Looking For Good In All The Wrong Places

“LOOKING FOR GOOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES”

TITUS 1:8

There was once a pastor who had a little five year old daughter. Now the little girl notice that every time her dad stood behind the pulpit, and was getting ready to preach he would bow his head for moment before he began to preach. The little girl noticed that he did this every time.

So one day after the service the little girl when to her dad and asked him, “Why do you bow your head right before you preach your sermon?”

“Well Honey” the preacher answered, “ I asking the Lord to help me preach a good sermon.”

The little girl looked up at her father and asked, “Then how come he doesn’t do it?”

That is what I am praying for this morning, that God would help me to preach to good sermon.

I am going to ask that you turn to the passage that I will be preaching from this morning, that would be Titus 1:8.

As you are turning to our passage for this morning I just want to give you a quick background to that passage. Paul is giving Titus the qualification of an elder or bishop. Titus is on the island of Crete and has been given the responsibility of assigning leadership in the local churches on the island.

Here is verse Paul is writing to Titus on what a good elder or deacon, ought to be;

Titus 1:8; “but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled,”

This morning I want to focus on the phrase “a lover of what is good.”

The Greek word for this phrase is “PHIL-A-GATHOS” which means “loving that which is good”. An elder or bishop in the church, must love that which is good. That which is pure, that which is right and true.

But as we can see with all the other qualifications of an elder which Paul gives, it is not just the elders who are to be lovers of good, but all Christians. For 1 Thess. 5:21 tells us all, “Test all things; hold fast what is good.”

We are all to be lovers of good, to cling to what is good. To hold on to all that is good.

This is a teaching that not only comes from the Word of God but also through our parents. Today Andrea and Chris dedicated their son Nicholas to the Lord. As Nicholas grows his parents will be continual telling him to be good. To choose what is good. I have never heard a parent tell their child you had better be bad! No we tell our children that they better be good, seek good.

That doesn’t sound like it would be real hard does it?

But the problem is this what is Good? People have all different opinions as to what good is. Some say country music is good? I know, I know it is hard to believe. Some say that lima beans are good?

On the more serious side there is a man who write often in the editorials in the Daily Star expounding the virtues of marijuana. To him marijuana is good. Some people thing racism is good. Some people think pornography is good. And we can go on and on.

So we ask the question how do we know what good is? There must be a standard, there must be a source for good. To many people are clinging to things that are not good. We have people who love what they call good, but where did they get there idea of good. What determines what is Good?

You may have notices the title of my sermon this morning, “Looking of Good in all the Wrong Places”. I believe that what is happening in our society. We have far do many people who do not know where to look for good.

We all need to know where to look to determine if something is good. We also need be able to show are children where they ought to look for good.

This morning I first want us to look at some wrong ways of determining if something is good or not and then the right way.

First of all we cannot determine if something is good or not by our feeling. Just because something feels good to us, does not mean that it is.

Proverbs 28:26 tells us; “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whoever walks wisely will be delivered.”

Further in Jer. 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

The point the Bible makes is that we cannot trust our hearts. We cannot trust how we “feel” about something to determine if it is good.