Tim's Sermon Notes

From mistexts to typos to churches – it’s easy to mess things up, and generally harder to put them right again. This passage, and verse 5 in particular, addresses Paul and Titus’ work to put things right in the church on Crete.

First, this passage is a reminder of the importance and centrality of the local church to the Christian life. When Jesus sent out the apostles, they planted churches, because Christians need each other. This is contrary to the American outlook of independence and self-reliance. Our spiritual progress is tied to our church body.

And every church needs constant attention – a healthy church is always under construction. This was a relatively young church, and Paul hadn’t had time to do everything he wanted to do. and so Titus was specifically left behind to finish that work.

We often idealize the First Century church, with the scriptures in their own language and the apostles in their midst. But in reality there were issues throughout, and required constant attention from within and without.

Titus was doing this, essentially as an intentional interim pastor, relocated to deal with corrective action in the church, addressing unfinished issues and leadership development (appointing elders). His challenge, and ours, was to determine what to start with – you cannot do everything at once!

The New Testament does not spell out specifically how churches are to be organized, but it is clear that healthy churches need healthly leaders. Leaders can arise from unexpected places, and not all leaders in secular life are appropriate or healthy leaders in the church. But it is fairly clear that Titus was a healthy leader.

Titus was one of the earliest gentile Christian leaders, who we first hear about in Acts 11 where he travels from Antioch to Jerusalem and stands as something of a symbolic rebuke to the Judaizers. Later, Paul sent him to Corinth to check in on that fractious congregation, and he then reported back to and comforted Paul in Macedonia. Paul calls him his partner and fellow worker in 2 Corinthians.

Sometime after Paul’s first imprisonment, after the end of Acts, Paul sent Titus to Crete, then met up with him in Nicopolis before Titus moves on to Dalmatia (2 Tim 4:10).

God wants faithful, available and teachable workers (FAT). Titus was all three. He was faithful to complete all the work he was given. He was available to travel all around the Mediterranean to fulfill that work. And he was teachable, taking the instruction and the direction from this letter (and no doubt others!).

We should seek to be like Titus. There is much to be set in order, and much work to do within our own local church.

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, October 6, 2019

In Paul’s introduction to Titus, he is saying much more than what is said. In just a few sentences, he communicates three key messages about his ministry.

First, his ministry is entirely in hope of eternal life. This is a confident hope, not a a faint hope or a wish.

Second, Paul is a servant of God. Usually, he introduces himself as a “servant of Christ” but here he calls back to the ministry of Moses, the servant of God. He is sent with a mission from God through Jesus Christ, who transformed Paul from an enemy into the Apostle to the gentiles.

Third, Paul brings a message from God, who never lies. This is in sharp contrast between the behavior of both humans (“all Cretans are liars”) and gods. This means our faith is founded on the most solid thing of could be. This truth transforms us, and Paul’s role is to bring the knowledge of that truth to God’s elect, wherever and whoever they may be.

In Acts 26, Paul is presented to be judged by the Roman official Agrippa. In that interaction, though, Paul recounts how he came up be preaching the gospel, and what that gospel is: “To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

How are you growing in the knowledge of the truth? Sometimes we make this pursuit all about knowledge of the Bible, rather than knowledge of the truth – the Bible is vital, but unless we understand how the truth of the Bible intersects with our lives specifically, then we don’t really know “the truth which accords with godliness.”

Many of us would put a period in the middle of verse 1, “for the sake of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth.” But Paul goes on, because unless the truth accords with godliness, unless it transforms us and our behavior, then either it isn’t the truth to begin with, or it has not been truly received.

Christ offers a true hope of eternal life. It is a greater hope than offered by anything people put their faith in, whether health, or science, or some form of mysticism. It is our role to pass on that hope to those around us, both through our transformed behavior and through our words.

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, September 29, 2019

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians begins with a discussion of the blessings of the believer, then moves to the responsibilities of the believer, and finally the warfare of the believer. We must keep each of these in mind as we live our lives.

