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This is day four together of our look through Titus chapter 3. We are going to
look at verses 10 and 11 today. We began yesterday a look together through this
chapter at what to do, how to handle a false teacher.

And verses 10 and 11 get very specific about it. Let me begin by reading those
verses. My guess is, as you hear this, you might feel very uncomfortable with
what we're told to do in these verses.

Titus chapter 3 verses 10 and 11, "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.

" Wow. "Warn him once, warn him twice, have nothing to do with him. " Wow.

To most of us in our non-judgmental age, that is the exact opposite of what our
heart would tell us to do. Our heart would tell us to chase after this false
teacher for the rest of our lives as possible because we want to win him back.
Why would he say this?

Why would God give us this wisdom? Well, first, I want to start with trust, that
I can trust God's Word more than my emotions. So with that attitude of trust,
let's just walk through why would God say this, what does he mean, and how do I
live it out in my life?

It might help you to understand, first of all, the Greek word that's used for
divisive here. We don't understand how divisive divisiveness really is. The
Greek word is hereticos.

We get our word heretic from that. When you and I hear the word heretic, we
think of someone who is spouting out things that are totally untrue about God or
about Jesus. But actually, it comes from the idea of dividing the unity that we
have in Christ.

False teaching that divides us from one another as believers, one of the most
dangerous things. As I read these verses about warning once, warning twice, then
have nothing to do with them, there are really three main things that you and I
need to come to grips with in these two verses. First thing I have to come to
grips with is I have to be willing, in fact, the New Testament tells me to be
willing to judge another person's actions.

You might think, wait a minute, doesn't Jesus say don't judge other people?
We're not supposed to judge other people's actions at all. We're not supposed to
judge other people's eternity.

We have no right to do that. We're not supposed to judge other people's
relationships with God. We have no right to do that.

But every day you have to judge other people's actions. You do it every moment
of every day. You walk up to, you're checking out of the grocery lines and you
look at all the people and you see who's checking out the most quickly and you
decide I'm going to get in that line because I think he, I think she's a little
bit quicker.

I'll get through a little bit quicker. You just judge their actions in a way.
That's a very simple illustration.

You're dropping your child off to play with a friend and you meet another friend
who's going to be there and there's something about the way that other friend is
acting. You think I don't like that. It's an eight-year-old.

I don't like the way that eight-year-old is acting. So you say to your child,
you know what, I think we'll do something different today. You just judge that
eight-year-old's actions.

Of course you should do that. It would be foolish not to do that. It is foolish
to judge another person's destiny, eternal destiny.

That is totally in God's hands. It's equally foolish not to judge other people's
actions because that's going to affect every day of my life. We, in fact, were
called on to judge other people's actions in the New Testament.

Who is good? Who is evil? And a careful reading of the New Testament, you'll see
that we're especially called on to judge the actions of those who call
themselves believers.

Is the fruit there? Are they acting like they said they would act? So first, I
have to recognize not eternal destiny, but I have to be willing to judge other
people's actions.

In fact, I do every day. And out of that willingness, the second thing that
we're to do in these verses is to warn somebody twice. Now that's the key to me
in these verses.

I find that most people, most believers today, they don't have the courage to
warn somebody even once. If we'd only do that part, most of this would get taken
care of. If we'd only warned them twice, they would see the error of their ways,
many people, and they'd come back to the truth.

Not everyone, but many would. But because we don't have the courage to warn, we
don't have the courage to say, "What I'm hearing you say does not fit with the
truth. " And people just continue on in the wrong direction, teaching something
that's hurting them, hurting their families, hurting the other people that are
around them.

They keep dividing others rather than uniting us in Christ. Relationally, if I
have something against someone, or someone has something against me, the Bible
tells me in both cases, we're to go to each other and work it out. It doesn't
matter whether I'm the offended party or the offending party, I'm supposed to go
and meet with them.

I'm supposed to take action. And here, with a false teacher, I'm supposed to
take action. You don't just sit back and judge them, obviously that is wrong,
no, you go to them.

Here, doctrinally, you warn a person twice. The main point in this, hereticos,
heretic, divisive, the main point in these verses is how false doctrine affects
our relationships, it divides us. And the way I can decide against this is to go
to someone and say, wait a minute, you see how this is dividing people, you see
how this is hurting people, and you do with humility because you humbly realize
how you could do the same thing.

