Titus - Spiritual Leadership in the Real World

Good morning. It's so good to see you all. It's an exciting morning for me personally, and I think also in the life of the church. I want to invite you to turn with me, in your copy of God's Word, to Titus, the book of Titus, will be in chapters 3, verse 1 through 11. Brother Chris, it's said that I would give a charge and a challenge, and this morning I think it would be quite appropriate to let the man Titus give our charge. This morning he lived a life and lived experiences that I think will become evident that he's the perfect man for the job this morning. But it is my joy to share a sermon for senior recognition.

We do not officially have a youth minister here at Grace Life Brook Haven, but I kind of fill the bill at times. Brother Chris fills the bill at times. I've been teaching the Wednesday night youth class since our kids were seventh grade, and which, Rami was about seventh grade when we started, so it's been many years now. Brother Chris teaches on Sunday nights, we both go to youth camp, and we love these young folks, and especially my daughter, Rami. I want to read the passage of text, and then I will share a little bit more introduction.

Titus, chapter 3, verses 1 through 11, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy to all. For ourselves we're 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 of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

These things are excellent and profitable for people, but avoid foolish controversies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law. For they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with them, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, and he is self-condemned. And we'll have some background that I need to share in order for this passage of text to seem relevant to us.

But first, I want to say again that it's been my joy to serve here at Grace Life, and I've seen the church grow, and I've seen a time when we had only a few children, when we started children's classes, and now to see a sanctuary full of young kids, young adults, children. It really warms my heart. And the two people who have really seen church grow are our graduates this year. Ramey, my daughter, who I mentioned, and Drake. Drake came to us when we replanted. I wanted to say a couple of things about these two young people that are so dear to us. I can remember when Sam and Becky first showed up for a Sunday service.

You know, it was a couple of weeks after that service, and they didn't come back. And this may happen. What did we do wrong? The new church came, and when we came back, it was shortly after the pandemic, and we were trying to regrow and rebuild like a lot of churches. And we thought, we don't know if we'll see those folks again. And lo and behold, on a Wednesday night, I see Drake comes in. Okay, it's the new couple. So at the time, we were taking the youth through Exodus. And in Exodus, if you know that story, part of things that you need to go through are the plagues.

And the plagues corresponded with 10 gods that they worshiped in Egypt, false gods. And I made a mistake. I made an offhand comment about Greek mythology. If you know Drake, you'll know why. That was a mistake, is that Drake is an expert on Greek mythology and has no problem letting you know if you step to the left and to the right. And we had a great time, that Bible study, and after the Bible study, I thought, I wonder what the kids are going to do. Sometimes they go out to eat. And so, Ramey comes up to me, and she had Annie and Maggie with her, and she said, we're going to go out to eat, and we're going to go to Mexican.

And I said, well, you've got to be sure to invite the new kid. And she said, oh, Dad, we already did, and he's coming. And lo and behold, apparently, word got back to us that that meant a lot. When you're a youth and you show up to a group of another youth group, you don't know if they'll even say hi. You don't know if they will not like you. It's a lot of pressure with youth. And it just made me think that maybe all those years out at NOLA, when we picked up kids in a van and went out and reached people in a community, that our kids picked that up. And it was so good. And lo and behold, they came back, and that was about three years ago.

We're so thrilled to have the Waldens, and they bless us in so many different ways, and thankful for you, especially Drake. And Ramey, you know, we go a little ways back. By now, you guys know that we've adopted Ramey, and I don't necessarily tell this story a lot. The youth know it, and Ramey knows it. But I remember the day very clearly when we brought Ramey home. She was four weeks old, and we found out that we were expecting on a Monday, and we could deliver on a Thursday. That's an adoption joke for those of you who don't know.

But we get a call that there was a child that might be open for adoption, and the birth mother wanted to meet any prospective family and just give her blessing. That might be kind of an intimidating thing, and it actually was an intimidating thing. But when we arrived at that meeting, it was just evident that God was all over it, and God was all in it. There was a peace, and there was a calm. There was quite a lot of tears.

