Our sermon text this morning is going to be again from the little letter of the Apostle Paul to Titus. So I guess it's kind of towards the end of the New Testament or somewhere a little bit later in Paul's letters. It's one of his shorter letters. Titus chapter number one. We're going to focus our hearts and minds upon just verses five through nine. You'll see they all kind of bleed together, but we'll just focus on those verses this morning. We looked at verses one through four last Sunday, and then we pick up here at verse number five. So verse number five, Titus chapter number one. This is why I left you, Titus, in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders In every town, as I directed you, if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. And finally, verse nine, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he might be able to give instruction in sound doctrine. In the end of verse number nine, we'll touch on that this morning, but we'll come to it mostly next week, and also to rebuke those who contradict it. And to all these words, God's people say, Well, we come again this morning to this more down-to-earth letter of Paul to Titus. And I said last week that the big theme of Titus, or maybe I should ask you, what's the big theme of Titus? You all remembered it from last week, didn't you? Everyone memorize the big theme. I think it's in the sermon notes page, so don't cheat. Okay, don't cheat. Don't chat GPT it. I'm sure it can find my sermon from last week pretty quick and tell you probably faster than I could. What is the big theme of Paul's letter to Titus? It's right here in our verse. It's right here in our verse. But the big theme is that Titus would organize Christians on the island of Crete into congregations. So there already were believers there. But to organize them in towns and cities into congregations, how? By sound preaching that produces sound living. That's the big idea. So Titus was to go to the island of Crete. He was to find the believers in every city, organize them into congregations, distinct congregations with their own leaders. How? By sound preaching that produces sound living. Sound preaching that produces sound living. You're gonna see those, we've already seen that a little bit already last Sunday. Remember from verse number one where Paul said that he was an apostle for the sake of the faith of God's elect, so he is a servant of God's elect people, and their knowledge of the truth, notice the knowledge of the truth, verse one, it accords, he says, with godliness. So not just was he an apostle to serve them, to bring them the knowledge of the truth, but that that truth accords with godliness, meaning the preaching of the gospel, the preaching of the word of God, the truth leads and creates godliness. Remember I said last Sunday that we can't just be Christians who have a big head with big theology about God, which is all true and correct. But we have to have just as big a heart, meaning our actions, our words, our deeds, our lives. put into practice the things that we know. And so the knowledge of the truth that accords with godliness. Paul tells Titus to go, organize those believers into distinct congregations through the preaching of the gospel that is called sound doctrine, sound teaching, that produces sound living. Now, in his opening greeting we saw last Sunday, Paul kind of pulled back the curtain for us to see behind the scenes what preaching is. So there's Paul, the apostle, the servant, and he's preaching, but he kind of pulled back the curtain for us to see behind the scenes. I mentioned to kids that if you go to a play, or maybe you're in a play at school, there's always a curtain, and the curtain pulls up, and there's the stage, the curtain goes down, everybody scurries around, right? You gotta fix the set, you gotta put some flowers there, you gotta put a chair over here, change the background, change your costume, all that's going on behind the curtain. Paul kinda opens the curtain up a little bit. And parents, sometimes we go to our kids' plays or performances and the curtain didn't quite get closed all the way and we can see them behind there and everyone's laughing, right? Because we can see the silliness of these little kids putting on costumes and bumping into each other on the set. So Paul pulls the curtain back a tad bit for us to see the truth. about preaching. We saw last Sunday that God's plan before the world began was to promise eternal life to those whom he elected or chose, verse number one. This plan was for the ultimate goal of sharing eternal life with his elect. So God made a purpose and a plan from all of eternity past, if we can call it that, and that plan and purpose is for eternity future, which is eternal life with God. And the way that eternal past plan comes down to us here in real time and space is by the manifestation, as he says there, verse three, the manifestation of the word, the eternal logos, the word of God made flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus accomplishes the plan of God. And so Jesus is the one who gives us faith in him, knowledge of the truth, the hope of everlasting life, How does he do that? Again, verse three. At the proper time, he manifested in his word through preaching. It's through preaching. God's eternal plan from eternity past that points us all the way into eternity future to live with him forever. The way that that eternal plan gets made known to us and promised to us of the future is through preaching. It's through the preaching of the gospel. Preaching is how God reveals himself, brothers and sisters. Preaching is how God reveals himself. It's how he makes known to the whole world what everlasting life is. And so as we think of preaching as revealing and manifesting the purpose and the plan of God, we can ask ourselves questions like, well, does God still speak today? And the answer is absolutely. He speaks to us especially, mostly, and clearly in the preaching of His Word, amen? Does God still perform miracles? Yes, He resurrects dead souls to life through preaching. Does God still intervene in people's lives? Does God still act? Does God still make Himself known and present to us? Yes. The eternal plan of God that points us all the way into the future is made known. God shows up when preaching happens. And so we can say that we experience God in and through preaching. That was last Sunday. We come to verses five through nine. Five through nine. Paul's instructions here then to Titus about the kind of ministers of the word, the kind of preachers that he was to go to the island of Crete and to appoint. I think it was last month. Danny Miranda remembers. It was in September, I think. We went to Idaho and I gave a message for our brother Chris Wasson as he was set apart for the ministry at a congregation in Nampa, Idaho. I'm sorry, what's this town called again, Miranda? Meridian, there you go. It's all kind of a blur to me up there. I'm borrowing the sermon title. I thought it was an interesting title. As goes preaching, so goes the church. This is the big idea that Paul wants us to know today. As goes preaching, so goes the church, because he's telling Titus to go and appoint ministers over these congregations in these towns, and the preaching of the word is what creates the church, is what creates faith, it's what brings the knowledge of the truth, it's what creates sound living. The preaching of the word is essential. As goes the preaching, so goes the church. Notice in verse 5, the pattern that Paul sets up here of the ministry. God's plan, first of all, that's the first couple of verses of his letter here. Paul, he says he's a servant of that God and his plan. He is an apostle of Jesus Christ that is God. There's Jesus Christ who is the eternal Word made flesh. There's Paul then as the apostle. And so next in line, God, Jesus, Paul, is Titus, right? Next in line is Titus. And he's to follow a certain pattern. Reminding me kids this week, back when I was in middle school, we had a class called Woodshop. And I don't remember anyone cutting their fingers off, but it was, I'm sure today there would be no way you can do Woodshop in class, because it's just, you know, everybody's too scared their kids are going to get hurt. But we would, we'd learn how to use like a little band saw, this little thin, this little saw, you put the power on and it just goes really fast. And you have a big piece of wood, like a big square or rectangle, flat kind of piece of wood, and you want to, I don't know, a dinosaur, you want a football, or any kind of shape you can imagine. And you would go on the wall and you'd find these little patterns, these little outlines that you would lay on the wood, you would trace the picture of the thing that you wanted to cut out, maybe it was a stegosaurus or whatever, all the plates in his back. And you would put that then into this saw and you'd move it around and eventually you'd cut around the outline, the pattern, and you'd have whatever it was that you were trying to create. So you followed a pattern to get the result. And so here Paul is giving Titus a pattern. And Titus is to follow the pattern. God, Jesus, me, you, and then you pass it on to others. Follow the pattern of what the church is to be. And so Titus is like an apostolic representative. He represents the apostle Paul to follow his pattern. He does the work of an evangelist like Timothy did. He's one of those New Testament evangelists mentioned in Ephesians 4. Some have called him an organizing pastor, a missionary pastor, a missionary bishop. But he has a task of following a pattern. setting up and organizing these churches on the island of Crete. So the pattern moves from God, his eternal plan, through his son Jesus.