Titus 1.1 Paul, a servant of God. Just a servant. Just one among
many. But what a privilege to be called
a servant. What an honor to be a bond slave
of God who was once a servant of sin. Look at Romans chapter
6. Let's look at it real quick before
we move on. I just want to remind us Romans chapter 6. Remind us who we are and why
and what a privilege it is. Romans 6.16. Know ye not that
to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are
to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto
righteousness? But God be thanked that you were
the servants of sin. But you have obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then
made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.
I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your
flesh. For as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness
and unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to
righteousness unto holiness. For when you were the servants
of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had you then in those
things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is
death. But now, being made free from sin and become servants
to God, you have your fruit unto holiness in the end, everlasting
life. What an honor to be a servant
of God, a slave of God. For the wages of sin is death.
If you serve sin, if you serve yourself, you serve the flesh,
then you get paid. There's something you earn. There's
something you deserve, death. But if you serve God, you don't
earn anything, but you're given a gift. You see that? The gift
of God is eternal life. through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul, a servant of God. What a blessing. If you can call
yourself a servant of God, thank his holy name for his grace. An apostle of Jesus Christ. There
were four things at least that identified an apostle. Chosen
by Christ himself. You don't volunteer to be an
apostle. The Lord picked you. Number two, you've had the gospel
revealed to you by Christ himself. Paul said, I certify you, brethren,
in Galatians 111, that the gospel which was preached of me is not
after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught
it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Third, you had
the gifts of the spirit as an apostle, which only the apostles
had and those upon whom the apostles conferred them. The apostles
could pass on that gift, but once everyone they passed it
on to, and the apostles themselves are gone, then the gifts are
no longer. But fourth, being an eyewitness of God's Son. An apostle had to be a witness. Personal eyewitness of the Son
of God. Paul said, as one born out of
due time. I witnessed the Lord, I saw him,
he appeared to me on the road to Damascus. Even after he had
ascended bodily from this world, he appeared to Paul as one born
out of due time. According to the faith of God's
elect, this is that faith that belongs not to those who claim
to have chosen God, but which belongs to those who are chosen
by God, the faith of God's elect. Those who were chosen by him,
that's who has that faith. And the acknowledging of the
truth, he said, which is after godliness. Acknowledging of the
truth. Paul just spoke about faith,
now he's talking about repentance. Acknowledging of the truth. Repentance
is changing your mind about what's true. Listen to 2 Timothy 2.25. In meekness instruct those, Timothy,
that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance
to the acknowledging of the truth. There's the same phrase that's
in our text. The acknowledging of the truth. Where does that
come from? God's got to give you repentance. You've got to
change your mind because right now If you're in your natural
flesh, you despise the truth. Reject it. But wait a minute,
Chris. I thought repentance was being
sorry that it had to do with godly sorrow over sin. It does. It involves that because
when you acknowledge or are given a knowledge of the truth, you
mourn. You're sorry for what you are
and for what you've done all your life. Because of what you thought to
be true, you did everything you did. And you had no excuse. And so you mourn. With this acknowledging
of the truth comes regret and sadness over a life of sin, a
nature of sin. Because I thought that God was
altogether such in one as myself. You've got to change your mind
about that. He's not like you. But because
I thought that I defied and dishonored him In all my life look at psalm
50 with me. This is this is I think important
We're talking about the acknowledging of the truth, which is after
godliness And this refers to this comes by repentance as we
saw there in second timothy 2 Look at psalm 50 in verse 21 These things hast thou done. This is a very brief and very
concise declaration of what we're seeing in our text. When I acknowledge
God's truth by his grace, I receive it and become a lover of the
truth. We mourn knowing it changes us. These things hast thou done,
and I kept silent, God said. Just let you do them. And here's
why you did them. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such in one as thyself. Your thoughts concerning me were
wrong. But I will reprove thee, and
set them in order before thy eyes. You're going to change
your mind. I'm going to set things straight,
God said. I let you do it when you were doing it. I let you
go for a while, but not forever. Because of what you thought,
you did what you did, and I let it go for a time, but no more. By his grace, he changes our
thoughts. And you see how that what we
thought dictated what we did and it still does. God sets things
in order before our eyes. We see things the way they are.
