Monday, September 14, 2009

There Must Be A Reason (Titus 2:1 - 15)

There Must Be A Reason
Titus 2:1 – 15

Introduction:

Two vehicles are involved in a car accident. There is a dark colored car with some firemen surrounding it. The door of the car has been ripped off and the firemen have brought along a stretcher, as the driver may have been injured The other car is red in color and its front portion has been wrecked badly. I would like for us to do a little speculating. What do you think caused the accident? Was one of the drivers drunk? Was one of the drivers using his cellular phone while driving? Was one of the drivers or both drivers going beyond the speed limit? Did one of the drivers refuse to give the other driver the right of way? What do you think is the reason? Whatever may be the answer you are thinking of right now, let me tell you that no one really knows as to how the accident happened, but who among you would agree that there definitely has to be a reason for the accident, that an accident doesn't just happen for no reason whatsoever?

I think a great illustration for the seeking of reason can be found in a somewhat familiar story about cooking turkey. Admittedly, many among us do not eat turkey because it is expensive and frankly, it isn't as tasty as chicken. However, turkey is an American staple especially when they are celebrating Thanksgiving on the 4th Thursday of November and Christmas. The story is told about a man who was enjoying his turkey during one of the holidays and he compliments his wife for a very delicious turkey dinner. However, he then ask his wife a question that he had wanted to ask for the longest time – why did she cut the legs off the turkey prior to roasting? The wife simply answered, “That was how mom used to do it.” Not satisfied with the answer, the man visits his mother-in-law one day and posed the same question. The mother-in-law also gave the same answer. Still not satisfied, the man finally decided to visit his wife's grandmother to ask the question. The grandmother's reply was simply that, when she was cooking turkey, the stove in her house was small and you couldn't fit the entire bird into the stove unless you cut off the legs of the turkey! The grandmother knew why she had to cut the legs off the turkey but her daughter and granddaughter followed what she did without really knowing the reason why.

We all want to know what are the reasons why we should or shouldn't do something, or why something happened. We all want to know why something has to be done one way and not another. We feel frustrated when people give answers like “I told you so” or the Tagalog word “basta” because they don't answer our need for knowing the reason why. I am sure many here who are teenagers would feel frustrated when your parents ask you to do something and when you ask the question why, they just simply tell you to stop asking and just do it. We want valid reasons to be stated before we will get around to doing what we're told to do.

I bet we do the same thing with God. We wonder why the Bible has so many commands that we're supposed to follow and, when we are reminded to obey God's Word, we struggle and we want to ask the question “why”. We want God to give us reasons for obedience.

Today's passage actually begins with commands that are specific for certain groups of people within the church. Paul had given Titus clear instructions as to what he was to teach to each group of people in the church. There are the older men and women, the young men and women and the slaves. Paul made sure that all the bases are covered, that no one is left out when it comes to teachings. Now, I do not know if the believers of Crete, who had come out from a life of paganism and who were unfamiliar with the Scriptures, unlike the Jewish background believers, were prone to ask why they had to obey the commands of God, but Paul made sure that when he wrote this letter to Titus, he not only wrote about the things the Cretans were supposed to do, but he also wrote the reason why, or he gave the motivation for doing right. What exactly was this motivation? The answer can be found in verses 11 to 14 and we will concentrate our study this morning on these four verses.

Now, the right motivation or reason is important because it determines the motive of our actions as well as the kind of actions we will make, especially when we are talking about the Christian faith. Some people obey God's Word and do good works for the wrong reasons – they think it will be their ticket to eternal life. They are no different from people of other religions who clearly teach that salvation must be earned. Some obey out of unhealthy and unjustified fear towards God, scared that God would zap them with lightning or that he would cause countless misery to them if they refuse to serve Him.

In our passage this morning, we find that there is one right motivation or reason for obedience to God and it is the concept of grace. The Greek word which we translate as grace is charis and it occurs around 170 timex throughout the Greek New Testament in various forms, an indication that this concept is important for the Christian faith and familiar to many, even those belonging to pagan society. Basically, the word means favor and, in Paul's letter to Titus, this grace is manifested in three areas of the believer's walk – his past, his present and his future.

I. Grace in Our Past – Salvation (vv. 11, 14)

When we think of the word grace we automatically think of what God did for us when he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. Paul affirms this in verse 11 when he wrote that God's grace brought forth salvation; then in verse 14 he briefly discussed about how Jesus willingly gave up his life in order to redeem us from our sins and to purify us and make us his people.

When we study the subject matter of salvation, we know that the need for salvation arose due to man's fall into the grasp of sin. We are all sinners (Romans 3:23) and we are deserving of nothing less than death (Romans 6:23). Our God is a God of justice and holiness and he cannot allow us to get away with our sins. However, God is also a God of love and because of his great love for us, he chose to show his favor, his unmerited, undeserved favor to us by sending his Son to die for us (Romans 5:8). God knew that we could never meet his righteous standard, no matter how much good we try to do, which we why he decided to send his own Son who would fulfill all of God's requirements in our place. This is an act of grace and it stands in contrast to what so many of the world's religions are teaching. Real, biblical Christianity teaches that the way to salvation has been given to us through Jesus Christ. We no longer need to win God's favor because he has already given it to us through his son. It is now a matter of accepting this manifestation of grace by faith (Ephesians 2:8).

The story is told of a young girl who left work early so she could have some uninterrupted study time right before a final exam in religion class. She studied all night. When she arrived at class in the morning everybody was cramming as much last minute info as their minds could handle. The teacher walked in and said, "Let’s do a quick review before the test." They followed him through the review that was laid out on the study guide. As he covered item by item he finally jumped to issues the young girl had never heard covered in class. Several hands went up, "We never had that information before." The teacher picked up the text book and held it in his left hand and said, "Everything is in the book and you are clearly responsible for everything in the book." Who could argue with that!

Finally it was time to take the test. --- The assistants passed out the test and the professor said, "Leave your test face down on the desk until everyone has one --- I’ll tell you when to turn your paper over and start." Two minutes later the class heard, "OK, you may start." When the young girl turned her test over, every answer was filled in! A note at the bottom of the last page said: "Your Final Exam is now over. All your answers are correct. You are blessed with an ’A’ on the final exam." Every student read the same thing and looked up at the professor in utter astonishment! When the professor was sure all eyes were on him he said, "You passed the test for one reason only --- because the creator of the test took the test for you. All your study time, class time and hard work in preparation for this exam did not help you get the "A". You have just experienced --- GRACE."

Brothers and sisters, grace has been extended to us through Christ and this should serve as a motivation or a reason for us to obey the Lord. God has sacrificed so much for us, let us not be ungrateful to him and continue going our own way but instead, let us be eager to do good (verse 14), as our way of saying thank you to the Lord for his grace.

II. Grace in our Present – Sanctification (v. 12)

Grace manifests itself not only during salvation. This is a mistake that we often commit – to confine grace to being merely in the past, when we received Jesus into our hearts as Lord and Savior. It is as if grace was in operation in bringing us to salvation but after that, we have to work with our own energy and effort. However, our passage this morning, verse 12 in particular, states very clearly that it is grace that teaches us to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives while, at the same time, rejecting all forms of ungodliness and worldly passions.

After salvation, every true believer goes through a stage which is termed as sanctification. Now, sanctification is simply the stage wherein a believer is being made holy or he is being transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. It is not a one-shot deal where we are instantly transformed but it is a continuing process; in fact is is lifelong in nature. No one here can ever say that he has already “arrived” spiritually, no pastor, elder, deacon, or even my friend who is a bishop in his denomination can ever claim that he or she is already spiritually mature or perfect. As I've mentioned a moment ago, grace remains in operation throughout the stage of sanctification. Although we are to exert effort in obeying the Lord as well as in serving Him, the strength to do so comes from Him. On our own, it is impossible to live the holy life with all the temptations and pressures that bombard us each day. Paul recognized this and he himself acknowledged that it is only through Christ that he can do all things (Philippians 4:13).

I am sure that when you faced certain temptations and you did not yield to it, you most likely sensed the prompting of the Holy Spirit who was telling you not to give in to the temptation. It was also the Holy Spirit who gave you the power to say “no” to that temptation. It was also the Holy Spirit who made sure that you keep yourself humble and not think that your victory came about because of your own strength. Yes, we need to do our part, but God bestows grace for our sanctification or growth towards holiness through his Holy Spirit. The same is true even when we face trials. It is God's grace that enables us to stay true to the Lord and to do the right thing. We can also say the same thing about ministry – it is God's grace that enables us to do the task that we need to accomplish.

There is a hymn that I love very much; it is the hymn, “He Giveth More Grace”. In this hymn, the writer talked about God continually bestowing his grace in our time of need. The writer has realized an important spiritual secret that we all need to appropriate for ourselves and that is, to ask God continually for his grace to persevere in following the footsteps of our Lord Jesus. Grace is not just something that we received during salvation but it is something we continually receive, even up to now, as we strive toward godliness and holiness.

III. Grace in Our Future – Glorification (v. 13)

Finally, God's grace is manifested in our future which is none other than the second coming of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Note that the second coming of Jesus is termed as “our blessed hope”, the fulfillment of God's promise of final redemption for his people. When that time comes, we will go through what scholars term as “glorification”, the point where we are made perfect. It will also be the moment where we will be united with our Lord and we will be with him forever (1 Thessalonians 4) and it is what we all should be looking forward to. I call glorification as a manifestation of God's grace because it is again something that God does for us out of his love for us. It is a gift that he gives to all believers.

What is the connection of Jesus' future coming to the way we live? Well, it should encourage us to be ready for his coming by living a life that is beyond question. It is because we don't know when exactly the Lord will be coming back and we don't want to caught unprepared, thus we have to continually strive to be godly and holy so that when the Lord comes soon and unexpectedly, we will not feel ashamed or embarrassed.

We find a similar passage in Romans 13:11 – 14 where Paul stated that our salvation is much nearer than ever before, thus, we are to cast off the works of darkness and instead, to walk in the light. Again, what is implied is that Jesus is coming soon and we should not be caught unprepared by living a life of sin, a life of godlessness.

Unfortunately, many believers today live as if Jesus won't be coming anytime soon, as if he is still very far away. This mindset causes us to become too lax when it comes to our spiritual growth and our ministry. However, if we constantly remind ourselves that Jesus could come anytime soon, even in our lifetime, then this should move us to be prepared for that coming by no longer living for the things of this world, but pursuing instead those things that God wants us to do.

The great American preacher, Harry Ironside was once preaching before a congregation regarding the second coming of Jesus. When he was bringing his message to a close by praying, he became conscious that a woman was walking out of the chapel because her skirt would make a swishing sound while she was walking. After the service, Ironside was outside greeting the worshippers when he noticed a woman pacing back and forth. He approached her but before he could say anything, she blurted out, “How could you dare to pray like that – Come Lord Jesus? I don't want him to come. It would break all of my plans. How dare you! Ironside gently replied, “My dear young woman, Jesus is coming whether you like it or not.”

Brothers and sisters, Jesus is coming, whether we like it our not. No one can stop his from coming back. It should not be something that we dread because it would throw all of our plans into disarray, but instead it should be something we anticipate because it is God's grace in full fruition. We must be prepared for that moment, and our preparation comes by living a life that please him – a life of godliness and holiness.

Conclusion:

We are all called to live a life of godliness and holiness. This calling is not without its reason – the reason of grace. We have all experienced grace in the past, when we were saved from our sins through the cross of Jesus Christ. We continue to experience grace in our sanctification, as God continues to bestow upon us the things we need for the holy life. We will experience a future grace when Jesus comes again in all his glory and this should motivate us to live in expectation of his coming by doing all the right things and shunning the evil. Indeed, grace is a beautiful reason or motivation for all of us to live the life God has called us to.

