Lessons Learned from My International Courtship, Part 3

18. If I compare myself with others, I will cease to be satisfied in Christ and will probably become covetous. He really is all-satisfying, and I really do see Him as all-sufficient, if I run after Him like a horse wearing blinders. Covetousness, on the other hand, is at the root of all kinds of sin, not the least of which is discontentment with what God has given me. If I balk at losing a courtship, how would I handle real suffering for the name of Christ?

19. There is no magic reset button that erases my memory of the courtship and helps me feel much better. And I don't want that. I don't regret meeting her. I was expecting that a recent church camp and conference in May would cure me of the pain that I have felt as a result of this courtship ending. But I continue to think about it every day; it enters my mind whenever my mind is idle, and even when I am trying to read or worship. Thoughts about her and the other characters in this story haunt me. Healing takes however long it takes, and I cannot draw a deadline for it.

20. I must rejoice with those who rejoice regardless of whether I have received the same blessings. Recently, one of my good friends got married. He is in his mid-30s and had never been on a date until about 2 years ago. Their wedding, in May between the church camp and the conference, was hard for me to bear. This was the first wedding I had attended since my courtship ended. I was happy for them, but during the ceremony my expression was a blank stare. One of my friends noticed that. Ignoring another person's happiness is actually disobeying Scripture.

21. People in the theological rarefied air of Reformed Christianity tend to have less faith than people who embrace false doctrine. Her family firmly believes that God will turn the Philippines into a Christian nation with an all-Christian government and no political corruption, if only they pray and fast enough. They were also quite convinced for a while that God would give them good things and that I was "the man for her". Meanwhile, I would sit in my collection of books and podcasts, trying to deconstruct the myth of "the one" for them and explain how God promises that Christians are going to suffer and you should feel fortunate if God gives you anything good on this earth. And my conclusion is that maybe I have gone too far in this. I am believing the right things, but it has led me to a general lack of faith and a doubt when I pray for God to bless me or to work in the lives of others. And that shouldn't be. My God is bigger than the god of the health and wealth gospel, because He saves me from my sin, not my lack of self-esteem, and He keeps me regardless of me.

22. I am still trying to rebuild a prayer life that was formerly much better than it became during the courtship. Before the courtship started, I was praying radically for the nations, especially for the Philippines. On the way to work, I would pray through tears for members of the New People's Army and the Abu Sayyaf, the two most major terrorist organizations in the Philippines, that God would tear out their hearts of stone, which exist in every man, woman, and child, not only in criminals, and replace them with a heart of flesh that can respond to Him - that He would pour clean water on them and they would be clean, for His glory. During the courtship, my prayers turned mostly toward her, that she would be right for me, that she would make much of Christ and grow in Christlikeness and knowledge of and about Him. As the courtship went on and I realized that she and I did not share the same vision, my prayers about her got more and more desperate until I realized, months later, that I just needed to submit to the Lord and let her go. But now that I don't have her to pray about, I am praying more for myself and others to be able to sustain their spiritual and emotional highs that we get at camps and conferences.

23. Much of what I looked for and prayed for in a wife does not really matter. I was focused too much on outward appearance and background. Just because I have a covenant with my eyes regarding how I look at women, that I will only look at their faces, does not mean at all that I don't have idolatry regarding "what is the perfect face"! Even if I do not focus my prayers toward the... er... non-facial attributes of a woman's appearance, I still spent a lot of time before I met her telling God, "Lord, I want her to be exactly this cute!" After a while, He answered that prayer and showed me over time that I should not have prayed for that.

24. The above raises a question: why are my prayers so focused on her outward appearance? A large part of it is the pride that I will feel if I outdo other members of my family or my friends by marrying someone who looks very beautiful. I have never been popular, but being able to be the ugly half of the world's cutest couple gives me status among my friends. Having cute children in the future increases that status. During my courtship, I felt much more confident than I did before or do now. Another reason is fear. I know several men who more well-read in theology than I am, quite close to Christ, quite a lot more well-prepared for marriage than most of the "men" I know who actually get married - and yet they do not marry until later in life than most. I have fear that it is my fate to stay single for life or for a while, when I am too weak to stay unmarried intentionally for an extended time, and then settle for a woman who takes care of herself spiritually but not physically. (Speaking of which, I have a very disciplined workout routine and took a break from my workout for this morning to write this. I took a break since I have the time and energy to write right now. :-) ) Yet God's grace is enough.

25. The other half of that question is "... when God looks at the heart?" - both her heart and mine. The pool of available candidates becomes much smaller when I narrow it to only women who are not Sunday Christians, but who have a radical vision to make much of Christ. And having a common vision is not about wanting to have a bunch of cute kids and raising them just so, because that can be done in a way that does not make much of Him. Rather, it is a question of where her ambitions lie. Does she realize the seriousness and urgency of Christ's kingdom and seek to live in a war? Does she know how to be alone with the Lord and delight in Him? Does she desire to sit under sound preaching and be convicted by the Word of God? Does she know how to be an intercessor, not for health and wealth, but for redemptive history to move forward, for Christ to be supreme locally and among the nations? Does she have a heart to draw others closer to Christ? Does she love the body of Christ sacrificially? Can it truly be said that this world is not worthy of her? All of this is what matters, and not her perfection in each point but her making progress toward it. As a man, I must be able to lead this kind of woman spiritually. To do that, I must not be a Sunday Christian either. This also intensifies my own drive to spiritual maturity. When I do meet her (probably another "her" now), I must also be the kind of person that desires to make God's name great in my own life, in my local church, and among the nations.

These and the lessons I listed in the two previous posts are just 25 of the lessons that I have learned in the first 3 months since my courtship ended. I am sure the Lord will continue to teach me about this as time goes on. My courtship was not recreational dating, so going through this has felt like going through a divorce. For now, I still think about her and what might have been every day. But I am starting to move past it, by the grace of God.

In the next post, God willing, I would like to make exhortations to my fellow singles in the body of Christ who sense a calling to marriage but are still waiting to meet their future spouse.

Lessons Learned from My International Courtship, Part 2

9. My love for the Philippines is not tied to her. I still have a deep love for that country and its people! At nag-aaral pa ako sa wikang Tagalog... :-) More than ever, I want to take a missions trip there. In part, this courtship has helped me to define why I want to go and what work desperately needs to be done there. Their love for others is great, but their doctrine is shallow. I wish that they would learn our doctrine and we Americans could learn their love. Love is, in fact, a much greater sign that someone truly knows Christ than good doctrine; anyone can memorize. Although I am but a layman, I would love to go over there and teach young men about how to read Scripture in context and discern truth from error. Many preachers do not know how to do this, especially in the Third World. American Reformed Christians, we have an abundance of theological resources that we must use to reach the world and build up Christ's pan-national Bride!

