Well, I am not sure about you, but I know it's with a kind of relief that I turn from Ecclesiastes to Titus. I am delighted in the exercise of my own mind and soul in trying to come to grips with the treasures of Ecclesiastes. I do think it has profited me, and I trust you, but now we come to a very different part of God's Word, the New Testament and the section dealing with epistles, letters written, this one in particular by Paul. And Titus and 1 and 2 Timothy form what we might know as the pastoral epistles. In these letters, all of the pastoral epistles being written by Paul. In these letters, it's not churches which are being primarily addressed, such as Paul to the church at Corinth or Paul to the church at Philippi, but rather it's individual pastors. In fact, it's one pastor, one pastor. We're reading somebody else's mail here today. One pastor, either in this case Titus or Timothy. So why study this letter? It's not polite to read other people's mail, is it? But of course, this is more than a letter. It's a letter contained within God's word. Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord is food for our souls, all of us, whether we're pastors or not. But also, this letter, because of the substance of it, if we understand this, it makes perfect sense. It directly addresses a pastor, but says so much that pertains, and in some way, all of it pertains, to all pastors for all times. It's directly addressed then at least to all pastors. But then pastors preach to people. And so reading this letter together, I as a pastor derive certain things from it, but I'm also deriving it as someone who's not a pastor. I'm learning from the ministry of Paul, an apostle, but also a pastor. He founded churches. and writing to Titus, another pastor, I'm learning things as a brother or a child, brother of other believers and a child of God. But all of us, even non-pastors, are taught by the contents of this letter, informed as to what to expect from a pastor and how best to support a pastor. Uh, what to pray for and what to expect in terms of, uh, church government, uh, the, uh, the, uh, set up and the operations of the household of God. So we all can feed on this, uh, and, uh, grow in wonderful ways. The author is Paul. He makes it clear in the first word. Uh, what a wonderful way to, uh, write a letter. I can't tell you how many missionary letters come into the mail here and you have to search forever to find who's writing it sometimes. And sometimes actually there's no name on it whatsoever. And even our own letters, we sign them at the end. But this is a wonderful thing to know who you're being addressed by right off the bat. But it can be to us kind of a, have a dulling effect. to think that Paul wrote some of these letters in the New Testament and when Paul's writing, okay, we know it's Paul, it registers as Paul, let's get to the contents of the letter. We never want to be in that kind of place. We never want to treat any portion of God's word as though I know it all already. Even a word as familiar as one man's name, Paul. We never want to take one jot or tittle of the Word of God and believe that we have understood it and apprehended it perfectly, because not one of us has even approached perfection of understanding of any portion of God's Word. We have varying degrees of attainment amongst ourselves, but it's nothing compared to what we're going to see when we see the fullness of God. What do I mean by this? Far from this being a man familiar to our ears in the New Testament or our eyes as we read it for ourselves from the pages of the Bible, this man was an extraordinary man. He was a man who was, if anybody could boast in terms of being righteous and careful in his walk with God and his relationship with God, it was Saul of Tarsus. He was the strictest of the Pharisees, and they were the strictest of the strict. God loves all of his people, even the ones who were mischievous and wayward and so forth. He'll leave the flock to go after the wayward. He loves them all. But he must have a special love for the ones who are compliant and good and hear his word and do his word. Well, he loves them too. And he loves them. Not so much because of their attainments, but in spite of what they make of their attainments. Because the danger with being competent, and as a Christian, or thinking we're competent, is that we begin to get proud. And Saul of Tarsus was proud. So proud and so wrong with all of his studying of the Bible. He studied God's Word. He studied the Old Testament, the only Bible that existed in those days. Studied carefully, studied prayerfully, studied to find the truth, studied to do the truth. If anybody's going to do it, Saul said, I'm going to do it. He missed the mark of salvation by eternity. He wasn't even close. Because when God came into the world in fulfillment of all of his promises, Saul of Tarsus thought he was an imposter and an enemy. He was a heretic. He was a troubler of the church. He needed to be put to death. And his followers needed to be put to death. And Saul of Tarsus consented not to a judicial execution, but to murder. This is a murderer. A man who thought he was godly consented to murder a godly man. What hope is there for somebody like that? We think that somebody who has a drinking problem or a drug problem, they've lapsed, and they've lapsed again. Well, they're going to forever lapse, and it's hopeless. Write them off. This is a murderer. And man, he