Campbell Chapel Bob Bradley, Pastor
Obeying the Laws of the Land Wednesday, February 22, 2012 Bob Bradley TITUS 3 1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to 3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. 4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior; 7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Isn t that an awesome reading? What got me thinking about these scriptures was the word hope. As I was studying and have been studying; we are going to talk about that word hope, and the rest of these scriptures. We won t get to all that tonight. I want to talk about the first three verses tonight and Lord willing; we will talk about the other four at another time. Paul is writing to Titus. Titus, if you read chapter 1, was a fellow that Paul looked at as his own son. Titus was a fellow that had been saved. You don t read about Titus in the book of Acts, therefore, we don t know much about Titus. We know that Paul leaves him at Crete to take care of the church that had been established there. He leaves him there, but Paul is writing back to Titus to encourage him and to show him and give him some instruction on the order in the church and how things should be done. If there is ever a day and time that we need order in the church, it is today. If you just look around just a little bit and you don t have to go 500 miles either, you see in many places today, including our churches where there is absolutely no order whatsoever. Things are completely out of control. It is no wonder that our church world as a whole is in a mess. Paul was interested was enough interested that he wrote Titus this letter to instruct him about ordaining elders and the qualifications for the leadership of the church. Just because you want to be a leader does not mean you have the qualifications to be a leader. Amen!
I know there are many people over the years that I have had come and say, Well, God has called me into the ministry. God is doing this or that. If you know their lives, all you have to do is say, You may want to look at the qualifications for that particular job because you don t meet the qualifications. Some people gets upset with you and some people will appreciate that. Some people will appreciate the fact that you will tell them the truth. Again, others will be upset. Anyways, he is concerned about the church. He is concerned about making sure they are doing what is right. People will be taught and trained to lead the church. You will find out, as we studied the book of Galatians, as we have been talking about the Judaizers that were there; as you read and study about the church at Crete, you find out that we not only have the Judaizers but also another group that has come along. They were using the grace of God for a license to sin. What I mean by that is this. The Judaizers were people that wanted to add to Christianity. They wanted to add to the work of grace. They wanted to add to the works of the Law, circumcision, holy days, and all of this onto the end of grace. If you really wanted to be spiritual and you really wanted to be saved, and you really wanted to know who God really is then you needed to obey the Mosaic Law if you wanted to go to heaven. We know that is not right. However, that group was here. There was also another group that was here. There was a group here that were saying that since they had experienced grace then they had a license or God had given them ability to go out here and just sin and sin. Since they had experienced grace they could just go out here and do whatever they wanted to and it was all covered by grace. That is absolutely tee-totally wrong! The Bible nowhere will teach that because you have experienced the grace of God that you can go out here and live in sin. It is not in the Bible. Now, there are many church members who believe that and there are probably many church members who practice that. However, that is a doctrine that is foreign to the Bible. It s not in there. It s not taught in there. Do you know what the grace of God will teach you to do? The grace of God will teach you to live a holy life. The grace of God will teach you to separate yourself from this world, to separate from sin and all the things that are in this world. Grace does not give you a license to sin. Grace will teach you to quit sinning. Amen! That was going on here. Paul knew these teachings were dangerous. He wants to address that. He does address that. He talks about how the people here at Crete were very unruly people. He addresses that in chapter 1 and different situations and problems here. He wants to talk to Titus, and tells him something that he needs to teach the people at Crete is something that we hear very little about today in our churches. It is something that I think is so very important in my life and in your life. As I said earlier, maybe not in these words, but the only way this world is going to see anything about Jesus Christ is what they see out of me and out of you. It s not what we say, but it s what we do. It s how we conduct our lives and what we do and the things that we don t do. If the world is ever going to see Jesus Christ, it is going to see Him through us. Paul knew that and he wanted Titus to know that. He wanted Titus to take that message to the church here at Crete.
