Overcome Small-Mindedness

Last week, I read this funny yet sad story about a particular couple who were a missionary couple who went overseas on mission. And these guys went to a particular country, but after a while, they had to go back to America, back to their home. What was the reason for this massive turnaround, for this huge turn back? Peanut butter. The unbelievably petty nature of this story had me outraged, but at the same time I couldn't help but smile at just the ridiculous nature of the story.

The story goes like this. The particular place that these guys went to didn't have peanut butter. They didn't know it. They didn't understand it. This particular family were really massive peanut butter fans.

And so when these guys decided to go on mission, they arrived there and to their dismay discovered that it wasn't there. They then, being very ingenious, somehow managed to get friends of theirs in the States to ship over peanut butter so that they could have it at their meals and whatnot. The problem is they didn't realise it until they started receiving this peanut butter that amongst the other missionaries in that area, it was a mark of spirituality to forsake these sort of things. You know, these other missionaries believed that they had to give up on all those sort of things when they reached this new place, this new mission field. But this young family didn't buy into this kind of thinking.

They kept asking for their shipments of peanut butter. According to them, they didn't flaunt it. They didn't make a big thing of it, but they enjoyed it in the privacy of their home. But there was so much pressure and the pressure started to intensify as these people from the outside sort of found out and heard about the whole peanut butter story that they found it so uncomfortable in that place that they felt sapped spiritually and they went home. How is it, I ask to myself, that people who were serving in a country with a single purpose of pronouncing the goodness and the unconditional love of God could get it so wrong and miss the whole point of what this amazing news of Jesus' love and forgiveness looks like in reality?

How it changes people in reality. As we've been working through our series, we've seen that grace sees the big picture. It looks at this big story of our lives and how we fit into this thing called life. But graceless living, ungraceful, is small minded. It's petty.

Have you ever experienced that? Perhaps you've been on the receiving end of some very petty quarrels and arguments about very unimportant things. Perhaps you've been involved in very painful arguments and then you later realise just how useless and how small minded that argument really was. This morning, as we look at our final passage in the letter to Titus, we'll see how God shows us how we can overcome small mindedness, how we overcome pettiness.

Let's open our Bibles to Titus chapter three and we're going to be looking at verses nine to the end of the book. Verse nine: We're sort of just falling into a heart sort of halfway into an argument or a sentence that Paul is writing. Paul says, but avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once and then warn him a second time.

After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful. He is self condemned. As soon as I send Artemis or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis because I have decided to winter there. Do everything you can to help Zenas, the lawyer, and Apollos on their way and see that they have everything they need.

Now people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives. Everyone with me sends you greetings. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be to you all. As we've been dealing with Titus, we've also had a look at the human aspect of ourselves, that our human nature.

And we've seen that there is an inclination in the heart of every human being that gravitates towards self centredness. We're all extremely self centred by nature. It's just that some people can hide it better than others. The Bible states that our hearts are habitually focused on ourselves. Our hearts don't want God, don't want the other who is God, but we're completely paying attention to how we can make our lives more comfortable, how we can make our lives more fun.

And we don't like it when people try to take away our fun. We don't like it when people try to take money off us, when people try to take power away from us, when people's lives can affect our self interest. We become upset by that. And so the results are often that we start throwing tantrums. We storm out of buildings.

We toot our horns and we flash our lights. Why? Because someone's cut us off and we might lose five seconds on our trip. I remember a fight with my brother Dirk that was so petty and so ridiculous. But the only reason I remember or can say that it was is because my other brother was sort of standing as an umpire while we were fighting.

And he could later recall the story about why we had had this fight. We nearly killed each other and we were in grade eight and he was grade six and we were at each other's throats. We were rolling on the ground fighting. The reason was a pencil. I had borrowed the pencil and I was using it.

He wanted to have it back. I said he couldn't have it back. In the end, you know, I snapped the pencil in front of him so that none of us could have it and then we're just at it. How petty? I mean, ridiculous.

And we were hurting each other pretty bad. How do we avoid that sort of thing? Why is it that we are inclined to be like that? It doesn't matter, you know, if it's a pencil or if it's two countries fighting over oil. In the big scheme of things, how important is that?

Well, the first thing that Paul writes to us and writes to Titus is that we are to avoid foolish controversies and useless arguments. In our first verse, he says, avoid these foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law because these are unprofitable and useless. In fact, the Greek word that Paul uses for useless literally means to be devoid of success, to be devoid of a result, to be pointless. These quarrels, these arguments that were being waged against Titus and that were being waged against people in the church between themselves was absolutely devoid of a result, was absolutely pointless.

