Missing the Mark Series: Disobedience

Missing the Mark Series: Disobedience

For our Scripture text in Titus chapter 3 this morning. So let's turn there together. And when we arrive there, let's begin the reading in verse number 1. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that, the kindness and love of God our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

And would you mark your Bible through this portion of Scripture? Scripture is our text for this morning's message. And let's pray the Lord's blessing on what we've read. Father, we've already been reminded this morning that we are in need of the Holy Spirit to illuminate our understanding and to enlighten us to what it is that you're saying through your word to be able to truly behold. We run the risk of familiarity causing us not to see what we need to see. Familiarity being that we've heard these words before. We pray, Lord, that you would help us.

I pray that you'd help me, Lord, to stand in awe at your word this morning. Help us to hear what it is that the Holy Spirit is saying to us. That the Spirit's saying to us, even individually, Lord, through the passage, through the word that we are reading this morning and that we are going to be looking into. We thank you that you do still speak. And that if we have that tender conscience and heart, that it can be like good ground that seed is able to grow up in. And so we pray that would be the case in our lives. Bless us now as we continue in this worship service for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

The first verse that we read instructs us to be respectful citizens. I think of Daniel, who even down in Babylon was known for obeying the laws of the land as long as they did not prohibit him. As long as they did not prohibit him from obeying the laws of the land. As long as they did not prohibit him from obeying God and doing God's will. And so that's a pattern that we ought to follow. And even we're commanded here to be subject to principalities and powers. To obey magistrates. Not to obey orders to sin, of course. But to obey magistrates. To be ready to do every good work.

As Christians, we ought to be model citizens, haven't we? We ought to be, you know, people ought to be able to look at us and say they're not troublemakers just for the sake of being trouble, you know, rebels. We're not to be rebels to be rebels. There may be some things we can't go along with at times, but nonetheless, we ought to be, let our moderation be known unto all men. Now, the passage goes on and it says, it's telling us how we ought to treat. Others, how are we, how are we to treat others? Verse two, well, we're to speak evil of no man. We're not to slander others, right? We're, we're to not be brawlers. So we're not being brawlers. We're not to be quarreling and argumentative. That's not to mark our lives.

We're, we are to be gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. Some, sometimes, maybe certain dispositions. It just seems like. People feel like, maybe even some of us feel, apart from the Lord's grace, like we're not doing something unless we're fighting or whatever, you know, but that's, that's not what we're to be known for is. I think some people have more of a fiery disposition and others have more of a passive disposition. Whatever the case may be, let us not, let us not be like we used to be. If that's how we used to be. Let us be gentle. Let us be showing meekness. All meekness unto all men. That's going to require the humbling of pride in our hearts and our lives.

And it says here in verse three, for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish. It goes down a list of saying things that we were. We were foolish. We were disobedient. We were deceived. Paul says we were serving divers lust and pleasures. We were living in malice and envy. We were hateful and we were hating one another. These are characteristics of a life lived according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. And I want to, I want to draw out of that list today. This word, particularly this word disobedient. We were, what did he say here? For we ourselves also were, among other things, we were disobedient. That was a distinguishing mark of our lives. We were disobedient.

What exactly that looked like will be different in each life, but we were disobedient in the old life. Well, the passage makes it very clear here. Our old life was one in which we were unregenerate. We were, we were unregenerate. And that old life, what does it say here? Now we speaks about the washing of regeneration in verse five. But we were, we were not born again. We were dead in trespasses and sins. We were lost. We were helpless before we were saved. The passage says here in verse number, verse number five, according to his mercy, he saved us. He saved us. He delivered us. And we were without hope in that old life of disobedience. We were unregenerate. We were lost. We were without hope.

What does it say here? It says that we were, that being justified by his grace, the reason he justified us by his grace is that we should be made heirs according to the hope. According to that blessed expectation of eternal life. And so now we have life. We have, we are saved. We have been delivered. We have hope. And therefore we are no longer to live in the former disobedience, among other things, foolishness, deception, all of that, hate. We're not to live in those things. And really all of those things, we could make the argument here, make the case, whatever you want to say. We can make the case that all of those things are aspects of disobedience. They're all disobedience to the Lord. The word literally means it's noncompliance. We're not compliant with the Lord.

