17- Make it Pretty- Titus
Ugly bunch don’t you think? This week’s edition of people magazine included pictures of the world’s 50 most beautiful people, as selected by their readers. The group you saw were the photos that were posted online at People’s homepage.
All fairly attractive people. Siblings being siblings though Penelope Cruz’s brother, Eduardo, tells her that she has a lazy eye and that one of her ears is bigger than the other. Poor Penelope.
In the scripture that Mike read this morning was the statement Titus 2:10 Then they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive in every way.
The statement is found in Titus the 17th book of the New Testament. The book was written by Paul and is another personal letter. This time addressed to Titus who was a protégé of Paul’s who helped him begin several churches in the eastern half of the Roman Empire. This letter was written to Titus while he was serving as overseer of the churches on the Island of Crete, which if we pull down our map we discover is here in the Mediterranean. The book was written around AD 64 and the reason it was written was to help Titus with the problems at Crete.
Crete had a reputation in the ancient world, and it wasn’t a good one. Paul quotes from the Greek poet Epimenides when he told Titus Titus 1:12 One of their own men, a prophet from Crete, has said about them, “The people of Crete are all liars; they are cruel animals and lazy gluttons.” This is also known as the Epimenides Paradox, because if everyone from Crete was a liar, and if Epimenides was from Crete then he was a liar so when he said everyone from Crete was a liar then he obviously was lying meaning that not everyone from Crete were liars. Or if he was telling the truth that everyone from Crete was a liar then he was lying because he had just told the truth. But that’s really irrelevant.
Paul was telling Timothy that in a culture that was so depraved that the Church had an even greater responsibility to show the beauty of the Gospel. And it is the beauty of the Gospel that Paul did not say the “Cretans are so evil that you must flee from that island.” Instead he encouraged Titus to reach out and offer them the grace of God.
Have you ever thought of your responsibility in making the gospel attractive? Now most us figure that would be as difficult as making the bunch we had up here attractive. Kind of following the old adage, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
But think about this, reality is often more attractive then the best photographs or images. I have photos of the high Artic and the purple and rose hues in the rock contrasting with the blue white of the icebergs and deep indigo of the ocean are incredible. But they are a far cry from the breath taking beauty of the real thing.
Has everyone here seen pictures of Cinderella’s Castle at Disney World? But until you stand at the foot of Cinderella’s Castle and look up watching the graceful spires and pinnacles reach for the clouds you have never really seen the full beauty of it. And Niagara Falls is just another set of waterfalls until you sail up to its splendour on the “Lady of the Mist.” And so the Gospel is just another religious philosophy until it’s seen in all its beauty in the life of the believer.
You see, as a Christian, you make the Gospel a reality. Until it comes alive in your life it’s just a theory, a concept, a viewpoint. But when the life saving power of Jesus Christ reaches deep into your sin stained soul and washes it whiter then snow, then my friends you have left the realm of the theoretical and entered into reality.
And with that reality comes our responsibility for making the gospel attractive. Nobody else can do it or should do it other then Christians.
Now some things will never be attractive no matter how much you dress them up. “Toilet Bowl Cleaners”. I mean what is attractive about toilet bowl cleaners? Nothing. And so the whizzes of Madison Avenue have decided that people don’t necessarily want attractive toilet bowl cleaners they just want toilet bowl cleaners that clean toilet bowls. Plain and simple.
And because of that you don’t hear advertisements that say “If you use our toilet bowl cleaners , not only will your home be healthy and happy but your children will get better marks in school, you’ll lose weight and your spouse will be easier to live with.” No, here is a toilet bowl cleaner ad I found the other day. “AUTOMATIC TOILET BOWL CLEANERS When it comes to cleaning the toilet, 2000 Flushes makes life a little easier.
With a variety of in-tank and in-bowl automatic toilet bowl cleaners, 2000 Flushes cleans and deodorizes with every flush, delivering long-lasting results that keeps the bowl clean and fresh for up to 4 months!” They don’t try to play up the attractiveness of the product, doesn’t tell you the water will be a pretty blue, no just tells you that you need it. It doesn’t emphasis the ascetics it focuses on the necessity of the product.
For years that was how the church promoted the gospel. If you are a Christian then you do this and you don’t do that and heaven forbid that you should ever smile or enjoy yourself. It isn’t that the Christian life will make you live longer, it just seems longer.