In closing, I would like for us to consider the lyrics of a hymn that I am sure many of us love very much. It is the hymn, “Amazing Grace”. Reflect on the three aspects of grace that I've mentioned from today's passage and give thanks to the Lord for the wondrous grace that he bestows upon us and let us resolve to live in accordance with the grace we have received from him.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is - Sermon

PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS
A Message on Genuine Love
based on 1 John 2:7 – 11

Introduction:

Have you ever heard the expression, “Put your money where your mouth is”? I am sure many have heard this expression before. It's an expression that strongly suggests that a person's claim should be backed up by their willingness to put their money there. If someone said he is willing to pledge a certain amount of money for a charitable cause, then he must back it up by giving the pledged amount and not just put up a grand show of boasting. If someone is interested in buying your house, he won't just say it out loud to you but he's going to give you what is known as “earnest” money, or money paid to confirm a contract.

But the expression is not just about being ready to hand out your money to back your claim, it is also about being true inside out. In other words, you are not a hypocrite who says one thing and does the contrary.

Let me share with you something that I read recently from the internet that clearly illustrates how some people can say one thing and yet act differently. See if you can guess who this person is. “He made free use of Christian vocabulary. He talked about the blessing of the Almighty and the Christian confessions which would become the pillars of the new government. He assumed the earnestness of a man weighed down by historic responsibility. He handed out pious stories to the press, especially to the church papers. He showed his tattered Bible and declared that he drew the strength for his great work from it as scores of pious people welcomed him as a man sent from God. Indeed, Adolf Hitler was a master of outward religiosity--with no inward reality!”

In today's passage, the apostle John was also addressing the problem of hypocrisy. Often, non-Christians call certain Christians as hypocrites because they don't live up to their profession of faith but John here was addressing the church, not as to how it should behave outside but it should behave within the four walls of the church. You see, before we can even effectively witness to the outside world, we need to first of all show our Christian faith in the way we relate to our fellow brothers and sisters, to those who belong to the family.

This morning, as we study our given passage, we will examine the four ways of treating our brothers and sisters improperly and three things that would surely happen when we don't truly love them. So, let's jump right into God's Word and I pray right now that we will be enlightened by the Word.

The Four Ways of Treating Our Brothers and Sisters Improperly

How do we hate our brothers and sisters? As I've mentioned, there are four ways of treating them improperly. Before I proceed, let me make a disclaimer first. I did not originate this list. In fact, I found it in a commentary written by William Barclay. However, Barclay did not deal with the subject matter in exhaustive detail, so I will take on the task of explaining each of the improper treatments that we give to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

(1) Apathy

Apathy is defined as the lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern for a person and his needs. It is expressed when we are confronted with a person's need and we react by saying, “I don't care”, or “I don't want to know.” It is an act of deliberate detachment, of removing one's self from whatever responsibilities he or she should have towards others.

In 1 John 3:17, John gave a particular example wherein a member of the church has a need. Instead of responding with compassion, a brother shows no sympathy whatsoever with the brother in need. This is apathy. We may not hate this brother but we close our eyes to his need. We are not interested in his welfare and because of this, we are unwilling to shell out anything to help.

Helping our brothers and sisters doesn't necessarily require that it has to be financial or material all the time. There are needs that are emotional as well as spiritual. Sometimes, what others may need may be for someone to listen to them and offer them encouragement, or for you to give your time in order to help them. What is important is that we do not act with apathy towards those in the family of God.

(2) Contempt/Discrimination

The second way in which we treat our brothers and sisters improperly is when we treat them with contempt or when we discriminate against them. It is to treat people as if they are beneath us, as if they have no value or right whatsoever to live. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are often guilty of treating people with contempt. We do this when we allow class or social status to become our standard for looking at people. We judge people according to the amount of wealth that they have or the depth of their educational experience. We rarely ask for the lower income people to help the church because we think they can't give much but we forget that what is more important is the heart than the amount. We ask for the opinion of the so-called Bible experts as if the people who haven't gone to seminary or Bible school or attended Precept training of BSF don't know what the Bible says or can't lead a Bible study. At times, we may even use race as a dividing line. Although this is a Chinese-Filipino church, there are Filipinos in our midst as well as people from other nationalities. It is a good thing that we have not acted contemptuously against each other in the area of race. Now, we can also act contemptuously against those who behave differently or do things differently than what we are used to. The person who is a bit lacking in table manners or who are short on the good etiquette scale is often looked down upon simply because they don't know how to use a salad fork or hold a goblet properly or they eat with their elbows on the table.

Please do not act contemptuously against the members of God's family. If God has accepted someone into his body in spite of his peculiarities, then shouldn't we also imitate God's model by accepting these people without discrimination?

(3) Nuisance

Then there are the people whom we consider as nuisances or people causing annoyance and inconvenience to us. They may make a lot of requests from us or they may ask for your assistance and help way too often such that you feel burdened by them and that your patience wears thin. There are such people even in the church and instead of helping them or hearing them out, we treat them as nuisances that should be ignored.

We need to consider that some whom we consider as nuisances are actually people who have legitimate needs. Some may really be unskilled in certain things such that they need your help or maybe they are in desperate times that they need your financial help even though they've worked so hard or maybe they just can't provide for themselves anymore because of sickness and age. Such people do not need us to despise them and treat them as nuisances but instead, they need for us to come to their aid. Don't treat them as needless interruptions but as opportunties to bring blessing to them.

(4) Enemy

Finally, there are probably some people in the church with whom you had an argument or fight with, and the issue was unresolved such that you became enemies. This means you become somewhat actively hostile against the other person who also behaves the same way towards you. The problem with this is that it spills over and eventually affects the whole church. Some of the church splits that have taken place in the Filipino-Chinese community have a lot to do with the unresolved issues between persons and parties.

I believe I do not need to elaborate too much on this as the Bible simply instructs us to love our enemies and to do good to them. We must also initiate reconciliation with them. This command applies especially to those who belong to God's household. We must not be at war with each other but we must exhibit love towards each other.

