Would you take your copy of the scriptures and turn with me to Titus chapter one. If you're following along in your pew Bible, that's found on page 998. Our sermon text this evening comes from the first four verses of Titus chapter one. Let's give attention now to the reading of God's holy, inspired, infallible, and inerrant word. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior. to Titus, my true child in a common faith. Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Savior. Let's pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. You are watching over your word to perform it. Amen. About two years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Israel, and I had a chance to swim in the Dead Sea. It was quite the experience. And I was tasting the remnants of salt on my mustache every meal after that for several weeks. Now what I learned was that the Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan River, which is a freshwater source. But this is the only source of water flowing into the sea. There is no outflow. The Dead Sea is a terminal lake and the high evaporation rates combined with no outflow make it one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world and thus deadly and inhospitable to all marine life. Now if you apply this picture to the Christian life, we could say this, if you are taking in all the doctrine, but you are not producing any spiritual fruit, you are spiritually dead. If there is only input in the Christian life, but no output whatsoever, there is no spiritual health. This is what the book of Titus is all about. The theme of this book is all about putting our faith into practice. The book of Titus is all about making Christ beautiful, about adorning the gospel with lives that glorify him. This evening we are going to consider just the first three verses. We'll consider verse four next Sunday evening because I want to spend a whole sermon considering what Paul means when he speaks about the common faith. Much of this epistle to Titus is dealing with burning bridges, and so I want to spend a whole sermon thinking about Christian unity, about building bridges, about the common faith, to frame our later discussion in thinking about when we draw lines in the sand. So beginning with verse one, we see that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to Titus. Paul is, of course, the apostle to the Gentiles, a self-designation of Paul from Romans 11, verse 13. Paul saw his mission as advancing the gospel beyond the Jewish people and beyond the Jewish lands. He saw his task as fulfilling the great commission to make disciples of all nations, to take the gospel to the four corners of the earth. And the very fact that this letter exists demonstrates this. Maybe you've heard the saying, what has Athens to do with Jerusalem? Well, we might say in this case, what does Crete have to do with Jerusalem? Crete and Jerusalem are worlds apart. What does a Jewish subversive crucified on a cross in Jerusalem have to do with a small maritime island 700 miles away as the crow flies? Well, the answer is everything, as we will come to see. Paul made it his mission to see the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ, known to the ends of the earth, and that included this little island of Crete. We know from Titus 1 verse 5 that this island of Crete is a pit stop for the Apostle Paul on one of his missionary journeys. Paul says in verse 5, this is why I left you in Crete, indicating to us that previously he was there with Titus. The island of Crete is located right below modern day Greece. And we'll talk more about Crete and its significance in future sermons. But for now, just remember that the apostle's heart was to see gospel churches planted in Crete. And this shows us that he understands that the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ is the turning point of human history. It signals the gospel's advance to every tribe, nation, and tongue. Now in this epistle heading in verse one, we need to notice the two qualifiers the apostle uses to describe himself. A servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Almost certainly, this letter would have been read publicly to the church in Crete. And one of Paul's concerns in writing this letter was to establish his spiritual authority. And by extension, the spiritual authority of Titus. This is why Paul intentionally begins by alerting his hearers to his authoritative, apostolic commission. But notice the way that Paul asserts his authority. He is no tyrant or ogre. He is no bully with some clericalist agenda. He doesn't put on airs or refer his hearers to his lengthy spiritual CV on LinkedIn. No, though Paul does identify himself as an apostle, signaling his legitimate God-ordained authority, he also intentionally identifies himself as a servant, a servant of God. Verse one. Now we need to understand that in the ancient world, A servant was at the bottom of the pecking order. A servant, or a slave as we might also translate, was beholden to every beck and call of their master. In the ancient world, slaves were property. They had no personal rights. So why does the Apostle Paul use this as a positive qualifier? Well, he does so to signal that he is beholden to every beck and call of his master, the Lord Jesus Christ. To signal, as he writes in another epistle, that his body, that our bodies are property of the Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to him. All that we are, all that we have, is owned by God. And this is why not only does the apostle Paul identify himself here as a slave of God, but he identifies every believer as a slave of God as we see, for example, in Ephesians chapter six, verse six. Every single person on the face of this planet is either in one of two states. They are either a slave to sin, or a slave to God. Ask yourself this, this evening. With the Apostle Paul, can I say I am a servant, I am a slave, I am entirely devoted, sold out, surrendering my life, my heart, my mind to follow the Lord Jesus wherever he commands? This