Sunday, January 12, 2024 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Last Sunday night, continuing a project that we began in Timothy's school, studying the book of Titus and assigning some passages for study to the various students involved.

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And so, I'll be heading things up here in the first chapter, verses 1 through 4.

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And then, I just heard from Daniel Spivey. He's done a bunch of research and study.

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He's going to hand his notes over to me to help me out with the next passage. So, we'll be working together on that one. And as we move forward, we'll have some of the students from Timothy's school up here teaching from Titus.

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So, we'll be in Titus chapter 1 this evening, and we'll be reading verses 1 through 4.

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Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for the time you've given us. Lord, we pray that you would be pleased with our response to your word tonight, that we would rejoice in your truth.

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And we pray for our church that you would have your way here amongst us, that you would continue to wash us with the water of your word and conform us to the image of your son.

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We pray these things in his name. Amen. Amen. Okay. Titus chapter 1, verses 1 through 4.

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Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which

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God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, but has in due time manifested his word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our

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Savior. To Titus, a true son in our common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. Now, last week we looked at Paul's letter to Titus as a whole, thinking about those three major themes.

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Paul writing to Titus about what a good church needs, having been left on the island of Crete, left there to strengthen the gospel work which had begun there, to establish churches, to strengthen churches, to organize the churches there, so that there would be a lasting presence of the gospel there on that island, and that the gospel work would continue.

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And so, what does a good church need? Well, in Titus, the three themes are that the church needs good direction, good doctrine, and good deeds, and those three working together in a good dynamic to the glory of God.

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Now, here in the greeting, Paul was already dealing with those themes from the very start.

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He's setting out a very clear mandate that a good church has to be gospel -centered.

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A good church needs to be gospel -centered. Now, gospel -centered is something of a buzzword in American evangelicalism.

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By that, we don't mean whatever our current hot topic is, and to be socially concerned.

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That's not what gospel -centered means. A gospel -centered means that the way that Paul thinks about himself, and the way that he thinks about Titus, and the way that he thinks about the need of the church pertains to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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And I'm using the phrase person and work of Jesus Christ to talk about the gospel, that's the good news, that Jesus is the good of the good news, and he's the news of the good news.

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And so, that's what we mean by gospel. To be centered on that means that we should be thinking about our relationships with one another, and the priorities of the church in light of the gospel.

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So, in verses 1 through 4, from the very beginning, getting off on a sure foot, we see that a good church needs to be gospel -centered.

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And Paul describes things beginning with who he is as a man, how he understands himself.

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He also describes something of the message that he is set apart to, and then he talks about the mission that he is on.

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That's all in verse 1, that's what we're gonna look at tonight. My basketball coach was also my

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Sunday school teacher, and my boss, and the guy who taught me how to drive, and taught me how to take care of horses, and so on.

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So, Tim Ellis, a dear brother, very, very kind Christian man, and he was always getting on to me about the shots

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I would take in basketball. They were rarely correct, and I would always shoot sideways, my feet facing the wrong direction, shoot before I even looked at the basket.

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You know how it is. I would shoot from behind the backboard. I would pray a lot, and my coach, he was also a man of prayer, and he fully approved of praying, had no issues with that.

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However, he would point out the fact that it's no good praying that I would shoot well if I wouldn't use the proper form, that I should go ahead and attend my prayers with obedience to what

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I was being taught to do. In the same sense, we can pray for a good church, and we should pray for a good church, but also in praying for that wisdom, and praying for that direction, that we would square up and be in the proper form, focusing on what we ought to for the glory of Christ.

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So, that's what we mean by being gospel -centered, focused where we're supposed to be focused. Now, the responsibility, gospel -centered responsibility, we see here in verse 1, when

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Paul describes himself, and describes the message, and describes his mission.

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Now, when we're reading this, it just kind of occurs to me, this is the third longest greeting that Paul writes in his many letters, and this is a very small letter.

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So, proportionally, he spends a lot of time on the greeting compared to other letters that are a lot longer.

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Why is he putting so much into this? Why is he laying out all this obvious information to Titus? He's known

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Titus a very long time. Titus has been involved with Paul's ministry for a very long time.

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Why is Paul introducing himself to Titus so thoroughly? It's a little bit odd.

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Paul and Titus know each other, right? Why does he go to such lengths? Well, I think, of course, part of it is that Paul is writing a letter and sending it to Titus, and the letter is going to be handed off by an intermediary.

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Is this really Paul? Okay, so this robust greeting will certainly convince

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Titus this is from Paul, so that helps there. But further, this epistle, this letter, was not meant to be read by Titus privately in his closet.