1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to The first thing he says here to Titus, Titus, I want you to remind them of some things. I have a message that I want you to remind the church here. I want you to get the church in the mindset of thinking about what I am about ready to tell them. There are many things in life that we know. There are many things that we were taught. There are many things that we were taught about a lot of different things; whether it was working on cars, lawnmowers, running sewing machines, or whatever it was. Many times in life we have been taught a lot of things and sometimes we just sort of forget about those things. It might be things that we did not enjoy. Sometimes, it may be things that brought no pleasure to us, things that we just did not like doing and did not want to do and we just did not do it. We shoved it aside and forgot about it. Paul says, Titus, I want you to stir their minds. I want you to get them thinking about something. 1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to That they be subject to what? be subject to principalities People that are saved, Christian people, citizens of the United States of America that are Christian people have an obligation from Almighty God to be subject to the laws of the United States of America. We have that responsibility. As long as the laws do not try to get us to do something that is immoral, or to get us not to worship the God of heaven then I have a responsibility a God given responsibility to obey those that are in authority over me. All of us do. We have no right to stand up and try to fight against those that God has placed in leadership positions over me. Does that mean I m going to agree with everything they do? Does that say that I am going to agree with evil leaders? No. I m not going to do that. Do you know what the Bible tells me to do for them? It tells me not to talk about them but to pray for them. Amen! The word principality means number one. It means the individual that is at the top of the authority list. As we would look at it in America; we would look at our President as being the one, the commander in chief whoever he is. He uses the word powers and it also uses the word magistrates here. When you look at those words in the Greek, it brings out the idea of those who have been given authority, or those that works under, or carries out the orders of the one in charge. We have all kinds of leaders in our world today. We have congressmen. We have senators. We have representatives. We have all kinds of different leaders in our government, in Washington. We have a governor here in Ohio. We have a lieutenant governor. We have all kinds of different officials in our state. Probably in most counties and I think I m right here that the sheriff is usually the number 1 authority in any county. He is the guy that is in charge. If you want to get to the top of the authority in any county; when you get to the sheriff then you ve got to the top. Now there are many people under the sheriff, but he s the guy in charge.
As I was thinking about all of this today, if we did not have civil law, if we did not have rules and regulations, if we did not have a government with people over us; can you imagine what kind of shape we would be in? Could you imagine what kind of shape that our world would be in if we did not have people in authority, rules and regulations, if we did not have law? Do you see what kind of shape we would be in? If we did not have law then we would be in a world of chaos. If we did not have law and laws; we could not come here tonight and worship unless we had people sitting outside with guns guarding us. If we did not have law, we would not have lights. If we did not have law, we would not have streets, sewers, and all of the luxuries that we have today. We would not have these if we did not have civil law. Amen! To prove that point to you, go to some of the countries that do not have civil law and they are still yet living in tents. Amen! Their world is out of control. They have no facilities like we have. The reason I want to talk about that is this. Paul is telling Titus to tell the church that it is their responsibility to be in subject to or to obey those magistrates, those powers, those principalities that are over them. Nero was in charge here when Paul wrote that. He was a ruthless guy. He killed a lot of folks. Paul was not saying that we needed to agree with that. Paul was not saying that we needed to say that is okay. He was not saying that. However, Paul says here that we need to be subject to them. We need to obey the rules and the laws that they set down. Again, as long as it does not want to make us do something that is immoral, or against worshiping the God of heaven, then it is my responsibility, as a Christian citizen of the United States of America it is my responsibility to obey the law. The laws of the land, it is my responsibility to do that. It is your responsibility to do that. It is my responsibility to pay taxes. It is your responsibility to pay taxes. Amen! I may not like it but that is my responsibility. In this world that we live, our nation and our people may be paying way too much tax, but it is my responsibility and it is your responsibility to obey the rules that are set down before us. Jesus made the statement, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar s and unto God the things that are God s. Did He say that? He did say that. When we break the law, whatever law it is, when we break the law then we are doing things that are disobedient to the God of heaven. If you read Romans 13, it tells us that we need to be subject to the higher powers. There are no other powers that be than the powers of the ordained of Almighty God. It says that. Doesn t it? 1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to It says something here. to be ready to every good work. Get this. I want you to get this because this is important. We think we do a lot sometimes because we come to church. That is great that we come here to church, however, coming to church is not necessarily a work that he is talking about here. Coming to church is something that we do when we come to church, we come to church to worship Almighty God. We come here to life His name up and exalt His name for being so good unto us and for what He has done for us, what He is going to do for us; we come here to worship Him. That is a work but that is not the works here that he is talking about.