And towards the end of the meeting, this precious lady to us looked at us and said, "I want you to adopt my girl, and I hope that she is everything that you want her to be." And I said, "Ma'am, you're giving us the most precious gift. It's so special to us." And every dad has dreams for their kid. Me not being a father at the time, it's amazing how I knew of such things, but I knew dads have dreams for their girls especially. But I said, "Ma'am, I don't just want this precious girl to meet my dreams.

I want her to be everything that God has for us, everything that God has for her." And so this morning, I thought that would be a story that could really lead us in the right direction, because that's what graduate recognition is. It is looking at Drake, and it's looking at Ramey, and it's saying, "Yes, we want you to succeed in your career. We want you to succeed possibly in college, possibly in a whole host of activities in your young adulthood. And yes, we want you to be successful in your professional and your personal life and in your family life, and we want you to have a wonderful family.

But more importantly, we want you to be everything God has for you, and that's what today is about." So I thought that in the book of Titus, we see something that kind of relates. You basically see Paul taking his true son in the faith, Titus, and you see him, if I can use this figurative language, it's like he drops him off at college, which is the island of Crete, and he says, "You have an assignment. You're going to be the pastor of these churches for a short time, and I'm leaving. It's on you." Today, it's really a challenge for you guys, all of our young people, but especially our graduates, adults and family as well.

Today's about spiritual leadership. Specifically, it's about spiritual leadership in the real world. Yes, we desire to produce graduates at Grace Life who go on and do great things in society, but primarily, our hope as a church is to produce spiritual leaders, to produce young people who can graduate and go into the world and can make a difference. So let's look at the theme this morning, which is Titus, spiritual leadership in the real world. Spiritual leadership in the real world.

Now, in order for us to really make sense of this passage, we do have to do some background, so I'm going to draw from various passages for the first major truth this morning. But, youth, I want you to be challenged, Drake and Ramey, be challenged by Titus the man. Now, we know that Titus was converted. He was a born-again believer. In fact, Paul led him to faith. Paul calls him my true son in the faith, and we don't have specifics about his conversion, and we don't know anything other that Paul led him to Christ. But Paul vouched for him.

Paul commissioned him in the ministry, and scholars speculate that Titus was converted 14 or 15 years before Antioch, where Paul, during that time, during Paul's missionary journey. So, again, we don't know, but we know that Paul says things of Titus that indicate tremendous respect. Even a need, Paul depended on Titus, and he needed his ministry. 2 Corinthians 2.13, he vouched for Titus, and he says, "He is one that walks in the same spirit and in the steps with myself." The Apostle Paul said of Titus, "He's like me." Titus' conversion reminds us, young people, you've got to be grounded in your walk with the Lord.

When you go off into the real world, it doesn't matter if you're a member of a church, it doesn't matter if you've been baptized, what matters is how you live. And you can produce fruit in keeping with repentance wherever you go. We must see Titus' conversion, but also his character. Titus' character was that of strength. You know, he's oftentimes compared to Timothy, because they both were Greek. But Timothy had one biological parent who was a Jew, whereas Titus was fully Greek, and this was important. He's often contrasted with Timothy, because Timothy is seen as being timid.

Paul has to encourage Timothy not to allow anybody to look down on his youth. He had to challenge him not to be timid, and there is never any such admonition for Titus. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. Every time we read of Paul's interaction with Titus, he's saying, "I need Titus. Send Titus. I need comfort in my heart, because Titus helps to comfort me." There is a strength to Titus' character, Drake and Ramey. When you go off in the real world, are you going to exhibit the kind of spiritual strength that would be a blessing to your pastor wherever they would be? Titus is challenging you.

He wants you to be strong, to walk in strong faith with the Lord. Titus had to demonstrate this strength oftentimes, because Paul's ministry was constantly attacked by Judaizers. These were people who felt you have to also keep the law. Titus being Greek was kind of exhibit A. Here Paul walks into a town with an uncircumcised Gentile, and he would not and did not insist that Titus conform to the legalism, to the Judaic tradition. And that's what we're talking about, is that there's a time, young people, when you're going to have to go against the flow, sometimes even in the church, it may be hard to push against popular opinion.

