Sunday Sermon: Introduction to Titus (Titus 1:1-4)

You're listening to the Preaching Ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an

Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series.

Here is Pastor Gabe. Our passage today, rather short, as we're just looking at the first four verses of this book, but in honor of the word of the

King, would you please stand? This is Titus chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, the

Apostle Paul writing to his servant Titus on the island of Crete. Hear the word of the

Lord. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life, which

God who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching, which

I have been entrusted by the command of God, our savior to Titus, my true child in a common faith, grace and peace from God, the father and Christ Jesus, our savior.

You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly father, as we come into this book, this passage today, and even examining this letter that Paul wrote to Titus in the work that he was to be doing in those churches that had been planted on the island of Crete, this was 2000 years ago.

And yet we find in these words, relevance and application for our lives today, as we have been called into your kingdom and into your service by the gospel call that was proclaimed from your apostles and then through the evangelists and the shepherds and the teachers to this very day.

May we continue to respond to that gospel call, not just in that initial affirmation, that initial yes, that we said that conversion that had taken place in our lives.

But even, even today as Christians, we are still responding. We are still reacting to the truth of the gospel of Christ that was proclaimed to us that we may turn from sin and worldliness from despair and from hopelessness to the hope of Christ that has been given to us.

Knowing that you continue to reign, you are continuing to build your kingdom. And how should we as Christians live in your church and in this world continue to guide us even through this letter that we may know the way of Christ more fully.

It is in the name of Jesus that we pray and all God's people said, amen.

I am very grateful to Bob and Wanda, friends of mine who had helped me greatly while I was on the trip that I just took and the work that I was doing there in East Texas.

I would not have been able to have left as early as I did and be able to come back here if not for work that they promised that they would continue to do on our house as we're waiting for that to sell.

Zej and I had taken our sleeping bags and we had just expected that we were going to sleep in this house that we were working on.

And for the first two nights that we did, Bob and Wanda though invited us to come and join them at their house.

And though Zej slept on the couch, he agreed that was much better than sleeping in the sleeping bag on the floor.

On one of those nights that they treated us to dinner, Wanda brought me a piece of memorabilia that she and Bob had picked up at a concert that they attended.

It was a t -shirt, but it was shaped like a guitar and it was about this big and it was shrink wrapped into this little package.

And they liked the idea of this shirt being shrink wrapped into a guitar shaped package more than they liked the idea of the t -shirt itself.

So they were keeping this. Look at this. So isn't this a neat thing? It was a neat way to package a t -shirt.

But you know that if you were to cut that plastic, the thing would just explode into a full size t -shirt, yet they had shrunk it down into this neat little shape.

Well, the book of Titus is kind of like that. This is a small letter. It's condensed into three chapters.

In my Bible, I don't know about yours, but it's on two pages right there. I don't even have to turn my page to get to another part of Titus.

It's all right there in front of me. And yet, packed into these few words is such rich doctrine in theology that to unpack this, we're going to spend several weeks on it.

And as I said in the beginning, we could spend a lot longer than that. There were some preachers that I had looked up when

I was kind of trying to see how they had spent their time in Titus and how they taught through this book that spent months and months in this book.

Martin Lloyd -Jones, which you know is a favorite preacher of mine, he had a real knack for being able to take just a few words and stretch that out into multiple sermons.

He has an entire series on just two words but God, and you can search that wonderful series.

We are not going to spend that much time in Titus. We'll just spend a couple of months here. But nonetheless, this is deep theological truth that has been shrink -wrapped into a small package.

And to cut around the plastic and open this thing up, we're going to find out that there is more to this than just what meets the eye.

Right here at the very introduction of this letter, we have the Apostle Paul stating who he is and then saying who he is writing to.

To Titus, my true child in a common faith, and then that common greeting that we see from Paul as we have seen in many of his other letters, grace and peace from God the

Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. There's some rich doctrine and even gospel proclamations that we find in Titus.

Consider these words in Titus 2, 11 to 14. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works.

That was one sentence and that gospel proclamation contained there within this letter that Paul writes to his servant

Titus. Paul's letter to Titus is simply about adorning the doctrine of God.

What this book is about we find right there in the very first verse of the letter. Paul a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness.

This is about the truth of God that produces godliness in the lives of his people.

