10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:
11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.
12 One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;
14</sup? Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.
15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
Introduction
Former President Carter in his book Why Not the Best? tells of going to church one Sunday morning in Plains, Georgia, and being captivated by the preacher’s sermon title. It was this: “If You Were Arrested for Being a Christian, Would There Be Enough Evidence to Convict You?” He said he didn’t hear much of what the preacher had to say that day. He just kept thinking about that sermon title.
Jimmy Carter was a member of the largest and most influential church in town. He was a Sunday school teacher in that church. He was a deacon in that church. He took his religious duty very seriously. And he could not get that question of his mind, “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” He finally decided that if that happened to him, he would be able to talk his way out of it.
You know it is easier to talk the talk than it is to walk the walk, and there is a great need to match our talk with our walk, and match our work with our words in the Christian faith today. Paul is driving home that truth when he says in the last verse of Titus chapter one, “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” That statement is a part of a larger teaching concerning false teachers who were troubling the church at Crete. They were blending together Jewish legalism and Greek philosophy known as Gnosticism, and concocting a new kind of religion. Here Paul is combatting those false teachers. He characterizes them in several ways. In verse 10, he says they are unruly, meaning that they live undisciplined lives. They are vain talkers, meaning their words are empty and meaningless. They are deceivers. They are not what they pretend to be. They do not believe all that they claim to believe. He says in verse 11 that they subvert houses. They create discord in families. They are mercenary, doing what they do for the sake of money. They are preaching and teaching for what they can get out of it. In very strong language, he says to Titus, “You’ve got to deal with this kind of people. You can’t let that go on in the church.” Very pointedly in verse 11, he says, “Their mouths must be stopped.” And then he says later on in that passage that they must be sharply rebuked. As he talks about these people he summarizes their whole lifestyle, and it is this: with their mouths they profess to know God, but with their works they deny him.
In his writings, the apostle Paul always places a strong emphasis on the perfect balance in the Christian life. It’s a balance between belief and behavior, between profession and practice, and between confession and conduct. It is important for us to say the right words, but it is equally important for us to back those words up with works. And the two always ought to match.
The apostle Paul is not the only one who teaches us that balance in the Christian life. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). It is important for you to say, “Lord, Lord.” It is important for us to openly and publicly declare Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives. It is equally important that we do all the things that he commanded us. Some of the most stinging rebukes of scripture are for those who make a profession of faith but never show any fruit in their life to back up that profession of faith.
The apostle Paul can hardly find words strong enough to denounce these people who with their lips profess that they know God but with their works deny him. Look at the way he describes them in Titus 1:16: “They are abominable.” That word abominable means that they are repulsive—they are vile in all of their ways. He says that they are disobedient, and that they break the very laws of God that they claim to believe in. And then he says that they are in every good work, reprobate. That word reprobate literally means “to be useless.” It suggests the idea that the thing is tested, and after being tested, it is found to be a counterfeit. If it is counterfeit then it is not worth anything; it is useless. Paul shows that these people are saying one thing with their lips, but they are saying something else with their lives.
I want you to know that they are counterfeits, that they are not the real thing, and we’ve got to stop their talking. We’ve got to sternly rebuke them. It is all in an effort to emphasize the fact that our doctrines and our deeds must match. It is a way of saying that we must believe not only in the inspiration of scripture, but in the application of scripture. You can’t have one realistically and honestly without the other. Though you ought to make a profession of faith, it ought to be balanced by a practice of that faith in your daily life.
The scriptures ever and always give emphasis to the importance of professing to know God. The psalmist said in the Old Testament, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” If the Lord has redeemed you, if he has saved you, then you ought to say so. You ought to stand up openly, publicly, and unashamedly and claim to be one of God’s children. There is a desperate need in our world today for all who believe and trust in God and in the Lord Jesus Christ to take their stand openly and publicly for him.
Jesus said something similar to that. He said, “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33). If you want him to stand up for you in heaven, you must stand up for him on earth. If you want Jesus to claim you before God, you must claim him before men. There is a need for us to openly and publicly profess to know God.
Paul said the same thing. He said, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10). He expects both inward belief and outward confession. The Bible always says that we ought to confess our faith. But then it says we ought also to live that faith. We ought to practice that faith. We need to match our doctrines with our deeds and our words with our works. We ought to practice what we preach and profess.