10. My desire to go to the Philippines is now more about edifying specific brothers. After my church's young adult group's camp, I tweeted that one brother had made the trip from the Philippines to our church to help out with our camp. He was only here for a little while, but I grew close to him quickly. I honestly want to fly around the world just to see this brother and spend more time with him. And the original reason for wanting to go remains. I sponsor two children in the Philippines through Compassion and want to see them. There is only so much I can do for them when I am at a distance and only have small amounts of time to write. Even when I can't have intimacy with God very often, I still think about missions. Even when I am at work in my "secular" vocation, I think about missions. And what part of "go" don't I understand??

11. Loving the Bride of Christ is more important than finding love. When I met her, I had never been a member of a church and had barely any clue how to love the local church. I was also outside the will of God because the Holy Spirit had been prompting me for many years to be baptized and I didn't want to be. I was using this blog as a way to love the global body of Christ while not identifying myself with a local body. I signed my church's membership covenant last fall and took water baptism soon after. Since then, God has shown me more about what loving the church means, by putting me in a local church where no one looks like me and where the people my age are overwhelmingly male. If you think a young man should come to church to find a wife, you would say I probably went to the wrong church. But this church is a great place for me to serve.

12. Not delighting in God more than her during a courtship will result in idolatry. Not delighting in God more than her after a courtship ends will result in insanity and resentment toward Him. He is glorified, and I am properly happy in Him, when I delight in Him alone.

13. God can teach through the scars of self-inflicted wounds. I use this language to describe wounds of the heart; I have never cut myself, although I have recently found myself listening to emo! Although my friends initially looked at this courtship quite favorably, as we kept learning more and thinking about it more, we realized it really was not good. And I have realized that, as a man, this was all my fault.

14. Don't move too fast. Because she was only in the United States for 5 weeks, I felt like I had to be utterly convinced that she was right for me before she boarded her plane to return home. I felt like I had to spend every waking minute with her while she was here. This is infatuation, not love. Trying to do something like this will not allow you to look at the whole situation with your eyes open and determine which imperfections you are willing to accept. Everyone, aside from Christ, has them. Even as we follow Christ, we (especially in my generation) tend to find some aspects of Him that we do not want to follow. We want the crown, but not the cross. I want to worship Him, but I rarely want to evangelize; and some of my peers are the opposite.

15. Solitude with Christ is still precious, and I must fight for it to remain solitude with Christ. Before and during the courtship, solitude was a great luxury for me. I could spend whole days alone in the presence of the Lord. But during this season, when in solitude for extended periods, I have found myself thinking about her, about what might have been. And it has led me to resent God. I need time to just read and write and pray without distractions. Thoughts about her are crippling to my fellowship with Christ because they take my focus off of Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross to bear the wrath of His Father for each of my sins - oh, to meditate on just that for days and to worship Him Who paid it all! He is worthy of all affection and adoration!

16. I must go on serving the Lord. We make much of God when we contribute to the work of the Bride of Christ on this earth. This does not only mean money; it also means using the spiritual gifts that He has given me to exhort and teach His followers. The work is still there even when I do not feel strong enough to do it. In fact, continuing to do it when my spiritual life is not going as well requires a greater trust in Him than it does when I feel strong. Who am I to ever call myself strong? I am weak by nature; I see something of this weakness every time I sin! The Lord calls the weak and the broken!

16. Even in despair, I must remain in gospel-driven community and keep that community gospel-driven. I need brothers in Christ to help me keep my focus on Him and not on myself. Sometimes I am discouraged by how little godly fellowship I actually get and how the people that I fellowship with tend to center it on things other than God or just talk about problems they see in the church. And hanging out talking about nothing only masks problems rather than solving them with more of Christ. I don't want to dwell on problems in the church, because she is the bride of Christ and Christ does not see His bride as unfaithful. Sometimes during this season, I really have not desired God. But He is still God. He is still my Lord and my Master. He still has a hold on me, even when I don't like that. He disciplines and chisels those who are really His. And the chisel only gets stronger until we meet Him in glory.

17. I should never boast to anyone about my love for Christ. Last year, I was listening to a sermon by Paul Washer where he mentioned that he finds it hard to sing about his love for Christ because it pales in comparison to Christ's love for Him. During this season, I have learned this more deeply and experientially. Christ died for my resentment of Him regarding her and having to give her up as part of the cost of following Him.

Lessons Learned from My International Courtship, Part 1

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have been putting together a list of 25 things I have learned during and after my international courtship. Here is the first part of that list:

1. Distance is not a bad thing in a relationship, as long as you maintain clear and regular lines of communication. If anything, distance can actually help because the relationship becomes based on words. It also helps maintain a higher standard of physical purity and takes away temptations to fall in that area. However, emotional temptations still exist and probably become stronger.

2. Trust between two partners in a long-distance courtship is critically important. A great deal of doubts and suspicion arise when you cannot trust the other person to stay committed in a courtship. For about 8 months, I never smiled with interest at another woman, lest I betray my trust to her. She and I were in a stalemate because I would not tell her that I loved her until she showed commitment to me, and she would not give me her commitment or her love until I told her that I loved her. So she allowed other young men to stay in the picture, although her only other suitor was an unbeliever. Ultimately, I did not tell her that I loved her (although I definitely did!) because our doctrinal differences would have left her unwilling to stay involved in my church and my first loyalty is to God, not to a woman. (To clarify, if I were married, I would not divorce my wife if she turned out to embrace false doctrine or be a false believer. Scripture forbids that. But this was a courtship.)

3. Do not use theology to manipulate a courtship partner. For most of this courtship, I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I had access to great theological resources and she did not. So in effect, I was using the courtship as a means to teach her sound doctrine. After a while, she felt like she had to earn my love. Men, you have to know what you believe and what she believes before the courtship begins. Do not bait her with, "If you will suddenly stop being an Arminian and believe the 5 solas and the 5 points, you can have a courtship with me" or "As soon as you say, 'I am a Calvidispiebaptogelical' or 'I am a hedonist. I seek my pleasure ... / not in wealth, no, He's my treasure!', I will have a rock for your finger!" (If you live on a gravel road, rocks are cheap. ;-) )

4. Know when to walk away. I spent a significant amount of time in prayer about her and fasted for probably a total of a week and a half to two weeks, spread over the whole courtship period. During the last month of the courtship, I realized that I already knew what was pleasing to God and was using fasting to try to manipulate Him. I really just needed to obey Him in faith.

5. "They are somehow our brothers, man." - Sho Baraka. Some people who subscribe to false teaching are merely trapped there and will accept the true Word of God when it is shared with them. However, to keep listening to false teachers, they refuse to discern. We cannot say that everyone who does not reject the teaching of a heretic is unconverted. Many people who accept false teaching bear more good fruit for the Lord than I do. Their communion with God is more uninterrupted; they are better at loving the brethren; they are more willing to serve. If I do not love them back, that reflects a problem with my heart, not with theirs.