We believe it with our hearts and we show with our lives that we believe what we say we believe.

As I had said to you last week from 2 Timothy, sound doctrine produces godliness, or a couple of weeks ago as we were finishing up 2

Timothy. Sound doctrine produces godliness whereas bad doctrine produces what?

Ungodliness. And so what we read here from Titus is that doctrine and life go together.

What you believe affects the way that you live. And that statement is true whether we are talking about following what the

Bible says or whether you are looking at people who live in this world without godly instruction.

It's still true for them as well. But your doctrine affects the way that you live.

What has been taught to you and what you believe will affect the way that you live out that doctrine in your life.

And so we want to come to understand exactly what God has said to us. How does

God expect us to live? What does this look like in his church? And then what does it look like when the people of God are even living in the world?

These instructions we will find as we come to this letter to Titus. So our mission this morning, we're going to look at these four verses in the greeting here to Titus, but we also want to do an overview of the book as I have the habit of doing whenever we come into a new series.

So we're going to explore this message further by considering the author and the recipient and the background of the letter, followed by the occasion for this letter and the themes that we're going to find within it.

And then lastly, we will consider the structure of the letter and outline and even make some practical applications on the outset.

What are some things that we expect to find in this letter and then how will we live as a result of what we have studied here in the book of Titus?

But first of all, let's consider the author and the recipient and the background of the letter.

Now, of course, the author is mentioned very first word. Who did we read this is from? It's Paul.

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Christ Jesus. Now as I said, the book of Titus is the third of three pastoral letters that come after first and second

Timothy. This letter is 650 words long, which is about half the length of second

Timothy. It would take just 10 minutes, less than 10 minutes for me to read for you all of Titus out loud.

And I'm probably going to end up quoting most of it even in this overview. Now one challenge that I want to give to you, and I'll bring this up again when we get to the end,

I want to encourage you to read the whole letter. I generally encourage you to read the entire book of whatever it is that we're studying anyway, but this is short enough that I would encourage you once a week, every week as we go through this series, read

Titus. Now you may split that up and read a chapter a day, three times a week.

So on Monday you do chapter one, Wednesday, chapter two, Friday, chapter three, something like that.

Or you may read it all in one sitting, just sit down and read all of Titus. But let's have this letter in our minds and even filling our hearts as we go through this study together, since it's short enough as it is, we would commit ourselves to reading it at least once a week, keeping in your mind even the things that we have talked about on Sunday.

Something that is a common practice of us as a family is we talk about what did you hear on Sunday?

What did the kids learn in Sunday school? What did daddy preach when he was preaching on Sunday? We do this even in our small groups as we're going to gather on Wednesday nights.

We talk about the things that we heard in the sermon on Sunday and find even more practical applications and there may be sharing among our group, somebody saying, well, here's how, here's what

I heard preached on Sunday. And what we had considered is we opened the word of God and here's how it affected my life this week.

Here's how I found a great application for what I heard in the way that I live.

And so we're going to find real application in that way. That's the purpose for Paul writing. And may we find that in our very lives as we go through this.

The greeting or the salutation of the letter introduces us to the author and its recipient.

Paul, a servant of Christ. Now the word there in Greek is doulos, which means that he is a slave of God.

More than just a servant, he has committed his entire self to the service of the king and an apostle of Jesus Christ, meaning that he is one sent out by Christ himself.

But it's not until we get to verse four that we recognize the recipient to Titus, my genuine child according to our common faith.

Now the intro to Titus is just a bit longer than Paul's introduction to either of his letters to Timothy.

And you'll also notice that like Timothy, Paul refers to Titus as his child in the faith.

Now we don't know how Titus came to be in Paul's service. We know more about Timothy's backstory than we know about Titus's.

Titus is not mentioned in the book of Acts at all, at least not directly.

But because Paul calls him a child in the faith, it's safe to assume that Paul was the one who led him to the

Lord. Now since Titus's backstory isn't found in Acts, we piece some things together about Titus from Paul's other letters.

We know that Titus was a Gentile according to Galatians 2, 3, where Paul said that he was a

Greek and he was uncircumcised. Titus was living proof that contrary to what the

Judaizers were teaching, circumcision was not a requirement for salvation.

In Acts chapter 15, verse one, we know that the Judaizers were saying, if you want to be saved, then you have to be circumcised.

