This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Here we are at day five of week one of our book of Titus study. We're going to
look at verses 15 to 16 today, really some of the most amazing verses in all the
book of Titus. Titus chapter 1 verses 15 to 16 say this, "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. They claim to know God, but by
their actions, they deny Him.

They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good. " These are
amazing verses. They really draw some sharp lines between purity and impurity,
between knowing God and not knowing God.

And they're really verses in a personal way to me and to you that are about how
do you stay pure in an impure world. The world around us is impure, so how do
you stay pure? How do you live the kind of life we've been talking about this
week?

We begin by recognizing this, purity comes from the inside out, not the outside
in. It comes from the inside out. Jesus talked about this.

In Mark 7, 15, Jesus said, "Nothing outside of a man can make him unclean by
going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. "
Now remember, Jesus said this to the Pharisees, a group of people who took
outward purity to levels never before seen, levels I could never live up to.

They kept every law and they made laws about the laws that they also kept. Every
little detail of how they washed their hands and where they walked and how they
walked and what they saw, they kept it all so they could be pure. There is a
story in the New Testament times of a group of Pharisees that now you might call
the black and blue Pharisees who kept the law to such an extent that they felt
like they could never even look on a woman because they might lust after that
woman.

So if they happened to be walking down the street and a woman was to cross their
path and they could see out of the corner of their eyes that a woman was coming
close to crossing their path, before they could even see her face, they would
close their eyes, but they would just keep walking. And so these Pharisees would
literally walk into ox carts and they would walk into poles and they became
black and blue. It was sort of a sign of their faith to them.

Now you know you could lust for a woman in your mind just as much as you could
lust after a woman with your eyes. The impurity comes from the inside, Jesus
said, and it may look great on the outside. Look, he's closing his eyes.

He must not be a lustful man. But Jesus said in their hearts the Pharisees were
filled with jealousy. They were filled with lust after power.

When you think about purity in your life, trying to make yourself pure from the
outside in will wear you out the rest of your life and it will result in you
becoming a person who's filled with pride. And so how do you become pure?
Through the gift of purity that only Jesus Christ can give.

He gives a purity into your life that changes the way you look at everything.
Paul talks about that when he says to the pure, all things are pure. What does
that mean?

How can all things be pure? Isn't Satan impure? Isn't evil impure?

He's not saying here that all things are good. He's saying that you can, when
you allow the purity of Christ to come into your life, you can look on all
things in a pure way. God does this.

He's evil and yet he remains holy. The impurity of this world and of the evil in
this world does not stain his heart. He remains holy.

He has a pure hatred of sin. His hatred of sin never goes into lust after sin.
He is not corrupted in temptation towards sin.

To the pure, all things are pure. How can you and I see everything with purity?
You can see that there is not a person, there is not a person you'll ever meet
who's not a creation of God, not made to live out their life in God's image,
whatever evil they have done, whatever evil they've done to you.

They are a creation of God, made to live out life in God's image. They may not
choose to ever follow him, but God created them originally to follow him. And
you look at them through those eyes of purity.

How do you see everything with purity? You see that there's not a circumstance
in which God cannot work if we'll only turn it to him. God causes all things to
work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according
to his purpose, Romans 8.

28, that famous verse. God causes it to work for good. It's not that it's good,
but the purity is in that God causes it to work for good.

That the worst that Satan, that evil throws at you in this world, it cannot
destroy your life. God allows it to work, even that, to work for good. Paul
paints a very, very clear picture here of what happens when my mind is impure.

It may look like I'm great on the outside, but Paul says in my relationship with
God particularly, I don't know him. By my actions I even deny him because I'm
depending on myself and not him. When he says by their actions they deny him,
he's not saying they're doing evil things necessarily.

He's saying they're depending on themselves, depending on doing it my way. And
he says they're detestable, disobedient, unfit for doing anything good. Now, you
may know some people who don't yet know Christ.

