to Club Med on the island, the Greek island of Crete. I did not mean to do that, but God apparently did, so here we are. You know, we don't always dress up the whole church to go with the message, but this time we kind of have. Today Crete would be a great place to go visit. because of vacation. It'd be a neat place to go, at least, I think, to visit. I'm not sure I would want to live in Greece under the situation of Greece. Personally, I'm not sure that would be an economic situation or a governmental situation I'd want to live in. We're fast approaching something like that in this country. But as far as the sunshine and the beach and I think it'd be great to go visit the Isle of Crete. Interestingly, the Apostle Paul does not really talk about the vacation prospects for Titus as he sends him to Crete. He tells him, you're in for hardship, and I want to prepare you for what's coming. I want to prepare you for the hard times of ministry that need to be conducted among these Christians in Crete. God has so determined that there would be a gospel success, a mission success in Crete, the Isle of Crete, in the Mediterranean. And so, despite problems with the culture there, despite maybe the difficulty of the mission circumstance that you'll encounter there, Titus, you need to go there and set things in order. You need to teach things fitting for sound doctrine. You need to teach them the word that has been entrusted to me unto godliness so that the people can grow spiritually. And that's really what Titus is. It is probably the most basic letter that Paul wrote The truths in it are extremely accessible to us. And it's kind of written like just kind of a bare bones outline for the summary of what a church should be like. We've got to have leadership. There has to be delegated oversight responsibility carried out among a body of believers. There has to be. And there has to be, and that orders things, but there has to be the sound teaching of God's word so that the people can be godly or spiritual or walking by the spirit or filled by the spirit or abiding in Christ. They can live the Christian life and the power God has given them. That's what Paul is writing to Titus to equip him for. We don't have a lot of information about Titus, but we do have three chapters of this letter to Titus to tell him how he wants him to conduct a mission. And the way Paul starts with this letter is, Every letter is unique in some ways, and there are common things between the letters. The way he starts with this is an extended, a little bit of an autobiography to talk about himself. He takes the first three verses of Titus chapter one to speak about himself. just like you and I will do. He likes to talk about himself. No, no. Paul is going to say what is most important about him in Titus 1, 1 through 3. He's going to say, this is what kind of defines me, what sets me out as an individual, what makes me me, what makes Paul, Saul of Tarsus, what makes him Paul. What is it about me that I can tell you as I encourage you that you can kind of know who I am? Now, before we read it in English, and then we'll read it in translation from Greek, before we do that, think about that for yourself. Let's start with an application as we go into this. If I ask you, here's your three by five note card. Tell me about yourself. Tell me what is the most definitive thing about you. You know, when we do little parties, little get-togethers, I do this with the kids sometimes. We'll say, give us some information. How old are you? What do you want to do for a career? You know, tell us something about you we don't know. I like to snorkel or whatever. You know, something about you that we kind of get to know you. Well, that's not Paul's purpose to just kind of mix with Titus. But think about this. If you're trying to encourage someone and be an example for them and say, this is really the essence of who I am. This is what is most important about me. What would you say? What would you say? I hope you know at this point in the Christian life of Paul, after studying the great commission passages before we did the Christian life of Paul and on mission, I hope, I trust in God that you would know that Paul is gonna say his life is all about the work that God has called him to do. you would know that that's true for Paul. Now, when Paul writes to Titus and talks about himself, he is painting a picture for Titus to trace out for himself. He is telling him by example, this is how we think about ourselves. Now, Paul is a sinner saved by grace. He has a sinful nature. He has trouble with self and focus on self like we all do. But he doesn't say, I'm a selfish person that has to recover from that daily. He doesn't say that, it's true. He doesn't say that. He says, I'm a slave of God. That's how he describes himself. Now, the application is, how can I take what Paul says about him and look at the things that I have in common with Paul, and how can I say this about me? How should my life go? And how should my little autobiography be? In Titus 1, verses 1 through 3, Paul says, Paul, in the New American Standard, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness and the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested even his word and the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior." He could have just stopped at Paul. He wrote his name on the top of the index card. But then he said what Paul is. why I'm writing to you, what I'm here for, why we have a relationship, what it means to be me. This is Paul's identification because of his position in Christ. It's his identification with the work that God has for him to do. And I hope you understand there are several ways the word salvation is used in the New Testament. There are three