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It's to be read to the whole church, right? So, Paul's letter is to be read by Titus to Titus in the hearing of everybody there.

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So, what Paul is doing in introducing himself and relating to Titus is he's setting out how

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Christian relationships ought to be, and he's talking about the way in which the relationships ought to work in the local church.

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So, he's setting forth that example in how he describes himself and relates to Titus.

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So, how does he talk about himself?

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Well, he gives his name, he gives his station, and he gives his appointment.

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So, he's Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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Whenever we deal with the person of Paul the Apostle, we, of course, remember that he was once known as Saul of Tarsus, and we remember that he played that role in the martyrdom of Stephen.

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Saul of Tarsus had been educated well. We know that he sought and gained prestige, and that he was a firm believer in Second Temple Judaism.

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He was a zealot of the Sanhedrin. He excelled above all his peers in pursuing righteousness by works.

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Saul was more impressive than anybody else around him in his zeal and accomplishments. He was so well approved by the

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Jewish leaders that they commissioned him. They gave him the authority. They gave him a letter of authority to continue his persecution of the saints, not only in Jerusalem, but to go to Damascus and to go there as well.

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And what was he doing? Identifying and locating Christians and pursuing them in such a fashion to put them in prison, to take away their houses, to destroy their jobs, their businesses, to separate families.

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Later on in Acts, he would say that he was trying to get them to deny Christ. This was what he was doing.

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He saw himself in the right. He saw himself defending the faith.

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He saw himself, as Jesus told his disciples, as somebody who thought he was doing God a favor by persecuting the followers of the way.

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The description in Acts was that he was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He would inhale threats and exhale murder. That's how focused he was against the saints.

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So, consider Saul of Tarsus. Here is a man inflamed by Satan. He is passionately, eagerly seeking to destroy the bride of Christ.

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He had chosen this path of destruction. He was set in his ways, devoted to his cause, deceived in his mind, and utterly lost in his rejection of Jesus.

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What Saul did not know, and was soon to find out, is that God had made a choice of his own, which did not agree with Saul's choice.

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So, we have here a collision of decision. Whose decision will win out?

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Saul or God? That's not even a contest, is it? It's a freight train versus a flower.

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And Jesus of Nazareth confronted Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, and blinded him, left him helpless and greatly disturbed.

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And all of a sudden, Saul of Tarsus learned that he, by persecuting the saints, was actually attacking

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Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Christ. And God sent a Christian by the name of Ananias to meet

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Saul in Damascus. And there, God revealed his sovereign plan in Acts chapter 9. He described

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Saul this way to Ananias, "'Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine, to bear my name before the

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Gentiles, and the kings, and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake.'"

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That was not Saul's plan. Saul was willing to suffer for the sake of the temple.

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He was willing to suffer in the name of the Sanhedrin. He would go to whatever lengths it took to hunt down Christians.

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But God had a different plan, and there was a drastic change that came in the life of Saul, by the grace of God.

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Now, conversion is a biblical theme, and we see it very distinctly in the life of Saul.

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But not every conversion is as radical as that of Saul of Tarsus. We can think of examples in our own flock, or we can think of examples in our own life of people we know, in our own example of coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

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We can think of examples in church history. The way that Augustine came to faith in Jesus Christ, beating his head with his fists, is a little different than C .S.

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Lewis getting on the bus, not a Christian, getting off of it as a believing Christian.

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And yet, there was a genuine change in both of their lives. There's something that drastically, radically, to the root, changes in conversion.

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When someone becomes a Christian, they become a new person in Christ. The old man dies, and a new man is born.

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Those who have never been changed by God have never been saved. The old

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Baptist bumper sticker, once saved, always saved, has a flip side that says, no change, no

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Jesus. It is true that once you're saved, you're always saved, but it's also true that if you've not been changed, then you've never met

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Jesus. And Paul met Jesus. Saul of Tarsus met Jesus, and then he became better known as Paul the

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Apostle. He describes himself as the bondservant of God.

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This, of course, is the term slave. We talked about that when we were studying in the book of Acts.

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But Paul sees himself as God's slave. Remember that God described to Ananias, Saul of Tarsus, as my chosen instrument.

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He talked about Paul as a tool. What is one of the major concerns with slavery and the dehumanizing of people as property?

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You're just using them as machinery. But how does God, who is creator, and has a right to speak about his creatures this way, does he look at him as my instrument to preach the gospel to all these various folks?

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So Paul rejoiced in that. He accepted that. He owned that and called himself the bondservant or the slave, the doulos in the

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Greek, the slave of God. What does this really mean, that he is a slave?

