00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Hello and welcome to our broadcast today. We're looking at the little book of Titus, which really we would like the little book of Titus to look at us. Have your Bible ready if you can. I'm reading in Titus chapter 1, it reads, Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. but hath in due times manifested his word through preaching which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Savior. And he goes on to now after that's the introduction he says to Titus my own son after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. For this cause, I left thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee." Well, we've said before that 1st, 2nd Timothy and Titus And actually, the seven letters to seven pastors in the Book of Revelation are written specifically to the pastor. There are several books here that were written to the saints at Corinth or the saints at Ephesus and so on. These books, and particularly Titus as we look at it today, was written to the pastor. So if we want to see as pastors, if we're doing our jobs according to the way we should do our jobs, then we just need to look at these books and see what they have to say. Well, in verse number three, it says that something was manifested. God manifested his word. through preaching. And then he said, which is committed unto me. He manifested his word through preaching. Now this word preaching is an interesting word. It means to herald. Back in the old days, a herald would come in on his horse and he'd say, hear ye, hear ye, thus saith the king. And he would just say what the king had to say. He wouldn't change the message. He wouldn't compromise. If he did, he'd be in trouble with the king. He would just come in and say, hey, I'm not here for to have some kind of a dissertation. I'm here to tell you what the king has to say. He didn't soften the message in case some people might not pay their taxes. He didn't soften the message in case they might leave and move to another town. He just said, This is what the king has to say. Now that's what this word is talking about when it's talking about preaching. There's not a lot of that going on today. Some time ago I was preaching at a camp for a week and The first time they introduced me, the one who introduced me said, we're so glad to have Brother Kirkland here. Come and share what the Lord has put on your heart. So I got up and said, I didn't come share anything. I came to preach. And if you're not ready for that, well, buckle your seatbelts because we're going to have some preaching. And we did, and not everybody liked it. But the Bible says that it's a great thing. We have been put, well, 1 Thessalonians 2, 4, Paul put it this way, that he'd been allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel. Yes, we have. And he said to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6 and 20, oh, Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust. Well, we're living in a day when there's not a whole lot of this kind of preaching anymore. In fact, there's very little of it. Verse number three, he said, I am doing this according to the commandment, to herald, to go in there and say, thus saith the king. Well, in the commandment we have here, what is the context? The context is in verse four, he says to my own son after the common faith. Now, what was this that they were doing? He was a pastor. He said, I want you to ordain pastors here on this island of Crete. The whole context of everything that is being talked about here in this book has to do with the local church. That is God's program for today. We're living in an age when there's all kinds of parachurch organizations for which there's absolutely no foundation in the Bible for them to exist. You can have any kind of ministry that's that's not, you know, obviously it has to be something that God would put his hand on. You can have any kind of ministry such as a newspaper or a radio program or any kind of outreach under the auspices of the local church, and that's God's program for today. But we sort of set that aside and said, no, we're going to have our Newspapers are going to have our programs are going to do this that and the other thing well not outside the church They're not right if they are outside of the local church, and that is the context He's writing here to Titus who is the pastor who is supposed to establish more churches? And he says here about the common faith common faith He says to Titus my own son after the common faith now What does he mean by that? Well, the word common here means that which they had in common. They were good friends. They'd been traveling together for quite a while at this time. They'd been on many journeys together. And now he says, I'm leaving you here in Crete. I'm going to travel on, and you've got to do this particular work here. And they had a common faith. The common faith is the faith, the faith. Now, there's five verses here in Titus that talk about the faith. And we've said before that Paul said, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. The faith and your faith might be two different things. Make sure that your faith and the faith, referring to what we believe, is one and the same. Paul and Titus, they were one and the same. He says in verse four, grace, mercy, and peace. Interesting words. He's saying to this pastor, you better focus on these things. Those are wonderful words, aren't they? Grace, mercy, peace. peace uh we're going to get in here and find out that there's chapter 1 and verse 10 vain talkers and there's uh deceivers and in verse 12 there's liars and they're referred to as evil beasts and slow bellies in chapter 3 verse 10 there's heretics