The Need to Lead
Titus 1:5-16
June 30, 2019
preached by Robert Moore
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Time of Reflection Quotations
“The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve.”
~ John Stott
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.”
~ C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
“Merely wandering around in a clueless twilight is not seeking. The relativism which is not willing to speak about truth but only about “what is true for me” is an evasion of the serious business of living. It is the mark of a tragic loss of nerve in our contemporary culture. It is a preliminary symptom of death.”
~ Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
“You are to follow no man further than he follows Christ.”
~ John Collins
“To reject authority, as so many in our day do, is short-sighted and self-destructive. A world without authority would be like desires with no restraints, a car with no controls, an intersection with no traffic lights, a game with no rules, a home with no parents, a world without God. It could go on for a little while, but before long it would seem pointless, then cruel, and finally tragic.”
~ Mark Dever, Understanding Church Leadership
“You may be a businessman or some high degree thief,
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief.
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed,
You’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
~ Bob Dylan, “Gotta Serve Somebody”
“To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.”
~ Titus 1:15
“If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.”
~ Richard Dawkins
“The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
~ Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage
Sermon Passage
Titus 1:5-16 (ESV)
5 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7 For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. 11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. 12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. 15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.