In one of his own blogs, Charles Swindoll said this concerning leaders with integrity:
“Leaders with power and brains are common. So are leaders with riches and popularity. But a competent leader full of integrity and skill, coupled with sincerity, is rare indeed.
“Deception creates suspicion. Once the leader's followers begin to suspect motives or find that what is said publicly is denied privately, the thin wire of respect that holds everything in place snaps. Confidence drains away. All of us have suffered disappointment and no little fear as we watched President Clinton's secret life exposed to the public in the last several years. With each revelation of lies, our respect and confidence in our leader dwindled.
“The late President Dwight Eisenhower stated his opinion with dogmatism: ‘The supreme quality for a leader is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is a section gang, on a football field, in an army, or in an office. If his associates find him guilty of phoniness, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other.’”
For true integrity among both leaders and followers to occur, it must be developed first on the inside before it can manifests itself on the outside. This occurs when we make a solid commitment to grow in godliness according to the knowledge of the truth of God’s Word.
After informing Titus that one aspect of his God-give mission is to reach out to the lost, Paul now goes on to explain the need for Pastor Titus to spend his energies edifying the saints.
To edify is to build others up and this is effectively done by teaching the full counsel of God’s Word so that the people who hear it might be sanctified by the knowledge of the truth.
When Paul wrote, “the knowledge of the truth,” he was referring to a clear perception of truth. You see, truth is something one comes to understand not feel. Truth is gained by perception (thinking, understanding, analyzing, etc.), not through emotions.
But Paul does not have in mind just any kind of truth, but “saving truth,” that is, truth that brought us to Jesus Christ for salvation and truth that helps us to grow in Christ unto godliness. In other words, truth as it is found in the Scriptures.
Now it is important to understand that the truth Paul is referring to here is “saving truth” or scriptural truth, because elsewhere Paul states that some are “always learning but are never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7). Notice that learning is occurring. But some forms of learning leads nowhere. Some are learning, but their never ending learning is not leading them to the knowledge of the truth. What truth? Saving truth. What can this possibly mean? Only one thing: Whatever these people were learning, it was not the Scriptures. And whoever was doing the teaching in which these people were learning under, the scriptures were not used as the sole text book.
You see, here is the bottom line: There are all kinds of things out in the world to learn about and to gain knowledge and understanding – things that are not necessarily wrong. We must come to know and understand certain things that pertain to our employment – such things are good. But the only truth that saves people from their sins and keeps them save so those who are saved can walk in freedom is the embodiment of truth found in the sacred Scriptures. This is the pursuit of knowledge that matters. This is the pursuit of knowledge that Paul states “is according to godliness.”
I believe that every person who is brought to faith in Christ will develop a great hunger for the Word. “Like new born babes longing for the pure milk of the Word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2). This insatiable desire for God’s Word causes Christians to want to grow in the knowledge of the truth and mature in all aspects of godliness.
Think of growing in this way: Salvation (saving truth) leads to “Sanctification” (separating truth, i.e. truth that separates us from sin and sets us apart unto God). The evidence that we are becoming more and more separated from sin and unto God is “godliness.”
Paul put it this way: “For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires (thus separation from sin) and to live sensibly, righteously and godly (thus separation unto God) in the present age" (Titus 2:11-12; 1 Tim. 4:7-8).
You see, divine truth from the Scriptures and godliness are inexplicably related. How so? We cannot come to understand godliness (i.e. how to live our lives before God), if we do not understand what the will of God is, right? We must come to know what God is like and what He expects from those who belong to Him. Therefore, in order to gain this insight, we study the Scriptures which ensure us that we will not be forever learning and not able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
As Paul was leaving he told the elders as Ephesus that God’s Word would build them up (Acts 20:32). And in Jesus’ high priestly prayer, He asked His Father to “Sanctify them (His disciples and eventually us) in the truth; Your Word is truth” (John 17:17).
There is therefore no way to exaggerate the full importance of sound expositional preaching and teaching. God wants to bring His people to maturity and this cannot be done apart from the intake of God’s Word. Maturity is not defined as the amount of ministry one engages in; maturity is not defined by how one comes home in the evening exhausted. Maturity is defined as how well we are growing in “Christ-likeness” (Rom. 8:29). And our own sure roadmap for this are the Scriptures.
The issue to keep in mind is that there is a very close connection between growth in godliness and the knowledge of the Scriptures. Knowledge that does not help people to pursue a life of godliness is spurious at best.
It is certain that every pastor and teacher has been given the divine responsibility “for the equipping of the saints for the work of the service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the mature of the statue which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-13).
How does a pastor know that his people are fulfilling their spiritual appetite by consuming God’s Word? It is easy. Jesus said, “You will know them by their”, what? “Fruit” (Matt. 7:16). “Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, not figs from thistles.” Good trees produce good fruit and bad trees produce bad fruit. The idea here is both character and behavior. When a person who claims to be a Christian produces a rotten behavior or some form of rebellion, God’s Word has not been on that person’s menu. But when a Christian feasts on God’s truth, out from his or her life will spring forth godliness.
