Beacon Sunday Service: January 19, 2025

Little too close, but just kind of um squeezing a little bit forward. Let me uh go ahead and just stand and then let's read the uh passage together. It's gonna be first and only Titus chapter one verses 16, and I read up to chapter two, verse one. They uh 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. Let me pray for us. Father, we thank you just for gathering us together to offer you up songs of praise and to listen to your words being proclaimed. And I pray, Father, for a good time of feeding, that our knowledge for you will grow, our love for you will abound, and that Lord, by our knowledge, by our love, and by how we live our lives, that you would be magnified, and as you are magnified, that our love would be so infectious that many would be curious and come to know Christ through our witness and through our lives, whether it be in our family or at work or just amongst our friends.

Help us not to forget, Lord, there is a lost world in need of just a savior. And so we pray that you would feed us so that we can really minister and relay uh this feeding to those who need to hear. So we bless. Would you bless our time? And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and take a seat. Uh my wife Becky and I, we started formally dating in January 2004, so January 18th to be exact. So we literally just yesterday passed the 21 year mark of our dating anniversary. Congratulations to us. Um, dating anniversaries, they're still special. Come on, right? Well, less than one month into our dating relationship, there was a Valentine's Day that I needed to prepare for. And perhaps sensing a little bit of stress coming from my end, Becky being the ever sweet and considerate person, she suggested, you know, Valentine's Day is such a silly holiday.

It's a fake holiday created by Hallmark, florists, and chocolateers. And she looked at me and she said, Peter, we don't need to do anything. And I immediately felt like this was either a test or a trap. And I asked her, are you sure? To which she emphatically replied, and I quote, Yes, we don't need to do anything. Let us not do anything. So being the naive, trusting simpleton that I am, when Valentine's Day rolled around a few weeks later, I did nothing. And I remember that day very well. Valentine's Day fell on a Saturday that year, and that morning Becky called me and asked me what I was gonna do that day, and I told her that she could run errands with me. Uh, but I had to finish up sermons and things like that, and uh maybe she can join me uh running errands, and maybe we'll grab dinner afterwards.

So she came over, and the final errand was uh shopping at a Korean grocery market, and then we grabbed a quick dinner at the Korean markets food court, and then I think it actually dawned on her that I had prepped nothing, I had planned nothing, and that we were literally only gonna run errands together and eat food court food. And at the end of the day, when I walked her to her car, she handed me a card that she had written in, and then she actually started to cry a little bit, and I think she was surprised and a bit hurt that I literally did nothing. So here's a public service announcement, brothers. Sometimes if a lady says you don't need to plan anything, that secret code for the very opposite.

It's like 95% absolutely a trap to test you. So play it safe. Anyhow, in the following year, I wisened up a little. I knew I had to do something to make up for the previous Valentine's Day debacle, and I at least had to give her a nice thoughtful gift. And having dated her at that point for about 13 months, I felt like I knew exactly what she, my girlfriend, would want. You see, I'd been making some observations. In those 13 months. I noticed that Becky really tried to be health conscious in her eating, so no chocolates. And I observed that she was pretty frugal, and she didn't like spending money on frivolous things and on things that didn't last. So no flowers, since they die very quickly.

So with absolute confidence in my knowledge of her, I made my way to Target, and I bought Becky a nice exercise ball, a health conscious gift, an economic gift. And to my surprise, the exercise ball was not well received on this second Valentine's Day. I mean, it was super sturdy, as long lasting, like my love. We still have it. It's 21 years later. It just hasn't been used. Valentine's Day number three came around, and a few weeks before this third Valentine's Day, Becky sat me down. And she looked straight in my eyes and said, My favorite flowers are peonies. Buy me a three-pack of Ferrero share. Here's a card that I like. Write some nice words, include a meaningful Bible verse. So she spelled it all out for me.

She gave me explicit and easy to follow instructions. She left nothing to guesswork. She left nothing to chance, and we have since celebrated 18 additional Valentine's Days. And since then, I've done objectively well. Valentine's Day does not upset my wife anymore. Since then, I have not done nothing. There are always flowers on Valentine's Days. There's always a card, and I think it's like a combination of her lowered expectations and my growth in understanding of my wife, and overall improvement in our communication. So the problem was, early on, Becky assumed that I could read her mind. But she learned quickly that I'm pretty dense and that I could not read her mind. And over the past 21 years, she's left less and less of our relationship to guesswork.

