We're becoming more and more aware these days of the dangers of fakes. Whether that is fake news, fake banknotes, fake holiday advertisements, fake job listings, fake concert tickets, deep fake videos claiming to be somebody that you trust speaking, or fake designer goods. Just this past week, police forces across the country raided hundreds of tiny shops on high streets up and down Britain, confiscating large quantities of counterfeit vapes. They might have been stolen as well, I don't know, but they were fake. And the people who were working there had no permission to work or to own the business they claimed they owned. And every few months it seems there is a story of a couple or a family who have booked some really expensive glamping holiday only to turn up and find there is a farmer's field in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing on the field except a very grumpy farmer, because this happens every Friday afternoon.
The more valuable a thing is, the more likely it is that people will seek to make money by creating fakes of it. The most valuable commodity in the universe is not a thing. It is a person. It's the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he is so valuable and precious that, tragically, people will try to make money by creating fake versions of him. And the second half of Titus chapter 1 is instructions to a man named Titus on how to deal with these fakes.
All of this makes this a slightly uncomfortable passage. We all prefer positive vibes to negative ones. Nobody healthy enjoys conflict and confrontation. If you're healthy, sometimes it's necessary, but you always go towards it with a slight reluctance in your heart that this is necessary. However, good things are worth fighting for, and therefore it is important that we hold on to the precious gem that is the Lord Jesus. And so this does become necessary.
Where do we fit into this?
Now, before we dig into all the details of this, let's just ask the question where we fit into all of this, because we aren't Titus. Let me just fill you in a little bit with the background to this little letter, in case you're not aware of how this came to be. This was written by the Apostle Paul. That is to say, he was one of a number of people who met the risen Jesus alive on the earth after he rose from the dead, and was given authority by Jesus to lay down the truth to be believed by Christians of all ages. Now Paul was on the island of Crete briefly. People became Christians. Churches were planted, but then he had to move on elsewhere. So he left behind his trusted coworker Titus to straighten out the things that Paul had not had time to sort out. Last week, if you were here, Pastor Lee explained that in some ways Titus fulfils a role similar to a modern-day bishop. He's tasked with looking after not just one church, but churches all across the island, including having responsibility for appointing the leaders of those churches.
But all of this should make really clear: this is not us. We are not in that position, any of us. But that might get you wondering, why is this in the Bible? If this is a private letter between Paul and Titus, and actually we are not in Titus's shoes, why is it in the Bible? Why are we reading it? It almost feels a little bit cheeky to be reading somebody else's mail.
Well, the answer is this is not a private letter. Have a look at the very end of the letter. If you've got a paper Bible open, it'll be on the other page opposite. Chapter 3 verse 15: Paul concludes the letter by saying, "Everyone with me sends you greetings. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all." And the word "you" there is plural. If you speak French, this is vous, not tu. And other languages have a similar thing. The American language has this — they would put an apostrophe and take out the O and the U. Grace be with y'all. So this is a letter from Paul to Titus, but Paul knew that Christians across the island of Crete would be listening in. Indeed, Paul wanted them to be listening in, which means Paul is communicating with us. But what he's not doing is just telling us all the stuff he's telling Titus. He's talking to Titus so that we can listen, and so that indirectly he can talk to us by doing so.
So the question is, what does Paul want to say to us as we listen to him talking to Titus? And I think there are three lessons about fake Christianity in these verses for ordinary Christians like us.
Fake Christianity is empty.
Paul's first move in this paragraph is to lay it on really thick that this fake Christianity is fake, is empty, and is worthless. You see, we need to be clear that just because a teaching is fake, it does not follow that it will be unpopular. Think for example of designer goods. Fake designer goods allow you to buy something that looks nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, but at a much cheaper price. That does not make those things unpopular. It makes them extremely popular, precisely because they are cheap but they look real. In the same way, a fake copy of Jesus will be extremely popular because it looks very like the real thing, and yet will cost you substantially less. So the teaching that's on the island of Crete is really popular. Verse 11 says that whole households have been affected by this. So do not think that just because lots of people go to a particular church, read a particular Christian book, go to a particular conference, or watch a particular speaker on the internet, that that means those are healthy sources of teaching. It might mean that, it might not. All it actually tells you is that they are popular — nothing more. And so because this is so popular, there's a danger we are swept along. And so Paul has to expose the emptiness and burst the bubble.
