Amen. I think you may be seated
and turn with me to Paul's letter to Titus. One of the shortest letters,
not the shortest, but one of the shortest letters of Paul with the third longest introduction,
salutation, 65 words. And by the Lord's grace, I pray
that I might get through those 65 words today, not to finish
them, but to teach you how Paul is setting this letter up. I
will go ahead on the onset and tell you that it is this preaching
that you will hear, and it is this type of preaching that causes
division. It causes division because there
are so many who have a comfort in that which is not true. This
type of scripture is long overlooked and skipped over mainly because
of two things. One, people do not know what
to do with it. and are too busy to deal with
what it means. And secondly, because they don't
want to deal with it because they know that it will increase
a knowledge of something that will tear people's relationships
apart. And you might argue in your mind,
well, does preaching really have to do that? Can you not just
go there? Do you have to preach this? Yes,
it must be done if I am to be faithful to the Word of God.
At the same time, I must be very careful and prayerful that I
do not stand on a high horse of pet doctrine and then eliminate,
therefore, any type of unity that I might have with someone
who is ignorant thereof or or worse, blind to it. But all is the same, the message
is God's, not mine. And I want to prepare you, church,
because sugar-coated Scripture, sugar-coated preaching is poisonous. Removing that which is difficult
or frustrating or aggravating out of the text of Scripture
is not just lazy, it's blasphemous. Some people might say, well,
we don't teach that here. We don't need to go there. We
don't need to teach our people that. Then you're saying to God
that His counsel and the fullness thereof is not sufficient for
His people. And you're saying to God that
He who has given you the care of the sheep, you're saying to
Him, O Pastor, then I know better than you do, God, because I know
my sheep. Well, Jesus says the sheep know
His voice. And here is the voice of God
who was heard only through the voice of Jesus, who was given
only through the apostles teaching. And there's a lot that I may
assume incorrectly, just as I do as I'm playing these songs and
assume that everybody can follow along in scores, and I see some
of you flipping around going, I don't know where we are. I
don't have a clue and I apologize for that. Maybe I was talking
with a brother earlier about do we need a screen and a book?
Do we need just the words in the book? What do we need to
do? Do we need to have someone up here with cards? I mean, I don't know what
to do. I mean, I'm at a loss. I'm by
myself up here, literally, not just in the sense that I stand
alone. I don't even notice you're here, but every now and then
I'm in the peripheral. I see all this flipping and I look up and I see this.
It's fear. It's OK. Just just worship. Just listen. You don't know the
words and see the truth of the gospel that we've seen every
Lord's Day. Friends, we have to preach that
which the scripture teaches, we do not have the option in
order to be faithful to that which God has called us to be
as a church, as the church, as his body, to ignore those things
that are divisive. And yes, we do not want to stick
fire pokers into people's hornet nests, but we do want to gently
lay that which is laid before us to the ears of the saints.
Church, you need to understand that what is going to happen
in this introduction of this letter may even shock you. It
may show you that which you've always thought and debated and
seen in the peripheral of Christendom, that maybe it's just an issue
that doesn't apply to me. I'm going to show you today that
it applies to you. And I've entitled this, I hate titling sermons,
but if I had to title this sermon, I would entitle it, God is not
a liar, colon, and something like this. The essential foundational necessity
of sound doctrine. There you go. Where would I get
that? Well, if you look here, follow
along with me. Let me just read the first chapter
of Titus. Just get us in the spirit of
what's happening. Paul. a slave of God, and an
apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's
elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with
godliness in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies,
promised before the ages began, and at the proper time manifested
His Word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted
by the command of God our Savior. to Titus, my true child in a
common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ
Jesus, our Savior. This is why I left you in Crete.
so that you might put what remained into order and that you might
appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone
is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children
are believers and not open to charge of debauchery and insubordination. For an overseer as God's steward,
must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant, nor
quick-tempered, or a drunkard, or violent, or greedy for gain,
but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy,
and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy
word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in
sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it. For
there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers,
especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced. since they are upsetting the
whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought
not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet
of their own, said himself, quote, Cretans are always liars. They're
all evil beasts, lazy gluttons, end quote. This testimony is
true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply,
that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves
to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from
the truth. To the pure, all things are pure. But to the defiled
and the unbelieving, nothing is pure. Put both their minds
and their consciousness are defiled. They profess to know God, but
they deny Him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient,
unfit for any good work." occasion of the scripture that we're jumping
into today. This tiny little, it's sort of
like the post-it note, and it's not passive-aggressive. He gets
right to the point. Paul is writing now to Titus,
who came to faith through the ministry of Paul. There on the
Isle of Crete, if you look at the map, it's like way down,
it'd be like the keys of ancient Palestine. In the Isle of Crete,
they were pagan of pagans, and their own people called themselves
liars and wicked and evildoers. They knew their own reputation.
