Holding the Line in the Church Against Culture

We're gonna interact with this podium as we interact with these Scriptures throughout the message, and I'll start by telling you what happened to me last night. So last night, a rule in our family was broken. Just one rule. It's a small rule. That rule is when you leave the house, you wear a watch so that our kids can get in touch with us. We can know where their location is. They can call us if they need something. They can ask for permission to go to another friend's house, whatever it may be. That rule was broken by my oldest son, Hill. It changed the course of our evening by hours, and it could have changed the course of our lives. So what happened was his buddy, Pierce, was like, "Hey, why don't you come over?" And so he goes to get his watch, his watch was dead, he leaves without his watch, and he gets on his bike. He goes on what should have been a five-minute ride, and Pierce calls my wife, Laura, and he's like, "Hey, is he still coming over?" Because he hasn't arrived. Well, this was 20 minutes prior after he had already left, and so now 20 minutes have gone by. It's now pouring raining. It's been pouring raining, and we live around a lot of rivers and creeks, and so I know the rivers are swollen, these low-water bridges are like two and three feet of water just like washing down. And I was like, "Oh, my goodness. What did he try to do in order to get there?" Then we get another phone call from somebody that lives like three miles away. Here's Creek family who live out in the country. Further from us, called the naps, and the naps call, and they're like, "Hey, we saw a hill drive by," but that was like a while ago, and he hasn't come back this way. Like, he's headed toward Cotton Belt Parkway. That's like miles and miles from us. And we're like, "You haven't seen him?" And they're like, "No." And we talked to the neighbor there in the corner. She was out getting her mail. She saw him, but that was like now 45 minutes ago. So Laura and I start driving all these country roads. His watch is dead. He doesn't even have it on. It doesn't matter. He's just out there in the pouring rain, swollen rivers, trying to get to his friend's house. I realize, "Oh, he's trying to like circumvent every creek and river he gets to, to try to find a way to get over his buddy's house." And he's now so far out of where we allow him to be with no means of communication. And y'all, I mean, I'm stopping at like drainage ditches looking. I'm thinking in my mind, "Okay, what are the steps to CPR? This is what's running

through my mind. Laura, I'm 10 years older than her. She's now older than me because of this event. She's like aged two decades and one day, and we don't know where he is. And it wasn't just us, after calling 911 to report a missing person, they're like, "Send us photographs of your child." So I'm sending them photos. Garin Bynum's helping me along with the MacLennan Sheriff Department, McGregor PD, Waco PD. There's people scouring the area. And then some of our friends see a boy walking muddy through a field carrying a helmet. And after two hours and 15 minutes, get a text from the Smiths and say, "Hey, he's fine. He's here." So we had a welcome party form at the neighborhood. There were seven squad cars. Garin Bynum, Waco PD, he trains all the Waco officers. He leads in our safety security team here. He's like, "Hey, so you want to come get him? I've got him here at the Simsky's house." And I was like, "No, I want you to put the fear of God in him. Like put him in the back of the squad car. Like tell him you never leave without your watch." He's like, "I got you." One little rule. One little rule that my son thought, "It's fine. What's this rule anyway? I'm just going to my friend's house. What's the big deal? It's just a watch. It's five minutes away. What could happen? It's just a silly rule my parents have." And I forgive him. He asked for my forgiveness to Adam so sorry. Will you please forgive me? He asked Garin Bynum for his forgiveness, for tying up our community resources instead of doing real things like protecting the city. It's just this one little rule. But can you imagine how I'd feel if some parent, if I saw my son there after getting him back into our safety and like give him a hug? And if there was some parent that was like, "Do your parents really make you wear a watch? Man, you don't have to do that. Don't listen to them." That's not required by law. They can't make you do that. They make you wear a helmet. Man, you don't have to wear a helmet. That's going to inhibit your senses when you're riding. Like you don't need to do that. Your parents are so old, fast, and don't worry about that. They have a perimeter which you can't leave. Man, you're almost 13. You should be able to go. Do you know how I would feel? I mean, I was hurt that my son broke the rule, but if there was some other adult... And the reason why I share that is because it's what's happening in the church today. The church, some churches, are telling God's children, "Oh, those rules? Those are old rules." Oh no, that's a contextual cultural rule. That doesn't apply today. That's so old-fashioned. No, those are ancient rules. They don't apply today. No, did they? They told you that? No, you don't have to follow that. You think what I might be thinking about.