6. Don't expect someone from an egalitarian background to suddenly become a complementarian because of love. I said in the previous post that her father is a pastor. Her mother is also a pastor and regularly preaches in their church's service on Sundays. To any Reformed Baptist, this is a red flag. Scripture does not permit women to teach or have authority over men in the church. Many people have said this instruction from the Apostle Paul merely applies to the culture of New Testament times, when he did his ministry. I would counter with this: if a church permits women to preach, that is often indicative of more important compromises in doctrine. Here, there were many. I never mentioned the issue of women preaching to her or her family, not wanting to start a fight over a side issue, but I kept this in the back of my mind. People put up a false front to get other people to love them.

7. Doctrinal differences that can be smoothed over between friends become magnified a thousand fold in a courtship, engagement, or marriage. Biblical manhood and womanhood is one very significant area for couples. She had never heard those terms or was unfamiliar with them, so I tried to explain to her what they meant. I showed her from Scripture that it is good for a married woman to be busy at home and have her heart at home, not in the workplace; to work only out of necessity and not define herself by her job. And I told her that my goal in working and planning my future is not to be rich, but to still give her no financial reason to need to work outside the home. Although she was possibly telling me this from a short-sighted point of view, she told me she wanted to always work and admitted to me that she is a workaholic before her long hours started. After the long hours started, she mostly only wanted to discuss her job and did not want to talk about God with me. That was when I truly realized that our visions do not line up. Having a common vision for the family based on a common understanding of Biblical manhood and womanhood resolves many conflicts.

8. I became deeply aware of the global theological famine and, in particular, its effects on Christians in the Third World. Desiring God International Outreach uses the term "global theological famine" to describe the inability of Christians outside the Western world to access theological resources that help establish them in sound doctrine. Even Christians who have access to a complete Bible do not always know how to read it in a profitable way that shows them the truth. They cannot learn the historical and cultural context of the Word. As a result, many of them do not realize that Jeremiah 29:11 was not written to them, claim it as their favorite verse, and believe that God has promised by it to get them out of poverty. And then when they have spent the whole rest of their lives in poverty, their faith is crushed.

What Happened To My Courtship

Back in the Godly Fellowship series, I mentioned that I was courting a young woman, praying about her, and seeking the advice of godly kuyas and ates from my church. I really wanted to write a "Preliminary Thoughts on Courtship" post describing what I have learned about a variety of topics - her, myself, God, the courtship process, our cultures, and so on - during the process.

For context, please permit me to write a short timeline of the events that took place. Last April, she took a truly providential business trip to the US. Initially, her company had selected other people to go. Yet that changed, and they chose her and several of her friends instead for the trip. The company initially slated them to go to a different state, halfway across the country. Two more changes later, the company sent her and her friends to my state for four weeks.

One of my kuyas at church is from the same city as this young woman. Their fathers are pastors and know each other well. My kuya's father, who has since returned to the Philippines, was in town for a short while and preached at my church on the day that I met her. He told me that he had someone for me to meet, a pastor's daughter. Initially, I said no. I was not looking for anyone to date or court. Late in 2007, I had repented of recreational dating and started to read good theological books and pursue God harder than I ever had before. But my friends convinced me to go meet her, and I decided to go with them.

That day still goes down in my life as a memorable day. I do not regret my decision to meet her. She is a quite beautiful, usually very nice girl. We had good godly fellowship from day one. And I started thinking in terms of the first question in the Desiring God article "Questions to Ask When Preparing for Marriage": "What do you believe about everything?" That Saturday, my church was having a special worship service. She, two of her friends, and one of my best friends came with me. Both of my pastors preached. She heard good, sound preaching on worship and liked what she heard. The next week, my seasonal allergies arrived and left me sick for a week and a half. Her company extended her stay for one week because at least one person in her group had arrived in the US after she did and they wanted to have all four of them come home on the same flight. I went out with her and her friends several more times during that week. While we were in an observation tower at an amusement park, we made our courtship official. The next Friday night, I took her to a large, peaceful park where I enjoy hiking and then out to dinner at one of the nicest malls in the area. We talked in the hotel lobby for a bit and then exchanged probably the tightest, most emotional hug I have ever had. That was the farthest we went physically. She waved to me as I drove off, and when I was out of sight of the hotel, I wept enough that I could barely see to drive.

We stayed in touch very regularly for a while after she went home. We would chat online five nights a week, and on Fridays after work we would talk on the phone for three, four, five-plus hours. It was an almost sacred night of the week for me. On my work calendar, I marked myself busy every Friday night and told my friends that if they wanted to spend time with me, they would need to do it on Saturday or Sunday. Friday nights were her time. We read through Joshua Harris's book Dug Down Deep together and talked about what we were reading. Throughout the summer and early fall, we became a lot closer to each other even though we were half a world apart.

Then her work told her that she was in line for a promotion. She was already working about 9-10 hours a day with a long commute on top of that, but in October her client increased her goals while she was also spending an almost full-time effort training new hires. Twelve hours became a short work day for her. This took a huge toll on her spiritual life, and our conversations lost depth as well. Our doctrinal differences became much more apparent, with one of my pastors becoming the new senior pastor of my church and my church's becoming much more focused on expositional preaching and the hard demands of Christ's Lordship over our lives. I was finding that, while she initially agreed with a lot of what I said, as I started to tell her what my pastor was saying, she had little to say and did not really agree with it. Around the same time, I was regularly in touch with her family, who would frequently tell me about prophetic dreams and visions, which they see as binding but often do not back up with Scripture.

As the long hours continued, we stopped chatting online. Another guy at her work, who is not a believer, became interested in her. She would not let him court her, but she never gave her commitment to me either. I stayed in touch with her mostly through her family and occasional phone calls during lunch or on Friday nights. And as I learned more about her doctrine from her family, the Holy Spirit (the one who regenerates dead hearts and convicts of sin, not the one Benny Hinn talks about!) convicted me and left me with a total lack of peace. In February, my pastor showed a video of Benny Hinn's services in church and explained how unbiblical they are. He is also well aware of the organization overseas that my friend and her family are part of and told me that they do similar things. Her family was constantly telling me that I need to fly across the world to attend that group's conferences. I told my pastor that there was no way that I could be part of that and I was going to end the courtship. For several weeks, I did not contact her at all except for one phone call. We both decided to end the courtship in early March.

So it has now been more than two months since the courtship ended. Our one-year anniversary would have been several weeks ago. Recently, she contacted me to inform me that she is now in love with her unbelieving suitor. This was very painful news to take.