And Paul is writing to Titus because he wants to correct false
teaching, which if you look at the whole of the Pauline epistles,
most of them, most of them are because of false teaching that
has plagued and infiltrated the church. Friends, where are, where
is the passion to correct wrong in the church today? And even those who have it, it's
so often coupled with absolute arrogance and pridefulness that
it's almost worthless. Where is the servant of God,
the slave, Paul? Which means small. Where are
the Pauls? Well, I want to tell you this,
I want to pull a few things out and set up this argument and
I want to just give you this introduction. God is not a liar. Look at verse two in hope and
eternal life, which God, who never lies. Promise. Do you see that? One of the things
that undergird everything that I'm going to say today and everything
that Paul is going to say in this letter is that God does
not lie. Now, let's look at this. Keep in mind that Paul is expressing
that there are those who have fallen away from the truth. In
our world today, the truth is a very relative ideal that only
people sort of grasp hold of what they like as truth. There
is no absolutes in the world today, except that it comes from
our own minds. Now, what do you mean by that?
What are you saying? I'm saying this is that there are a lot of people
who claim things as true. And if they're true, then by
definition would make everything else false. And Paul is saying
that these other things are false. And that if we say they're true,
that we say God lies. Just as John says in his first
epistle, that if you say you have no sin, you make God a liar.
For he says all have sinned and fallen short of his glory. So
in this, God is not a liar. And God is saying through Paul,
these things. Understand this. Truth is not
a term that is relative to what you think is true. If you have
cancer and you decide not to believe it, it doesn't matter
what you believe. It's true. If you are born into
this world and you feel as though you're born into an outer space
camp, it doesn't matter what you think is true and how delusional
you are. The truth is the truth, no matter
what you think the truth is. What does it mean to have the
truth? Well, from a theological standpoint, let's take the words
of Jesus, who self-professed these words, I am the way and
the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except
by me. Do you know the truth? God is
not a liar, therefore, all that he says is true, all that he
is is true. And I want you to see that sound
doctrine is true. And truth means sound doctrine,
sound teaching. And if it's not sound, it's a
lie. And if it's not pointing you
to the truth of God, it's pointing you to the truth of Satan, who
is the father of lies. Keep in mind these things as
we move through this letter. One, the very first word, Paul
identifies himself. Paul. Paul means small. His name was Saul and his name
was changed to Paul. He wanted to be known as the
low one, as the small one, as the nothing. First Corinthians
chapter one, one of my favorite passages of text, where Paul
begins to challenge the authority of the wisdom of the Corinthians.
And he says, oh, where is your wise? Where are the soothsayers
of your age? Did not God use the lowly things,
the dumb things, the stupid things to profound the wise of the world?
Did not God use the nothings of the world to bring to nothing
the things that are? And the fullest example of that,
as John says in his first gospel, we have seen the glory, the only
Son of the Father, full of grace and truth and promised fullness.
We all receive grace upon grace. And so in this now, Paul, by
his very name, how he has changed his name, It's like your name
meaning strong and bold. And why not the Lord's Servant
or the Lord's Soldier? Why not come up with something
like Joshua that means Yahweh saves? Why not be bold because
Paul, of all people, knew what it meant to be nothing, so that
Christ could be preeminent because He is. Now, why was he so lowly? Because in Paul's theology, In
justification, in the mind where Paul understood fully through
the person of Jesus Christ, he knew himself doulos, diakonos. The word that you see as servant
in your text is extremely debatable because of the culture in which
we live and where we're not even, you know, a few generations ago,
we owned slaves in America. And it's very unpolitically correct
to say slave, but Paul, by every fiber of his being, when I see
servant and it's supposed to be slave, I say slave. That's
why some of you heard me say slave. A servant is someone who
serves, and Paul absolutely was a servant. But in the context
of this introduction, Paul is very clear that he's a slave
of God. Why? For he is the one who has
been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore, he is not
his own. He has been purchased through
the blood of Christ. We see that in his other writing.