was proud of that, too. Until one day, he met on Damascus Road, and he was armed with authority to go and arrest other Christians. That was his pure and full intention, armed with authority. And in broad daylight, he didn't have to sneak around like a murderer, though he was a murderer. He was met by Christ, the resurrected, ascended Savior. and changed into the man that he became and into the man who wrote this letter, a humble man, a generous man who sought to share the treasures, not that he had discovered. This is the thing about salvation. If we think we have somehow deserved it, not one of us has ever gone looking for it. It always comes to us. It's never our discovery. He was changed because of the mercy of God, the grace and the power of God. That's the man writing this letter. That's the man who underwent that extraordinary change that is happening to us, not nearly so dramatically. I don't know that anybody here is a murderer. Some of us here have actual civil criminal events in our past. Um, all of us have been loveless and all of us have sinned against God, no matter how clean our civil rap sheet may be, but there's hope for us too. There's hope for us to be changed by the mercy and power of God. Paul was writing to his son in the faith. The wonderful thing about this faith is not, it's as wonderful as it is that it is a personal experience that Paul had on Damascus Road and a unique experience. So far as we know, it's never been replicated in all of world history. But it doesn't mean that it's just your personal experience and you can't communicate it, you can't share it with other people. Paul did share and brought to new birth in the sharing, in the ministry of Christ, this Greek man, this Gentile man named Titus, and he's writing to Titus. Titus was a fruit of Paul's ministry and a Gentile test case as we find in the letter to the Galatians. The early church was somewhat at odds and in conflict for a time. What is the place of these Gentiles? Gentiles are coming to faith in Jesus, somebody like Peter sees it happen before his eyes and is telling us, but what footing are they really on with us? How can they be equal with us? We're Jews. We've studied the Bible. We've done all the stuff that it tells us to do. Our parents raised us in the faith and now we see that Jesus is the fulfillment. How can these Gentiles who don't know anything be on equal footing with us? So Titus was a test case. The answer is they can be. They can be. Somebody who had no religious training could be a pastor in a church of the Lord Jesus Christ. You didn't have to be a Jew. You didn't have to have Christian parents. It was your regeneration that counted, and your growth in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, and then your sense of calling verified by the church. Yes, we see the calling of God on this man. But Paul also addresses him as a co-laborer. He was a co-laborer with Paul, 2 Corinthians 8.23 mentions that. The theme of this letter is to set down the doctrine and the order for church government resulting, it's not just church government to keep the pack in some kind of order. The whole end is unto sanctification, believer's sanctification, unto godliness, godliness. Now, reading scripture is fine. It's essential. It is the food that's more than the food we eat on our tables and put into our mouths. More than this food here, this sacramental meal. It means nothing to us apart from scripture. Scripture tells us what to make of what we're seeing and doing in this meal. So scripture, reading, is essential. Memorizing it's fine. Studying it and trying to figure out how it all fits together is good. But understand this, and I've said it before is scripture is like your cell phone. Your cell phone is not remotely like your loving mother, father, husband, or wife, or child that you're talking to on the cell phone. But you, you treasure and you value the, the cell phone without it. If the, if the, the child or so forth, if they're away, you have no contact. So you value the cell phone and the cell phone conveys the very words of father, mother, brother, sister, whatever, husband, wife. But why am I saying this? The devil knows scripture. Demons know scripture and they know how to use it and abuse it. We have to go through scripture to the living word. And in doing so, that results in our sanctification. It's not knowing the Bible that sanctifies us. The Bible's not a magic sort of thing. The more you touch it, the holier you get. What the Bible communicates to us about the living word, the living God, the salvation that he's accomplished, the plans and the purposes, the promises, the hope he gives us, all of these things, that's what sanctifies us. and makes us like him, makes us godly. So that's the theme here. Doctrine, yes. Order in the church, yes. But all to the result of believers' sanctification, growth in Christ-likeness. Now, Satan has his attacks on the church. Certainly at Crete, verse five refers to things needing to be set in order there. The devil likes to disrupt order and overthrow right godly government, right structures of the church, or to corrupt those structures. Better yet, he'd rather than destroy them, he'd rather corrupt them and have a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites boasting about being wonderful Christians and you need to come and do like I do and maybe you'll be saved. He also works through carnally ambitious people in the