The United Methodist Church in 2024 had their general conference. Listen to what they told God's children. They removed its prohibition on the ordination of gay clergy. So now gay pastors can shepherd. That's what they told to God's children. Number two, they affirmed same-sex weddings stating that a marriage is simply between two adult persons. Apart from what Jesus said, that a man and woman shall leave their father and mother unite and become one flush. As it was in the beginning, he reaffirms it in Matthew. In three, they stated that sexuality is a sacred gift from God. Regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, you be you. Love is love. It's a far cry from in 1972, just 50 years earlier, they denounced homosexuality, now embracing it. And I'm not here to pick a fight with the United Methodist Church or the Episcopalian Church. In fact, first Methodist of Waco broke away from the church because of that. In everything that I just shared about the United Methodist Church, decades earlier, the Episcopalian Church adopted, but they went further and they support legal access to abortion. Those made in the image of God formed in the mother's womb, fearfully and wonderfully made it, that they support the legal access to abortion. So these are churches, these are false teachers sharing false teaching to God's children, saying, "No, no, you don't have to follow those rules. You don't have to do that anymore." And what we're going to see today in Titus is that very thing. Paul is this guy that's like, "He met Jesus. Jesus saved him." And he's like, "I'm gone, man. I'm going to spend the rest of my life telling others the good news of Jesus Christ, that we have sinned. Jesus has come and we can be saved." And all of his letters are like grace and peace and mercy to you because of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been predestined into the adoption of sonship through the blood of Jesus. It's all this glorious good news unless or until there's false teachers. And then he's like, "Gloves are off and Paul's ready to fight." He's like, "No, you're leading the bride of Christ that is to be without wrinkles, stain, and blemish it as coming. You're leading the bride, the children of God, and the sin." And then you see Paul get amped up. And you're going to see that in Titus chapter 1 as we continue. We're moving through Titus verse by verse. Last week, JP kicked this off.

And what he showed is that ideas have consequences. And specifically because of that, he's like, Paul's writing to Titus on the island of Crete. He's like, "You need to find the right people with the right theology, with the right heart to pastor God's people." These are called elders. They need to have the right doctrine and their life needs to reflect that. So if that's right people, and then Paul's going to go further and say, "Right, teaching." Like, don't go rogue by your leaders or by your doctrine. And so that's what we're going to cover today. It's not, honestly, it's not a feel-good message. It's a live-good message. It's a teach-good message. It's a hold-the-line message against this cultural compromise that not only culture is in this moral landslide, but the church, in part, is following suit and rejecting the commands of God, maybe out of fear of man, maybe out of fear of being canceled, maybe out of like, "Well, I don't want to judge and I want to enter on the kind side." And we're applauding people as they barrel headlong into sin and hell forever, separation from God. And so we're going to talk about holding the line in the church against culture. The outline is going to be that we don't let corrupt counsel contaminate the church. We don't let corrupt counsel contaminate the church. And that we thus correct out of care and concern. but we do correct, and it's out of care and concern. And third and finally, we share Christ with the corrupted. But those are corrupted in mind and spirit. We share Christ with. They're not like ejected, we don't hate them, but rather we share with them, oh, you need Jesus. You've been led astray. You need the salvation of your soul. So beginning in verse 10 through 12. You'll see it on the screen, I'll be reading it here. It says, "For there are many rebellious people

"full of meaningless talk and deception, "especially those of the circumcision group. "They must be silenced, "because they're disrupting whole households," which these are home churches at this point in time. They're like, "They're disrupting the whole church, "the household of God. "They're disrupting whole home churches, "house churches by teaching things "that ought not to be taught." And that, for the sake of dishonest gain, one of Crete's own prophets has said it. Creteians are always liars, evil brooks, lazy gluttons. Man, what a motivational speech. But Paul writes about these people and the first adjective he gives them, he says, "They're rebellious. "They've cast off the authority of God." They're like, "I don't have to follow your rules. "That doesn't seem right to me. "I'm wise in my own eyes. "I'm gonna do what seems right to me. "They're in rebellion against God "and against His word, and not only that, "this meaningless talk that they're full of, "like it has no meaning, it has no sustenance." They are full of deception, which means not only they deceive, but they're deceiving others. Paul's like, "This is spreading."