We see him holy and high and merciful. And we see Christ crucified. We see ourselves as we are. And
we're never the same again in our thoughts. And so we are never
the same again in our actions. We're not righteous in ourselves,
our righteousness is Christ, but neither are we ever the same
again. All things are new. The truth by God's grace, the
acknowledging of the truth will set you free. And it's according
to godliness, according to godliness. That is, just as we saw, knowing
and bowing to the truth changes a person's behavior. We worship different. Instead
of worshiping we know not what, that's what our Lord said to
the woman at the well, you don't know what you worship, but you're
fixing to. But now we worship God in spirit
and in truth. They that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth. So we worship different. We walk
different. We walk by faith, not by sight
now. Our way is different. As in the
book of Acts 9 and verse 2, we are those of this way, as they're
described there. That is, our way is the gospel
way, following Christ. And even our will is different,
because now we would do those things that honor Him. Romans
chapter 7. And then Paul said this, in hope
of eternal life, I come to you with this hope, the hope of eternal
life. And this informs all that we
do and all that we are. We don't live for now. We look for a city whose builder
and maker is God. We have no continuing city here.
We do everything we do in expectation. And that's what the word there
is. The word hope there is expectation. I hope, as I've already referred
to this morning, I hope that a certain person is elected president.
But I don't hope the sun will rise in the morning. I expect
it. There's a difference. I expect
it will. Which God that cannot lie promised Before the world began Our hope is an expectation How how can I expect eternal
life Because of God's promise God who can't lie promised it
And he did it before the world began before I had ever done
anything good or evil My hope is based not upon observation
or certainly not upon any condition met by myself. My hope firmly
relies upon the promise of God. And it was a promise that was
made before I was even born. I can't detract from it. I can't
add to it. This is important now. God promised
himself. If it was before the world began,
who did he make the promise to? His Son, and His Son to Him,
and the Holy Spirit. They all covenanted. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. And this word, this word here, promise. You know what it means? To engage
willingly. God the Father engaged willingly
in the salvation of his people. He predestinated us all, all
his sheep, all his elect, to be conformed to the image of
his Son, and he engaged in that. He purposed and accomplishes
everything necessary to bring that to pass. He does so willingly,
no constraint, and no influence from us, just because he wanted
to. And the Son of God engaged willingly,
knowing what was necessary to bring that to pass, was the very
sacrifice of his own soul to bear the sins of all of his
people for all time and suffer the wrath of his Father God under
the burden of that sin. He engaged willingly This speaks
of a covenant, a covenant of grace in which all parties, all
persons of the Godhead, willingly engage themselves to the end,
that I would be saved. What was the promise about? Eternal
life for me, and for you if you're His. How in the world, Chris, do you
know what happened before the world began? You're talking about
things that happened before the world began. How do you know about
that? But hath in these due times manifested his word through preaching.
The next verse. He told me about it. That's how.
He manifested it. Now think about this. Look at
verse 3. But hath in due times manifested
his word through preaching which is committed unto me. Unto me
he said in another play I think about this who am less than the
least of all the saints Is this grace given that I should preach? Which is committed unto me according
to the commandment of God our Savior And The reason he calls him God
our Savior here to just God is is because he's talking about
the preaching and it pleased God through the foolishness of
preaching to save. To save them that believe. I
know God, I know myself, and I know how God can be just and
justify sinners by the preaching of the gospel through the faith
of God's elect As he's already mentioned here, God sent a preacher. And by God's grace and by the
gift of God, I believed what that preacher said. He preached
Christ and him crucified. And I believed. By the gift of his grace, he
gave me faith. How does God manifest his word? This is quite a statement here. How does God speak? How does he make his will known?
How does he deliver his word? How does he communicate with
sinners? You ever thought about that? We just take it for granted,
don't we? There's one way that he does
that, according to this book. He has manifested his word through
preaching. through preaching. Now hear me
carefully. There's nothing wrong whatsoever with personal Bible
study. I encourage it. I don't want
you to just, especially when I'm preaching, look to the word
of God. See if what I'm saying is right.