is the mentality of the Apostle Paul here in Titus 1 verse 1, and it is to be the mentality of every child of God, of you and of me. Now before we move on, I want to say one further thing about Paul's apostleship. What we need to understand is that the office of apostle is unique to the apostolic era. Some churches and some Christians today hold that the office of apostle continues. They might call, for example, what we would call a senior minister, an apostle. But this practice is biblically indefensible and needs to be rejected. If you look at the New Testament as a whole, there are three key ingredients to the apostolic office that were unique to this time period. And you can write these down if you like. Number one, an apostle was someone directly called by the incarnate Christ. Number two, an apostle was empowered by the Spirit to perform supernatural miracles. And number three, apostles were used as instruments by the spirit to speak as the mouthpiece of God. Some in written form, what we call the Bible, and others by way of their preaching. No pastor today can satisfy these qualifications. In 1 Corinthians 15, verses seven and eight, we read this. The risen Christ appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and then, make sure you catch this, last of all, Paul says, he appeared to me. He's referring, of course, to the Damascus Road encounter. But notice, last of all, Paul says, he's telling us that he is the last apostle the incarnate Christ directly calls. And then secondly, the pattern we see throughout the book of Acts. is that only the apostles and their delegates can perform supernatural miracles. For example, we see the kind of refrain we see in Acts chapter five, verse 12, repeated over and over again throughout the book of Acts. This is the refrain. Now, many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hand of the apostles. You see, signs and wonders in the New Testament are limited to those endowed with supernatural power from the Lord at a unique time in history with a specific purpose. That specific purpose we know from 2 Corinthians 2 12 was to prove their authenticity as apostles. So the office of apostle has ceased and so has the supernatural power that accompanied it. And then lastly, no minister of the gospel today can meet the third criterion of an apostle. No pastor today speaks a new word or a new revelation from God. Yes, there is of course continuity between the apostolic and pastoral offices. They need to be nuanced. particularly in terms of preaching, but even Paul, as we'll see later in Titus 1 verse 5, he doesn't say appoint apostles in every town, he says appoint elders in every town. Paul is already self-conscious of the fact that the era of the apostles is coming to a close. The point to remember is that God does not provide new revelation today, not through apostles or through anyone else. The beginning of Hebrews chapter one makes this abundantly clear. We're told that God formerly spoke through men, called to be his mouthpiece, But now he speaks to us through his son, the logos, the word made flesh. And that word, of course, is revealed to us in the Bible, the book of God's revelation, which is divine, clear, sufficient, authoritative, and complete. There is nothing to be added or taken away. And we have no need of new revelation. Well, let's continue on in verse one. Look with me there, Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect. This is an important point. Paul's apostolic commission is not to win a popularity contest. His commission is not to grow a platform built around the personality cult of Paul of Tarsus. No, Paul's commission, as we see here in the text, is laser focused. He has been sent to build up, strengthen, nourish, encourage, exhort, rebuke, and instruct the people of God. Paul's mission, His apostolic mission is to teach the people of God, the purposes of God, for the glory of God. And notice that beautiful word at the end of the phrase, for the sake of the faith of God's elect, or God's chosen, as we might translate it. And that's actually the same word in verbal form that's used in the Greek version of Psalm 33, which we read earlier. Psalm 33, verse 12, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. You see, the whole Bible both Old and New Testaments. The whole Bible is the story of God saving his people, enfolding them into his covenant. His people whom he chose and foreknew before the world began. And the Apostle Paul was called by God as a vessel to bring about the salvation of God's elect by faith in Jesus Christ. Now whenever we hear that word, God's elect, or God's chosen, our hearts should really feel all warm and fuzzy. Because that word conveys the personal communion we have with a personal God. God's elect or God's chosen is not some impersonal abstraction. It's not some ethereal list of names floating around in eternal time and space. No, Jesus says in John chapter 10 verse three, his sheep, hear his voice, he calls his sheep by name. Just think about that. for a moment. By some estimates, there are two billion Christians alive today, and that doesn't include the tens of billions of saints who've fallen asleep in Christ the last 6,000 years. Can you remember tens of billions of names? I can hardly remember a hundred. But the Apostle Paul here in verse one is saying, Jesus knows tens of billions of names. If you belong to him, Jesus knows your name. And he will never forget it. So the next time Satan attacks you and tells you that you are insignificant, remember, not only are you on the heavenly roster of God's elect, called from eternity before the foundation of the world, but remember that Jesus knows you by name. Paul continues in verse one, And he wants us to see that his apostolic commission is not only for the sake of the faith of God's elect, God's chosen one, but also their knowledge of the truth. And there's something utterly profound here that we must not miss. In the Christian life, faith and knowledge always go hand in hand. If the Apostle Paul lived