Beacon Sunday Service: June 1, 2025

Let's rise again. Let's read. We're two Sundays away from finishing the book of Titus. And this is our second to last sermon, but let's read verses 9 to 11 of chapter 3. But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and conflicts about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned. Let's pray together. Father, we pray for your help to understand this text, its implications, its application, and that ultimately it's rooted in your unfailing and deep love for your people. I pray that you would help us to be alert, help us to glean much, and through this, help us to fall in a greater appreciation of your kindness, to grow in our understanding of your holiness, and really grow in depth of affection for other members of the body of Christ here at the beacon.

I pray that you would help us to hear your voice through all of this, to understand your teaching accurately and with all depth. And I pray for just your help as I'm speaking, that you would take a hold of my heart, my mind, and my mouth, and hide it behind just the cross and the authority of the pulpit, so that you would bear your fruit in your people in your time and in your way. Be honored in our presence this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Go ahead and take a seat. So we're all familiar with the word cancer, right? A cancer diagnosis radically affects the lives of not only cancer patients, but their caretakers as well. And I'm sure all of you know people who've lost their lives to various cancers.

And we know people whose lives have been affected greatly by cancer. Cancer is the leading cause of human deaths worldwide. And even in 2020, the leading cause of human deaths in the world was not COVID, it was still cancer. In 2020, cancer took 10 million lives in the world. And so what is cancer? Generally, it's understood as the rapid creation of abnormal cells that grow beyond their usual boundaries, and these abnormal cells form an abnormal growth of tissues. It's called a tumor. And then, if malignant, those abnormal cells spread and invade other organs, and then they metastasize, which means they travel, change, and then form additional tumors. And the widespread metastases collectively shut down the normal function of multiple organs, leading to the death of those organs, and then ultimately the death of a person.

So it's not like a specific disease, but the pattern is categorizable. Cancer can be very cruel as it usually kills slowly. It wears out a person and then weakens him to death. And not only weakens and wears out the patient, it also weakens, wears out, and then crushes the patient's loving caregivers. So there's a lot of collateral damage with cancer. So the way churches become rendered useless and die is not too different from a person's succumbing to cancer. And when a church dies and closes its doors, it's rarely because of anything sudden. It's typically a slow and painful death. Healthy churches do not shut down overnight, no matter what tragedy befalls it. If anything, when a church is healthy and something tragic happens or some affliction befalls it, the members actually draw inward and are usually strengthened.

But churches that die generally had been dying for quite some time. And the symptoms simply were not just immediately visible, like a cancer. So just as the malignant cells invade and then spread to other organs and metastasize, malignant members of a church in a church community can also render an entire church useless or eventually kill the church altogether. And the death of a local church body can also feel very cruel, as it is usually a slow death, wearing out all of its healthy members and then weakening them so much that they're rendered completely powerless and ineffective. And some members of churches, they never recover. And this type of spiritual death by spiritual cancer has been one of Satan's favorite weapons against God's image-bearers from the beginning of time.

So Satan, the thief, does indeed come only to steal, kill, and destroy. John 10:10. And his favorite scheme for the destruction of the church has always been to divide and conquer. His favorite scheme has always been to destroy the church by planting spiritually malignant tumors, whether they be false teachers or false teachings, in and around every church in hopes that those malignant tumors will slowly but surely spread, metastasize, and snuff out the church. So the apostle Paul calls these tumors savage wolves and the speaking of perverse things. Hopefully you see that. Acts chapter 20, verse 29 to 30. So this should never come as a shock. A gathering of sinful people eating themselves to death.

It is to be expected. And false teachers and false teachings inevitably lead to false and evil living and to inhibitual evil practice, which is greatly displeasing to God. So that's what happened to the church in Pergamum. Revelation chapter 2, verse 14 to 15. I have a few things against you that you have there. Some who hold the teachings of Balaam who kept teaching Balach to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. And so you also have some who, in the same way, hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. So the teachings of the false prophet Balaam led to idolatrous practices and the committing of sexual immorality. And so later in Revelation, the text, you see God is going to declare war on the church of Pergamum on these things.

