Lying Lips

“They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.” Titus 1:16

During the 2021 Super Bowl, one of the ads has    generated a lot of criticism for being disingenuous.  It is an ad for Jeep and has the singer Bruce        Springsteen talking about a  tiny chapel in Lebanon, Kansas being in the middle of the country. The ad Springsteen says the following, “There’s a chapel in Kansas standing on the exact center of the Lower 48. It never closes. All are more than welcome to come meet here in the middle”. I find it a bit ironic that    he is standing in front of a church and comments      it never closes when people he supports have tried to shut the doors of churches all across America.   You can say anything, but your actions speak        louder than your words.

When Paul wrote to Titus, he warned him of those false teachers who would try to pervert God’s truth by claiming that they know God, but their lives would reveal that they do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior. That is precisely what Jesus taught when He said of false teachers, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16). Conversely, we are told that Christians will be known when the fruits of the Spirit are evident in their lives, “But the fruit of the Spirit    is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” ( Galatians 5:22-23).

John MacArthur puts it like this:

Only God, of course, can evaluate a person’s heart. But by the way they live, unbelievers usually betray their unbelief. By their words, they profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him.

People who trust in their works of    righteousness also tend to have an air of      superiority about them, believing, like the   ancient Greek gnostics, that they are “in       the know” about religious matters and live   on a level above other people. They not only profess to know God but to know Him better than others. The truth, however, is that they do not know Him at all, much less have a     saving relationship to Him.

Do your works speak louder than your lips?

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark