overshadowed.
Doug McMasters: But this is not just a personal problem, and it's not just an issue that we often find at work in different places.
Doug McMasters: Paul names this tension between the important and the urgent in the passage of scripture that we're going to be looking at.
Doug McMasters: In the book of Titus, which is just three short chapters, Titus has been receiving from Paul the instruction necessary to help stabilize this young church.
Doug McMasters: This church has been dealing with some matters that could be disruptive, but also some things that need to be put into place in order for it to be a mature body.
Doug McMasters: Their leadership needs to be put into place.
Doug McMasters: The qualifications for that are listed out in chapter one, how the church is meant to operate well in all of its dimensions in chapter two.
Doug McMasters: And now, here near the end of the letter, Paul directs Titus to speak to the church about the things that are absolutely necessary for it.
Doug McMasters: For the things that the church must insist on.
Doug McMasters: And so he writes to this church to address a specific problem.
Doug McMasters: And the problem is this that the false teachers that Paul discusses in chapter one and that he alludes to here in chapter three, they come in and they're not idle people.
Doug McMasters: They are energetic people.
Doug McMasters: They are people who want to engage with real energy about things.
Doug McMasters: But these things don't produce anything good.
Doug McMasters: They've got their genealogies to reconstruct, they've got their controversies to argue, they've got their quarrels about the law to promote.
Doug McMasters: All of this effort and no fruit.
Doug McMasters: And that pattern is very, very, very subtle.
Doug McMasters: Because oftentimes conversations can enter into the life of a body and it can gain attention.
Doug McMasters: And as it does, there's a slow drift away from what is most important.
Doug McMasters: And by the time you recognize it, you've already been off track for quite a while.
Doug McMasters: So here we are in Titus chapter 3 and verses 8 to 11.
Doug McMasters: And Paul addresses this concern directly.
Doug McMasters: How directly?
Doug McMasters: Well, he talks about insisting and rejecting.
Doug McMasters: His commands are sharp and pointed.
Doug McMasters: It would be like a contractor sort of driving up to a building site to find out how his workers are doing and to realize that they've been building a very constructive building, but it's on a different plot of land than what they've been, they were told to build on.
Doug McMasters: So Paul doesn't commend this effort or even suggest it.
Doug McMasters: He names it with some force and directness.
Doug McMasters: And this is why, because what the church needs to center its attention on has in itself only the power to perform what it's meant to do.
Doug McMasters: And that'll make sense in just a moment.
Doug McMasters: And so, in order for any church and our church to stay where God wants us, we need to do three things.
Doug McMasters: We need to insist on the excellent thing.
Doug McMasters: We need to reject the worthless thing.
Doug McMasters: And the third one is we need to release the troublemaker who makes the worthless thing his project.
Doug McMasters: Three instructions, but one purpose.
Doug McMasters: The purpose is that we keep center what is necessarily the center, and what is necessarily the only thing that will produce the kind of church that God wants.
Doug McMasters: So let's look at these three points, these three action points about how to keep the thing that is central, central.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 8 with me.
Doug McMasters: This saying is trustworthy.
Doug McMasters: I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed God might be careful to vote themselves to good works.
Doug McMasters: These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
Doug McMasters: Now, Paul brings up a pointer phrase here, which is extremely important.
Doug McMasters: He says, This saying is trustworthy.
Doug McMasters: Now, Paul uses that language, very similar language, or even that exact language, five times in the pastoral epistles.
Doug McMasters: So in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and here in Titus.
Doug McMasters: 3 in 1 Timothy, I think once in 2 Timothy and once here.
Doug McMasters: And this formula sometimes points forward and sometimes points back.
Doug McMasters: And in this instance, it's pointing back to something, saying, This which we've talked about, not what we're about to talk about, but that which was just mentioned, this is a trustworthy saying.
Doug McMasters: So let's see what he says is a trustworthy saying.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse four.
Doug McMasters: When the kindness of God, our Savior, and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not by works of righteousness such we have done, but according to his mercy, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing by the Holy Spirit, he poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.