The Gospel wasn’t toted as attractive or pleasant it was simply a necessity, cause if you’re not a Christian then you’re gonna die and go to hell. In those terms the Gospel was very much like life insurance, it doesn’t really help you while you are alive but as soon as you die, you are the winner.
Now you cannot debate the necessity of the Gospel, it is the truth, if you are not a Christian then you will not get into heaven. The bible is very clear about that, if you reject the claims of Christ when you die you will go to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200.00. That basic tenet is repeated time and time again in the scriptures.
Being good is not enough, being moral is not enough, being religious is not enough. I love that word “Religious”. Some people think because they go to church religiously that they will go to heaven. Hey, through the years I’ve met people who drink religiously and gamble religiously and cuss religiously and sleep around religiously and they aren’t going to heaven. There is nothing you can do that will get you into heaven short of being born again.
Jesus said in John 3:3 “I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.” And in John 14:6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
The Gospel is a necessity, we cannot deny that. But neither should we deny its inherent beauty. You see not only does the Gospel message get you into heaven when you die, but it makes you a better person while you are still alive.
In a society that is as pleasure oriented as ours and dealing with people who are as accustomed to instant gratification as we are it is very difficult to sell the Gospel solely on the here after. And it’s not wrong to tell people that if they follow Christ and His teaching that they will become better parents and better spouses and better employees and that it will make a difference in their lives where they are living today.
They claim that when Jonathon Edwards preached his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in the mid 1700s that he dangled people over the pits of hell and shook them. Today the Reverend Edwards would discover that most of the world has been to hell and back on the silver screen and once you’ve met Freddy Kruger and Jason that someone in long red underwear, with horns and a pitchfork can’t be all bad.
The truth of the matter is that in 2005 you can’t scare the hell out of people anymore. If people are going to embrace the claims of the gospel it will not be for what it will do for them 20, 40 or 60 years down the road, it will be for what it can do right now, May 29th 2005. And the only way that people will see the everyday benefits of the Gospel will be in the everyday lives of Christians.
Each one of you will be a walking, talking, living, breathing advertisement for the Gospel. And you will either make Christianity attractive enough to draw people to Jesus Christ or you will make it something to be shunned. Pretty awesome responsibility isn’t it?
And it was in this letter that Paul tells Titus to make the teaching about God attractive.
But how? How do we make the Gospel, something that is inherently attractive, attractive? The answer is pretty basic, we live it. Last week I preached on the Holy Spirit and I alluded to Galatians 5:19 which begins by saying “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results; . . .” Paul then goes on to mention 15 negative characteristics which he refers to as the acts of the sinful nature.
When those characteristics are manifested in the life of a Christian they make the Gospel unattractive because they show the contrast between theory and reality. In other words, if our actions do not measure up to our claim to be Christ followers then people will call us a HYPOCRITE, and that’s not a very nice word at all, is it?
On the other hand in verse 22 of the 5th chapter of Galatians Paul draws our attention to the fruit of the spirit, these are the things that make Christianity attractive, therefore making the Gospel attractive.
These are not a list of maybes, not optional for our Christian walk. The metaphor of fruit is used by Christ, Paul and James throughout the New Testament and their words lend an urgency to this matter. Listen to three of the statements that Christ made in regards to the fruit of our Christian lives.
Matthew 12:33 “A tree is identified by its fruit. Make a tree good, and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad, and its fruit will be bad. It is here that Jesus talks about the Reality of the Fruit. He says that a tree is identified by its fruit. Good fruit or bad fruit it doesn’t matter a fruit tree will be judged by the fruit it produces. That is reality. People don’t say “This is a really great apple tree, but it grows cherries.” A tree is identified by it’s fruit. And we don’t tell people, “Well you really shouldn’t judge that tree.”
When we were first married, late in the last century, I knew a man who had planted an orchard in his back yard. And if you wandered through the orchard you noticed the saplings all had tags on them. Some said this is an apple tree, others said “this is a pear tree and still others said this is a cherry tree.” Now the reason the trees had tags on them is that until they bore fruit it was really tough to tell them apart. Especially if you are like me, a tree is a tree is a tree.
