An Introduction to Titus

Good morning. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. Glad that you're here this morning. I thought I would take just a moment to give an introduction so that you're not like, hey, who's the tall guy with the great hair? So, Shiloh, or Jared had to be out of town this weekend, and so I invited one of my former students, Shiloh Vogel, to come share with us. So, I'm excited to see what God's going to do this morning.

So, would you all stand with me?

Father, we come before you and just thank you, Lord, for the time that we have to be here this morning. And, Lord, I just ask that you would begin now by the power of your Spirit to move through this place. Father, I just ask that your Spirit would fall on us in fresh and new ways, that we would see you more clearly, that we would be drawn near to you. And, Lord, that as we take this time to praise you now, Lord, may you move through it.

In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Jesus. Just begin to lift up his name, Jesus. We give you praise and honor. You're good, Father. I thank you for the time. I thank you for the time to gather and glorify your name. Let's sing this together. In peace, bring it all. The storms surround.

All the seed is still. Seed is still.

Sing Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Darkness tremble. Jesus, you silence fear. All these lungs to sing once again. Jesus, Jesus, make the darkness tremble. Jesus, Jesus, you silence fear. Jesus, Jesus, make the darkness tremble. Jesus, Jesus, we sing your name. And you, that the shadows can't deny, is a lie.

Shadows can't deny.

Sing that together one more time. Humility. Jesus, Jesus, you silence fear. And Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Come on, just give him praise. He's in your own way right now. Father, we glorify you. We give you praise, Father. I thank you that you make the darkness tremble. God, I thank you that you're our light.

Jesus. Thousands and generations.

Sing the songs of ages to the Lamb.

Who've gone before us. Sing the songs of ages to the Lamb. Because your name.

Your name is the greatest. And your name. Is standing. It stands above. And a man. In positions. It stands. Oh. Sing that again. Your name. Is the greatest. Your name. It stands above. Sing it out. Jesus at. Jesus at. It's all. Jesus at the center. Because nothing. Sing Jesus be the center. Jesus be the center of. My. Jesus be the center. Let's declare this.

From. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. The center. Of. Your. Church. Jesus be. The center. Of. They shall. Confess. You. Jesus. We'll. Confess. Jesus. Come on. Sing his name. Oh. Jesus. No. Father. Would you. Be the center of our life. Let's just pause and. Take a moment. Just begin to pray to him.

Father. If there's. the true center of our lives, God, that we would revolve around you, God, that you would guide our steps. I thank you, Jesus, for your goodness. The song I'm getting ready to sing got me through an interesting season in my life. Three years ago, my wife and I had our first kid. We had a daughter named Judah, and we were living in Minnesota at the time. Her insurance was in Kansas City. My

wife's from Kansas City, so we drove from Minneapolis all the way to Kansas City for a doctor's appointment to get checked up, and they had told us that we had lost our daughter. And during that time, we were in the process of moving down to Drumright, Oklahoma, middle of nowhere. We went from one of the biggest cities in the world to one of the smallest, which was great, but it was an incredibly trying time, and weeks had gone by. Nothing had really changed with Aubrey's body, so we were like, let's take another test, and we did.

The baby was alive and well. My daughter's here today. She's in nursery. She was crying about having to go in there, but I'm sure she's great now. She's a handful, but this next song I'm about to sing was kind of my declaration through that season, a season of loss. And I said it in the first service. There's nothing, there's not a time in my life when I can't look back and

remember the goodness of God, the way that he's blessed me. I can't look back and remember the way that he's blessed my family, and I know that's the case for you too. Even if you're new to the faith, there is always something that God's done that's good, and that's everything. You have breath in your lungs. You woke up this morning. He's good. And so I want to sing this, and if you

could just posture your heart in a place of just remembering his goodness, his faithfulness, because we have a lot to be thankful for. He's a good God. You, Lord, mercy never fails me. My days, I've been hell-seen of the goodness of God. Of the goodness of God. Of your voice, you have led me through the fight. You were close like no. You as a father, as a friend, been faithful. It's running out, I surrender. Running out, I lay down.

And so, so of the goodness. Father, we thank you for your goodness. God, I thank you that in every season you've been there every step of the way. We can look back over our lives and remember. We can look back at the cross. We can look back at the resurrection. We can think of your goodness, and God, we're in a posture of that right now. You're good. You're faithful. You're worthy.

We give you all the praise, all the glory, and the honor. In Jesus's name, amen. Turn to someone and greet them. Welcome them this morning.

Good morning. If you could begin to locate your seat. Grab your bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A handful of things to take note of, as always, on the left-hand side, all the things that go on throughout the week. So take note of those. Find yourself a spot to get plugged into. Middle section, just a couple of things to let you know about. Reminder about Grief Share. All the information is right there.

And then, fellows, we have a men's breakfast coming up this Saturday down in the Agape room. So come join us for that, 8 o'clock a.m. Good time of food together and some good fellowship, a little prayer and study of the Word. So put that in your phones. Make sure you come join us for that. Those are the things that are going on. If you would make sure that your mobile device

is silenced. And for our What's Going to Be a Unison reading this morning because all of my buddies are out of town, we are going to be in Psalm 100. Psalm 100. Looking at the New American Standard for this part so that hopefully we sound the same. If you need a copy, it should be one in a row around you. And as you are turning to Psalm 100, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's Word.

In this go-round, we are going to do everything within our power to all read at the same time. Psalm 100, a psalm for Thanksgiving. Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving

and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and bless His name. The Lord is good. His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations. And Father, we do praise You for how good You are to us, Lord. And I thank You that we have that opportunity to just sing Your praises of the goodness of God. And so, Lord, as we spend time in Your Word this

morning, I just ask once again, Lord, for an overflowing of Your gift of teaching, Lord, to be able to bring forth Your Word. And God, that all of us as Your people would have that gift of hearing, Lord, to hear the words of comfort that need spoken to us, to hear the words of conviction that need spoken to us, and to hear the words of instruction that need spoken to us. And so, Lord, give us open hearts and open ears to what You have to say. In Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.