I want to take a few moments to delve into that. We're a little bit more in this message this morning. This word here in the text is an ad is in the adjective, the form of an adjective. The word disobedient is, it means impersuasible, not compliant. Disobedient is translated. The adjective is translated six times into the English. Every one of those times, the translators use the word disobedient. Disobedient, when it's an adjective. When it's a verb, or I'm sorry, when it's a noun, the noun is translated. I think the translators picked up on some, part of the meaning of this word as well when they translated it unbelief. Four times. Four times it is translated unbelief as a noun, and three times it is translated disobedience. Disobedience.

You know, every message, I don't give the breakdown of the Greek word or the Hebrew word, but today I want to do that just so you can see what I'm saying here. We know in English the ah is a prefix. The letter a is a prefix that is talking about not something. It's the opposite of something. It's not whatever the main stem is going to be with that word, in that word. And so we see that it's not, it's the negative of something, and the verb patho means to persuade, or when we have pathomai here, it is to be prevailed on or won over or persuaded to comply. And so, not won over. Not persuaded to comply. And therefore, resistance. But it has this component of persuasion, right? And therefore, the disobedience is not cooperating with what the one that wants you to cooperate with something, whatever they want you to do, you're not cooperating with it. You're not, you're not complying with this. And you have made a, a, a, a choice. I see what you want me to do, and I'm not going, I'm just not going to do that. You know, when a, a traffic stop is had, you know, that, that's the word, that's the verbiage that a, you know, law enforcement officer uses if somebody is resisting arrest. They are not compliant. They're not complying with the officer's demands, or whatever the case may be. They're, they're non-compliant.

Well, as it pertains to the Lord, this is a failure, a refusal to be convinced about some particular thing that he has to say, and a re, a rejection of attempts to persuade one to, to comply with the claims being made, or the, the directives being given. And so, it is disobedience. It is disobedience, but we can also see how the translator views, the word, unbelief. It's, it's, it's almost like, I'm not willing to believe that. I am not willing to believe what you're telling me. Maybe it's because I don't want to believe it. I don't want to comply with what you have to say, and what you're expecting of me. People can come to understand the claims of the gospel, and yet reject, and not believe. Not be compliant with, you know, statements being made like, how can, how can a just, how can a loving God send someone to hell? I mean, you know, things like that. Now, ultimately, God knows what's in the heart. God knows what is going to, you know, I mean, people can say that, and can still end up trusting in the Lord. But there must be a day when that individual comes to the end, of their road. They come to the point where they realize, I'm wrong. God is right. And, because God does not force us to comply. Well, he ultimately will force us to comply with judgment, yes. But he does not force a man, a woman, boy, or girl, to comply with his saving work. He does not force someone into this salvation.

Paul, as he preached to the Jews, he was, he was persuading men. He was speaking with them, desiring that they would believe the claims, with convincing arguments, with convincing, not with the wisdom of men's words, but speaking plainly with them. By the power of the Holy Ghost, he spoke and desiring that God would give the increase, and that hearts would be changed. You know, and even when John came, he preached the message, he preached the message of repentance. To turn, and the desire was to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, the scripture says. And ultimately to prepare, to make a people prepare for the Lord.

So, when we see this obstinacy, or this failure to comply with God's will and word, that's what disobedience is here. In this word, we were, we were disobedient. Well, the scripture is going to go on and talk about the children of disobedience. We were literally the children of disobedience. That's, that's the life that we lived.

But now, the implication is that we are the children of obedience. We are now, oh, we're of the day. We've been singing and memorizing, not of the night, nor of the darkness. That means we're not to sleep as do others. We're not any longer to live in that disobedience wherein we once lived. Romans 6 will say we're to yield our members, right? Isn't it Romans 6? Yeah, to yield our members, servants of righteousness unto holiness. We're to yield ourselves to God. That's compliance, willing compliance. We no longer are under the delusion, that we had some, we had something in that old life that is worth going back to, right? We had something, what fruit had you then of those things whereof ye are now ashamed? As the children of obedience. As the children of the light, as the children of the day. We're not of the night. We're not of the darkness. As we just pointed out here in the verses we sang this morning.

But unbelieve. want us to get this very clearly. Undelief is equated with disobedience here. This unbelief, this unwillingness to believe. Look in Psalm 119 with me. Psalm 119 verse 128. We see there are many different words for sin and what God has shown us about the nature of sin and how it misses the mark, how we miss the mark when we sin against him. We have been speaking about this for several weeks now and the reason we want to hide God's word in our hearts is that we might not sin against him. That we might not, that we might comply and we might believe and trust what he says and obey it, not disobey him. And here in Psalm 119 verse 128. 128. It says this. The psalmist says, therefore I esteem all thy precepts. I'm sorry, let me, I think it's actually 128. Give me just a second. Yes, Psalm 119, 128. I meant to put the one in there. I thought I had corrected that.