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There's a great book written by Murray Harris called

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Slave of Christ. It's a book that was digested and put more to the popular level by John MacArthur in a book called

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Slave. But Murray Harris describes the biblical definition of what does this mean that you're a slave.

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It talks about to be a slave of God. It means complete devotion. It means complete devotion in what way?

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First of all, humble submission to the person of the master. So it's a personal submission.

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It's not simply about, here's a list of things to do, but it's a humble submission to the master with a focus upon who is in charge.

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It's also, secondly, unquestioning obedience to the master's will.

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This isn't that kind of partnership where there is a negative feedback.

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Okay, God, I hear what you're saying, but let's repackage this idea in a way that's more appealing to me.

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I'm going to hold out for a better contract. I'm going to go on strike. There's none of this going on.

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As a slave, there's just unquestioning obedience to the master's will. So there's humble submission to the person of the master.

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There's unquestioning obedience to the master's will. And thirdly, an exclusive preoccupation with pleasing the master.

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This is what begins to be more and more our concern, thinking about how we would please our master.

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Paul would say in 2 Corinthians 5 .9, therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him.

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No matter what our situation is in life and death, to be pleasing to the

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Lord. So Paul rejoices in the idea that he is pleasing to the

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Lord, that he has God's property set aside for his use. Now, Paul talks about himself as a bond slave, a bond servant, and also as an apostle.

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The word apostle means one sent out with a message. Now, the group of the apostles that Jesus personally discipled throughout his ministry,

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Judas Iscariot being the traitor who killed himself and then was replaced by Matthias, to this number also as one born at a due time, as Paul says,

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Paul was added as an apostle. These were sent out as authorized, in a sense, ambassadors of Christ with all the authority of Christ to go forth as part of that foundation of the church.

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The church has a cornerstone, Jesus Christ, and the cornerstone sets all the parameters for the rest of the building.

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The cornerstone was what you had first, and it was perfectly square in all three directions.

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It was perfectly straight and square, and in every other stone that you would lay on the foundation in the wall was keyed in to that cornerstone.

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Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, and he says that the foundation includes the apostles and the prophets.

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So, what did the apostles and prophets write? They wrote the Scriptures. So, we have the foundation laid upon which the rest of the new covenant temple, the church, is built.

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And so, Paul was one of those apostles that Jesus set aside to help lay the foundation of the church.

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And it wasn't Paul himself as the foundation, but he was laying the foundation of Christ.

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It was Christ who's the cornerstone. That's what matters. And so, he was laboring in that. And so, he was going to out -of -the -way, difficult places like the island of Crete to preach the gospel to the likes of the

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Cretans, who definitely needed to hear the gospel. But then, what do you do to strengthen the work there, but leave your trusted brother

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Titus to try to strengthen the work? So, why is Paul not there doing the work?

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Because he's doing the work of his master. He's elsewhere. He's got to be elsewhere preaching on those front lines and starting new churches in those far -off places.

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And Titus is back here in Crete, and he is strengthening the work that already has begun here.

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So, in all these ways, as Paul uses his name that he uses now, because he used to be known as Saul of Tarsus and that great persecutor of the church, but now he's known as Paul.

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And this is his name that most is often associated with his Christian life, okay.

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So, he recognizes he has a new name. He recognizes he's the slave of God, and he recognizes that he's an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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In every way that Paul talks about himself, he's thinking about how the gospel of Jesus Christ matters to him.

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Everything about his life is defined in the light of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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This is his identity. Paul doesn't get to choose his identity. He does not get to invent his identity.

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He does not get to develop his own identity. It is given to him by the one who has made him, and the one who died for him, the one who raised from the dead for him, the one who reigns over him.

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That's where he gets his identity from. And he has a message. So, again, verse 1, he says,

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Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. So, the word apostle already has the idea of a message.

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According to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness.

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So, the message that he brings has to do with the faith. So, he's out preaching a message to which folks are called to believe.

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When we think of the word faith, we should recognize how it is used in scripture.

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We have in our modern day an expression of, well, I'm a person of faith.

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This is one of the things that every politician has to say now. I'm a person of deep faith.

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Who knows what you actually believe? But, you know, I'm a person of it. But what does it mean we look at faith in the scriptures?

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Well, saving faith involves the following three things. First of all, there is the knowledge, which is also a term we see in our passage, the knowledge.

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Do you know? Do you know who the Savior is? Do you know Jesus Christ? Do you know who he is?