If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Titus, chapter 1. Titus, chapter 1. We're continuing on with our study in the pastoral epistles. Still under that general heading of faithfulness, pastoral epistles today. And I know you're probably thinking to yourself, but Ryan, 2 Timothy comes after 1 Timothy. And that is true. And in your Bible, that's how it's laid out. But chronologically,

Titus was actually written after 1 Timothy, but before 2 Timothy. So I decided to take them in their chronological order. Plus, 2 Timothy is the last letter that Paul wrote, so it's like his swan song. And I didn't think I could handle teaching one of those at this particular juncture of my life. So we went with Titus. And so, what I often like to do, we're just going to cover the introduction here this morning, but I do think that there's

an incredible amount that we can learn from an introduction to Titus. So we start in verse 1 of chapter 1 of the book of Titus, and it says this.

Now, we're going to cover three things this morning in this introduction. We're going to look at the writer, we're going to look at the recipient, and then we're going to look at the greeting that he gives. If you were to sit down and write a letter today, I think that would, first of all, put you in about 1% of the population. But second of all, you would start off by saying, dear so-and-so, and you would first address the recipient. Well, letters that were written in the first century were very different from

that. They always started off with the writer of the letter. And so, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I know this is going to be a repeat for some because we've been going through a lot of the Pauline epistles the past few years, but as my wife always likes to tell me, nobody memorizes my messages and we can always glean something new out of it. So, I want to spend

just a little bit of time talking about this writer, about Paul the apostle. I want to give a little bit of his background. So, the first time that Paul is mentioned for us in Scripture, he actually is going by his Jewish name, which is Saul. A lot of people think that Saul changed his name to Paul after he got saved, but really Saul was his Jewish name, Paul was his Roman name. And so, before he was saved, he always

went by his Jewish name, which was Saul. And the first time that we see him is early on in the book of Acts. And what we see him doing is we see him holding the coats for those who were stoning Stephen, who was the very first martyr of the early church, the first one to give his life for his faith in Jesus Christ. And so Paul was not only holding the coats, but he was assenting to or giving his approval to the assassination, if you will, of Stephen at this particular point in time.

Because Saul, before he came to know Jesus Christ, was self-righteous, legalistic, and hated everything that there was to know about Jesus. You see, as a good Jewish boy, he had grown up knowing the law. And when Jesus, who was the fulfillment of the law, came along, even though that was who they were supposed to be looking for, it's not who they thought they were looking for. So many of those that grew up knowing the law, they actually hated Jesus until they truly surrendered their lives to him when Paul was just like this.

As a matter of fact, we're told in the next chapter of the book of Acts, after he was holding the coats for those that were stoning Stephen, we're told that Paul unleashed a persecution on the church unlike anything that had been seen up to that point in time. And Christians were scattered all over the place. They took the gospel with them, but they were scattered everywhere. And he decided that he had heard that there were Christians in other areas, so he gathered letters of recommendation, if you will, from the Jewish religious leaders.

And he set out to go to Damascus to arrest Christians and ultimately bring them back and either put them on trial to put in jail or ultimately to put them to death. And it was on that road to Damascus that Paul met Jesus. You see, while he was on that road, Jesus appeared to him, bright light shone, and Paul was knocked off of his high donkey, not a high horse because a good Jewish boy always rode a donkey, not a horse. He was knocked off of his high donkey and he physically was blinded, which was a picture of the spiritual condition of his heart, which was blinded to the truth.

And when that happened, he cried out, Lord, who are you? And he said, I am the one who you are persecuting. Isn't it hard for you to kick against the goads? Isn't it hard for you to keep fighting against me? And in that moment, Paul realized he needed to surrender his life to Jesus Christ. And you know, I have a question for you when thinking about this. Those of you that have come to know Jesus

as your Lord and Savior, do you remember what that was like? Do you remember that time when you were fighting against all of the conviction that God had brought into your life? You see, the understanding that we have there is that there's a lot of people out there is that even though on that one day on the road to Damascus is when Paul came to Jesus Christ because Jesus appeared to him, we know that because Paul had been kicking against the goads or fighting against what God was doing, that conviction had been coming into his life for a long time. I would actually venture to say that that conviction started the day that he watched Stephen be stoned because do you remember what Stephen said as he was being stoned by those who were so opposed to him?

He said, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they do. And I think that's when the conviction really started setting into the life of Jesus Christ. It started setting into the life of Paul because he saw not just the truth of Jesus, but he saw the love of Jesus. And do you remember what that was like until you finally one day gave up and you quit kicking against all of that conviction and you finally said, fine, do what you want to in my life.

It's the happiest day of your life, right? Saddest because you were the most broken, but happiest because you received peace like you've never had at any point in time in your life. And I have a question for those of you that are here this morning that have never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Why are you still fighting against it? Why do you keep kicking against the conviction

that the Holy Spirit's bringing into your life? Why do you keep trying to push that back? Why do you keep fighting? I'll tell you why you keep fighting because you want your own way instead of God's way. You want to do things the way you want to do things and not the way God wants you to do things. And I'm here to tell you right now, the turmoil that you're living in

because you keep fighting against that conviction, the turmoil that you're living in because you keep fighting against God in your life is the thing that will end the moment that you finally surrender to him because that's what happened with Paul. That's what happened with me. And that's what happened with so many people in this room here this morning is when they finally decided to quit fighting against Jesus and quit fighting against the conviction of the Holy Spirit and finally surrender their lives to Christ. Peace is what rested upon them.

