Download Purity in the Lord*s Church - Lake Mount Church of Christ

Titus 1:10-16
The church must strive for purity.
 Pure in its organization
 True to its original form
 Organization of the Lord’s church
 Christ is the head and He has ordained positions of authoritative
responsibility.

Evangelist and Elders


having been cleansed met the qualifications.
and lead servants; Deacons
 Beyond that we have some liberty, but there is no hierarchy of
church

leaders who write church law.
 Titus was supposed to set up the same types of congregations in
the same manner that Timothy was working with and instructed
to do so in Ephesus.
 Christ calls for unity in his body.
 Not just in spirit, but in truth as well.
The
church
must
strive
for
purity.
 Pure in its teachings.
 Paul warned Titus in verse 10, “that there are many rebellious
people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those
of the circumcision group.”
 Paul warned Timothy about a similar type of people at
Ephesus in I Timothy 1:3-11
 The circumcision group were those known as the Judaizers;
who believed and taught that for a person to be a Christian
then they had to be circumcised and observe the OT law.
 Paul instructed that both groups were to be silenced.

Titus 1:11, “They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole
households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for
the sake of dishonest gain.”
The church must strive for purity
 Pure in its teachings
 True to the teachings of Christ and his word
 Paul spoke specifically about Hymenaeus and Philetus
who had ship wrecked their faith and were teaching that
the resurrection had already taken place, and they
destroyed the faith of some.

I Timothy 1:20 & II Timothy 2:17-18
 Just because people appear to believe in God doesn’t
make their teachings correct.
 Also, just because a church looks Christian doesn’t mean
that it is.
Compare Titus 1:16 with…
Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord,
Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one
who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many
will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not
prophesy in your name and in your name drive out
demons and in your name perform many miracles?” Then
I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me,
you evildoers!”
Compare Titus 1:16 with…
I Timothy 1:5-7, “The goal of this command is love,
which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience
and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and
have turned to meaningless talk. The want to be teachers
of the law, but they do not know what they are talking
about or what they so confidently affirm.”
Compare Titus 1:16 with…
II Timothy 4:3, “For the time will come when people will
not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own
desires, they will gather around them a great number of
teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”
 Christian—belonging to Christ
 You can’t belong to Christ unless you have been
circumcised by the Spirit which takes place at baptism
into Christ.

Colossians 2:11-12
 It is important to have elders who, “hold firmly to the
trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he
can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute
those who oppose it.”—Titus 1:9
The church must strive for purity.
 Pure in its actions
 True to the form of Christ
 The false teachers that Paul warned Titus about were
motivated by dishonest gain and their actions denied
their knowledge of God and actually made them
detestable, disobedient and unfit to do any good work.
The church must strive for purity.
 Pure in its actions
 Titus 1:15, “To the pure, all things are pure, but to those
who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In
fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.”
 How they think, what they think, why they think, and
what they think is acceptable have all been corrupted.
I Timothy 4:1-4, “The Spirit clearly says that in later
times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving
spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings
come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have
been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to
marry and order them to abstain from certain foods,
which God created to be received with thanksgiving by
those who believe and who know the truth. For everything
God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is
received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by
the word of God and prayer.”
The church must strive for purity.
 Pure in its actions
 “To the pure, all things are pure,”

Those who have been cleansed or washed by Christ.
 “all things are pure,”—the teachings of Christ and Paul
in regard to marriage and food—Mark 7:14-22; Romans
14:20
 Could pertain to all of Christ’s teachings.
 These are what guide our actions. Not myths or human
commands.
 Our conscience is only as good as we train it.
“The “conscience” is an innate faculty that prompts you to
do what your mind thinks is right, and criticizes you when
you do what your mind thinks is wrong. Defilement of the
conscience means that one has ignored the promptings of the
conscience so long, that the conscience ceases to work. And
when it ceases to work, one of the most precious safeguards
of the soul has been lost.”—Gareth Reese, Timothy and Titus, Pg. 346
 The church must strive to be pure…
 In its organization
 In its teachings
 And in its actions
We must be made pure to be a part of it.