So here's a second service, public service announcement. Sisters, if you want to leave it to chance and guesswork, you are setting yourself up for disappointment because we men will pretty much guess incorrectly 100% of the time. And even if you tell us, we won't always listen well, right? So on this side of eternity, most of our relationships, and I'm not just talking about romantic relationships, they require some degree of guesswork. Many relationships require some trial and error, and then there are adjustments to be made. And on this side of eternity, because of sin, no matter how intimate a relationship between two people, communication will always be corrupted and flawed. So no matter how like deep a love shared between two parties, it's inevitable that someone will misspeak, and then someone will mishear, and there will always be miscommunication.

And sin and words spoken in sin just separate people, and they've always separated people. They drive a wedge into every relationship. Our speaking is broken, our hearing is broken, our understanding is limited, and our biases and our prejudices are strong, and our judgment is often imperfect and often reckless. And so it's not a secret. You and I, all of us, were broken, and our communication is broken. The fall of man and the entrance of sin into the world didn't just damage human relationships, but it also greatly corrupted man's understanding of the things of God. So man's sins and his arrogance separate him from his creator. Unlike sinful and corrupted man, however, God is incorruptible.

God is perfect. There is no trace of sin or unrighteousness in God or in what he says. God is a perfect communicator.

And we see in the scripture that God does not lie, God cannot lie. Man may misspeak, man may mishear, man may miscommunicate, but this is not so with God. Okay, if you look up here, there are three passages that describe that God never miscommunicates, that God never misspeaks, and God always has been explicit, absolutely clear in his communication of what he desires all people to know. And because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we know that he will continue to be explicit and absolutely clear and communicating what he desires all people to know. Micah 6:8, he read, he says, He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does Yahweh require of you but to do justice, to love, love, and kindness, and walk humbly with your God.

Some translations will read, if you look at like to say the NIV, it'll read, He has shown you, O man. I mean, that's different, telling and showing. But the Hebrew word here is higiv, which is a very rich word. It's referring to such a clear telling that it's almost equivalent to like a showing. Okay? So the telling is so clear that you can almost see it. And here's the feel of the verse. He has, he give you, O man, what is good. And what does Yahweh require of you? God will never leave his will to guesswork. He never calls his people to guess what he's thinking or what he requires. God's will for you and for me is very clear. It's very explicit. And this has always been the case, and this will always be the case.

Now the specific application of his will in our lives may differ in appearance or how it unfolds, but his will is, has, and always will be the same. So broadly speaking, it's not difficult to discern the will of God for our lives. Amen. Broadly speaking, it is not difficult for us to understand the will of God for our lives. The problem is not in the clarity of God's communication. The problem lies in our not liking his will. Rebelliously rejecting it and then asking for a different will. No, that can't be your will for me, God. Try again. So we see through the scriptures that God's communication at times it may be veiled. And in the instances that it is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

2 Corinthians 4 3. It's confused because unregenerate minds, they're blinded and they and they're deluded. And when God does speak in mysteries and parables, Luke 8 10, he does so to those who have already hardened their hearts towards him. Luke 8 10 at the end, it reads, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. So they're gonna see and hear what they want to see and hear. And they're gonna react just in objection to it. God always speaks clearly to his elect. Amen. And he always speaks and proclaims his truths clearly, and in his speaking and proclaiming, he always magnifies and glorifies himself in and through all of creation and in and through all of his people.

So God will make himself known.

He zealously seeks to make himself known. So that knowledge, the full and perfect knowledge of God, that's actually his greatest delight for us in heaven and for eternal life. It's almost as if he cannot wait for us to see in perfection all there is to know about him, and it's limitless. The knowledge of God is actually the very reason for the Father's sending of son of his son into the world. Okay. This is eternal life, John 17 3, that they may know you. The only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So the gift of eternal life is primarily the gift of perfect knowledge. Does that make sense? The gift of eternal life is primarily the gift of perfect knowledge. So for the Christian, the growth in that knowledge is already begun.