He is property of God. He is bought by God. He is not
one that decided to just serve God and therefore came to the
place of servitude and said, here I am. Let me do thou bidding. No. He cried out, I hate you,
God. I hate Christ. I'll destroy the apostles. And
Christ came to him on the road to Damascus, as we see in Acts
chapter 9. And he says, why do you persecute
me, Saul? I'm going to make you suffer.
I'm going to cause you to suffer like no man has ever suffered.
And in your suffering, you will fill up that which I lack, that
lacks in my suffering. In other words, the visible suffering
of Christ. I will show you my glory in your suffering, and
I will take you so that you might preach the unsearchable riches
of my glory to the Gentiles who have been in the dark for millennia.
And through you, O Saul, I will make you nothing that I will
be made great. And generations will come to
faith where, as we see in the Apocalypse, we see that nation
and tongue and tribe, myriads upon myriads, are worshipping
the King of Kings. It is through the ministry of
Paul that you and I came to know the Gospel. And so Paul says,
That Christ is his Lord, his master, his savior, his head. The word andros, which is husband
and head in the Greek. He is the owner of him. Paul
is owned by Jesus. And Paul became a slave, not
so that he could become something big. or have a big ministry,
or a big name, or a big public, wonderfully, just amazing church. All this is true of Paul's church.
He actually rebukes the Corinthians for such things. Favoritism and
apostle worship. Paul was pleased to be honored,
and honored to be ransomed by Jesus. Paul says here, And in
no other place in the New Testament, he usually says the slave of
Jesus Christ. Here and here alone, he says
the slave of God. Why? Because in the reader's
ear, he wants the reader to see the doctrine of the Trinity in
the context of that the Son is the Son and the Father is the
Father, but Jesus the Son is God. Because he calls God Savior and
he calls Jesus Savior. He calls God Lord and he calls
Jesus Lord. And now by placing himself as
the slave of God, he has tied himself to the amazing lineage
of prophets and speakers of God's Word since Moses. He's not just the new guy with
the new thing, he's coming. I really believe that's why Paul
put that there and nowhere else in any of his letters ever. Paul was determined to be the
lowest of servants, meaning the best of slaves. Paul was certain
of his true person. He knew, as he stated time and
time again, about how he remembered the old man. He knew the zeal
that he had, but in that zeal he was dead. His religion was
worthless. And he was the chief of all sinners.
Paul was certain that the death of Jesus Christ had crucified
the old man, and he indeed was a new creation. Paul knew that
he was a new creature. Why become new? Why do we talk
about this rebirth, this regeneration? Because the Bible teaches it.
Where is this at right now? You can't be a slave of God,
as Jesus as your Savior, until you've been put to death in the
flesh. God doesn't take the wicked and
depraved and the sinful and mold it and rearrange it into something
better than it was. He takes the wicked and the sinful
and the depraved and the dead and He kills it and kills it
and puts it on His Son and His Son suffers for it. And then
He raises it to life just like He did Jesus. Man cannot be made better. You
cannot refurbish a sinner. They must be put to death and
must be made alive. As Nicodemus, the teacher of
all Israel, as Jesus calls them. Are you not the teacher of all
Israel? And yet you do not understand these things in John 3? Do not
marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. In order
to see, you must be born again. In order to enter, you must be
born from above. You must be born. How? The Spirit,
just like the wind, it blows where it wishes, and you cannot
see it, nor can you see where it is going or from where it
comes, but you can see what it blows. And the Spirit of God
must blow in you to bring you to life, O dead sinner, so that
you may become the righteousness of God. And then when you are the righteousness
of God, you are the slave of God in Christ Jesus, who purchased
you through his blood. That's why it's there. It's central to salvation to
know that. Jesus is not a martyr who did
a sweet thing. And we go, oh, I'm so glad it
worked for him and that it's given to me. What's given to
you? See why watered down, sugarcoated,
ineffective, topical, absolute, philosophical, psychological
garbage from the pulpit is absolutely damning and blasphemous to the
ears of those who are the elect of God, because they cannot even
come to faith lest they hear the true gospel. And if they
don't hear the gospel, they remain in their sins and they don't
believe. And Jesus himself said that the judgment is that those
who do not believe are condemned already, for they fail to believe
on the one and the only Son of God. three, sixteen through eighteen. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son that, I'll use it, whosoever,
whoever so what, believes, will not perish but have eternal life. Friends, you must believe on
Jesus Christ in order to be a slave of God. You must be born again
in order to be saved. You must be born again in order
to have true faith. You must be made alive. And God
is not in the business of making better garbage. He's in the business
of destroying garbage and creating something new. Paul's truthful here in the purpose.