church, people aspiring to some kind of office or influence, which is usually a tip that there's a disqualification there. It's a good thing to aspire with fear and trembling and humility and be willing to step into the place of having to face God and face a stricter judgment than people who aren't teachers in the church. But there are always, have been always, always will be, there are now plenty who aspire to the office without having the requisite character qualities, without having the true fear of the Lord. The fake variety, that's common, too common. So there are all sorts of things that are arrayed against, satanic, human, the world, the flesh, the devil, against not just individual believers, but the church and the life of the church. And Paul's passage today is his opening salutation, introducing this theme. It's long and it's involved for an introduction or a salutation. Only Galatians and Romans contains a longer introduction. Why? Why is it long? Let's back up again. Every time you come to scripture, you want to read it like you've never read it before. You don't ever want to say, I'm familiar with this. Why? Because that blinds you. That makes you dull to things that you've missed. You assume that because you've picked out a bit here and a piece there and you understand something. We've just done the exercise with Paul. Paul. Who would stop on that name and say, what was your devotion about today? What was your reading in God's word today? Paul. Paul? What about Paul? Paul. I spent my whole devotion reflecting on Paul. and the change God made in his life. So we back off, we back off and act like it's all brand new. When we read this, something stuns us, or should if we're awake. Why is he giving this long, theological, you know, profound introduction to one man who was his son in the faith? Is that really the way people walk around talking in this kind of way to their spiritual children and their fellow co-laborers, their friends? Why is it such a long and involved? Well, because Paul is introducing not just himself, but he's introducing his authority and his calling from God, even to this one spiritual child of his who should know it and know it, but you can't You can't repeat it too many times. The power of God's word comes from God himself, the living God. It doesn't come from the preacher, and it doesn't come just off a page of lifeless letters written in a book. It comes from the living God himself. Jesus, when he was cleansing the temple, was asked, by what authority do you do this? And that's an appropriate question, because Jesus seems to be upsetting the order of the church at that time. So by what authority do you do this? And he answered by alluding to his own death and resurrection, by what he did, by what he predicted he would do repeatedly and did it in the way that nobody has ever done it or ever will do it in the history of the world. going to death and then being raised on the third day. That's his authority. That's his authority. And that's his authority that comes through all genuine ministry in the church. This isn't about getting all the doctrines straight. It's about getting the doctrines, if they're straight, they're going to point to the living Christ, the person in the work of Christ. This is the chief cornerstone upon which the whole church must be built. So Paul begins by reminding Titus and reminding the church through the ages that it's precisely upon this cornerstone that he, Paul, sought to build, and nothing other than this would do. That leads us to Paul's self-designation. He doesn't just have a name. And too often, again, we think the name, the name. How often does, when somebody mentions the name of someone you know to you, how often does that whole person's full orb character spring to your mind? You think, it just registered. Yeah, I know who that is. I know who that is. Do you know? How much do we know about each other? Not very much. So Paul goes into himself here, and into himself in relation to his God, and in particular in relation to his God in terms of his calling and service of God. Paul calls himself a slave. Bondservant is a nice, polite term. It's a slave. It's the nasty term. The worst, the lowest place you could be, the most degraded, the most miserable position a person could be in in human society is a slave. And even if the masters say, we treat our slaves well, nobody wants to be a slave, nobody. No child wants to be a slave. Children resent being managed by parents. And you say, well, that's their willful. Yeah, but deeper than that, we were made to be free. We were made to be upright. We were made to be in direct relationship with God who sets us free. So don't be careful with handling our children. They've got, there's a legitimate part there that may be provoked unto wrath and we'll have to answer to God for that. Slave of God. Why would he use a designation so despised, so rejected by men because The world is turned upside down. The world is turned upside down. What do I mean by that? We turned it upside down. Our first parents turned it upside down. In thinking, just for a minute, thinking. I know better than God. God said, don't eat that fruit. I want it. It'll make me wise. And then now I'll justify it. Because surely being wiser would be better for God. He'd like that better, surely. Maybe it's a test. Maybe God is trying to test me to see if I have the guts to defy him. Whatever it is, the world was turned upside