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Do you know what he has done? Do you know that Jesus is the Christ? Do you know that Jesus of Nazareth is the risen

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Christ, the Son of the Living God? Do you know, do you have the knowledge, the information about who he is and what he has done?

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But, not just that, but there's also the affirmation of that information.

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Not that I could recite the gospel, but I also affirm it that that is true. I have the information, yes, and I could repeat it for you, but not only that,

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I know it's actually true. Well, you do well, even the demons know that.

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What's left? We would entrust ourselves to this, give ourselves to this.

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There's one nail I'm hanging everything on, my eternity, my soul, my everything, all my claims, wrap it up, put it in a satchel, hang it from one nail,

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Jesus Christ and him crucified. So, we talk about faith, it is the information, the faith, once for all, handed down to the saints, it is believing in fact that this is the truth, just like the scripture said, so it happened, but not only that, but I'm entrusting myself entirely to this.

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This is the only reason why I have hope of eternal life, the only reason why

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I have life in God. And so, Paul is out there for this message, not simply to give the information, not simply to try to convince and persuade that it is, in fact, the truth, but he's also preaching the gospel, because by the power of God, by the power of the

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Holy Spirit, by the grace of God, sinners will entrust themselves to Christ. And they're born again, and everything in their life begins to change, just like Saul of Tarsus became

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Paul the Apostle, so Bob the Cretan becomes Bob the Christian, and everything starts changing in the lives of those who believe.

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Now, the mission that Paul is on, he describes it in this way, verse 1, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accord with godliness.

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So, Paul is out to preach the gospel so that the elect will be saved.

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The term elect in the Greek is eclektos. Anybody here have an eclectic decorating style?

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It comes from the Greek word eclektos, which has the idea of choosing, but choosing on the basis of the person.

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The one choosing is the one, he's choosing based on whatever he desires. So, somebody with an eclectic style is like, how did all this come together in one room, this decorating style?

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Well, it's so -and -so. She's eclectic, or he's got an eclectic sense.

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That's the way that God chooses unto salvation, only according to the free desire of God. And Paul's out there preaching, and he has no idea what the tastes of God run to.

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Is God going to save this prostitute? Is God going to save this lawyer? Is God going to save this tribal elder?

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Is God going to save this soldier? I don't know. I'm going to preach the gospel to all of them.

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And then, as many as were appointed to eternal life, believe, as Acts puts it. So, that's what

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Paul's out there. He's preaching, seeing people come to be saved, and this is energetic labor.

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Titus is going to have to put out some energetic labor for this, preaching the gospel for the sake of the elect, they would believe and come to faith in Jesus Christ.

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So, what we have here is God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, which is a permanent theological mystery.

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The Bible never gets uncomfortable about the mystery, never tries to solve it, just leaves it in place. So, both sides work together.

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God's sovereign election of his people to salvation gives Paul a lot to praise God for, and then he has absolute confidence to go out and preach the gospel everywhere, because definitely people are going to get saved.

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And then we have man's responsibility, their duty to repent and believe when the message comes to them, and the church's responsibility to preach the gospel.

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And so, Paul, who's always going on and on about the elect and God being absolutely sovereign over everything, also has the gall to beg and plead and plan and proceed for the salvation of sinners.

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Those things are always running together. And notice, not only for the faith of the elect, not only they would come to faith in God, but also the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness.

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So, we see what? That the preaching of the truth results in what?

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Godliness. The preaching of the gospel is not only for the conversion of sinners, but also for the sanctification of the saints.

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That preaching Christ and him crucified is not only the way that we call sinners to faith in Christ, but also call the saints to walk with Christ.

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And so, the message preached at the beginning is the message that needs to be continued to preach.

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This language where it says, the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, the term godliness always refers to a kind of religious devotion that carries the sense of awe and respect.

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Godliness, in this sense, is understood as a combination of internal reverence combined with right behavior.

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The idea is that the awe motivates the act.

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That as I worship, then I proceed.

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That there is a change that happens where I am in awe of God, and thus my actions are affected.

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And Paul is letting Titus know, preach the gospel so that people come to faith in Jesus Christ, and keep preaching the gospel so that godliness breaks out amongst all the saints.

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This is the way forward. He said, this is what I'm doing as I am abroad. I'm not with you, Titus. I'm not there on Crete helping you.

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This is what I'm doing abroad. And the idea is, Titus, do this where you're at. In fact, he's going to be very specific about that throughout the balance of the letter.

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So, in order to have a good church, the message must be the mission.

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The gospel must be applied in a way that produces an increasing awe and reverence of God within us, and thus an increasing holiness and Christ conformity in our lives.