Okay, so take your Bibles and turn to the book of Titus. So you're going to the New Testament. I'm just talking it through as I try to get there. Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, you got 1st, 2nd Thessalonians, then you got 1st, 2nd Timothy, and after you pass 2nd Timothy, you got a little book of Titus before you get to Philemon and Hebrews. If you get to Hebrews, you've gone too far. All right, so Titus. Titus, we introduced this book last week. We didn't get into any of the text, but we introduced this book last week. We talked about it's a letter. It's often called epistle. Epistle simply just means letter. It's a letter written by Paul. to this pastor on the island of Crete. Little island of Crete. Crete still exists today and it's in the Mediterranean. So this guy, Titus, is a pastor over a church or churches. He's looking over the churches. in the island of Crete. And so Paul, where are we at in Paul's life when he writes this? Paul actually has been arrested. All of the events that have taken place in Acts have already passed. Acts ends in chapter 28 where Paul actually goes to Rome and is imprisoned. Paul eventually is released from that imprisonment and at this time he writes a letter to Ephesus, which is to the pastor in Ephesus named Timothy, which is what we have in the Bible called First Timothy. And he writes a letter, excuse me, to the churches in Crete, which is to the pastor there, who is known as Titus, and this is the book of Titus. Now, eventually, after a year, maybe a year and a half, Paul is arrested again, and that's where he ends up going to Rome again. He gets before Nero, the emperor of Rome, and he is then subsequently beheaded. and that's where he ends. But Paul, during this time, writes a letter to this pastor Titus. Titus was a Gentile. He was not a Jew. Paul was a Jew. Titus was a non-Jew, so he was considered a Gentile. And he is one of Paul's converts, which we're going to get to that part of the text today. So let's do this. With that sort of introduction out of the way, A summary of what took 40 minutes to say last week. I know I left some things out, but verses 1 through 4 is what we're going to cover today. So let's read Titus chapter 1, verse 1 to verse 4. Paul, a servant of God and an 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. To Titus, my own son after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior." All right, so a couple things will jump off of the page to you in simple observation. Just give you a couple of insights as far as Bible study goes. When you approach Bible study, this is what I was taught. I like this. I try to practice this. Not always, though. Sometimes time constraints hinders you from doing this. But you approach it sort of like a detective. You approach it like Sherlock Holmes. That's what one of the Bible teachers I had said. You're Sherlock Holmes going to the scriptures, okay? So you're looking for things. You're observing. You are trying to take in observations from what you see and deduce things all around. So the first two things that you may notice is, number one, This is a greeting. That's all this is. Because when you get to verse 4, he's just like, grace and peace and mercy be to you. So, so far, all this is is a greeting. But there's so much packed into this greeting that we're going to spend today's lesson just covering the greeting. Number two, you'll notice that this is just one sentence. four verses, and it's just one sentence. Now, they say that Paul is the king of run-on sentences. Now, I'll show you how much my grammar knowledge goes. I never understood what a run-on sentence was. That was what I was always counted for in grammar class, was a run-on sentence, run-on sentence, run-on sentence. I was like, well, I'm not done with my thoughts, so I don't want to throw a period in there. Grammar was not my forte. When I was in high school, I tried hard each year to try to get the A, B honor roll, and I never got it because of English grammar. I always had a C in grammar. Then I go to college, and they had this class in college, they called, it was an entry exam, and you took an English grammar exam, and if you passed the exam, you went to English grammar on the collegiate level, which was three credits. If you didn't pass it, you went to introduction to English grammar, which you got zero credit for, which, in college, they called it bonehead English. English X, that must be the politically correct way to say it. We called it bonehead English. I knew, I knew I was going to be in bonehead English. I never could get a B in English in high school. And so I took the English exam and I made a 98 on it. And I was like, how is this possible? So I ended up going straight to collegiate English and I flew past it. I was like, man, I must have had a hard English teacher. But I wouldn't, I always sort of check myself now. But this first four verses in this book here, it's just one sentence. It's one long sentence. Now today, and one of the things that I try to stay away from, that we are going to do today is we are going to look at several Greek words. Several word studies in this really brings out the meaning of these four verses. So we are going to be using some Greek. Of course, the New Testament was originally written not in English. Okay, we understand that. English was not even around when this was written. It was written in what's called Greek or what's more specifically Koine Greek. It was a Greek of the common language. It was just sort of