down. Now instead of our first parents, instead of human beings made in God's image, delighting in God, rejoicing in God, serving God with pleasure and delight and fruitfulness, and in complete communion with Him and cooperation with Him, nothing out of place. And it's not fake. It's real. It's genuine. It's vital. It's all turned on its head now. And we're born little sinful monsters into this world. We're born sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving his displeasure, and without hope in the world except in his sovereign mercy. The whole world is turned upside down. We're rebels from God. And so completely does he turn it back in the right way for believers. that we think, I want to make this relationship strong and secure. I don't want to add to what God has done, but I sure don't want to take away what it's done. But if you ask me to describe it, I would say this. My devotion is so determined that I will rejoice in the designation slave of God. I want to be chained to him, never to wander, never to wander. Now there aren't going to be slaves in heaven, but we won't need to have chains, even blessed chains, blessedly binding us to the God in whose presence is joy and pleasure. Because then the law will be written perfectly on our hearts. But here he is a slave of God, working by God's direction. So faithful is he determined to be that God's word he speaks only God's Word, doesn't shade it, doesn't try and change it, or spin it, or soft sell it, or hard sell it. God's Word, working by God's direction, working by God's power, working by God's authority. It's all about the living God. Paul, a bondservant, as soon as he mentions it, no sooner does he mention it that he says, forget about me. It's all about God. And an apostle. of Jesus Christ. Well, an apostle was one, the word means sent with a message. What is the message? The message is that God has come into the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He has come into the world not just on a vacation, he's come on a mission. And the mission was to commit suicide. To kill himself for us. Oh, it was the, it was the, the Romans and the leading Jewish hypocrites who set the thing up. But, you know, if you can avoid death, the commandment that says thou shalt not murder in our catechism makes it clear to us that if you can avoid death and still proceed in the way that leads to death, you're guilty of self-killing. Jesus broke the sixth commandment. Jesus broke every commandment in order to save us. Not that he broke it personally, but in terms of his mission. He had to become sin so that we could really become the righteousness of God in him. He couldn't just play at it. He couldn't act like he was, you know, I'll just take the guilt and the punishment of sin. We say that, and that's true, but that's not profound enough. That's not the whole truth. Why does he take it? Why would God punish a righteous man if Jesus was righteous? Somehow, somehow he became sin in order to save sinners. So sure can our faith be, so sure is our hope in this messenger and this mission that he accomplished. So sure can we be of the love of God that we never need to doubt it again for a second in our lives once we understand who that messenger was and what his mission was. He was sent. And Paul was sent as an apostle by Christ to lay the foundation of Christ in his church. Ephesians 2.20, Paul speaks of the apostles and prophets being the foundation, Christ the chief cornerstone. Sent with a message, referring to Paul's calling and commissioning. No sooner was the man changed and transformed on Damascus Road, but God is already setting him up for service and calling him into that service. For, why did God call him? For or according to, it could read, the faith. A bondservant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, for or according to the faith of those chosen of God. The faith. The faith usually means the teaching that we call the faith. Keep the faith. Keep the word of God. Be faithful to scripture. Faith is also, of course, the instrumental means by which we come to Christ and are united to Christ. By faith in Him, we are relying upon Him. We believe and therefore we speak and act and move in right ways with Him. This is what Paul was doing though, ever about that which pertains to the faith. The faith as it was God's word and the teaching of that word that points to the person and work of Christ, and the faith of the believers. They're growing strong in faith, strong in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. He would be an instrument of God's grace conveying faith. That faith that makes him not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God to all who believe. The power operates through our believing. And to strengthen the faith of those who believe. their faith in Christ, their faith in Christ, because Christ is the only true and single object of saving faith. You think you're going to go to heaven? Yes. Why? Well, because I believe in Jesus Christ. What do you believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that he was God and man. So what? How does that save you? What does that have to do with you going to heaven? I believe he died on the cross. Well, yes. And does that mean everybody's going to go to heaven? Does that mean you're going to go to heaven? He died on the cross for me. How do you know? And because I believe, I speak and I say, Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. Look