Why? Paul, a servant of God, a slave
of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ. In other words, the sent,
the message, the one that is sent. The messenger sent by Jesus
Christ. Authority given by Jesus Christ. The Word given by Jesus Christ,
for Christ, through Christ, and under the praise of the glory
of Christ. And so Paul is now a slave of God and an apostle
of Christ Jesus. Why would he do and why would
he say such a thing? What is the purpose of salvation? to praise the wonder of God and
His grace. Ephesians 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and
6 teach us that we are saved out of darkness, out of death,
by grace. And that we are saved unto the
praise of His glorious grace. We see in the scripture also
now, we see other places in John, chapter four, where the Samaritan
woman asked about worship. Where do we worship? Gerasim
or Israel, where do we worship? And Jesus says, I tell you the
truth, the time is coming and is now here when you will worship
not on either that mountain nor this, but you will worship in
spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such
people to worship him. Friends, the reason we are saved
is so that God may be praised. And so Paul then takes another
step in explaining his apostolic role. Why was he saved? Why did God elect Paul? Look
at this. Paul, a slave of God and an apostle
of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and
their knowledge of the truth. So now we see that Paul is showing
us that he was saved for the sake of the called and the elect
of God and their knowledge of the truth. And then he gives
three things underneath that. First, he says, and which accords with
godliness and which rests in hope, that hope which is eternal
life. And so what we see now is that
what he's writing to Titus and what he's teaching here is not
about Paul's ministry at all, is it? It's not about Titus'
ministry at all, though there is some pragmatic application
here. There are some things that are going on. Paul is about to
pave this teaching to show us that it's all about the glory
of God. He said it's all about God's eternal decrees. It's all
about God's sovereignty. It's all about God's absolute
promises. And God doesn't lie here at church. Friends, it's not that many hundreds
of years ago when this gospel was lost altogether. And it was nowhere to be found. And
in the heart of a monk who was not even regenerate, he came
to the knowledge of faith, reading the Greek New Testament through
his confessor. And when he read Romans, that justification
was by faith alone, through grace, by grace alone, through faith,
he was beside himself and overcome. with the Spirit of God. And he fought then to bring the
truth of God's Word to the people's ears. And on a day in history, he nailed
95 indictments against the Roman Catholic Church on the door of
the chapel there in Wittenberg. And the Protestant Reformation
was birthed. And Baptists are out of that. Protestantism came
out of that. Evangelicalism was birthed out
of that. Let's share the gospel, the good
news, evangelism. That's what Paul's doing. And it wasn't because people
didn't want to take away the gospel here. Paul's still alive. This is not very long after Jesus
has ascended and the church is freshly new and the false teaching
has become rampant. So what? We don't need to be
theologians, Pastor. Yes, you do. What does that mean? Study of who
God is first embarks on salvation. Gives birth to a life. John 17. This is eternal life. The words of Jesus. That they
know you, the one true God and the Son whom you have sent. In
John 6, what is it that we must be doing to do the works of God? This is the work of God, that
you believe on the Son whom he has sent. See, man makes God out to be
something that he is not. And friends, that is a false
God. You've heard it said. You may have even said it. You
may have been saying it just today. You may say in this regard,
I don't believe that God is like that. And my response to that
is, well, then God is a liar. Or you may say, well, I cannot
serve a God like that. You may say, well, I cannot imagine
that God would be like that. Quit imagining and quit feeling
and quit thinking and start seeing. There's nothing more glorious
than an absolute sovereign God because of His love and because
of the mercy that He's given toward us to cause us to be born
again to a living home. And you can call it reform doctrine,
you can call it Calvinism, you can call it Protestantism, you
can call it whatever you want to call it, but it's the gospel
of Jesus is what it's called. It's sola scriptura. It's the
word of God alone that teach us who God is. And we can fight
and argue about theological ideals all day long, but it does not
change the teaching and the preaching of the Word of God. And it is
important for you, church. Paul's teaching in Titus does three things, and I'm going
to tell you what they are in the next 10-15 minutes. I'm going
to lay them out for you. First, Paul's teaching in Titus,
as he's outlined in this introduction here, paves a direct and clear
path of the reality of God's eternal decrees. And he points
to a perfect and unified theology with a clear doctrine, with clear
teaching. All right. Put that in shorter terms, Paul
simply and clearly shows you what true gospel is and that
you must know it. Secondly, Paul's teaching in
Titus reveals that which has been hidden about eternal life,
which has now been made known. And finally, because of that,
He shows us that true belief, true birth, true salvation always
and certainly, listen to me, always and certainly brings forth
the fruit of that faith, which is godliness and holiness and
striving and holy affections and brotherly love and unity
and evangelism and the study of God's Word and the worship
of God. The list goes on. And he says then, in a contrast,
those who teach a false gospel will not prove themselves to
truly be in the faith, even if they act right to start, they
will not bear the full fruit of new life. Well, that's their business.
