“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.
I have had people tell me as they were committing adultery, that “I am following my heart”. Some how using that reasoning to say it was ok. They had a “feeling” in their heart that this was ok.
I think of the story found in Luke chapter 18. The one about the Pharisee and the tax collector. Jesus tell of prayer of the Pharisee, he prays “God, I thank You that I am not like other men; extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.”
If we could determined what is right by how we feel then the Pharisee was ok. But the fact of the matter is that even though the Pharisee felt he was alright it did not make him right. He was being deceived by his own heart.
There are hundred of religions other then Christianity. And the people who belong to those religions feel they are right. But they are not. Without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, without forgiveness of your sin through His blood, it matters not what you feel you are on your way to hell.
So we need to realize that we cannot determine what is good by how we feel. Our hearts will deceive us our feelings, because of our flesh nature cannot be trusted.
The second thing which by which we cannot determine what is good is parents. I am in no way saying that we should not honor our parents, that is a command from God, what I am saying is that parent cannot be the ultimate authority on what is good.
Listen to what Christ states in Matt. 10:37 "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.”
Our dependency should not be upon our parents but upon Christ. We should look to our parents for what is good, only if our parents are looking to Christ, are living for Christ. Little Nicolas will look to his parents for guidance in what is good. But if Andrea and Chris our not looking to God to teach him, then Nicolas will be lead astray.
We all know parents who swear in front of their children, parents who let their children smoke and drink, some even allow their children to do drugs. How can say that these parents can be looked upon as a source for good.
If parents were the standard for good then those whose stoned Stephen as we see in Acts 7, would have done a good deed.
Listen to Acts 7:51 "You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.”
The fact that their religion was like their father’s religion did not make it right, it did not make it good.
The point here is not that parents are not good, but rather they are the primary source of religious upbringing, and as with all things what they teach needs to be checked against the Word of God.
So many have said. “well my dad or mom said so”. Well it was good enough for my parents. But the question needs to be asked is it good enough for God?
The third thing we cannot look to determine good. Is the majority. I have a quote on my wall that states, “Democracy is two coyotes and one sheep deciding what to have for dinner”. The point is that what the majority decides is not always good for everyone involved.
Consider what Christ state concerning the majority in Matthew 7:13-14; "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Christ point is, is that the majority will not be on the path the leads to eternal life. Numbers we have to understand to not prove a thing. More is not always better.
Consider how many Jews Hilter killed, did that make it right. Consider how many millions of unborn babies have been killed, does that make it right. Just because there are many does not make it good.
This is certainly a point made throughout the Scriptures. God’s people have always been in a minority. There were only 8 souls on the ark, the majority of the people living then were not right.
There were only were only 4 people who fled Sodom and Gomorrah. The rest were wrong.
Twelve spies were sent into the promised land. Only two wanted to obey God and go in and conquer.
We can look at example after example from the word of God, that we can determine good simply by what the majority states is good.
I pray that little Nicolas does not fall into the trap of thinking something is right just because so many people do it. Too many of our children have come to believe that lie.
The fourth thing that we can rule out as a source for determining what is good is our conscience. We have all heard the saying, “Let your conscience be your guide”.
We need to understand that our conscience will act according to how we are raised and what we believe in. I think of some of the tribes in the jungles of South America, some of which we cannibals. Now that was there way of life. They did not think it wrong or offensive to eat their enemies. After dinner their conscience would not bother them a bit.
If you were captured by them would you say, “Let your conscience be your guide”.
That is the way it is with many thing right here in the US. We have many racist in this country. Many of whom were raised that way. There conscience does not bother them we they show hate toward someone of a different color, or someone of a different race.
The fact of the matter is is that if we raised wrong, and taught wrong, we will react wrong.
A good example of this is Paul. Before he was saved he hated Christians, he persecuted them, hunted them down so that they could be killed. He did all this with a clear conscience.
Listen to some of what the Bible states about the conscience, Rom. 1:18; “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;”
If Jimeny Cricket had read the Bible he certainly would have not told Pinocchio to “always let your conscience be your guide”. As we have seen it is not real good advise.
The final thing by which we cannot determine what is good is men. Many of us tend to look to another person to see what is good.
Nicolas will look to other people for examples of what is good. People musicians, sports figures, and so forth.
We need to be on guard as to who it is our children are looking toward for the sense of what is good and right.
Now some say “I’ll go to my priest, or preacher, and they will tell me what is right.” The problem with that way of thinking is that there are no perfect men. I would like to think that I am right in my views regarding what is right and what is wrong, but I am sinful man plagued the same thing we all are and that is my flesh nature.
No preacher or priest can claim infallibility. Just because someone is preacher or priest does not mean that heart is not deceitful above all things, I cannot trust my feelings, my conscience, any more then anyone else, no preacher can.
Know I am not saying that at times it is not wise to look to others for council, but again we need to measure what they tells us against what God says.
People get lazy and want the preacher or whoever to tell them what the Bible says, or what God would have them to do, rather then praying and reading God’s word for themselves.
Further we cannot depend solely and entirely on someone else’s knowledge to get us through life. As 2 Tim 2:15 tells us; “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
We should not look for the easy way out of this command by looking to someone else to do this for us.
So we have seen that if we are searching for the source of what is good we cannot look to our feelings, our parents, it cannot be in the majority, it is not found in our conscience, and we cannot find it in others.
So what is the right way to determine what is Good? I am sure you have figured it out by now as I have alluded to it throughout this sermon. The only sure way of determining if something is good, determining if we are to love it, to cling to it, is by looking to the Word of God!
Listen to 2 Tim. 3:16-17 as it tell us one of the reasons for Scripture;
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
The word of God is given to us that we might know what is good and right. It is given to for learn what is good, to prove what is good, to defend what is good. It is given that we might be thoroughly equipped with what is good, that we may do good works.
Do you want to know what good is, read the Bible, study the life of Christ. Do you want to impart what is good to your children, again read the Bible and encourage them to read it as well. I encourage you to read the Word everyday, that you may know what good really is.
You see folks we cannot understand what good is apart from this book. This book which is given to us by God. We cannot love good if we do not know what it is, and we can’t know what it is until we begin to read that book, to study it, to mediate on it.
We need to know what God states good is, not what our feeling may tell us, not what our conscience may tell us, not have another person may tell us, but what does God tell us.
A few weeks ago a man in our SS stated that in order to fight sin in our lives we must first hate sin as God hates sins. And that is very true. But there is another part as well, we must also love good as God loves good. And that is what Paul is telling us in our verse today. We all need to be a lover of what is good. What God states is good.
I want to close today with some that I know is Good. And that is the good news of Jesus Christ. And that good news is the fact that Jesus died for your sins, according to the Scriptures and was raised three days later and now sits on the right hand of the Father. And what makes that good for you is that through Him you can have eternal life.
So I ask each one of you this morning have you trusted in Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour. You cannot begin to even understand what good truly is until you first have the Holy Spirit living in you, until you first have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Trust in Him today, give your life to Him. Admit you are a sinner, and go to Him for forgiveness. If you have any questions regarding your salvation please speak with me that might look to the Word of God, discovering from it what good truly is.
May I say that when you do place your trust in Christ, is then that you will indeed begin to experience perfect goodness, and that is the goodness of God.
LET US PRAY