But Paul was strengthened and encouraged by Timothy and Titus, but Titus especially, because Titus was strong. We see their conversion, we see their character, Titus was strong and supportive. Listen to what Paul says of Titus in 2 Corinthians 7, 6. God that comforts those who are cast down comforted us by the coming of Titus. He's saying, "I was downcast, the Apostle Paul." Yes, the Apostle Paul got depressed. And he was saying, "A man came to me, Titus, and that man was as very much the hands of God." Grace Lydes Brookhaven, you do realize that you are the hands and feet of Christ.

Whether you are a young adult, whether you're a senior, whether you are older in years, whether you are helping preaching the word or whether you are greeting others as they come into church, serving on the worship team. You're the hands and feet of Christ. I think you can be challenged by Titus' strength, that he was supportive, and also in that he was sincere. You know, he had to walk into a place, Paul left, and he had to preach to churches that he had never met. He had never served in ministry on his own. He had been with Paul probably 15 years, and he had to preach the things that Paul asked him to preach.

So at that moment, he couldn't be a hypocrite. We will look at this in just a second. What did he preach? But he was serious. He had to excommunicate people. When there were troublemakers in the church, young Titus had to look at him and say, "This is God's house. You're not welcome. You are a heretic." Paul was dealing with heresies. He was dealing with dangerous teachings in the church, and he looked at Titus and he said, "I'm leaving. I've packed up the car. I've written you a little note of instruction. It's the book of Titus. But I'll see you later. Deal with it." And Titus could do that because he was serious.

Graduates, if I can ask, how are you doing? How are you doing in terms of your character? Can you be strong, supportive, sincere, and serious? Now, as we see the second major truth, I want us to be encouraged and challenged by Titus the leader. For this, we're going to look back in our text, chapter 3, verses 1. And we'll look at verses 1 through 2. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy towards all people.

I just want to take each of these characteristics of Titus and I just want to hold them up. You know, Titus was submissive. Perhaps he didn't want to be the number one guy. Perhaps he didn't like the spotlight. Perhaps he didn't like the island of Crete. You know, that was a wild place. It was a very wicked place. Maybe he didn't want to be a full-time pastor, but he was submissive. Drake, Ramey, you never stop having to be submissive. Even when you're out of your parents' house, you got to submit to your employee, to your employers, you have to submit to your teachers, you have to submit to your coaches.

And scripture says, Brother Chris has been preaching this, submit one to another, right in the body of Christ. We have got to submit one to another. We have to submit one to another even in our families. Titus was submissive. He was obedient. And this is not just to the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. You know, there's some times when obedience means you're going to have to listen to the spirit of God and let him show you what to do in a situation, because there's not always a black and white, right? God's word speaks to everything, but sometimes you need a lot of discernment and you need a lot of wisdom.

And we challenge you to walk in discernment and wisdom by the power of God. You know, Titus guarded his speech. And you say, I've read all the New Testament. I don't see where Titus guarded his speech. But listen, Paul commands Titus to preach and he commands him to say some specific things. He had to go to the churches on the island of Crete and command them to avoid quarreling. He had to command them not to speak evil of anyone. And can I ask you a question? Would Paul have commanded Titus to preach these things if he didn't walk the walk? Right? Paul knew that Titus guarded his speech and he could command him to preach to guard his speech.

So what I'm saying is Paul not only vouched for Titus, he saw that Titus was consistent. He was not malicious in his speaking. He didn't speak bitter words, harsh words. And as you grow older, the world will be looking at you, especially if you profess to be a Christian. They will look at your speech. They will look at how you interact with one another. And Titus especially was under the gun because he was the new preacher in town. You know everybody was going to look at how he was talking. Right? How did he treat the people that he served in the church? We see Titus the man. We see Titus the leader. And we see Titus the transformed.

Let's read Titus chapter 3 verse 3. "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." Now if we stop right there, we look at a person's testimony at what their life was like before Christ. If I can just ask you all this morning, what did God save you from? Right? That's where your testimony should begin. What are all the things that God has delivered you from? You don't necessarily have to tell us. Right? But you always remember what God saved you from. That's the first part of our testimony. But this great word.

"But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us." You know, Titus walked in assurance of his salvation as did Paul. Ramey and Drake, young people, Grace like Brookhaven. How do we grow in our assurance? How do we grow in our assurance? We start by looking at what we were. Listen to the things that Paul lists. And he says, "No, not you, Titus. We." This is Paul being very humble. "We ourselves were once foolish." Unlike you, Titus, Paul says, "We were both there. We were both rotten sinners. We were foolish. We were disobedient. We were led astray. We were slaves.