Doug McMasters: That is a glorious statement of the gospel in a lot of very, very fine and full dimensions.
Doug McMasters: And Paul is saying about this statement about the gospel that this is the faithful, trustworthy saying.
Doug McMasters: So what Paul's doing here, right after stating the gospel, is let's park it right here.
Doug McMasters: Let's stop and let's look back now that we've just said this, and to see just how vital that was.
Doug McMasters: And what he says is, we're not going to move from here.
Doug McMasters: This needs to be a fixed point in the life of the congregation.
Doug McMasters: The gospel is the thing.
Doug McMasters: And Titus, you must, you must, you must insist on it.
Doug McMasters: And that insisting is it's in itself the instruction here.
Doug McMasters: And what Paul is saying by this insisting is to speak about this confidently and to assert it without qualification.
Doug McMasters: And what Paul is telling Titus to do, and everyone who has any responsibility in the direction of a church is to take the gospel, set it in the center, and make sure nothing else gets in its place.
Doug McMasters: It's that vital.
Doug McMasters: And like I said, he's not suggesting this, he's commanding this.
Doug McMasters: This is a vital word to receive.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying it with the kind of weight of, again, a builder who is going to the job site and looking at the foundations of the building that's about to be built.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying, This is where we're building.
Doug McMasters: No other place.
Doug McMasters: This is where it's happening, right here.
Doug McMasters: And this is exactly how Paul is insisting on this.
Doug McMasters: He's saying, This is the spot.
Doug McMasters: Now, here's why.
Doug McMasters: Look at the next phrase.
Doug McMasters: So that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.
Doug McMasters: Now, notice the construct of that: the insistence on the gospel as the central point to the life of the church for the purpose of good works in the life of God's people.
Doug McMasters: And what he is saying there is that only the gospel can produce the kind of life that believers are meant to live.
Doug McMasters: That's the connection.
Doug McMasters: Only the gospel produces what it says it produces.
Doug McMasters: Only the grace of God can make people who are devoted to doing what is good.
Doug McMasters: And they do that not in order to gain anything from God, but in response to the grace they've received.
Doug McMasters: And without the gospel at the center, anything that looks like religious activity has absolutely no foundation underneath it.
Doug McMasters: And so the gospel is what changes people.
Doug McMasters: And Christian living should never, never, never, never be mistaken for moralism.
Doug McMasters: Because moralism is a command to live your life in a particular way without the power of the gospel undergirding it.
Doug McMasters: And so with the gospel of the center, good works are produced by the Spirit, energizing them in those who have been justified by grace, by those who have received an inheritance, by those who have the hope of eternal life.
Doug McMasters: The Spirit works in such a way that their life becomes one of displaying these good works.
Doug McMasters: Now, let's describe those good works here because Paul gives some qualifiers for what they look like.
Doug McMasters: He calls them good and profitable.
Doug McMasters: Good and profitable.
Doug McMasters: In the Greek, these words are very descriptive.
Doug McMasters: That good word, we often think of good and we think of it in a moral dimension, and it is a moral dimension.
Doug McMasters: But this word for good goes broader than that.
Doug McMasters: It's a word which talks about things that are beautiful, that are inherently excellent, that are praiseworthy, that are noble.
Doug McMasters: That's good works.
Doug McMasters: Those are the kind of good works he's talking about, that are genuinely good in and of themselves.
Doug McMasters: And if anyone were to see them, they would have to affirm there is something absolutely beautiful about that.
Doug McMasters: And then the next word, profitable, again, is a very clear word.
Doug McMasters: Things that are useful, things that are beneficial, things that produce a real advantage.
Doug McMasters: So the gospel moves in a heart of somebody who is described in verse three as foolish and disobedient, deceived and enslaved by various passions and pleasures and malice, hating and being hated by one another, takes that kind of person, brings them into this wondrous hope, and then produces a life of beauty and productivity.
Doug McMasters: It's a glorious thing.
Doug McMasters: This is how congregations grow, when the gospel is kept center.
Doug McMasters: And this is what congregations look like when the gospel is kept in the center.
