| |
July 3, 2005
|
America's Christian Heritage
|
Pastor Brian Shimer
|
|
"With Liberty and Justice for All"
Titus 2:1-3:8
Chapter 2
1You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. 2Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
3Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
6Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. 7In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness 8and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.
9Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, 10and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
11For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
15These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.
Chapter 3
1Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.
3At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
NIV
|
- Back in 2003 this congregation sent a team of 12 to Peru for a summer missions trip. We returned on July 2nd that year. One of the things I wanted to do while there was find a gift for all of you and decided to bring you back these wooden spoons.
Well, once we returned we decided to give the spoons to all of you for Christmas, so we stored them in our garage, and then in November went to find them, and couldn't. We gave up on that Christmas idea, and looked for them again last December and still couldn't find the spoons. We feared if we would ever find them. Then, a few weeks ago while looking in the garage for something else, guess what turned up! So, instead of Christmas 2 years ago, receive this gift from our family today, the anniversary of my first Sunday back in the pulpit beginning our 12th year together!
As you receive your spoon, look at it with me. It is clear it did not just grow in the tree in this form. Someone, a man or woman, designed the shape, and carved it with some kinds of tools so that it would have this shape. You can see that it has a design not only in its shape, but also in the very wood itself. Not only did God gift the craftsman to have the ability to see a spoon in a block of wood, but also gave design to the wood. You can see the wood grain in it, the patterns, the beauty.
Now, it was not only designed with a shape but for a purpose. The spoon can be used to stir a good pot of soup, taste the soup, or to deliver a spanking to a child who needs to have a boundary established in their lives. You could even use it as a decorative item in your home, or look through the hole in the handle and see what you can see. Truly it has many purposes possible with it. But we have established it was designed with a purpose in mind.
- I believe our nation was also designed with purpose. It was not by accident that this land existed, that people came here for religious and political freedom, and that we have the form of government we do. All this was by design. There is one sovereign over the affairs of men who opened the possibilities for them to come.
Now, I do not pretend to believe that all those who came were strong, Christian believers. I do not pretend to think that all of them were righteous. Certainly our history is filled with many, many unrighteous actions, actions against individuals and whole nations of the first Americans who lived here. However, even though you can point to some who were not godly, there are many others who were very godly and upright.
This nation was established by design. And I think a phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance captures the intent of the forefathers of this nation.
Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931) wrote the original Pledge in August 1892. He was not exactly a godly man, even though a pastor, and was dismissed from his pulpit because of his socialist preaching, but the pledge he had written took on a life of its own. In 1924 the National Flag Conference, under the 'leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the wording in Bellamy's pledge to state allegiance to 'the Flag of the United States of America.' Bellamy protested this change but was ignored. In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.
(http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm). Now even though that was not Bellamy's intent, was it the intent of the design of this nation that God would be involved in who we are and how we live?
It was 1861 when a pastor wrote to the director of the National Treasury requesting that there be some motto added to our coinage that represented the place God has had in our history. It took 40 years but finally in 1908 we minted the motto "in God we trust" on all our coinage and eventually in 1957 to our bills. We did not have any bills in 1908! (www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/ currency/in-god-we-trust.html). But again, did this addition, years after the founding of our nation, reflect the original framers intent? Is it part of the design for our nation that it be a place with liberty and justice for all, under God?
Our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence called for a nation with liberty and justice for all. The framers of both however saw that the kind of government they were establishing was not a tyranny to keep a people in check, but a place where a people with morals could together become a great nation. These framers did not want a government which rejected God, indeed they based our laws and freedoms upon the council of God's word. You need not look far in their original writings in order to discover this was a nation designed to be a moral and godly nation of people who trusted and lived out their trust in the living Triune God of the Christian faith.
Hear with me some of their own comments:
John Adams (our nation's 2nd president) warned his fellow countrymen stating, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."(1798)
Noah Webster, author of the first American Speller and the first Dictionary said, "[T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government. . . . and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence."
John Jay, Original Chief-Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, said: "The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts." Can you imagine this today, when we have the same court deciding to remove or not remove Ten Commandment displays because it views them as secular or religious? Here the Chief-Justice is calling for the Bible as the central most, life-regulating force in a person's life!
Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote, "[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
Yes, "The founders … encouraged the expression of religious faith. And they almost universally sought to encourage religious belief as essential for good governance and citizenship." (quotes courtesy of tothesource.com June 15, 2005, ubp)
- Unfortunately today, I think we are far from that design. We have begun to be a place where those with good morals and opinion are punished if that opinion does not agree with what is considered "politically correct". That phrase alone is awkward, for not long ago "political correctness" meant to be a person of virtue, of morals and Biblical convictions.