If I speak not according to this book, it's because there's no
light in me. And the only way you're going to know that is
by looking into this book. Now you do that on your own.
You do that whenever you have time. In fact, even when you
don't have time, you make time. Be a student of the Word of God.
I'm strongly, for all of God's people, reading and studying
the Word of God on your own. But group Bible study, led by
somebody who's not called of God to preach, led by anybody, where the Word of God is bandied
about like the social issues of the day, it's not good. It's
not good. And worse yet, the debating of
God's Word on blogs and in chat rooms where people love to show
how much they know, but they know more than somebody else
where the Word of God is argued about. This is evil. It's evil. I'm telling you. There may not
be that many people that agree with me about this, but the Word
of God does. This is evil. God said of Job, he hates what
I hate. And by God's grace, I believe
he gives this to his people to hate what he hates. And I'm telling
you flat out, arguing and debating the word of God is evil. God's preachers don't do that.
They declare it. They don't interpret it. It's
not a foreign language. It's in your language. I don't
need somebody to tell me what God meant by what he said. Just
tell me what God said. God has ordained and arranged
because it pleased him that his word be manifested by a man called
and qualified by himself, dedicating himself to the ministry of God's
word. Not dabbling in it, and not a
novice in it, but committing himself under God to the ministry
of Christ. And there are many means whereby
that happens. A man can't do that without support, without
commitment from the people of God in that place. God causes
every bit of it. God blesses that man and others. Not just all about that man,
this is a ministry that all of his people here in this area
are involved in by his ordaining and by his grace. It's pictured in the Lord breaking
those loaves of fish. What did he do? He gave them
to his disciples. He breaks the loaves and the
fishes and gives them to his servant, his preacher, that he
might have something to distribute to those who are hungry. It's a miracle of his grace that
we have something to eat. And what a privilege it is to
pass it out. You have a part in that all of
his disciples have a part in that And what is distributed? He's not just the one who multiplies
the word and manifests it Supplies it Delivers it But what is distributed
is Christ. He's the bread too. He's the
meat. I Guarantee you that the man
who God calls and equips and blesses. I Guarantee you two
things about him He's going to love you. Because God said, I'm
going to send you somebody that heart is after my heart. And
God's heart is love to you. And I guarantee you something
else about him. He will preach Christ to your soul if God sent
him. He will preach to you Christ
your righteousness before God. He'll preach to you Christ the
one and only propitiation for sin that God might be just and
justifier of him which believeth on Christ. He will preach Christ
the successful Savior of his elect. He will preach Christ. And we do what we're doing this
morning because God has chosen by these means to save sinners.
Study your Bible. Read it, learn it, be a student
of the scriptures. But remember that when Philip
asked the Ethiopian eunuch, do you understand Isaiah 53? He said, how can I except some
man should guide me? God has made it so. You show me a person or a group
without a pastor and I'll show you a problem. A believer now. You can judge for yourself whether
I say that for job security or because God's word teaches it.
You just have to decide for yourself on that. Ephesians chapter 4. A church Whether you can even
call it that or not, and I believe you can for a time, but a church
without a pastor is a disaster waiting to happen. If there's
a group of believers anywhere in this world, you pray for a
pastor. And we'll pray with you. And
if God doesn't send you one, you go find one. Ephesians 14. He that descended is the same
also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill
all things. And he gave. The risen, ascended
Christ gave some gifts to his people that they enjoy right
now. He gave some apostles and some
prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body, of Christ. If you're going to
be mature as a saint, if you're going to be built up, if you're
going to learn of Christ. God thought it was necessary,
so I reckon we ought to too. All of these men, prophets, apostles,
evangelists, pastors and teachers, they all have one thing in common.
Whatever the title is, they declare the truth of Christ. Period. That's what they do. Every one
of them. So we all come, verse 13, in the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And I'm
telling you now, from experience and from the word, without a
pastor, that's not going to happen. They're not going to be unity
of anything, much less the faith, the truth, the doctrine. There's
going to be division and turmoil and hard feelings and trouble. I've lived it and I know men
who have. That we henceforth be no more
children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind
of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby
they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love
may grow up into him in all things, which is the head Even Christ
you think about the things he's saying here and what he did in
order to bring them to pass he gave He gave his word And a voice
That's what the greatest man born of woman other than Christ
himself said according to the Lord himself He was the greatest
man ever born of a woman You know what he said he was? A voice.