We passed our days in malice and envy." And listen to this. We hated people. People hated us. Dear friend, do you remember living a life of contention? It's not that way in the church. It can't be that way in the church. Paul sends Titus to these churches. He had to go. He said, "Titus, I can't manage all of this. I need you to do it. You're old enough spiritually, you can do it." Now first, make sure you're watching your own Christian character. But then you go preach and tell them to do that as well. That's spiritual leadership. It doesn't matter. Ramey, Drake, you don't have to be a preacher for this.

You don't have to be a pastor to receive this message. Grace, life. We're talking about spiritual leadership and spiritual consistency. Can you go out in the world and lead people to Christ and go home and live in a manner that is consistent with that sermon? Titus could. And I challenge you to do the same. And fourth, this morning, we can be challenged by Titus the regenerated. Well, Paul transitions to a doctrinal portion of this letter. And just for the sake of time, I will read these verses and I will just mention some of the doctrines that he addresses in verses four through seven.

You can go back and study this, but he gets very doctrinal. Chapter three, verse four. "But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of our works done by righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. So that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." So in these three verses, we see that Titus' spiritual leadership was rooted in the character of God. Right? Titus knew God.

He knew about God in his mind and he knew God in his heart interacting with the Lord. And these two things are important. Young people, you need to learn about God. We have taught you the very doctrines that Paul speaks to. We see justification by faith. We see salvation by grace alone. We see the doctrine of God's character, the mercy of God. And for three years for Drake and for as long as Ramey remembers, we have taught all of our young people great theology, deep theology. Now, theology isn't enough. If you have the head without the heart, you're spiritually dead because your heart keeps your head alive.

But if you have a heart and you have emotion for God and it's not tethered with truth, well, then you're spiritually reckless. We've done our best to give you both. And I pray you will hear Titus challenging you to walk with God with a heart on fire and with a mind full of truth. Finally, I want us to be challenged by Titus the Elder, verses eight through 11. Paul says this to his true son in the faith, "The saying is trustworthy and I want you to insist on these things." Now, if I pause right there, how was Titus to insist on the things that we will read about? He was going to have to preach.

Paul not only told him to preach, he told him what to preach. I want you to insist on these things so that those who have been believed, who have believed in God may be careful to the following. Devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful and is self-condemned.

Real quickly, I know this is not an ordination ceremony, but I want you to hear me out. You know, Titus' preaching ministry emphasized devotion to good works. You know what this sounds like to me? This sounds like every member ministry through small group. You guys both are active in our small group, young people, grace life. You're active in our small group ministry. You have an opportunity to be devoted to good works through our small group ministry. Titus had to expose legalism. And Titus also had to deal with troublemakers. You don't have to be called to be a preacher, you preach with your life.

I don't know if you've realized this, but you're already preaching a sermon every day. We all preach a sermon with our life. It comes from our heart and the content is affected by what you know of God to be true. Do you act in accordance with what you know to be true? It's not a question of what you've been taught, you've been taught the right things. You sit under great preaching every week. All right, when Brother Chris is not preaching, you tolerate me. You go to youth camps with us. We take fun trips. We go out to eat sometimes. More importantly, you have seen that the Lord has worked in your midst. You've seen people saved.

You've seen people grow. We have a kind and a loving spirit. And so my question is, are you going to heed the warnings and the challenges that Titus gives to us? Paul dropped off his true son in the faith on the island of Crete. It's almost as if he packed the car, he moved Titus into an apartment, he wrote him a little note, and he left. It was sink or swim. And he knew that Titus would be just fine. If I can say it like this, he had been with Paul probably for 15 years. He'd been to the best seminary. He had gone toe to toe with religious Pharisees and heretics and Judaizers. And he was ready.

So I want to challenge you young people to step into the real world, to strive towards spiritual leadership. Don't forget the local church preaching. And don't forget that we love you very much with all of our hearts, soul, mind and strength. So with this, I'm going to pray and turn it over to Brother Chris. Father, we love you. We thank you God for the blessed privilege of family.