tenses, if you will, of your salvation, three timeframes. If you have trusted in Christ, hear how I said it. If you at some point in your life have put your faith alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, and not your works, and not being a good person, and not what you do about your sin, but in Christ who died for your sin, then the truth is that you have, in the past, passed from death into life. And we call that I've been saved or I'm saved. That's the past tense of your salvation. In a sense, it's perfective because it's completed in the past and it continues to have ongoing results. In a sense, it's heuristic. I did believe and God did declare me righteous and he did give me his life. And he has put the Holy Spirit in me. And this is all true. It already happened. And so that's who I now am because of something that happened in the past. The failure to recognize that these things are settled, the moment I trust in Christ, to me, is the cancer of systematic theology in the Christian church for 2,000 years. The failure to recognize these things are settled, because just like when you're born, that's done. You're not in a process of being born. Just like when you were born, there's a point where you weren't born, and then your mother knows there's a point when you were born. Same with John 3. There is a point when you weren't born again and a point when you were. God begot you as his child in Christ when you trusted in him. That's the past tense of your salvation. But then there's the use that Paul makes most of, of this word salvation, and it's what God is doing in your life now. Phase 2, the present tense of salvation. We are being saved. We are in a process of development, of sanctification, of spiritual growth, which involves the word taken in, lived out, and tested in me. It involves God setting up conditions where I have to grow through them, and momentary light afflictions produce proven character. There is a process where God is bringing forth his character through us, and our life becomes significant. My choices matter eternally. And in that sense, listen to it. I'm saved. I'm being saved. My life isn't a waste. I'm not sitting on the pew waiting till Jesus comes and wasting my life. My life has eternal. My daily decisions have eternal purpose and value. That's I am being saved. And there is a future tense of your salvation, which is guaranteed based on what God already did. It is inevitable that you will be glorified. And that use of eternal salvation is when you already have eternal life, but it's when you receive your resurrection body and you're glorified as Jesus Christ is glorified. Right now you live that in position. You are in Christ and he's exalted and glorified as we suffer in this mortal frame and the sinful life in this sinful body, I should say. But with a new life in Christ and the temptation of sin and the pressure from the world calling to your sinful nature, that is what's going on now. We're being saved through it. But there's coming the ultimate salvation or sanctification, the glorification of the believer, which is your resurrection. which is the end of the struggle, apparently, against sin and against the world, which is not only am I declared righteous and not only am I growing in the righteousness of God, where as I walk in fellowship, I am producing God's righteousness in 1 John 1. I'm walking in the light as God is in the light. The Spirit is producing His fruit in me. I am supplying these things in my choices in 2 Peter 1. Not only is it this ongoing battle, but at the resurrection, at your glorification, you're not struggling against sin. You're wholly serving God, and you love it, and there's no regrets, there's no, what else could I be doing? There's no sense of anything but contentment in that ultimate calling of ruling with Christ, and that's your ultimate or eternal salvation, the future tense of salvation. And so there are ways, there are many ways to discuss this in terms of how it relates to sin, how it relates to righteousness, how it relates to your work, but, But understand, there are these three things going on. If you're saved, you're saved. But now the question is, what are you doing with it? How are you living? And so Paul, back to Paul, is going to say, in this present frame, I know who I am because of my position. And I know what I'm doing. So that in that sense, they say you are what you do. If you're mediocre in your performance, that makes you mediocre. If your performance is mediocre, then there's a mediocrity about you, right? If you're successful in your performance, if you're hardworking, then that makes you a hard worker. And that's phase two stuff. Like how are you performing? Paul says, if we put it all on God, if our hope is completely in Christ, if we're focused on him and we're willing to hear and do what he said in the power that he supplies, the grace of God working in you, if you're willing and choosing and working in that, because you're saturated with the scriptures, with the word and the spirit is working in your life, then you will be, listen to it, on mission. Then you will be successful in the work that God has called his church to do. And that's what Paul presents by his autobiography. Paul, a slave of God. The New American Standard attenuates that by saying a bond servant. Because Roman slavery was often bondage based on a self-selling or a temporary selling in which you are sold, you are the property, but it's like a lease. It's a temporary arrangement. And so bond servitude, like as written in the Mosaic law, would be like with debt slavery or something where you owe seven times to pay back what you stole and you can't pay it back. So now you're in slavery. You've enslaved yourself to the person