Every pastor has a concern for two kinds of growth: Growth in numbers and growth in character. Sometimes in order to achieve the latter, you must be willing to sacrifice the former.
When the nation Israel was going through the wilderness, the time eventually came for them to take possession of the land that God promised them. Here are God’s instructions:
"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, 52 drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places.
You see, sometimes more is not necessarily better. God said, “Okay listen, there are people already living in the land who will be thorns in your side if you do not get rid of them.”
Don’t you think it is rather interesting that God does not give to Israel a plan on helping them to just get along? In some cases, getting along is not the issue. Separation is. And so God in His gracious and loving manner says, “I want to save you some unnecessary pain. Get rid of those I tell you to, otherwise you will one day come to regret it.” You see, sometimes in order to achieve growth in character, you have to be willing to thin the ranks.
How about this one? When Israel left Egypt, they were about two million strong. But those who left Egypt began to manifest along their wilderness wandering their true self. After putting up with the people’s constant complaining and rebellious spirit, God said, “Everyone who is 20 years and over will not see the Promise Land. Only those who are less than 20 will” (Num. 14, cp. v. 29). Again, God had to thin the ranks in order to arrive at the place where the people had the kind of character needed to move forward.
As a pastor, I want to see both numerical and character growth in my church. All pastors want this. But there are times in a pastor’s ministry, when he is called to sacrifice his desire for numbers in order to achieve a greater degree of character growth in the church.
What happens is when we try desperately to hold on to both without making any sacrifices. God brings to light and to the surface some people’s true self and character and rather than deal with it, we look the other way. We don’t want to make any sacrifices. But when we do this, we are sacrificing something. We are sacrificing the standards for godly character in order to keep our desire for numbers.
This is not the way it is done in the bible. God often has to thin the ranks so as to preserve and maintain godly character. Every pastor goes through this whenever the need arises. And it may not seem like a blessing, but when you think about it afterwards, it is a blessing.
I can honestly attest to this, that when there were times God wanted to remove someone from my assembly and I stepped in and tried to save that from happening, the person later became a thorn in my side and I later came to see what God was trying to do for me. I found this not only true in terms of church attendance, but also true with church positions.
In my own ministry as a pastor, the two biggest mistakes I have made are these: First, I chose the wrong person for a leadership position. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. Perhaps, I should have waited. Perhaps, I should have asked around and got the opinions of others. Perhaps, I should have fasted and prayed longer. Perhaps, I was not listening to God as closely as I thought I was.
Usually a pastor will not see his mistake in doing this until some time later when the person’s true agenda and character is manifested. Then the pastor thinks to himself, “What did I just do?”
The second biggest mistake I have made is when God opens up a door for such a person to be released and rather than supporting the open door, I close it and keep the person on. I can’t tell you the times I kicked myself and said, “Stupid me! No one is to blame for this but me!”
Now this does not happen often, but the few times it did happened, the experience becomes unforgettable.
These are tough issues pastors face. Sometimes the issue is not the congregation as much as the shepherd of the congregation. So God has to remove him in order to advance the flock. But those cases usually entail a shepherd who is behaving morally wrong.
Here is the thing: When people are removed by God and the ranks are thinned, most of the time it is over moral issues, such as rebellion, unforgiveness, not teachable, factious spirit, etc. Unless the leadership cooperates with God and moves in to discipline the cause, risking the possibility of thinning the ranks in order to grow in godliness, thorns in the side will result, and the ministry itself will barely move forward.
In fact, did you know that the greatest person in the world also faced this? In John 6, Jesus had a lot of disciples. But Jesus used the truth as a means to thin the ranks. He taught His followers some very hard lessons – such as, “eat My Flesh and drink My blood” (vv. 55-56). Those who heard Him said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it” (v. 60)?
So Jesus’ disciples began to grumble (v. 61). Jesus’ response to the grumbling of His disciples was priceless. He said, “Does this cause you to stumble” (v. 61b)? If it does cause some of you to stumble, then here is the reason why – v. 64: “Some of you do not believe.”
In other words, how Jesus replied was great. He said, “Some of you are grumbling over what I said because what I said has caused you to stumble. Well, so be it, because I am not going to change My message or water down the truth so that you come to like it. The reason you are stumbling over this issue is due to your own unbelief issues. The real issue lies within you and your lack of faith, not the truth that I preach.”
So as a result of taking such a firm stand, what happened? Verse 66: “As a result of this MANY of His disciples withdrew and were NOT walking with Him anymore.”
Jesus used the truth to thin the ranks. As a result, Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you not want to also go away” (v. 67)? Peter’s replied for the others by saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life” (v. 68).
Jesus could have had a large following at this point. But the majority wanted to follow a compromised message and Jesus was not about to compromise. Truth turns sinners into disciples who grow up into godliness. And if the truth offends and as a result the ranks are thinned, let it be thinned for the sake of those who recognize that Jesus is the truth and that there is no other way to be godly than the feast on His Words.
So Paul tells Titus, your mission as a pastor includes Reaching Out (evangelism), and Reaching In (Edification). But there is one more very important task you must also do as often as God opens the door for you to do it.
And the third great task, we will look at tomorrow.