Then he says, "Especially, it's not just all, "like the whole lot of them." He's like, "It's the circumcision group. "It's these people who have this semblance of religiosity. "They know the talk. "They've got the lingo. "They've got the words. "They can say, they can quote stuff, "and that's what makes them dangerous." Is they have this religious veneer, but they're spreading this false teaching. He says they're disrupting the whole households, those who would have been the home churches, by teaching things they ought not to teach. And then he just compliments the whole nation by calling them liars, evil brutes and lazy gladdens. It's like, man, Paul, Paul's upset about one thing. You're rejecting the savior who bought you with his own blood and you're leading others astray. And it's worth being upset about what's right here beside me, this is false teaching. What does this look like today? In Paul's day and age, it was Jewish myths and circumcision, which was legalism, to go beyond what is written. But now we're in this place culturally, where we're taking away from what is written and saying, no, that's not what that means. And so you think about this as being the false teaching and it's like, no, life in the womb.

No, that's a clump of cells. Your body is your body. How can anyone tell you what to do with your body? You decide that. And look, yeah, your birth certificate says male or female, but no, no, you decide your gender by your desire. It's not defined by the designer. That's such an ancient idea. Don't you know there's many genders? And look, love is love. You can marry who you want to marry. So long as you're monogamous, just be faithful and committed to each other. You don't have to, this is the male and female, leave your father and mother, be you, not one flesh. That's so, no, this is, that was a cultural interpretation. Now the timeless truth is that it's just love. And Paul's saying, what's happening here is this false teaching is spreading through the church and whole households, whole home churches are being led astray and deceived by this meaningless talk, especially of those who seem to have some semblance of religion and are speaking on behalf of God, lies that are not of God. And it is our first point, which is we don't let corrupt counsel contaminate the church. This was pure water. I mean, with anybody it smells horrible. It's now unfit for anything.

It's been polluted by the false teaching. So here I'm gonna give you three applications in this first point. The first is you must be a student of this word. There's only one way to know false teaching is to know true teaching that you have orthodoxy. You've got the only moral compass this broken world has ever seen. It's a lamp until your feet, a light to your path. It's living and active, able to decide soul and spirit In 2 Timothy 3, 16, it says the word of God is God breathed and useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness so that the man or God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. One of these good works, then we'd hold the line in the faith and be like, no, that's out of bounds. That's sin that leads to death. All sin leads to death. That's not right. And that our legions would be to Christ, not to culture, that we would have a fidelity to Him, whether canceled, condemned, called a bigot or a hater. Be like, I follow Jesus in a stand on His word. Ask for me in my house. Ask for we in this house. We'll follow the Lord. Come what may? The second application from this is when we give counsel, we need to make sure that it's biblically informed, that here in life groups and as we're walking together,

one with another, that we're able to be like, man, so we're talking about finance, we're talking about marriage, we're talking about parenting, we're talking about purity, we're talking about media, that we'd be able to be like, you know what? Let's look at what the word says. And maybe that's a values question of Romans 14, or maybe it's a morals thing that the Lord has clearly spoken to, but that we would give counsel that's first informed by the word in not just our hot takes or opinions, and when somebody else is giving you counsel, when somebody's speaking to you, speaking into your life, that you're either thinking or asking them, man, thanks so much for sharing that. Can you tell me like what verses informed that? Where would I find that in scripture? If I was to, you know, listening to what you're saying, where could I find that? We have verses that would support that, 'cause I hear you, and I just wanna know that that is the will of God. There we're not going beyond, and we're not taking away from it, but we're counseling each other by the scriptures, and then the third, if you're like, hey, look, man, that's a really big book. And I don't know that I can like get through all that in order to then give somebody counsel like in the next month, so what do I do?

