So we're going to read together
in Titus, the epistle of Paul to Titus, chapter one and verse
one. Paul, a servant of God and an
apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and
the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness. in
hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before
the world began. But hath in due times manifested
his word through preaching which is committed unto me according
to the commandment of God our Saviour. To Titus, mine own son
after the common faith, grace, mercy and peace from God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour. For this cause left
I thee in Crete, that thou should set in order the things that
are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed
thee. If any be blameless, the husband
of one wife, Having faithful children, not accused of riot
or unruly, For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward
of God, Not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine,
No striker, not given to filthy looker, But a lover of hospitality,
a lover of good men, Sober, just, holy, temperate. holding fast
the faithful word, as he hath been taught, that he may be able
by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially
they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert
whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy
lookers' sake. One of themselves, even a prophet
of their own, said the Christians are always liars, evil beasts,
slow bellies. This witness is true, wherefore
rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not
giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that
turn from the truth. Unto the pure all things are
pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing
pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess
that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable
and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading from his word. Well, I planned to begin a series
of studies in the book of Titus with this being the first in
the series, but I don't expect to go beyond verse 1 on this
occasion. There's more than sufficient
in these opening words from the Apostle to be going on with,
I think. We're not even going to mention
Titus today. the man to whom this letter,
this epistle is written. So he can wait for another day
as well. The Apostle Paul is the author
of this little letter and he describes himself in this opening
verse as a servant and as an apostle, a servant of God and
an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I just want to touch
upon these two names, these two words, these two descriptions
for a moment or two. Both these titles show how the
apostle viewed his work and his role under God for the benefit
of the church. He was a help and support to
the people of God. And both of these terms carry
a sense of delegated responsibility. The apostle knew that this was
an important task that he had been given. But it's also clear
that Paul knew that he was in service. He was a servant. was charged under a higher authority
in the cause of the gospel. And that authority was God himself
and the Lord Jesus Christ. and we remember how the Lord
Jesus Christ had met the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus
and had commissioned him to be a preacher of the Gospel and
had sent him particularly, though not exclusively, to the Gentile
peoples. And I think we ought to just
take note of this, and perhaps those here gathered this evening
would find this very elementary, but let's just remind ourselves,
we are not apostles. But we do have an allegiance
to the gospel, and we all have a call to serve the cause of
God and truth in whatever capacity we can. Just like the Apostle
Paul, the gospel calls us to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And being a follower of Christ,
isn't a 10 minute emotional crisis during a conversion event. It's a whole of life experience
that we are called to. The gospel brings us into a knowledge
of Christ, but it sets us on a pathway, it sets us on a road
of following Christ and drawing from the gospel constantly the
help and the encouragement and the direction and the example
to follow after Christ as we go through our lives and the
way in which we act and the way in which we talk and the things
that we do. There are privileges and there
are responsibilities in being a citizen of Christ's kingdom. And this is what the Apostle
Paul is alluding to here. He calls himself a servant of
God. and a messenger of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is contrary to the natural
inclinations of men and women. The spirit of our age is one
of personal fulfilment and self-assertiveness. Being a servant is not what people
aspire to. You'll hear very few people saying
that their career ambition is to be a servant. And yet Paul
was honoured to own this name of servant. And this is a letter
that he quite lightly wrote. There is some doubt about the
exact time when this letter was written. And there's probably
about a 10 year gap that people think it might have been written.
But let's say that it's a later letter, which perhaps the way
of evidence would imply. It's a letter that was written
towards the end of the Apostle's life, and yet for all he had
done and for all that he had achieved, his delight is to call
himself a servant and to take up this position of a messenger. And it's something that should
delight us too, that we can similarly count it to be an honour to be
God's servant in our homes, at our workplace, in the church,
towards our spouse and our children and our family and our friends,
our neighbours, to be doing His bidding, to be serving God's
cause, to be upholding the principles and practices of His rule in
our lives. I was struck the other day on
the Lord's Day during the children's talk by the different roles played
by the four men of whom we read. Joshua, he was sent to fight. Moses, well he rose up to pray. and Aaron and Hur served the
cause by holding up Moses' arms as they grew heavy. But in different
ways they all proved to be servants to the cause of the Lord and
the cause of his people. As they served together in common
cause for Israel, they were able to withstand Amalek and ultimately
the battle was won. And of course, that looks beyond
even the Apostle Paul and these other men to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're reminded of how our
Saviour humbled himself and became a servant, and how the Lord of
glory stooped to wash men's feet, how he endured weariness and
suffering and died and bore the load of our sin burden in accordance
with his Father's will. Paul had a lovely, had a wonderful
example of being a servant in his Saviour and so do we. So wherever the Lord has placed
us, wherever the Lord has set us, wherever he has put us in
this world, in this life, Let us see that as our field
of service, and may we serve diligently as did God's servant