3 Things That Are Sure To Happen When We Don't Love Our Brothers and Sisters

Having discussed about the four ways of mistreating our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to examine the likely consequences of our actions as listed by the apostle John. As I've mentioned at the start of our study, there are three things that are sure to happen when we fail to love our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

(1) We will still be in the dark (v. 9, 11)

When we don't truly love those within the family circle we are described as walking and living in the dark. I believe what John's statement means is that when we claim to be loving but we are in reality harboring anger and bitterness towards others, when we are not concerned about others' needs and we view people as either nuisances or as being beneath us, then we have been blinded by these things. We become under control of these things and thus, are unable to see people in light of God's love. When you have hatred and discrimination in your heart, when you treat people as nuisances or with apathy, then you have lost the ability to judge or see issues clearly and this affects not only your relationship with the other person but it affects the entire body of Christ.

Just imagine that you are a member of the board of elders and deacons of this church and you have this great disliking of me! You just hate me so much that the sight of me around the church makes you boil. It's the first Sunday of the month and we're having our board meeting. I then make a suggestion regarding an aspect of the church's ministry. Some people agree with my suggestion and they endorse my suggestion for voting. However, since you hate my guts so much, I am sure you are going to object to my suggestion and not only object but object violently! You'll probably even say things like, “That's a stupid idea!” and then you'll probably even voice out that its a stupid idea to waste money on hiring an incompetent pastor like me. Thankfully, no one has done that to me, however, the scenario that I have just depicted has happened and continues to happen in some churches, even Chinese congregations. One's anger against another will surely spill over to cloud his judgment on matters that shouldn't be personal and then it causes the body of Christ to take sides and eventually you have a church splitting up. Of course, our anger against others don't always end up causing church splits but it does cause a lot of heartaches and frustrations to us. We also find that we are always justifying ourselves as being right and the person we're angry with as always wrong.

Being in the dark doesn't just cloud our judgment but it also means that we are liars, hypocrites to be more precise. Once we have been labeled as liars or hypocrites, people will no longer trust us and they will have apprehensions about believing what we say. Also, we will no longer be able to truly discern right from wrong, good from evil, because of the blinding effect of hypocrisy.

(2) We Become Stumbling Blocks to Ourselves As Well As to Others (v. 10)

In connection with living in the darkness, we also end up becoming stumbling blocks not only to others but also to ourselves. In verse 10, we see the effect of living a life of love – he is living in the light and nothing will cause him or others to stumble.

I know that there are some people in our congregation who are physically blind and they could probably relate to what I'm going to say next. When one is blind, the tendency is for him or her to grope, trying to feel the environment to check if there are things in his or her way. I am sure that blind people have stumbled or fallen down quite a number of times in their lifetime. Why did they stumble? We might say it is because of that spill over the floor or a chair that was in the way but the real cause of stumbling has to do with the blindness itself, because if you had vision, then you could see where the spill was, where the chair was located, where that higher or lower step is located. Can we fault the people who are physically blind? Of course not! It is a physical condition that afflicts them and not caused by themselves. However, spiritual blindness is something that we afflict on ourselves.

When we refuse to love our brothers and sisters, we are in effect disobeying the command of God and this becomes the stumbling block that will continually cause us to fall down in our spiritual lives and may even keep us down on the ground. Not only that, we become stumbling blocks to others. When they see that we act as hypocrites, they may become disenchanted with following Christ and abandon the Lord altogether. Some, on the other hand, may imitate your poor example and become hypocrites themselves, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of lies and hypocrisy. Do you remember the incident in Paul's epistle to the Galatians where Paul confronted Peter? Peter was having fellowship with the Gentile Christians when he saw the delegation from James entering into the church. Peter immediately separated from the Gentile believers in a manner that reflected contempt or discrimination against them. He even caused Barnabas to do the same thing! That one unloving act caused Peter to stumble and it led Barnabas to stumble also.

Thus, we must be careful to really love, not just with our words but also with our deeds, so that we don't stumble as well as cause others to stumble.

(3) We Will Not Progress in Our Walk With God (v. 11)

Finally, when we refuse to love our brothers and sisters, not only will we be stumbling around and causing others to stumble, but we will also stop progressing in our walk with God.

Failure to truly love our brothers and sisters is a sin. You may not actively hate them but when you do not express love to them, then you have committed the sin of omission, by ignoring God's expressed command to actively love. Of course, we know that when we allow this sin to persist and we don't confess and turn away from it, then God would not hear our prayers (Psalm 66:18). He wouldn't accept our praise, our worship and our thanksgiving. He wouldn't even answer our prayers. Why? It is because our sins have become a hindrance that blocks our relationship with God. So, we will not find growth or progress whatsoever in our prayer life if we remain or persist in sin. When we continue in sin, we somehow do not yearn for God's Word. We don't want to hear God's voice. If we do pick up our Bibles, it is out of a sense of routine and responsibility rather than because of our relationship to God. That is the effect of sin on our walk with God. There will be little or no progress whatsoever. This truth applies to all sins, even the sin of failing to love our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Ray Steadman once told of counseling with a woman about a physical problem, which really had a spiritual basis in her experience. He discovered she hated another person and had hated her for years. 

She told him the circumstances, and, undoubtedly, she had been treated unjustly, but the thing had eaten like a canker (a fungal infection that damages the barks of trees) into in her heart for years and years. Hate had turned her bitter and rancid and had poisoned all her thoughts. 

He said to her, "You must find it in your heart to forgive this person, as God has forgiven you." She looked at him and said, "I can’t forgive her, I’ll never forgive her!" He said, "But God says you must." 

She said, "But I can’t." He said, "If you can’t, then you need to face the fact that you are not a Christian, because if you can’t forgive, then you’ve never been born again." She looked at him, and said, "I guess you’re right. 

I know I am a Christian, and I see I have just been deceiving myself. I need to forgive." And she did! There came a change in that woman’s life, which was like turning from night unto day.

 Her outlook became different and her relationship with God was restored.

Conclusion:

We've learned about the four ways in which we may have treated our brothers and sisters in an unloving manner. We've also learned about the three consequences of hating our brothers and sisters. Being armed with the knowledge of these things, I want you to evaluate your relationship with others in the body of Christ. Is there anyone that you find so difficult to love? Is there anyone that you actually hate? Please reconcile with them. If they have offended you, forgive. If you are the one who offended them, ask for their forgiveness. It's good not only for your relationship with the other person but it is also good for your testimony and ultimately, for your relationship with God. So, if you claim to love your brothers and sisters, then I want us all to prove it; let's put our money where our mouth is.