Well, Paul then was told by Jesus in that moment that he needed to go into Damascus and he told him exactly where he needed to go and who was going to come talk to him and that when this guy came and talked to him, he was going to explain to him more further the way of faith and that's exactly what happened. This guy comes and he prays with Paul and these great scales fall off of Paul's eyes physically and the great scales fall off of his soul spiritually to where he saw the truth finally and he gave himself over to it and the passion that he used to persecute the church, he now used that same passion to preach the gospel to people to try to build the church and he became one of the greatest evangelists and missionaries that the world has ever seen

and went on to give us over half of the New Testament because listen, brothers and sisters, that's what the grace of God does. In the life of people is he takes broken sinners, he changes their lives and then he uses what the enemy intended for evil and he uses it for good and that's what God wants to do with you. That's what God wants to do with me. That's what God wants to do with anyone who is willing to surrender their life to Christ is his grace will save them.

His grace will sanctify them and his grace will use you in a powerful way and so he becomes this preacher of the gospel and goes on and spreads this gospel throughout the entire known world at that point in time. That's Paul. But this is how he describes himself. He describes himself two ways. He says, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

A bondservant of God. Now, something of interesting note that I haven't discovered if there's anything significant to it yet is usually in his letters he says a bondservant of Jesus Christ. This particular time he says a bondservant of God. I still have a note in to God to find out whether or not there's any significance in that. He hasn't gotten back with me yet.

When he does, I'll let you know. But as of now, what I want you to pay attention to is the phrase bondservant, right? This is a really important word because a lot of us that have grown up in the church, we've heard this word in such a positive connotation, which is good, but Paul was writing to a Greek world, not a church world at that point in time and the word that he uses for bondservant or some of your translations may even say bondslave was not a positive word at all. It was actually a very servile word.

The word that he uses in the Greek is the Greek word doulos, D-O-U-L-O-S. And that word doulos in the Greek word was the most abject servile term for a slave. In other words, he was an under rower. He saw himself as the lowest of the low as far as God's economy was concerned. And he was content for that to be who he was because in almost every single one of Paul's letters,

he declares himself a doulos or a bondslave of Jesus Christ, a bondslave of the God who had purchased him. Well, I did a little bit of digging into this word this week and it was kind of interesting. So I want to share with you a few things about the word doulos and kind of apply those not only to Paul, but hopefully to our own lives as well. The first thing I want to share with you is that a bondslave was always born into it.

You were born into being a bondslave. It's kind of interesting to pay attention to because if you think about it, Paul was born first of all, as a slave to sin. Paul was born as a slave of sin. But then as he gave his life to Jesus Christ, he became born again into the slavery to Jesus. Which is something he did out of choice, not something he did out of force.

And so while he was born into the slavery of sin, he was also born into this bondslave of Jesus Christ because that's called being born again. And I think it's kind of interesting for us to pay attention to because everybody's a slave to something. And I'm going to drive this point home again here in just a minute. Everybody's a slave to something. The choice is, what are you a slave to?

Are you a slave to the sin that you were born into? Or are you a slave to Jesus Christ that you were born again into? So first of all, they were born into it. The second thing about a bondslave is they were a bondslave for the duration of their life. The only thing that could break the bond of the bondslave, the only thing that could break that bondage was death.

But as born again believers, we ultimately never truly face death, right? Ultimately, we live forever. Therefore, as bondslaves of Jesus Christ, we are bondslaves for eternity because it's a slavery of choice. The next thing about the bondslave that was kind of interesting, according to this word study that I did, is that a bondslave was one whose will was swallowed up in the will of another.

One whose will was swallowed up in the will of another. In other words, by choice, you give up your own will and you give yourself completely devoted to the will of your master. In our case, or in Paul's case, that's the will of God, right? Again, you're going to follow the will of someone or something. You'll either follow the will of an individual around here,

you'll either follow your own self-will, or you'll follow the will of God. But everyone's will is oftentimes what's swallowed up in the will of another. And that's what a bondslave is. And I can tell you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, I have been in places, I have been in times in my life where I have only followed my own will. Where I have, as a believer in Jesus Christ,

tried to pursue my own will in my life. But this is what I want to do. This is where I want to go. This is the way that I want to live. And every time I did, you know what it landed me back in? The slavery that Jesus had set me free from. It landed me back in that place of being a slave to sin again, because my own will will always lead me, again, to sin. I have found that the most joy and peace

that I have experienced in my life is when I will fully surrender myself to the will of God. When I will fully surrender myself to His will in every aspect of my life. Do you know where the safest place that you can be in your life is? The safest place for you to be in your life is in the will of God. Obedience, as I've told you before, is the safety net of every believer.

Because you can be in the most dangerous spot in the country. You can be in the most dangerous city. You can be in the most dangerous situation. But if you, if you are in the will of God, that is the safest place for you to be. Because in the will of God is ultimately the safety net of the believer. So, a bond slave is one whose will is swallowed up in the will of another.

And then last of all, a bond slave serves to the disregard of his own interests. A bond slave serves another to the disregard of his own interests. In other words, I serve even if it's a sacrifice. A bond slave has to serve even if it's a sacrifice of his own will and his own interests. And that's ultimately who we are. That's ultimately who Paul was. He served the Lord to the detriment of his own interests

because as a bond slave, that was what he was supposed to do. And so here's my question that I have for you this morning. Here's where I want to kind of drive this home this morning. What are you a slave to today? What are you a slave to? Everybody's a slave to something. You're going to serve something. You're either going to serve your self-will, you're going to serve sin,

you're going to serve what the world says that you need to be, or you're going to serve God. What are you a slave of today? Because I can tell you right now, if you're not a slave to God, you're a slave to sin and it is ultimately leading you down a path that will lead to destruction. What do you serve the most? Ryan, how do I know that? What occupies the most of your time?