In Family Research Council's online update from Washington it was reported last week that J. Matt Barber was fired from his job because he had written an article, from his home, while on his off hours, which gave his opinion about a currently hot national topic in an online magazine. The article did not mention his employer at all. J. Matt Barber told WorldNetDaily, "I explained to Allstate (his employer) that the article was a reflection of my personal Christian beliefs, and that I had every right to both write it and to have it published. I further explained that I had written the article while at home on my own time, that I never mentioned Allstate's name and that I neither directly nor indirectly suggested that Allstate shared my Christian beliefs or my views…" Yet still he was fired.
(http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA05F73#WA05F73)
I was surprised by this action on the one hand, for we are supposed to be "in good hands with Allstate," but not surprised on the other. For our nation is becoming less and less a place with liberty and justice for all, it is moving further from what it is designed to be. How can we become what we are to be?
The framers say it rests with the people not with the government. We do not have a government capable of restraining unbridled passions. As Robert Winthrop, a Speaker of the U. S. House in the mid 1800s, said: "Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet."
(quotes courtesy of tothesource.com June 15, 2005, ubp)
We must be a moral and godly people by a power inside of us.
- This is exactly what Paul was counseling Titus on Crete in dealing with the people of that island. That too were not living up to the design God had for them. God had called them to be a godly people, and still one of their own prophets had said what Paul said is true, that they are "always liars, evil brutes, and lazy gluttons." So Paul tells Titus to take out his wooden spoon - to sharply rebuke them, to help them see a different way to live.
How should Titus do this? By teaching them what is in accord with sound doctrine, in order words, Titus needed to talk to them about the kind of living and reflects right teaching. There is a correlation between what we believe and how we behave. We will always live out of our beliefs.
So he is told to teach the older men, older women, who will teach the younger women, and then he is to teach the younger men and slaves (or employees), how they ought to behave. He is to instruct each of them in putting faith into action, and is to help them to practice "self control."
But the question is how can good teaching even bring out God's design for these people? I mean so they get all the learning straight how can it translate into action? The answer is found in 2:11 which begins in the NIV with the little word "For". What that word says is that everything that has been said thus far has been said because of this reason that he will now give. What is that reason?
The reason is that the grace of God has appeared to all men. And what does this grace do? It teaches men and women to say "NO! to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." Did you hear what God's grace teaches us? It teaches us to live up to God's design. The grace of God, the action of God in our lives, assists us with self control, which elsewhere in the Bible is called a fruit of God's Spirit within us. But look further in these verses, this grace has appeared, teaching us to say no and to say yes, as we wait for the blessed hope that future return of Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
This is the gospel! This is the good news. We cannot free ourselves from the clutches of sin and death, but God has done it for us through Jesus. And the goal of the Spirit of God is that we become such a people. People who are eager to do what is good will live with liberty and justice for all.
So, Titus can teach how they are to behave and with the action of the grace of God and the might of the Spirit of God within them, through redemption from all wickedness, they can become all that God intends for them to be. They can live up to their design.
So it is for us. This nation can become all God intends if us the people in this nation will avail ourselves of this same saving Grace of God, and become all that God intends for us to be. What is the purpose of our design do you suppose? Certainly we are intended to do more than come to church once a week for our spiritual brunch. No, we are to live transformed lives and transform this community. We are to stand for justice and help people bound to be set free from what binds them. We are to be the "spoons" God has made us to be.
The spoon idea however really speaks a falsehood here when applied to us. For the spoon can be alone, by itself. It is useless unless held by someone else. For us, however, we cannot picture ourselves in that way, except as we may be instruments in the hand of God. But even then, we are not individuals disconnected from others. We are less like a spoon than like an appendage on the human body. Say my finger, which is attached (thankfully) to my hand. Apart from my hand, it can do nothing. But it is not apart but attached. So are you, friends. You are never alone nor cut off from the body. You are connected to the full Body of Christ. You are designed with a purpose in this body. And your design here is an expression of God's plan for this community and this nation. You have a place in God's design.
And how will that design be brought about? Look back at Titus. All this teaching is to individuals within groups. People together assist one another to deal with sin, to walk in uprightness. This is how God brings about the full potential of what we as a body are to be. This summer become more fully the design God intends you to be and then through you this nation may reach its potential as well!
|
|
|