You know how it is. You look at it and you think I need to put the one in and you never do it. So 128. Psalm 119 verse 128. 128. Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right. And I hate, because I, because I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, I hate every false way. I do not, I do not want to comply with the wrong things. I do not want to comply with the false way because I know it's just bondage. I know it's deception. I know it's evil. I know it's wicked. I know it's not good for me and it's not glorifying to God. So I, I hate those things. You know, cleave to that which is good. Abhor that which is evil. Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. The scripture says. So I, I take God's word to be true concerning all those things that it speaks about. And I, and I want, as he says here, to esteem those things to be right.

Do we believe what God's word says about sin? Do we believe that, you know, a sinner needs to believe, first of all, that that word speaking about them, not just Jesus died for all mankind, but Jesus died for me. I believe the Bible is talking about me. I believe I am a sinner. I believe that this is true about me. That's the first step. Of, of compliance, of obedience. I, I believe it. And, and then I also believe, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me. I believe that. And because I believe that, I am going to conf, I, I believe in my heart and I'm going to confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not because somebody's forcing me to do it. It's because I, I'm persuaded of the claims of, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the gospel. And therefore, I'm even going to follow in believer's baptism. I'm going to publicly identify myself with the, what, with the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for me, signifying and testifying publicly that this is what he's done for me. I'm going to obey the Lord in that. And then I also read in the Bible that, you know, that all of, all of the things that he says, and I began to explore his word. I believe that. I believe that he's telling me the truth. I believe this is true.

I may not always be able. How can I say it? You know, people, the, the, the, the atheist or the, the agnostic says, prove it, prove it, prove it, prove it, prove it. I may not be able. There's a lot of things that I cannot, that are invisible that I can't show you visibly. I can't, I can't prove them to you, but I can, it's kind of like you can't get there, get here from there. You've got to go. You've got to go this way to get to where I am. You might, you might see something that's not far away, but you can't get over there because there's not an access to it. Just by, well, prove that to me right there. No, it's kind of like Jesus, his own hometown people said, well, why don't you work those wonderful miracles over here that you did in Capernaum, you know, uh, that you did in other places. And it was not a believing spirit. It was not the, it was more of a spirit of, prove it to me, kind of spirit. Show it to us. Show us all the things you've been doing over there, you know, that's not how somebody gets saved.

The person must be in the position that the publican was, publican was in God, be merciful to me a sinner. I believe, I believe I am a sinner. I believe that only you can save me. And then line upon line, precept upon precept, we hear and we understand. And he gives more light and we hear and we understand and he gives more light. And as we understand, then we step out in faith on and obedience to God's words. And that's what walking by faith looks like. You can't prove somebody into the kingdom. They must be born again. They must be, they must get lost before they can get saved. They must see I am a filthy, dirty, rotten sinner that needs to be born again. And I am in disobedience. I am in rebellion against my creator, but it's what a wonder he's even given me the time of day, the long suffering of the Lord, his salvation. And so we see that this is how a person comes to the Lord and how a person grows in the Lord is simply hearing and believing what God's saying and obeying it. And now I grow and now I grow.

Well, in Psalm 19, verse number 10, Psalm 19, verse number 10, it says, words, and we certainly could take the time to go through the book of Proverbs and look at the claims about wisdom. But Psalm 19, verse 10 says, more to be desired are they. These are all of God's precepts, all of God's, even the things that we, you know, testimony, statutes, precepts, but the more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than fine, much fine gold. Sweeter also than the honey, than honey and the honeycomb. You know, if children weren't so cute, if, if they weren't so adorable and God had not put just a, in a mother or in a father, you know, you wonder as you're, as this child is going through the gestational period and is, is being formed in the womb and, you know, what am I going to feel? What am I going to think when I see that child? You know, you see other people's children, you think, oh, they're cute, you know, but they're other people's children, they're not your children. But when you hold that life in your hands and you think, it's mine, this is, this is, this is my child.