God has been teaching me a lot through this. As I have been learning from Him, I have been writing. For the next several posts, I hope to show you, as my reader(s), what He has taught me in hopes that you may exercise wisdom.

Daughters and sons of Jerusalem, Washington, Manila, and every other city, I charge you, for the sake of the name of the King of Glory, the purity of the members of the Body of Christ, and the protection of young men and women's hearts:

"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires,

Though it demand all cost of you and fires

On this fallen sphere."

This Entertaining Truth, Part 5: Having Great Theology Does Not Equal Repentance And Belief.

I mentioned in a recent post that I visited a Biblical megachurch for their Easter Sunday service this year. The church had a baptism for three people that morning. In at least one of the testimonies, I saw a theme that seems common in youth who grow up in Biblical churches: Kid grows up attending Biblical church with parents. Kid gets old enough to make their own decisions, falls into a sinful lifestyle, leaves the church, gets into all sorts of trouble. At some point, kid hits rock bottom and God saves them, and kid returns to the church they grew up in - but this time, as a true believer.

Reformed churches tend to stress catechizing children - doing this, not with the guarantee of "this will save them", but in hopes that through diligent plowing, the truth will take root in their hearts and they will be genuinely saved. This is a great thing. But it often backfires as God shows us that we are not saved by our own effort or the effort of our parents - "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13, ESV). Parents can be raising the "perfect" children, discipling them well at home, having them sit under the preaching of a modern-day Spurgeon Sunday after Sunday, training them like Pavlov's dog to come up with the right answers to every theological question whenever you ask, and have them not really know Jesus Christ. And as they sit under true Biblical preaching week after week, they will search for more and more loopholes around that truth. And if they are listening to a preacher who knows how to close all of those loopholes, they will learn to appease their parents by continuing to hear it while, all the while, deeply hating that truth in their hearts and seeking every possible way to rebel against it.

I grew up as one of those kids who would fire off a whole chapter of Awana sections every week. As a wee lad, I was good at word-for-word memorization. I would finish my books with half a school year left to spare, then complete Scripture memory packets and, at least once, started memorizing a whole book of the Bible. I was the Awana leaders' dream, but I couldn't say much about what the verses actually meant. I wasn't much of a Christian - if I was even one at all at the time. "Repent" was just a word that sounded cool and spiritual. "Application" in sermons that I heard was a foreign language to me. In the background, I wanted to be in another world, whether an imaginary world or a real world where Game Time never ended. And in high school I just wanted my music and my movies. My desire wasn't for God; it was for fun. I didn't want to be part of any small groups where people would actually hold me accountable for growing in sanctification; I just wanted to hang out with my friends and do the minimum to appease their desires to see me bear fruit. And in college, when I started to listen to internet radio, fun meant listening to mostly disgusting comedy routines for hours on end with the excuse that a good clean routine would come on once in a while. Through headphones, you can deceive a lot of people. "What are you laughing at?" "Oh, nothing." Christ had to die for that "nothing" - and for the lie that it was "nothing". You can live casually until you see sin's gravity. But a blind eye can't even begin to see the infinite severity of even one sin against an infinitely holy God.

There is a huge danger in wanting to bear only a minimum amount of fruit for the Lord. It is quite possible that, in effect, in this desire, someone is really saying, "I'm really bearing thistles, but let me spray-paint them to look as much like figs as I can, in my fleshly power, so that, from a distance, more spiritual people will glance at me and say, 'That guy is doing his job for the Kingdom', and they will want me to be their friend. But, oh, how I fear the scrutiny of those who want to look closely at my heart. They will realize, 'He's saying the right words, but his heart is far from Christ. If he were to leave this world right now, God would look on him as his Judge and sentence him to an eternity of eternities in hell, while this hero of deception has everyone, most of all himself, believing that he would be in heaven.' I must do everything I can to keep people from judging me like that." And all the while, they say loudly to others, "I am a five-point Calvinist." They carry a big Bible in a word-for-word translation. They know how to evaluate preachers: "He is a talented exegete and sesquipedalian, but I do not listen to him because we differ on infra- versus supralapsarianism. I would much rather listen to sermons by [fill in the blank]." They sing worship songs only to affirm, "That's... correct. That's... correct. Hey, that ain't right!" But where is the genuine fruit, the genuine rejection of your own sin (not only other people's), and the genuine affections for the Lord?

You can believe in your head without believing in your heart. The more advanced an unconverted person becomes in theology, the more they might become able to trust their own knowledge and say, "Look at me. I read Edwards. I'm definitely in." But that is not trusting in the finished work of Christ and realizing deeply that He had to die even for the pride of propping up your own religious accomplishments. God alone is capable of doing that in the heart of an unconverted person, who by nature hates Him. The Israelites did not have to speak of their own qualifications to look at the bronze serpent on a pole. They only, in their desperate condition, had to fix their eyes on that frightening creature that looks like the same thing that killed their families and friends, and they would be saved from death. And today, you cannot save yourself from spiritual death by knowing which theologians to quote when. Godmust open your eyes and turn your head to look on Christ in His frightening perfections, frightening because Christ is everything you are not and the Lord is thoroughly offended by even the good things you do in your own flesh. But the Father sent His Son, who laid aside His glory to die a gruesome death for your sins on this earth. The unconverted crowd looked upon Him with ridicule, as if to say, "He is not our King! We were expecting dashing good looks and the end of Roman rule, and instead we got this donkey-riding man from Nazareth. Whatever good ever came from there?" But the poor in spirit know: "In this Savior, who died for me, there really is a certain salvation, 'certain' in the surest sense of that word. And, as Spurgeon said, 'How can I [even] trifle with the evil that killed my best Friend?'" Forget yourself; look on Christ and live. Seek Him while He may be found. Turn away from your sins, to Christ, and believe in this gospel.

I do not write this with anyone in particular in mind. If I saw someone in my life acting like this, I would go to them privately and tell them rather than blogging about it. But maybe God will use this to wake someone up. The Lion is not tame, and His truth is not a toy.

On Laymen's Usefulness to the Kingdom

Recently I tweeted, "Who disheartens me more? People who want me to waste my life or people who think I need a seminary education to not waste it?"

I did not write that or this with the intention of appearing to be someone who makes a career out of criticizing the church; God has taught me a lot over the past year about how I should love the church instead of doing that. I write this instead out of love for the body of Christ and a desire to allow all of its parts to contribute what they can, for the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We can be very good at times at saying to the other parts of the body, "I don't need you."

On one hand, many in the body of Christ are content with wasting their lives and helping others to do the same: working to provide themselves with as many of their material wants as possible, spending their spare time gaming or watching television, ending a Bible study after half an hour so that they can go eat ice cream, ignoring their own and others' spiritual needs for things that are not needs at all.