by theft, by your own choices. People could say today, well, that's just evil talking about slavery. What is slavery is the question. And what is the difference between someone having a bond on you because you stole and putting someone in a cage? I'd say the difference is the dignity. And one of those, you're adding back, you're working off your debt, you're improving the lives of those you've harmed. And the other case, you're just sitting in a cage and they're paying you to sit. They're paying for you to sit. I mean, I think we worry about words and we don't think about what we're doing very often, but don't get distracted. Paul says he's a slave. Now, if it's a bond servant, that might mean it's a temporary arrangement. And that's why I don't like the word bond servant. If God bought you, And that's what the word redemption means, is purchased. Then the price was the blood of Jesus. If you've been purchased by the blood of Christ, then you're owned. And the humility of this moment is, am I willing to be owned? Am I willing to say, yes, he bought me. And in the sense that he bought me, he owns me. We've turned reality upside down as the world sees it, back to God's right side up. The best thing that you could ever be said about you is God owns you. Now, do the whole doctrine. Look at the whole Bible. John, in the Upper Room Discourse, in John, Jesus teaches, I don't call you my slaves, disciples. I don't call you slaves because the slave doesn't know what his master's doing, but I'm telling you everything the Father has given me to share with you. You're my friends. So in that sense, okay, we're children in God's family. We're first born sons, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. And there's another illustration, we're slaves, we've been bought. Now, when Paul says he's a slave, that means that I know who owns me, I know therefore who I'm supposed to serve, and I know what he wants me to do because he's given me my instructions. And so now I'm bound in this bondage to perfect righteousness and infinite love, I'm bound to live that out. It's a beautiful thing. It's the greatest thing. And I think the Bible very often takes our arrogance and we wear it on our sleeve and it slaps us with it. And we say, am I willing to say I'm a slave of Christ or am I arrogant and so corrupted by the way the world thinks about things that I'd rather be free from God? Free from God is enslavement to sin. And it is bondage that takes you to the lake of fire. In other words, everybody's gonna serve something. But Paul is a slave of God. And then he says, de, which advances. Furthermore, an apostle of Jesus Christ. What do you mean he says de? Well, you can see it right here, D-E. See the D-E? That's not diatomaceous earth. D-E is a but or an and, it's a conjunction, and it is an advancing. And this is really important to me in how Paul says he doesn't do this very often. In fact, I don't know of another place where he says this. I'm a slave of God. Furthermore, in other words, more specifically, let me say in what sense I'm a slave of God, de, an apostle of Jesus Christ. What is an apostle? Everybody's been sent. in a sense that God has a plan for your life and he's got you like go forth and conquer. But apostle is a special use of the word to send. Apostello, A-P-O-S-T-O-L-O-S is the Greek word for apostle. It comes from the verb to send, apostello. And you can hear that, apostello, to send, and apostle, one who's been sent, a sent one. Now, a lot of people have tried to make that sort of like a, Every man thing we've all been sent and so Paul's not special when he says, you know, he's an apostle He's telling us all that we're all Apostles But that that doesn't work and what you see in the New Testament the reason we're reading this from Paul authoritatively and submitting to it is because the Lord Jesus sent a few in a special sense and a few in a special sense that we call the apostles. And they are the ones that were the founders under Christ of the church. They're the ones that built on the foundation which is laid, which is Christ. And they're the trailblazers that first preached Christ. And the apostles were mostly the 11 remaining disciples of the special ones that the Lord chose. Now, there were disciples like this. There were many, many disciples of Jesus in his earthly ministry, but then there were also the 12 disciples. Well, the 11 remaining, because Judas died and demonstrated, I believe, as the son of perdition, that he never was a believer. leaves 11, the 11 become the apostles when the Spirit comes and they have a mission, the Great Commission. And what makes them sent ones is the sending of the Great Commission. Again, some will say, well, see, you're saying the Great Commission, it's only for the apostles. But you have to read what Jesus says in Matthew 28, you disciples go make more disciples. What does a disciple do? He makes disciples. So if you become a disciple under their ministry, then what do you do? You make more disciples. See, these people are the ones that God used to start the work of the church. They're the initial foundation layers. They're the ones that built on the initial foundation. And then the rest of the construction project isn't done by apostles, it's done through their teaching. And that's what the New Testament is. It's the apostolic word of God from Jesus Christ and the power of the spirit through these few. And that's what Paul is. He's an apostle of Jesus Christ. Some have tried to take apostleship and say, see, I'm an apostle now. And they'll try to exercise or exert authority over multiple local churches. And I contend that you had to be instructed by Jesus personally, face-to-face. You had to be a witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And