So false teaching that leads to false living incurs the fierce anger of God because those things ruin his beloved bride, the church.

So God hates spiritual cancer infinitely more than any human being could hate the physical cancers that ravage the body of a beloved friend or family member. Does that make sense? If you've been affected by it, you hate it. But God hates it with an infinite morpherocity, the cancers that are in his in the church. Okay, so the epistle to Titus, which we're almost done with, it's a compact but dense instructional manual for the church. It's blueprint, it's uh not only just the expectations for the church, but it's also a guide to keeping the church healthy. So in some ways, you can look at the epistle to Titus as like a physiology textbook for the preserving of a healthy body. Okay, so you have church manual blueprint, and then also how to maintain a healthy body, where the goal is spiritual health.

And the combating of the devil's schemes are like sections in that manual on spiritual cancer prevention, and then spiritual cancer treatment. So if you look at Titus 3, 9 to 11, our passage today, it's helpful to understand the thought flow of this section in terms of the health and the unhealth of the church. Alright, so here's the outline. As I said, we're two sermons away from finishing, we're near the end. And today we're going to spend the majority of our time looking at chapter 3, 9 to 11. But in order to kind of just properly understand it, we're going to have to revisit some earlier sections of this short epistle. So first, in this outline, the epistle to Titus was written because of the realities of the spiritual cancers on the island of Crete.

It's very clear through chapter 1 that local communities were under attack spiritually from within the church. And that's actually why Apostle Paul wrote to Titus in the first place. So secondly, it's also helpful to understand the bulk of the letter as Apostles Paul's description of a healthy church body. And we'll start by revisiting these first two points. And for the third and fourth points, we're going to have to dive into chapter 3, verses 9 to 11, and we're spending the bulk of our time in those verses. In Titus 3 9, Paul writes about the things that are threats to the health of the church. And about how to prevent those spiritual cancers from growing and spreading in the church. In Titus 3 9, Paul describes explicitly a few spiritual carcinogens, if you will.

Okay? And then he tells us to avoid them. So in its sense, it's a cancer prevention. But in the event that there is actually a malignant spiritual tumor found in the church body, verses 10 and 11 give instructions on how the church is supposed to handle and to treat it. So that's the outline of the passage. And the goal is not judgment and punishment. So a lot of times, like they trigger like a passage like this, it triggers, right? The goal is never judgment and punishment. The goal is always health and wholeness. And it's very important to remember that. So first, the realities of spiritual cancer. Nod your heads if you've ever said or ever overheard someone say, everything causes cancer.

Yeah? Okay. Well, we do live in a time where it seems like everything causes cancer. A week ago at the softball tournament, I heard someone talking about the red 40 food dye. I never heard of it before, but how it causes cancer among other things. In the past, cell phone usage caused cancer. Instant ramen causes cancer. The ink on thermal receipt paper causes cancer. So at KTP, I pushed the button and then got the receipt thing, and Becky's like, don't touch it. Because it causes so even those little receipts cause cancer. Processed meat causes cancer. Too much sunlight causes cancer. Being too fat makes you susceptible to cancer. Being too skinny makes you susceptible to cancer. Unfortunately, there may be some truth contained in all of those things, because we live in a fallen world.

And that's just the reality in which we live, right? Many things cause cancer, carcinogens are around us a plenty. The early church similarly was surrounded by spiritual carcinogens. Okay, so indeed Satan was prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour 1 Peter 5.8, and then to steal, kill, and destroy. So there were people in the early church who were like church adjacent, and there were also people who were within the churches already teaching all kinds of things. And so this was a widespread problem. So the church at Colossae, the Apostle Paul wrote the following exhortation, chapter 2, verse 8. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, like logic and not according to Christ.