What occupies the most of your energy? What occupies the most of your attention? I would tell you, if you can answer those three questions, you've just told yourself what you serve. You've just told yourself what you serve in your life. Are you a bond slave of Jesus Christ? Because that's what Paul declares that he is. He boldly proclaims that he is the lowest of the servants

and has completely given his life up to the serving of Jesus Christ. It says, Paul, a bond slave of Christ, or a bond slave of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ. An apostle of Jesus Christ. Now, I need to deal with this word apostle here real quickly. The word apostle, on its very base understanding, simply means, one sent out on a mission. One sent out on a mission.

In that way, we're all apostles. Because we've all been sent on a mission, right? We have all been commissioned by Jesus to go out and be witnesses for him, wherever you are. Maybe you're an apostle to your workplace, or to your family, or to your school, or you name it. Each of us, in that way, is an apostle. However, when Paul refers to himself as an apostle,

it goes beyond the idea of just being one sent out on a mission. It carries with it what we call apostolic authority. That apostolic authority ended with Paul and the other 11 apostles. Because that apostolic authority is what gave them the authority to set the doctrine for the early church. That doctrine is now sealed in what we call the canon of scripture,

or what you often refer to as the Bible. And so there are no apostles today. And I say that because there are some who try to run around and say, well, I'm apostle so-and-so, and they try to set new doctrine. Or they try to tell you, well, this is what God says. This is the word of the Lord for your life. Well, if it doesn't, well, if it doesn't end up with the word of the Lord,

then it's not the word of the Lord for my life. So you have to be careful with people that use that term. But Paul knew that he was sent out on a mission. And the mission that he was sent out for, he gives us in three separate statements. Notice what it says. Continue on in verse one. It says, Paul, a bondservant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God,

and the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested, even his word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted, according to the commandment of God our Savior. Three parts to Paul's mission. The first part of Paul's mission is that he was sent for the faith of the chosen. For the faith of the chosen.

Some of your translations may say, according to the faith of those who have been chosen in God. And there's kind of two aspects of the understanding of this word. That word according means, in harmony with. The mission that he was sent out on was a mission that was in harmony with the faith. And when it says the faith, it means the overall teaching of the Bible.

The overall faith of the gospel. In other words, his mission as being sent out was in accord with, or in harmony with, the mission of what the word of God has to say. But there's a second understanding of this idea of for the faith of the gospel, because it means it's for a purpose. And when it says for the faith, it speaks of for the spreading, of the gospel, we call that evangelism.

We call that evangelism. And so Paul says, the mission that I was sent forth on was to evangelize the world with the gospel. To be one who would take the message of the gospel and spread it to all who would ultimately put their faith in Jesus Christ. And in that way, can I just let us all know that to an extent we're all kind of evangelists. Like I know that I don't have the gift of evangelism.

Greg Laurie had a harvest crusade here two or three weeks ago. And literally the fire marshal had to shut down people coming onto the field to get saved. That's the coolest thing in the world. He had to say, we can't let anybody else come down here. It's not safe to let anybody else through these doors because there's too many people that want to come forward and get saved.

That guy has the gift of evangelism, right? He can preach the gospel and everybody wants to come to know Jesus. If I preach a gospel message, there might be one or two people that want to come to know Jesus, but that's not my gift. My gift is teaching. That's what I do. I take people that know Jesus and I teach them what it looks like to walk with Jesus. But to an extent,

I'm still an evangelist because I have this treasure in an earthen vessel. I have the truth of the gospel living in me. And for that reason, I love being around brand new Christians. I love being around people who have just come to faith in Jesus Christ. You know why? Because they just discovered the greatest treasure in the world. And it's like, they don't know why no one told them about it before.

They don't know how they've never seen this before. All they know is this is the coolest thing they've ever heard in their entire life. And they can't wait to tell everybody else about it. A friend of mine that got saved, this last semester, it was great. A student that I got to lead to the Lord. One of the few that I've been able to do that with. And I messaged in and this student is like,

man, I'm starting to put my faith out on TikTok and people are starting to talk to me about my faith because I'm putting the message out there so that as many people can hear it as possible. And I just love that because this person is so excited about the faith of Jesus Christ that they found that they want everybody else to know about it too. When my wife first got saved is right when I met her. I met her about three weeks after, she came to know Jesus and she just thought she was going to tell all of her friends like, hey, by the way, I just discovered the greatest truth anyone's ever heard before in their entire life and it's Jesus and that he can save you.

And so I want to tell you about it. She kind of expected everybody to come to know Jesus at that point because when she really understood the gospel message, she came to faith. She was a little disappointed that they all didn't want to, but it didn't stop her from sharing it because she was just so excited that she had found this faith because all she knew was that she had been saved for the gospel, for the spreading of the gospel of Jesus. So those of you that aren't brand new believers in here this morning, I have a question for you.

Do you still have that zeal? Do you still have that zeal to know that you discovered the treasure, that you found the key to life, that you found the key to living not only on this side of eternity, but living into eternity and that key is found in Jesus or has it just become another thing that you do or has this just become another place that you go? Because I would love if we could get everybody to get back to the place where it's like, man, I just discovered the treasure and I need to tell everybody else about the treasure, right? Then I wonder just how much the world would get changed if they could see the zeal that we have for our faith.

But Paul says, I am an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of the chosen. But the second part of it is he says, for the knowledge, end of verse one, for the knowledge of the truth, which is, according to godliness, for the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness. That idea is teaching. In other words, he didn't just go out to evangelize people, he went out to teach people.

That word knowledge is an interesting word because in the Greek, that word knowledge means an experiential knowledge. In other words, a knowledge that you know something about. It was a knowledge that he experienced himself and that he brought other people into the experience of. Let me give you the difference. So my favorite baseball player of all time was Ryan Sandberg.

