Titus chapter 1. This is our third study. I'm going to try to take my time
if I can. I thought about going ahead and
going on in the epistle, but these epistles are so important. All of God's Word is so important.
Sometimes we We pass over some passages of Scriptures and somebody
will say, I wish you'd have dealt with that. And sometimes I just
have to say, I didn't know what it meant. I don't know what you're
talking about. And other times, you know, you
dwell too long on something and you sort of worry out the saints. But I want to go back again to
these first, read these first four verses, but we're still
going to be just looking at verse one. Titus chapter 1 and verse
1 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 time
manifested his word through preaching which is committed unto me according
to the commandment of God our Savior, to Titus, my own son,
after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. One of the reasons
I want to take my time going through this epistle, especially
the first portion of this epistle, because if you'll notice when
you read the epistles, when you study the epistles, and I'm sure
you've noticed this, in the first portion of the epistle. Now this
is in general. In the first portion of the epistle,
usually it's what we call the doctrinal portion of the epistle. That is things that we're told
that we must believe. That's the doctrinal, the teaching
things that we must believe. And then, and usually, and in
general, the last portion of the epistle is what we call practical
things or things that we're to practice. So it's obvious why
the doctrinal aspect comes first, isn't it? And then the practical
things. What we're to believe comes first. What we practice don't make us
Christians. What we practice don't save us.
What we believe saves us. And then we practice what we
practice because we believe what we believe. Practice must flow
out of what we believe. So that's one of the reasons
we need to take our time as we study this first portion of the
epistle here and see what doctrine is taught. And though it quickly
goes through three verses, there is so much doctrine in these
verses that we need to stop and look at important truths that's
taught us in these verses. Whatever the Bible says is not
of faith is sin. Whatsoever is not of faith is
sin. So you see why we have to believe the truth to begin with? If we practice something that
is not of faith, then it's sin. It can be nothing but idolatry.
So that's why we spend so much time on the first portion of
these epistles. We looked last week at Romans
chapter 6 verse 17 where the Apostle Paul said this statement.
You were the servants of sin, but you obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. You believed
it. You heard it. You received it.
And then, he says, being made free from sin. Now that word, then, is a very
important word, isn't it? And it goes to prove what I'm
saying, that we need to believe doctrine first. And when I talk
about doctrine, I'm not talking about just something with our
heads or some system of theology. I'm talking about the gospel,
the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of truth, the truth. And he said,
when you believed it, when you obeyed it, then you were free. from sin and you were free to
serve God. You were servants of righteousness,
servants of God. So believing the truth comes
before practice. Practice is critical. Practice
is critical. But it must always follow what
you and I believe. Sometimes if you study the book
of Galatians and you realize what an important little epistle
that is, and it goes to prove my point that that doctrine,
believe in the gospel, and then practice following that. If you
look at the epistle of Galatia carefully, one of the things
you'll see in there is Paul said, I come to you with the gospel,
the gospel of the grace of Christ, and you believed it. He said
it like this. He said if an angel from heaven
preached any other gospel than that which you have received,
Let Him be a curse. And they had received the gospel
of the grace of Christ. But you know what they did? They
left it. They left it. And He said, I
marvel that you are so soon removed from Him that called you into
the grace of Christ. And then what happened? What
happened when they left it? Their practice was a mess, wasn't
it? They got in a mess with their practice. He said, you did run
well. When did they run well? When
they believed the Gospel. When they embraced Christ and
held Him and His grace in their hearts by faith. They lived upon
Christ and His grace. But when they left Him, they
left the doctrine, they left the truth. Then they started
to try to seek perfection in the flesh. And then they began
to want to be circumcised, they wanted to keep holy days and
feast days and new moons and all of this stuff. And the Apostle
Paul said this about them. He said, I am afraid of you.
I am afraid of you. Can you imagine the great Apostle
writing this back after he had preached to you and he knew that
you had believed the Gospel and you were so joyful? And now he
writes back and he says, I am afraid of you. And I stand in
doubt of you. Why? Because you have left the
truth. You've left this doctrine that
at first you believed. So what do we see from that?