But we might ask, what were these controversies? What were these things that were so pointless? We get an idea of it when he mentions the word genealogies and law. What's going on here, you might ask? Well, we're probably looking at the Jews within this Christian community.

The Christian Jews who were called the Judaizers. And these were Christians who had come to faith in Jesus Christ. They were Jews beforehand, but they felt that every Christian should still be circumcised. Every Christian should still not ever eat pork or unclean food. They should still worship at the temple.

They must go through all the ritual cleansings and pretty much live a Jewish lifestyle, but with Jesus Christ as Messiah. And these particular people were often the biggest opponents to Paul's ministry. It wasn't the Romans, the pagans, the ones who ate pigs and who worshipped thousands of different gods. It was Paul's own countrymen that flogged him, that stoned him to the point of death nearly many times, not just once, who threw him out of their cities. It was Paul's own countrymen, these Christian Jews, that were starting all these quarrels and debates.

The genealogies aspect of it was the Jews were very keen and very passionate about drawing back their spiritual ancestry to the tribes of Israel. So they could say, I belong to the tribe of Benjamin. I belong to the tribe of Judah or of Dan or whatever. This was a very significant thing for them because they could have pride and they could measure that they were much better than the other people because of their ancestry.

It was a very important thing for these guys. It was a thing of pride for them. Elsewhere in the Bible, Paul talks about, you know, I was a rabbi of rabbis. I was of the tribe of Benjamin. And he talks as if he's a real proud Jew, and then at the end says, but I consider it all rubbish for the sake of Jesus Christ.

It doesn't matter what I was. Those sort of things are pointless. For us, we might struggle with that sort of thinking even though we're not Jews. It could be that we're saying, I am so Aussie that my ancestors came on the first fleet right at the beginning. Or I'm so Afrikaans, my ancestors were the first to cross the Drakensberg. Or I'm so Chinese, my great great grandmother invented sweet and sour pork.

Those have all got to do with pride and nationalism. But for these Jews, it also had a strong religious aspect involved. You were holier than everyone else if you could claim that you belonged to one of the twelve tribes of Israel and you knew your family tree. But these Judaizers were such strong enemies to the gospel, the gospel that said Jesus Christ has set us completely free from everything, every human tradition, everything that we want to grab a hold of and claim for ourselves to try and make us holier than other people.

To try and gain our way to access with God. Avoid these ridiculous arguments, Paul says, because they amount to nothing. They are pointless. Looking at these things makes you avoid and miss the big picture. Up until this point, Paul has been talking about the big picture the whole time.

And if you've been following this series, you'll remember those themes come over and over and over again. And what was the main theme? Grace. Grace. God's sheer unconditional goodness to us even though we don't deserve it.

Just a few verses before, Paul wrote how we were dead in the water. If you remember last time we spoke about it, we were absolutely dead in the water. He says, we too were full in verse three of chapter three. We too were foolish once. We were disobedient.

We were deceived. We were enslaved by all kinds of passions. We were stuck in this rut and we couldn't help ourselves. We lived in malice. We lived in envy, hating and being hated.

But Paul says in verse four, when the kindness and the love of God our saviour appeared, He saved us. And not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. Because of His mercy. That is grace, friends. That is sheer undeserved goodness.

That is the big picture. That is the big picture. There's going to be people in your life that are going to be distractions to the big picture, either because they want to be distractions or because they can't help themselves but be distractions. They're going to be people who tempt you to take your eyes off the grace of God.

Think about it. Who are those distractions? What are those distractions? Are there unsupportive people in your life? People who drag you back into sin.

People who try to make you feel like you're not worth saving, you're not worth God's love. Other people in your life who ridicule your faith or perhaps they're just those arduous debaters that say, well, isn't this a ridiculous thing what you believe? It can be a family member. It can be a friend.

It can be a coworker. The Bible says avoid it. Don't get involved in that mess. Don't become entangled in those petty arguments because it takes your attention off the big picture. Well, we might say, okay, that's fine.

We can avoid those sort of things. I am avoiding those sort of things, but what about those people in your life that you cannot avoid because they are a part of your life? They are there with you. What should we do if we cannot avoid it? Well, the Bible says that we are to somehow remove those distractions from our life.

Paul says, warn a divisive person once. Warn him a second time, but after that have nothing to do with him. How could Paul say this? How could Paul say this? If Christianity is all about grace and all about being nice, then isn't this a little harsh?