So in the early church, there were Judaizers, there were legalists, there were hedonists, there were Gnostics, there were myth followers. There were many things that took people away from the doctrine that salvation was by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. So all kinds of things that were attacking that doctrine. And the saints of God were to be on their guard against all of them. So all of these the apostle Paul described as those teaching a different doctrine. So 1 Timothy 1.3 to 4. He deemed all of these things as godless and empty chatter, which only led to further ungodliness. 2 Timothy 2, 16 to 17. And that would spread like the incurable cancer-like disease of their day, gangrene.

So it had to be stopped. So Charles Spurgeon once wrote, the great enemy of souls leaves no stone unturned for the Christian's ruin. He actually said the preacher's ruin from his book, The Lectures to My Students, but I just put Christian. So I'm just gonna borrow, change the one word. Christians ruined. Satan throws any and every carcinogen at the church and her members, knowing that deception breeds deception, unhealth breeds unhealth. So he's out to destroy the church. And there were spiritual polyps and even spiritual tumors starting to show in the churches of Crete. And already in the churches of Crete, they were ruining entire church communities, whole families on the island of Crete.

So this is I'm gonna take you back to what we looked at in October. Titus 1, 10 to 11, actually, November. For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are messing up entire church communities, teaching things that they should not teach for the sake of dishonest gain. So in Crete, there were many kinds of false teachings. But the one that was really troubling to them was a teaching of the Judaizers, those of the circumcision, and what they were teaching was that Gentiles must first commit or convert to Judaism and then adhere to Jewish external practices before they came to Jesus. So they didn't remove Jesus from the equation, they just added prerequisites in getting to Jesus.

And that's usually how cults work. And by doing this, they were confusing the church, sometimes upsetting or overturning entire community groups of them, whole families. They were dividing churches, and they were primarily motivated by selfish, self-centered, dishonest gain. So such individuals were to be warned, and then if need be rejected. Titus 3 10. Okay? So there were false teachers teaching distorted doctrines. So they were cancers. They were malignant cells masquerading as healthy cells. And the apostle Paul tells Titus that you can spot them by their fruits. And then he exhorts Titus to counter them by holding fast to the word of God, sound doctrine, Titus 1.9, and then by speaking sound doctrine and its appropriate applications to the church.

And Titus 1, verse 16 reads, they profess to know God, but by their works they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work. But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. Okay, so these masqueraders claimed a knowledge of their of God, but their lives demonstrated otherwise. So you always want to make sure every church leader that you ever come across is living a life that is consistent with the message that he preached. Amen? Okay. So you can spot these guys, and Titus and those within the churches should not be like these guys. They should not listen to these men. And those men were to be warned, and then if need be, rejected. So Titus and those in the church were to teach things in accord with sound biblical doctrine, and then live lives reflective of those biblical doctrines.

So my job is not only to learn and to do, but it's also to teach you to learn and to do. Amen. So in the midst of all of these spiritual carcinogens, what were believers supposed to look like and to pursue? So the healthy body, the healthy church that gives glory to God and serves to be profitable for men. That's what we're supposed to pursue: to give glory to God, profitable for men, good and profitable, what we learned last week. In Titus 3 8, the verse that we looked at all of last week is the summary verse for a healthy body, all of this. Okay, it reads this is a trustworthy saying, and concerning these things, I want you to speak confidently so that those who have believed God will be intent to lead in good works.

So healthy Christians are obsessed with being good Christians. Amen. These things are good and profitable for men. So healthy members, those who have not just professed to know God, but truly and actually have believed God, they look like this. They're intent to uh lead in good works. You can know them by their fruits. So when you actually see a church truly acting like the church, you see everything from Titus 2.1 to Titus 3.8, lived out. So the bulk of the letter to Titus has thus far described just a healthy person, a healthy church body. And healthy people, all you really need to focus on is maintaining and preserving that health. Okay? And that's what Titus 3.8 is. Though we live with the reality of disease, and though we need to be mindful of the unhealthy practices that can lead to disease, we're never called to be spiritual hypochondriacs in the church.