By the way, Ryan Sandberg just went home to be with the Lord. I didn't realize he was a Christian, but I read some things about him. It seems like he might have known Jesus. He went to be with the Lord a few days after the real legend went to be with the Lord. But still, he went home to be with the Lord and I was always pretty sad about that. But I loved Ryan Sandberg growing up.

I could tell you all the stats. I wanted to be a second baseman for the Cubs. I knew everything about him. I even have his Phillies rookie card. Not a lot of people know he played for the Phillies at one point in time. But I could tell you a whole lot about Ryan Sandberg. But I guarantee if I went over to his house, knocked on the door or just walked in because I know so much about him,

he would call the police, right? Because he doesn't know me. I don't have an experiential knowledge of Ryan Sandberg. I just know a lot of things about him. Now, my wife, on the other hand, I know a lot about her and if I show up at the house later, she's gonna let me in, usually, right? She's not called the police on me yet. There's been a couple of times.

But she'll let me in. Why? Because I have an experiential knowledge of her, right? I don't just know about her, I know her. And so there's a difference between the two. Which brings me to a really interesting question. What kind of knowledge do you have of God? Do you just know a lot of things about God or do you know him? Can you quote the verses and give the stats

and you've got the rookie card? Or do you really know Jesus? Do you really have an in-depth knowledge of him? Because remember, Jesus said that on that day, many will come to me and say, Lord, Lord, didn't we do all of these things in your name? And he'll say, depart from me, I never knew you. I don't have an experiential knowledge of you because you don't have an experiential knowledge of me.

And so Paul says, I've been sent out to teach experiential knowledge of who God is to the people. Why? Because that will lead to godliness. See, let me read it to you one more time. And the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness or which leads to godliness. We need to understand something. Doctrine's important, right? Doctrine's the teaching of the truth.

I sat and listened to a guy the other day and he goes, sometimes as Christians, we just have to get past all of our doctrine and just come together, right? Quit preaching your doctrine and just come together. And I'm going, uh, here's the problem with that. Doctrine's pretty important because doctrine tells us whether or not we're worshiping the same Jesus.

Because your Jesus may be the one that you created in your mind, whereas my Jesus is the one that the Bible says, the Bible says is Jesus. And sometimes I don't always like the Jesus that the Bible says. I know that that's not something you're supposed to say from the pulpit, but sometimes Jesus disagrees with me and I don't always like that, but I still have to believe it anyway, right? And the world today is creating their own Jesus.

And so doctrine's important, but doctrine in and of itself can be dangerous if it doesn't lead us to godliness. Because doctrine that doesn't lead us to godliness becomes head knowledge that leads us to pride. And so Paul says, I want you to have the knowledge of the truth. I want to teach, experiential knowledge of the truth that will lead you to a life of godliness.

That's the goal. Do you know that? Yes, I want to get to heaven. I want life in Christ. I want eternal life. But in the meantime, do you know what we're all in the process of? Pursuing holiness. There's some people like, oh, that's legalism. No, that's biblical teaching. The entire Bible is continuing to push us towards holiness. Ryan, Jesus did that for us already.

Yes, positionally, he's given me all of his righteousness. But practically, I have to walk in that every single day. And that's where the knowledge of the truth comes in. That's where that experiential knowledge of truth leads me to a life of godliness. It leads me to a life of holiness. And that's why one of the things I try to do here is not just tell you what it says,

but say, but this is what it means for your life. This is how you're supposed to put this into practice so that you can become godly in the way that you live. Because holiness is a worthy pursuit. And so he says, I have been made an apostle of Jesus Christ. Not only for the evangelizing of the world or for the faith, but for the teaching of the truth. Oh, there's one quote I didn't read to you

that I thought was really good. I think this came out of Bible knowledge commentary. It says, godliness flows naturally from a relationship with Christ. Godliness flows naturally from a relationship with Christ. In other words, your experiential knowledge of Jesus will always lead you to a life of godliness. That's what it is. That's what it does for us. And so he says,

evangelism and teaching, but he was also sent as an apostle to declare the expectation. I want you to notice what it says. In the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago. The hope of eternal life. Now, as I started to study this out, I thought, man, I just talked about eternal life last week. This is gonna get repetitive. If I talk about it again.

And God sort of gently nudged me and said, but isn't that kind of the point? And I was like, yeah, you're right. It is kind of the point. So I thought I'd spend just a few minutes talking about eternal life again. I had this whole long list of verses that I was gonna give to you, but I summed it up into three. Couple of them, I'm just gonna have you write down.

And then one of them we're gonna turn to in just a moment. First of all, write Genesis chapter three, verse 15 in the margin of your Bible or somewhere. It's in the margin of my Bible, cause I wrote it there. But write down Genesis chapter three, verse 15. And I'm gonna read it to you. Verse 15, because he says something really interesting here. He says, eternal life was promised to us long ages ago.

I think there's one translation that says something along the lines of before the foundations of the world. And you find yourself going, when before the foundation of the world did God promise eternal life? I want you to think about something. When you and I were created, when Adam was created and Eve were created, they were created for the purpose of living forever.

They were created for eternal life. And in that way, eternal life is a promise because it was always God's intention for us to live forever. I know that because when Adam and Eve fell into sin, there was a guard put in front of a tree because there were two trees besides all of the other fruit trees. There were two trees in the garden of Eden. There was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And then there was the tree of life. And there was a hedge put around, a guard put in front of the tree of life so that man would not eat from its fruit and live forever in that sinful state. That tells me that that's what God always, always intended for us. His promise for us, His guarantee for us was eternal life. The thing that stopped the promise, the thing that got in the way of the promise was sin.