in the 19th century, he would have had absolutely no time for the post-Enlightenment rationalists. The post-enlightenment rationalists of the 19th century were on a war path, you might say, to divorce faith from knowledge or faith from reason. And of course, in our century, we can trace the threads of this very spiritually damaging ideology and its many negative consequences. But in the 19th century, coming on the heels of the Enlightenment, which so elevated human reasoning, the post-Enlightenment rationalists said, the only thing you and I can truly know is that which is empirically verifiable. The only thing that we can truly know is that which we can discern with our mind, with our natural faculties, with what we can empirically observe. Faith, transcendent belief, spiritual realities, supernatural realities, these are all in the realm of the implausible, to be discarded. not the realm of knowledge. And the message of the scriptures is that this line of reasoning, this line of thinking is deeply antithetical to the Christian worldview. The message of Titus 1 verse 1, and I think Paul here is intentionally ordering faith first and knowledge second. The message is that faith informs reason, not reason that informs faith. It is only, as the psalmist says, in God's light that we can even see light. It is only when God prescribes the glasses of faith that we can see clearly. It is only when we put on the glasses of divine revelation that we can see the natural world as it truly is. The biblical message, as the great medieval theologian Anselm of Canterbury once said, the biblical message is, I believe so that I may understand. I believe, I have faith so that I may understand. Brothers and sisters, It is faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ that helps us make sense of the world around us. And this is so important for us to remember. especially in our time where we see the rapid fragmentation of knowledge, where we are seeing new disciplines and fields of knowledge constantly being formed, where we are seeing the tyranny of the experts dominate the marketplace of ideas. We must remember that there is no true knowledge apart from true faith. And this is why we must pray earnestly that the Lord would raise up Christians to pursue vocations in every kind of career, every field, whether it be medicine or in the trades. Because there are things becoming mainstream now. For instance, a peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics arguing that we ought to medically classify pregnancy as a disease. This is the fruit of divorcing faith from knowledge, faith from reason. So we must pray for a new generation of bold and courageous and winsome Christians who will interpret God's world in light of God's wisdom. Now the Apostle Paul not only weds faith and knowledge together but also links faith and knowledge with godliness. Look again with me at verse one. Paul has received this heavenly apostolic commission. We read verse one, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness. or as some commentators argue, and I'm persuaded, which produces godliness. Now that word godliness, or as it's sometimes translated, piety, most basically means looking like Jesus Christ. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the same word we find here in Titus 1 verse 1, godliness, is often used to translate the Hebrew word for fear when it talks about the fear of the Lord. So godliness, or piety, isn't some introspective, cold, or contemplative and stoic virtue as we often think it is, but rather godliness, true Christian piety is walking before God in the fear of the Lord and looking like his son. Godliness is the fear of the Lord that produces a transformed life. Now notice what the Holy Spirit is saying to us through the Apostle Paul. Faith and knowledge and the believer always accords with, verse one, or as I said earlier, can be translated, produces the fruit of godliness. And this is going to be a theme we see time and time again throughout the book of Titus. There is no such thing as a worldly Christian. There are only worldly reprobates. As Jesus says in Matthew chapter seven, good trees are hardwired by nature to produce good fruit. Bad trees are hardwired by nature to produce bad fruit. Therefore good trees are incapable of bearing bad fruit and vice versa. And so to really distill this parable and connect it to what we see here in Titus chapter one, we see that to be united to Christ is to walk out a life of good works that God prepares for us in advance. Think about it like this. What end does the gospel have in view? Does God save us so that we can go on living in sin? Does God save us from eternal wrath just so that we can go on living a life of spiritual complacency? No. Our gracious and loving and merciful God redeems us so that we can live a life of repentance and a life of obedience. God only gives one kind of faith. There is no medium, large, or snack size. No, God gives one kind of faith, and that is obedient faith. The promises of God, which find their yes and amen in Jesus Christ, they always produce godliness. By His grace, His promises always produce piety. And the church in her mission and her witness needs to recover and savor this often neglected and precious truth. As the reformed theologian and pastor Abraham Kuyper once wrote, the church may not be content simply to bring the gospel to the lost. Instead, its primary calling is to lead those the Lord calls into a deeper understanding of God's intentions. While the Apostle Paul continues, the faith, the knowledge, and the godliness, the piety of each of God's chosen people moves towards a terminal point. And that terminus is verse two, in hope of eternal life which God who never lies promised before the ages began. We all put our hope in something. Some of us put our hope in politicians. If you haven't learned by now, they always let us down. Some of us put our hope in finances. And we know that we'll always end up wanting more if we put our hope in our bank accounts. Some of us