All You Need is Love - Sermon

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
1 John 4:7 – 21

Introduction:

A word that has never gone out of style is the word love. Even when Tina Turner, in her song, “What's Love Got To Do With It?” said that love is nothing more than a “second-hand emotion”, we still see love as a widely discussed topic of books and songs.

Two weeks ago, as I was preparing for this message, I decided to visit a website called amazon.com, a site where you can find new and second-hand books, compact discs and many other stuff. I went to the search portion and typed in the word love and I found 885,661 entries for books while for the phrase love songs I found 10,008 compact discs on their catalogue. I didn't even consider checking out the number of songs that have the word love in it, which would easily number in the hundreds of thousands if not in the millions. Some of the song titles are very familiar such as Tina Turner's “What's Love Got To Do With It?”, Nat King Cole's “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” and The Beatles' “All You Need is Love”.

While love is a common word, it is often misunderstood and abused to the point that it is cheapened. Furthermore, the way many people define the word has limited it to nothing more than a feeling or an emotion that one feels as well as the physical attraction involved. We also use the word to describe how we feel for a variety of objects. Normally, we would use the word when we describe how we would feel towards the people closest to us such as a spouse or our parents; however, we also use the word when we talk about food, sports and sports teams, hobbies and automobiles like when we say, “I love pizza” or “I love playing basketball” when what we actually mean is that we enjoy eating pizza or we enjoy playing basketball.

When one checks out the Bible, he will find that the word love occurs a lot of times. In fact, according to a Bible software that does word count, using the New International Version Bible, the word occurs 508 times in both the OT and the NT while the command to “love one another” occurs 10 times, all in the NT! In our Scripture text this morning, the word occurs 27 times while the phrase “love one another” occurs 3 times. Just from our passage we know that love is important, a theme that John keeps repeating throughout this book as well as in his other writings, but what kind of love was John writing about? Was it the love that the world sings and writes about? A love that is concerned with feelings and emotions or is this love something much deeper than that? Also, as I mentioned just a moment ago, the phrase “love one another” appears 3 times in the passage. Why do we need to love one another? What should be our motivation for loving one another? These will be the questions we will tackle in our study of this wonderful passage in 1 John 4.

Check Out The Word:

The unfortunate thing about the English language is that it only has the word love while in the Greek language, there are actually four words that are translated as love in the English language, of which three are very familiar for many among us here. If you have been in church for quite some time and have heard tons of sermons, you probably know what these words are. The first Greek word is eros, which means physical intimacy and attraction. This is where we get the word erotic. The word does not seem to appear in the Greek New Testament but the idea is implied often such as the concept of lust which is prohibited in the Bible or when the Book of Hebrews tells us that the marriage bed must be kept sacred which is deemed as a good thing. This word would most likely be the one often implied by the songs we listen to and the literature that we read today, except that it is almost always in the negative use of the word.

A second Greek word translated as love is the word phileo. which is the love that is common among friends and can even be used when referring to a boy-girl relationship. This form of love is all about showing affection for another person, of two people having what is known as a kindred spirit. You feel love for the other person because of how they treat you and how you both share the same interest . In other words, phileo is reciprocal in nature. The downside of this type of love is that, since it is conditional, we can choose to withhold affection to another person until such time that they conform to a certain standard or norm that we expect them to keep. This word occurs a few times in the New Testament, most prominent being the conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21 and the name of a particular city in ancient times called Philadelphia or the city of Brotherly Love.

The third Greek word for love is storge and this word is used mostly or exclusively when referring to the relationship within a family. It is affection for a parent, a child or a sibling. This word is not common knowledge to many and it does not seem to appear at all in the Greek NT, just like the word eros.

Finally, we have the word agape. This is the word that appears all throughout 1 John. It is a love, when applied to God, that is concerned about the welfare of other people, about the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of another. It is a love that is unselfish, unlike eros or phileo or even storge which, at times, are conditional in nature. An important facet of agape love is that it is not an emotional form of love where everything is conditioned on one's feelings but it is a deliberate form of love where a person decides to do something for the other person. When God loves us, he shows it the with concrete action of sacrifice, by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. When God loves, he doesn't wait for us to become lovable before he chooses to love us; instead, he loved us even when we were still sinners. When God loves, he does it out of his own initiative. He doesn't wait for us to show love to him first before he loves us back. It is no wonder that John makes the statement that God is love.

Having gone through a brief word study of the different words that we translate as love and what knowing what particular word is used in today's passage, I would like for us to examine now the motivation or the reason why we, as followers of Christ, should love one another.

Reason # 1: Because God's Very Nature is Love (vv. 8, 16b)

Love is not just one of God's many activities or dealings with humanity, but rather, everything he does is grounded in love. When God created this world, he did it in love. When God rules over us, he rules with love. When God disciplines us, he disciplines out of love for us. When he allows us to go through trials, it is because of his love for us. God's love compelled him to send his son, Jesus Christ, to come to earth to die on the cross for our sins. God's love for us moved him to adopt us as his children and to share with us the joys of eternal life. Everything God does is done in the context of love.

Why do I say that God's very nature should be a motivation for us to love? It is because, if we claim to be his children, to be his sons and daughters, then we are to behave like the father. I am sure that we are aware of the saying, “like father, like son” and what it means is that what the father is like, the son should also be like, or we can say that what we see in the son is a mirror of the father. God is love. His children likewise should exude love, first and foremost, toward the community of believers, for love must be seen in our family relationships, towards our brothers and sisters in the faith.

Reason # 2: God Paid A High Price To Show His Love (vv. 9, 10)

Agape love is not cheap. It is not a love expressed with flowers and chocolates or with flattering language but rather, it is a love expressed through sacrifice. I am sure we are all familiar with the joke about the man who said something like this to his girlfriend: “I will climb the highest mountain and swim the deepest ocean just to get to you.” However, when night time comes and its raining hard outside, the man calls his girlfriend to inform her that he can't go to her house because of the rain. When God loves, he loves us by paying a high price – He sent His only Son to come to earth, to die on the cross for your sins and mine.

