Sermon: Liars, Evil Beasts, Slow Bellies (Titus 1:5-16)

Liars, Evil Beasts, Slow Bellies Sunday, August31st, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 1:5–16

Prayer

Father, we thank You for your living word, that is a hammer, a fire, a two-edged sword against evil, and also a healing balm to comfort our wounded soul. Give us each now what we most need from Your word, whether conviction or consolation or both, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

For four consecutive weeks we have studied the 16 qualifications to be a pastor/teacher in the church. And this morning we turn now to the purpose for all of those qualifications, which is twofold:

• One reason we need qualified pastors is because Paul says there are many false teachers who need to be silenced.
• And second, because there are entire households listening to false teaching, being seduced and led astray by them (sometimes without knowing it), and they need to be rescued by a sharp rebuke.
• The goal of all of this refutation of errors and instruction in what is true, is so that as Paul says in verse 13, “they may be sound in the faith.” This is the goal and end of a qualified biblical eldership and of good presbyterian government: soundness in the faith once received.
• God wants the body of Christ to be a healthy body. And therefore, as the Head of the church, and the Supreme Bishop of our souls, Christ commands true teachers to silence and refute false teachers, and he commands faithful members to only listen to faithful and trustworthy men.
  • This is how the body of Christ builds itself up in love. For as Paul says in Ephesians 4:15-16, but, speaking the truth in love, [we] may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
  • So just as a small infection in one part of the body can easily spread to the rest, so must the body of Christ seek soundness, wholeness, and vitality in all of its members.
  • This means that every single person in the church, (including you!) has a part to play. Sin in one member can spread to another. And likewise, health in one member can spread to the rest. It says in Proverbs 13:20, He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed. So who are you walking with? What body are you a part of?
  • The nature of body-life is to walk together in love, to uphold one another when we trip or stumble, to encourage one another when we grow weary, and like good soldiers in the Lord’s army, we leave no soul behind.
    • The pastor John Piper likes to say, “sanctification is a community project.” Meaning, our individual growth and health, or lack thereof, impacts the rest of the body. This is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.
  • This letter from Paul to Titus is a good test. It is a routine spiritual checkup as to whether you are sound in the faith, or wavering. Whether you are living up to that high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:14), or whether you are slacking and forgetting your first love (Rev 2:4).
  • Paul says in Hebrews 3:13, But exhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. How often does God think you need encouragement, exhortation, help from one another? He says here daily. Every day we desperately need Jesus. His mercies are new every morning, because every night we forget that we need them. We need God, and we need one another, far more than we think we do.
  • And so Paul has written Titus to give us many exhortations, exhortations we can than share with one another, and practice together. This is the body life God intends every Christian to have.
• So this morning our focus will be on verses 10-14, which includes exhortations about false teachers and how to deal with them.

Outline of the Text

• In verses 10-11 we have False Teachers Defined
• In verses 12-13a we have National Sins Exposed
• In verses 13b-14 we have The Christian’s Response to False Teaching

Verses 10-11 – False Teachers Defined

10For there are m