1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to Be ready, be standing and actually it brings out the idea in the Greek to be ready to jump. As soon as the opportunity comes to do a good work, be ready to jump. The works here he is talking about is not necessarily religious works. He is not necessarily talking about doing things that would have and walking around with a church banner over our heads. In our world today, there are many folks who have all kinds of needs. We have poor people. We have elderly people. We have handicap people. We have hungry people. We have people who have been abused. We have all kinds of people in this world today that need our help. Amen! Paul is saying to Titus that we need to jump at the opportunity to help in these areas. Keep this in mind. The only way this world is ever going to know anything about God, about the personality of Almighty God, about what God and who God really is, and how God operates is by how you and I operate. If this world sees you and me helping the poor, clothing those that are naked, putting food in the mouths of those who are hungry, helping those people who cannot help themselves; when this world sees us doing that, they see the God of heaven. They see that hey, there is something to this called Christianity. We as individuals, as citizens of this world, as citizens of America we should jump at the opportunity, every opportunity; we should be ready at every opportunity that we have to do a good work for somebody. We want to help our own little group. We want to help the Baptists. We want to help our family. Shame on us! I m going to say this and if this hits you then I hope it hits you right between the eyes. I had someone tell me the other day, they were not going to give any money to the church because they wanted to take that money and give it to their family that was in need. Do you know what? That s fine. That s fine to give money to your family that is in need. Here is the thing. You had better make sure your family needs your money, first of all. If we think more of supporting the work of our children who absolutely do nothing, we are sinning. They do not worship the God of heaven. They know nothing about the God of heaven. They never come to His house. God has blessed me with money and if I take my money and give it to my kids who takes it and uses it to buy drugs and to waste it; I m sinning against Almighty God. There is something wrong there. You might say, You shouldn t say things like that. Listen. It s time we wake up and understand some things. God expects something out of me and you. I want to help my children when they need help. However, I m not going to give them my money so that they can go buy drugs, or alcohol. Amen! I m not going to do that! God takes it very seriously because we ought to be faithful stewards over what He had given us. Amen! He is telling them here that we need to be ready at any time we have the opportunity to do any good work; we need to do that. Again, this world is going to see the Love of God by what we do. All kinds of people go to church but how many helps the poor? We want to help our own family, but if that is all
you are concerned about then you need to have a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. If that is all you are worrying about is your family and we should be concerned about our family, but if that is all you worry about is your little group and your little family then your relationship with Jesus needs to grow a little bit. Your family may not ever change. However, there are folks out here in this world, who if we get the Word to them will change. We have that responsibility. 1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to Let me ask you a question. If every time you went down the road, you picked up the newspaper, turned on the TV and saw a picture of me in handcuffs, or you saw me where I was standing in a courthouse talking to a judge where I had been arrested and done something that may not necessarily have been something that was real bad what would you think about me? If every time you saw me I was in handcuffs, what would you think? The law comes in handcuffs me and leads me away, being guilty and having done whatever they said I ve done. What I am trying to say is this. My testimony will let this world either see that God is real, that He is alive, that He is a loving God; or they see that he s a hoodlum. He s somebody that cannot be trusted. If you saw me in handcuffs, they take me to trial because I ve embezzled hundred thousand dollars or I ve stolen this or whatever the crime may be that I ve committed and I m guilty then that shows the world that God is just a gangster. There is not really much to Him. You might say People don t believe that. People really do believe that. Many people take that attitude. That is why it is so important that we obey the laws that we have. Todd and I were going up the road here six months ago and we were running about 60 mph, this nice lady that had blue lights on her car pulled in behind me and said I was running 72 mph. I was not running 72 mph at all. I was running about 60 or 61 mph. She informed me that I was running 72 mph and she was going to give me a ticket. Do you know what I could have done? I could have got mad and made a complete idiot out of myself. Was I guilty? No. I was not guilty. I did not do it. She said I was. Do you know what I could have done? I could have mouthed off and Todd would have had to come and bail me out of jail. Do you know what they would have done? There was a lady here and a man standing on the other side watching what was going on too and they would have handcuffed me and put me in jail. You would have read in the paper Bob Bradley arrested. What I am saying is this. We need to obey the laws. I was not breaking the law. I was not doing that. It says here speak evil of no man. Was I guilty? No. Did I have a right to stand up and say, Hey, I did not do it? I went to court. I was going to go up there and tell this guy I was just going to go up there and tell him. So I went up there and sat down and everybody walked up in front of the judge, do you know what I recognized? I had better keep my shut. Pay the $130 and just move along. That is exactly what I did. Here is the thing. Am I going to go around and tell everybody that this state is a bunch of crooks or this individual is a crook or am I going to speak evil about everybody? He says here we don t need to speak evil about anyone. Since I am a citizen of this country, since I am a citizen of heaven; I have no right to speak evil about no one. Amen! Do you?