On the other hand, others tend to be the theological equivalent of an armchair quarterback. They fill up Biblical megachurches that burgeon with great doctrine, where every week they receive a course in systematic from the pulpit but they don't consider themselves or me to be qualified to teach others the truth of Scripture because they have never been to seminary or earned a long list of doctorates.

Here is a question: How useful are you if your head is full of sound doctrine, God has given you the ability to teach it to others, and all you do for the body of Christ is put away chairs in the fellowship hall, if even that? And furthermore, you tear down anyone who has a desire for the "higher gifts" but is not qualified in your view (regardless of Scripture's view) to use them?

All a Christian really needs to be used by God is a willing heart and a teachable spirit. Last night, a guest speaker preached at my church's Saturday night service for youth and young adults. He is college-age and has not been to Bible college or seminary. But our pastor has been discipling him, and he did a great job last night teaching us expositionally from John 17. I know I was blessed and challenged by his message. Yet many people would look down on him and would not have let him preach in their churches because of his age or the fact that his training was informal.

For every Biblical megachurch that has arrived at some lofty level, where the pastor has become a big name in Reformed circles, where thousands of people are able to gather after the service and discuss the finer points of the limited atonement over coffee, countless Biblical, Reformed churches exist where the work is just getting started or has grown slowly.

In my church, the work is growing steadily but not without cost. We began as a Filipino church plant, Reformed Baptist but emphasizing "Filipino" more than "Reformed Baptist". We became a great place for Filipino Christians who were just traveling through or recently settling in our area of the US to meet each other. As you may imagine, in uniting around "Filipino" more than "Reformed Baptist" we had many more non-Reformed Filipinos than Reformed Baptists. A new pastor joined our church last spring and took over our Senior Pastor role last fall. (I am not saying that either of my pastors is better than the other; they are both faithful servants of my Lord, and I love both of these men!) He shifted our church's emphasis to historic Reformed Baptist doctrine and has boldly proclaimed to us a gospel that costs us everything: our old way of life, ambitions, desires, everything; a gospel that makes the world oppose us. Most people do not want to hear that. So many of the old members of our church have left, some to go to churches where they just get an emotional high and hear what they want to hear. Praise God that He has brought many new people to our church, or there would not be many of us left.

On Easter, I did not write a new blog post because my church had a sunrise service. That was our only service for the day. Already awake, several of us decided to attend another service later that day. I decided to drive over an hour to one of the Biblical megachurches and hear about our Lord's resurrection from a well-known pastor. It was one of the most incredible church services I have ever attended. The worship was euphoric, singing songs with deep theological truth, with hands up all over the room! The sermon was on point as well. It really made me look forward to attending a conference later this year with some of the people that I met there. I also got to fellowship with two of my college friends who are members of that church.

God also used that service to, once again, confirm my calling to minister in my local church. Yes, it is good to go to a Biblical megachurch once in a while. I found that very encouraging and refreshing. Yet God has given me a Biblical church in the geographic area where He wants me to live and work during this season of my life. The work of ministry that He has given me to do is within my local church, to teach whenever I have the opportunity and serve as I can in the young adults' ministry, the men's ministry, and in the church as a whole. Starting the work is hard, and sustaining it when it does not grow as fast as we would like or I do not see all of the benefits I want to see from it is harder. And yet this work belongs to God, who alone determines its standards for success and its outcome. Those willing and qualified to be part of it work, knowing that God's Word does not return void and we do this for a God whose glory will never fade away. "Not unto us" can be a dangerous prayer indeed, with discouraging results if we look only to ourselves, but "for every look at self, take ten looks at Christ", and He will give us the strength to keep working.

My calling to travel to the Philippines still remains very much alive. Going to a church where I see many Filipinos allows me to fulfill my calling to the ones that live here, but I really want to go there and serve. But of course, one person (not from my church or Filipino) told me recently that I would basically be useless there because what their young men who want to do ministry really need is a seminary education, not just a layperson willing to show them, as much as possible, what right doctrine is. I'll let God determine that. All I know is there is a need to teach men there what true doctrine is because, although so many people in that country call themselves Christians, many heresies, false gospels, and false prophets have a very strong hold there and many people who think they are saved are on their way to hell because of that. Yet the desk where I sit right now to write this post has several wonderful theological books on it where I am learning much more truth than I am able to live out. Since I do my vocational work in America, I would not be able to stay in the Philippines for very long if I were able to go. But if I, even a sinful wretch as I, could go be an encouragement to those who can stay there and carry on or start that work, that trip would pay off in eternity.

Lord, for the sake of Your glory alone, please put me on that plane. Let me never say in the end that I have wasted my life or this calling.

Recent Meditations on Worship and Missions

“From the ends of the earth,
From the depths of the sea,
From the heights of the heavens,
Your name be praised!
From the hearts of the weak,
From the shouts of the strong,
From the lips of all people,
This song we raise, Lord:

“Throughout the endless ages,
You will be crowned with praises, Lord Most High!
Exalted in every nation,
Sovereign of all creation,
Lord Most High, be magnified!”

- Hillsong United, “Lord Most High”

-----

"Because, O God, from Thee comes all, because from Thine own mouth has entered us the power to breathe, from the sea of air in which we swim and the unknown nothingness that stays it over us with unseen bonds, because Thou gavest us from the heart of love so tender, mind so wise, and hand so strong, because Thou art Beginning, God, I worship Thee.

"Because Thou art the end of every way, the goal of man; because to Thee shall come of [from] every people respect and praise; their emissaries find Thy throne their destiny; because Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to Thee, babes [babies] sing Thy praise; because Thine altar gives to sparrows shelter, to sinners peace, and devils fury; because 'to Thee shall all flesh come'; because Thou art Omega. Praise.

"Because Thou sure art to justify that Son of Thine and wilt in time make known just who He is and how soon will send Him back to show Himself; because the name of Jesus has been laughingly nailed upon a cross and is just now on earth held very lightly and Thou wilt bring that name to light; because, O God of Righteousness, Thou wilt do right by my Lord Jesus Christ, I worship Thee."

- Jim Elliot, The Journals of Jim Elliot, "Ecuador, 1952-1955"

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A worship song called "The Stand” has a line, "All I am is Yours." It is one thing to sing that line and then go back to our relatively comfortable American lives. It is quite another to say it in a circumstance where you really are risking your life every day. It has far greater meaning. While on the mission field about 55 years ago, and roughly 2 years before he and several co-laborers in Ecuador lost their lives for the sake of the Gospel, Jim Elliot wrote this in his Journals:

"I recognized that all I am and have is the Almighty's. He could, in one instant, change the whole course of my life, with accident, tragedy, or event unforeseen. Job is a lesson in acceptance - not of blind resignation, but of believing acceptance - that what God does is well done. So, Father, with happy committal I give you my life again this morning - not for anything special, simply to let You know that I regard it as Yours. Do with it as it pleases You. Only give me great grace to do for the glory of Christ whatever comes to me - 'in sickness and in health!'"