Paul, whose calling was to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and
to minister to sinners gathered by that preaching. The Lord said
to his own disciples in Mark chapter 10, Whosoever of you
will be the chiefest shall be servant of all. And we are reminded
in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 54, that we have a promise also
as the servants of God in this world. The prophet wrote there, no weapon
that is formed against thee shall prosper. And every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness
is of me, saith the Lord. So that was the first thing that
I wanted just to draw your attention to, was this role that the Apostle
Paul so gladly took of a servant and a messenger of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But Paul goes on to say that
he is a servant and an apostle or a messenger according to the
faith of God's elect. And this shows us that the apostle
believed himself. to be continuing in the same
faith and doctrine as those old saints of a past gone age, those
who had gone before him. And what he is saying here in
this little phrase is that his message was according to or accorded
with the faith that distinguished and characterized the elect of
God in every age. Moses and Joshua, David and Daniel,
and Rahab and Ruth and Hannah, they all were part of the elect
of God, God's remnant people. Not because they were Jews, but
because they were justified. And Paul's message was not different
in kind to any of these believers, these men and women. but now
merely more fully revealed. The coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ had fully revealed and really fulfilled all that the
types and the pictures and the symbols of the old dispensation
had pointed to. And that's why we keep reminding
ourselves about the presence of Christ in the Old Testament. So this message that the apostle
preached was according to the faith of God's elect of a bygone
age. And Paul was called to preach
it as the doctrine of faith. Just as Abraham had faith and
Moses believed the promises of God and David trusted the Lord,
David could say in Psalm 7, O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust. Save me and deliver me. And that was Paul's message too. It hadn't changed. What? or rather, who saved Abraham
and Moses and David, is the same Saviour today. Paul's message
was the superiority of faith over works for righteousness,
which all those men knew and understood, and all the Lord's
elect people in every age learn and believe. And that was the
gospel of Christ that Paul preached. It was the truth he was called
to declare and it was the truth that he did declare as a servant
and apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul's also telling
us something else here. He's confirming to us that there
is in this world a group of people whom God has chosen to salvation,
whom he calls his elect. Those that God has selected from
amongst the people of this world to be his special, chosen, redeemed,
and saved people. And there's a lot of resistance
against this doctrine of the sovereignty of God, because people
want to maintain the right to choose God, not have God choose
them. And yet Paul tells us this message
is the gospel message of faith, and it is believed by those whom
God has chosen to salvation. Not all men and women are elect.
Some are called the elect of God, but others are called vessels
of wrath fitted to destruction. Ungodly men, foreordained to
condemnation and given up to believe a lie that they might
be damned. What characterises God's elect
is that they have faith. They are possessors of God's
gift of grace, and faith and righteousness in Jesus Christ
and God's salvation is freely given to them and the glory of
God is promised to them also. And then lastly, we see that
this opening verse directs us to think about what Paul calls
acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness. And once
again, that's the gospel. The gospel is the truth of God's
saving grace in Christ. And here Paul is providing us
with an excellent description of what saving faith in the gospel
consists of. It is acknowledging of the truth,
which is after godliness. You know, sometimes even as believers
and believers of many years, we find ourselves having doubts
and we find ourselves asking questions like, have I really
got an interest in this gospel? Am I really a believer? Am I
a follower? And especially when we encounter
weariness in our soul and a sense of unworthiness and we feel the
weight and problems of our own testimony and our own sin. We sometimes wonder whether we
actually have any part of this or not. But this is a lovely
phrase that the apostle uses here. It's the gospel is acknowledging
of the truth. And that's what we do as believers. We acknowledge the truth. And
if we can acknowledge the truth of what God has done in the Lord
Jesus Christ, that is an evidence of the work of the Spirit in
our hearts. It is an evidence of the grace
of God towards us. The gospel is often called the
truth or the word of truth. And when the gospel is acknowledged
and when the gospel is believed, it leads to godliness, both an
experience of godliness internally and the evidence of godliness
externally. The Gospel teaches sinners where
true righteousness is to be found and it implants a desire to follow
after the Lord and to model our lives after the example of the
Lord Jesus Christ's righteousness and holiness and perfect obedience. so that believers in the gospel,
they don't see their works as contributing to godliness, but
they see their new godly nature as revealing internal and external
evidences of the new creation. The gospel points to and encourages
true spiritual worship and reverence for God. The gospel motivates
a desire to honour the Lord in our Christian experience, in
our life, in our walk, in our conversation. And these are the
evidences of the Holy Spirit's indwelling. So this is the message,
just this opening verse of Titus chapter one. This is the message
the Apostle Paul had been charged to preach. This was a message,
the message, that he was the servant of God to carry, to uphold,
and to bring to the men and women of his age. And he delighted
to do it. And that same message that Paul
preached continues today And we, you and me, we have the privilege
both of believing it to personal salvation and confessing it as
a testimony to others of what we have seen and heard of Christ
in his word. This was how the Apostle Paul
saw himself and his role and it was to be an encouragement
to this young man Titus as he sets these truths before him
in this little letter. What thrilled and motivated the
old apostle What characterised his ministry would thrill and
motivate Titus and characterise his ministry and the ministry
of the church down through the ages. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us today.