Well, we have this thing called the Bible reading plan. John Green heads it up, where every single day, you get emailed verse with this explanation so you can be regularly ingesting the word of God. The second thing that I would give you is gotquestions.org. You can find answers to every question you would ever think of. So it's like, what about gay marriage? What about gender? When does life begin? What if it's a monogamous same-sex relationship? What about polygamy? What about vaping? What about drunkenness? What about weed? That's a plant made from the earth, isn't that good? You can ask any question, you know, is Jesus God? You can ask any question about anything, and it will give you this incredible, biblically-based, not opinion, but scripture answer. The other thing that I would commend you is the ESV study Bible, which the top half of the book is scriptures, and then the bottom half is the explanation of it. It's this conservative evangelical explanation of the verses there. So when you're reading it, you're like, what does that even mean? Like Jewish myths upsetting whole households? What is this? Cretions are evil, brutes, and lazy gluttons.

What's he talking about? Why is he so mad that it can give you that explanation so that you can understand? Church, we've got to be biblically informed. The world is not, and there is this daily poll, so we've got to have this anchor for our soul so that we don't let corrupt counsel contaminate the church. So the Lord instructs us what to do, because it does happen as I've discussed with entire denominations or within individuals spreading through the church, and Paul's gonna give us the answer about what to do verses 13 and 14 of Titus 1. This saying is true. When Paul says that, lean in. He doesn't say it often. Sometimes he says it about the gospel. This trustworthy is, this saying is trustworthy and true. Here he's saying it about false teachers. This saying is true, lean in. Therefore, rebuke them sharply. It doesn't say like, oh man, kind of beat around the bush. Kind of tip toe, don't offend anybody. They might get upset, they might even leave. But to rebuke them sharply, when someone's sharing something that is corrupt counsel, to contaminate the church. Whenever you see so that, the next word says, rebuke them sharply so that, that's called a henna clause, I-N-A. When you see that in the scriptures, you've just been told what?

Now you're gonna be told why. So he says the what, rebuke them sharply, these people that are spreading false teaching. Now he's gonna tell you why. So that they will be sound in the faith. Like not that you would shun them, throw them out, cast them off, but rebuke them sharply, why? So they'll be sound in the faith. That word sound is from where we get the word hygiene. It's health. Paul's like, they've become toxic. And I want them to become sound or healthy to have good spiritual hygiene in the faith. And we'll pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. There it is right there. Human commands of those who reject the truth. He said, like, they've already rejected this. They have jettisoned the Bible. And now they're just sowing these human commands that are not from God. They're their own opinion. They're their own ideation, or first Timothy four says, they're even the teachings of demons. But they're merely human commands that have no foundation in the eternal scriptures. That says not a Iota or a word will fall away. The word of the Lord will stand forever. And so we stand on it, which is the second point. We correct out of care and concern.

We correct out of care and concern. I'm not gonna like take this and just throw it out. This is an immortal soul that's gonna be spent eternity in heaven or hell. And so we do correct, but we correct out of care and concern. And what that looks like, he says, is to rebuke them sharply so that these heresies will no longer spread. It's to cap it, rebuke it sharply. Which means to say, man, you can beat, we want you here. Like where else are you gonna get Orthodox teachings? So we want you here. We want you to be fed. We want you to learn. We want you to worship. But this false teachings gotta stop. You can't keep sharing what you're sharing. It's going to contaminate others. You're being rebuked sharply. Why? So that you can be sound in the faith. You're not, you don't have this spiritual hygiene right now. My doctor is Dr. Van Weimar. He's one of the members here. And the reason why we were out to eat with our life group, the first week when we landed here in Waco. And we're in this restaurant. And Van Weimar notices JP, I think, recognize him. So he comes over to our table. JP introduces me, he's like, yeah, one of our new pastors. And I stand up and say, he's like, you need to come see me.