But the Jerusalem council had decided that that was not the message of the gospel.

That was adding works to the gospel. And so it was not a requirement for anybody to have to be circumcised.

Now Paul had Timothy circumcised so that Timothy could go with him into the synagogues whenever Paul would teach there.

But Titus was not circumcised and Titus was going to be sent specifically to the

Gentiles and Titus therefore becoming a living example of the fact that works do not save, but it is by the grace of God that one is saved by faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. We know that according to 2 Corinthians chapter 8, Titus served the church at Corinth at Paul's request to see how the

Corinthians were doing after Paul had to send them a harsh and tearful letter regarding their behavior.

On Paul's third missionary journey, he expected to meet up with Titus in Troas, but not finding his friend,

Paul left for Macedonia. Titus would be reunited with Paul in Philippi to give him a good report on how the church in Corinth was doing.

And then Titus returned to Corinth with what we know to be the book of 2 Corinthians.

Several years later, Titus was with Paul when he journeyed to the island of Crete, the largest and most populated of the

Greek islands. It's about 90 miles south of the Greek mainland. The events of that journey are not given to us in scripture.

However, we know that Paul left Titus there. According to verse 5, this is why

I left you in Crete so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

There were about 100 towns on the island of Crete and Titus' mission, how would you like this for a missionary job, was to go into each and every one of those towns and examine how every one of those churches were doing and to even appoint elders in those towns.

Because while the gospel had been proclaimed in those towns in the island of Crete and churches had been planted there, they did not yet have eldership.

So as now they were growing in a knowledge of the Lord and a knowledge of the scriptures and in the gospel, now the assignment was to go back to visit all of those churches and appoint elders in those churches who would help to lead them.

Now we don't know exactly where Paul was writing this letter from, but it's likely that this letter was written in the mid -60s between Paul's first and second imprisonment in Rome.

And so the order in which the pastoral epistles were written would actually be 1st

Timothy is first, then Titus, and then 2nd Timothy. Because 2nd Timothy would have been written during Paul's second imprisonment.

So somewhere between that first and second imprisonment is when Paul wrote this letter. So that means

Paul would have been ministering somewhere in the west, possibly as far as Spain as I had mentioned to you in my overview of 2nd

Timothy. Paul encouraged Titus in the good doctrine that he had learned, and he warned

Titus about false teachers and instructed him to set the churches in order made up of those

Christians who had heard the gospel when Paul had been there. Through Titus' efforts, the

Christians in Crete would learn how to live the gospel that they believed.

We have heard it. Now what does it mean to live in light of it? And these would be the instructions that Titus would further as he went back to visit those churches once again.

So this is the author and the letter's recipient. Now how about the occasion for the letter and some of the themes that we're going to see as we go through this?

If I were to tell you that we were planting a church somewhere else in Arizona, maybe we would plant another church in Casa Grande, maybe we would decide we want a church in one of the other small communities that are still needing a good

Baptist church. You might think, well, it starts with a church wanting to plant a church, right?

And together we decide exactly where we want to plant, and then we either appoint or hire a pastor to oversee the plant.

That pastor finds a building in this other community where everyone can meet. Maybe a few people from this church go to that other church to help that plant.

Maybe there, if we go to another community where a few people from this church live in that community, we might say, could you attend that church and help this church to get started?

Perhaps there will be a worship leader. There are some other mature men that can either be Sunday school teachers or deacons or potential elders.

We spread the word in the community. Maybe we take up ad space on Facebook or on YouTube or something like that.

We do some evangelism outreach, and little by little, that church begins to grow.

Eventually, that church goes from a small, organized gathering to a self -sustaining sister church.

Is that what we might expect from a church plant? Is that generally our perception of church planting and the way that that goes?

Well, that's not how it would have gone in Crete. In fact, the process would have been kind of like the opposite of what we envision for a church plant.

Paul and Titus and others went with them to Crete, where the gospel had never been preached before.

It wasn't like it was in the South, where I grew up, where there's like a Southern Baptist church on every corner, or you just see churches everywhere, like every three blocks.

So one of the churches that I pastored in last week that I preached in was Providence Church in Marshall, Texas, as I said to you.