For those who are parents here, who among you would be willing to sacrifice your son or your daughter just to save another person? Anyone willing to do that for another person? Most likely, you wouldn't dare do such a thing. Well, God did just that and he sent his son to save people who've rebelled against Him and who have done terrible things to insult him as well as to hurt others. The people who need saving are us, every human being on earth. Do we deserve to be saved? No. Is there anything in us that would make us lovable to God? No. Yet, God chose to do just that. He demonstrated his love for us by sending his son to die for us. He loved us in spite of our sinfulness.

I believe that this is a strong motivation for us to love one another because God paid the ultimate sacrifice just to express his love to us. He sent Jesus to die for people who were his enemies. Loving fellow believers shouldn't be that hard compared to what God did for us. True, there will be believers who behave in manners wherein we may feel that they don't deserve to be loved, but then if God could love them, then we must also love them, remembering that Jesus died for them just as he died for me or for you.

Reason # 3: We Grow in Christian Maturity When We Love (vv. 17, 18)

What is the mark of spiritual maturity? Is it our ability to list down all the books of the Bible by memory? Is it our ability to memorize a lot of Bible verses or even an entire chapter of the Bible? Is it our involvement in various ministries? While we tend to use these as gauges of spiritual maturity, and to a certain extent, they are true for many people, John actually wrote that agape love for one another is the gauge of spiritual maturity.

When we love one another, we are actually growing in our faith. Have we ever thought about that? In verses 17 and 18, we find that the person who sincerely and sacrificially loves his brothers and sisters in the faith will find that they are made perfect in love.
What does it mean to be “made perfect in love”? We must not misconstrue the word perfect to mean that we will become sinless or that we can do no wrong. Rather, the word in the original language is used with the idea of maturity. When we truly love others, what happens is that we mature or we grow spiritually. Why? It is because when we decide or resolve to love others, then we learn to become patient along the way and we learn to be understanding. When we choose to exercise God's love on others, we are choosing to become kind to them. When we choose to love others with God's love, we are choosing to persevere in helping them. So, if we choose to love others, what happens is that we will be exercising many of the virtues listed in Scripture. This explains why we will mature or be made perfect when we love. The believer who refuses to love others with the love of God will find that their spiritual growth is stunted, that their relationship with God and with others strained.

Reason # 4: Loving Others Is Proof Of His Dwelling In Us (vv. 12 – 13, 16)

When we love one another, this is strong proof that God dwells in us. Look carefully at verse 12. John wrote that, although we have not seen God with our eyes, yet if we love one another, God himself lives in us. Then in verse 13, John wrote about the Holy Spirit who has been given to every believer and who dwells within us. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to love other people. On our own, we will find it hard to love others with the love of God. It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for us to forgive those who've wronged us if the Holy Spirit is not there to prompt us and to enable us to demonstrate God's love. However, if we are able to love others and we continue to choose loving others with God's love, then it is compelling proof that God really dwells in you. In Galatians 5, we find the Fruit of the Holy Spirit listed. The list are qualities or virtues that the Holy Spirit enables us to do towards God and others as well as experience within ourselves. The very first on the list is love. If someone who claims to be a believer does not manifest love for his fellow believers, then one would question whether or not that person was a true believer.

I believe that this issue of the Holy Spirit's indwelling was important because the Gnostics were claiming to also have the Spirit of God in them based on their possession of higher, secret knowledge. However, for John, the real proof of someone being a Christian is their profession of Christ as both God and man, and their manifesting of love for others. As the apostle James would put it, faith without works is dead. It is easy to acknowledge Jesus as God and man, but prove your faith by showing love to others; for if we can genuinely love one another, it is evidence that God dwells in us.

Reason # 5: Loving Others Is Proof That We Love God (vv. 19 - 21)

Finally, when we love others, it is proof of our love for God. In verses 19 to 21, John wrote that if we claim to love God but we hate our brothers or those who belong to God just as we belong to God, then we are nothing more than liars. For John, there is a strong connection between loving God and loving one another. You cannot claim to love God and then go about hating your brother. According to a Bible scholar, the word “liar” used in verse 20 has a double sense: a liar is someone who does not speak the truth (in other words, his claims are false); second, his action shows that he has detached himself from the reality of God (the liar's life betrays the being and essence of God). Bible commentator William Barclay wrote, “If God loves us, we are bound to love each other, because it is our destiny to reproduce the life of God in humanity and the life of eternity in time.” Furthermore, he wrote, “The only way to prove that we love God is to love the men whom God loves. The only way to prove that God is within our hearts is to constantly show the love of men within our lives.” God doesn't want us to make empty professions of faith, loyalty and love towards him. He wants us to back our profession with action and the action he requires to prove our love for him is for us to love his people.

Conclusion:

In closing, I would like to simply give everyone a challenge. It is so easy for all of us to say that we love God and that we love our brothers and sisters in the faith; but today we have learned from our passage that love is not just something that we say to another person or to God but it must be demonstrated because that is the nature of agape love. Right now, I want you to look around the people attending this particular service. Now, choose a particular person, someone who you may or may not know very well. It may even be someone who is a stranger to you. Throughout this week, I want you to do something to show your love for that person aside from praying for that person. It may be as simple as getting to know the other person more or maybe you could take that person out for a cup of coffee or for a meal and have meaningful conversations with each other. Maybe the person you're eyeing has a particular need that, maybe, God wants you to meet. Are you up to the challenge? Remember, the proof that we love God is when we love our brothers and sisters in the faith, so let's go and demonstrate love to them starting today.

Who Will You Follow? - Sermon

Who Will You Follow?
Titus 1:1 – 1:16

Introduction:

I will now describe some personalities from history. Try to determine what is the common ground of all the six people mentioned.

Adolf Hitler – known as the leader of the Third Reich. He was responsible for starting the Second World War in Europe as well as for the extermination of six million Jews in various concentration camps all throughout Europe.