So let me show you just how many blows he deals to this emptiness in these verses. Start at the beginning in verse 10, where he calls them full of meaningless talk — literally empty. Then he says that they are deceptive. This teaching sounds good, but it doesn't deliver on the things that it promises. And then in verse 11, they are driven, we're told, by the sake of dishonest gain — what will they get out of it? So they claim this is teaching that will do you good, but it's deceptive so it won't, but it will benefit those who teach. Verse 14 speaks of this teaching as myths. They are literally just making stuff up. Verse 14 goes on to talk about merely human commands of those who reject the truth. So the claim is, here is teaching that God has for you — but the reality is this is just something that some human beings have invented, and human beings who have absolutely no interest in finding out what God has to say. And then verse 16, we are told they are detestable. Now that is a really strong word. It means absolutely revolting. It means something that stinks, something that you want nothing to do with. Occasionally in modern Britain there's a problem with the drainage system and just a slightly unpleasant smell kind of lingers in a particular street for a few days while they decide to let it out into the sea instead. That happens occasionally, but I'm told if you lived in Britain in Roman times, the streets were not places that smelled sweetly and lovely — there were rather unpleasant smells around. Detestable smells. Indeed, I read one person who argued that this particular word for detestable, the Greek word that is translated here, could be an onomatopoeia. If you don't know what that is, that is a word that sounds like the thing that it is. Think "whoosh." Think "flip-flops." So the suggestion is that the Greek word here sounds a little bit like someone being sick, and maybe that's where the word came from. I don't know.
You see, we tend to think, don't we, if you've got someone who's distorting God's truth, they're basically pretty nice people — they're just a bit misguided. That is not how God sees it.
And then bracketing all these descriptions there is the label "disobedient." Two different words are in play. Verse 10: they are rebellious. Verse 16: they are disobedient. They won't sit under anyone's teaching. They won't allow their views to be moulded and shaped by someone who is trustworthy.
Now, not every one of these descriptions fits every fake, but it's quite the picture, and we get the idea, don't we? Let's just not mishear this, though, on a couple of really important things. Here's the first thing to get straight. There is a scale of how serious something is wrong. If you go back — I don't know, about 50 years — there was a fashionable point of view among some Christians in this country that if you were a really proper Christian, you would never go to the cinema. Now in some cultures that is still the viewpoint, and actually some Christians would still think that, and conscience deeply matters. So we treat people who think that with real respect and tenderness and don't try to push them to do something they think would be wrong. But just imagine you live in that era where this is the debate: should you go to the cinema or not? He is not saying that if you pick the wrong answer to that question, you are detestable, unfit for doing anything good, and a complete waste of space — a stench in God's nostrils. No, there is a scale of how serious something is wrong. Every minor disagreement is not being described here.
The other thing to not miss here is to say that we are all still learning. We're all on a journey as Christians, and that means we all get things wrong, and that's okay. If you were here last week, Pastor Lee spoke about the French Christian leader from the 16th century, John Calvin, who said that shepherds need to have two voices: one to gather the sheep and a different one to scatter the wolves. This is wolf-scattering language. If you are a sheep just faithfully seeking to hear the voice of your master so that he can, little by little, clear up the confusions and teach you to think like he does, that does not make you a wolf, and does not mean that this applies to you. If you have some slightly mixed-up views — hey, I do — that does not make you worthless and detestable.
But having said all of those caveats, we need to be clear that we must take care who influences us. If someone is offering you a different Jesus to the real one, we must see through it, because it really is empty.
The Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen wrote a really quite popular folk tale called The Emperor's New Clothes. This was the story of an emperor who would traditionally spend huge amounts of money on elaborate and lavish new outfits. One day, someone comes along to the emperor and tells him that he will make him his best outfit yet. However, only those who are sophisticated and intelligent will be able to see the beauty of the outfit — to the people who are a bit gullible or a bit simple, they just won't be able to see it at all. So some people come along to weave the cloth, and they've actually got no thread to work with, but they don't admit that they're weaving with no thread, because that would be to admit being rather gullible and simple. Then the tailors take the cloth that doesn't exist to fashion it into clothes, to cut and to stitch. They know they're not dealing with any actual cloth — they're just stitching in the air. But they don't say that, because that would be to admit that they are gullible and simple. Then the king is fitted with the robe, and someone has to carry his train behind. The people helping him with that know that there are no clothes, but dare not say so, because that would be to admit that they are gullible and simple. Then the king goes on a grand parade through his capital city for everyone to see his new outfit. Everyone can see he's not wearing a thing, but nobody dares to say anything because they don't want to be the one who is gullible and simple. Finally, a child's voice shouts out, "The emperor has no clothes!" And at that, the ripple begins to spread through the crowd as person after person says what they've all been able to see all along. What does the emperor do at this point? Shrivel with embarrassment? No. Chin up — he finishes the parade with even greater dignity, because the emperor himself dare not admit that he is gullible and simple.