It's their business and they're packaging people for destruction.
Is that not your business, Church? You believe hell is real? Let
me speak. Let you see. The gospel saves. And it's not going to save anyone
who doesn't hear it. And I don't care how deep your
Baptist doctrine goes, there is no such thing as this sit
on your butt evangelism. And I'm shocked when I preach
the gospel and people don't get to say it. I'm flabbergasted.
Did you not hear what I said? Did you not hear the words of
the Lord? What's wrong? I know what's wrong because I
know what the word teaches, but I'm going to keep preaching.
You need to keep preaching. You need to keep sharing. You
need to keep praying. Now, let's look at some of these things.
First is this clear path, these decrees, these points. What does
he say? I am saved for the sake of the
faith of God's elect. And so now we see this word,
the elect, as a noun, not election as a verb. The elect has a noun. There is a person here in clear
view. Who are they? The people of God.
Anyone who believes on the name of Jesus. Anyone who is born
again. Anyone who hears Romans 10, 17 and through hearing is
able to hear and then comes to life. Anyone who was born in
the Spirit of God. Are the elect. for the faith
of the elect. Paul says, I come and I am saved
that God has commissioned me and sent me to teach the gospel
to these people so that the elect of God will come to faith. Did
you hear that church? This is radical. It explains
why after 25, 27 years of being in the church, I've never heard
anybody preach the introduction to Titus. They don't know what
to do, and when they figure out what to do, they dare not say
it. What does it say? It teaches a deep, wonderful,
glorious, absolute thing about who God is, and that's that God
purposes to save His people. His elect, those whom He has
chosen, will be saved. I don't take that
to a wrong end. Well, then he's chosen not to
save some people. We can't say that. How do we
go there? The Bible is clear on that. For the sake of God's elect.
What about those all verses? Well, we need to put them in
context, and that's not today's sermon. We're in Titus and we'll
see. But the reality is that the elect of God are those who
are saved of God, who will be saved of God. Not possibly. Certainly. Absolutely. Jesus Christ did
not get on the cross and say these words, it is finished. And mean that it's almost done. He didn't say the word, did his
finish with a footnote? I hope so. He gave his life as
a ransom for many and their debt to God the Father was paid. It is done. It is salvation. It is redemption. And Jesus paid
for your sin, church, or he did not. There's only two schools. There's only two holes. There's
only two stanchions. You are in Christ by faith, or
you are apart from Him by choice, by nature, and by birth. God
is not the author of your sin. God is not the one who's condemned
you. You, my friend, are self-condemned if you do not believe on the
Son. So who are the elect? Friends,
this teaching is very polarizing. I want to encourage you not to
let your flesh and the enemy take you down a slippery slope
of absolutely ridiculous, fallacious ideals. Please don't fall down
the fallacy slide and start thinking, well, if that's true, then this
is true, but that's true. No, learn that which is true
and rest in it until we learn something else that is true. Many pulpits, as I've already
said, are dry on the matter of the elect, even though it's taught numerous
times, even though it's the theme of the New Testament. So how do we explain who they
are? Well, let's just go to the two documents that we like to
talk about when we say what we believe as a church. First, the
Second London Confession of 1689 says this, God has appointed
the elect unto glory. So by the eternal and completely
free intention of his will, he has ordained all the means. What does that mean? That means
everyone who will be saved is going to be saved. Everyone.