Joseph Stalin – leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1953. Responsible for the industrialization of the Soviet Union. He was also responsible for sending many people to Siberian Gulags or concentration camps as well as the persecution of all religions.

Mao Ze Dong – leader of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976. He was responsible for the Cultural Revolution which led to the destruction of China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of many who opposed Mao or who belonged to the social and cultural elite (the wealthy and the well-educated).

Ferdinand Marcos – Philippine president known for imposing Martial Law as well as for extra-judicial killings and stealing the nation's coffers.

Abraham Lincoln – President of the United States from 1861 to 1865. Led his country through a period of civil war and was responsible for ending slavery. Assassinated in April 15, 1865. He is famous for his speech in Gettysburg.

Corazon Aquino – Need I say more about her? I am sure we all know what she did being the president of the Philippines and bringing about real democracy to the country after many years of Martial Law.


What is the very first thing that you've noticed about these people that they all hold in common? Yes, they were leaders of their respective nations. Some of them were well-loved while the others were notorious, but what is striking is that, whether good or bad, people willingly followed them. Looking back, we all acknowledge Hitler to be an evil man but during his time, people willingly and blindly followed him. The same was true with Mao where many young people willingly participated in the Cultural Revolution. Even Marcos had many loyal supporters during the height of martial law and even after 1986. However, it is usually the leaders who have governed well, left a lasting legacy and have really touched the lives of their followers who will be fondly remembered for many generations to come. Evidence of this can be seen during the funeral of former President Aquino last August 5 as well as the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

Leaders who command a following usually possess certain characteristics that make them attractive to people. It may also be because they came into the picture at just the right time. Hitler was highly accepted by the German people because he came at a time when the German economy was in shambles and national pride was at an all-time low. His charisma and strong personality made him believable and as someone whom the nation would willingly put her trust in, even though his character and motive were questionable. Ultimately, he was responsible for bringing Germany to a destructive path.

Because of the lessons from history, people are now more demanding as to what kind of leaders we should have in government, in the business world, as well as in different organizations. Even in the church there is the expectation for leaders to live up to a certain standard. Unfortunately, the church in general, just like countless governments, businesses and organizations, has suffered from poor leadership. However, when we explore the Scriptures we will find many teachings about leadership and what are the qualities we should be looking for in a leader as well as the expectations upon us when we are leading others.

In this morning's Scripture passage, we find the apostle Paul addressing this issue in his letter to Titus. In this brief letter to his trusted aide, Paul gives clear instructions on what is expected of someone who is to be an elder in the church. While Paul may be speaking about elders, the qualifications he set forth are also applicable to all who are leaders in the body of Christ, whether elected into office or as a leader of a small group Bible study or of a particular ministry. In fact, it is even applicable to all lay people because leaders set the pattern for others to emulate and follow. The standards expected of leaders are the same standards followers must also live by. Before we look closely at the issue of leadership, let us consider first the context of the epistle to Titus.

Context:

As indicated in the name of the epistle, we know that Paul was writing to Titus, but who was Titus? We do not have a great deal of information regarding Titus, but when we look at the different references about this man, we find that Titus was one of Paul's most trusted and valuable helpers. It is also very likely that Titus was a convert through Paul's ministry, taken from the fact that Paul called him “my true son”. We know from Paul's letter to the Galatian churches that Titus accompanied Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, most likely the time when the church council was going to meet to tackle the issue of whether or not Gentile believers should observe the Jewish traditions (see Acts 15:2). We also know for a fact that Titus was a Gentile as evidenced by Galatians 2:3 where it says that Titus was a “Greek” or a “Gentile” and that he was not compelled to be circumcised.

We find Titus as a man whom Paul trusted for the tough assignments of the ministry. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, a somewhat severe letter, it was Titus who was tasked to deliver the letter and to minister to the church in Paul's absence. He was also responsible for collecting the funds from the Corinthian church for the poor members of the church in Jerusalem. Titus was gifted with being an administrator, a troubleshooter in the churches that Paul planted. This explains why Titus was given a tough assignment – to minister in Crete.

Crete was no dream assignment. Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and, no doubt, there were many churches or congregations as implied by the command of Paul to appoint elders in every town. What made the assignment difficult was not the size of the island but the people of the island. The Cretans had a bad reputation. Paul did not make this up but instead he quoted from a Greek poet named Epimenides (600 BC) who ranked as one of the seven wise men of Greece. In verse 12, we read that the Cretans were liars, evil brutes and lazy gluttons. Furthermore, Paul mentioned about people from the circumcision group who were causing trouble in the churches, probably Jews who had infiltrated the churches and were spreading false teachings and bringing confusion to many. This explains why Titus was left by Paul in Crete. He was to troubleshoot the problem there and the way to handle the problem was to designate capable people to become elders in the different congregations throughout the land.

The main responsibility that Titus was assigned was to appoint elders in every town. it is obvious from this order that Titus was not to go about doing everything by himself but he was to share the responsibility, to pass on the work of administering the church and spreading the gospel to reliable men. However, what are the qualifications that were expected of the elders Titus was supposed to appoint? We also need to ask ourselves the relevant question: What do we expect of those who are our leaders today in the church? I also mentioned much earlier that the qualifications set for elders are actually the very things every member of the church should be doing and that the elders are to set the pattern or example for all to follow. So, to the many who are here this morning who do not necessarily hold leadership positions in the church but who are serious about following Jesus Christ, we must also pay attention to what Paul had to say to Titus so that we know what is expected of every faithful follower of Christ.

The apostle Paul outlined three main requirements a believer must meet in order to be a leader or an elder of the church. Let us spend the rest of the morning checking out what these are.

Requirement # 1: Family Leadership (v. 6)

The first requirement when choosing an elder or overseer for the church was his capability to lead his own family. Before a prospective elder can lead the church, which is the family of God, he must be able to manage and lead his own family well. Before one can lead on a macro or a large scale, he must prove himself to be competent on the small scale. Before one can become an example to the large congregation, he must first of all be an example to his own family. If someone cannot manage and lead his family well; if someone cannot live out the commands of Scriptures to his family and lead them to do likewise, what do you think will make him competent or capable when it comes to leading the church? The early church affirmed Paul's teaching when the Council of Carthage later on laid down the rule that all bishops, elders and deacons shall not be ordained into office before they have made all in their own households members of the church.