But God gave that voice for all of these necessary and wonderful
things. For the growth and unity and
edification, maturing of his people, the instructing of his
people. From whom the whole body fitly
joined together, verse 16, compacted by that which every joint supply
according to the effectual working in the measure of every part
maketh increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love
all this goes right back to why God gave the men that he gave
to accomplish these necessary and wonderful things
and then Paul said in verse 4 to Titus my own son after the common
faith Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Savior. What are we taught here? This
is just another benediction among many we see in the scriptures.
You know what? This is God's preacher, Paul,
writing to Titus. What did I say about him? He's
going to love you, my own son, after the common faith. And he's going to preach Christ
to you. And a true preacher, he knows what you need. He knows
what you need. What do you need? What does this
church need? You know what we need? You might
think, well, we need a new parking lot, or we need this or that. I'm thankful for the things the
Lord has given us, the things that the Lord has given us here.
It's comfortable, it's good, it's a good place, isn't it?
But you know what we need? You know what this church needs?
Grace, mercy, and peace. And God's preacher knows where
it comes from. From God. Our Father. and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
our Savior. You know, He saved us a long
time ago. He saved us before the world began. Paul said, I
thank God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. He saved us with his precious
blood on Calvary a couple of thousand years ago. Who is he now? Christ my Savior.
He saved me today too. He saved me this morning and
he'll save me tonight. He's my Savior and everything
I need is found in him. The true preacher knows what
you need and where you're going to get it if you're going to
have it. And he loves you enough to want it for you more than
anything in this world. My own son, and Paul's going
to talk about how God qualifies those that he sends, who they
are. And you may think, well that
doesn't apply to me, but it does in many, many ways. I'll give
you one and then we'll be through. The preacher is an example. in
all these things. According to the Lord, an example
to follow. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11 be ye followers of me even
as I also am of Christ. Let me tell you something, this
ain't about Paul's character. It's not about me as an individual
or any preacher in their own character. It's about the office
of pastor, what it is. It's the office of pastor. It's
what God gives. It doesn't matter who it is.
Paul said I'm nothing and Paul says nothing. Our sufficiency is of God. But
a pastor is somebody, whoever he is, just some man. The Ethiopian
Union says some man, I just need some man. That's what a preacher
is, just some man. But he's a man by God's design
and by God's providence who's committed to the ministry. He's
not a dabbler. He's not a weekend warrior in
the ministry. He's committed to it. And again, that happens
how? Every one of us. Every one of
us. So it has a lot to do with you,
doesn't it? And as an example, and let me
say this, the minute I stop following Christ, then you stop following
me. That's what Paul said. As I am a follower of him, you
follow me. But you can't pick and choose
what you'll follow. God either speaks through his
servant or he doesn't. And if God is speaking, don't
let anything or anybody ever keep you from hearing what God
said. And then let's by his grace be
doers of his word, not hearers only. As the Lord enables me
to preach, and let me tell you something. This is something
you already know. But nobody knows this better
than the preacher. Because God reminds us of it
every hour. This is the gift of God. God
gives pastors. He don't find them. He doesn't
use them. He gives them. And He's given
us this church. We see it in the very history
of it, don't we? We see it in the very details in God's providence
in bringing all this to pass. But God purposed this a long
time ago. And we'll see by God's grace in this
letter to Titus how God does things in his church. What's the purpose of his church? What is God doing? We read it
in Ephesians 4 a while ago. We'll see that in this. We'll
see who it is, what it is that God gave and why. And by his grace I believe we'll
be thankful. And he does because the purpose
of it all. What's the point of all this? Christ is declared and worshipped. That's why we don't do a whole
lot else. Not a lot of activities. Because Christ is declared by
his gospel. And he's worshipped in the preaching
of his gospel. And the simpler that is, the
less distraction from that there is, the better. I pray that God will bless this
study and reveal all of his purpose in his church. Make us grateful
unto Him. Let's pray together.