And God, even on the worst possible days when they've offended the worst they can possibly offend, there's just still that love that God puts in the heart of a parent from them. For their child. And, and I think about how God puts that love in our hearts. He puts that, that love in our hearts for his word, because what, even, even if we stray away from God's word, do we not remember? Do we not look at David's example and he remembers how God has helped me so much in the past, how good God has been to me through his word in the past, how he spoke to me how he's met my needs and, and we see that, you know, I'm, I'm, maybe not the perfect illustration, but I'm just thinking about that love that we have for our children, the love we, sometimes we don't love God's word as much as we ought to. But, but as we think about it, how valuable God's word is, how sweet it is, how fine, better than fine gold. Because fine gold can, you know, be stolen and taken away, and it's only temporary in value. This is eternal in value.

Well, in that word, we find many things. We find warnings that are given to us in that word. I think about warnings that we hear or we see spoken of in the Scriptures. Mordecai, he overheard a plot by the guards to kill King Ahasuerus or Xerxes. He overheard that plot, and what did he do? Well, he let the king know about the plot. He got the word to the king that they're trying to kill you. Paul's nephew overheard a plot of the Jews to take his life, and he got the word not only to Paul, but also to the centurion. He got the word to the authorities, and when that warning was heard, it was heeded, right? You know, somebody comes to you. They take the time and the energy, and they make the sacrifice to kill you. They make the sacrifice to inform you of something that is going to harm you. Thank you so much. I'll definitely look into that, or I'll definitely do something about that right now because, you know, there's no failure to, you know, if you take their word as true and legitimate, then you're going to look into that, right?

And you're going to say, okay, what is this? What is this about? Well, God warned the wise men not to return to Herod in the dream. He warned James. He warned Joseph not to take the young child, or to take the young child, Jesus, down into Egypt. And when God tells us something in His word, we need to heed it. We need to comply with it. Because God is telling us the truth. He's always told us the truth. He's told us the truth about ourselves. He's not going to stop telling us the truth about ourselves. Everything He says is true. And it needs to be heeded. It needs to be complied with. It needs to be believed. That even sometimes God may have to tell us some hard things. He does tell us. There's some things in God's word that are difficult to hear. But God wouldn't tell us those things because He hates us. We know He loves us. And so He tells us those things to warn us, to protect us, to guard us.

If you have folks that live along the Outer Banks, you know, for instance, on Barrier Island, basically, it's a strand of sand out there. You know, I don't know, Category 5, Hurricane. Now, we've had one of those bearing down on the coast and then it slowed down and dissipated and all that. But if you've got one that's impending and the authorities say, you must evacuate now or you may be killed in this storm. Well, some choose to ride those kind of storms out. They think, they believe that they're wiser than the authorities for whatever reason, you know, on that matter. Or I'm going to ride out the storm. You know, I'll make it. I'll make it through this storm. Well, sometimes it doesn't happen. Sometimes they don't make it. Sometimes they do. It's a gamble, we might say, so to speak. But every time, if we disregard God's warnings and God's Word, we can trust, we can be 100% sure that He's not short-sighted or He's not knowledgeable of something that will happen to make sure that we kind of, you know, well, you knew better in that situation. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad it worked out for you kind of thing. No, God's not like that. When He tells us something, it's 100% true. God doesn't make, you know, idle words. He doesn't say idle things just to get us riled up.

So to disobey God is to fail to, what did we see that word a couple weeks ago on a Sunday night? The word parakoei, it means a failure to hear. If to disobey God, that is a failure to hear, failure to listen to what He's saying to us, or a failure to be persuaded by and compliant with what He's saying to us. If that, if both, our translators translated that word, both of those words, disobey, disobedience. By one man's disobedience, parakoei. Failure to hear, failure to listen to what God's saying. And then now failure to be persuaded and to comply with what is being said. Then to obey God is to listen and hear fully, what are you saying to me, Lord? We said this morning, hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.

And then, hear what He says to us and show, and there will be evidence that if we actually hear what He says, that we are being won over or persuaded to comply, not forced, but persuaded to comply with His word by, now what's going to come out of our words and our actions after we've heard what He's had to say. And so that's, if we're actually growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it will include this hearing, persuasion, and compliance. It will result in those things in our lives. That's where we grow. Grow in the grace. Grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior. This is not just talking about filling your head with knowledge that puffs you up. No, it actually should be evident that it's humbling you, that God is showing you more about Himself as you grow in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is what, you know, hitting the mark will look like. If missing the mark looks like defiance and disobedience to God's word, childlike faith, trusting and obeying God is hitting the mark. That's what's pleasing to the Lord. This is pleasing to Him. This is good ground. Paul would tell Agrippa over in Acts 29, verse 18, 26, verse 19, I'm sorry. I'm adding things there. Acts 26, verse 19, he said, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. I was not disobedient. Unto the heavenly vision. I don't think Paul was going, look at me, I'm really just some, you know, spiritual superhero here. He's not saying that. He was just saying, I'm trying to persuade you, Agrippa, but the Lord had to persuade me.