put our hope in family. And the reality is they're bound to disappoint us at times. But the hope that the Apostle Paul banks his life on, the hope for which he says he's on trial for in Acts 23 verse six, this hope, the hope of eternal life, will never let us down. And why is that? Because it depends on us. No, because the God who never lies has promised. The God who never lies, unlike the Cretan liars we'll read of later in verses 12 and 13, the God who never lies promised before the ages began, promised this hope of eternal life before the ages began, literally before time eternal. God's plan for God's people to enjoy communion with him in eternity was not some fleeting thought in the mind of God, not some afterthought. No, before time was, before time came into existence, God's plan was for his chosen people, his elect, to be with him. And verse three, at the proper time, this same God who never lies manifested in his word through the preaching with which Paul says, I have been entrusted by the command of God our savior. Now here again, we find a striking spiritual reality. All of human history is pregnant with meaning. All of human history has been moving in a certain direction. There is a particular trajectory to world history. The world has been awaiting the consolation of her savior ever since mankind was banished from God's presence in the garden. The great salvation, the hope of eternal life promised before time began was revealed at the proper time, at just the right time, according to the perfect plan of God Almighty. And it was manifested through the word. And that word refers both to God's word, that is His holy scripture, and to the Word made flesh, the incarnate Jesus Christ. The Son of God, as Herman Bovink says, was manifested, not that he might destroy the works of the Father, but that he might destroy the works of the devil in order thus to restore the works of the Father. Now what is the means that the Apostle Paul says God uses to reveal this word? Look again with me at verse three if you still have your Bibles open. It is the preaching or the proclamation of the word. God is a God who uses means. God could snap his fingers if he like and just create human life, but he uses the means of a man and a woman coming together to bring life into existence. God could say the word and grass would never again need the waters of rain for nourishment But God is a God who uses means to accomplish ends. And so God accomplishes the revelation of his son, which is the ends, through the preaching with which Paul was entrusted, which is the means. And notice the emphasis Paul puts at the end of verse three. This word he preaches is not his own message, but a message he has been entrusted with by the command of God our Savior. You see, Paul was not a self-ordained man preaching novelty. No, he was directly called by Christ on the road to Damascus. Acts 9 verses 3 to 6. And he was confirmed by the other apostles, as we see at the end of Acts chapter 9. Paul was commanded. That is, he received his apostolic marching orders from his captain and chief, the Lord Jesus Christ. And his marching orders were to preach and proclaim the true message and hope of eternal life. And of course, God continues to reveal himself and speak to his people today through this same proclamation of his holy word. Through the preaching of his word, which reveals this message of hope and eternal life. There's a wonderful quote from John Calvin that captures this eloquently. He says, we must not look for Christ to come down from heaven. It is enough that he raises up men who faithfully bring us his word, who are in a way instruments of his Holy Spirit, and who received the word from him in order to minister to us. unmixed with any fanciful ideas of their own. Brothers and sisters, don't underestimate the blessing of the word preached. Jesus manifests himself to you in the word preached. And as we come to a close, I want to leave you with a challenge. You can think of the word, the proclamation of the word having a two-fold effect on the believer. It comforts us in our sorrow, and it convicts us in our sin. Jesus says in Luke 8 verse 18 that we are to take care how we hear the word. The Apostle James writes in James 1 verse 21 that we are to receive the word of Christ with meekness. And so I ask you this evening, how are you receiving the word? Do you sometimes bristle at the word preached when it convicts and confronts you? Are you resisting God's will for your life as revealed in his word? If so, run to Jesus. Repent of your hardness of heart. He is gracious and merciful to every prodigal child that throws himself upon his mercy. And what about the comfort of God's word? Have you become too prideful to receive the comfort, the deep and abiding comfort that is found in God's word? Have you become too self-reliant, too self-dependent, too self-righteous? Does the comforting good news of Jesus Christ still stir up genuine joy and affection for Him in your heart? Or maybe has your heart grown cold? If so, ask the Lord right now and continue to plead with Him earnestly to ignite your heart and your affections He has not given us the Holy Spirit in vain. No, He has given us the Spirit to more and more awaken our love for Him day by day. He has given us His Spirit to transform us as we hear and see Christ in His Word and live more and more after His image. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly God and Father, we thank you and praise you that at the proper time you manifested your Son, the divine Word, through the preaching entrusted to the Apostle Paul, which is recorded here for us in Holy Scripture by the power of the Holy Spirit. We praise you for so rich a salvation. Lord, and we ask that your promises would produce in us true, genuine fruit, the fruit of repentance, the fruit that only you can work within us. We pray that this week, more and more, we would seek to serve you and walk in obedience to your holy word. All these things we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.