As eternal life has already begun. It doesn't start when you physically die. It's already started. It's like a wife, a girlfriend who becomes a fiance who's engaged to be married. That knowledge has already started. Okay, although it's not fully complete yet. God is expert at communication. He is an expert at making himself known.

They hear him, and they can't help but to cry out in praise to him. Luke 19, 40. They're not sentient emotional beings, but they respond to God. The rivers clap with joy. The mountains sing with great emotion, Psalm 98. Why? Because they hear him, they know him, and they rejoice in knowing that they exist to please him. God can and will make lions and lambs lie down together. He can and he will make infants play near a cobra's den and play with those cobras as if they were playing with little puppies, Isaiah chapter 11. So God speaks and he speaks perfectly, and all creation responds appropriately. Not one single created being distorts or confuses what is communicated by God, except Satan, the demons, and man.

Satan, the demons and man hear God and they say no. Right? No. That is until his heart has been made new. That is, until he is a completely new creation, not of this world. The old having been gone, the new having come. Now, new created, newly created, regenerate man says amen, or yes to God, and no to ungodliness and the things of the world. Titus 2 12. And we'll get to that in a few weeks. So if this God who communicates perfectly and expertly, not only speaks to man, but speaks within the very heart of man, the Christian cannot but know the heart of God. He's an expert communicator. The regenerated Christian will know clearly what God desires for him and from him. And over time, the Christian grows in his delight in submitting to God's will.

Okay, so that brings us to today's outline. And that's the longest introduction I've given to date for this sermon series to Titus, but I felt like I needed to lay the groundwork for those two things before we get into the text. That God desires zealously to be known, and that God always communicates perfectly. It's not a sometimes, it's not occasional, it's always he's never going to miscommunicate.

Always. Now, the falsely religious, and we've been talking about there's false religion, true religion, right? False religion based on works, false religion that's inspired by Satan, true religion that is of faith through Christ alone, and that that's from God, right? So the falsely religious, they say we know God. Titus 1 16. But they're either delusional or they're lying. They're either deceiving and/or being deceived, they cry out, Lord, Lord. I know you. You are my Lord and my Savior. But what do they hear at the end? I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness, right? And we're gonna be briefly looking at that in our first point. And then Jesus Himself warned his followers to beware of these kinds of people.

In Matthew chapter 7, verse 15. And he told his disciples, you can know them by their fruit. They're discernible. Okay. Verse 16, uh, so it also touches upon the produce of the falsely religious. So the profession of the falsely religious is they know God. But then what they produce is goes against that. Okay. And then in the third point, we're gonna be looking at the proclamation of those who belong to true religion. So those who are genuinely of the faith, what are they proclaiming? What are they espousing? What are they propagating? And we're gonna look at what the truly religious church proclaims with their lives and their doctrines. Chapter uh Titus chapter 2, verse 1. So I want to read the passage again for us.

And I've broken it down into those three points, so it's easier for you to follow. They profess to know God, the profession of the falsely religious, but by their works, they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good, work, the product, the produce of the falsely religious, but as for you, Titus, who are who's appointed with uh appointing elders in all of Crete, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. So, what is it that he's supposed to proclaim? What is a proclamation of the truly religious? So they profess to know God. And the word used for no here is very interesting. Okay. There are two uh typically two Greek words used for no, that's found in scripture.

In the Greek, a word commonly used for knowledge is oida. Can you repeat after me? Oida. Okay. Uh it that refers to an intellectual knowledge gained through like an academic study or acquired through some experiment and practice. Okay, so generally, oida is more impersonal. Oida can be used for an uh objective, like common knowledge or something that a person acquires through training or experience. So in Philippians chapter 4, we looked at this in Bible study this week. Paul writes that he oida knows how to be content. Okay? He oida knows how to be humble or have humble means. He also oida knows how to have an abundance. He oida knows how to be content in both plenty and in one. Okay, oida is just more impersonal.