Doug McMasters: A community that shows itself not only amongst itself, but also in the public good, as something that only the gospel could produce.
Doug McMasters: This is why Jesus said, they will know that they are my disciples by their love for one another.
Doug McMasters: And in another place, they will know that I've been sent by the Father, because there's something that happens in the gospel that the rest of the world just can't explain.
Doug McMasters: They just have no categories for comprehending those things.
Doug McMasters: Let me give you an example of one.
Doug McMasters: And the missionary was like, uh, a little uncomfortable talking about finances, and said, Yeah, yeah.
Doug McMasters: And and you you probably probably give a lot of what you do have to the work.
Doug McMasters: And he's like, Yeah.
Doug McMasters: And he said, Um, I've been thinking about that.
Doug McMasters: And I was just wondering, um, do you have like a college fund set up for your children?
Doug McMasters: And he's like, uh I I I don't.
Doug McMasters: He said, good.
Doug McMasters: Because I want to start one for them.
Doug McMasters: He said, you don't need to do anything, you don't need to contribute anything.
Doug McMasters: We'll take care of this.
Doug McMasters: And set up a college fund for that missionary's children.
Doug McMasters: Out of the love of the gospel, out of the love of the truth, these kind of good and profitable things that were poured out abundantly, not because the person had to do it or needed to be seen by it.
Doug McMasters: That was a private conversation I never would have known of if I hadn't spoken to that person.
Doug McMasters: And here is this person who's recognizing that the gospels move their heart so much that they want to take care of those who are taking the gospel to different places.
Doug McMasters: We need to keep what is excellent central, Paul says here.
Doug McMasters: I also want to take that builder analogy a little further.
Doug McMasters: Think about that builder who has come to the job site and he's known, look, we need to be building here, and this foundation is just what needs to be built.
Doug McMasters: And that builder has been building enough to know what should be done as this construction continues and what shouldn't be done.
Doug McMasters: Because there are a lot of ways to cut corners and a lot of ways for cost to be shaved so that profit can be increased.
Doug McMasters: But he's not going to do that because he wants to build what is going to remain and what is going to be stable.
Doug McMasters: And he knows the difference between the hard, unseen work that's going to make sure that that building is sound and safe and long-lasting from a lot of effort that is shoddy and going to show cracks very, very shortly.
Doug McMasters: And so he focuses his attention on ensuring that the building stands.
Doug McMasters: And it's going to take a lot of patient, unglamorous, unseen, unappreciated work to make sure that that's done.
Doug McMasters: Now, let me move the analogy.
Doug McMasters: Any pastor or preacher who maintains the line of the gospel week after week after week after week, and is returning there constantly and insisting on it is not run out of ideas of what to preach.
Doug McMasters: He is one who understands that this is the central thing.
Doug McMasters: And this is what must be kept right there.
Doug McMasters: Because he knows that when it is, the gospel will actively produce what only the gospel can produce.
Doug McMasters: A people who are filled with beautiful, beneficial, profitable actions.
Doug McMasters: The contrast is not subtle at all.
Doug McMasters: And some of you have been here for a long, long time.
Doug McMasters: Years and years and years before Micah and I ever showed up.
Doug McMasters: So we're not talking about our past few years.
Doug McMasters: We're talking about decades.
Doug McMasters: And you've been here long enough to see how the gospel kept central has changed people, and how it stabilized their life, and how there's a fullness to them that nothing else could produce.
Doug McMasters: And some of you are newer to the faith and you're wondering, is there more to the Christian life?
Doug McMasters: I want to tell you with a degree of confidence that some of this greatness provides me.
Doug McMasters: The gospel is the center.
Doug McMasters: There's a lot of teaching out there that treats the gospel like it's the front door to the house called Christianity.
Doug McMasters: And you pass through it and you shut it, and then you just kind of enter in, and everything else is in front of you.
Doug McMasters: You've heard me say this.
Doug McMasters: The gospel is not the front door to Christianity.
Doug McMasters: It is the front door and the rest of the house.
Doug McMasters: It is everything.
Doug McMasters: Because out of it flows all that God is doing for us in his redemptive activity.
