A Word in Season: Sound Doctrine (Titus 2:1)

The Glory of Christ in Preaching

I think I know how most preachers would like to preach if you gave them the opportunity. The sermon that they might want to preach would be one full of the glory of God in Christ Jesus. It would come with thunder and with lightning.

There would be a manifest attendance of the Spirit of Christ and He being exalted would draw every man to Himself, the wonders of the Father's redeeming love, the awesome majesty of the Son's sacrificial death, the gracious operations of the Spirit in applying the blood and righteousness of Christ to our hearts, the eloquence perhaps with which we might placard Christ crucified before a congregation.

And perhaps, I imagine, you would be eager to hear such sermons. And we should be eager both to preach and to hear such things. And yet there may be a danger that we become attracted to the outward form, that we become taken up with those things and fail to realize how they work out in all of our lives.

Sound Doctrine in Titus 2:1

And that is why the Apostle Paul tells Titus in chapter 2 and verse 1,. But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. Titus is in an environment where there are many fables and follies being spread by false teachers.

Now Paul is not in any way playing down the wonders of the saving work of God. In verse 11 of the same chapter, he's going to tell Titus, remind Titus, that the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, that this wonder of God's redeeming love has been made known, has been made clear, and that Titus is never to depart from that.

But that grace teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works.

The Saving Work of Christ Applied to Daily Life

In other words, that awesome reality of a crucified Christ doesn't just hang unattached from the rest of our existence, rather it is intended to be the very core of all that we believe and every way that we live, so that grasping that holiness spreads through all of life.

And so Titus cannot simply be, if you will, a fireworks preacher. To be a preacher of the gospel means not only exalting Christ in his saving glory as he dies upon the cross at Calvary and drawing out our hearts in affection toward him, but speaking the things which are proper for sound doctrine, driving home the implications of that saving work by which we were redeemed from every lawless deed and purified for good works in the service of God as his distinct people.

And that means that Titus is also going to have to preach those clear, serious, straightforward sermons, the things which are proper for sound doctrine. He's going to have to be very specific and very particular about what the salvation of Christ means for older men, for older women, for young women, for young men, for slaves and for masters, for people in every walk of life, for every stratum of society, Titus is going to have to press home the implications of the saving work of Jesus Christ.

Preaching Sound Speech and Health-Giving Doctrine

And perhaps those aren't the sermons that preachers necessarily dream of preaching, and they may not be the sermons that you necessarily dream of hearing, and yet they are still part of the same glorious whole, that this wonder of redeeming love at Calvary is for the purpose of our living as servants of God, as followers of Christ, and in our particular spheres and with our particular opportunities and in accordance with our distinct duties, pursuing holiness in the fear of the Lord.

So tomorrow may be a fireworks sermon. The next Lord's Day may be one of those spectaculars, or it may be what is equally needful and proper, that sound speech, that health-giving doctrine, pressed home through all of life so that the Christ who died for us may find more and more by his Spirit's work that we are ready to live for him.