Faith Sermons and Studies Faith Baptist Church

If you’ve ever made an investment, purchased life insurance, created a retirement account, chances are you had to name a beneficiary. A beneficiary is someone who is designated to receive the benefits or proceeds from someone else’s property when that person passes away. Beneficiaries can be named for many types of property: ‌


Bank accounts‌
Brokerage accounts‌
Insurance policies‌
Retirement accounts, such as 401(k)s and IRAs‌
A will or trust‌‌

All of these and more have the option to name a beneficiary, who will take over possession of items or finances when the current owner passes away. And chances are, most of us have beneficiaries of some sort. If you have a will or trust, you’ll have a beneficiary. A retirement account has a beneficiary. I know my wife and I both have life insurance—she’s my beneficiary and I am hers. Why? Because we want each other to be taken care of in the event that something sudden or tragic happens. It makes sense, and it is a good move to have some of these things set up. ‌

But one thing is usually true about beneficiaries. The beneficiary is usually someone who is close to you. It’s someone that means something to you, usually a close relative. But we wouldn’t expect that you would make just any random person the beneficiary on something like this. Most of you are not going to make me the beneficiary on your life insurance. It’s going to be your spouse, or kids, or something like that. You certainly would not name a complete stranger as your beneficiary. We want someone we know, love, and trust to handle our affairs in our absence. ‌‌

But as I thought about these things this week, I came to realize that there is one exception to this. There is one individual if you will who made his beneficiary to someone who wasn’t a close part of his family, but this individual made his beneficiary, or I should say beneficiaries, individuals who were far off, who had become estranged. And in this unique set of circumstances, treasures more than could ever be valued were heaped upon the most unlikely of recipients. The individual of whom I am talking of course is God, and the goods that were left are the blessings of his grace. The beneficiaries then, are all those who believe on the name of Jesus. If you’re a believer today, that is you. You are a recipient of God’s undeserved favor. And through the death of his son Jesus, all who believe on him become recipients of his divine favor. What a blessing this is! ‌‌And as we come to our text today, Paul shares some of the items we recieved as beneficiaries of the divine favor of God. He shows us two specific works that God has done to bestow this favor upon us, and we are left to come up with a response to such great blessings. And as we unpack this text today, we encounter the big idea that we can take home with us today: ‌‌

Big Idea: God deserves our praise for his undeserved favor

I was thinking this week, there is something about someone who does good work that is just attractive. If you see someone who takes their time to put in the work to do something right, and maybe they have a little skill too, but if you see that, it is a pleasurable experience. Maybe it’s a builder or carpenter who gets two joints to fit together perfectly. Or a repairman who goes above and beyond to get the job done, or a landscaper who just makes a property look amazing. That type of worker and work ethic makes you just want to sit back and say “wow,” they really care about what they are doing and they are doing good work! ‌‌



The same is true in our spiritual lives. There is something that stands out when a person does a good job. Good workers are hard to find, and when someone does a good job, has a good work ethic, that stands out to their employer and also to those around. When we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, he changes every area of our lives, including how we show up to work. And God’s desire for believers is that the way we work at our jobs shows a testimony of the change that Jesus has made in our life. Because what better witness is there than a transformed life? And when we live out our faith at our jobs by how we work, we leave a compelling witness of the transformational power of the Gospel. That’s what Paul talks about in our text this morning. He’s talked about older men and younger men, he talked about older women and younger women, and now he talks about employees on the job. And from Paul’s discussion here we get our big idea for today: ‌‌



Big Idea: Dedicated work highlights spiritual beliefs

I have heard it said, and I'm sure you have as well, that behind every great man is an even greater woman. I suspect that this is very much the case. Women make us who we are. They give us life, they give us care, and our lives either are currently or have been dependent on them in one way or another. But women are under attack today. Women are under attack on multiple fronts. On one side, you have the feminist movement which seeks to release women from the bondage of men, seeking, to destroy the institution of marriage and free women from the home and even motherhood. On the other hand, we have the transgender movement, where it seems that anybody can decide to be a woman, and in doing so it only cheapens the uniqueness and value of women and femininity. One side overemphasizes femininity to the extreme, seeking liberation from men and masculine structures, while the other side devalues femininity, making it something that can be pursued and obtained by anyone.‌‌