Well, we see that it's not only important to begin with the truth,
begin with the true doctrine, but then we can't never let it
go to practice. And you'll see and we'll see
if we study this epistle here that Paul not only begins with
truth, but he sprinkles the truth all through these chapters. as
He tells them what to practice, He just sprinkles the truth,
the doctrine all through here. So it is so important that we
begin hearing the truth and believing the truth and then it goes to
practice. The Apostle Paul said this in
Galatians 2.20. He said, I am crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live, I
live by faith of the Son of God." See how he not only began with
Christ, he began with the truth, he began with the Gospel, but
he says, I live, I live my daily life upon this truth of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. He lived his daily life that
way. When he was making tents, he served God, didn't he? He
served God with making tents. When he was among the saints,
there in a large church just north of Israel, he could serve
God. When he was in the sea, shipwrecked,
he was free to serve God. when he was free to come and
go as he pleased or when he was a prisoner of Rome, he could
say this, I live my daily life by believing the truth of Jesus
Christ that I begin with. My daily life I live by faith
upon the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. What is that? That's the gospel,
isn't it? And that's where you and I must
begin. That is where we must begin. One of the distinctions
of Christianity is this, it has a gate. One of the distinctions
of the Kingdom of God is it has a door and we must get in that
door. We must enter into that gate
and that gate is believe in the truth that is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Scripture says and we quoted
this verse last week, the truth will set you free It will set
us free to serve God. The truth will keep us free to
serve God. And it's only when you and I
are free that we can serve God. So we hear the truth, we begin
with the truth, and we can't never let it go because it's
only the truth that keeps us free. And it's only when we're
free that you and I can serve God. This was one of the things
that meant for the Apostle Paul to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. It was to teach the truth, the
true doctrine of Jesus Christ. And that the elect would hear
and be brought to faith in this truth, the doctrine of Christ,
and be established in that faith and live their lives in such
a way that would adorn the doctrine of God. And when Paul went preaching
as the apostle of Christ, he went in this assurance that God
had ordained this gospel to bring forth fruit. He would not preach
this gospel in vain. Hold tight and look over to Colossians
chapter 3 right quickly. Just over to your left in Colossians
chapter 3 and look in verse 3. I think it would really help
me as a pastor, you as teachers, and all of us as we go witnessing
to live with this confidence that the Gospel is going to bring
forth fruit. Dear old Todd Nyberg said he
never preaches a message but what he expects God to save somebody
by. I think that's good, don't you?
And listen to how Paul said it here in Colossians chapter 1
and verse 3. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ praying always for you since we heard of your faith
in Jesus Christ. And of the love which you have
to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven,
whereof you heard before were in the word of the truth of the
gospel, which is come unto you, as it is in all the world, and
bringeth forth fruit, as it doeth also in you, since the day you
heard of it, and you knew the grace of God in truth." The truth
will bring forth fruit on it, the fruit of the gospel. It brings
forth men to believe it, and it establishes us in the faith. Now, Paul goes ahead here. We
looked at it last week, but I want to look at this just a few minutes
again with you. And he says that he was the apostle
pertaining to the faith of God's elect. In other words, when he
went preaching, he knew that men were going to come to repentance
and faith. And they were going to be established
in that faith. And that's why he went preaching
like he did. He endeared all things for the
elect's sake. But why does he call this faith,
this faith here, the faith of God's elect? Why does he call
it the faith of God's elect? He does it to distinguish it
from all other kinds of faith. There's all kinds of faith in
this world, isn't there? Not much genuine faith. Not much
saving faith. Not much faith that God's elect.
But there's all kinds of faith. And let me name some of them
to you. Let me name some of them to you.