But that's where Genesis 3, verse 15 comes in because Genesis 3, verse 15 is the guarantee to restore eternal life because that's where the first promise of the Savior is given to us. The Savior who would restore that which had been destroyed through sin because eternal life was always God's plan and it was restored. So I want you to look at that. That's Jesus.

And that brings me to the second scripture that I want you to write down. John, Chapter 3, verse 16. John 3, 16. A lot of people know John 3, 16, although the older I get, the longer I live in life, the fewer people know John 3, 16. But it says this. It says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life.

You see, this eternal life that God has is a gift of love that has been promised to us by faith. It is a gift of love that's been promised to us by faith. God loved us so much that he wanted us to live with him forever. And so those who put their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, they have eternal life. But that brings me to the last set of verses

that I want you to turn to. It's over in 1 John. Go to 1 John chapter 5. So go to your right. If you hit Revelation, you went too far, and I did. 1 John chapter 5, and I want you to look at verses 11 and 12. 1 John 5, verses 11 and 12. Ah, the sound of pages turning.

John, in addressing the church, says this, verse 11, and the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life. You know what that tells us? Eternal life is a reality. Eternal life is a reality that is found in Jesus Christ. Eternal life is a reality that's found in

Jesus Christ. Therefore, everyone who has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, you are now living eternal life. You're just currently living it in the location of this human body. That eternal life will continue in a different location when you go home to be with the Lord. Then you will have eternal life in a brand new body. But eternal life has less to do with location, and it has more to do

with quality. Because you began a quality of life that is eternal. You are now living eternal life. And because your copy was a copy, youoris your life is eternal, your birth life is eternal, God God. And because it's eternal. Theагические 된ames are im 지원スлужены что percentie not eternal but daya teat vous economies born again which is why we have hope which 294 00ным

Oooh la victorie. Which is why we have so much hope, you know blood you know I shared about this first service to, but but I still get 3 be a mobile. Someday c deam tr tr immense partly warm keep getting calls from the hospice people a they want to c tk in me make sure I get H phenomena I want to check in on me make sure that I'm doing okay and that's great my whole family has been kät in those call affiliated a wonderful job with us, but barring yesterday had a little bit of a yesterday if I'm being completely honest but Boring yesterday have done really really well with everything. thing and I know that that sounds strange but it's because my hope is very strong yeah I know that my dad is living eternal life right now he was living it

before he went home to be with Jesus but now he's living in that location of a brand new body you know as he's walking the streets of gold which sidebar I don't know why that's the only part of heaven we ever remember literally the smallest little thing mentioned in the book of Revelation but anyway it is what it is he's when he's walking the streets of gold no one has to tell him to step up for the curb because he can see it right I spent my entire life doing that for him he doesn't have to have that anymore because his eternal life that quality of life that he has that hope that that I have for him is that he's living forever he says in this hope we have of eternal life which God promised long ages ago go

back to first or go back to Titus Titus chapter 1 there's one other thing I want to point out to you about this verse because before I go on to the next part i'm going to read it to you one more time verse 2 it says in the hope of eternal life which God who cannot lie promised long ages ago there's a line in there has been rattling around in my brain all week just be kind of marinating on it and it's that line God who cannot lie some people say is there anything that God can't do oh no God can do anything well there's some negative things you can't do there are negative impossibilities for him that he can't sin he he can't lie you can't violate his nature because that would go against the very nature of God it says he can't lie

you know why I can't lie because he's good and he's good because he's such a good father last week I brought up dad's and I know that sometimes that could be a painful thing for people matter of fact I was sitting in a NFC at training the other day and and the guy that was leading it said that as you talk about God as the father you to remember that not everybody has had a good experience with their father and so i wanted to go back and talk about that for just a moment as we talk about the fact that god cannot lie last week we talked about the fact that a good father fights for their kids and i know beyond a shadow of a doubt that some of you in here have the experience of having a father that never

fought for you as a matter of fact some of you in here have the experience of having a father that fought against you or was abusive to you or was absent and sometimes even bringing up a father can sometimes bring anxiety or panic into your life because that's not a good situation for you and i want you to know something that's true about god is that god is a very very good father as a matter of fact i was just reading in psalm 68 verse 5 just this last week it says that he is a father to the fatherless that he's a father to the fatherless that he takes care of those who didn't have a father or do who don't have a father or or your dad was a really bad experience in your life and everything about dad brings up bad things

for you god wants to take that and he wants to heal that god wants to take that situation and he wants to he wants to redeem that by now becoming the father that you never had or now becoming the father that you no longer have or now becoming the father that you should have had the father that does fight for you because scripture also tells us that the lord is a warrior fights for us and so so i want to tell you that if that's you that if that if you've had such a bad experience with your father that brings anxiety or trauma into your life i want you to tell you what i want to tell you what god wants you to do right now he wants you to take all of that brokenness he wants you to take all of that hurt and he just wants you to go trauma dump on him

he he just wants you to put all of that on him and tell him all of the things that were awful tell him all of the hurt all of the pain all of the stuff that you just need to vent just vent it all out on god and then let him become that father for you let him become that one who who brings that healing into your life who brings that peace and that joy into your life because that's what he longs to do because he is the god who cannot lie because he is such a good good father amen and so he says but that was promised by god who cannot lie promised long ages ago but at the proper time god did it before him he promised a word that would be the key to the perfect life through

the truth of life through this prophetic word in proclamation in the proclamation with which i was entrusted according to the commandment of our savior okay we're still talking about this expectation the expectation of eternal life this eternal life that they didn't fully understand in the old testament but in the proper time god began to manifest the truth of this eternal life through his word not only his word meaning jesus christ but his word as god gave to men like paul and peter and life was supposed to look like. They manifested it. He manifested it through his word. And now their job is to proclaim his word. Paul says, my job is now to proclaim this expectation of

eternal life. And this is why God said, you can't pass by the conversation of eternal life and just let it sit there and not address it. Because it's your job, Ryan, too. It's your job to proclaim eternal life that's been manifested through his word. Because that's what we're looking forward to. And that's the direction that our lives are going. That's the hope that we have in this world

that is sometimes very hopeless, that is sometimes very dangerous, that is sometimes more than we can handle. And that hope, that expectation is what we have. And Paul says that it was manifested through his, made known through his word. And now it's my job to proclaim it to the world, to proclaim that expectation of eternal life. And so that is the section on the writer.