The other word for no is the word gnosko. Okay, can you repeat after me? Genosco. So English words like diagnostic, recognize, and agnostic, they all come from this word. Genosco. Okay. And gnosco generally conveys like a relational or an intimate knowledge. It's how believers, and that's how believers are exhorted to know God. It's a personal knowledge. So while oida is an intellectual knowledge, a knowledge about something, gonosco is a more relational knowledge, a knowledge of something or someone. So it's an interactive knowledge, it's a personal knowledge. I'm going to illustrate this for you. You may oida know a Billy Graham, oida know a C.S. Lewis, you may oida know a John Piper. But you gnosko know Peter Chump.

You gnosko know a pastor's dean and a Justin and an Aga. Okay, you guys you guys follow that? So a gnosco knowledge is a knowledge that continues to grow more intimate and more familiar over time. Now, people who don't consider themselves that religious or are perfectly just only nominally religious, they will usually speak about their knowledge about God. Right? In their description of God, God will generally be an impersonal figure to them, or he's someone distant from them. Their knowledge will be limited to facts. The nominally religious will rarely ever speak of the divine in personal terms. For such people, he's simply just God. Rarely will such a person ever describe the divine as my God or my Lord or my Father.

So there's a great distance from them and the divine. And they usually won't claim to have an intimate relationship with God because socially they don't want to sound like a zealous, like crazy person, okay, or like a freak. Because it's way more comfortable to keep the divine at a distance. So when the divine remains at a distance, religion is socially at neutral. Right? I believe in God. No one gets upset at that. But when a person claims an intimate knowledge of God, I know God. That person opens himself to all kinds of rejection, ostracism, or even hatred. So it's super interesting and super telling that in Titus 1.16, they profess to oida God. Paul uses the word oida in describing these non-Christian Cretan profession, uh, Cretans profession.

So in Titus 116, the knowledge of God that Paul is saying, uh, that these falsely religious people profess, it's more of that distant philosophical informational knowledge. Paul writes that they oida God. They claim to oida a lot about God. They claim to believe and only oida this God, and it's not quite clear if Paul is using oida deliberately for their knowledge of God, or if it's their self-profession. But either way, these Cretans, these Cretan false teachers, they profess to oida know God. But their deeds totally contradict even that profession. They profess to oida God, but by their works, they deny him and even prove this profession, oida profession, they prove it absolutely false. So this is one of the first things we can glean from this passage.

It's not too difficult to gather information about God, to exchange opinions about God, to learn about God, and to ascribe or just to prescribe to a set of religious facts. Anybody can do this. And it's also something we can glean from this that the Lord does not delight in people just knowing a lot about him or having lots of opinions about him, even if those opinions are accurate. In fact, a person can have a perfect theology and still be displeasing to God. You guys tracking with that? Your theology can be perfect. And no pastor theologian has ever claimed that. But you can have a perfect theology and still be displeasing to God. A person can sit in the pews Sunday after Sunday and then sing about their oida knowledge and intellectually agree with whatever is coming from the pulpit and still not be pleasing to God.

The Lord doesn't delight in a churchgoer's accumulation of biblical information. You guys follow that? Satan and the demons have a greater knowledge about God than we do. They have a greater breadth and a depth of theological knowledge than many, if not most, uh, in the church. So in the Bible, when it comes to facts about God, you will notice that if you're reading through the scriptures, the demons seem to always get it right. Okay? So let's read James 2 19. James, Jesus' half brother says, You believe God is one? Compared to all the mono or the polytheistic people of the age, you believe God is one? Good job. You do well. Even the demons also believe that. And what do they do? They shudder.

Because they accurately know a lot of the truths of God, so they shudder and they're terrified. They oida God extremely well. So in several gospel accounts, many people who are around Jesus, they don't recognize him for who he is. But it appears that the demons always know exactly who he is, and they always know precisely what kind of authority that he has over them. If you guys read the gospel, it's not hard to see, right? In Luke 8, when a man enters, or when Jesus enters the area of the garrisons across from Galilee, he encounters a demon-possessed man. And you guys are probably familiar with the story. And we read that the legion of demons speak through this man's mouth. And what does he say?