like your everyday Greek language. So we're going to look at some several Greek words. I've got this text split up into sort of three individuals. First we see Paul, then we're going to look at God, and then Titus. So let's look at this. First Paul. He says, first of all, Paul... a servant of God. I mentioned this last week and we're gonna hit it right off the bat here, but this word that's translated in your English translation, servant, is not the Greek word for servant. It is the Greek word doulos, and doulos means slave. So what Paul was saying was, I am a slave of God. I'm a slave of God. Why would he use such language? Are we slaves? We use a lot of terminology when we talk about Christianity that Christ set us free. That we are free from sin. And we talk about freedom. In fact, the entire letter of Galatians, the theme of the letter of Galatians that Paul writes is that they have freedom in Christ, not bound by the law. So why does Paul, and this is not the only place, he uses it quite a bit, why does Paul continually refer to himself as a slave? Well, a slave was somebody who was bought and paid for. They belonged to a master. He really explains this and breaks this down in Romans 5, 6, and 7. And those three chapters, Paul explains this, and let me give you a sort of summation of those three chapters. He says this, you were a slave to sin. When you were in sin, before you were in Christ, you were a slave to sin. You didn't do the worst, most vile sins possible, but you could not stop sinning. You did not have the capability of not sinning. You were a sinner, okay? You were a slave to sin. Sin was your master. The devil was your master before you were in Christ, before you came to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, before you became a Christian. And he says in Romans, he says you exchanged that master for a new master. You then went from being a slave to sin to now you are a slave to Christ. He is your master. This idea of somebody being saved and then just living whatever way they want to is not biblical. You don't find that type of Christian in the Bible at all. because someone who is a slave obeys their master. Now, I'm not talking about sinless perfection. It doesn't mean that once you become a Christian, you are a perfect specimen, that you don't ever commit any sins whatsoever. We still carry around the flesh. And again, that would be a great exegesis on Romans that we could get into, but we're not gonna go there today. Simply put, when we are in Christ, you are a Christian today, your master is Christ, and he is a good master. He is a good master. We live in a day and age where the idea of slavery is such a distasteful stigma, that's the word I'm looking for, has such a stigma attached to it. Slavery is terrible. We're reminded of it all the time in the news. Somebody wants to talk about the slavery of the past and you hear people talk about, we need reparations for slavery. You know what you never hear about is the Jews Asking for reparations from Egypt? They were slaves for 400 years. But what I mean is, and of course we as Christians should be against slavery. Slavery is not biblical. But we also have to be honest when we come to the biblical text. Slavery was a very common thing in the culture that this letter was written in. The Roman culture that Jesus Christ walked and lived and was crucified and then shortly after the church was born into, slavery was a common thing. Slaves was how the Roman culture and the Roman nation operated. Everybody had slaves. In fact, Rome, like the big generals, whenever they would go conquer a people, Many times they took the soldiers and they automatically gave them a choice, slavery or die. And they took the soldiers back to Rome or back to a major province and then they would start selling them. And so some of the Roman generals would become rich off of selling the people that they conquered, the soldiers that they conquered. Many of the mediators were basically just soldiers of the armies that the Roman army had conquered. And so, because of that, you ended up having slave revolt. The most popular slave revolt, of course, was the revolt of Spartacus about 60 to 70 years before the time of Christ. And Spartacus was a Greek soldier who was conquered, actually betrayed by the Romans and then taken into slavery and Spartacus became a Roman gladiator. And then he led a revolt, and it was probably the strongest revolt. And many historians think that this could have been the slave revolt that would have overthrown the Roman Empire, but the fact that these guys just were not disciplined, and a very brilliant young general rising up in the Roman army by the name of Julius Caesar stepped in and made a huge difference in the army. Slavery was a common thing. In fact, a lot of times, Roman citizens would sell themselves into slavery to pay a debt. They would do debt gambling, and in order to pay the debt, if they couldn't pay it, it wasn't like they do in the mafia up in the Northeast where they break your knees, okay? You had to go. If you could not pay the debt, you had to sell yourself into slavery until that debt was paid, and so many Roman citizens were slaves. They gave up their citizenship to become a slave because they got into debt. So Paul uses this term here about himself. I am a slave of God. That's his identity. And one of the things that we have to come to a realization as a Christian is to understand our identity should be the same. We are a slave of God. We were bought with a price. He paid for us with blood, with the blood of God's Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. And so we are His slave. Then we go to His title. What is His title? Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. This is the term apostolos. It means messenger or one who is sent. So he is one. He was Jesus Christ's messenger or he was sent by Jesus Christ. Of course, the signification of apostle there is one who actually saw Jesus Christ alive after the resurrection. That is one of the reasons why we say there are no such apostles today. Once the last person that saw Jesus Christ alive and was given the gift of apostleship died, which was John the Revelator, John the disciple, the apostles died. Don't be deceived by somebody coming up and saying that they are an apostle. Then they'll probably soon be asking for money. So stay away from those types of people. Lincoln Duncan says, he says that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. He did not call himself to the ministry. He was sent by Christ into the ministry. That's another thing. Be careful of people that call themselves into the ministry. I never understood that. I never really understood that. Why would you want to get... I mean, I guess there are certain sects of Christianity that try to make this look like a lazy, lucrative job, but it is not. It's not in my experience. And quite honestly, those that make it lucrative, I think I have some major issues with. His purpose. What is his purpose? The last part of verse 1. according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness. Now stay with me here because we're going to do a jump on the train and go with me. All right. So here we are. He says his purpose is number one for the faith. What is the faith? The faith of of salvation, the gospel. It is for the faith. All right. So for the faith of God's elect. Now, first of all, before we get into doing the word study on that, let me understand. Let me help you understand what he's saying here. He's saying that I am an apostle sent by Jesus Christ for getting the gospel to God's elect. It is his job, his mission, his purpose of his ministry is to spread the gospel. Spread the gospel to who? He doesn't just say everybody. Of course, that is the offer of the gospel. The offer of the gospel is to everybody. But Paul specifies here, for God's elect. So let's do a word study this morning. There are some, I read in my commentaries this week, I was looking for somebody who disagreed with the basis that God's elect means that God has chosen who is going to be saved. And so I wanted to sort of do a argument and find out what the other side, because when you come to God's elect, now, before I came to this theology, number one, I stayed away from that term. Of course, I never, I just, I didn't think it was in the Bible as much as it was. I thought it was gone and they tried by word through the Bible. You have to deal with the hard passages. And the other thing is you find out things are in the Bible a little bit more often than you think that they are. This is a recurring theme. The fact of the matter is, is if somebody of God, they have to deal, number one, with the fact that it's there. It's in the Bible. You have to come to a conclusion next. What does it mean? when Paul uses several times this term, God's elect. And by the way, the term elect is from talking about here. So what does it mean? So here are the two options. Let's put them on the scales. Elect either means ELEKT, as I said, is from the Greek term ELEKTOS. It means by the definition. Now then I went a little bit deeper and took out Vine's definition, Vine's dictionary of Greek term. Literally signifies picked out, chosen, from the Greek form, the preface of the word ELEKTOS, ek, which means out of, lego, to gather or pick out. When it's used of Christ, it's talking about Jesus Christ as the chosen of God, as cornerstone, as 1 Peter 2.46 talks about. The other usage, doubtless believers. Jews or Gentiles? Matthew 24, 22, 24, 1 Peter. Believers are so mentioned in Romans 16, 13, and 2 John 1, 13. Believers were chosen in a war to adoption, good works, conformity to Christ, salvation from the delusions of the Antichrist. Romans 9, 11, and Romans 11, 5. They are given by God the Father, the fruit of His fruits from some men that have done work on this passage and this work. First of all, what is Matthew Henry. Properties that God's elect will exercise saving faith in Christ at the appointed time. R. Kent Hughes, those who believe are God's elect, meaning their eternal status is determined by the love of a heavenly heart. Daniel Aiken, salvation from beginning to end is the sovereign work of the grace of God, and yet no one will be saved that does not repent and believe, and all who repent and believe will be saved. Okay, so that's the case, for that's what this term means. All right, what about, what would somebody say that doesn't believe this? How do they define this? All right. I had one commentary that tried to put an opposite view on there, and they spent two pages, two full pages, on a defense of their position. And quite honestly, it was very confusing. They give two explanations. The first explanation is this. Understanding election is based on God's foreknowledge. Now here's what they say. According to Romans 8, 29, it says that whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate. So predestinate means predetermine their end. So whatever your end, your eternal state will be, it's been predestined or predetermined, which goes along with election. But there the order is foreknow before predestinate. Let me see if I can catch it real quick. 