And if they don't listen, you go again, maybe, in fact, the scripture tells us
the second time you go with somebody else and you warn them again. What if after
two warnings, that's pretty serious stuff, they refuse to listen. By the way,
most people will not, most people will listen.

After two warnings, they've told you something about themselves, they're not
going to listen. Tell them once, maybe they missed it, tell them twice, they've
decided, they're showing you, I am not listening to you, I'm going to live my
way. So the third thing you do is you have nothing to do with them.

That, for most of us, we think, why would you do that? Not only because of the
message that it will send to them, but because also of what the association with
them might continue to do for you. That's why.

Does this sound heartless to you? Remember the heart of a false teacher. We
looked at it together yesterday.

They love to argue. By continuing to argue with the false teacher, you're
actually feeding their need. They love that argument.

And if you're continuing to argue with them, you've actually become an enabler
rather than an encourager. Have nothing to do with them. Is that meaning that I
should just give up on them?

Of course not. You're not giving up on them. You're just recognizing that you
are not the answer in that moment.

You've done all that you can do. You've warned them twice. And in fact, if you
continue to argue or encourage, you've become part of the problem rather than
part of the answer.

And the only way that they're going to see at that point the error of their ways
is by relational separation. This person's no longer having anything to do with
me. What's the reason for that?

What's going on here? I'm not getting the same reaction I used to get. I'm not
getting all the people around me riled up.

I used to like that. I'm not getting attention by saying this false truth. Now
I'm not getting it anymore.

What's wrong? And then, just maybe then, they'll be brought back to the truth.
Now if they are, obviously you reconnect with them.

Have nothing to do with them does not mean forever. It means until they get
their lives right, until God uses someone else. And there's something else in
this that we all have to have the humility to recognize.

The greatest danger of false teaching is relational. It separates people from
God. It separates people from one another.

And so you deal with it relationally, separating yourself from the false teacher
because you realize in humility that that false teacher is going to have an
impact on my life. You might think I know the truth. They're not going to impact
me.

They're not going to influence me. You stay around the false too long. It will
influence your life.

Why? It's sort of like going downhill. I sometimes picture the truth as living
an uphill life.

You're living uphill and empowered by Christ, you're going up the hill of life.
Sometimes it's hard to go up hills. Sometimes you get tired going up hills.

And if somebody keeps saying to you, you know, you could just go downhill. It's
a lot easier. You could just coast for a little while.

It's a lot easier. Look at me. I'm just coasting.

You stay too close to a false teacher for too long. You look at them and you
think, well, God bless their life even though they're involved in this false
teaching. And then something happens inside of you and you coast down that hill
too.

And you may say to yourself, it could never happen to me. If you're saying that
to yourself, you're wrong. And I'm wrong if I ever say that to myself because
I'm human and human beings tend to want to coast.

We tend to want to live selfishly rather than based on the power of Christ in
our lives. So you realize the false teacher and how deeply that false teacher
can hurt you. And you realize the reason I'm separating myself is not out of
pride, is not because I think I'm better than you, is because I realize humbly
that I'm not the solution any longer.

Now for some of us, as we listen to this right now, it may be very personal. In
your own group, in your own family, you might be dealing with false teaching. If
it's in a family, obviously you separate yourself from the argument, but you
can't separate yourself from the person.

Somebody asked me, does this mean if I don't like my husband anymore and I can
get him to teach a false teaching, that that means I can somehow get away from
him finally? That I've got some kind of biblical past to do that? That's not
what this is talking about.

Now you separate yourself from the argument in that case. In as much as you can,
you separate yourself from the false teaching. How am I going to do that?

Once again, it's only by the power of Christ. So once again, let's ask for his
power today. Jesus, thank you for the truth.

And I pray particularly for those of us that are dealing with this very
personally, someone in our lives that's teaching something that's false. Just
give us the courage to warn and help us to do it with humility. However they may
happen to receive it, I pray that we would offer it in the best of ways.

And then Lord, if it comes to the point of a separation for a time, I pray you
would give us the wisdom and courage and strength to do that as well for
ourselves so that we can continue to grow in you, but also for this other person
so that instead of living their lives for argument, they could begin, they could
begin to live their life for the truth. That's our heart. That's our desire,
Jesus.

That's what we pray for in your name. Amen. Tomorrow we're going to look at the
end of this short book, Titus chapter three, with one final word on the
practical life of faith.