What do I have to do with you, Jesus, son of the most high God? I beg you, do not torment me. So the men of the area didn't recognize Jesus for who he was, but who did? The demons. The demons pled and beggingly, like just they begged Jesus to send them into the herd of pigs in the event that he is going to exercise them out of the man. So the demons oida God much more accurately than men do. Okay? So the lying, lazy, evil men of Crete, they profess to oida know a whole lot about God. They considered themselves to be theologically astute. They claim to know lots of things about God, but their deeds, their application betrayed the fact that even their knowledge of God was faulty. It was incomplete, it was erroneous.

Their applications actually revealed a whole lot about how little they know even about God. So a person can be religious, even zealously religious without knowing God. Right? So even if Yahweh God is not like super personal to me, like knowing accurately, even about who he is, actually should cause me to scream in terror. Right. And then simultaneously be so confused. Why am I still alive? And why I'm so curious why I'm not instantly destroyed. All information about God contained in the scriptures describes a God who hates sin with a passionate hatred. You guys know this, right? So God communicates perfectly. And one day, everyone in heaven, everyone on earth, everyone even under the earth will have an accurate knowledge, a perfect knowledge about Jesus Christ.

Everybody one day will. Okay? Your knowledge about Jesus Christ will be perfect. Hallelujah. Or like, oh no, right? Because at just a simple mention of his name, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So there will come a day. The Bible says there will come a day, even when those of false religion, the non-elect, those who are completely outside the grace of God, they will have a perfect knowledge about God. They will bow, they will confess, they will worship. It will be a screaming, agony-filled worship, but worship they will nonetheless, because of who he is. Because their knowledge about God will be perfect, their knowledge about his wrath will be perfect.

And unfortunately, their knowledge of his wrath will also be perfect. So, how do we discern whether someone actually knows God? Titus 1 16 makes it seem that it will be glaringly obvious. We're called to judge with our eyeballs what we see, right? As a genuine believer grows in his faith, he will generally be able to pick the falsely religious out.

He can discern what kind of tree he's looking at by observing the fruit, the produce. How many guys can go up to a tree and discern whether it's a banana or an apple? Easy, right? But if we went to like Central Asia, some of those fruits, I didn't, I've never seen them before. And they show up on my plate, and I'm like, what is this? Right? We can't tell. But apple, orange, easy to discern. So this brings me to the second point of the sermon. Though the falsely religious make a profession of knowing God, they prove obviously otherwise by how they live. But by their works, they deny him, they're detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work. Later in chapter 3, Paul also described the same people as factious, perverted, and self-condemned.

Do you see that? They sounded smart, they sounded religious. They oida knew a whole lot about God. They love to engage in smart sounding controversies. They love to look into the mysterious philosophical debates involving like genealogies. And they love to even engage in asking hard questions about the Old Testament, both the Torah and the Talmud. Okay, so in today's terms, they may even have had like a PhD from one of the Cretan seminaries. And so Paul exhorted Titus to first warn these men. Stop. And he tells Timothy the same thing in Ephesians chapter, uh, 1 Timothy chapter 1, right? And if they refuse to listen, Paul commanded Titus to reject them. Such a person, though he sounds super smart, he's perverted.

So like just a like a big PhD brainiac, false teacher, you could be like, you're perverted. Right? So he's perverted, he's sinning, and he's self-condemned. And if you look at the fruits of his teaching and the fruits of how he lives his life, you can oid and know that he's detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work. And that's what Titus 1.16 is saying. So a man who loves God and knows God cannot continually teach the things that misrepresent God. Easy to discern that, right? A man who loves God and knows, knows God, cannot continually live in such a way that would offend and grieve God's heart. If such a man even had an oida knowledge about God and he knew informationally that this God is holy, holy, holy, and that God hates sin, that man could never endorse that kind of a life or that kind of teaching with his mouth.

That's actually unless he actually really doesn't know God. So over the last two decades, Becky has learned to communicate very well with me. She has learned how to speak Peter Chung. She has learned how to dumb it way down. She now leaves very little to guesswork. If I were to still do nothing on Valentine's Day, if I were to still buy her, now I'll upgrade it, not an exercise ball. I buy her a treadmill. Okay? That she doesn't use. And even after she explicitly told me what her favorite flowers, chocolates were, and I just continue to ignore that suggestion, continue to do things stubbornly my way, you'd actually ask this question justifiably so. Do you even know your wife? Do you even love her at all?