Worried about church division, worried, oh that that pastor for sure has a scandal. Or like just going around trying to like be a busybody trying to find all these carcinogens. For the most part, the building of a healthy church in and of itself is a good preventer of any spiritual disease. So this is gonna bring me to the third point and back to our main text. So let's read Titus 3 to 11 again. Remember, verse 9 is about the carcinogens that were to be avoided. And then in the event a tumor is found, verses 10 and 11 are all about the treatment. Verse 8, I want to pay attention to the ending of it. What are those words that are in the yellow? Good and profitable for men. Okay. And you will notice that in verse 9, it describes the very opposite.

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogs and strife and conflicts about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject the factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning being self-condemned. So what are the things that healthy, doctrinally sound Christians, real Christians need to avoid. So here's where you think through also your own application. What do I need to avoid? Okay, like ink receipt paper and red 40. Verse 9 broadly lists out four spiritual carcinogens that they were to avoid or to literally shun. The Greek word for avoid is peritame. Repeat after me. Peritemy. Peritami. Very good. Thank you, Sarah. Which literally means to shun.

I'm gonna reject it. Or to purposely turn in the opposite direction to avoid. So why avoid? Why shun? Because the following things are unprofitable and worthless, ruinous and irreversible, usually. So this is serious stuff, okay? You don't want to catch cancer. I mean, I don't think it's something you can catch, but you don't want to catch anything like this, right? These are spiritually radioactive things that can go nuclear. Alright? And they seem harmless. So these things unsettle the soul, Acts 15 24. They shipwreck the faith, 1 Timothy 1 19. They ruin the hearer, 2 Timothy 2 14. They produce ungodliness. So if you engage in this, you're gonna be an ungodly person. Chapter 2, verse 16. And they spread light gang green.

And like I said, it's a cancer equivalent of their day, 2 Timothy 2.17. So we must not, ought not ever mess around with the following things. Okay, get ready. We are to par-istame. Again, thank you, Sarah. Retroactively. We're supposed to just avoid them all together. So the first thing that believers are to avoid are foolish controversies. Foolish controversies. So this is the combination of two Greek words, moros, which we get the word moron, and zeetasis, zeetasis, which can be translated as either like speculation or controversy. So this is an arguing over semantics or like a quibbling over words. It's roundabout and all over the place. There's no substance. It's an arguing over opinions that's just going in circles.

It's a questioning rather than an asking of questions. Do you guys understand the difference? A questioning and not so much an asking of questions. It's an obsession with hypotheticals. It's a controversy created by someone because he wants to sound smart. But usually it proves himself to be a fool. So here's an example of moras, zeetasis that we see in the scriptures. There's a group called the Sadducees. They're pretty sad, you see. Anyway, you're supposed to laugh at stuff like this. So these sad use, they asked Jesus a pseudo-theological question. They want it to sound super philosophical and smart and to trump Jesus. Matthew 22, 23 to 29. On that day, some Sadducees who say there is no resurrection, they came to Jesus and they asked him a question.

Are they asking or are they questioning? They're probably questioning, okay? Saying, teacher, Moses said, if a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife and raise up a seat for his brother. Now there were seven brothers with us. The first married and died and having no seed. He left his wife to his brother. So also the second and the third, down to the seventh, and last of all, the woman died. In the resurrection, remember, they didn't believe in the resurrection, verse 23. Therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all married her. But Jesus answered and said to them, You are morons. Sorry, you are mistaken, not understanding the scriptures, nor the power of God.

So the Sadducees, in both their pride and their arrogance and their ignorance, they wanted to sound smart, to look good in front of the Pharisees who were like their arch nemesis, and they wanted to do it by stumping Jesus. They didn't believe in the resurrection. So they wanted to challenge Jesus about the resurrection. So their premise was wrong. They weren't asking legitimate questions, they were questioning. So on the surface, their arguments sounded very theological and philosophical. These guys have PhDs too. But in reality, their question was rooted in ignorance. So the professing to be wise, they became fools, Romans 1.22. Healthy church members need to shun these sorts of foolish controversies, especially in our day where everything's triggering everything else.