Do you have any right to speak evil about anybody? You don t have any right to speak evil about no one. Do people mistreat you? Do people say bad things about you? Do you people lie to you and about you? Sure they do! As Christian people, as citizens here of the United States of America; do I agree with the politics? No. Both sides we have a lot of issues, whether Republicans, Democrats or whatever we might call ourselves; we have many issues in America. I have no right to go down on a street corner and stand up and tell people how evil our leaders are. Do you know what that does? That shows this community really how and who we really are. God gave me a right to vote. Amen! We need to vote for people who have some morals. We need to vote for people who have some godly standards. That is getting harder and harder to find. Amen! I know that it is. However, I have no right to speak evil of no one. You have no right to speak evil of no one. We don t have that right. The word brawler is a good word. It means not a fighter. There are some who go to church that love to keep a racquet started all the time. There are people who belong to the church who love to go to meetings whether it is school board meetings, public meetings or whatever it is; not to try to have solutions to things, but they go with one thing in mind because they love to fight. They love to have a racquet all the time. I ve had people on church boards that are like that. They live for a racquet. That is all they thought about. We are not to be contentious people. We are not to be going around looking for an argument. We are not to go around looking for a fight all the time. Not everyone all the time is always wrong. A brawler is someone that always thinks everybody else is always wrong. He has the weight of the whole world upon his shoulders. He is the only one that knows anything. That is what a brawler is. Not everybody is always wrong. Likewise, we are not always right. A brawler is someone who is always stirring up trouble. Also, he tells us to be gentle. The word gentle means forbearance, to be reasonable. Christian people living in this world today needs to be reasonable people. We don t need to be unreasonable people. We don t need to be so set in our ways that we become unreasonable. Amen! We need to be considerate. There are some things here we need to consider from time to time. We don t need to be so close minded that we never think outside the box. We need to be gentle people. Also, we need to be people who are agreeable. We would rather to try to agree with people to work towards agreement instead of working towards an argument all the time. Not only that, but it means to be courteous and it means to be patient. Also, it means to be soft or softened. People living in this world today needs to be gentle people. Again, the world is looking at us. If we are a brawler, we are going to end up on TV as a brawler. The world is going to look at that as God must be a brawler. We
need to be gentle people. We need to be courteous, kind and agreeable. Amen! It does not mean we need to let people run over us. It does not mean that we cannot have an opinion. It does not mean that we cannot voice our opinion. It does not mean that we don t need to voice our opinion sometimes in very strict and stern ways. It does not mean that. It does mean that there comes a point that we say okay. It does not mean that we let people change our mind. It does not mean that we let people to convince us to do something wrong. No. There is a time when we voice our opinion and say what we need to say that we need to shut our mouth. The word meekness means to be gentle, to be tender, to be humble, to be mild, to be strong, and having the strength to control. Meekness is not being a coward. Meekness is not allowing people all of the time to run over us or allowing people in the government to run over us. That is not meekness. Meekness is gentle and kind and being very strong but having the strength under control. Amen! That is a good lesson that we need to learn about meekness. Keep those things in mind and Lord willing we are going to talk about the rest of this on down through these verses. It is our responsibility, folks, to obey the law. Whatever the law is again if it is not something immoral or leading people into immorality, or doing something against the God of heaven and against our freedom to worship the God of heaven then we need to obey the laws of the land. When we go down the road, we are driving on a four lane road and it is straight as gun barrel for 500 miles with the speed limit is 55 mph then the speed limit is 55 mph. I don t have any right to say I m going to run 80 mph. You can if you want to but you might get $130 ticket. When you get that ticket, don t whine about it or complain about it. When you break the law, you get caught, and pay the price. Truth! We don t like it but it is truth anyway. When we break the law then we need to pay the price. If you go somewhere and get a parking ticket, the best thing to do is to pay it. Someone called me here some time ago; they were in Columbus. They had gone to a football game. They parked in a place that said No Parking. If you park here you will be towed. They saw the sign but do you know what they thought? The football game is going on and everything will be fine. They came outside from the football game and do you know what they found out? Their car was gone. They looked around for it for a while and they finally figured out, Hey, there was a sign here. They called the police and the police had it. They had towed it off down here and they went and paid $400 to $600 to get it out. It would have been a lot better to have paid the $20 to park down here than it would have been to walk four or five miles to go get it. If the sign says, don t park here, then don t park there. Amen! If we break those, and we do all the time then don t gripe when you get caught. Pay the fine and move on. Let s don t make idiots out of ourselves. Okay? Not too many Amen s on that tonight. Was there? That s truth anyways. Above everything else, I want my life to be a proof, to be a picture of the great love of Almighty God. The great love of Almighty God in that there some restraint, obedience, and it is more than passing out tracks, my friend. Living for Jesus Christ is more than handing out gospel tracks. That is part of it but there is more to it than that. When we live a life that is pleasing to God, when we live our lives and allow the Word of God to mold
and shape our lives then this world will be able to see that there is a God in heaven. Some of them will get saved. That is what I want to see.