Doug McMasters: And there is voices out there, and sometimes these little thoughts in our head to think, well, maybe there's something different or more or better.
Doug McMasters: Paul is insisting that the faithful saying is remained fixed in our hearts because the gospel doesn't need any veneer on it.
Doug McMasters: And so we have to ask ourselves constantly this question: Is the gospel central?
Doug McMasters: Is it fixed in our attention?
Doug McMasters: Are we maintaining it right where it should be?
Doug McMasters: Or have we let something else enter in?
Doug McMasters: Am I asking some of you to do a little bit of a painful inventory now?
Doug McMasters: Think about those places where you've been or those periods in which you've endured where there has been something consuming the church other than the gospel.
Doug McMasters: Where there's been conversation after conversation after conversation about this matter.
Doug McMasters: And I want you to ask this question.
Doug McMasters: Have those conversations produce the kind of fruit that Paul just described the gospel produces.
Doug McMasters: A person who is filled with beautiful deeds that are truly profitable to people.
Doug McMasters: And if the answer to that question is patently no, it gives you some idea of where on the priority list that conversation should have been.
Doug McMasters: And so here, because the congregation's life is built on the gospel, we need to keep that which is excellent and to hold tight to it and insist on it, as Paul tells Titus to do.
Doug McMasters: Now that leads us to the second point.
Doug McMasters: Point two is that we are to avoid the worthless thing.
Doug McMasters: Look at verse 9.
Doug McMasters: Avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, because they are unprofitable and worthless.
Doug McMasters: The contrast here couldn't be any more stark, could it?
Doug McMasters: The profitable, beautiful deeds that flow out of the gospel, and the unprofitable and worthless things that flow out of these kinds of controversies.
Doug McMasters: And the word that he uses here for unprofitable and worthless is empty, vaporous, the kind of thing that can't be held.
Doug McMasters: What's left of a soap bubble after you pop it?
Doug McMasters: Nothing.
Doug McMasters: It's actually the same Greek word that's used in the book of Ecclesiastes when it talks about vanity, vanity.
Doug McMasters: All is vanity.
Doug McMasters: Now, Paul has said this before, and he brings it up quite a bit in his pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus.
Doug McMasters: In chapter one of this book, he said to Titus that there are people full of empty talk and deception.
Doug McMasters: In 1 Timothy 1 4, that there are people who promote empty speculations rather than God's plan.
Doug McMasters: In 1 Timothy 6.4, he talked about people who have this driving unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments about words.
Doug McMasters: And then in 2 Timothy 2.16, he says that they have irreverent and empty speech.
Doug McMasters: What's interesting about those statements is Paul doesn't necessarily define what all of that is.
Doug McMasters: He gives categories, but he doesn't give specifics.
Doug McMasters: Because I think Titus and Timothy knew exactly what he meant.
Doug McMasters: And if we're honest, we do too.
Doug McMasters: And the question isn't whether or not these kind of empty things exist today.
Doug McMasters: They do.
Doug McMasters: What we need is perhaps some equipment to know how to recognize them.
Doug McMasters: And I want to give us three three ways, three clues to help us recognize these kind of conversations.
Doug McMasters: First of all, these arguments divide.
Doug McMasters: And it's not the total picture, but that's one of the three points.
Doug McMasters: And the context of Titus here is unmistakable.
Doug McMasters: He's telling Titus that he needs to command the church to stay away from foolish debates because they're divisive.
Doug McMasters: Verse 10, he'll talk about that.
Doug McMasters: We'll look at that in just a moment.
Doug McMasters: Empty arguments and divisive people travel together, and they fracture what the gospel unites.
Doug McMasters: Now, there are moments when debate is necessary.
Doug McMasters: There are times when the truth of the gospel is at stake.
Doug McMasters: There are times when the clarity needs to be out there to protect the flock.
Doug McMasters: There are times when error needs to be named and it needs to be corrected.
Doug McMasters: Paul had no hesitation whatsoever to confront the Judaizers in Galatia when the gospel was on the line.
Doug McMasters: The integrity was necessary.