I'm like, dude, do I look that sick? Like, why did he just invite me to come see him? Is it that bad? He's like, well, you're new to 10. You probably don't have a doctor. Let me help out. I was like, unbelievable. So that's how I got my doctor is by his invitation. Now, how crazy would it be if I go in there and he's like just talking new sports and weather and he's like, well, what do you think you need today? And just like slides over the prescription pad and was like, right, whatever you want, you know? What makes you, what do you think will make you feel good? Instead, he's like, now, now, tell me what's going on. He puts the blood pressure cuff on me. He's like pushing on my, you know, trying to feel my glands and whatnot. It's uncomfortable. He's looking at various places because of my incredible complexion that's never prone to skin cancer. He's like checking me out, head to foot. It's a really humbly, humble thing for him. But he would not be doing his job if he's just like, man, I don't know, who am I to say? I don't know, man, how do you feel? Do you need a prescription or don't you? I mean, what a clown of a doctor he would be. But instead, he's taken the Hippocratic oath

to not do me harm and to bring me to health, like a sworn oath as a doctor. And we would do well to think about it in the same way that I have a sworn oath to the Lord, to shepherd people who have stepped beyond orthodoxy, who are being led astray into false teachings, to be like, man, I can't just stand idly by and not say anything because silence in the face of sin is sin, to not say anything. If I was sick and Van was like, I'm not, man. I mean, who am I to judge? Instead, he's like, no, you're sick and you need something and here's the prescription. We correct out of care and concern. Now, who, the question is, well, who are we to correct and how are we to correct out of care and concern? Well, the who is those in the church? Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 5. He's like, look, God's gonna judge the world. The world is being led astray by Satan and its own teachings, spirit of the air. Like God's gonna deal with that. Our role is to judge within the church and judge doesn't mean condemn. And judge means to evaluate the health therein. He's like, that is our job. We are our brothers keeper. So the who here in context is the church. Paul's writing to Titus overseeing the church and he's like, man, we gotta get this squared up

with scripture. There's some false teachings that have crept in. So the who is the church and then he's gonna give us the how. So Galatians 1.10 says, if I Proverbs 29, 25, it says fear of man is a snare. I think that's what keeps us from doing this. We're like, man, I don't wanna step on toes. That's gonna be so awkward. I work with this person. They're in our life group. I see them at youth. They're in the college ministry. That's gonna be weird. I mean, it's not like I'm perfect, so how can I point out anything in their life? Proverbs 24, 11, and 12, it says hold those back who are staggering toward the slaughter. And if you say, I didn't know God does not he who perceive the heart know and will he not repay you according to your deeds. So we are called to care for each other. So let's talk about specifics. Like what are these false teachings that have entered into the church in this day and age? Because nobody is around here. It'd be easy if it was like, all right, here's Greek. Hey, nope, everybody stop talking about Jewish myths and circumcision. Come on, no more Jewish myths.

You know, but instead here's what they are. That homosexuality is not a sin. That it's just love. And that if it's a pure expression of love, then it's not sin. That same-sex marriage is okay in God's eyes. So long as monogamous and faithful, same-sex marriage is okay, that's a false teaching. Transgenderism, that you just should be who you think you should be. It's not binary. There's not male or female, as the scripture said, that's ancient, that's an old rule, but rather you can just determine who you wanna be. Maybe you feel like you're trapped in some other body? Great, then like embrace that. Have surgery, dress different. Call it by a different name, false teaching. Or a heterosexual one. Man, we're married in God's eyes. Living together, sleeping together. You know, we've prayed together. And so we're married in God's eyes. No, you're not, you're living in fornication. Universalism. Universalism is to say, you know what? God's love. And in the end, everybody's going to heaven. Everybody's gonna get there 'cause God's love. So all these different religions,

all these different faiths, they're all gonna end up in the same place. Or it's cousin false teaching pluralism, which is to say, man, Muslim friend, he's like awesome and he prays to Allah. He does the five pillars of Islam. He gives alms, he wants to do a hajj to Mecca. Like he's a great, how can I say he's going to hell? He loves Allah. He reads the Quran or my Hindu friend. The gives sacrifices and offerings and goes to temple. I mean, they're a great person or my Mormon friends. Man, they're so polite. They do so many good deeds. They're great people. They're gonna go to heaven when they die. There's many paths that lead up the mountain. We're all seeking the same God. We just got a different path to get there. The Bible thoroughly rejects as a false teaching. Jesus said on the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through the Son. Well, isn't that hate, John? No, it's love. It's hate to say, you do you, man. Hope it works out well for you. Knowing full well, the scripture says they're gonna die and go to hell forever and be separated from God. That's hate to remain silent when they know they've been led astray.