And this is a church that I preached in several times before. I was looking back over my notes, and just last year,

July of last year, I had preached in that church as well. And my daughter Annie was with me on that trip.

And as we were leaving Marshall, there's kind of an exit that goes around the east side of the town.

And so as we were going out of Marshall, we're just passing these churches. And Annie said, my goodness, there are so many churches here.

And I said, welcome to the South. Just churches all over the place, it's the way that it is.

But this is not what it would have been like in Crete. This was when the gospel was still going out to the world.

No one had heard it before. This was a brand new word that had come from apostles who had been sent out by Jesus Christ to this little island in the

Mediterranean. In Titus 1 .1, Paul says, Paul, a slave of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and the full knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

Paul preached so that those whom God elected for salvation would come to faith and be saved and then would grow in the knowledge of God through the teaching of sound doctrine, which would also produce in them a desire to live godly lives.

And all of this is the power of God at work in their lives.

That God would change the hearts of people who lived other utterly pagan lives and utterly dishonest lives on top of that.

The apostle Paul says of these people, if you look down at verse 12, one of the

Cretans, a prophet of their own has said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

This testimony is true, Paul says, therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

This is the reputation that they had even among pagans. Even the pagans knew the

Cretans as being liars and evil beasts and lazy gluttons. That's what you can expect when you go to the island of Crete.

How can this people so wicked and so full of themselves come to a knowledge of the gospel because of the work of the

Holy Spirit in their hearts? Amen. To transform them from evil beasts into the saints of God.

And once again, this happened because God had, first of all, predestined them for this salvation before they were saved.

Because once again, an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth.

Turn with me very briefly, if you will, over to Acts chapter 13. So keep your marker, your finger here in Titus as we'll come back to this.

Let's look together at Acts chapter 13. Now this is a large section where Paul and Barnabas are preaching at Cyprus and then they preach at Antioch in Pisidia.

And we have one of Paul's longer sermons captured here in chapter 13. Paul will go back to the

Old Testament and he will show how Christ is the fulfillment of those things that had been prophesied.

It is said in the Psalms, I will give you the holy and sure blessing of David. Therefore he also says in another

Psalm, you will not let your holy one see corruption. Verse 36, for David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption.

But he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore brothers, that through this man, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, talking about Christ and by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Beware therefore, lest what is said in the prophets should come about. Look you scoffers, be astounded and perish, for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe even if one tells it to you, quoting from Habakkuk.

As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told to them the next Sabbath. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many

Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.

The next Sabbath, look at verse 44, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the

Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.

And Paul and Barnabas spoke boldly saying, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you since you thrusted aside to judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles for so the Lord has commanded us saying, I have made you a light to the

Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the

Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

Who of the Gentiles became believers that day? Those whom God had already appointed to eternal life.

So when we come back to Titus chapter 1 and we read that Paul is a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect.

What Paul is saying there is that God having appointed from before the foundation of the world those whom he is going to call to himself,

I am therefore a worker of the gospel to go out and proclaim that word through which

God will fulfill what he had decreed from the very beginning and bringing those whom

God had appointed to salvation to faith when they hear the gospel and believe it.

I went through this with my children last night and I said to them, do you believe that Jesus is the

Savior? And they said, yes. And I said, why is it that you believe? Is it because you chose

God or did he choose you? And my two middle girls in particular are kind of looking at each other and they're like,

I think I know the answer, but I don't know if it's right. And my nine -year -old said,

I chose God. And I said, yes, you did. As far as you are concerned, as far as your human experience goes, you made a decision to follow

Jesus. Amen to that. But when you come to the Bible and you read about things that have been going on in the heavenly places long before you came into existence, you discover that you only came to faith in Jesus Christ because God chose you first.

And I reminded them of a memory verse that my girls have memorized from 1 John. I said, we love

God because why? Because he first loved us. And that love goes back long before your mom and I knew what your name was going to be.

God loved you and placed his affection on you before you were even born.

Now, as Charles Spurgeon has said, and I brought this up with you before, if I knew who the elect were,

I'd go around and find that mark on them. Okay, you're elect, so I'm going to preach to you.

But we've not been given to know whom God has appointed for salvation from before the foundation of the world.

We don't get to know that. He knows that, we don't. And so, what therefore is our mission?

But to preach the word to everybody without prejudice, withholding it from no one.