Doug McMasters: But there's a difference between contending for the faith and somebody being contentious and divisive.
Doug McMasters: Because there's some people that don't love the truth, they just love a fight.
Doug McMasters: And Paul's counsel here is not gentle.
Doug McMasters: As we'll see, he says, reject them.
Doug McMasters: It's pretty clear.
Doug McMasters: The second element about recognizing these kind of conversations is they're not only divisive, but they also divert.
Doug McMasters: They divert.
Doug McMasters: Going back to 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 4, Paul talked about those who promote endless, empty speculation rather than God's plan, which operates by faith.
Doug McMasters: And so they're diverting the conversation to empty speculations, things that don't advance the faith, things that don't strengthen the church's witness, things that don't build up the body of Christ.
Doug McMasters: Things that can be full of conversations that consume time and energy and attention, all the while diverting the focus on the gospel.
Doug McMasters: I've had to talk to my sons at times about different conversations that they've been in.
Doug McMasters: And some of the things that we've had to talk about have been absolutely unbelievable.
Doug McMasters: Arguments in churches about whether or not when they come to communion, they should all do it with one cup that everybody shares together, or if it's biblically permissible to have several different cups from which to drink.
Doug McMasters: Have that conversation if you want.
Doug McMasters: Or to go to Genesis chapter six and for people to have this raging conversation about the Nephilim and whether they're the sons of Seth or if they're, you know, sort of like half-breeds of angels and human women.
Doug McMasters: Sure.
Doug McMasters: On a long night, after a good dinner, sit down with a friend and have a conversation, but for it to be the conversation of a whole church that diverts.
Doug McMasters: Not only is it one of division, it's one of diversion.
Doug McMasters: And ultimately it's one of destruction as well.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what Paul says about these kinds of conversations and the people that bring them.
Doug McMasters: He said in Titus 1.11, they ruin entire households.
Doug McMasters: And that's not just a family unit.
Doug McMasters: I think that's a code word for a church.
Doug McMasters: They ruin entire churches.
Doug McMasters: Second Timothy 2.14 quarrels about words that lead to the ruin of those who listen.
Doug McMasters: And then in Second Timothy four or two, verse 16, speech that will produce even more godlessness, false teaching that will spread like gangrene.
Doug McMasters: It has that kind of poisonous effect.
Doug McMasters: These arguments don't just waste time, they don't just divert, they corrode, and they unsettle and they fracture, and they breed suspicion in the place of trust, and they breed pride in the place of humility, and they breed noise where there should be nourishment happening.
Doug McMasters: And any departure of the gospel that goes down that way through speculation or novelty or some needless controversy needs to be rejected.
Doug McMasters: And look at what Paul says about it here.
Doug McMasters: Avoid.
Doug McMasters: That's just not quite strong enough.
Doug McMasters: The Greek word there means to turn away from.
Doug McMasters: Turn away from it.
Doug McMasters: And the reason he's saying that is because there's an assumption underneath there that these kind of conversations have a gravitational pull to them.
Doug McMasters: That there's something about them that sucks you in if you engage them and you get locked into it.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying, don't even drive that direction.
Doug McMasters: Paul's not alone with that warning.
Doug McMasters: Hebrews 13, he warns against strange teachings, teachings that produce nothing.
Doug McMasters: And here's the problem is when these people come in with these kind of teachings, they look serious about God.
Doug McMasters: They wear the clothes of serious theological discussion.
Doug McMasters: But there's no fruit to the kind of conversations they're having.
Doug McMasters: Let me paint a scenario for you.
Doug McMasters: This is a made-up scenario, not a real one, but it's sadly very recognizable.
Doug McMasters: Imagine, if you will, a church, a healthy church, shaped by the gospel in every way, loving people, genuinely working out their salvation in fear and trembling because God is at work within them.
Doug McMasters: And then some guest preacher comes in and interjects some of those thoughts.
Doug McMasters: And people are like, oh, I hadn't really thought about that.
Doug McMasters: And other people are like, oh, I haven't really thought about that either.
Doug McMasters: And there's this genuine interest to sort of engage one of these things.