First of all, there's historical faith, isn't there? There's historical
faith. It simply means that 2,000 years
ago, Jesus Christ came down from Heaven. He lived and He suffered
and died and rose again and ascended back to Heaven. used to be when
they took a survey in this country of everybody that believed that,
a large percentage of people believed in the historical Christ. Now they tell us that it's dwindled
down to most, or not most people, but a large percentage of people
said, well, I don't know. Well, it could be that way, it
may be that way, or I don't know and don't care. There is an historical faith,
and a lot of people have it, don't they? It can be a good
thing. God can use it, and He does use
it to regulate people's life with, to keep sin suppressed. So I'm thankful for this historical
faith that there is. Sometimes it has a positive effect
upon people. Secondly, there's temporary faith. In Luke chapter 8 and verse 13,
the Lord Jesus was telling us about the seed that was sown on ground, the stony ground,
remember that? And He said about this faith,
They hear and receive the word with joy, and for a while believe,
but in time of temptations they fall away. All of us have seen
that, haven't we? How many people have we seen
over the years that make a profession of faith? And they want to be
baptized and they even seem to have a degree of joy in their
heart. The Master, you said, when they hear, they receive
it with joy. And after a while, what happens? Their faith has no effect upon
them. Their faith is lost. They fall
away. Their faith is dead. Something
happens to it. They don't believe anymore. We've all seen that, haven't
we? And one of the things, I think,
about this faith, it has to be humanistic. It has to begin in
the heart by the own power of self. The power of a person's
free will or emotions or something But the Lord Jesus tells us usually
when they quit believing, in time of testing, in time of testing. When testing comes, the faith
is lost. Paul was writing to Timothy.
I've always thought this was very interesting. He's talking
about two men by the name of Hymenaeus and Philetus. And he
said they were going about preaching in the different churches Resurrection
had already passed and overthrew the faith of some. So you see
that it was a very weak faith. It was a humanistic faith, a
faith that can be overthrown. Sometimes it takes the temptations
of the devil, but sometimes it's just false doctrine and it's
overthrown. They fall away. I don't want
that kind of faith to you. Well, it won't stand in the time
of testing, but it's a temporary faith. Thirdly, there's what
I would call an outwardly miraculous faith. Paul said in 1 Corinthians
13, Though I have faith to remove mountains, all faith that I could
remove mountains. Now, that's a lot of faith, isn't
it? To remove mountains. You remember those folks that
stood on the Day of Judgment and they said to the Lord Jesus,
We've cast out devils in Your name. We've done many wonderful
works in Your name. Now in their eyes and in the
eyes of the observers, that was a miraculous faith. They seemingly
did some great things and they did it by faith. But Paul said,
Do I have that kind of faith and have not love? It profits
me nothing. It's a miraculous faith, but
it's not a saving faith. And then I thought of another
as I was thinking this today, and I didn't know what to call
it, so I called it a talkative faith. A talkative faith. This faith has absolutely no
object. Its faith is in itself. Faith
in faith. And we hear this a lot in our
day. How many people do you know,
they talk about their faith? If my faith hadn't been as strong
as it was. Boy, if my faith has not failed
me. It's faith and family. We hear
it all the time, don't we? Faith and family. Never the object
of faith. We hear this from politicians.
We hear this from movie stars. We hear this from sports figures.
They're always talking about their faith. And their faith
is in their faith. You ask them what it's grounded
in? It don't matter. I don't know. What kind of question
is that? I just have faith. It's a talkative faith and they
talk about it all the time. But it's not saving. It's not
saving. Then lastly, James tells us about
the faith that devils have. He said, You believe there is
one God, you do well. The devils also believe and tremble. They believe. Their judgment
pertains to a God of judgment. God never made atonement for
the sin of Satan and those who fell with him. He never will
save them. The Bible says when they sin,
He cast them down and put them in chains of darkness and reserved
them unto the judgment. They believe and they tremble. When the Lord Jesus came, some
of the devils came up to Him and said, Have you come here
to torment us before the time? They've got more faith than a
lot of people though, don't they? Talk to a lot of people about
the coming judgment. They don't tremble because they
don't believe it. But devils do, and they tremble. Some of these things are enough
to give us some concern, aren't they not? I don't want any of
this faith, do you? I had an historical faith. I
guess all of us did until God gave us the faith that's called
the faith of His elect. But these others, I sure don't
want. But all these are different faiths
and distinguished from the faith of God's elect. Now let me give
you some examples. This faith, this faith of God's
elect, and it's described throughout the Scripture. First of all,
the faith of God's elect is described as a saving faith. It is the
only faith that saves. Thy faith has saved thee, go
in peace. Now, whatever sense it saves
you is another matter, but it's saving, isn't it? What must I
do to be saved? And what's the answer? Believe. Believe. The first thing about
God's elect, their faith, is it's saving. Every blessing that
we have that comes from God to us comes through faith. Listen
to this, forgiveness of sins. That's important, isn't it? Well,
listen to this. Whosoever believeth shall receive
remission of their sin. Remission of sins cannot go through
merit. We cannot earn it. We cannot
work to get it. It comes one way, through faith,
through faith. Justification before God. All
that believe are justified from all things. And then thirdly,
righteousness. A righteousness to clothe the
shame of our nakedness. A righteousness to justify us.