No one who is used of God is a great man in and of themselves. It is God’s work in them and through them that allows them to see Him do wonderful things. They are just willing to be used and broken and sent.

Worried About Our Image And Our Space Up On the Internet

I first got the idea for this title shortly after I heard Lecrae's song "Go Hard" several years ago:

"Oh man, we ain't focused on the war. We're just kicking it,

Worried about our image and our space up on the internet.

Take me out of the game, coach. I don't want to play no more.

If I can't give it all I've got and leave it out there on the court.

Thank You for the grace, for the will and the desire.

Got me living for Your glory instead of living to retire.

But I pray I'll never tire of going hard for Messiah.

I don't need no motivation. You're the Reason I'm inspired!"

I guess I could describe myself as an internet missionary. Jonathan Edwards resolved to use new inventions of mankind for advancing the gospel. In our day, perhaps the best example of this is the internet. Right now, few people in the civilized world have not had exposure to the internet. Nearly everyone I know uses it daily. And many people use it to a point of "addiction", or as I prefer to call it, idolatry.

Having used the internet for well over a decade, it is interesting to note how it has evolved into a tool where we ourselves have a significant influence over its content. The top five websites in the world right now are Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, and Blogger. All provide some means for the users to submit their own content, and Facebook, YouTube, and Blogger exist for almost the sole purpose of allowing people to say, "This is who I am. This is what I like. I want people anywhere, or at least my friends, to read what I write, see the photos I take, watch the videos I make, and visit the links that I like."

William Shakespeare wrote that all the world is a stage and all of the men and women on it are merely players. I submit to you that all the web is also a stage, which gives all of its players visibility to anyone in the world. Nearly everyone today, my parents' generation and younger, has a web presence, even babies.

So, how are you using your stage? Is it, to you, a means to promote the gospel, to become aware of the needs in the world so that you can pray about them and do something about them if possible, to edify and strengthen others in the faith? If you cannot use it this way, it is better to immediately throw it by.

I say all of this as an exhortation because there is so much potential for us to make much of Christ in new media, yet many people just waste their time with it and use it to say what frivolities they are pursuing with their friends. May I say Farmville and Mafia Wars? If you do use the internet to game, may I ask you: are you even in the real war, or just in a fake war with no eternal or even temporal significance? Friendships grow deeper when the camaraderie occurs because of a real, significant cause - not when we use our time together to pass along even innocent internet memes that result from either our sinful culture or Christians' just wasting their time.

The internet can make us forget about the "war" by giving us mere images and videos of the "war" while taking us off of the battlefield. If I see an image or a story about a country that is closed to the gospel, faithful missionaries risking their lives in the 10/40 Window, or Christians being persecuted, my first reaction should be to pray - hard - and do something, not to just keep paging through images and stories and think, "Maybe God should do something; I'll just go back to my life." This is a reaction of wartime living as applied to how we spend our time.

Does a soldier spend all of his time at the fort? For some, it is their job to stay in the fort and support the other troops. But God has given us this gospel that must be shared. Even those called to hold the rope for missionaries who go down in the well must go down into their local wells themselves. And this is an indictment on me; I rarely share my faith with unbelievers outside the internet. And my unbelieving friends probably just ignore what I have to say on the internet.

Also, my internet browsing habits reveal who or what I really love. I don't spend as much time reading every obscure sports statistic about people who I will never meet as I did before. I frequently visit the various blogs that I list in the sidebar of this site. This is an evidence of God working in my life. But, as Json raps in "Chisel Me", "Am I in love with God or in love with theology?"

Constantly browsing theological sites and switching between browser tabs splits your attention, especially if some of the other sites have nothing to do with God. You must have time alone with God in secret if you are to grow in satisfaction and delight in Him. You cannot take technology with you into that secret place. In a sense, technology is a very great help because it allows ready access to so many resources for advancing the Kingdom and it gives a stage for us as individuals and groups to promote the gospel and make much of our Lord. But, everything in moderation, except for sin, which must be put to death. If I go to that secret place and I am playing with my phone, my heart is divided, even if I am looking at a theological resource - because it says, "Lord, You are not enough. I need this too, or I will not be satisfied."

Based on this, I would also say that we profit from having a printed copy of the Bible. As helpful as commentaries, study notes, and the like can be, I found that after I only read a study Bible for several years, I relied too heavily on the study notes and not on what the Word of God was actually saying. Similarly, in the secret place we must be able to spend time with our full attention on the Word. Always using a phone app as our primary Bible can introduce many more distractions than just reading it in a book.

I realize we are a multitasking generation, and those after us are inheriting that trait from us. Even as I write this, I am working on a Tagalog lesson in Rosetta Stone. But Christ states that the greatest commandment is to love Him with our whole heart, with our whole soul, with our whole mind, with our whole strength - not to divide our attention.

If we want to be chiseled, realize this: the Lord's chisel stops at nothing.

The Proper Place of Sports and Delighting in God

At my old church, whose members are predominantly American, the following is a common sight from September through January: People show up to every service wearing American football jerseys. I remember one guy, a grown man in his late 30s, who enthusiastically supports the Dallas Cowboys. He would sit near the front of the sanctuary wearing a hat with blue and white dreadlocks, matching his team's colors. Our church was nowhere near Dallas, and most of our pastors supported other teams. Yet he wanted everyone to know that he supports the Dallas Cowboys.

Naturally, their love for sports, usually American football (I only use that term for it because in other countries, most equate "football" with FIFA or the World Cup), flows out into their conversations. Some people are able to treat it as just a game and take a win or loss in stride. Others live and die by it and use a win or a loss, especially to rival teams, as a great chance to trash talk others in the church who support their teams' rivals. So instead of discussing with others about what the Lord has done in their lives, they relegate that to times of "ministry" and, apart from that, wonder out loud about whether their team's third-string tight end is "questionable" or "probable" for Sunday's game - on the previous Tuesday. Give a tenfold increase in this effect to owners of fantasy teams. (Fantasy sports could be a separate rant in itself.)

For a while, I thought I was better than this. I do not follow American football; if that makes me less American, oh well!

Then Spring Training happened.

My sports to follow are baseball and ice hockey. Basketball is my favorite sport to play, but I don't follow it closely. Recently, the baseball magazines with my name on it started arriving at my house. And I realized that one Major League Baseball team's closer had a great season last year and I didn't know his name. And that left me beside myself. I went on Wikipedia asking myself, "So who is this guy?" He didn't even play for one of my team's rivals. Every day, I come home from work and wonder what happened in baseball that day. My walk with Christ has at times grown very dull, and one of the ways that manifests itself is through an increased interest in sports. Although a win or loss by my teams does not have a great effect on me, sports is still a broken cistern that I run to when Christ is not satisfying enough.

