Sermon: Purity Cult (Titus 1:15)

Purity Cult Sunday, September 7th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 1:15

Prayer

O Lord, Who may abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Only he who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart. So grant us now such truth, such justice, such uprightness of faith, so that with pure hands and a clean heart, we may ascend into thy loving presence, and find rest there for our weary souls. Grant us this through Christ Jesus our Lord who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end, and Amen.

Introduction

It says in Proverbs 11:22, He that loveth pureness of heart, For the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend. He who loves purity of heart, and has grace upon his lips, the king shall be his friend.

• Do you have King Jesus for a friend? Do you love purity of heart? Do people say about you what God says about the Proverbs 31 woman? She openeth her mouth with wisdom; And in her tongue is the law of kindness (Prov 31:26).
  • Friendship with God, the King of all creation, is the ultimate end for which Christ suffered, died, and rose again the third day. Jesus Christ came to this earth to reconcile sinners to God. To make us who were enemies into friends of God, who like Moses may speak with Him face to face, even as a man speaks to his friend (Ex 33:11).
  • It says in Ephesians 2:14-17, For he [Christ] is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of two one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And [he] came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
• The world in its sin and perversity was not clean in the eyes of God. Both Jew and Gentile alike were not friends of God, we were not friends of one another, we were as pigs in a pen wallowing in the mud, as irrational animals pursuing our own sinful desires. That is who God says we all were and are apart from grace. There is none righteous, no, not one (Rom 3:10).  Some people acknowledge that, while others still live in denial.
  • Of such sin-deniers it says in Proverbs 30:12, There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, And yet is not washed from their filthiness.
  • The deception of sin is that we don’t know how sinful we really are. We can get so used to smelling bad that we become nose deaf. We can get so used to our own foul stench and body odor, that we have no idea how offensive our lives are to God and to other people.
  • And while God could have justly left us in that defiled state, He chose instead to pity us, when no one else would.
    • God says to His people in Ezekiel 16:4-7, On the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out into the open field, when you yourself were loathed on the day you were born. And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful.
  • This is what God desires to do for you. To make you not only clean, but beautiful. To regenerate you and to wash you by His Holy Spirit. It says in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, For this is the will of God, even your sanctification. And it is that sanctifying grace alone that makes us capable of friendship with God the king.
• Now this morning we come to a text in Titus that is all about purity and defilement. And I have titled this sermon Purity Cult, because just like there were many rival religions and cults pursuing purity in the 1st century, so also today. Just like there were Jewish Cretans and Hypocritical Pharisees who prized purity in external matters, but were filthy in the