Now ideally those tree’s would eventually bear fruit and then they would no longer need to have a tag. At that point even someone who is as horticulturally ignorant as I am could say with great authority “This is an apple tree.” After all there is very little chance that you would find apples growing on a cherry tree.
Now we do that don’t we? We put tags on people; here is a Christian, here is a pagan. And if we think they are a Christian then we further amend the tag to say “Wesleyan, Baptist, Charismatic, liberal, mainline, Catholic, etc.” Yet Jesus didn’t say that we would be known by our tags, he said that we would be known by our fruit.
And if you are a Christian the bible, the word of God tells us that our fruit should be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And people will look at the fruit you are producing and say “My what beautiful fruit, that must be a Christian tree.”
But what if the fruit you are producing are from the other list, you know; sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, , envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin.
And you say to people, “Hey look at me, I’m a Christian.” And they look at your and say “Oh yuck, ugly bugly, that is the ugliest tree I’ve ever seen.” And then you say “Hey you aren’t suppose to judge me like that.” Actually that isn’t judging, you see any fool can tell the difference between an apple and an orange, and most anyone can tell what fruit a Christian is supposed to produce or not produce.
Then Jesus said John 15:16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. Here is the Reward of the Fruit. Jesus made the statement to the twelve, “You did not choose me. I chose you.” But the statement that follows is for all Christians when Jesus said “Go and produce fruit that will last.” He could have expanded on that remark and said “Go and manifest behavior that will direct people to me, for example love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, fruit that will last.
And then notice the last part of the statement “So that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.” So here’s the question “When will the Father give you whatever you ask for?” The answer is when you produce fruit that will last. You see not only is it required for you to bear the fruit of the Spirit, the reward for doing that is power through prayer.
Perhaps some of you are thinking “Do you mean that God won’t answer my prayers if I’m not producing fruit?” He’s under no obligation to.
Do you remember the Parable of the Prodigal Son? How he ended up slopping pigs for a landowner? At that point was he still his father’s son. Yup, he sure was. Did he have the privileges of being his father’s son? Nope, he sure didn’t. Why not? Because he had removed himself from his position, though his own choice.
If I denounce my father and the things he stand for it does not mean that I am any less his son. It’s still his blood that flows through my veins, it’s still his genes and chromosomes that make up my body and until the day I die I will remain the son of Burton Guptill. And my wife and my mother both claim that I am more like him every year I live.
But he does not have to extend to me the privileges that are associated with being his son. Doesn’t have to let me into his home, doesn’t have to mention me in his will, doesn’t have to give me access to his resources.
I hear people tell me, “When I pray it’s like my prayers don’t go any further then the ceiling.” And I feel like saying, “Have you started by saying ‘God I’m sorry.’” We think we can have our cake and eat it too. Sometimes we get so caught up in being saved by grace and not by works that we forget that God still has expectations for us as his children. And part of those expectations is being attractive witnesses to the Gospel by displaying the fruit of the spirit.
If we are going to live like the devil then we shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t have access to the power of God through prayer.
And then Jesus tell us in Matthew 7:19 So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. And this is the Results of the Fruit. Now I am not questioning the degree or security of your salvation but I am questioning the depth of your relationship to your Saviour if you have never produced good fruit and you continue to produce bad fruit. The scriptures would indicate that if you have not produced good fruit then you are not a good tree.
Far be it for me to suggest that you could lose your salvation if you are not exhibiting the fruit of the spirit. If you aren’t exhibiting the fruit of the spirit and never have, lose your salvation I don’t think you ever found it. If your are just taking Jesus as a fire escape from Hell, then I question your motives.
If you think you can get salvation and never change your life and never produce fruit then you’ve never read the book. What was it that Christ said “So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire.” Hey I didn’t write it I’m just reading it.
The truth is that Jesus puts a high premium on Christians making the Gospel attractive. It is essential for evangelism, and evangelism is essential if the Church is to survive beyond the next generation. People will not accept a Gospel that does not make people better people. And they will never know just what the Gospel can do for them until they have seen what it has done for you.
How attractive is the fruit that you are producing? What has the Gospel done for you? I mean other then the obvious keeping you out of Hell.
Hope you enjoyed the message, PowerPoint for this message is available email me at denn@powerpoint4preaching.com