That righteousness only comes to us by faith. Listen to this very familiar
passage, Romans 10.10, With a heart man believeth unto righteousness. And then the indwelling of the
blessed Holy Spirit comes through faith. This only would I learn
of you, received you the Spirit by the works of the law or by
the urine of faith. It's faith. Faith and faith alone
bring salvation. And salvation cannot be had in
any other way except by faith. My neighbor told me one time,
she said, you just make way too much of faith. But you know the
Bible is full of it, isn't it? This is a way of faith. The just
shall live by faith. And without faith, it's impossible
to please God. First thing about faith, it's
the only faith that's saving. It brings all the saving benefits
to us. The second thing about faith
is this, and this is just as critical. The faith that saves,
the faith of God's elect, is in a person. It is in a person. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ. What must I do to be saved? Not
just believe, but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shalt be saved. The instant the heart believes
in Jesus Christ, it is saved. It may not have the full assurance
of salvation, but the instant the heart believes before it
does anything else, It is saved! Believe on the Lord Jesus and
you shall at that instant be saved! When those people were
bitten by serpents, Moses put up the serpent on the pole, the
instant they saw that, they lived! They were healed! The instant
we believe in Jesus Christ, we are saved! We are saved! Paul said, We give thanks to
God for you, since we heard of your faith in Well, we can do a lot of things,
can't we? Make a big name for ourselves and maybe have some
gifts. But until we believe in Christ,
until we believe in Jesus Christ, nothing avails anything since
we heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And faith
don't look to itself. Faith don't talk about itself.
Faith looks out of its utter weakness and sinfulness to Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. who left heaven, came to this
earth, was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, atoned
for our sins, was buried rose and ascended and is at the right
hand of God. Faith looks to Christ, look unto
me and be ye saved. That is the second thing about
our faith. The third thing about this faith of God's elect is
this, the faith of God's elect always has foundation. This is the difference between
it and that talkative faith. Where's your foundation? Why
do you believe what you believe? I don't know. I don't know. But
you know why you believe what you believe. You know who you
believe, don't you? And why is it? You find it in
the Bible. You find it in the Word. Faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. I'm not saying
that God cannot bring a man to faith in Christ some other way.
I just don't know how. I don't know how because He doesn't
tell us. He doesn't tell us. Creation
reveals a just Creator And it reveals His wrath is upon those
who hold the truth in unrighteousness, but only the written Word of
God reveals unto us the Savior that we must believe on to be
saved. Let me show you another passage.
This is a wonderful passage, one of my favorite passages in
John chapter 20. It proves this point very well.
Look in John chapter 20 and verse 20. Verse 30, John chapter 20
and verse 30. Faith Foundation. John chapter
20 and verse 30. And many other signs truly did
Jesus in the presence of His disciples which are not written
in this book. Aren't you glad we have this
book? Oh boy, you just opened it up and there it is! Like I
read the other night about that lady over there in the concentration
camp. Boy, the light just shines! This shines light in our darkness. Oh, this book. But these were
written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing you might have life through His
name. These were written that you could
open the Bible and read it and say, There He is! And believe
it! Believe Him! And what happens? eternal life. Oh, we wouldn't
take nothing for God's Word, would we? It is truly the foundation
of our faith. Fourthly, think of this. While
the heart truly does believe and must believe, this faith
is a gift of God. Now this is a mystery. This is
a mystery. And you and I probably don't
even realize this at first. This is something after we grow
in grace and knowledge, we realize, this work that's going on in
me, this is not me. This is not just me believing.