For those in full-time ministry, following sports or being entertained may be an interesting diversion from the duties of ministry. But those who work full-time in secular jobs must at times make a choice between God and entertainment. If work takes up most of life and entertainment takes up the rest, life is not Christ-centered; Christ becomes a mere afterthought at best.

The Christian's relationship to sports must become somewhat of a balancing act. Saying no one can ever watch a game is legalistic, using outward obedience to a revolting law to try to force inward change in the heart, when it just cannot do that. This can be said of any kind of entertainment that is not inherently sinful: movies, video games, the arts, and so on. These can all be used to make much of the Lord. And sometimes people legitimately need a break. Scripture does recognize a benefit in physical exercise as well. I have told some people that if they are fat as a result of not keeping a proper diet and exercise routine, they are in sin. But the passion that leads people to spend whole days bodybuilding in the gym or sitting on the couch watching pregame shows, games, postgame shows, and SportsCenter must be tempered in the life of the Christian. Just today, God brought to my attention that I read an entire sports magazine (I only read the ones that only discuss sports! ;-) ) before I read anything in the Bible. I should be diving into Scripture, because it is life. Why is Scripture so often familiar and dull to me? Why must I rely so heavily on preachers and writers to expound it for me so that I may see its value and beauty? Yet if I sit in a half-billion-dollar sporting cathedral that I helped pay for as a taxpayer and I see a new player on my team, I want to read all of his statistics and scouting report and know all about him. I will probably never meet the guy.

Some of my friends are up in arms about the NFL lockout and its possibility of canceling the NFL season this year. I submit to you that a loss of an American football season may be the best thing that can happen to the American church this year, particularly to its men. Yet in 2004-2005 when the NHL lost a season to a labor dispute, I still found other places to get my hockey fix: video games and listening to juniors games via internet radio. Even now I take some pleasure in the fact that some of those juniors players have made it to the NHL and become stars there. So a lost season by itself will not do anything to drive American men away from chasing these inferior pursuits instead of Christ and Biblical manhood, which gives them a full-time calling to represent their families before God, represent God to their families, and provide for and protect them. Many will still run to college football or to other sports or other hobbies to get their fix. God must do a work to set our affections on Him alone. If He does this to save even one soul or to draw even one soul nearer to His heart, even the economic impacts of a lost season would be worth it, because Christ has infinite worth and you therefore cannot quantify the value of knowing Him.

I have even noticed the impact of sports on my life in what I wear. Any time I wear a hat or a shirt with a team's logo, I give them some sort of homage or support. Yet it would be absurd to say that it is wrong for a Christian to wear anything that supports a sports team, that they can only wear plain colors and patterns or that they must wear Christian t-shirts all the time. (I used to be a church kid that always wore Christian t-shirts. And I was a hypocrite in doing it!) And it is pointless to add man-made rules on top of God's law, when none of us can obey the whole law of God in the first place. One broken rule at any time in life, and we are a goner; we might as well have broken every law. And everyone has. This is why we need the gospel!

Culture is ingrained in us and has a deep influence over what we buy and sell; everything in any economy (save for probably subsistence farming) is strongly influenced by what culture believes we need on top of what we actually need. The only way to escape this is to leave American culture, and even then that does not diminish the importance of the calling that God has given me to be a light where He has placed me and feel my way towards Him in this cultural context for as long as He would have me live in it. Leaving where He has placed me for an ascetic life somewhere else does not destroy the root idols of my heart, although if He sends me I must be willing to go; maybe that is what He wants in order to glorify Himself in me. We must know when to take part in the different areas of our culture and when we need to separate from them for a time to draw closer to the Lord. Putting a regulation on this is impossible because, although all Christians must be growing closer to God, what that looks like practically can vary significantly from one Christian to another.

Yet my point is this. I don't want people to look at me and only see my work or my interests - or to see some condescending church kid who is so holy that he does not need Christ - and judge me based on that. I have great need of Him. I want to be like Him so that when others see me, they don't see me, and they don't see some level of self-willed holiness that they must attain to be close to God. If they look at me and see my Jesus and nothing else - if nothing stands in the way of His person and work being demonstrated in my life - if they see me attacking my many sins with violent, grace-driven effort, consumed by a desire that Christ alone be praised in my life - that is a blessing. Is there anything I would not give to let this happen?

Chisel me, Lord.

Small Group Lesson: Titus 3:1-11

I tweeted recently that I would not have a new post this past weekend because I was preparing a small group lesson. Earlier this week, I taught my small group from the book of Titus. Here are my notes from the lesson:

Context of the book of Titus:

Paul identifies himself as "a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ" (1:2) and writes this letter "for the sake of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth". He is definitely writing to believers here. He considers Titus, a pastor in Crete, his "true son in the faith" (1:4) and co-laborer in the gospel. Titus, a Gentile, ministered to other Gentiles living in Ephesus, Macedonia, and Crete. He had traveled with Paul to Rome, but they had a shipwreck which forced them to take shelter at Crete. Paul left him in Crete to appoint elders in every town, that there might be churches in every town there. The churches there had significant problems with false teaching (1:10-16). Paul combated this by listing qualifications for elders in chapter 1 and instructions for cross-generational fellowship in the church body in chapter 2.

Titus 3: (ESV)

¹Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities,

"them" refers to those who Titus is ministering to in Crete. Crete, in this time, was under the authority of the Roman Empire. So were the recipients of Peter and Paul's epistles, where they were instructed to suffer well for Christ in spite of rulers and authorities (the government - like in Romans) who stood firmly against the truth of God and would even kill them for saying that Jesus is Lord.

to be obedient, to be ready for every good work,

So Titus needs to instruct them to not only submit to these leaders in actions but to use each opportunity they get to do these leaders good. They are not to be Christians whose job is to kick out an oppressive secular regime and put one of their own in power so that they will not be persecuted. Paul, in effect, wants Titus to tell these believers to suffer well for the sake of Christ under the oppressive rule of Rome. This is a practical example of living out Christ's words in Luke 6:28 ("bless those who curse you") and Paul's instructions in Romans 12:14 ("bless those who persecute you").

²to speak evil of no one,

Notice that it says "of" and not "to". "Of" implies that Titus is to instruct the church to not speak evil "about" anyone. This applies to speaking evil to another person or speaking evil about them when they are not looking. Speaking evil robs good works (vv. 1, 8) of their effect on their recipient. It shows an inconsistent walk.

to avoid quarreling,

As Calvin said, there are more ways to fight than with fists and weapons. Quarreling is fighting with words.

to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people

Again, Paul permits no loopholes. The Christian is to be gentle and courteous, both characteristics of Christ, to all people, even those who mistreat them and use them for selfish gain.