one told by him personally, you go. And you say, well, Paul wasn't there in the gospels. He wasn't part of the story. That's right. He says he was one untimely born and he was caught up to the third heaven to be taught face to face by Jesus Christ, according to second Corinthians chapter 12. And that's why Paul will say in his letters, I say to you, not the Lord, but I'm saying I have everything. I have my notebook of everything he told me and Uh, this isn't in the notes, but now I'm going to tell you when he says something like that, he's indicating I have a lot of teaching directly from Jesus. This is what Paul is. And so this is where you and I are the same and different from Paul. We have a spiritual gift. Apostleship is a spiritual gift in Ephesians four 11. You have a spiritual gift as well. It may be a communication gift. It may not be a communication gift. It may be a support gift. in the work of the communication. But every believer in Ephesians 4 or 7 has a spiritual gift. So like Paul, you have a spiritual gift about the work. It's for the mission. So you're not an apostle, but you have the gift that God has given you that makes you a cell in the body to be about the work the body's doing. And I suspect most of the gifts are support gifts. So you're different from Paul in that you're not an apostle, but you're the same as Paul in that you have a spiritual gift for the work. Whatever part of the work is your part. Now, this is why Paul is sent by Jesus Christ, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Kata plus the accusative of pistis. That is for the purpose of, that is the purpose use of kata plus the accusative. For the purpose of the faith of God's chosen. For the purpose of the faith of God's chosen. Chosen. The eclectone, the chosen ones. There are three possible senses that that word eclectone is used, eclectos. There's the ones that God chose that had no choice in believing. That's the way people try to do this. And I don't think that's what he means when he says the elect. But this is the point of the doctrine of election. God chose. God chose. That's what the word means. It means chosen, the ones he selected. It can be selected or it can be choice, precious, valuable, the select ones, USDA prime, the one I pick. But the point is that they're the chosen. Now, the theologians argue about the question of why did God choose? Why did He choose? And that's where we all want to go and reason through. But it doesn't say why He chose. It says He chose. Now, what do you do with that doctrine and you? Here's what you do. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, please do not doubt your election. There is no statement in Scripture of someone being elect who's not a believer. How do I know I'm elect? Well, in the Calvin system, you persevere in good works until the very moment of your death, and you never waver in faith, and then you know you're elect. Otherwise, your life is an experiment to see, and you never know. That's the lack of assurance. That's the problem, the greatest problem I have with the reform system. We have records of all of them, all the great divines, even today's Piper and all these people saying, I really hope I'm elect. And they mean it in a, I'm not sure sort of way. So there's no Christian assurance in that doctrine of election. The way you know you're elect, as it depends on you knowing, is you believe in Christ as your savior. How did you come to faith in Christ? I think, from my experience, and you can probably back me up on this, it's kind of a mystery. Why did you believe? Why did you believe when you first trusted in Christ? Well, I think the Bible doesn't talk about this very much, and I wouldn't stress it. Here's the thing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll be saved. Now, what I'm proposing is immediate position between Calvinism and Arminianism, which suspends judgment on why God elected. I'm proposing that we let God be God and his infinite experience, and let us be his creatures under him with our level of experience. And don't do the Calvin reasoning. Don't do the reformed reasoning of if you're making free choices, then God isn't sovereign. That's a blurring of the creator-creature distinction. God is infinitely different than us. But anyway. The chosen are the believers, and the believers are the chosen. And the point of this word is that God chose you. God chose you. And this is for Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3, a reason to thank God on account of the Thessalonians, that he chose you. Now, People that want to hang out in the theology and, well, I want to talk about why he chose you. Because he knew you would believe. That's the Arminian answer. That's historically what Arminius and his people have said. He knew who would believe, and so he chose them knowing they would believe. And the Calvinists say, they throw a flag on the field. They say, wait a second, that makes God's sovereignty depend on human volition. And again, what we're doing is we're blurring the distinction. We're bringing God down in his decisions to our level. I don't think that's how it works. I believe you are responsible to make your choices before him. And I believe he enables you to do that. And he holds you accountable. And John three 18 tells you why people go to hell. It's because they haven't believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. That's the reason because they haven't believed it's on them. They're responsible. And that responsibility means they have agency. And that's the way God's word teaches it. Now, What do you do with the doctrine of election then if it's not about figuring out why God chose you? You rejoice. You thank God that you are of the chosen and you