In fact, you as you're listening to this, you don't yet know Christ and you
think, "Well, I'm not detestable. I may be disobedient, but I'm not unfit for
doing anything good. I think I've done a few good things in my life.

" Paul's not talking about how we compare ourselves with ourselves in these
verses. He's talking about our relationship with God. In my relationship with
God, if I am depending on myself, it doesn't matter how good the good thing is,
it's detestable to him because it only gets me further from him.

It only gets me further from faith. It only gets me away from the promise of
life that only he can give. That's why it's detestable.

That's why the disobedience in my life draws me away from him. If a stone had a
flaw in that day, it was marked with a capital A on it. You're building a
building and there's a brick, a stone that had a flaw, it would crack, the
building would be weak.

A capital A was put on it and it meant a docomos, it was left aside as unfit for
being used in the building. The truth of the matter is, God wants to make you
fit for eternity. That's what he's building towards.

He's not building towards just what happens in this world. If that's all there
is, then all of us do good things in this world. No, he's building towards
eternity.

He wants to fit you for the holiness with which you can live in his presence for
all eternity and that can only happen through Jesus Christ. So I ask him to
purify my heart. Jesus, come in, purify my heart by your forgiveness, by your
grace, maybe the kind of person who can see things the way that you see things.

You pray that kind of prayer. As you look back on Paul's words about false
teachers these last few days, John Stott in his writing about Titus sees three
marks of these false teachers. They teach the commands of God and not men.

They have an external and not an internal definition of purity. They claim love
for God with their words, but they deny God in their actions. That's good for us
to see because it helps you and I to see what we need to look for.

What's the kind of teaching that's going to help me to grow? What's the kind of
leadership in my life or thinking in my life that will help me get closer to
Christ and grow in Christ? Well, if I'm basing it on the commands of God and not
men, I'm in trouble.

If I'm basing it on the external and not the internal, I'm in trouble. If I'm
basing it on just what I say and not what I do, I'm in deep trouble. In fact,
here's what John Stott said about it.

These words provide us with three valid tests to apply to any and every system.
We have to ask three questions about it. First, is its origin divine or human?

Is it revelation or tradition? Secondly, is its essence inward or outward? Is it
spiritual or is it ritual?

Thirdly, is its result a transformed life or merely a formal creed? That might
help you to get to some things that are in your own life keeping you from
growing. I want to get closer to God.

What's keeping me from growing? Could be a lot of things. Could be you're not
spending time with other believers.

You can't grow without spending time with other believers or it could be one of
these things we've just talked about. It could be that you're relying on some
human tradition to help you to grow and not on the Word of God. It's the Word of
God that helps us to grow.

It could be that you're relying on some ritual. I'm just doing the same thing
over and over and over again without any real meaning instead of relying on what
God's doing in my heart. God will bring habits into your life, but habits and
rituals.

Rituals you do it without knowing why you're doing it. Habits you do it because
God's directed you to do it. Or it could be because you have some creed, some
formal creed.

You're depending on what somebody else said rather than depending on a
transformed life that only his spirit can work in your life. As we pray today, I
want to pray for my life, for your life. I want to live.

I want to live more and more a life of purity. I believe you're listening to
God's Word because you want to live that too. So let's pray together that Jesus
Christ will do that in our lives.

Jesus, we live in an impure world. And you see our hearts, you see our lives,
you see that we're tempted by that impure world. We're tempted to think impure
thoughts about people, about things.

We're tempted to impure actions to get what we think we deserve in this world
because of our jealousy, because of our envy. We're tempted. Jesus lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Give us pure hearts. Pure hearts by your Word, pure hearts because we spend time
with your people. Pure hearts as we talk to you.

Jesus purify our hearts by your love. We can't do this on our own. And so we
come to you, we bring our hearts to you.

And from the inside out, we say to you, we want to live a life of purity before
you. We pray this, Jesus, in your name, amen.