Doug McMasters: And all of a sudden, people are finding it a little more compelling to talk about.
Doug McMasters: And then the elders of the church call for a study about this thing.
Doug McMasters: And the study produces more discussions, and the more discussions produce some division.
Doug McMasters: And then all of a sudden, the whole church is wrapped up in this thing that produces no fruit.
Doug McMasters: And six months later, one of the elders kind of goes, Where have we gotten ourselves?
Doug McMasters: Has this conversation produced the kind of fruit the gospel produces?
Doug McMasters: No.
Doug McMasters: And the church starts to move themselves back to the gospel, but for a year or longer, they have not been a display of the kind of people that the gospel produces.
Doug McMasters: In the middle of those kind of scenarios, Paul is saying, look, don't go there.
Doug McMasters: Don't get caught up in its vortex.
Doug McMasters: Don't get sucked in by its pressures.
Doug McMasters: Don't get pulled in by it at all.
Doug McMasters: Turn away from it.
Doug McMasters: Because the gospel needs to be central, we must insist on it, because only the gospel can produce the kind of people God wants his children to be.
Doug McMasters: And therefore, we must reject the worthless thing.
Doug McMasters: Paul drives this even deeper in verses 10 and 11.
Doug McMasters: We must release the divisive person.
Doug McMasters: Reject a divisive person after the first and second warning.
Doug McMasters: For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning, being self-condemned.
Doug McMasters: This is a very difficult passage.
Doug McMasters: And I was talking to Royal last night, and she said, How's it going today?
Doug McMasters: And I said, I've been sitting on these two verses all day long.
Doug McMasters: I came to Tony's celebration with the weight of that just on my shoulders.
Doug McMasters: Paul names a particular kind of person, and we need to identify this person carefully.
Doug McMasters: Because it's easy to make this too broad or too narrow.
Doug McMasters: Look at what he says in verse 10.
Doug McMasters: We need to reject a divisive person.
Doug McMasters: If we were to transliterate the Greek word and we have, it would sound very familiar to many of your ears.
Doug McMasters: It's the word heretic.
Doug McMasters: Heretic.
Doug McMasters: And the word heretic in our dictionary typically means bad theology, right?
Doug McMasters: And that's true.
Doug McMasters: But the source of it is something that Paul is pointing to.
Doug McMasters: It is not talking about the theology, it's talking about the divisiveness of the person more than it's talking about the content of their conversation.
Doug McMasters: The divisive person reject, the person who is factious in their behavior, the person who operates by drawing lines, by creating parties, by pulling the community toward the place that he wants it to gravitate, and by doing it persistently enough that it ends up in a disruptive way in the life of the body.
Doug McMasters: That's what he's talking about.
Doug McMasters: Now let's be clear to clarify that.
Doug McMasters: Because if you apply this passage too quickly, you know what you've done?
Doug McMasters: You've just weaponized it.
Doug McMasters: And it's not meant to be a weapon, it's meant to be a safeguard.
Doug McMasters: And Paul is talking about giving even this divisive person a process.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at the process.
Doug McMasters: Verse 10.
Doug McMasters: Reject the divisive person after a first and second warning.
Doug McMasters: And so this divisive person, after discussions have been had, and the disagreements are seen to be more than just someone with a difficult question, and more than just somebody with a disagreement at some point about something that's done or said, but it comes to comes to be clear that this person is being divisive for divisiveness's sake.
Doug McMasters: And that person is given first one warning, clear, spoken, unambiguous, and then a second warning, clear, spoken, without any ambiguity.
Doug McMasters: And after those, then in the third step, there is a rejection.
Doug McMasters: It's a mechanism that leads, hopefully, to repentance and reconciliation.
Doug McMasters: But if it goes through the process of first step, second step, then third step, then there has to be a display of this in which that person who has made this issue so central that it's diverting the attention of the body from the gospel itself, that person needs to be let go, rejected.
Doug McMasters: Now, this is not something Paul came up with.
Doug McMasters: And in his discussions about it, say in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, he talks about the person who is disciplined, even in a redemptive way, in the hope that even after the judicial decision of the church, that person might be delivered by being let go.