There are many, many, many foolish controversies around us in our day. Don't take the bait. Amen. Do not take the bait. To shun or to avoid doesn't mean you don't give an answer. It means you don't need to engage. It means respond and correct and give a reasonable response or defense, 1 Peter 3 5, or 15. But don't engage. Does that make sense? Pick your battles wisely. Secondly, believers were to avoid genealogies. Now, some of you guys are like, yes, my daily reading plan for the Bible, I can skip sections. Anytimes it's just genealogy, I shall skip sections. Obviously, this isn't referring to those specific lineages pointing to important family lines in the Bible. The genealogies in Genesis and Ezra and Matthew and in Luke, they serve very important functions.

So the genealogy that Paul was writing about was in regard to some kind of like a descent or lineage that would reveal secret patterns or hidden meanings in people's names. So this is kind of the akin to our current days like biblical numerology where numbers in the scriptures are not merely merely used for accounting, but they also convey like spiritual messages and patterns. There are no hidden meanings, there are no symbolic dates, there are no mystical numbers or hidden codes to crack in the Bible. You guys following? There are no mystical things found in the Bible. You don't need to crack the code.

And things like that. Fringe cult groups, including the Seventh-day Adventists, once had an unhealthy obsession with Pope John Paul II. They believed him to be the Antichrist because the numbers associated with his full name. They all added up to 666. Christians are to avoid things like this because they distract and they entangle. And chapter 1, verse 4, they give rise to mere speculation, unanswerable things, rather than furthering the stewardship from God, which is by faith. Third, members of the household of God were to avoid strife. Simply put, it's just an unhealthy espousing of opinions, which results in the choosing of sides and the pressuring of loyalties. So these strife, they produce disunity.

They disrupt unity. So first of all, I think we need to understand that our unity in Christ, it's been given to us. Unity is not something that we strive for. It's something we work hard to preserve. Amen? Let me repeat this. Unity is not something we strive for. It's something that we are given and that we are called to preserve. So these strife, okay? So these result in human factions of people holding on to different opinions. And they're holding on to their opinions and they label them as convictions, but in reality, they are just bull-headed opinions that are unprofitable and worthless. So 1 Timothy 6.4 reads, he's conceited, understanding nothing, but having a morbid interest in controversial questions, disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, slander, and then paranoia, evil suspicions.

Do you guys know people? Don't think of any people. Okay, that don't be judgmental already in your heart. But there are people like this. One who spreads strife, loves division. He has a morbid interest in division. He enjoys argument. Not for anyone's edification, but because it makes he thinks it makes him look good and smart. And then it gives him a satisfaction to stir the pot. God hates it. So there's a list in Proverbs 6, which describe the things that God, Yahweh, God hates. And down that list it says, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers. God hates like a cancer. Yahweh hates strife. Now, having a group with differing opinions is different from a group that has strife.

Differing opinions is fine. Oftentimes differing opinions sharpen and benefit a group. My opinions and Becky's opinions often clash. But that's where we work to get on the same page. But it works for our benefit because I help her see something that she was missing. She helps me see something that I'm missing. Usually it's the latter. So there is a healthiness in conflict. But that's not strife. Strife is when opinions that should remain just opinions, they turn into, they remain, or they things that should remain molehills turn into mountains of conviction. It's a stubborn holding on to one's preference that's rooted in pride. So there is a time and a place to divide over convictions. Amen.

Strife divides over preference. And it's usually birthed from biblical illiteracy. Fourthly, and broadly, conflicts about the law. So literally, these were scribal battles or differing opinions about the technicalities of the Jewish law. So it's not exactly clear what Paul specifically had in mind when he's speaking about the conflicts about the Torah. But it seems that Paul is referring to more like the broad and general than the particular and the specific. Okay? So perhaps this is mentioned because this is the specific situation in Crete. There was a strong presence of people who were the Judaizers on Crete. But broadly speaking, it's an empty, dogmatic, legalistic, theological discourse.