Or relativism. Which is to say like, man, I've got my truth. You've got yours. We got little t-truth. There's no big t-truth. There's no absolute moral truth. That would be like so prideful and arrogant of me. And so I've got my thing, you've got yours and we can just kind of coexist. It's a false teaching. Or one that's recently had this resurgence that there's no hell. I don't know what kind of loving God would send someone to eternal torment separated from the love and presence of God. That doesn't square with my mind. Like how could that be? And because I can't understand it, even though the word says it, I'm gonna reject it, false teaching. Or the prosperity gospel. That if you follow Jesus, you'll be healthy, wealthy and wise. And if you're not, it's not because Jesus's promises for your prosperous life aren't true. It's 'cause you don't have enough faith. And if you just had enough faith and if you just sow a little seed money, then everything wouldn't be like this. And you would be healthy and wealthy. The reason why you have cancer, whatever,

is 'cause you don't have enough faith. That's a tragic false teaching. Or cheap grace. Another false teaching. Within the church, cheap grace, which is to say, like, man, all you have to do is just confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. And then, hey man, you're saved. Maybe you won't get the rewards in heaven, but you're saved. Even if your life doesn't reflect it, you said the prayer, right? I mean, you went to summer camp and I see no evidence in your life, no sanctification in your life, no conviction of the Spirit. You don't enjoy being with God's people, you reject everything about Him, you denounce Him with your deeds. But did you pray a prayer? Yeah, you're good then, man. And Romans 6, reject. Now what you didn't hear me say is like, okay, okay, what about gluttony? What about pride? What about gossip? What about self-righteousness? What about adultery? Like where's that in the list? How come, you just cherry picked that list

'cause those are the ones you're against? No, it's not. It's because nobody as a pastor is teaching, hey, adultery's great. Everybody, everybody go out of here and commit adultery. Everybody get addicted to porn. That's a gift from God. Everybody go enjoy it. Lap it up, enjoy it. And greed, like man, you get yours because if those were being taught, we would denounce them too as false teachings and false teachers. But those aren't being taught. But there are some because of culture and culture embracing these lifestyles or things. The church is like, man, well, you don't wanna like miss a line with culture. So therefore, we'll teach that these are right and they become false teachers with false teachings. And so we speak to those because Paul is here and the scriptures are calling us to it. Now, you might be asking like, man, so you're just like really against transgender people and homosexuals. No, I have a friend, a good friend in Dallas who struggles with transgender. He's at the surgery. He dresses the part, changes his name. I love him.

I care for him. And I long for him to know Jesus. Or the person in the same sex relationship. And I've got those friends. Some that have repented from it and are now married with kids. But that's not the goal. Heterosexuality is not the goal. Christ's likeness is the goal. But sometimes though that's not the bullseye, it is the result. But I've got friends that are still struggling with same sex and I don't reject them. I don't hate them. You can be for the person and against the movement. Like, all right, man, I love you and there's a better way in Christ. And I am against the world telling you that this is right and that it won't lead to death because it will. And so in this place, in this church, if you're like struggling with same sex or struggling with gender or whatever it may be, you're like, man, I can't wait till this thing's over. This is not the place for me. Let me tell you, it is the place for you. This is where you can find the full abundant life and we're not gonna like tickle your ear and be like, well, hey, man, you just do you 'cause it's gonna lead to death. But rather we're gonna be like, hey, we don't condemn you.

Like I've got sin. We all have sin. That's why we need a savior. That's why we're here in church is because we are aware that we have sin and we need a savior to forgive us and cleanse us. And so welcome to the club where we're getting healed from Jesus, from every sin struggle under the sun. So the application again, silence in the face of sin is sin. And how do you do it? You speak the truth and love. Speak the truth in love. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says, if I have the faith to move mountains, if I can understand all mysteries, if I have the voice of men and angels, if I surrender my body to the flames as a martyr, but I don't have love, I'm a resounding gong. I'm a nuisance. And so truth without love, you're a nuisance. But then in 1 Corinthians 13, 6, he says love does not rejoice in wrongdoing. And so love without truth and you're negligent. Like if we just let our kids do whatever they wanted to do 'cause they wanted to do it, I would be a negligent parent. And if I just like barked rules at them without any love, I would be a nuisance.