Doug McMasters: Paul says, you need to work through the process.
Doug McMasters: You must do this.
Doug McMasters: And in verse 11, he talks about what the verdict, where the verdict lies.
Doug McMasters: For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning.
Doug McMasters: He is self-condemned.
Doug McMasters: Warped, twisted, out of shape, and self-condemned.
Doug McMasters: A person who is judged by his own choices is what he's saying here.
Doug McMasters: It's not the community rendering the judgment, it's not even the elders rendering the judgment.
Doug McMasters: This is a verdict that's rendered by the person himself, because his divisiveness has been so absolutely evident that he is self-condemned.
Doug McMasters: Now, there are two errors that crop up here, and I've seen both of them.
Doug McMasters: One of them is the error of never reaching the end of the process.
Doug McMasters: There's the error of talking to someone who's been seen as divisive, who's been absolutely identified as divisive, and having one conversation, then two conversations, then 20 conversations, then 30 conversations, and then 40 conversations, where there's been something on the agenda of an elder's meeting, and it's going to get discussed.
Doug McMasters: And every time it's discussed, it gets put on the next elder's meeting, and then it gets discussed, and then it gets put on the next elder's meeting, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and that person remains and continues to do their divisive work.
Doug McMasters: An infinite extension of the process is not love for the truth of the gospel, it's not love for the body of Christ that needs protected, and it's not love for the person who is in this factious mindset, because it's not confronting them clearly with what they're doing.
Doug McMasters: But then there's the other side.
Doug McMasters: There's the other side of taking a question, a disagreement, and turning it into immediately a divisive frame and stepping into this too quick.
Doug McMasters: Several years ago, we had to receive two families into the life of the church here who had been disciplined by a congregation.
Doug McMasters: That's a very, very delicate thing to receive when we sit down in our membership interviews with people who want to become a part of New High Park Baptist Church.
Doug McMasters: One of the questions we always ask is this have you ever been put under discipline by another body of Christ?
Doug McMasters: And those two couples, those two families had to say yes.
Doug McMasters: And that started the conversation.
Doug McMasters: What happened?
Doug McMasters: And after a long involved investigative process and talking to them and talking to the people that they were involved with, it was exactly what the other side of this can be.
Doug McMasters: The church had stepped in so quickly into what shouldn't have been a disciplinary issue, and it actually threw these two families out of their church.
Doug McMasters: Such a sad thing.
Doug McMasters: Platform from which you can enter into even these kind of conversations and have clarity about how to proceed through them.
Doug McMasters: The congregation's life is centered here on Christ, on what He's done in His wondrous grace for us, when mercy has been shown upon us when judgment should have been ours, when we've been justified by grace, and we've been given an inheritance so that we might rejoice in the hope of eternal life together.
Doug McMasters: For some of you who are newer to us, and you've been in those kind of places, and we've many of us have had the kind of conversations about them, and you've come in here and you've said something's different here.
Doug McMasters: Something's happening here that wasn't happening where I was from.
Doug McMasters: And now you understand why.
Doug McMasters: It's because what is central, as Paul said, needs to be central, is what keeps getting repeated here.
Doug McMasters: And I want to say to you, you're welcome.
Doug McMasters: The gospel has to be central.
Doug McMasters: But I want to say something to all of us who have been here, and all of us who are here.
Doug McMasters: This centrality of the gospel doesn't happen by default.
Doug McMasters: It's not just something we can put into neutral and just assume that it's always going to be here and assume that the fruit of the gospel is always going to be on display here.
Doug McMasters: Because Paul is warning us that there's going to be people and there's going to be situations and questions that may sound very, very attractive, but underneath them is an energizing not of the spirit, but of Satan who wants to come in and divert and destroy God's people.
Doug McMasters: And we have to be on our guard.
Doug McMasters: As he said, keep the unity of the faith, guard the gospel, guard the truth of it.
Doug McMasters: And so we have to insist on what is excellent.
Doug McMasters: We have to reject what is worthless.