God, Jesus says, all who come to me, the Father give to me.
All that the Father give to me, come to me. And I will cast none
of them out. I will lose none of them that
the Father give to me. What about those who refuse the
gospel? 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We don't lose heart. We do
not practice cunning. or tamper with God's Word, but
by direct statement of the truth, we stand before you and our conscience
is clear before you and God. And even if our gospel is veiled,
and there's a little pretext there that I didn't deal with
in 1 Corinthians 3, either way, about Moses and his veiled face.
But in that, even though, if our gospel is veiled, it is only
veiled to those who are perishing. This is a direct quote. For the
God of this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers to keep
them from seeing the glory of God in Christ. For God who said,
let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give
us the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
so that this gospel we now profess is not of ourselves. We have
this message now in jars of clay so that it may be clearly seen
that the power belongs to God and not to us. For we are crushed
and not destroyed. We are struck down. We are perplexed.
All these things, always given over in the flesh, death, that
life may abound in you. This is the reality of what God
has done for you, church. And you believe that God has
saved you in Christ alone? Or you believe in another means?
The Bible says, and the history of our faith has said, that the
elect of God are saved by the intention of the freedom of His
will unto glory before there was time. He has ordained all the means
accordingly. Those who are elected, being
fallen in Adam and several things, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually
called, that means it has full effect, to faith in Christ by
His Spirit, working in due season. They are justified, Romans 8,
28-30. Justified, adopted, and sanctified. They are kept, 1 Peter 3, by
His power through faith unto salvation. They are neither are
any but the elect redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified,
adopted, sanctified, and saved. The doctrine of this high mystery
of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care
in order that men who are heeding the will of God, revealing His
Word, and who are yielding obedience to it may, from the certainty
of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election.
So shall this doctrine provide cause for praise, for reverence,
admiration of God, and also provide cause for humility, diligence,
and abundant consolation to all who sincerely obey the gospel. 1689, Second Monday Confession.
Well, that's a little old. What about the Southern Baptist
Faith and Message of 2000? Let me read you what it says,
verbatim. Article 4 and 5. Article 4, subtitle,
Salvation, says these words, Salvation involves the redemption
of the whole man and is offered freely to all who believe on
Jesus as Lord and Savior, who by his own blood obtained eternal
redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense, salvation
includes regeneration, justification, sanctification and glorification.
There is no salvation apart from faith in Christ Jesus as Lord. And by the way, that's an addition. That little clause there. And
then there's four subs. First, regeneration or new birth. It is a work of God's grace whereby
believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change
of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of
sin to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to this. Repentance and
faith are inseparable experiences of grace. If God's grace is given
to you, repentance and faith are inseparable experiences.
If you have the grace of God, you have repentance and faith. B. Justification is God's gracious
and full acquittal upon principles of his righteousness and of all
sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings
the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.
It talks about sanctification and glorification. But then listen
to this now. Article five. God's purpose of grace. I quote
from a election is the gracious purpose of God. according to
which he regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners.
It is consistent with the free agency of man and comprehends
all the means in connection with the end. In other words, God's
election of his people is what comprehends the means and the
end of salvation. It is the glorious display of
God's sovereign goodness and it is infinitely wise, holy,
and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes
Humility. All true believers endure to
the end. Those whom God has accepted in
Christ Jesus and sanctified by His Spirit will never fall away
from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers
may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they
grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring
repose from the calls of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves,
yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto
salvation. So what's the stress? Hence,
I know people who sat church their whole lives, sit in church
now in their 80s and 90s and have never heard the gospel. They never heard the trueness
of how God has saved them in Christ. Let's look back at the text. For the sake of the faith of
God's elect and their knowledge of the truth. This is the doctrine
teaching. Listen carefully, church. Here's
where the argument starts to be summoned, Bob. We can talk
doctrine and theology. That's good. But let's see here. Here's the kicker. Which accords
with Godliness. What's that mean? The faith of
the elect. And the knowledge of the truth,
which produces and goes with them as an outcome, godliness,
holiness, sanctification, godly living. In hope of eternal life. And here's something that's really
unique here, or not unique, really amazing. Let's just look at verse
two. Here's the knowledge of truth.
that accords with godliness. Are you ready? Hope of eternal
life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began. And at the proper time manifested
His word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted
by the command of God our Savior. I believe the foundation of right
learning is hearing that God has purposed to save you in Christ
Jesus before there was you. Before you were, Christ saved
you. Now, when that's effectual, the
time and place that you remember being born again, the day that
you first exercise faith and begin to grow. I mean, there's
always that point in history, but salvation is not that point.
