Introduction

1. There was a time when Protestant Christians were said to be those who lived according to the Book. They lived according to the Book rather than according to the Roman Catholic Church and its traditions. The Bible was the supreme authority over all issues of life and faith therefore they submitted to the Scriptures. They disciplined themselves to live in a way that reflected the truth and values of the Word of God. They tested everything they believed to make sure that it was in full agreement with the Scriptures. In order to live according to the Book they dedicated themselves to study, know, understand and apply God's Word in every aspect of life. Knowing the truth of God's Word was extremely important and an unrivalled priority therefore time was given to the study and contemplation of the Scriptures.
   
   
2. When Paul tells Titus to show himself to be a pattern of good works in doctrine, he is urging him to live life according to the Book. If anyone asked Titus to explain his behaviour, attitude or beliefs he would refer to the Lordship of Christ who rules through his Royal Word by the power of Holy Spirit. Titus' thinking no longer conformed to the thinking of the world as it had been transformed by the Word of God. The Bible is a vital and essential tool in our sanctification; it is a major agent in promoting change in the lives of the Lord's people. Paul reminds Titus of the place of Scripture in the lives of believer when in Chapter 1:9 he required an Elder to be a man who, holds fast to the faithful word he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict (the word). The Bible has been given to us by God to use in our daily living. Paul's conviction concerning Scripture is given in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, ??and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for ??instruction in righteousness, ?that the man of God may be complete, ??thoroughly equipped for every good work.' In Paul's mind the proper use of the Bible in everyday life was indispensable. The Bible was to be used to accomplish change, working through a fourfold process - (1) establish sound doctrine, (2) reproof, (3) correction and (4) instruction in righteousness. Titus' task on Crete was to work with believers through this process to enable them to put off the sinful ways and to live lives marked by true righteousness. You and I as believers ought to be putting the Word of God to work in our lives in these four ways. Using the Bible in these ways is a fundamental aspect of the Christian faith. This morning we will look at the first two indispensable uses of God's Word.

1. The Lord requires you to use his Word to establish sound doctrine.

1. What you believe, and why you believe it, must be firmly rooted and founded in the Scriptures. It is important to note that there is no difference between Biblical doctrines and Biblical teachings. Jesus' teachings are the doctrines he proclaimed. The attitude of the age in which we live despises the Bible and does not regard it highly as a source of wisdom, knowledge, understanding and truth. Those who believe the Bible are seen as very naïve and gullible people. Constant pressure is placed on believers not to regard the Scriptures as a reliable source of truth. Christians are constantly being asked- Do you really believe the first six chapters of Genesis? Do you really believe homosexuality is wicked? Do you really believe abortion is evil? Do you really believe hell exists? Do you honestly believe the Devil is a real being? Do you actually believe Jesus was God incarnate? Do you really think the Lord's Day is different to any other day? Do you actually believe that the root of all human problems is sin? Are you sure that God is sovereign and in control of all things? The only true Christian answer to all these questions is ‘Yes, because the Bible tells me so.'  Do you trust what the Bible says more than what scientist discover about our existence and being? I do. The authority of the Bible eclipses the authority of science because the Bible is God given and science is the product of human thought.
   
   
2. Paul instructs Titus to make sure that his doctrine is marked by integrity. The word translated as integrity in Titus 2:7 does not occur anywhere else in the New Testament. It is a difficult word to translate into English as its meaning includes every idea attached to the English words uncorrupted, pure and integrity. Titus' doctrine must hold up under rigorous scrutiny and testing. What you believe must be consistent with the teaching of Scripture. Jesus concluded the Sermon on the Mount with a powerful illustration of the integrity a believer needs to have in his life. Listen to what Jesus said, "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. "?But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.?" (Matthew 7:24-27.) The house built on the sand did not have the integrity of a firm foundation to resist the power of the wind and rain, it collapsed. The Scriptures are the bedrock of the Christian life. In order to live a Christian life that glorifies God the foundation of your life must be made on the rock of the Word.
   