praise him for it and you thank him for it daily. Thank God for your so great salvation and stop thinking you deserve it. We don't, it's God's grace. I have an extremely Calvinistic personal experience. I'll bear witness for you for just a second. Told the kids at camp years ago. Maybe you remember this one. Before I became a believer, I was the worst person. I was wicked. I was hateful. I was murderous. I would tear people down if I could just get my hands on them. And then somewhere about three years old, my mother shared Christ with me where I finally understood what she'd probably been saying for months. And I trusted in Christ as my savior. What if that hadn't happened? What if my mother hadn't been there? What if she hadn't had that conviction that David needs to know Jesus? Well, if she hadn't done that when I was little, my life would have been very different. Very different. And God would have used other means to get hold of me or he wouldn't have. Right? This is how my life went. I'm here before you because my mother had to secure this. She was on a mission. And I had to hear of Jesus and I needed to trust in him and she was checking, do you believe or do you understand? And I remember my first recollection of trusting in Christ. I remember it as such a young age because I remember thinking I was in trouble for how I responded. I remember snapping back, yes, with attitude. You don't do that in my house. That was not, you know, yes, I believe. What was that tone? I remember, Very early, we don't talk like that to mama. And I remember firing back that way, and then thinking I was gonna get in trouble. And I remember thinking, I'm in trouble for saying that way. And then I remember thinking, and I really do, I'm not just telling her to quit asking me, I really do believe in Christ. That's my conversion story, not really exciting. but it started a lifetime of, are you in the word or not? Do you love God or not? And God working on me. And so I'm 45, coming on 45, been a believer for 42 years. Sounds like a long time, but that's the idea is that you disciple your children. I think that's what the Bible is presenting when the household, you and your house and John or Acts 16 31. And I believe that when that happened, I was a disciple in terms of a believer. And eventually I caught on that my life isn't my own and I needed to serve. And that wasn't the moment when I received eternal life, when I caught on that my life is God's and I need to serve him. I was saved when I first trusted in Christ, because that's the issue of faith. Faith is the point at which God justifies us, declares us with his righteousness. Now, I'm not preaching David Roseland, I'm just telling you, that's a very Calvinistic story. In terms of my choices, I'm primed, I'm the kind of person that's gonna respond to my parents, worried about what they think. She's giving me this, I'm whatever you have. I thank God my mother's a Christian, because I would have gone with whatever, perhaps. But God used that relationship. But more importantly, he used the power of his word, he used the spirit of God worked that word in me, and I trusted in Christ. And I remember choosing, yes, I trust in Christ. And I remember that. And maybe you don't remember, maybe you do. But the point is that God did a lot of prior workings for generations to bring us to that point where in the United States of America in Longview, Texas, sitting on an orange shag carpet, I said, yes, I trust in Christ as my savior. And there was a believing, there was a decision point in that. There was an entrusting, yes, I'm trusting he paid for my sins on the cross. And how do I know that I'm of the elect? Because I believe in Christ as my savior. And so Paul is ministering to those for the purpose of the faith of God's chosen. See, how will they know? He says in Romans 10, unless God sends a preacher, he, his life is to stimulate and advance the faith of the chosen of God. Those that will come become believers and their spiritual growth and believing what God's word says beyond Christ died for your sins. He is his whole life is for the faith. Now I know what we do. We compartmentalize. We say that's Paul. He's a vocational minister. That's his work. That's his life. I've got my life and I'm not a vocational minister. So since I'm not one of the communicators, an apostle, or a prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher, since I'm not one of those guys, then I'm not gonna assume the depth of commitment that Paul has to this mission, because it's his work, it's not my work. But the problem with that is that the apostle Paul, listen, is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not speaking his own little version of Christianity. He is advancing the Great Commission, which Jesus Christ gave to the body of Christ. We the entire body as one unit that we never see the whole body functioning, but in one organism in this world, we are called by him to go make disciples. And I contend, given what all God says about the future, it is recruiting. It is a recruiting phase. for those who will rule with Christ when he does come back and build, when he comes back and builds his kingdom. You're recruiting those who will say, this world is no longer my home. My life is hidden with Christ and God. I am a citizen of heaven. And when the new heavens and new earth are in operation, I will finally be living at my home on this planet. That's the idea. So you can't compartmentalize, you can't say, Yeah, I'm not gonna be a Bible teacher. Well, you may not be a Bible teacher. Hebrews 5 says, all y'all should be teachers by now. But you may not be a Bible teacher by gift. The point is though, that we all have the same work. And so Paul's devotion, his life commitment