He opens the warfare section with the Armor of God, and then moves on to a prayer in this section. The way he puts it implies that the way that we put on the armor itself is by the exercise of prayer. John Calvin calls prayer “the ongoing exercise of faith.”

Often prayer is the missing component of our lives with Christ. Many of us are more comfortable with the academic or intellectual aspects of faith, but we aren’t instructed to be academics or intellectuals. We are instructed to pray.

We see prayer from the earliest interactions of God with his people – Job prayed he his (awful) friends, Abraham is in constant conversation with God, Moses prayed constantly for the people he led, Hannah prayed fervently and was blessed with a son, David put his heartfelt prayers to music, Hezekiah prayed for deliverance from the Assyrians and was granted it, Daniel prayed constantly, overtly and famously despite threats of death, while Nehemiah prayed ahead of his request to the king of Persia.

In the New Testament, Christ himself is constantly in prayer, gives us our model for prayer in the Lord’s prayer, was transfigured during a time of prayer, and kicked over tables in his zeal to see the temple as a house of prayer. When church begins, they are constantly coming together in prayer, both on an ongoing basis and in response to internal and external crises. The apostles themselves, when confronted with the material needs within the church, saw that they needed to bring on helpers to deal with the issue, because they themselves needed to be devoted, but only to teaching, but also to prayer.

On and on it goes on scripture. Earlier in this book, Paul discusses exactly how he prays for the Ephesians, providing us a model for praying for our fellow believers, something he is constantly encouraging the churches to do “without ceasing”.

The one way we are instructed here to put on the Armor of God is a prime way Satan attacks us – “praying at all times.” That does not come as easily to us as simply sitting and learning.

Paul uses the term “all” three times in verse 18. We pray rather naturally when we have needs or crises, but we are also told to pray when things are going well. At all times – and with all perseverance, keeping alert. It is easy to nod off during prayer, especially if we wait to pray until the end of the day!

We battle from the top down, not the bottom up. Sometimes Christians are accused of being “so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good,” but in reality we are rarely all that heavenly minded at all. You can’t really overdo prayer.

Here are a few things we should be praying for:

• For Christ to be first in our church
• For God’s word to change our lives
• Renewal, love and unity
• God’s wisdom for our leaders
• Our next pastor and his family
• Strength and joy for all who serve
• Our witness, personally and corporately.

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, September 22, 2019

We have so many things protecting our material assets and physical lives: from the military to police up security systems to cybersecurity to simple things like door locks. But the strength of our nation, of any nation, is not our military strength or economic might, but rather in our character. Whose responsibility is it to defend our morality?

Paul here in Ephesians discusses our spiritual defenses, in the form of the Armor of God. Each piece mentioned is a piece of defective equipment. Even the sword was a short sword, rather than the spear of a Greek hoplite or the longsword of the Celts. Paul was chained to soldier as he wrote this, so he had an up close and personal view of each item.

The first thing a soldier needs to put on is his belt. The belt is what holds everything together. Likewise, for us, the truth is where we must start. The truth of Christ is what holds the rest of our Christian lives together. Not only must we pursue the truth, but we must live the truth and speak the truth. This is harder than it sounds. Why do we have trials to pursue the truth of a crime? Because people lie. Of course they do! But we are called to better and more, and to start with the truth as our foundation.

Next, the soldier would put on the breastplate. We also must put on righteousness – it is not our righteousness, which comes from within, but the righteousness of Christ. But at must still live it out, because the world is watching our character. Our behavior can cast a shadow across the light of Christ. Just as the breastplate protects the main core of our body, so too does righteousness protect our witness.

Then comes the “readiness of the gospel of peace” which is to be put on like shoes or boots or sandals. The gospel is more than just the reconciliation of God with man, but also between each each other.