Don’t get the wrong idea about the importance of works. They are not a means of salvation. Paul makes that amply clear right here in this book of Titus. In fact he talks about good works eight different times in this little book of three chapters. In Titus 3:5, he makes it very clear that works do not enter into our salvation. He says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” How could anything be clearer? It is not by works of righteousness that we have done that he has saved us, but by his mercy. We do not work in the Christian life and we don’t try to balance work with words so that we can earn the favor of God. God already loves us. We already have his favor. We are the object of his eternal plan of redemption. God in his mercy has already acted to send Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us, and through his mercy and grace we can be saved. But he saves us so that we can and will work for him. Our good works are an outgrowth and an overflow of gratitude and thanksgiving because of our relationship with God and the salvation we receive from God.
Paul makes that very clear. I want you to look in Titus 2:14 at what he has to say. He is talking about the redemption that God has given to us in Christ and he says, “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Christ was given to die on the cross for our sins. When we by faith trust him as Lord and Savior, when we become the children of God, he wants us to become zealous. He wants us to become enthusiastic and devoted to good works. The balance is always there. Words and works, profession and practice, doctrine and duty. It’s living what we claim. A person who does not practice what he professes is a counterfeit in the words of the apostle Paul.
It then says to you and to me that we need to take seriously our commitment to Christ and to live it out day by day. What are some of the works and actions that we ought to do to demonstrate to the world that we are the children of God? What are some of those things that are consistent with our profession that we know God?
1. Live a holy life. For one thing, it is to live a holy life. One of the actions that ought to flow out of our lives because of our relationship to him is holiness. If we are not living a holy life, then we are not matching our practice with our profession.
I read a survey some time ago about the religious climate in America. The survey indicated that 90% of the people in America claim that they believe in God. Church attendance and church membership has never been higher in America than it is today. If you read statistics like that, you might get the idea that God has never had it so good as he is having it in America today. But one of the strange things is that while more people believe in God, and are members of a church and go to church more than ever before, things like crime, the use of alcohol and drugs, and child abuse are on an increase. In every area of life as we increase in our claim to religion there is an increase in godless behavior. It is hard to understand how we can grow in our belief in God and grow in a godless life at the same time.
In that same survey, the same people were asked, “You claim to believe in God. Does your belief in God have any effect on your business or your politics?” More than 50% of the people interviewed said, “No.” What kind of strange religion is it that some people that say they can believe in God can live a godless life? The two just don’t fit. Paul is saying that if you profess to know God and deny him by your actions, then you are nothing less than a counterfeit Christian.
Alexander the Great conquered the world at the age of 33 and sat down and wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. Once in a battle, a young soldier in his army deserted his post of duty. When he was caught he was brought before the great general. Alexander asked him what happened. The young soldier responded, “In the heat of the battle I became frightened and I deserted my post.” Alexander asked, “Son, how old are you?” He said, “I’m 18. I am a man, sir.” And Alexander said to him, “Well, son, what is your name?” He replied, “My name is Alexander.” The great general said to him, “Son, you either change your ways or you change your name.” That is a word for us today. Change your ways to match your words, or don’t tell anybody you are a Christian. When you get saved, the thing that matters is not how high you jump or how loud you shout, but how straight you walk. God wants a holy life out of us.
2. Practice loving service. Another thing that God wants is loving service. That’s one of those actions that ought to be consistent with our profession of faith and identify us as the people of God. We are not to sit around like some monk in a monastery somewhere, but we are to become actively involved in ministry to other people in the name and the spirit of Jesus.
Do you remember the story of the Good Samaritan—that Jew who went from Jerusalem to Jericho? On the way he was attacked by a band of robbers. They took all of his possessions. They beat him to a pulp. They left him half-dead by the side of the road. And while he lay there, along came a priest. Too busy to stop and help, the priest walked by on the other side of the road. Then along came a Levite—another religious person—and he also walked by on the other side of the road. Finally, along came the Good Samaritan.
You have to understand the heart of the story. Jews and Samaritans had no dealings with one another. The Jews considered Samaritans to be half-breeds. They more often spoke of Samaritans as dogs than anything else. So here is a down and out Jew, and here is a Samaritan whose race was hated and despised by the Jews. The Samaritan comes by and he is the only one who stops and renders aid. The wounded Jew’s own two brothers (the priest and the Levite) passed him by. But the half-breed foreigner stopped and helped him, bound up his wounds, took him to an inn, paid the bill, and told the innkeeper, “I’ll be back here again soon and when I come back if there are more charges, I will pay them. Take care of the man. Get him well and on his feet again.”