is to be mimicked by us. We are to say, what I'm doing is for him. I'm looking around the room, I'm seeing different vocations, different specializations, different jobs that you do. Paul is doing this for his work. The Macedonians send their offering through Timothy and Silas, and Paul is then able to go full-time into the ministry, we read. The Corinthians don't support him, but the Macedonians do, and so he stops just ministering on Sabbath in the synagogue, and he goes all the time into the gospel. Paul makes his living by his preaching. And with food and covering, we will be content. Understand in 1 Timothy 6, we're not in this for money, but we have to eat. That's the idea. So you can say, that's Paul, that's the pastor, that's the vocational ministers. And you're not that, most of you. You're not going to be that by calling. You're not going to be that by misguided attempt without a calling, without a spiritual gift to do it. And so you and I run the risk when we're not in the seat of Paul in that vocational work, we run the risk of saying that's for the pastor. I hope you understand that's one of the great historic errors of the church. One of the great historic blunders of the body of Christ is saying that the church is the clergy. We come to the clergy to receive the wafer. And if we'll just get the wafer and jump through the other six hoops that give us the little bit of grace with the final, the last rites, then we're saved. And our life is a project to see if I meet all the conditions, all the sacraments. But that comes from the idea that I, that the clergy is the church, and that's insane. The body of Christ is composed of every believer in Christ. Every believer is gifted with a spiritual gift, and that spiritual gift is for the work. It's for the mission. So Paul sees himself, my whole life is for the faith of God's chosen. I'm sent as an apostle for the purpose of the faith of God's chosen and the epignosis, the full knowledge of the truth, which is according to the standard of godliness, the teaching that I received from the Lord, that is this spiritual material, the spiritual information of God's revelation that you couldn't know unless God told you. You can't know this knowledge unless God reveals it to you. It's hidden, it's unknown, it's not accessible, it's spiritual. It's God's disclosure of himself, this full knowledge in accordance with spirituality or godliness. Now, where will we get it? Pastor Dave, you just said we can't have this knowledge unless God reveals it. Well, there's two ways, typically, that Christians have tried to get hold of this full knowledge, this spiritual information that is God's own self-disclosure to us. One of them is the mysticism approach, and the other is the word of God. And they're not really compatible with each other. The mystical approach is that God will occur whatever he wants to occur to me, he'll occur it to me. It will occur to me because God will give it to me, and then I'll have a word from God. If that was the way, then it's very interesting that the one thing we can touch that we are certain we have from the apostle Paul is the word of God, the Bible. Paul writes the letters because he has to. It's a method of teaching because he can't be there face to face. And it's the teaching of this content that God has given to us through the generations. You and I have the full knowledge, the epignosis of God, this knowledge that is in accord with your spiritual growth. And this is, understand, this is the superfood that you grow on. There are lots of things you can study, lots of knowledge out there. I love the study of the material universe. I love physics. I mean, to a point. I love, I mean, everything in a sense is physics until you get into the metaphysics. Biology is mostly physics. But since I'm not a materialist, it's also metaphysics because God creates life and life comes from life. I love the study of the various disciplines. I, I've, I'm a nerd. I could have specialized in anything and enjoyed it because it's so interesting and there's so much more you can get in there. There's never an end to what you can learn. But I kept asking the question, why is it like this? Why, why, why, why? In my academic pursuits in the secular realm of engineering, I wasn't so interested in how can we design a circuit as why does it work? And the ultimate answer to that question is God makes it work. I've always been a theologian, even in electrical engineering studies. I just, that was what I was interested in. What am I saying? You can study physics all day and not come to the knowledge that is in accordance with godliness. But the word of God revealed through the apostles and prophets, the prophets of the Old Testament, the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, the word of God is the way God changes your thinking and grows you into the character of Christ. And that's what we're talking about. Paul was sent for the faith of the chosen and for the full knowledge of the truth, which is in accordance to the standard, which is according to the standard of godliness. According to the standard is all the way I've translated the second katah here. According to the standard of godliness. Finally, what is godliness? Finally, on verse one, what is godliness? Godliness isn't being a good boy. Godliness isn't having particularly emotional thoughts about God. Godliness isn't a full notebook of doctrines. That'll help if it's doing its work, but it's not just how full your notebook is. What is godliness? Godliness, usabae, is not, so not self-righteousness or prissiness. Godliness is not us versus them. We are the godly, Pharisaism. Godliness is your spiritual life. It is the life of worship. It is the way to talk about the Christian spiritual life in terms of your God wordness, of your commitment and service to him. It's also translated piety, but that's an old word and people don't know what that means. Then we can talk about holiness. The problem with English words is there's enough English history of Christianity since the Reformation that every word has been borrowed by people that misused it. The holiness movement is not godliness. If you know anything about the holiness movement, the precursor to Pentecostalism. That's not godliness, it's not. It's emotionalism. It's tarrying until mystically God brings you to the higher life, the higher experience. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about believers reckoning yourself to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, based on what God has already done, thinking of yourself as God says you are and looking to him in the power of His Spirit, abiding in Christ, I am doing what He wants me to do. I am thinking like He wants me to think. I'm loving as He's commanded. Remember, the goal of our instruction is love. This is godliness. Godliness is the fruit of the Spirit lived out. Godliness is choosing that in 2 Peter 1. Godliness is laying hold of that for which Christ laid hold of you. It's your Christian life. And it's empowered by God's grace through the Holy Spirit. It is supplied by the Spirit through the word that we take in. That's why we focus on it. I didn't have to carry the projector up here today. I didn't have to put the word on the screen. We didn't have to come do this today. And now that we have, well, what have we done? We've opened the Bible and we've looked at it in some detail. The next thing he says, it's another prepositional phrase that goes along with what he's been saying before. He says, I am an apostle for the purpose of the faith of God's chosen and for the full knowledge of the truth, which is according to the standard of godliness, making disciples by an evangelism process, ending in baptism, and then by teaching them to keep all that Jesus commanded based upon the hope of eternal life. There's your foundation. And we talked about the biblical doctrine of hope last Sunday. Remember the three things you have to have to have biblical hope. There has to be the basis for it. The actual hope itself, the thing you're hoping in, there has to be the orientation toward that basis. And there has to be the certainty, the conviction that so we're future oriented. It's God's promises and especially in Christ. And it's my conviction that what he said he'd do, he would do. I'm certain of it. These are, this is biblical hope. This is the hope of eternal life. And so, Back to your boxes. I've got my life box where I do my work. I've got my Christian box where I either come to church or I study my Bible time or whatever. That's my Christian life. And we're not letting God actually have what he wants with us, which is usabaya, the whole life is his. Everything I do is worship. I worship in the courtroom. I worship at the office. I worship in the Zoom meeting. And I'm not singing God's praises to unbelievers. I am doing what I do as unto God in his power. And I'm talking to him through the day. And I'm not talking out loud like a loon necessarily in front of people. I am in a constant life of walking with my father as I abide in Christ. That's the use of by he's talking about. Now, I said, we've got our boxes. Now, why did I say that? Because if you zoom out on your life, if you take your present circumstance, I'm going through school to get my job or whatever, I'm trying to get a mortgage, whatever it is that you're focused on in the near term, and you say, okay, these are all true, they're details. Zoom out on what's really going on. When you bring eternity into the picture, you can't box God out of your life. You have to say, I'm not wasting any of my time. I've only got a few decades here to serve under pressure before the judgment seat of Christ. And that's what the hope of eternal life will do for you. My hope is not in I'll pass my exams. My hope is not in I'll get a good job. My hope is not in my, the things I'll marry the right person or we'll have the right life or any of the things that are great. And part of the details of life, your temporal mission context, remember that your temporal mission context, the circumstances of your economics and your life. These are all important. They're all very important things. But what's most important is the work, and these things are details in service to that work. So the hope of eternal life, the hope of eternal life is the basis, epi plus the dative, of this mission, which God, who does not lie, promised from eternity past. That's right, pro chronon ionion. before periods of time, eternity, eternal periods of time. Before eternal periods of time, I will say from eternity past. It's notoriously difficult to talk about time and timeframe from different languages, because time is such an abstract concept. Eternity is an abstract concept. The question of how does time relate to eternity? Maybe you think that's settled, but if you think about it for a minute and look at it from the Bible, that's a big question mark. That's a really hard thing, because what is time? Time is successive experience of existence. God isn't in time. Well, is he have a successive experience or is he a fixed point with no progression? And that question, I don't know that we can answer that. I'm just saying, be careful about dogmatizing your metaphysics beyond what the scripture says. But here's what it says pro before eternal ages, before eternal ages from eternity past. He promised this, this is God's purpose and his intention and therefore his promise from eternity past. But now in his own time, he's manifested his