It's a splitting of hairs of the letter of the law. And it usually goes something like this. If you practice blank, then you can't be a Christian. Does that make sense? If you do A, B, C and D, you're a compromiser or you're not a Christian. When we were in China, I had several discussions with some Chinese Christians over a very sensitive topic, which was dividing many Chinese churches. Two separate brothers. They asked me my opinion about it. They asked me what my thoughts were about Christians eating blood. And some one of them was extremely careful when he asked this. And I chuckled, and then he looked distraught that I chuckled. Okay. But this was a very sensitive thing, and a few churches in around Beijing, they split over this issue.

There were, there are several very commonly eaten Chinese dishes which involve pork blood. Do you guys know this? It's like a tofu made out of blood, coagulated blood. Christians in the states aren't too worried about all the dietary restrictions, but this was dividing churches in China. Similarly, conflicts about the law can be understood as things that go beyond doctrine and legalistically argue and we divide over like an application. For us, it may be something like this. Who should Christians vote for? Ooh. Aren't Christians who send their children to public schools compromisers of their faith? There are churches that this is something very serious. Should Christians ever work on Sunday?

So sometimes all three of our cops here, compromisers. Should Christians ever work on Sunday? Shouldn't women be wearing head coverings to church? Compromisers. Sinners. Shouldn't we be practicing communion every Sunday? Because it says in the scriptures, any time you gather, whenever in all your gatherings. How can Christians eat at Thai restaurants when there are Buddha statues all over the place? So Alex, you can't eat Thai no more, brother. Why don't we recite the apostles' creed at our church? It's inspired. Why don't we recite it? Now there is a time and a place for these discussions. And I do believe that there is a right answer to some of these questions. The text here is not saying avoid discussions about the law.

It says to avoid conflicts about the law. Do you guys understand the difference? Discussions turn into conflicts when the greater emphasis is on the letter of the law rather than on the spirit of Allah. Does that make sense? I'll repeat that. Discussions turn into conflicts when there is a greater emphasis on the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. And it's just you can't let it go. So conflicts about the law, as well as foolish controversies, genealogies, and strife are all unprofitable and worthless, and they more often than not ruin their hearers. And so I want to read Titus 3, 9 to 11, but avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and conflicts about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

Now, in real life, no matter how vigilant and health conscious a person is, can cancer happen? Yeah. Polyps and tumors can be found in a person's body, and sometimes there's no explanation as to why. In God's sovereignty, he allows for these things, and we live in a fallen world and there is no guarantee of health. In a similar way, no matter how vigilant or diligent a church, cancers can and will grow.

And the unhealthy and unbelieving, then sometimes they have kids. And then they bring their unhealthy and unbelievable kids members into the church. And they simply just blend in and masquerade themselves as members of the body. And God forbid, sometimes they deceive themselves into thinking, I am a Christian because I've been at church 40 years. So this should not be a surprise because we are in the business of loving the unbeliever. Right? With the desire to bring the unbeliever in a restored relationship to Jesus.

Goats will always be found amongst the sheep in the present age. Matthew 25, 31 to 46. And because our knowledge of a person's heart is limited and finite, our job is simply to love on and minister to everyone who comes into the church. Amen. So this is just a slightly lengthy passage, but I want to read the whole thing for us. Matthew 13, Jesus presented another parable to sit them saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went away. Okay, pop quiz. Who's the enemy? Symbolizing. Satan, good job. Okay. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also.

The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, and they look similar. Wheat and tear look similar. Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tarres? And he said to them, an enemy has done this. The slave said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up? And he said, No. For while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, first gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up, but gather the wheat into my barn. We don't ever reject a person in the church because he's quirky. Because he has different values, because he votes a certain way, or even if it's because he's difficult.

So beacon, we don't ever reject a person because he's different, he's difficult. He dresses weird, I don't know. Never. Okay. We love all people. We are gracious to all people. Homeless lady walks in, we are gracious and loving to her. We speak truth to all people. And we minister to the best we can to all people, and we let the Lord minister in and through us to all those people. But there does come a time when the church must aggressively handle and address a cancer that is found in the body. There does come a time where a factious individual needs to be rejected, excised, and excommunicated. So I want to read verses 10 and 11. Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a person is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.