The second thing that we want to look at is we want to look at the recipient. Verse 4. It says, to Titus, my true child in a common faith. Now, we don't know very much about Titus from Scripture. We know a little bit about him. He's actually not mentioned at all in the book of Acts, which is kind of interesting because Timothy's sort of all over the book of Acts. But Titus

isn't mentioned one time in the book of Acts. As a matter of fact, Titus and then two other books, Galatians and 2 Corinthians, the only place we see his name mentioned, and it's sort of just in passing, but these are the things that we do know about Titus. The first thing that we know about him is that he was a Gentile or a Greek. I mean, we know that actually because of the book of Galatians. You

see, after Paul's very first missionary journey, all of these Gentiles started getting saved. And they had to decide, what are we going to do with these Gentile people who didn't grow up with the law? Do we now turn them into Jewish people? Do they have to become Jewish converts as well and follow the law like we did in all of the ceremonies? Or do we just let them enjoy their grace and

freedom in Christ? It kind of became a debate, actually, amongst the disciples, or amongst the believers at that point in time as to what they were going to do. And so, Paul and Barnabas, along with a young man by the name of Titus, which is what we're told about in the book of Galatians, went down to Jerusalem to debate exactly what this was supposed to be like. And it says that in the book of Galatians that Titus, being a Gentile, was not even compelled to be circumcised or to take part in some of these Jewish rites. And what they ultimately landed on is, they don't need to become

Jews, because now the Jews and the Greeks, the Jews and the Gentiles, both come together under the headship of Jesus Christ, and there's neither Jew nor Gentile, they're just all one in Christ. And so, that's the mention of him that we have in the book of Galatians. But then we see him come up again in the book of 2 Corinthians. As a matter of fact, there's about three or four different references that I won't have you turn to. Three or four

different references to Titus in the book of 2 Corinthians, and these are some of the things that Paul calls him. Paul calls Titus a genuine brother, he calls him a partner in the ministry, he calls him a fellow worker in the ministry, and he calls him one who walked in the same spirit. In other words, he was like-minded with Paul. That's pretty high praise from a guy by the name of Paul. Titus was one who came along and brought

encouragement when there needed to be encouragement. He was honest enough that he could take up the collection for the saints from the church in Corinth, and he also was dependable enough that he could deliver the letter of 2 Corinthians. So, quite a guy, and a guy that had a really strong backbone, which was good because he was left behind a pastor in Crete. Now, after Paul was released from his Roman imprisonment, he went and started some other churches. One of them was on this island of Crete. Now, I don't know a ton about the

island of Crete, other than what I have studied in the past few days, but it's not an overly well-known for positive things sort of thing. It's not an overly well-known for positive things sort of a place. As a matter of fact, look down at verse 12 real quick. Verse 12 of chapter 1 in Titus. It says this. One of themselves, a prophet of their own, is a philosopher, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. Well, that doesn't sound like an

overly positive and shining view of these people. Apparently, to be called a Cretan was a pretty good insult in that particular point in time. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. So Paul calls Titus one day, and he's like, Titus, I got a church for you that I need you to go pastor. And Titus is like, well, that's great. I'm really excited.

Most think Titus was pretty unlike Paul, you know, 40, or pretty unlike Timothy, about 40. And he said, I got this church you're going to pastor. You're going to love it. He's like, great. Where is it? He's probably thinking of all the churches that Paul started that were just amazing. He goes, I need you to go to Crete. He's like, well, maybe you should check with God again, right? Like, maybe that's not the place for me. You should go back and make sure.

No, he takes him up on it. And he needed him to go there to set the church in order. But remember, this is a pretty rough area. It was full of liars and gluttons and evil beasts. I'm going to be honest. It sounds like a small town in Kansas. I'm sorry. I love small towns in Kansas. But it's just true. And sometimes to pastor in places like that, you got to have a strong backbone.

Because sometimes those are difficult people to be around, right? And so he sends him there to do this work. And he sends him there for the purpose of setting the church in order. That's actually what he's going to say in verse 5, which we'll get to next week. He says, your job is going to be to set the church in order. That phrase, to set in order, means to set a broken bone, to straighten that which has been made crooked.

In other words, he had a big job ahead of him. So while Timothy was a very timid, tenderhearted sort of guy, I think Titus was probably a guy that had a pretty good backbone on him. And so he says to Titus, my true son. In the faith. My true child in a common faith. And then we'll close with this greeting. Don't worry, I still got 10 minutes left. We'll close with this greeting. He says, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Savior.

Grace and peace. These are, in general, Paul's typical greetings when he writes a letter. And there's some significant things about it. On the face value, which is what I'm going to give you first, what he gives is the greeting to everyone that's there. You see, for the Gentile world, for the Greek world at that point in time, when you greeted someone, you didn't say, hey, what's up? You didn't say, hello. You would say, grace to you.

And so when two Gentiles at that point in time would see each other, that was the greeting that they would give. Grace to you. And so what he was saying is, if you're a Gentile believer in this church, I'm greeting you. And in this particular point in time, the typical Jewish greeting was to say peace to you or shalom. That was how they greeted each other. That's how they said hello to each other.