Jesus told the story and then he said, “You people, go and do like that Samaritan. Forget about race and forget about the cultural differences. Forget about what people may have called you. You go and do like that Samaritan.” That is what we are talking about when we say we need to have works to match our words. It is not enough for you to profess, “I know God,” unless you love and reach out to those who are made in his likeness and image. And that’s every man on the face of this earth.
Not many of you are going to be traveling down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho this week. But you are going to be traveling down Broadway, Beckham, the Loop, and the street you live on. If you will just keep your eyes and ears open, you will meet somebody this week who needs you to stop and reach out to them in the name and the Spirit of Jesus. They may not need you to bind up their physical wounds; they may have a broken heart. They may be distressed in their soul. It may be a financial problem or it may be a family problem; there’s no telling what it may be. It doesn’t matter what the problem is. It doesn’t matter who the person is. What matters is that you treat them as that Samaritan would have treated them.
That’s what Jesus is talking about. If our profession does not affect the way we operate on the streets—on our “Jerusalem to Jericho highway”—then our profession is just empty words.
Tolstoy told the story about a Russian shoe cobbler named Martin. Martin had a dream one night that Jesus came to visit his cobbler shop. That dream was so real and so vivid that the next day he began to hurry around in that cobbler shop to clean it up because he just knew that Jesus was going to visit that day. He busied himself at his work. He did not want the Lord to find him idle when he got there. All day long he kept looking toward the door expecting at any minute that Jesus would come by. The day drug on and he didn’t see Jesus. He hardly saw anybody. There was a beggar who came in and needed some food and he gave it to him. After a while, a poor mother and her little son came in and they needed some food and clothing and he shared that with them.
And after another while, an apple vender out in the street and an urchin boy got in a fight and Martin went out and created peace between them. But he never saw Jesus. He went home that night discouraged. He knew it was a dream, but it was so real. He sat down in the rocking chair by the lamp, got his Bible out and thought in his mind, “Lord, why didn’t you come today?” Then he heard a voice. It said, “Martin, didn’t you recognize me?” And then it was gone. He looked down at the pages of scriptures in front of him and his eyes fell on this verse, “In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren you have done it unto me.”
Whatever you do for another is the same as doing it for Jesus himself. If you want your works to match your words, then live a godly life and do good to other people.
3. Be a personal witness. Besides serving them in love, share a personal witness with them. That’s a part of the good works he talks about here. Remember Simon Peter’s brother Andrew? He found Jesus, and when he had found that Jesus was the Messiah, he hastened to find his brother, Simon Peter. He brought him to Jesus saying to him, “Come quickly, I have found the Messiah.” As you know, Simon Peter went on to be the great preacher at Pentecost, and 3,000 people were saved in one of his sermons. We lift him up and we venerate him as the great preacher of Pentecost. But there would have been no preacher at Pentecost had there not been a brother working quietly and unnoticed behind the scene who first found the Messiah and introduced his brother to him.
We can’t all be great preachers like the apostle Peter, but we can all be like Andrew and quietly bring other people one by one to the Savior. If you want your works to match your words, if you want your religion to be more than just talk, you need to find some way to share a personal witness with other people about Jesus. Some of you are going to die and go out into eternity and face God, and you will never ever have won any other person to Jesus Christ. You ought to do that, not because I say so, but because our Lord said so. You can find a way to tell people about the Savior if you want to.
I read with great interest the statement made sometime ago by N. M. Beck. At that time he was the president of the Canadian Psychiatrist Association. As the president he had to make an annual address to the convention, and in that address he worked in this word of testimony. He said, “My own religious orientation is Christian. I define Christianity as that faith based on Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ and as God, as set forth in that remarkably brief book—the New Testament. I accept it with all its supernatural implications that center around the life, the death, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. In short, it is the belief that God has broken into space, time, and history, and that he cares for us.”
That is a brilliant and clear confession of faith and witness for Jesus Christ. And somehow, some way, in the house and neighborhood where you live, in the office where you work, and in the factory where you spend your time, we’ve got to go public with our Christianity. We’ve got to tell the world out there that there is a Savior who can help them put this life together again and give them hope beyond this life. That’s part of what the Bible means when it says we are to match our words with works. If you want to fulfill the scripture, it will involve living a holy life, rendering loving service, and bearing a personal witness.
We come back to the question we started with. If you were arrested for being a Christian, is there enough evidence to convict you? They profess they know God, but in their works they deny him. May that never be said of us.