³For we ourselves were once foolish,

The word "for" implies that this and what follows serves as a justification for the instructions in vv. 1-2. "Ourselves were once" shows that, in the condition of our hearts and our actions, we were once just like the people that were speaking evil of us and doing wrong to us now. "Foolish", according to Calvin, seems to refer to their past ignorance of the gospel.

disobedient,

This is a contrast to "obedient" in v. 1, here describing their former way of life. Unbelief is inherently wayward and rebellious.

led astray,

Tying this into the next phrase, it seems to be referring to an ability to fall to temptation easily, maybe because of a lack of firm rooting in the faith and the body of doctrine.

slaves to various passions and pleasures,

Their desires ruled them. They did whatever felt right (passions) and whatever gave them joy (pleasures) without considering what the Word of God says is right. "Various" refers to the fact that many different desires were ruling them. It was not just a desire for sex, money, power, the praise of men, or anything else. It was a combination.

passing our days in malice and envy,

"Passing our days" means their lives were just passing by with them continuing in these attitudes of selfish motives and wrong intentions (malice) and being greedy or envious because, in the sinful desires of their heart, they were comparing themselves to others.

hated by others and hating one another.

And in that comparison to others, they were competitors against each other. This "hated by others" does not refer to persecution, because the world hates Christians for a different reason: we are not of the world. The test of assurance of salvation of loving the brethren is a test of true conversion because unbelievers cannot love in the way that we can love.

⁴But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,

God, in His nature, is true love, not love on the surface like this world has. "Appeared" refers not to Christ's appearing to all men (elect and non-elect), but His work that the elect particularly benefit from in the gospel. We are saved because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. We must hear the gospel in order to be saved. I would say this refers to the hearing of the gospel and (v. 5) the work of regeneration in us that allowed us to say that we have truly been saved by God. I say this because the "But" stands in contrast to our former ways of life in v.3.

⁵he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

His work in us is by His mercy, not by our credentials. We can thus say His election of us is unconditional. He saved us. We did not save ourselves. His justice to us was satisfied in the person and work of Jesus Christ, not in our own acts of self-righteousness which He sees as filthy rags. But He must work in us in regenerating our hearts, turning a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. The regeneration is a one-time occurrence. The renewal is day-to-day. As progressive sanctification takes place in us, we exhibit less and less of the characteristics of v.3.

⁶whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

"Whom" is the Holy Spirit; "He" is God the Father", and "Jesus Christ our Savior" is the means the Father used to save us. This is all of the Trinity acting as one God in three separate persons in one verse. Think about "richly". It means we have no idea how blessed we are with our salvation through Jesus Christ. "Poured out" also highlights the great extent and value of this work. The Father could have just forgiven our sins. But He has declared us "not guilty" and allowed us to enjoy all sorts of spiritual blessings in Christ.

⁷so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The hope of eternal life is not past or present grace, but future grace. Our inheritance in Christ, made possible by God's mercy and His work in saving us, is that we have certain hope in eternal life. It is certain because we are not hoping in the accomplishments of ourselves, which are subject to inconsistency and never meet God's standards anyway, but in the finished and perfect work of Jesus Christ.

⁸The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things,

"The saying" is v.7. "Insist on these things" means defend them before your churches where you minister and before men. Do not bend on this gospel.

so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

Paul's motivation for telling Titus to insist on these things is so that the churches where he ministered - and he assumes the church consists only of believers - would live out their faith.

These things are excellent and profitable for people.

"These things" refers to sound doctrine rooted in the true gospel. This does a true church consisting of real believers a lot of good.

⁹But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

These are all referring to side issues which pale in importance to the core doctrines of the faith. Genealogies were a particular problem in their day; people in that time, even Gentiles on Crete, had been giving allegorical and mystical interpretations to "he begat him". "Dissension" refers to stirring up controversy. "Quarrels about the law" refers to people making dogmatic statements about things that Scripture does not state clearly. In Judaism there are many commentaries on the Torah which have significant doctrinal weight. They deal with "here is what you should do in this very specific situation". In effect, it adds more law on top of the law. False teachers were also involved in using the law for their own gain by making assertions about it.

¹⁰As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him,

This is similar to how Corinth was to deal with the immoral brother, but without bringing this matter before the whole church. We are to treat such a person as a pagan and an outcast (Matthew 18:17). Warning someone twice emphasizes the seriousness of the warning. The warning means: tell them that they are in sin and if they continue down this course the results will be destructive. The "person who stirs up division" refers to someone who seeks to divide the Body of Christ by attacking historic Christian doctrine. The true church is united, but it must be pure by not allowing strange doctrines (in their day, the circumcision group who said people needed to be circumcised in order to be saved) to infiltrate it and over time, cause it to no longer stand for the truths that set it apart as Christian.

¹¹knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

"Warped and sinful" refers to the condition of the person's heart. "Warped" means "twisted" or "perverted"; "sinful" refers to his persistent sin of rejecting the truth. The Greek word translated "a person who stirs up division" is the word from which we get our word "heretic", but in that day it referred to making a choice. This person is stubborn in their choice and not willing to submit it to the Word of God.

Application:

1. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, following Christ means "leaving yourself outside." This is not something that the natural man can do. God must work this in us.

2. v.3: From time to time, a Christian will fall into sin or struggle with it for an extended period. Realize that this stems from what you were before the Lord saved you. Fight to live out not your inborn identity, but the identity that Christ has given you.

3. v.3: Most sins come from envy (v.3), which has covetousness as its root. Desire God above all selfish ambition, and covetousness will become less of a problem.

4. vv.6-7: Think often of the significance of your salvation. Thank God for it in worship and prayer, and use it as a motivator for you to discuss the gospel with others, both nonbelievers and other believers. There should never be a time when we find the gospel insignificant and look for other things in Christianity (or psychology or sociology, etc.) to prop up our faith.

5. v.8: Defend the gospel. It is under constant attack from nonbelievers and, perhaps more than that, from fake Christians and misguided believers who think that something else is the gospel.

6. v.9: If you are in a disagreement with someone, consider the importance of the issue that you disagree about. Many Christians tend to fellowship well with another Christian until they happen upon one point of disagreement. Then their fellowship can turn bitter and they can even lose their friendship as they talk about that one issue at length. Also, see if your position is really in line with Scripture or if you have just been arguing based on feeling.

7. v.10: He is writing to a pastor. Most of us are people in the congregation. Have we ever been the person that stirred up division? If so, we need to repent and look at others in light of how God sees them.