at my life. I'm doing godly things. Well, that's fine. But that's its own category. That's fine. We do godly works. We're walking in good works and everything. They don't contribute anything to our salvation, nothing at all. You don't have to do good works to be saved. Because you're saved when you're regenerated. When you're regenerated, you have faith and you exercise that faith. It seems to us that it's the faith that's made it happen. But the faith is given to us as God's gift to unite us to him. And being united to him, we believe his word. We trust his great and precious promises. And we seek to explore them and learn them and grow in them more and more. Faith in Christ, this one thing he seeks to do. He doesn't aim to please people or to engage a myriad of other interests or needs that people have. He's not trying to have a good show in church and draw people in or to have people's approval. But who would be interested in such and respond to such kind of ministry as this? As the man, even though he's an apostle, he doesn't boast as being an apostle. He's just an apostle. He never says the apostle. I am an apostle, but I'm a slave of God. I'm a slave of God. And he's often referring to himself as a brother in the faith. Who would respond to that? Those chosen of God. those chosen of God, for the faith of those chosen of God. It's not man's perceived needs and those being fulfilled that save people. It's not his clamoring ambitions which set the agenda. It's not even somebody's faith, strictly speaking, that saves them. It's God who saves them through faith. And it's God's sovereign election that determines this, who would be saved and who not. It's just and righteous to condemn every sinner to hell. So nobody can claim that God's sovereign election and choice of the sum to salvation is unjust. It's perfectly just that those who are sinners perish in their sin. And the way it works, too, is that sin is who we are. It's not some foreign substance within us. It's who we are, we are sinners. And as sinners, we really don't want God in our lives. Everything in us is heading away from God. Now we might like things that resemble God in our lives, but essentially a sinner does not want the true and living God in his or her life. Why would anyone then embrace this God? Because God has chosen them and God has called them out of their death the way that Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. But before he called him out of the tomb he called him out of death. Now he didn't say Lazarus come out of the death, that was secret, that was a demonstration of how every believer comes to faith in Christ. We live entombed in our own sinfulness, our own inadequate understanding, our own self-justification, whatever you want to say, our own fig leaves. He makes us alive. And because we're alive, we hear. We hear his voice. That's God. That's God calling me. For the first time in my life, I actually want to go to him. That's God's sovereign election. True ministry is concerned with those humbly and gratefully aware of their election in Christ. Humbly, of course. Humility is essential. That's one thing, if you have it, fine. It's kind of sweet and nice in other people, but I don't want it in my life. If you ain't humble, you ain't a Christian. It's as simple as that. It's simple as that. Because if you're not humble, why are you not humble? You're thinking that you've done something. You're thinking that you've had good parents, good lineage, that you've been growing up compliant and you've crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's. Of course, you're not humble. But you're not saved either. That God elected me from the foundation of the world, that's a humbling thing. Demolishes pride. brings us that humility whereby God exalts us, truly exalts us. True ministry is geared toward those who strive to make their calling and election sure. They're never saying, I know. I might have my suspicions about you, you, and you. And I've got reasons for those suspicions, but I never doubt my salvation. On what I thought was my deathbed, I was doubting my salvation. I said, what if I find out all this stuff is fake? And that's OK. That's OK. Why not be as I'm dying who I am? Why keep up any pretense when you even think you're going out of the world? And that lasted that long, just flooded with an assurance that it's true and that I am truly going to be there in heaven. But even since then, I say, I do, I think, I feel things that I wonder, how can a Christian be here? So I have to strive. to make my calling and election sure. The fake gospel is the one you paint a little veneer on, and that's good enough. You're a good person. We paint you as the good person, and we would never doubt that you would do something wrong and hideous. Paul's geared to our striving and making our calling and election sure by feeding on his truth. Unto a knowledge of the truth, he says. This notifies us that the faith is in accordance with something. Faith is, we're not saved by faith. Faith is nothing in itself. It's an instrument. It attaches us to something, which is the truth. Well, what's the truth? That, is that living? Doesn't seem like it. It's a true thing. I'm saying a true thing. That chair's green. Is there any living thing involved in that statement? I've spoken the truth, the chair's green. Anything living involved in that statement? Not explicitly, but of course, then you start asking the