   
3. Paul adds reverence, incorruptibility, and sound speech to the quality of the doctrine that Titus is to use to promote change in the believers on the Isle of Crete. It is easier to consider these three aspects in reverse order. Sound speech means plain speaking that leaves very little or no room for ambiguity. To have incorruptible doctrine means allowing the Scripture to speak for itself, not imposing a meaning on the text or misquoting a passage to support a personal opinion. God must speak through the Word. Incorruptible doctrine has its origin in God; it is not man made.  Reverence means showing great respect for God and all he has said in his Word. The Bible is taken seriously as a great, glorious and most useful and helpful gift from God. It is not taken as a Book of suggestions, a moral code, or a guideline, but as God given. In many ways Paul is returning to the concept of being blameless or above reproach in word and deed. Titus must be an example of a godly man ruled in every aspect of life by sound doctrine. Those who oppose Titus must not be given any opportunity to condemn what he does or says as being contrary to the Word of God. Those who oppose Titus must be seen as those who do not conform to the Word of God.

2. The Lord requires you to use his Word for reproof.

1. Titus and all believers need to use the Word of God to issue clear warnings to those who are in error in their doctrine and conduct. The warnings need to be issued in love and with zeal for the glory of God. Dangers of false teaching must be set out clearly. False teachers need to be exposed and demonstrated to be wrong according to the Bible. A large part of Jesus' ministry involved refuting the errors of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes. Jesus was hated by many simply because he exposed their hypocrisy.
   
   
2. The word translated as reproof could also be translated as conviction. The Word of God must be used to bring about a conviction in ourselves and others. What does the word conviction mean? Consider the way the word is used in Revelation 3:19, ‘As many as I love, I rebuke (convict) and ??chasten. ?Therefore be zealous and repent.' Jesus spoke these words to lukewarm Christians who were blind to their very poor spiritual state. These lukewarm Christians regarded themselves as blessed, rich, self-sufficient and in need of nothing. They would have been shocked by the fact that the Saviour says that they made him sick enough to vomit and urgently needed to repent of their sins. Lukewarm Christians need to change and part of the process of change is conviction that leads to repentance. Jesus laid a charge against them and proved their guilt of sinning against God. Conviction used here means at least three things: (i) Gaining knowledge of sin. (ii) Knowing that you are truly guilty of the sin. (iii) Taking action to deal with the sin. The fruits that Jesus seeks from this conviction are repentance and zeal. We must use the Bible to convince us of our wrong doing and summon us to repentance and obedience. The work of conviction has to be understood in a legal sense. Our Lord, through the Bible comes as the prosecutor and charges us of sinning against God. In Revelation 3:19 we are assured that this prosecution is done in love and for the good of the one being charged.
   
   
3. The fruit of conviction is not simply to make you feel bad and remorseful about your sin and yourself. At the heart of conviction is the profound sense of I am guilty of offending my heavenly Father, grieving the Holy Spirit, and spurning the work of Jesus. I have betrayed him who gave his life to set me free from sin, I have been a traitor to my heavenly Father, and opposed the work of the Holy Spirit living in my heart. This truth grasped as the reality of what I have done is absolutely necessary for change and repentance. What is repentance? The most popular definition is that it means to turn around, to change direction by 180 degrees.  While this definition describes the action it does not reveal the process. Repentance is at least three deliberate things:
   
   
1. It is a change of mind. You rethink and analyse your sinful actions, thoughts, desires and goals in order to establish the true wickedness and untrustworthiness of your heart and mind. Why did you think accomplishing your goal was a better option than pleasing the Lord? Why did you think that way? You need to take off the camouflage from sin to expose its evil nature. You change you mind so that it is no longer something that has any appeal to you.
   
   
2. Repentance is a change of heart. This takes ownership of the fact that your heart made something other than Christ your first and foremost love. Your heart made something else more desirable, valuable and pleasurable than the only true and living God. To put it in blunt terms - you loved your sin more than God, your love for sin was so strong that you were willing to honour Satan rather than God. A change of heart makes the Lord once more the true object of the love of your heart.
   
   
3. Repentance is a change of will. Your actions flow from your will. There is a sense in which your will is the control room of your life. A W Tozer said, ‘The root of all evil in human nature is the corruption of the will'. Matthew Henry endorses this view in saying, ‘All the wickedness of the wicked world is owning to the wilfulness of the will.' A change of will means bringing the will to submit to the Word in order to honour the Lordship of Christ. Until the will submits, the work of repentance remains unfinished. Your mind can know what you are doing is grievous to God, your heart can know real sorrow for what you have done, but if your will remains defiant no real change will take place. The will must stop receiving its motivation from the flesh and start being motivated to please and honour God. A true sense of guilt, a proper coming under the conviction of sin promotes submission of the will.
   