Doug McMasters: And if necessary, we have to do the hard thing and even release the person who is causing the factions.
Doug McMasters: We have to continue doing what only the gospel can do: living a life with gospel clarity, living a life with relational spirit-driven honesty, and living a life in which we're all committed to walk together in the light of truth.
Doug McMasters: I want to say something as I close.
Doug McMasters: We've been talking a lot about the gospel, but I want to remind everyone here that what Paul is doing here is not simply talking about church management policies and procedures.
Doug McMasters: He's helping us see what is really the essence of the Christian life and what is the essence of our church life.
Doug McMasters: It is the gospel.
Doug McMasters: These are not just operational instructions, it's the vital overflow of what only the gospel can do.
Doug McMasters: And all of us are here because of it.
Doug McMasters: And only it.
Doug McMasters: We're here because we were once foolish, disobedient, deceived.
Doug McMasters: We were enslaved by various passions and pleasures.
Doug McMasters: Left to ourselves, we would go astray in a heartbeat.
Doug McMasters: But the kindness and the love of God has appeared.
Doug McMasters: While we were sinners, Christ died for us.
Doug McMasters: While we were filled with all of these things, his love appeared and his mercy saved.
Doug McMasters: And he's washed us and he's regenerated us and he's renewed us and he's given us the overflow of the Spirit that works the fruit of love, joy, and peace within us.
Doug McMasters: And he's done so with abundance and overflow.
Doug McMasters: And he's making us different.
Doug McMasters: People whose lives are now good and profitable.
Doug McMasters: And if you're here this morning and you say, look, I'm still stuck in verse three.
Doug McMasters: I don't know verses four to seven.
Doug McMasters: I don't know this kind of love, this kind of this kind of kindness.
Doug McMasters: I don't know this kind of mercy.
Doug McMasters: I don't know this kind of grace.
Doug McMasters: What do I do?
Doug McMasters: You come as you are.
Doug McMasters: God's not asking you to bring something with you to Him.
Doug McMasters: He's saying, bring yourself to Him, just as you are.
Doug McMasters: And admit who you are.
Doug McMasters: Admit that you are foolish and disobedient and deceived and enslaved by passions and pleasures.
Doug McMasters: Admit that before God.
Doug McMasters: And the scriptures say that if you do, if you confess your sins before Him and you come to Christ as the only hope for deliverance and salvation, if you receive Christ Jesus, the scriptures say that he is rich to all those who call upon him.
Doug McMasters: And it doesn't matter whether you're a Jew or a Gentile.
Doug McMasters: He said, anyone from everywhere whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Doug McMasters: And then you can enter in to the glorious forgiveness and inheritance of the gospel, and you'll find yourself wondrously transforming.
Doug McMasters: And you will find yourself sometimes looking in the mirror and going, now that's the same person, but I don't feel the same at all.
Doug McMasters: There's something going on here.
Doug McMasters: And I can only, only attribute it to God.
Doug McMasters: Come to Christ, He'll receive you.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray together.
Doug McMasters: Our Heavenly Father, what wondrous things, what wondrous things are we recipients of.
Doug McMasters: Father, to see this indictment of our condition with words that are hard, uncomfortable, easy to want to push away from, that describe us foolish and disobedient, deceived and enslaved, living in malice and envy.
Doug McMasters: There's not a single one of those words we'd like to have marked on us.
Doug McMasters: But you say that's exactly what we are.
Doug McMasters: Your holiness is so great that this is exactly who we are in the light of it.
Doug McMasters: And yet, and yet, to us, foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to people living in malice and envy, to hear these words, the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, he saved us.
Doug McMasters: What wondrous love is this?
Doug McMasters: Lord, give us the spiritual perception to discern and to approve that which is excellent.
Doug McMasters: Give us the spiritual understanding and perception to reject that which is worthless.
Doug McMasters: And Father, give us the courage and the compassion to release one who would persist in worthless things.
Doug McMasters: Father, give grace to all of us so that we together might be the pillar and ground of the truth, the habitation for you to dwell happily.
Doug McMasters: And may we all be energized through what only the gospel can do.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.