It is not our responsibility to bring a person to Christ, to convert their heart.

We can't do that. We have no power to do that. That is the Holy Spirit that does that work.

And God fulfills that work in the life of every single person that he has appointed to salvation.

My friends, you are here today to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

God had so sovereignly worked out the circumstances in your life so that you would come to the place in your life where you would hear the gospel proclaimed.

God had arranged that it would be that day in that place that you would stand and hear somebody say to you, you are a sinner destined for destruction, but God has given you the way of salvation through his son,

Jesus Christ. So that all who believe in him will not perish, John 3, 16, but have everlasting life.

And God had so ordained that day that you would hear that message so that you would be convicted of heart of your sin.

And turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. It's not that God sticks his hand in your heart and his other hand into your mind, and he makes you believe what he wants you to believe.

It's not that way. It is a mysterious process and transformation that happens, the very beginning of which we can hardly understand.

We will know the depths of this mysterious process later when we get to glory and we're standing on the other side and we're looking back, we're going, oh, wow, how

God so sovereignly worked in my life to bring me to salvation. But God did orchestrate and plan these times and these days that you would come to this place, that you would hear the gospel and that you would believe in it and that you would live.

That is God by his sovereign hand that has done all of this. As the

Apostle Paul had even said in Acts 17, God has determined the times and the places in which every one of us would live.

He said that to a bunch of pagans amongst their idols at the Areopagus.

And yet saying to them, you're standing here this day because God put you here, that they would hear the gospel that Paul proclaimed and believe in it and live.

And so Paul says, this is my job. This is what I am a slave of God for.

This is what I am an apostle of Jesus Christ to do, to go out and preach the message for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth.

Now, that's not all that he was appointed to do, but that their knowledge of the truth would even produce in them godliness.

And it would stir in them the hope of eternal life. They would know

God's promises that he made before the ages began, verse 2.

And at the proper time, he manifested in his word through the preaching, which I have been entrusted by the command of God, our

Savior. My friends, there is only one way to God, to the fellowship of God, and that is through Jesus Christ.

The only way to get to God is through Christ. You know John 14, 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one gets to the Father but by me. But here's an interesting thing to consider. Our way to Christ is through the apostles.

Now, when I say that, I don't mean you have to believe in the apostles first for the forgiveness of your sins before you believe in Christ for the forgiveness.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. But rather, the message of the gospel that Christ had appointed to go out into the world for our salvation was given to the apostles.

And when I say the apostles, I'm talking about those men who specifically saw the risen Christ, were appointed by Christ to go out and preach, and even affirmed their apostleship through the miracles that they did.

As the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, 12, the signs of apostleship were clearly performed among you.

So the affirmation that they had been sent by Christ through the miracles that they did. This began with this apostolic ministry that Jesus sent the apostles out to do.

And by the way, that office of apostle is closed. It ended when the last apostle died,

John, when he died at the end of the first century. You cannot apply for that office, but thank you for considering it.

It's over. It is said in Ephesians 4, 11 that God had appointed the prophets and the apostles, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers to prepare the saints for the work of ministry.

So there were prophets and apostles, but they have fulfilled their office and their duty. Now it's the evangelists and the shepherds and the teachers that are taking what the apostles preached out into the world, that we may know what

God expects of us and do accordingly. If anybody comes to you and says,

I'm an apostle, do not believe them, they are a liar. Unless they're trying to use the term in the generic sense of one who is sent.

In that case, you know, we're all apostles and that's in that sense, as we're supposed to go out and share the gospel with others.

But apostle in the office of apostle sense, no. If somebody comes to you and says,

I'm an apostle, you say, okay, raise the dead and prove it. And then I'll believe if you're an apostle, which they won't be able to do.

But this is that work that Paul did for the sake of those who would come to faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is what he refers to here. And this is the occasion for that letter. So that in the things that Paul was appointed to do as an apostle, he's now sending

Titus out to continue that work. And ensure and see that the churches that had been planted there in that particular region were living according to the gospel that had been proclaimed to them.

Now, there are five main themes that we're going to see here in this particular letter. And here are those five themes.

And in these themes, we're also going to find our application for today. So how will these things apply to us?

And how will we live according to what we will read here in this particular letter? Number one, one of the main themes that we see here in Titus is, preach the gospel which produces faith.