So we are commanded as a church to love all people, but to an individual who is factious and unheeding, we kick him out. Okay, remember the cancer image. How many tumors are permissible in a body?

Right. An individual can be deemed factious by one of two things. Okay, and this is where a lot of churches can become abusive. So pay attention. What does it mean to be factious? So first, by what he espouses, teaches, or verbally communicates. What he espouses, teaches, or verbally communicates. The word for factious is hieraticos, from which we get the word, yes. Heretic. Okay? So it just simply means divisive. It means create a schism, a sect or faction. So from our immediate context in Titus, a factious person is one who is upsetting and deeply disturbing the community by pushing things that are inconsistent to sound doctrine. It has to be combated. If a Catholic person comes into our church and says, the sweetest thing, like a sweetest person, but still says, a person can't be saved by faith and works.

No, we don't do that, right? We just say, let me show you through the scriptures and lovingly tell them the truth. Amen. So a factious person is espousing all kinds of divisive things and disturbing the community by pushing things that are not in accord with sound doctrine. First Timothy 1 3 to 5. To such an individual, we're exhorted to command them to stop. Verse 3. Do you see this? I mean, sometimes it's not even intentional when they're teaching a bad doctrine. We just say stop. But the motivation to this cannot be annoyance or spite or even relief. The motive behind this command to stop is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and an unhypocritical faith. Verse 5. Do you see this?

A lot of times we get riled up and we want to prove the person wrong rather than correct and lift them up. Okay. And for the most part, correction reveals who a believer is and it isn't. So a genuine believer, usually they will receive correction and then adjust. And that's happened to all of us, right? For example, Apollos, have you guys ever heard of Apollos? He was a very eloquent Jew, and he was going around preaching Jesus, but then he was preaching incorrect things about John's baptism in Acts 18. So Priscilla and Aquila, more mature believers, they didn't go in, in the name of Jesus, I exercised a demon from you. That's not what they did. They just took this eloquent, gifted man under their wings and they mentored him.

And then guess what happened? He ended up going around and preaching even more effectively. And you're gonna see Apollo's mentioned in Titus next week. The factious person is one who persists in the flesh in incorrect teaching. So you can get your theology wrong and not be factious. But if you are factious, you're a person who is espousing wrong theology and then is unwilling to adjust your earth even among with reason and biblical like instruction. Nope, I'm right. That's a factious person. Now, factio doesn't mean in teaching only. Hiereticos is an anachronism because our understanding of the English word, heretic, it comes from this. Okay? But hiereticus also means just inconsistent life.

Divided. So a person can also be factious by living a life inconsistent with the doctrine of the church and living in unrepentance and in defiance. The residual effects of sin entangle all of us to varying degrees. But a factious person is one who is living in the following way and persisting in it with no desire to repent. Okay? So 1 Corinthians 5, 11 to 13. But now I am writing to you not to associate with any soul-called brother. So he's calling himself a Christian. You guys see that? He's a Christian. Don't associate with that Christian if he is sexually immoral, greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. So for what have I to do with judging outsiders?

Are you not to judge those who are within the church? Okay, pop quiz. Biblically, are we supposed to judge each other? Yes. But with love, not with spite and judgment and condemnation, right? Are you not to judge those who are within the church? But to those who are outside, God will judge. Remove the wicked man from amongst yourselves. So Paul writes, do not associate, do not even eat with, judge, remove. He's probably not saying it in that tone. But 2 Thessalonians 3.14 even goes as far as to say to lovingly shame a person. We're all like we're all mostly Asian, and we're like anti-shamed. But Paul actually says to even lovingly shame a lazy person, a freeloading person.

And here we go. 2 Thessalonians 3 14 to 15. If anyone does not obey our word in this letter, and this is where you get if a man will not work, he will not what? He shall not eat. Okay? Take special note of that person. Judge him. To not associate with him. So that what? He will be put to shame. The goal is not the shame, the goal is the restoration. And yet don't regard him as an enemy. But admonish and love on him as a brother. So this person is not to be regarded as an enemy, but lovingly admonished as a brother. It's important to remember that the goal of any church discipline is never punitive. It's always corrective. Repeat after me, church discipline is always meant to be corrective, not punitive.