And so it says Jesus was full of truth and grace. Now you got your truth people in the room and you know who you are and you got your love people in the room and you know who you are. We all lean one way or the other. And the goal is that by the surrendering to the Holy Spirit, we would come more to the middle just like Jesus. So we speak the truth in love. And look, like if you're offended as we list some of the false teachings that have come into the church, like please rather than leave, come forward and allow us to have a conversation. And I promise you, I and we will not share our opinion with you, we'll just go, hey, what does the word say? Like let's look at the word because we correct out of care and concern. Continuing on in the last portion of the verse, it says in 15, 16, to the purer, all things are pure. But to those who are corrupted, I mean, listen to this passage and you just say, is God describing a believer or an unbeliever? Are they dead and sin or born again? But to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds, what they think and their conscience, their spirit are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions, Let me tell you, that's who I was prior to the age of 30. I would have told you up, down,

left and right. I am a Christian. Check the box. I went to Baylor. I'm not a Hindu or a Muslim. I believe Jesus is the Son of God. I believe he died on the cross. I believe he was buried. I believe he was raised from the dead. And I believe the salvation is through no one else except him. I would have told you all those things and guess what? The demons believe the exact same thing. I had no allegiance to Christ. The demons believe he's the Son of God. The demons believe he died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. The demons believe he was dead and buried and rose again. The demons believe he's the Son of God and they have no allegiance to him. They reject him. They deny him. And so it was with me. And so there's many even sitting here tonight that profess to know Christ, but they have a professed faith and not a possessed faith. They have a stated faith, but not a saving faith. There's a proclamation of Christ, but no sanctification of evidence of Christ in their life. And you need to know, like as a staff here at Harris Creek, oftentimes when people within the church are in rebellion, when there's like this habitual sin that's happening in their life again and again and again and again, we get together as a staff. We're like having them meeting whoever's in care for them. And the question that's asked is, do you think they're a believer? But do you think they're born again? And in many cases, it's like, I don't think so. And in that regard, it's not like, well, then get them out. It just changes the offense. Because no matter how much false teaching, no matter how much they profess to know him, but by their actions, they deny him, it's not like we go to that person and we're like, hey, look, gosh, the pornography, like, you got to get that out. And your beliefs on abortion and life in the womb, we got to get that out too. Oh, boy. Yeah, I know you think you're marrying God's eyes or your adulterous affair is okay because you guys really love each other, but we got to get that out too. Like how fruitless is that? Because it says they deny him. They're corrupted, detestable. They are not born again. You don't like tell someone who's dead in their sin. Well, you need to like, we need to get that. Let me just try to correct your thinking. Garren Bynum that I mentioned earlier, the guy in the cowboy hat that helped find my son, I asked him because wake up, he'd seen a lot. I was like, hey, when you come across someone who's dead, do you tell them the law? He's like, what are you, bro, what are you talking about? I'm like, just bear with me here. Do you tell them like, hey, you can't run through red lights, person lying dead as he happens upon the scene. And by the way, you can't discharge a firearm in