word in the proclamation with which word of hopeful proclamation I was entrusted. I was entrusted with this work according to the command of our Savior who is God. I think the application is obvious and it is set up for Titus to say, I'm like you, Paul, what you're saying about you is what I need to say about me. You can put a sticker. Hello, my name is, and write in Paul. Oh, you're Paul. It's nice to meet you. But you don't know what he just said by inspiration of the spirit about the work. It's the word for the benefit of the saints because there's been an entrusting of this mission. So here's the question. Paul just gave me an answer that I can sink my teeth into. I can live my life by. Why are we here? This is a little church because people generally don't want to ask these kinds of questions. Since we are here, let's make the most fun of it we can, is the way people tend to think. But stop and think about this. Paul just told you why he's here. He said it in a way to be an example for Titus. Why are we here? I think you'll find your answer if you sink down and think through Titus 1, 1-3. And the next question, if you figure out the question of why are we here, by the way, it's, I'll give you a spoiler alert. It's the great commission. It's the work that God has prepared for us. We're here in service to the coming kingdom. We're recruiting those who rule with Christ. That's why we're here. That's the reason you're here. Everything else that you are touching, everything else you have, everything else you can build is going to be left behind. when you are taken. The only thing that is eternal are the people that you're encountering and they're the mission. So the question after, why are we here? If you get the answer to that, what are you doing with your life is very helpful. This is the kind of question you can ask yourself every single day. Guys who are shaving, you can say it in the mirror. What am I doing here? What am I doing with my life? If you think that, well, I don't like the answer I see to that question. I don't know what to do. Well, a lot of times I'll stop questioning because that's too hard. It's too much to face. That's the time to pray. God, I think I know the answer to this question. I'm not doing what I need to do with my life. So help me help me get on track. If I'm not on the track, help me get on track. It's just fodder for your prayer life. I think the way Paul answered the question, why are we here? What am I doing with my life is the great commission. He said, I am here for, the faith of the saints, the faith of the chosen, and the full knowledge, their access to the full knowledge of God's self-revelation, that spiritual information we get from God's word. He had a deposit, was deposited or entrusted with him. And it was the way God was going to mature us so that we were useful to him. Godliness. That's why Paul's here. Now, Paul does it by preaching. Paul does it by studying and teaching. Paul does it by itinerant ministry all around the world. That's what Paul was doing in this work. What are you doing in this work? I don't have, and I never assume, any claim on your life that I, with special discernment, and I don't think anybody does, I'm going to mystically intuit what you need to do with your life. and how you'll serve in the work. I just know the general fact that we're all called to this work. Listen to it. I think it's a horrible abuse, a horrible abuse of the faith that's been entrusted to pastors and to any of us when we step beyond what we can know about someone else's life. It's not our job. You can't be the Holy Spirit for someone else. I can't replace God's call on your life and say, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna fix you. I can't do that. And no one can. And when someone says he can, he doesn't know he's lying. He's mystically, emotionally intuiting. Nobody can replace the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit has clearly said through Paul here, we've got work to do. So I can know that. I can rough it out in general terms. And I can be encouraging to you in specifics. Hey, I have people coming to me from time to time and say, how do I get into the work? But I think if you will get with the apostle Paul, you'll find the salvation of this life is waiting for you. The phase two salvation. My life is counting. God is using me for his purposes. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, Father, we've examined today what you've said because we want to know you on your terms. Father, I came today to looking at Titus with no agenda about what I wanted to tell these dear believers. But it's right here in how Paul presents himself. This is why Father the Apostle Paul says that if there is no resurrection, if Christ isn't raised from the dead, we are above all to be pitied because he threw his entire life. Everything about him was about this work. And that's not true for us so often. We're easily distracted. But Father Paul had special revelation from you. He was face to face with Jesus for a time of great and intensive training. And we haven't seen our Savior. We love him, but we haven't seen him. We look forward to that meeting. But Father, as we look with the eyes of faith to what your Word has said, help us take the witness of Paul that this life has a purpose. It is making disciples of your Son. That involves the Word in every case. Help us be serious about the intake and application of your Word. Father, help us constantly come back to what you've said about you and about us so that we can be calibrated, so that we're not arrogant, so that we're not self-conceited. advancing, not self-glorifying, but we're fully committed and used of you for the benefit of one another. I pray it in Jesus name. Amen.