I can choose to disregard or ignore my wife's communicator requests and suggestions. Foolish, but that would be a conscious choice. And that would reveal to you a lot of where my heart is, no matter what I say about how I feel toward my wife. Right? So Becky communicates pretty well, especially when she's angry. Okay, she'd love it. If I could read her mind, can you imagine if I had a little Becky on my shoulder or in my, like you know those like movies where it's like a little like you got the good Becky Bad Becky? But imagine if she was indwelling in my head, and that I could read her mind, we'd have perfect unity in marriage. We'd have a perfect marriage. But unfortunately and fortunately, she does not.

Unlike Becky, though, God's communication is absolutely perfect. It's never hindered by a mood, it's never hindered by whatever else. I'm gonna stop before I get in trouble. Okay. Unlike Becky, God dwells within me. If you are a child of God, he has made himself Genosco known to you.

And will continue to do so. He has, he give you, O man. He has shown and told you what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? Do you know what he requires of you? If you've become a Christian, if you've been given a new heart, if you are indeed a new creation, the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you not only as a seal, not only as like an unbreakable contract that God has designed, but he is cleaning house. And in a very real sense, you've become a mind reader of God. Repeat after me. I've become a mind reader of God. Whoa, right? 1 Corinthians 2.16. For who has known the mind of the Lord? That he will counsel and tell God what to do, that he will direct him. But we have the mind of Christ.

Paul is quoting Isaiah 40, 13 here, where Isaiah lists off a whole bunch of rhetorical questions of how God is so supremely other and he's so beyond human comprehension. Can someone truly ever know the mind of God? What an absurd and strange thought. Isaiah just lists question after question. Can God be knowable? But whoa! Mystery of mysteries. Holy, holy, holy Emmanuel God physically tabernacled and lived among his people. And even a greater mystery. He is now living within his people. What in the world? God is knowable. His affections are written all over the pages of the Bible. His passions are perfectly communicated through the doctrines of the church, provided that the church is sound.

And over time that knowledge will show itself in how you live, in the choices that you make, in the content of your speech, unless he isn't in you. Then obviously that will show. Because knowledge about God only gets you so far. So the produce of the falsely religious, no matter what their verbal profession, no matter how much interest they have in studying theology, no matter how much, like how passionately they say, don't judge me, right? No matter what is a life that abuses grace that justifies the simple choice choices and distorts truths with how they live and what they verbally endorse. So what is in the heart eventually comes out? But verse uh two, chapter two, verse one, or uh the verse 116, but by their works they deny him being detestable, disobedient and unfit for any good work.

Now it is not their works, sorry. It is not their works that cause them to be detestable, disobedient, and unfit. It's not their works. Okay? The word detestable, that's pretty self-explanatory. You guys know what that means, right? That they're disgusting before holy, holy, holy God. Disobedient is also pretty self-explanatory. Okay? I know what I'm supposed to do and I choose not to do it. That's also pretty self-explanatory. The word unfit is worth a little bit of explanation. The Greek word for unfit is the word, okay, uh, adochimos. Repeat after me, adachimos, adachemos. So it can be translated worthless, not legal, rejected, not valid. Okay. Adachemos, unfit, it was usually used for money, for currency.

So if I, if you try to pay someone with a fake $20 bill, even though the bill's profession says, I am a $20 bill. Look at whose face is on here. I am a $20 bill. It's counterfeit, it's not legal tender, it is unacceptable, right? What if that profession is even greater? I am a hundred dollar bill, just as unfit and worthless, because it doesn't actually represent the profession of its value. Make sense. So the the ad chemas was used in describing uh Janus and Jambres in 2 Timothy 3.8, who disqualify themselves by the depravity of their minds and by their opposition to the truth. So knowledge in the heart in due time will always reveal itself. A knowledge of God or lack of or lack of it will always be evidenced by the works that are produced.