Salvation is the reality that you live in today. Salvation
is not a time and a place, but a present reality that God has
saved you in Christ Jesus. And you hold not to that day
when you were saved. You hold to the one who has saved. See the difference. It may seem
so semantical to you. It's just a play on words. It's
not. It's a play on truth. And all the right truth with
a tenth of falsehood is a lie. The glorious majesty of God's
glory with a speck of falsehood is a full lie. And I'm here to argue that Paul
is teaching from this point. That eternal life comes to the
foundation of knowing the truth of the gospel. Hearing the gospel. Why is it that the gospel, I've
often wondered why, you know, undeveloped cultures come to
faith so more readily. than, of course, materialism
and wealth and all that has a lot to do with it. But I believe
that it's because in America we have so much prior learning
of what the gospel is that we don't even know it's there. It's
like if I tell you that we're going to serve chocolate cake,
and I use this illustration often because it's something I enjoy
and I know what a good chocolate cake tastes like, but if I serve
you chocolate cake and it does not taste like chocolate cake,
the first moment in your mouth you go, this is chocolate, that's
not chocolate cake. Or if you accidentally pick up,
if you're drinking sweet tea and somebody sitting next to
you at a restaurant is drinking orange juice and you pick up
their orange juice by accident and you go, sweet tea? They don't
think so. The first few seconds, it's like
sweet tea. And then it's like, oh, that's not right. And you
spit it out. I think that's why. It's because
no matter how foundational you are in your faith and your learning
of Scripture, friends, we have pervaded the false gospel so
long that we don't even recognize when it invades our thoughts.
We don't recognize when we see a man-centered salvation. We don't recognize when you see
an abomination coming out of a preacher's mouth when he preaches
something the text doesn't even say. Because it happens to alliterate. Well, you're bashing preachers.
I'm bashing myself. I did it for years. I could come
up with a sermon in six minutes. I didn't have to study, I could
shoot off the cuff. Give me a verse and we'll just
preach for an hour. That's the Bible saying. God doesn't lie, church. At the proper time, God manifested
His Word through the preaching. See, Paul has been entrusted
with this gospel. And without this gospel, this
gospel, no one can be saved. Without this gospel, no one can
believe. Without this gospel, no one can
see. Without this gospel, no one can
worship God in fullness and truth and in spirit. And who is sent, Paul? He says,
by the command of our Lord and Savior, of our God and Savior,
Jesus, our Savior. See all that in his first few
verses? He puts it all together. He's saying that the unified
gospel, the full truth of the truth of God, is who God is. It's who Christ is. It is everything
that I am teaching you today, and it is one faith. And it is
one Lord and it is one baptism and it is one church and it's
one body. Friends, we do not have fellowship
in the sense of salvific fellowship and unity with people who have
come to Jesus under a false gospel. And I am horrified, not in a
sense of just that I'm scared of what's going to happen. I'm
horrified at what I see in so many people whom I have loved
for decades, who are now coming at a place where we are divided
just on the idea of exposition. That you preach verse by verse. That's just not, that's not seeker
sensitive. Thank you. And then I have to repent of
pride. And I have to trust in the gospel.
And I have to remind myself of Paul, the small slave of God.
And say, man, I need to make my name Paul. Paul is not the power, but he's
the pawn. Friends, nobody wants to be a pawn. Nobody wants to be a pawn. But
the people of God are pawns. And through their pawnship, they're
given the crown of life. Who cares? What do you want to
be? A pawn with a crown? Or a king
in hell? Do you want to be a slave with joy?
Or do you want to be the master in misery? Do you want to be the master of
your own salvation? It's yours. You take it. Going to be the wise
of all things theological and doctrinal? Go right ahead. God is not a liar. Preaching
is the means through which the gospel is given. There's no other
way. There's no other purpose for
it. To reach the church. To teach
the church. To equip the saints for the work
of the ministry. To encourage you depths of your
struggles to empower you when you have no power, to implore
you and exhort you to stand and be that which God has effected
in you supernaturally, above and beyond your ability, and
absolutely in a place where you can take no credit for it. God
works. He doesn't need our talents.