It is so easy with fake versions of Christianity to be looking at it and going, "That doesn't sound quite right," but it's popular — people are streaming along to hear it, switching churches to follow it — and somehow we don't dare to say there's something wrong with this, because we don't want to look gullible and simple. And the Apostle Paul is the child's voice crying out that this teaching has no clothes. And so he bursts the bubble and he exposes the emptiness.
So: fake Christianity is empty.
Fake Christianity is to be eradicated.
The real Jesus must shine, and that means the fakes must go. This falls to Titus in his kind of pseudo-bishop type role with regional responsibility, but it also falls to every church leader. We're looking this morning at verses 10 to 16, but here is why our reading started all the way back in verse 5. Verse 10 begins with the little word "for" — Paul's thinking is continuing through from the previous passage. So let's just see where we are. Verse 5: "The reason I left you in Crete was that you might appoint elders in every town." What kind of elders? Well, a whole load of things, including verse 9: "He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it." Why does he need to have that ability? "For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, and they must be silenced."
Church leaders' job includes refuting error. It is our job to open the Bible up to teach the truth and to show where wrong ideas go wrong. People like Titus get a stronger instruction. Verse 12 — now just ponder this little paradox. My background was mathematics, so I quite enjoy these little things. Ask the question whether the Cretan being quoted in this verse is telling the truth or not. "One of Crete's own prophets has said, 'Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.'" Is he telling the truth or not? If he's telling the truth, all Cretans are liars — so he can't be telling the truth, because he himself is from Crete. The paradox. Never mind. The Apostle Paul knows what's going on, doesn't he? He can solve it. Verse 13: "This saying is true." The only thing they got right is that they get things wrong. And what is he to do? Rebuke them sharply. Not just rebuke — sharply. Stridently. There must be no doubt in these people's minds that they have been told off and are being forbidden from holding any kind of teaching office.
Paul's concern is so serious that we cannot play games when it comes to shutting it down. And then the summary comes in verse 11: they must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households. The damage is enormous. Whole households. I have seen households ripped apart as fake Christianity is taught. Some members of the household believe it, others don't. People end up going to different churches, falling out with one another. I've seen it cause untold friction and sadness. But it's not just that whole households are being affected — they are being disrupted, literally tripped up or overturned. This is the word we get from John's gospel chapter 2. You may remember the story. Jesus goes into the temple in Jerusalem and discovers it's been turned into the equivalent of Scarborough’s market hall. People are there selling various things. What does he do? He walks in and starts turning over the tables, scattering the money that was being used to give people their change. That's the word that is here. Whole families are being overturned, and therefore Titus's action needs to be as strident as that of the Lord Jesus in the temple, to put a stop to it.
Now remember, this was written for us, but not to us. So what is Paul saying to us as he writes this? He's not telling every Christian on Crete to start rebuking other people sharply. He's not saying that the church should be turned into a church where people are telling each other off all the time. No. But Paul wants us to listen to his instruction to Titus and the church leaders, so that we can grasp just how serious this is. Pastors, bishops, elders — call them what you like — are told by God to shut this down.
Now, again, please don't mishear. Please don't think — if you're sat here thinking, "There's this service team in this church that I would love to be on, but nobody ever asks me" — please don't think that's because the pastors think you're a heretic. It really is not that.
But please do expect us to be countering wrong ideas as well as teaching right ones. Now, teaching positive stuff is always more popular, so this will not be easy for us. Please pray for us for wisdom as we try to do this. But here's the reality: the real Jesus is beautiful and life-giving; the alternative is void of meaning and detestable. So expect us to do it. Welcome it from us. If one Sunday you find yourself listening to a sermon and we start to unpick something you've heard from somewhere recently that you thought was really quite a good idea, and we start to dismantle that — don't resent it. Be thankful. Chat to us about it. Let's kick it around. Maybe we got it wrong. Check it out, and be, if necessary, willing to take it on the chin and say, "Okay, that wasn't helpful. Thank you, pastors." Really grateful.