Here, our works don't ever qualify or disqualify us. A believer is saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Amen. Again, our works don't disqualify us in and of themselves. Because in and of themselves, our works are just a condition of our heart. We're disqualified by the very rebelliousness that is in our very DNA. And only Christ's work can qualify us if we put our faith in the atoning work of Christ on the cross. But whether he has qualified us or not qualified us, it will become evident through our works. So no matter what the profession of my love for my wife is, if I were to ever ask you, imagine this, if I were ever were to ask you, I pull you aside and I say, hey, quick question.

How much can I flirt with or touch other women before technically you would consider it cheating on Becky? The content of that question would not bother you as much as the fact that I asked such a question in the first place. Right? How could such a question ever enter my mind and come out of my mouth if I really love my wife? You would wonder if I even love my wife or even know her at all. The heart behind that question, in and of itself would be despicable. That would be an abomination. That would be adochemos. Whatever I say, whatever I profess in terms of my love, it's completely disproven by the glimpse into my heart. So when church people ask questions like this, how much can I drink before technically it's considered a sin?

How much Netflix can I binge watch before it's technically considered a sin? How much porn can a Christian watch, or how many boundaries can I like compromise and cross before it's technically considered adultery? Is it technically a sin to enjoy the luxuries of life? I know that the Bible says I shall not love the world, but doesn't it also say that wealth is like a blessing from God? It's a gift. Technically, can't I just enjoy my career and then seek God later? The contents of these questions and statements, if they're just neutral, innocent, they wouldn't concern me as much as the reasons why such questions are being asked or statements are being made. Right? So here is the hallmark of genuine Christianity.

A person is more concerned about pleasing God than about how much sin he can get away with.

He is way more obsessed with pleasing God than about how much sin he can get away with and still be accepted into Christendom and into heaven. The fact that a person will say, Where does it say in the Bible that this is a sin in a very haughty way? Tells me a lot.

As soon as someone asks that, I already know where their heart is at. Just as much as as soon as I asked that, you would question my love for Becky. It's pretty apparent. So the works of the Cretan false teachers, that's was their fruit. Matthew 7, 16 to 18. They professed one thing, but they lived otherwise. Because remember, God is a perfect communicator. His communication is perfect, it's effective, it's clear. They sing, he speaks, what do the mountains do? They praise. He commands the wind, and what do they do? Okay, we calm down, right? And God, the perfect communicator who dwells within each and every Christian will bear fruit in those he has saved. He will steer the Christian away from worldly desires, and he will steer him towards eternal life.

He will steer him toward good works. He will passionately do this.

Because the groom is worth it. His bride will longingly look more for the toward to the marriage and the wedding. If a bride says, I don't really care about the marriage, I just want a wedding that's fantastic, then I would question. What is wrong with you? Right. But the bride, while she waits, she cannot but spend time working out, beautifying herself, trying on the different things that will please her bridegroom. But most importantly, getting the invites out. Come to the party. And that's also the bridegroom's instructions. Honey, my church, my love. Tell everyone that they're invited. And by how you speak of it, cause them to know that that's gonna be a blast. But you know what? He doesn't just leave instructions and take off.

He puts his mind into you. Amen. Titus says it later, and we'll get to that in a few weeks as well. The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, steering, guiding us, that denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, godly while we wait in this engagement period. Looking forward to the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So the Holy Spirit will instruct the Christian on what to deny on how to live and how to wait for the future. You see that in the scriptures? So in the meantime, the church is supposed to beautify herself. I found this on the web for the scriptures. Check it out.

My series was activated. So, oh no! So in the meantime, the church is to beautify herself and to grow. In chapter two, verse one, that's what Titus is supposed to speak. Instructions. But as for you, speak the things which keep pointing to sound doctrine. Titus is to speak, and he's supposed to speak, reprove, and exhort with all authority because a bridegroom explicitly commanded it, right? Chapter 2, verse 15. So God is a perfect communicator, his expectations are clear, his instructions are clear, and we are to speak these instructions to everybody who makes up the church. Because those who have the Spirit of God indwelling within them will listen. Hopefully, as you guys look back over your years of being a Christian, over the years of walking with the Lord, you see that growth in your knowledge of God as well as your knowledge about God.