Okay. It ultimately seeks restoration. But sadly, we see a person's true character and colors when he is confronted with truth. That's how actually a lot of times you could tell who a Christian is and who isn't. When the truth is spoken, do they double down and defy? Or do they go, woe is me, I am a sinner, I need to repent. Help me. So in context, such an individual is to be admonished and lovingly corrected and warned. And if need be, to be admonished, corrected, and warned a second time. If need be, if there is a lot of hope and struggle, I'd even say a third and a fourth warning may be necessary and helpful. Never rush into church discipline. Always lovingly, patiently guide. But after a while, there may be and there will come a time when an unrepentant individual, tired of being called out for sin, will lash out.

If anything, as Titus 3.11 tells us, he is self-condeming. That dude, that lady will self-destruct. And usually he or she becomes even more divisive. Because now there's anger. And what we need to understand is unrepentance always leads to slander. So when someone's coming to you and complaining about some beef that they have with another person and how that person is rejected or hurt him or her, just think about the person's life. If they're in sin clearly, and they're slandering someone else, I usually give the benefit of the doubt to that someone else. There is a lot more to be said about the exercise of church discipline, but in Titus chapter 3, the instructions are very brief and short.

Right? Reject. And that's it. These two verses are it. So we're not going to belabor the point. And also we have an entire session in our membership class that talks about church discipline. So I'm not going to go into all the hows of church discipline. And inevitably we're going to become across this again because it is mentioned in other epistles. But if you want to read a short, helpful book on it, I'll recommend Jonathan Lehman's book. It's very short, Church Discipline. I do want to say one thing. Cancer treatment must always be precise. Does that make sense? It must target only the unhealthy cells. Treatment must always be done in a mind to protect the healthy cells. So when a church exercises discipline, it must be careful, loving, very patient, and very, very precise.

In the event we ever exercise church discipline, I hope that it is done with great sobs and great tears. Because we've been lovingly imploring this person to turn to the Lord to repent. We're never supposed to exercise this as something fun to carry out. To get back at somebody, to put somebody in their place. That's all I'm going to say about that. Treat, I Pastor Peter at my previous church would always say, How would you treat this person if he was your son? If he was your daughter. Oh, with great care. Right? You kick them out. But usually when a parent kicks the child out of the house, it is never the first option. It's when everything has been exhausted. I'm going to close with a quote by Virgil Walker.

He's a pastor in Nebraska. He's also the vice president of G3 Ministries. He's a commentator and a podcaster. And in light of a few things that brought negative light to G3 Ministries recently, Pastor Walker talked about the importance of the church's addressing of people's sins. And this is what he said. Church discipline isn't punishment, it's protection. But in the age of platform pastors and celebrity Christianity, few churches dare to confront sin. When the church stays silent, purity is lost. The bride of Christ is worth defending no matter what the cost. May we truly become a healthy biblical church. May we truly become a church that maintains health by adopting biblical habits, passions, and obsessions.

No foolish arguing. No strife, no genealogies. But in the event we ever have to address a factious person in the church, may we be one that patiently, lovingly, and righteously disciplines a person to the glory of God. Amen. Lovingly. Let's pray together. Father, I pray that you would help us to let all of these things soak in. We live in a time where we're often easily triggered and we respond and react in the flesh. Help us to be wise. Help us to respond and answer lovingly, but never fully engage in battles that will destroy everyone who's hearing. And I pray, Father God, that you protect and preserve this church's health. Strengthen us so that we can fight off whatever infection that threatens to harm our body here.

And in the event, Lord God, we are ever called to exercise discipline. Help us to do so with broken hearts, just full of compassion, with an equal hatred of sin and love for the person. So strengthen our church to know how to differentiate between the two. Examine our motives, purify our motives, and we pray for you to be glorified at the beacon. And pray this in Jesus' name.