We may wonder, why did Paul mention that an elder must be the husband of but one wife? The reason this had to be mentioned was because the norm of the Gentile world, especially in a place like Crete, was for men to be anything but one-woman men. True, they only had one wife but they engaged in extra-marital activities. However, the teaching of Scriptures is clear that God's intention for marriage has always been and will always be “One man – one woman” or what we term as monogamy. Furthermore, the person being eyed to be a leader in the church must be completely faithful to his wife. This is the biblical norm and anyone who wants to lead the church must maintain and live up to the standards set by God.

It was very likely that Paul had in mind that older men would be called upon to be elders and he presumed that they weren't just married but they also had children. Thus, Paul also gave instructions with regards to the children. First, the children should be believers. They should have been carefully instructed in the ways of the Lord and they should have heard of the gospel and have responded to the message positively by coming to faith in Christ. The responsibility of leading the entire household to faith in Christ and to instruct them the Word of God was laid upon the men. Second, the children must not be unruly or disobedient. I don't think that what Paul was condemning was the naughtiness that little children expresses at times but rather, he was referring to older children, probably adolescents to young adults who would probably rebel against their parents and go about living in a riotous manner, like the prodigal son in Jesus' parable.

Rebellious and unbelieving children are a reflection of a father's inability to lead and manage his family properly while polygamy is a failure on a man's part to live up to God's standard for marriage. If a man being considered for leadership cannot do well on the home-front, how then can we expect them to do well in leading the church?

Requirement # 2: Unquestionable Character (vv. 6 - 8)

The second requirement in the selection of a leader for the church is a man's unquestionable character. Here, Paul gave Titus a list of qualities that a prospective elder should have as well as the negative things he must avoid if he is to lead the church. In the interest of time, we will not go through these two lists in detail but let us summarize what Paul wrote and what these meant.

For the negative things that need to be avoided, Paul listed that an elder must not be overbearing (arrogantly domineering), not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, and not one who pursues dishonest gain. Instead of these, an elder is supposed to be a hospitable person, a lover of the good, one who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.

From these two lists, we can see a couple of things that everyone who wants to be a leader in the church must have. First, an elder or any leader in the church must not use his position or authority abusively and for his personal gain. He has been given his position in order to serve others. It is a sacred trust, a stewardship that God has given to him and he will be held accountable for how he used his position and authority. Second, he must also be more caring and understanding of the people he will lead. He is not running machines but leading people who have feelings and emotions and needs. Third, he must also maintain his personal testimony in the church, at home and in the marketplace or workplace. There must be a consistency in what he professes and how he lives out the Christian life. Finally, he must be someone who is taking care of his inner life (the idea behind the word “disciplined”). He must spend time with God regularly in order to strengthen himself spiritually and before he can lead anyone.

When a leader of the church remembers these things and he is careful to exercise them, it will become very hard to question his character. However, when a leader fails to exercise even one point, people will look at him with suspicion and mistrust. He will not be taken seriously. The same is true for every believer. Not all of us may have leadership positions but all of us are called to live a credible life. It brings the Lord great pleasure when his people are living up to the name that they bear. However, when they are not living up to par, it can damage their testimony before others and it will surely grieve the Lord.

Requirement # 3: Faithful Steward of God's Word (v. 9)

Finally, a potential leader of the church must be a faithful steward of God's Word. We find this in verse 9 where such a person is described as holding firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught and then faithfully transferring or teaching it to others who are willing to listen and learn as well as to refute those who oppose the Word of God.

A leader in the Lord's church should first of all be someone who loves the Word of God. He should be someone who has made it a regular habit to read the Word, to study the Word, and to meditate upon the Word. He must also be someone who knows how to apply the Word of God in practical, everyday situations. Aside from this, he must also be one who can use the Word of God in helping other people. This means they know how to teach others the Word of God.

A leader in the Lord's church is also responsible for defending the faith. Reading verses 10 to 16, we will find that the believers in Crete were being attacked doctrinally by people belonging to the Circumcision group or supposed believers who were emphasizing the need for circumcision and adherence to Jewish laws for salvation. There was also the pagan society that was Crete which was trying to deceive the church into following the mold of the world. Thus, it was extremely necessary for godly and well-versed leaders who would teach the believers and defend the faith. You know what? We also need such people right now in our church. It is because the influence of cults as well as of the world are continuously bombarding the church. This is why some people stray from the church. That is why we need leaders who are competent in handling the Word of God and in teaching the Word of God. If our leaders do not know how to handle the Word of God, then it will spell disaster for the church. Each person here will go from one doctrinal fad to the next, choosing whichever would be appealing to them, even if its outright wrong.

Again, while this third requirement is a must for all who are leaders in the church, I believe it is also a must for all believers even if they do not hold official position in the church, because we are supposed to be feed on God's Word in order that we may grow and that we may not be led astray.

Conclusion:

We've learned from Paul's letter to Titus that leadership in the church is serious business. Elders in the church need to be people who are also leaders in their families who has the respect of the wife and their children. They also need to have unquestionable character so that they will be above reproach and a good role model for others to follow. Finally, they must be faithful stewards of God's Word; people who are familiar with the Word and who live by the Word first, and able to teach others as well as defend the faith. What applies to the elders of the church applies also to everyone who is a leader as well as to everyone who is a follower.

Knowing that our leaders have to set such a high example, why not appreciate them for what they're doing? Pray for the leaders of the church that they will be continue to be the examples God intends for them to be. Be willing to follow our leaders when we know that what they are doing is for the good of the church. Let today's Scripture passage be a reminder also that choosing a leader is not a popularity contest but it should be all about choosing someone who meets the standards of the Lord. More importantly, let the standards set by the apostle Paul apply to you even if you're not formally a leader of the church, because we are all called to follow Christ through the modeling of our leaders and the fact that we are leaders to some degree and people are looking up as an example they can follow.