Amen. Hopefully, over the years, because we still have the residual sin of the old flesh. Like we're trying to, we're being sanctified. But over time, hopefully we've discerned and we are quicker to obey what truly delights the heart of God. And we're learning to obey God, not out of duty, but delight.

I mean, they're kind of weird now, but they were super cute when they were a year and a half. We were living in Korea at the time, and Becky started lamenting the fact that her old phone, which only had 16 gigabytes of memory, didn't have enough just storage for videos and taking pictures. So for Christmas that year, I decided to buy her a new phone. But there is a problem I often encounter with my wife. She is a bargain hunter. And the first thing that she always asks me whenever I bring home something I purchased, can you guys guess? How much was it? How much did you spend? Did you get a good deal? Right. Always. So I knew, because those phones are not cheap, that I not only get her a new phone, but I also had to get a good deal on it.

And I knew her well enough to know 10 years of marriage in that I better have proof that I got a really good deal on it. A steal almost, right? So I did extensive research. I shopped around for like almost a month, which typically frustrates me. Okay. I'm like, time is money. And I just boom, right bye, right? I don't like bargain shopping. But then for that thing, I documented everything. I wrote a detailed lengthy report documenting every website I visited. I captured everything I did with screenshots, every electronic store that I visited, I documented with pictures. I took a little selfie. I even documented the email email from the HR that I took time off work to go buy it. And then I just put everything in a like a detailed report with footnotes, screenshots of text messages, and even pictures of people who helped me find a better deal.

Okay, so here's Julie. She helped me find. So I did all of that. And I finally gave her the phone as a Christmas present. And to my shock, she was happy about the phone, about the gift. But more than the phone, she poured over each line of the lengthy report. Right. Constantly looking up and smiling often. And then at the end of it, she happily shrieked. You know me so well. And she gave a big hug and said, thank you. I love it. I love it. And she met the report. Apparently. The phone was an expectation. I read the signs correctly. Okay. She had spoken in mysteries, but apparently, I had been able to read her mind and interpret her coded words. Okay. I don't have enough storage. Bing. Buy a phone, write a report.

The phone was an expectation. The report was the gift. It was a lot of work. But to be honest, I enjoyed all of it. I delighted in it. For a few weeks, that had been my obsession. And she reacted exactly the way I thought she would, if not better. But I just was like hoping. Oh, I hope I don't get yelled at. But I'm just like trying to do this so that I get that happy shriek. And the smile made it all worthwhile. It was not a duty. It was a joy. So in our Christian lives, there will be seasons where we like clumsily walk with God. Because our understanding is limited, and the limits of our understanding, they're gonna be reflected in our lives. And sometimes we may offer God like spiritual exercise balls, right?

Or we do the very thing he tells us not to do. And we kind of are clumsy in our relationship with God. But as our knowledge about God and of God grows, our speech, our thoughts, our actions, our choices, and especially our professions, not job, but what comes out of our mouth, they're gonna grow in line with what delights his heart because our God is a perfect communicator. Amen. Let me close with a reading of Micah 6.

With what shall I come before Yahweh? And bow myself before the God on high. Shall I come before him with burnt offerings? With yearling calves. With thousands of rams, with 10,000 rivers of oil. Shall I even give my firstborn for my transgression? The fruit of my body to pay for the sin of my soul. No. He's told you, oh man, what is good. And what does Yahweh require of you to do justice, to love mercy, delight in his mercy, delight in being merciful, right? Loving kindness, and to just walk humbly with your God. May our profession be evidenced a lot by our lives. Amen. And in our church. May that profession be very clear with whoever comes into our church.

Like, wow, this church really loves Christ. And because it loves Christ, members really love each other. May that be what we pursue to honor our Lord and Savior. Let's pray together. Father, we ask that you would help us to reflect deeply on who you are and who we're not. And help us to be enamored and in awe with your choice to love us and your choice to be known by us. And we thank you, God, for your patience. And we thank you, Lord, for just your steadfastness and your loving kindness. It is your kindness that causes us to repent. So we come before you just messy. We come before you broken. And we ask, Lord, as you perfectly communicate to us that we would find ourselves agreeing more and more, refusing less and less with each passing season to your glory and to our freedom and joy.

In Jesus' name we pray.