Isn't this a little hypocritical? But we have to remember exactly what's going to happen if we are distracted. If we are distracted from understanding God's grace, we are in danger of losing eternal life. If we are so distracted and if we are so taken away, then we don't understand that we are saved by faith and we have been washed away by God and we start to wander away on a path that is completely destructive. We have to remember also what these people were capable of in Paul's time.

These distractors killed other Christians. These distractors nearly killed Paul many times. Paul says, you know, instead of fighting back, which is our natural reaction, instead of having this argument or whatever, remove yourself from them. Remove them from you. Because they've proven to you that three times they're going to hurt you.

One time, you've warned them. A second time you've said, listen, I understand what you feel or how you feel, but I'm not going to be able to agree with you. And the third time, they're going to keep hurting you. So Paul has some pretty strong words and he says, you may be sure that such a person is warped, that they are sinful, that they are self condemned. The truth is there are only times that in those times we realise that it's only God who can change the hearts of individuals.

No amount of kindness and compassion and grace can directly sway certain individuals from really trying to hurt you, really trying to change you. And in that sense, you cannot blame yourself for their actions. In your dealings with them, if you responded in grace, and that is by warning them and avoiding pointless arguments and pain, then you must hand them over to God for God to deal with them, for God to change their hearts. You must protect yourself. The fact is that warning a person is actually a gracious action.

Warning a person is a gracious action, but there comes a point when enough is enough as well. Anyone that's been in an abusive relationship will know that. Enough is enough sometimes. And we see it even with God and the judgement day. A passage in one Peter talks about God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to faith in Him.

But the time is coming when He will call the trumpet and He will say that enough is enough. And we need to deal with the injustice and the pain and the suffering and the sin in this life. A time is coming where even God and Jesus Christ will draw the line. So in grace and love, we warn a person twice, but then we must remove them as distractors in our life from our life. Jesus talks about enemies and the fact that we have to continue to pray for them.

So this is not a removal so that they mean nothing to you, that it's a removal to protect yourself but to continue to pray for their change of heart, to continue to pray that God will wash them with the love that He has washed our hearts with. So we've talked about avoiding distractions. We've talked about removing distractions.

But now we're going to be talking about what the big picture is. Why? Why we want to not have these distractors around in our life? What is this big picture of grace exactly and what does it look like? Philip Yancey wrote a great book called What's So Amazing About Grace.

It's a great read if you're ever wanting to read anything about grace. It's a very humble look and Philip Yancey is a great writer. I really love how honest he is. He writes this about grace in particular. He says, the Christian life, I believe, does not primarily centre on ethics or rules, but rather involves a new way of seeing things.

The big picture. He says, I escape the force of spiritual pride when I begin to see myself as a sinner who cannot please God by any method of self improvement or self enlargement. Only then can I turn to God for outside help, for grace. And to my amazement, I learned that a holy God already loves me despite my defects. I escaped the force of gravity of self righteousness and pride when I recognised my neighbours also as sinners that are loved by God. A graceful Christian is one who looks at the world through grace tinted glasses.

As we wrap up the book of Titus, the theme that is repeated over and over and over again is the word grace. The apostle Paul couldn't help himself. He was sold out on grace. Why? Because he understood what would happen if we believed we have earned God's love.

He was dealing with these Jews who believed they could earn God's love by doing certain things despite Jesus coming to save them from their sins. He understood that if we believe we can earn God's love, in the dark times, in those times where we feel we have failed God, we would be standing on completely shaky ground. We would fear that God might stop loving us when we stumbled. We would fear that God will stop loving us when we make a bad choice. We would fear what God might do if He discovered what our hearts really look like on the inside.

But Paul, who in another letter describes himself as the biggest sinner, the chief sinner, knew beyond doubt that God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are. Grace baffles us because it goes against every human intuition. It goes against everything in us that has this tit for tat sort of mentality. It flies in the face of injustice because we feel someone has to pay the price. A murderer can't simply go free.

A child abuser can't simply shrug their shoulders and say, I just felt like it. It goes completely against us, but the message of the gospel is that a price has been paid, a price has been paid by God Himself. God gave up His Son, His only Son, for humanity. Grace means that there is nothing that we can do to make God love us any more.

But there is also nothing we can do to make God love us any less. It means that I, even the imperfect and broken KJ who deserves the opposite of God's love, am invited to take my place into God's family. A man called John Newton, who was a slave trader, who was a captain of a fleet of slave trading ships, who bought and sold many many human lives as if it was cattle, found out the truth of the news of Jesus Christ and what He had done for him. And he wrote one of the most famous hymns of all time, a hymn called Amazing Grace. It is truly amazing. Grace is truly baffling.