public. And by the way, don't deal drugs and don't roll through stop signs and don't break an enter. That's crazy. I go, Garren, what do you do when you find a person that's dead? He's like, oh, easy, man. Mouse to mouth, chest compressions, defibrillators, because the person's dead, what they need is life. They don't need the law. The law is not going to do anything to somebody who's dead. They need life. So it is with the person that has denied God with their actions, though they may have a professed faith. And just as we took communion, you take the body of Jesus, broken blood shed for the forgiveness of sins, and you get Jesus into them. Not the law, the law simply reveals when we are in sin, but it has no power to correct us from sin. But you get Jesus in that person, and you will see a sanctification in a purity. And go figure, this is vitamin C, and C stands for Christ. Look at that. Tell me God's not in the illustration. And they are purified. And by the way, the one that they spread the false teaching to, yeah, man, all Jesus, like that's what Jesus did. That's what he did for every single person, probably that clapped their hands. I know he did it for me. It wasn't like, man, I need to stop drinking. I need to stop messing around with girls. It was like, no, I need Jesus. And for the person that's been contaminated by this person, like, man, they've like spread their false teaching to me, just got to preach the gospel to yourself all over again. No, you know what? I claim Jesus. He died from my sins. He rose from the dead. I'm going to go back to the word, and I'm going to read what he said, his inerrant, unfailing, eternal word. And that's going to cleanse everything. And you might say, like, yeah, but what if that person like sins again, or gets led astray again? Man, once Jesus is in you, that stuff just goes pure time and time again. The third point, we share Christ with people who have been corrupted. We share Christ with corrupted people. They may say they're Christians, but you'll know by their lives. And so you don't lecture your roommate who's getting drunk a lot and doesn't even know Jesus. That's like screaming at the dead person, the law. It's like, oh, they need life. They're dead in their sin.

They need Jesus. They need to be born again. And some of you, 'cause they're gonna say, like, no, I'm a Christian. You need to say to them in love. Man, I know you say that, but I don't see any evidence. I don't see any conviction. And I'm not here to condemn you. I'm here to care for you. Maybe you've trusted him as savior, but not as Lord. You're still Lord of your life. And you need to reevaluate your relationship with the Lord, because as it says right here, they claim to know God, but by their actions, they deny him. We share Christ with corrupted people. In summary, we don't let corrupted counsel contaminate the church. So we correct out of care and concern. And we share Christ with corrupted people. You know, you saw that picture where there were seven squad cars from McLendon County, Sheriff's Department, Wake OPD, McGregor PD, seven squad cars. There was a game warden that showed up 'cause he was nearby. He's like, man, I'll do it. I'm used to looking in fields.

All these people descended, but not only them. The paklutas and powers, our life group, they were like scouring all the roads. We're all passing each other time and time again, but not just them. The naps were out looking. They gassed up their ATV to start going off in fields. The Harrison's who are neighbors, Brian and Mimi, they got into their ATV and we're looking. Whitney Horner, Trent was out of town. Whitney Horner gets into her car. She got stuck looking for him. It was like time and time again, all these people. Graham Walker in high school started running through fields, calling out my son's name and desperation when he heard that he was missing. The McCoy's who live in a far, like totally different neighborhood through their kids in the car and started searching for us. And not only that, it wasn't like, okay, great. So Harris Creek people responded to the call. First Woodway people, these families were the ones that received him. The Smiths, local doctor, surgeon, Dr. Michael Smith, then got to the Simmsky's house, another first Woodway family. Why do I share that very purposefully? Because we, the people of God, are after every lost person. And it doesn't matter if they end up at first Woodway

or Harris Creek, so long as they end up, they're lost that we would go out of here with urgency, just like those people did for my son and would no one believe they're lost. They've been led astray by Satan and they're, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna have the conversation. I'm gonna move into that awkward space and start talking about spiritual things 'cause they're lost. And if I don't go, maybe they're gonna be lost forever. And so just as it was with my son, would you feel that? Would I feel that? Would we feel that? That they would come and find forgiveness of sins. No matter what their sin is, to find the salvation of their soul. Let's pray. Father, thank you for Jesus's words from Luke 15. The story of the prodigal son who was lost, he knew you, he walked away. And in total desperation was looking back towards his father's home. But the father was looking first standing on the horizon and ran to him, wrapped him up. Put garments on him that resemble the righteousness of Christ, a ring that resembles adoption into the family of God and sandals which represent the gospel, feet shod with the gospel.

We wanna pray if anyone is here that believes they're dead in their sin, not born again. That today would be the day of salvation and I pray for all the rest of us. Just with the urgency that the community had for my son when he was missing for over two hours last night in the pouring rain that we would walk out of here with urgency, not hatred, not condemnation, but love and truth for the salvation of souls for any who have been corrupted by the flesh and by Satan for under false teaching that they would find the forgiveness of sins and return to their maker. For your kingdom and glory, in Jesus' name, Amen.