So that's what we've seen right here at the very beginning. It's something that Paul brings up in Titus chapter 2, verses 11 to 14, which

I had read to you as well. And we also see this in chapter 3. If you still have your

Bible open, look at Titus 3, beginning in verse 3. It says,

Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

This is the gospel which produces faith. And so this is one of the themes that we see in this letter.

Paul identifies himself as a missionary in this work in the very greeting.

And we have that section that we looked at, that I also read to you in the introduction in chapter 2, verses 11 to 15.

And then we have that declaration made there as well. Kind of a similar statement to what we find in Ephesians chapter 2.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

So first theme that we're going to see here in this letter to Titus is preach the gospel which produces faith.

Secondly, second theme that we will find, teach the truth which accords with godliness.

Teach the truth which accords with godliness. In chapter 2, verses 2 through 5, we have these instructions for men and women, and how they are to consider their roles in the church.

It's not just left to the pastors and the elders. But, verse 2, Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

Older women are to likewise be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.

They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self -controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Ladies, how do you love that rascal that you are married to? There are some older women in the church that can help to lead you in that.

We see this model of discipleship that exists within the church, where older men mentor younger men, and older women mentor younger women, and all this in light of the gospel that we have come to believe.

Later on there in chapter 2, verses 9 and 10, urge slaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be pleasing, not contradicting, not pilfering, not stealing from their masters, but they demonstrate all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our

Savior in everything. Chapter 3, verse 14, our people must also learn to lead in good works, to meet pressing needs so that they will not be unfruitful, and all of this in accordance with the truth that had been proclaimed to them.

So the truth that is taught produces godliness. It is like that statement

I read from Brother Castleberry in the very beginning, that if you've been justified, you're going to be sanctified.

You will demonstrate in your life a change that happens, a desire for holiness and growing in that righteousness of Christ that you have been clothed in if you have come to believe the gospel of God.

A third theme that we will find in the book of Titus, number three, appoint sound teachers who will expose false teachers.

We already mentioned the qualifications for sound teachers are in Titus 1, 5 through 9.

We had looked at this when we looked at the qualifications for eldership in 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 7.

We find it also in Titus 1, 5 through 9. So we're going to come back to that next week, in fact. It is also said in chapter 2, verse 7, that Titus was to be a model of good works with purity and doctrine, dignified, sound in word, which is irreproachable, so that the opponent will be put to shame.

In chapter 3, verses 9 through 11, Paul says, avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and conflicts about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

Reject a factious man after a first and a second warning, knowing that such a man is perverse and sinful, being self -condemned.

And notice there that the one who is sound in doctrine is peaceable. The one whose doctrine is not sound is quarrelsome and factious.

So we see once again how what you believe affects the way that you live. There's an instruction here to appoint sound teachers and to listen to those sound teachers.

Expose false teachers and have nothing to do with them. So that's the third theme that we see in Titus.

A fourth theme that we have. Encourage good deeds which affirm the genuineness of one's faith.

Again, in chapter 2, verse 12, it says that the grace of God proclaimed in the gospel instructs us to deny ungodliness and worldly passions and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

Verse 14 says that we must be zealous for good works. Chapter 3, verses 3 through 7, explain who we were before we came to Christ and who we are now in Christ.

And verse 8, once again, concerning these things, I want you to speak confidently, Paul says, so that those who have believed

God will be intent to lead in good works.

Contrast this with those who are not truly Christians. In chapter 1, verse 16, it is said of false converts, they profess to know

God, but by their works they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work.

Once again, believing the doctrine of God produces godliness. Those who reject the sound teaching of our

Lord Jesus Christ will demonstrate that in their ungodliness. The final theme, the fifth theme that we see here in the book of Titus is to live godly lives which will commend the gospel to others.

Live godly lives which will commend the gospel to others. Back to the instructions for women in the church in chapter 2, verse 5.

Notice that it says a woman should be subject to her husband so that the word of God will not be reviled or will not be slandered.

A Christian wife who rebels against her husband really rebels against God.

She slanders God's word professing by her actions that she believes something other than what the

Bible says. This is another example of how our actions show what we truly believe.

Notice that verse 8 says, be sound in word which is irreproachable so that the opponent will be put to shame having nothing bad to say about us.

Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2 remind them to be subject to rulers to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to slander no one, to be peaceable, considerate, demonstrating all gentleness to all men.

And by the way, that instruction there in Titus 3 .1, be submissive to rulers and authorities, that means those who have been elected to governing office that are in authority over you now.

Yes, the Bible tells us that we must be subject to them. And this is going to get even crazier than it already has been in 2024.

It was amazing the things that happened in the news while I was gone from you, while I was not here. And I'm pulling up my phone and finding out that the

Republican candidate for president was nearly assassinated. But by the grace of God, the bullet missed by fractions of an inch.

Can you imagine where our country would be right now had that assassination attempt succeeded?

What would the chaos in our culture be like? But I tell you, whatever you heard in the news this past week, it will get crazier.

These election years always get even weirder than they already have been. What are we to do in the midst of all of this?

You still must submit to your governing authorities, whether you like them or not, pray for them, pray for this nation.

And we must desire to seek and live out godly lives in the present day.

My friends, political disruptions or whatever is going on in the culture is never, ever an excuse to say,

I don't have to pursue godliness today. Yes, you do.

And no matter what is happening in the world, our hope is Christ. Right.

And we must continue to live as if our hope is Christ. Not panicking, not being in despair, not deciding, you know what,

I have to put my moral convictions aside for a moment and just vote for the candidate that is going to do best for us right now.

We must never compromise in the face of evil, but we must continue to hold fast to Christ even in wicked days.

Because there will never be a righteous day this side of glory until Jesus returns.

It is in him that we place our trust. And it is

Christ that we demonstrate when we desire to live godly lives, even in the midst of the chaos that happens in the world around us.

And so in these themes that we see in this particular letter, first of all, to preach.

Secondly, to teach. Thirdly, to appoint. Fourthly, to encourage.

And fifthly, to live. These are the themes that we will see throughout Titus and understanding how the doctrine that we believe affects the way that we live, the things that we pursue, our passions, our hopes, our desires.

And may they all be focused upon and wrapped up in Christ. Now, the outline of this letter is very, very simple.

As we bring this to a close, in many of Paul's letters, we will see something of like doctrine and duty.

For example, Ephesians is split up into two parts. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 are doctrine. And then chapters 4, 5, and 6 are duty.

Here's what you do in light of that doctrine that you have been taught. Titus is not quite that structured because we will see peppered throughout this letter references back to the gospel that Titus and his fellow missionary brethren and even the

Christians there on the island of the Crete have come to believe. So it kind of goes back and forth. But nonetheless, we see here a very simple introduction, which we have considered today.

And then next week, we're going to look at qualifications for overseers or elders in the church in verses 5 through 9.

That will be contrasted with the problem with false teachers in verses 10 through 16. Then in chapter 2, we have instruction on proper living among Christians in verses 1 through 15.

You'll see instructions for men, instructions for women, even instructions for slave. There will be right conduct in the church, verses 1 through 10.

And then the basis for that conduct in verses 11 to 15. In chapter 3, we will read about proper living in the world in verses 1 through 7, including right

Christian ethics and the basis for those ethics in the gospel of Christ. Then there will be the basis for proper living given to us in verses 8 through 11.

And then final words that close out the letter in verses 12 to 15. You'll notice there in Titus 3 .15,

it says, All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith and grace be with you all.

So even though Paul is writing this letter to one man, yet this letter was going to be read by many others who would likewise be encouraged by it and find instructions that come from an apostle of Jesus Christ on the good doctrine that we should follow and how to live in light of that doctrine, how doctrine and life go together.

And so even down to this very day, 2 ,000 years later, the Holy Spirit continues to speak to us through a letter that Paul wrote to one of his children in the faith that we may know how we ought to live in this world.

What is the gospel and how do we live in light of it? What is the truth that God has proclaimed and how does it change our lives?

We've heard a little bit about that today. And we'll hear more about this as we continue in our study of Titus in the coming weeks, that we likewise will come to a knowledge of the truth, which produces godliness.

Amen. You've been listening to the preaching of Pastor Gabriel Hughes, a presentation of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

For more information about our church, visit our website at providencecasagrande .com. On behalf of our church family, my name is

Becky, thanking you for listening. Join us again Monday for more Bible study, when we understand the text.