   
4. The work of conviction is a vital work and we must use the Scriptures to pursue that work with all our strength. We do this because it is what the Scripture teaches us. We need to be very much aware that the sin that continues to dwell in all who believe will argue that true repentance can only take place by the power and work of the Holy Spirit. Indwelling sin will argue that all your efforts in using the Bible to bring conviction will be a complete waste of time if the Holy Spirit does not cut the heart, enlighten the mind and overpower the will. Indwelling sin will tell you to continue in your sinful way and wait for the Holy Spirit to take action and bring you to true repentance - do nothing until the Spirit works. It will even go so far as to suggest that the Lord wants you to continue in this sin a little longer so that he can use it for your greater good.  When Jesus calls on lukewarm Christians to repent he urges them to immediate action. Jesus does not call them to repentance and then tell them to wait for the Holy Spirit to come with power and light. He expects immediate action. Repentance is absolutely vital to the progress of you becoming more like Jesus. The Holy Spirit lives in you for the very purpose of fighting sin and promoting holiness. Why would he not draw alongside believers to give them victory over sin? Why do we think he is reluctant to grant true repentance to sinner who know and understand their guilt before God? Surely if the Holy Spirit withheld his power and light from believers he would be promoting sin and the very thought of him doing that is blasphemous. We should never think that the Holy Spirit is unwilling or reluctant to bring the Lord's people to repentance. When the prophet Nathan confronts King David after his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah the Hittite he asks, ‘Why have you ??despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? ??You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.' Notice the first issue David is accused of is despising the commandment of the Lord. David is being convicted - charged and proven guilty by the Word of God. When we sin, we deliberately despise God's Word and allow our wills to respond to the desires of the flesh. We usually sin by deliberate choice rather than by ignorance or accident. We despise the Word and wilfully sin.  Titus is to use the Word of God to bring conviction of sin to the Cretans.
   
   
5. You and I need to use the Word of God to bring Biblical truth (facts) to prove guilt of sin. The Scriptures must put the case - prosecute the sin in the believer's life. It is vital that we understand that the judgement is objective. The judgement is not a subjective feeling it is a fact. The evidence is clear - you have not followed God's Word - you have wilfully and deliberately chosen to despise his Word and wilfully do what sin dwelling in you desires. You have no excuse for your sin- you cannot defend your action as it is clearly contrary to God's Word. Your guilt does flow from being persuaded by the arguments of men, but from the fact that you have chosen to do what is against the Word of God. David in Psalm 51 repents of his sins of adultery and murder. Listen to what he says in verses 3-5, ‘For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ?Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil ? ?in Your sight-?That You may be found just ??when You speak, and blameless when You judge.' David acknowledges that the facts are clear, he sinned wilfully and deliberately against God -he does not try to defend himself or rationalise his sin - he chose wickedness rather than righteousness - he is guilty before God. We need to use God's Word to bring conviction so that we come to the full reality that we stand guilty before God, our sins proven from the Word.

Conclusion

1. When God by his great grace makes you a child in his family, he exercises a special love for you and commences the work of conforming you to the likeness of his only begotten Son. God from the day of your conversion begins the work of decontaminating you from the depravity and corruption of sin. Paul makes this point clear in Ephesians 4:17-24. Listen to the New Living Translation of that passage - ‘With the Lord's authority let me say this: Live no longer as the ungodly?? do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their closed minds are full of darkness; they are far away from the life of God because they have shut their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They don't care anymore about right and wrong, and they have given themselves over to immoral ways. Their lives are filled with all kinds of impurity and greed. But that isn't what you were taught when you learned about Christ. Since you have heard all about him and have learned the truth that is in Jesus, throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception. Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes. You must display a new nature because you are a new person, created in God's likeness-righteous, holy, and true.' You must use the Bible to discern what wickedness you need to put off and what ways of righteousness you need to put on. You need to weave the Word of God into the very fabric of your life, thousands of strands of doctrine need to be woven together to cover your life.
   
   
2. God has given you the Bible he demands that you use it to build your relationship with himself and to give yourself fully to being like Jesus. God expects you to grow in grace and to constantly change, becoming more righteous and less sinful. Do not neglect the proper use of God's Word. May God be gracious and merciful to us as we fight against the legacy of the sinful nature by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.