question, who made the chair? Well, somebody in a factory. Who made the factory? Who made the world? We get back to God, the living God. He's the fountain of truth. Faith is a clear understanding and submissive application of the truth. The truth, not opinions, not probabilities, not speculations, not wishful thinking, but Christ, the living truth. Christ, the word of God, God's true and perfect and full testimony to God himself and to God's disposition towards sinners and God's gracious redemption of sinners. Christ is the living word. And that is unto godliness, which is the fruit of faith. No godliness, again, we can begin to suspect the faith. We're either feeding on something that's not a faithful ministry of the word, or it's a faithful ministry and we're not, by faith, appropriating it and applying it to ourselves. But if we feed on God's word, faithfully proclaim, faithfully read ourselves and studied ourselves and applied, we become godly. We become like God. And it's not just for a little time. It gets better and better. In hope. He says, unto eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago. Godliness is in process of perfection. We're growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. We're always growing. And the more we grow, the more we actually know we've attained certain heights and perspectives that we see things that we've never seen before. The more we do that, the more we know we don't know. And we get hungering, thirsting. It works the opposite. We think we should slow down as we age. But as we spiritually age, we speed up. The hunger grows more ardent. And we want to fly. Give us wings. Give me wings. You ask God for wings, you're going to get wings. You don't have to trudge around. Get wings. If you want wings to get closer to God, he'll give you wings, wings of your soul. in hope of eternal life. This is lasting. This isn't going to fade away. It's never going to get old. Things don't break in heaven. Breaking is something that speaks about time, passage of time, and the effects and ravages of natural forces that are in contention rather than cooperation. hope of eternal life. Godliness perfected in glory and enjoyed there forever. Paul touches here then on life's orientation, the orientation of the believer. We're thankful for Paul. He's faithful to the Word. He's helping us in faith. We're thankful for faith. We're thankful for the Word of God. But above all, we're thankful for the God who gave it all. That's who stands behind the statement and it seems lifeless and just intellectual. That chair is green. The living God stands behind it. The one making the observation, the one making your ears to hear it and your eyes to see it and confirm it, your brain to process and confirm it. The living God. But Paul touches on life's orientation of the believer. We love the word. We love God. He lives best in this time by aiming beyond time. That's what he's saying. Something outside of time has come into this world and changed the world forever, changed people in the world. It's happening every day. And changing them, that continues to change only for the better, only for the better. And I said it, did I say it in prayer? Hope so. Even when we fall, we never fall backwards. You might think you fall backwards, but you don't. You fall, who's responsible for your fall? You've sinned, you've been angry, you've spoken in anger. Who's responsible for that? I am. You are to the degree of your capabilities. And we are not sovereign over the world. We're features of the world. God determined that fall. God ordained that fall. We meant it for evil because we weren't paying attention. We weren't intentionally being loving and godly and we slipped and we got angry. We meant it for evil. God means it for good. We always fall forward into greater conformity. The Lord is a master builder. He uses it all to edify us. Does this mean, as Paul says in his letter to the Romans, that we go and sin, that grace might increase? No, it doesn't work that way. The way it works is that the more we know that God is the master builder, the more we're released from bondage Remember back to Paul, slave of God, you can't be a slave of God and a slave of your own guilty fears. You've got to come to terms with it. You've got no guilt. It's taken away. It's either taken away or it's not. You've got no guilt. Whoa, that means I can go and generate more guilt. Why would you do that? Who would want to do that? No, it means that I can walk without the dread and paranoia of thinking there's a lion in every bush and there's a ditch in front of me and every way and I can't, I don't dare go and try and love that person. I may say something that hurt their feelings and now I'm guilty. No, you say I'm walking. And I'll stumble, I'll fall, but the Lord will pick me up and carry me on. The sure promise of God is the seed of such glory and its nourishment. And it's sure because it's ancient, Paul says. Going back to Abraham, going back before Abraham to Genesis 3, when God was in the midst of, as some people say, he's judging Adam and Eve. That's the mildest judgment I've ever seen. That was judgment. But yes, he's, he's, he's bringing in a new order of things. And he says, it's, it's all going to lead to this savior of the seed of the woman. Who's going to come all the way back to all the way before the foundation of the world is Paul himself writes in Romans or sorry, Ephesians one, four chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world. So it's ancient. It's nothing novel here. And because of who God is, he's never lied. He's incapable of lying. Incapable of lying. A lot of stuff he says sounds like lies, doesn't it? He tells you, neither do I condemn you. You go away and what do you feel? He didn't mean it. I'm condemned still. He's just trying to cheer me up. I'm not saying what we think. What do we feel? That's nice. He's condemned me. But I still feel cruddy. I still feel guilty. I still feel terrible. He doesn't really mean it. He can't lie. He's incapable. We don't need to clutter up his language with our own fractured apprehensions. Take it as he gives it. All of this provided through His Word, the Word made flesh. That's what Paul's referring to when he says, at the proper time, in verse 3, he manifested His Word. Does that mean the Bible? No. His Word there means Christ, the living Word, at the proper time, God's choosing, the perfect time for salvation. But in the proclamation, with which, and that is God's word, that is scripture, the written word of God, I was entrusted according to the commandment of God, our savior. The scriptural testimony, though, remember, is always to Christ. Hebrews 12, one and two. The prophets, people of old, wrote in various portions, but in these days, he's spoken to us in his son, in his son. Jesus is in all of scripture. That Christ, through that word, proclaimed by Paul and by faithful pastors, is what brings people to faith, secures them in faith, edifies them, sanctifies them, fills them with hope, comfort, peace, and fosters love. Preaching by a divinely called and equipped and commissioned man is a presentation of Christ and salvation in him. It is always good news. Even if the news is sore necessarily at times, searching us, trying us, scouring us, convicting us, it's good news. It's all in the process of bringing about this great good in terms of personal possession. And so finally, After this introduction, he says to Titus, who is he? My true child in a common faith. Common faith? I thought it was extraordinary faith. No, no, no, no. The faith is common. It's a common possession of us all. Anybody here can go and buy a Bible. Read it for yourself. Should read it for yourself. And if what you're seeing doesn't square with what's coming out, inquire about that. It's not like I haven't ever made a mistake. Oh, my begotten in a common faith. Paul doesn't assert any apostolic authority, at least explicitly here. My true child, there's a closeness there, but even child Is Paul his father? We refer to my father in the faith. I call Bill Fulton that. He was the one, the instrument, last in a chain that brought me to the Savior. My begotten child in a common faith. We're all begotten together only by and into this one faith. from God the Father. God is the only true Father of believers. And that makes us all brothers and sisters, and we should treat each other accordingly. Paul is writing to this man and speaks words of grace and peace from God the Father. This living father has become fruitful as a father begets children. And he is doing it, and he's raising those children. And whenever we open this book, we should remember, Father, speak to me. This book contains your very breath. Breathe upon me, Father. Living, living engagement, not just reading to get some ideas in our head and off we go. No. Engaging with the living God. Grace, that's God's motivation, to bring sinners to salvation. You couldn't get more pure and marvelous grace than that. Bringing those, not a one of them deserves it. Not a one of us deserves it at all. We haven't made it less difficult for God because we've tried at least to measure up. Price is the same, death. Death and a guilty death at that. A blasphemer and a violator of civil law. A hater of God and a hater of man is what Jesus was executed for. That's the price he paid. That's what he bore because that's what we are without him. And it's God's grace that turns that world right side up again. And the result of it is peace, peace from God the Father and Jesus our Savior. Sometimes we can think Jesus was nice, he was kind, he was patient, we see that. But God, whoa, he made the mountain quake on Sinai. The Israelites were terrified at the thought of him. No, no, no, no, no, no, we're at peace with God. There's no dispute amongst the persons of the Trinity. There's only one God, one God. We're monotheists, there's only one God. And there are these three essences within him, but they are in perfect loving communion together. Our Savior brings us to the Father, whom to know is eternal life, is eternal joy, is eternal peace, whom to know is temporary grace, because grace only needed in this life. In the next, its growth is perfected into glory, glory. But do you know this Christ presented so clearly as this in God's Word? If so, you're not only in Christ, you are in Christ's body. The church as a living stone. in the household and family of the living God. I say that in closing because we can too easily read these pastoral epistles and think this is all about church government and what committees you should have and how you should run the corporation. Nothing could be farther from the truth than that. It's a family. with loving ties that are growing stronger and purer as we grow together in Christ. Amen. Now let's sing about our delighting in our brethren in Christ. In the book of Psalms, we're singing 133a.