I'm sharing with you things that I have come to believe are true and I am so convinced of them that I, a Jew, took this gospel to the Gentiles, because God told me that's what I need to do. I was not disobedient to Him. I was obedient. I was persuaded and complied with God's will, even though that may not have been what I would, certainly would not be what I would have chosen myself, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. I am obedient to the Lord. It's, you know, if a person is saved and goes to heaven, that is, there's no credit that gets placed on that person. All the glory goes to God. If a person goes to hell, rejecting Jesus Christ, rejecting the claims of the gospel, the blame is on them. The blame is on that person. It's not, it will not be because God did not extend His grace to that soul.

So, do we make excuses for noncompliance in our life or do we ignore it? Do we acknowledge it as sin? Do we acknowledge it as sin and confess it to the Lord and then get up and say, what would you have me to do, Lord? What are you trying to say to me, Lord? What are you teaching me? What do you want me to know and how do you want me to grow? We must acknowledge, well, if we're going to grow, we must acknowledge sin for what it is and we must be obedient. Do we justify a little deception in our lives? In order to avoid confrontation or keep peace or whatever the case may be. Do we, the Lord says, all lying is to be put away, doesn't He? All lying. Let it be put away from you. We can't lean to our own understanding. You remember how Jeremiah said, cursed be the man that maketh flesh his arm. His heart departeth from the Lord. Instead, he said, blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord. Jeremiah 17, verse 7. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is.

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the river and he shall not see when heat cometh but her leaf shall be green and shall not see when heat cometh and her leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought. Neither shall it cease yielding from our yielding. And so, the fruit. So, the Bible has a lot to say, doesn't it? The Bible has a lot to say that it's part of our growth. It's part of our Christian growth that will only come as we, as we, pay for my, as we are persuaded by and we comply with willingly and gladly the claims of the Lord. You know, there are things that talk about what husbands are to do. You know, love your wives. Be not bitter against them. Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as unto the Lord and children, obey your parents. There's all those things. But there's also things like we read the scripture, we're to be patient toward others rather than retaliating, right? 1 Thessalonians, we've seen that in chapter 5, verse number 14.

Be patient toward all men. Toward all men. We've seen some, we've seen some, you know, and I believe this is a very important passage for us to memorize because there are some daily things that are very important for us to remember as we live, as we're waiting on the Lord, as we're grateful for what He's done for us and we're waiting for Him to either come for us or call us home in death. We need to be giving thanks in everything. That's, that's not an easy one to obey, is it? In all things. In everything. Give thanks. The scripture says, you know, to pray without ceasing. The scripture, the scripture says, don't, in so many words, publicize your, your good deeds when you do them. You know, don't let your right hand let you know what your left hand does or whatever, however that, is it the left hand or the right? Don't let one hand know what the other hand's doing. Don't publicize it. Do it as unto the Lord. Are we obeying the Lord now? Are we obeying the Lord and not being careful about anything?

Being anxious over nothing but in everything by prayer? Are we obeying the Lord and not, forsaking the assembling of ourselves together with God's people? Are we obeying the Lord and not, letting corrupt communication proceed out of our mouth, but rather that which is good to the edifying of the hearer? Oh, we could just go on and on. There's, these are all part of the, a sanctified Christian walk, aren't they? They're all part of living for Jesus and living through His strength. Not through our own. Obeying. Obedience. May we trust and obey the Lord. You're not going to be happy, as the hymn says. I'm not going to be happy unless I am daily walking with the Lord, simply trusting and obeying. I trust that what He says is true. I do not lean to my own understanding because I'm trusting Him. And this is true joy, true happiness comes to the heart that is simply trusting. Trusting the Lord. If we're not failing to hear the Lord, but we are believing what He's telling us, may it be seen in obedience.

Let's pray. Father, thank You for these moments we've had in Your Word. We pray, Lord, that You would help us to gladly, gladly listen to You and comply with Your rightful demands and commands and directives that You give us. And Your Word, they're for our good. They're not meant in any way to harm or hinder us, but actually, by taking heed to them, we may grow and be fruitful as we patiently trust and obey Your way instead of leaning to our own understanding. Help us to do that, Lord. Help us to grow. Help us to be the children You'd have us to be. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.