So he was saying, if you're a Jewish believer in this church, I'm greeting you too. And that tells us that this is a letter that will cross racial barriers, it will cross cultural barriers, because that's what the gospel does, right? I love to point that out, that the gospel is not the gospel for the white people, it's not the gospel for the black people or the Asian people or the Native American people, it's just the gospel. It crosses all racial barriers, it crosses all economic barriers, it crosses all cultural barriers, it crosses all of those things and puts us all in one place.

You're either in Christ or you're not in Christ. You're either saved or you're not saved, because the gospel is for everyone, and this letter is to be addressed to everyone. And so he says, there's no division in this. I'm saying, hey, what's up to everybody that's there. That's the face value of what he has to say when he says grace and peace to you. But as you know, I like to dig just a little bit deeper

and take a look at these words. The first word that we see is he gives the word grace. Grace means unmerited favor, unmerited favor. There's a great acrostic for grace. I've probably shared it with you before. It says God's riches at Christ's expense. That's grace, unmerited favor that's given to us, God's riches at Christ's expense. And usually we think of grace as salvation.

As a matter of fact, I have already mentioned grace. I have already mentioned grace as salvation. Grace is our method for salvation. By grace, we've been saved through faith, right? And so we know that. But grace is not just for salvation. Grace is also for sanctification. And most Greek scholars agree that that's the area in which Paul is using this word here.

Grace here can also mean divine strength needed for life and service. Divine strength needed for life and service. One of the things that Titus is going to have to do is he's going to have to set the church in order, not only with leadership, but to show them that if you're going to claim a holy life, you also have to live a holy life, that your conduct has to match your faith. And in order to do that, Titus is going to need grace.

He's going to need God's grace. He's going to need God's strength for daily life and service if he's going to stand up to a bunch of people who are looking more like the culture than they are like the church, who are becoming more like the world around, than set apart from the world. He's going to have to tell them what that looks like. And in order for him to do that, he's going to need God's grace, God's strength for life and service.

But it's also a reminder for Titus that as he declares this truth, as he lays down the law, if you will, for the people of Crete, for the people of the churches there, that the only way they can live as God wants for them to live is if it is according to God's grace. That if it is according to God's strength that he gives for daily life and service. Because brothers and sisters, God is calling us to holy living, but he's not calling us to holy living without giving us everything that we need for holy living. He's going to give it to us by his grace.

And that grace comes directly from the throne room of God and is bestowed upon us by faith. He says, grace to you. And then the second thing he, of course, says is peace. And I don't remember which commentary it was that defined it this way, but I really like this. Defined peace like this. Peace is freedom from anxiety, panic, and distraction in spite of adverse circumstances around us.

Freedom from anxiety, panic, and distraction in spite of adverse circumstances around us. I really appreciate that because you know what we struggle with a lot in our culture right now? Anxiety, panic, and distraction because of the circumstances around us. And what Paul says here is, you can have peace because you have grace. You can have peace because you have grace.

Now, I don't want to condemn anyone. If you struggle with anxiety, if you struggle with panic, if you struggle with distraction, welcome to the club because so does the guy standing in front of you. I struggle with that, and it's hard in my life to not give in to those things. It's hard to have freedom from those things. But do you know what has brought me a lot more peace in my life?

Knowing that God is ultimately in control. Knowing that God is ultimately in control and that it is his grace that saved me. It's his grace that will keep me, and it's his grace that continues to teach me and strengthen me for everything that I need in my life. And so when something comes up and I want to run in fear, and I want to go, well, Lord, I can't handle this.

It's like, no, no, his grace is sufficient for me. His strength is made perfect in my weakness. Lord, I don't know why you've brought this into my life. I don't know why you've allowed this into my life. It's okay, I'm going to use it for good by my grace. I'm going to bring something good out of this by my grace. And so you can rest in that grace. And so if you want peace in your life,

you need to know grace in your life. If you want peace in your life, you need to begin to really lock in and understand God's grace in your life. And a lot of that comes from you praying, Lord, take it all away from me and teach me about your grace. Not only the grace that has saved me, but the grace that gives you strength for everything that you need. It comes from knowing and resting in God's grace.

And my heart's desire for you, my prayer for you, is that you would begin to know that grace in your life this morning. Amen? Let's all stand.

And if you'd bow with me.

Lord, as we're gathered here this morning, as we as your people are here, Lord, to meet with you, I thank you that you have shown up through your word. And so, Lord, for every person in here this morning, I just want to pray that you would work in their hearts, Lord. Father, if we have made ourselves a slave to something besides you, I pray that we would surrender that today. Lord, I pray for complete surrender in all of our lives today.

Everything that keeps us from you. I just pray for that. That complete and total surrender of it. Lord, again, I want to lift up those who, those who have brokenness and hurt in their lives. And Lord, I pray that you would bring about the work that only you can do as the good Father. Lord, that slowly but surely, the hurt of this world would fall off of them.

And that your grace would overflow them. And Father, for those of us, all of us, that need that peace of God to be at work in our lives, Lord, may we truly begin to rest, rest in your grace. Father, may we see it in your word. May we understand it in our lives. May we begin to comprehend it in our minds. But more than anything, Lord, may we know the peace of God that passes

all understanding that guards our hearts and our lives. And so, Lord, just keep doing your work in us. Keep being patient with us. Bring us to a deeper knowledge of you. In Jesus' name, amen. Be blessed. Christ is my friend. I stand when everything's built on me. He's faithful.

Father, I thank you that you never fail us. I thank you that we're no longer a slave to fear. We're no longer a slave to sin. God, but we're bond servants to you. Father, we devote our lives to you. From this moment forward, you be the center. You be the center, Father. We follow you. We give you praise. We give you glory and honor for all that you've done.

In Jesus' name, amen.