This is God giving me grace to believe. I didn't recognize that
at first. I just knew I must believe. And
I knew I did believe. But boy, I tell you, it wasn't
long until I realized, oh, this is not a work that I've begun.
I was born without this faith, weren't you? We live without
this faith. It wasn't something that lay
dormant in us and needed to be exercised. It was a gift that
was given to us. By grace are you saved. Through
faith. And that not of yourselves. Salvation
is the gift of God. Faith is the gift of God. Not
of works. lest any man should boast." The
Lord Himself made a wonderful statement about this to the Jews
when they said, What must we do to work the works of God?
And He said, This is a work of God. This is the work of God
that you believe on Him whom He has sent. Who is it that believes? Well, we believe. And yet He
said, That's a work of God. It's given to you to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, given to you. I love that passage where
Apollos there in Acts 18 was there at Ephius and he went about
preaching and the Scripture says he helped them much who had believed
through grace. That's the only way a man can
believe, isn't it? It's through grace. How did you believe? Now, some of you have been on
the road for a long time. Looking back on it now, how did
you come to believe? Was it out of the power of your
free will? It was God working, wasn't it? It was a gift of God
that you believed on His Son. That's the faith of God's elect.
Nothing else like it. Nothing else like it. It's saving
and it's a gift of God. And fifthly, think of this. Think
of this. A couple more and we'll close. Faith, this faith of God's elect. It's something that purifies
the heart. It purifies the heart. I think
it's in Acts 15. I think it was James that said
that God put no difference between The Gentiles' hearts and the
Jews' hearts purify their hearts by faith. What is it about faith? How does it purify the heart?
I thought I was thinking about this old fable. Randy was talking
Sunday about Sometimes old fables are good. The old stories are
good. They teach us something. I was thinking about one today
and I forgot how it went exactly and forgot who told it. But I
thought, what a good old fable that really teaches us a lesson. And it goes something like this.
Maybe you've heard it. There was a city that sat on the seacoast
overlooking the bay. And on top of the hill just over
that city there was what they called the stone man. He was
a man that they had chiseled out of stone. And a young man
there in the city asked his mother one day, he said, Mama, who is
that up on the hill? What kind of sculpture is that?
She said, that's the stone man, son. She said, his eyes looks
out over the bay. and looks over this city and
keeps the city safe from invading armies. And she said, He is so
patient and He is so good and kind that He keeps peace in our
city. And He is so strong that nobody
can overcome this city because He sits there and watches over
it. And that young man thought to himself, My, I'd love to be
like that. And he got it in his head one
day that he was going to climb the hill and go up and look at
this stone man. And he was amazed when he looked
at it in the face. He said, My, what a marvel! How
perfect this sculpture has chiseled this man out! And he could look
in his eyes, and he said it was almost like he could see him
looking out over the bay. looking with a vision to protect
against any invading armies coming in. And every day, he just wanted
to come up and stare at this stone man. And as he stared at
him, he realized the wisdom. You could just see the wisdom
in his face. And he thought to himself, now
I see how he keeps this city in peace. Look at the wisdom
that they've captured in his face. And then he'd go back up
and he'd look at his arms and his legs and how strong he was. And every day he'd go up, day
after day and week after week, month after month. He realized
that nothing affected this stone man. He just stood there like
the stone that he was, looking out over the bay, protecting
the people, keeping everybody in peace. And he said, when it
snowed, it never changed him. When it rained, it never changed
him. And the heat never changed him. He was the same every time
he went up there. And his mother got to noticing
the young man one day. And she started noticing how
kind he was, and how long suffering he was, and how he kept the people
in town in peace. And she got to noticing sometimes
he'd just go and stand and look out over the bay to make sure
no invading forces was coming against the city. And one day
she was looking at him and she became amazed. And she says,
Son, you look just like the stone man. You look just like the stone
man. And here was the moral of the
story. that he sat and gazed upon the
stone man and studied him until he became just like him. What purifies the heart is it
not looking upon the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it not looking unto
Him, the Arthur and finisher of our faith, seeing Him in His
unchangeable character, His saving attributes of love and mercy
and goodness and justice and holiness? Is it not looking to
Him? There's a passage of Scripture
in 2 Corinthians 3.18 that said, We with open face, beholden as
in a glass, The glory of the Lord are changed unto the same
image. What is it that makes us patient?