He'll use them, but he gave them to us. He doesn't need your treasure,
but he'll definitely take it and use it. And I would suffer to say that
God doesn't even need our scholarship. He is in need of nothing, as
I've said even last week. But here is the pawn of God,
Paul, who has been entrusted by the command of Christ to preach
the gospel that was prepared and purposed before there was
eternity, before the ages began. Another way of translating that
is From eternity. Not before eternity. There's
no such thing. From eternity. But before there
was time, God purposed to save you. And friends, it's the gospel
that Israel got for hundreds of years, and they lost sight
of it. Don't lose sight of it. And in
closing, look how he closes this. To Titus. My true child. What's that mean? That means that through the teaching
of this true gospel, Titus came to faith in Jesus Christ. And
so, in that sense, Paul is his spiritual father. He shared the
gospel, and then in that moment of sharing, Titus came to life. It's a beautiful thing. Not all
of us get to experience that. And even pastors sometimes, nobody
likes to tell us. That's why the phenisms of today
are so popular, because we can... We knew it, and I see it, and
put it on the wall, and take pictures of it. Where are they
now? Another day. He's a child. A true child. not my wayward child, not my
lonely child, not my orphaned child, my true child, in a common
faith. And I'm going to argue as we,
or excuse me, Paul is going to argue, I'm going to argue Paul's
argument as we continue in this letter, that the common faith
produces the common fruit. Including polity, Elders, see
what he said there just in the first chapter, including the
policy of the church and the function thereof of what we would
call programs and ministry. As the church, from the church,
through the church. And then look at the outcome
of this. Only when you are a true child of a common faith do you
get this. Grace and peace from God, our Father, and Christ Jesus,
our Savior. So friends, I am telling you
that if you do not hold to a common faith, you may not be held in
the hand of Christ. Do you have to understand it?
Do you have to grasp it all? These are the things that the
church does forever. We have a misnomer in our church
circles by thinking that once we pass from this place into
glory, then we'll have no more questions. Yes and no. Yes in that, no in
that there'll be no more questions because we'll understand all things.
And yes, there'll be more questions. Because we will forever be learning
the ineffable, eternal Christ. You cannot know that fully, which
is fully unknowable. You just have to forever continue
to know and learn. That is eternity. This little
piece of Jesus that we get, this little piece of the gospel that
we get, this little nugget of truth that we get, and yet it's
a picture of the fullness of God in Christ. And yet when we
go to stand before Christ, we'll forever be learning His forever
attributes. His grace will be new every day.
His mercies will be new every day. There's a reason Paul says
these things. And the fullness of that is that
we will not be anxious to get it. We rest in it. And we receive
it forever. That's glorious. We don't have
to come up with superfluous ideas of what eternity's going to be
like and what heaven's going to have and how many football
fields there's going to be. There won't be football fields. There'll be Jesus. And like I taught youth for so
long, Pastor James, is there going to be, is my dog going
to be in heaven? Probably. But you won't care. Because if he drops a cloth in
between you and Jesus, you'll step in it. Of course, I'm being
humorous. Is my mama going to be in heaven?
If she's in Christ, she will be. But she better not get in
my way, because I want to stand before Christ. And of course,
I'm not making light of those things. God will make all things
new. Everything is under the feet
of Jesus, Ephesians 1.10. And all creation will be made
new, Romans 8, to the praise of His glorious grace. Beloved, let's pray. And I urge
you and implore you to please believe the Gospel. Father, we
thank you so much for this truth that you've effected truly in
our hearts and minds. Lord, you call us the elect,
for you have loved us. That's why we love you. You have
chosen us. That's how we've chosen you. And help us not to take
these things to such an American point of view, like a presidential
race or eeny, meeny, miny, moe, or picking our choices. Father, you didn't pick your
choices. You saved wicked people who should
not have been saved. And for what you've told us,
the gospel is to be preached to all men. And then when they
see through the hearing of your Word, through your Spirit, and
are made alive by your grace, their faith will be so genuine,
it will produce godliness, holiness, fruitfulness for your kingdom. And Lord, until that day where
we stand completely before You, hold us fast in the promise that
You've given us through Jesus Christ, that those whom You give
the Son shall never be cast away. We stand securely in Your eternal
decrees. And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.