Now, in the old days, nobody travelled, so we knew who you were all listening to. Now it's much harder, because there's this thing called YouTube. So we haven't got a clue who everybody is listening to in this church. But we would love to serve you. So if you find a new channel on YouTube that you think might be a good source of Christian teaching, we would be thrilled if you just sent us a link in a WhatsApp message and said, "Here's this thing. I think it looks like a great source of teaching — just tell me, does it look healthy to you?" We'd love to have a little bit of a listen, try and suss it out, and give you our thoughts. We would love to serve you in that way.
Fake Christianity is empty. Fake Christianity is to be eradicated.
Then thirdly: fake Christianity is external
— or at least it is in this case.
What was the exact error being taught on Crete? Well, we know from verse 10, where he talks about the circumcision group — which probably just means people of a Jewish background — and we know from verse 14, "Jewish myths," that this probably had a flavour of old covenant Judaism. Maybe things like the food laws — don't eat pork and prawns — maybe things like circumcision. But the biggest clue as to what was going on is in verse 15: "To the pure, all things are pure. But to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted."
We might make some sense of this if we listen to some words from Mark's gospel that I think explain what's going on. So let me read from Mark chapter 7.
"The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed. The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they don't eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, 'Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?'"
He tackles another issue first. But then verse 14: "Jesus called the crowd to him and said, 'Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile him by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.'" After he left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. "'Are you so dull?' he asked. 'Don't you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn't go into their heart, but into their stomach, and then out of the body.'" In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean. He went on: "'What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come — sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside. They defile a person.'"
So it seems from what Paul writes in verse 15 that people were teaching that what you do on the outside can make you acceptable to God. But Paul puts the record straight: to the pure — pure on the inside — all things are pure. Eat what you like. Nothing you do on the outside can make you unfit for God. But for those who are corrupted on the inside, that is to say those who do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and their consciences are corrupted. And so the result is verse 16: they are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good.
And not all fakes work this way in particular — you don't necessarily need the Jewish flavour — but many people think that Christianity is all about doing good things. There's a religious version of that: if I serve on enough teams in church, perhaps God will be a bit impressed. There are just neighbourly, good-citizen versions of that: if I help out as a volunteer at the local homeless charity, if I offer to babysit the next-door neighbour's XL bully dog when they go on holiday — do enough of that, you'll be okay.
Well, here's the awful truth for the person who thinks that doing good makes you okay with God. Verse 16: they are unfit for doing anything good. Do you see? It's not just that they haven't done enough — it's that none of the things they've done are categorised as good. So picture someone going, "I think if you do enough things, you will get into God's good books. I'm going to give a score to everything I've done, and I'm aiming for a pass mark of 80. Now, I've totted up my life so far and I think I've got to 30. You're a good friend — have a look at my list. How am I doing? Do you agree that I've got to 30?" And they look down your list and they go, "Zero, zero, zero, zero. None of those things on your list are even good. They don't even count. They're not good things at all. You are on zero, not 30. You are incapable of doing anything good." Now, that is pretty offensive. So you can see why the alternative might be popular.
But consider: if your child were, unfortunately — because it's inevitable at some point in their lives — to contract chickenpox. What is the cure? Well, the virus is in their blood, and until the blood is cured, the spots won't go. You can apply a layer of foundation over them if you want. You could apply sticking plasters. All you will do is dry their skin out. The problem is in here.
Here is the beauty of the real Jesus, tragically hidden by the fakes. He takes people like us who are corrupted and defiled, and he gives us a new heart. He gives us pure minds and clean consciences as a gift. And then good works flow like fruit on a healthy tree.
Conclusion
The real Jesus is glorious. But sadly, there are many fakes. Paul instructs Titus on how he and church leaders can deal with that threat. But he wants us in the room as he does so. Let's see the emptiness so that we are not seduced. Expect us to be trying to eradicate it. Pray for wisdom as we do this, and let us serve you in this way. And let's not fall for a Christianity that just papers over the cracks. Instead, let's hold firmly to the healthy message of a Jesus who died and rose again to give us a spiritual heart transplant, so that he can then transform us to be like him in the most remarkable way.