But in our text today, Paul teaches us that God places incredible value on women and that biblical femininity is of extreme importance to God. The role that God gives women as women, as wives, and as mothers is a very special and specific God-given mission that women are innately designed to fulfill. And Paul teaches us that when women embrace their God-given role and design and model biblical femininity, this has an evangelistic effect. Because what better to display the transformational power of the gospel then a changed life? And so, in our text today, Paul addresses expectations for women, for wives, and for mothers, and shows us how women in these roles can find meaning and value by embracing the mission God has for them.‌‌

Last week we looked at men in the church, this week we look at God’s plan for women. And as we unpack our text this morning, we come to our big idea for today: ‌‌



Big Idea: God strategically designed biblical femininity as a compelling witness to unbelievers

There’s a lot of power in a testimony of personal experience. Think about some of the things that we might be drawn to based on a person’s personal experience. Perhaps a certain Dr. or clinic—maybe you found your chiropractor based on personal experience. Or certain types of beauty treatments—you go to the same barber your dad went to and grandfather went to because of their personal experience, or you choose your hair stylist because someone you knew and trusted recommended them. Or you go to a restaurant because it has good reviews. There’s just something about a personal testimony. ‌


The same is true in a church. You can’t beat, or match the power of a personal testimony---the power of a life changed by Christ. There are many techniques and programs available that are designed to help you when it comes to things like evangelism, sharing your faith and giving a good gospel witness. However, one of the best techniques you could ever practice is living a transformed life. Nothing reveals the power of Christ in transformation like the clear and visible progress of the transformed life of a believer.‌‌And as we come to our text today, this is exactly what Paul tells us. He tells us that the most attractional and convincing model of evangelism is a changed life. And he tells Titus and the churches in Crete what this looks like, and how that healthy churches elevate mission over methods. That’s our big idea for today:



Big Idea: healthy churches elevate mission over methods. Because healthy churches elevate mission over methods, we need to be committed to the mission God has for us.

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? What does it mean? If someone stopped you on the street and said “hey, real quick, in one sentence, what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?” Or perhaps they asked the question in another way—“what difference should Jesus make in your life?” How would you answer? Do you know what you would say?


Titus is all about doctrine and devotion. All about how our right doctrine is vital for our spiritual lives, and then about how we must live rightly base on that doctrine. And our text today talks about that right off the bat. It talks about what a healthy disciple of Jesus looks like and how God expects all his followers to have lives that are built on both doctrine and devotion. So let’s open our text this morning, and as we do, there’s one big idea I want you to remember today: ‌‌



Big Idea: healthy discipleship involves both doctrine and practice ‌

Perhaps you're familiar with the concept of a deep fake. A deep fake is when someone takes something like an image or video and edits it into another image or video to digitally alter the item and make it appear to be someone else.


But as I thought about this during the week it came to my mind that this is the way some can be in the church there is a presence of deep fakes in the Christian Church even today. Individuals who have all the right appearance on the outside—things look good, they do everything that they're supposed to do, but there is no heart. They have rituals without a relationship. And in our text that we've been looking at over the past two weeks now Paul addresses these types of individuals in the church. He acknowledges that they had crept into the churches in Crete, some of them had been given leadership positions in the church, and they were destroying the body of Christ. Some used false teaching, some used deceitful words, some used immoral lifestyles, and they were distracting people from Jesus and ruining the Church of Christ. So Paul writes to Titus to help him and the church identify individuals in the body of Christ who might be harming the Christian community. And we've been looking at the descriptions that Paul gives of these individuals and how he instructs us to deal with them. We’ve been focusing on the big idea from our passage:‌ ‌



Big Idea: Churches are destroyed from the inside out. Because churches are destroyed from the inside out, we need to be able to identify destructive individuals in the church.