What is it that makes us kind and gracious and generous and
loving and tender and just? It's looking to Him. It's looking
to Him. That will do it, brothers and
sisters. That will do it. You can't look
away from Him and accomplish anything. You'll never look away
from Him and progress in the Christian faith at all. It's
looking unto Jesus, purifying the heart by faith. And sixthly and lastly, think
of this. The faith of God's elect, one of the ways it's identified
in the Scriptures is this way. It will never quit believing. It will never quit believing. It must not and it will not quit
believing. It's not that temporary faith.
It's not that faith that can be overthrown. It's this faith
that overcomes the world. We had a doctrine, and I'm glad
we finally got rid of it. It was the doctrine of eternal
security. I remember not long after the Lord saved me, it had
its rise, I think, in the generation before me, and there were some
horror stories. about the doctrine of eternal
security. Because it came to be a security at the expense
of everything else. It came to be a security at the
expense of holiness, at the expense of practice. And then it came
to be anybody that had just made a profession of faith in Christ,
they were eternally secure no matter what they did, no matter
what they believed or anything else. We finally got rid of that
and good riddance to it. I hope it never turns around
and comes back. The Scripture teaches this. The
doctrine of the perseverance. Perseverance of the saints. Sure, there is security. But
it is perseverance. The Apostle Paul said this, that
Christ would present us blameless if we continued in the faith. Colossians chapter 123. We continue
in the faith and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. And somebody asked me one time,
he said, what would it be for a saint to fall away? I said,
I don't know. I've never experienced it. I've never experienced anybody
that did. Let's close with this. Look over
in Hebrews chapter 11. I tell you, trials will come. If the Lord is giving you this
faith, trials are going to come. Tribulations are going to come.
You know that. I mean, sometimes crushing, crushing
trials will come. Chastening will come. The Lord
is going to try our faith to see what sort it is. And this faith of God's elect
will endear everything until it ends in sight. Now, that's
the faith of God's elect. Look here at what he says in
Hebrews chapter 11. You know this chapter. He begins
there with Abel. offering unto God by faith a
more excellent sacrifice than Cain. What happened? It got him
killed, didn't it? He never quit breathing, though,
did he? Never quit believing. And then he went on to Enoch
in an ungodly generation. Enoch had this testimony that
by faith he pleased God and he was translated. And then in chapter
7, verse 7, he goes on to Noah being warned of God. A judgment
is coming. A flood is coming. And by faith
He prepared an ark. He believed God and became heirs
of the righteousness which was by faith. And then He tells us
in verse 8 about Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob who came
out of the country and lived in tents waiting for the promise. And then He tells us in verse
11 of Sarah by faith receiving strength to conceive seed. And
look what He says about them in verse 13. These all died in
faith. All of them? Every one of them. Every one of them. This will
be said, dear soul, about you. If you have the faith of God's
elect, this will be said about you. When you pillow your head
and your soul leaves your body, this will be said about you.
You died in faith. You died in faith. Jesus Christ
gave it to you. He's the author of it. He'll
finish it. God begun the good work and He'll
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Isn't that a comforting
thing? How comforting that is! While
we struggle sometimes with unbelief and we cry out, Lord, help my
unbelief, and we're scared to death of falling into unbelief,
we can live with this assurance. We'll die in faith. will die
in faith. Nothing's got yours yet, has
it? It ain't been overthrown yet, has it? And it won't if
He started it, if He gave it to you. I assure you we will
go to verse 2 next week.