Next, with all the clothing put on, the soldier picks up the shield. These were not small rounds shields, but about four feet tall and built of leather over thick wood. Soldiers would often soak the shield in water, to extinguish fiery arrows. We are constantly under attack by Satan’s arrows, whether our own thoughts or the words of others, whether doubts about Christ, His word, our salvation or Christ’s love for us – our cynicism or compartmentalizion. The defense to all of these is faith.

Next we receive the helmet of salvation. This not only protects our spiritual lives the way a helmet protects the head, but, like the Roman plumed helmet, serves as identification on the battlefield.

Next and finally, we take up the sword of the spirit. This is the word of God, but the word used here is not logos, which is usually used when discussing the breadth of scripture, but rather rhema, a specific word. Like Jesus when he was tempted in the wilderness, we need specific words from scripture for specific moments of trial or temptation.

Our church has been through a lot lately, and Satan has been working overtime on the whole fiery arrows thing. But we have the answers and defenses close at hand. Most importantly, Christ has already won the ultimate victory.

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, September 15, 2019

Thyatira is a church with a lot going on. It’s a reminder that Jesus is at work in all things, using all the things that happen in our lives to prepare us for our ministry in the future.

Thyatira was the smallest town of the seven to receive a letter, but the letter itself is the longest – a reminder that the size of a church is not the highest priority of Jesus. It was the hometown of Lydia, and was known for its purple dyes, in which she was a dealer.

The church receives the longest list of accolades of any of the churches. Like the church of Thyatira, we should always be seeking to grow in love and faith. Everything we do, in fact, should be helping us grow in faith and love.

Jesus goes on to say that their growth in these areas resulted in higher, better works than this that came before. Can we say the same? Are we further ahead now than we were then? In the last year, we have had many opportunities to love and trust more. What have we done with them? Are we growing as believers? What about us as a church?

If the letter had ended here, it would have been great. But there is more.

If the church in Thyatira was around today, it would fit in well. Toleration is a key virtue now, and the combination of good works on one hand and the toleration of sexual sin on the other would make them look very good in the eyes of many today.

Jezebel was not the real name of this woman, but a reference to the historical figure who led the northern kingdom of Israel astray, ending in its destruction.

The issues described here come directly from the decision made by the early Church, described in Acts, to make circumcision optional, but to require that gentile believers avoid meat sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality. Jezebel was directly opposing this instruction.

The situation was that many of the trade guilds would hold official banquets involving sacrifices to pagan gods, eating the meat sacrificed, and often then becoming an orgy. These were cultural, economic and social events, and it seems like this Jezebel may have taught that, because of grace, we are covered and can participate in these activities of the culture around us, even if they are sinful.

Jesus clearly has a different, supreme perspective. And the warning that he gives makes it clear that we will be held accountable for how we live. The specifics of the judgment are not necessarily clear, though it seems to center around illness, but either way, it seems clear that we would rather be in the group Jesus encourages.

Those who did not buy into this statement are called to continue standing firm, but with no additional pressure or instructions.

And if they do, he promises that this small group within a small group will have “authority over the nations”. The specifics of this are hazy, but the upshot is that we will somehow be involved with Jesus’ ultimate kingdom. Everything this church was going through was preparing them for what Jesus has for them in the future. The same is true for us, both in the cosmic, eternal sense and in the practical, day-to-day sense. Everything we do is preparing us for what comes next.

One of the problems the Christian church has gotten into is that we fail to really about what comes next. As an old Puritan sermon says, “a believer’s last day is his best day.”

Something else we can learn from Thyatira is the nature of church conflicts. There are some issues, clearly, that are foundational and where toleration is not appropriate. Discerning these issues from the much more common, secondary issues that divide churches is vital.

The key takeaway is that all the struggles that we go through, all the conflicts, all the difficulties, as well as all the victories and successes, are preparing us for something much, much greater. “Only hold fast what you have until I come.”

– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, June 23, 2019