uh you're going to have some vain talkers and some gainsayers uh if you're going to focus on all of that Timothy or Titus rather he's talking to here If you're gonna focus on that as a pastor, then you're gonna wash out. You're not gonna make it What you better do is focus on the grace and the mercy and the peace that is available It's a tremendous blessing and they are all ours for the asking We just need to make sure we keep our focus on these and not on all these other things however, these other things needed to be taken care of now the key is to this whole book here is found in verse number five where he says, for this cause left I thee in Crete that thou should have set in order the things that are wanting and ordained elders in every city as I had appointed thee. Now he says you need to be setting pastors up in every city. Now, he called them elders here, that's interesting, in verse number five. And then in verse number seven, referring to the same thing, he called them bishops. Why did he do that? Well, we have a complete articles and I think recorded messages too on our website. You can get more detail there. But what he's talking about, an elder and a bishop and a pastor are all synonymous. Now, an elder, that was a Jewish term, and people knew exactly what elders were supposed to do. A bishop, that was a Greek term, and when someone would come in and conquer an area, they would put in a bishop to take control of that area. And so when these new converts, they got saved, whether they were Jews, they would understand what the responsibility of a pastor was by using the term elder. If they were Greeks, they would understand what the responsibility of a pastor was by using the term bishop. This island of Crete, there was many Jews and there was many Gentiles as well, and that is why the term bishop is used here. Now, the responsibility for Titus here was to set in order the things that are wanting. Now, this island of Crete, there was 3,500 years before Christ was born. There was people living on the island of Crete, one of the oldest populations in the world. And as we mentioned before, they're a motley group. They're called evil beasts and liars and slow bellies. Even in the churches, there was deceivers and heretics. And so it is the responsibility of Titus here to set in order the things that are wanting. He certainly did have a challenge before him. So to set in order, set in order. Paul was talking to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11. He says, I hear there are divisions among you, verse 18. There's heresies among you, verse 11. And then he said in verse 34, this is how you need to handle them, and the rest will I set in order when I come, chapter 11 and verse number 34. Now the responsibility of the pastor is to set things in order, set things in order. The things that are wanting, that has been translated, that word wanting has been translated lack, twice, things that are lacking. There were some things that needed to be set up. They had some churches there, but they weren't organized as they should be organized. So in verse five, he says, number one, what you need to do is put elders or pastors in every city, every city. Now God's plan for the promoting in the world today the gospel of Jesus Christ is the local church with pastors, and he gives all the details of how that ought to be done. Now, God also has a plan for the home. He says, Angie, fathers bringing up the young people in the nourishment and admonition of the Lord, And in the churches, he said pastors, elders in every city, and they needed to have qualifications, and he gives those qualifications in the next few verses. Now, he first of all gives some physical qualifications, verse 5 through 8. There's 18 things listed there. that these pastors needed to be in line with, and then he gives a spiritual qualification, which is basically summed up in just one little phrase, verse 9, sound doctrine. You've got to be teaching sound doctrine, whether it's in the home, Again, in Hebrews chapter 5 verses 11 through 14, it talks about having our senses exercised to be able to discern what is good and evil. That's a father's responsibility in the home. In the church, of course, this portion of scripture is written concerning a church organization, is written to the pastor, is written to Titus in verse number 4. And so the pastor is to be preaching sound doctrine, and he's dealing with people. Now, what has to be decided right away for a preacher is this, am I going to work at keeping the church full, or am I going to work at keeping the church pure? If you read verses 15 And verses 16, it's talking about purity, and it's talking about that which is undefiled. There's an awful lot of focus, I think, today on keeping the church full rather than keeping it pure. What we need to do is just preach sound doctrine. In chapter 1 and verse number 9, he talks about sound doctrine, and with sound doctrine, we're going to be able to deal with verse 10 through 13, the gainsayers and the unruly and the deceivers and the false teachers. Sound doctrine. While we get into the next chapter, we'll look at it in our next program, it says in verse 1, but speak thou the things which become Sound doctrine then you get down to verse 15 the last verse in the chapter It says these things speak and in between We have a good series of sermons for anybody who wants to speak them. The Bible says speak these things So we'll look at that in our next broadcast be sure to tune in
2. Paul And Titus
Series Paul And Titus
Sermon ID | 128161135127 |
Duration | 13:53 |
Date | |
Category | Radio Broadcast |
Bible Text | Titus 1 |
Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2025 SermonAudio.