1 Peter 1.2 says, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. So those two verses, this is what they'll say. They present the case that election, you were chosen in Christ because God foreknew. Okay, God foreknew. But they add a little bit on that Scripture doesn't talk about. This is what they add on. This is their explanation of this. This is one. One explanation. You are chosen in God. Elect means what it means. It means chosen. You are chosen in God because God foreknew, looked down the corridors of time, and saw that you would choose Him. Therefore, because He knew you would choose Him, He chose you. Now, on the surface, you may say, OK, well, I get that. But let me ask you to just think about that for a second. Because on the surface level, that seems like that's resolved the issue. But on the deeper level, that makes no sense whatsoever. And I'll explain why. We're talking about, number one, God of all the universe, right? We went through the doctrine of God. We saw God is omnipotent. He's all-powerful. God is omniscient. He knows all things. His knowledge is perfect. He never learns anything new. Okay, so let's just say that's true. Who then does the choosing? If God looks through the corridors of time, through His foreknowledge, and saw that you would choose Him, so then He puts language in the New Testament saying that you are His chosen, who really did the choosing? You did. So, what sense does it make at all for God to say that He chose you? Because He didn't choose you. So why say it to begin with? It makes no sense. Number two reason why that makes no sense. Because God never has ever had any new knowledge. When we talk about the omniscience of God, God knows all things. His knowledge is perfect. He's never learned anything new. So how could He look through the corridors of time and see that you would choose Him? That would not be new knowledge to Him to then make a decision to choose you. His knowledge is perfect. If I'm turning your brain into spaghetti already on a Sunday morning, I'm sorry. But I'm saying this does not hold up. This argument does not hold up. By the way, that's not how God's omniscience work. He never looks through the corridors of time for anything. God is outside of time. He sees everything as it's already taken place, before it's taken place, and as it's taking place. You say, that makes no sense. That's God. We are not God. So then we cannot understand that. He is outside of time. So that's the omniscience of God. That's why that view doesn't work. So I don't see any validity into that viewpoint of how to explain election according to us for knowledge. Reason number three why that view doesn't work is it is a total misunderstanding of the term for knowledge. Because when you do a word study on foreknowledge as used in Romans 8, 29 and used in 1 Peter 1, 2, you find out that the true understanding of foreknowledge is not necessarily knowing something. Of course, his knowledge is perfect, but it is foreloved. Because the most popular term used in the Bible for a love relationship is to know. It's used several times in the Old Testament. And then in the New Testament, the same term that's used for foreknowledge is used in another place in the New Testament to describe Adam and Eve's relationship. the Old Testament. They knew each other. And so he properly understood the term for knowledge in the New Testament is God for love. So therefore he chose us based on his love, which by the way is not a single shred different from how he operated in the Old Testament. Why did he choose the nation of Israel? Why did he choose the people of Israel? Because he loved them. not because of anything they did or how they behaved or anything that they were in stature. He told them, He chose them because He set His love upon them. And so, therefore, anybody that is in Christ is chosen in Christ because of God's love. He foreloved you. John tells us this in 1 John. We love him because he first loved us. That's first explanation broken down. They say, they tried to explain election as used in the New Testament by saying it's based on God's foreknowledge. You may disagree with my premise there. I personally think the explanation that I just gave That is just torn completely apart. What's the other reason? Now see if you can understand this, because this is what the guy that I read after spent two pages talking about. I didn't get it. Alright. This is what he says. Election and predestination have to do not with determining who are to be saved. Okay, so that's understandable what he's saying, right? He's setting up that election does not have to do with anything about your salvation, right? It's not about who God determines who's going to be saved. Here's where he totally loses me. But, with God's high and holy destiny for all those who are saved. What does that even mean? Let me read it again full on without any stop. Election and predestination have to do not with determining who are to be saved, but with God's high and holy destiny for all those who are saved. That's his explanation. He spent two pages, and again, I read every word of those two pages, and I was like, you're not even talking about the same subject anymore. The fact of the matter is, uncomfortable truths make men uncomfortable, and they will do whatever they can to try to explain them away. Some people say that election has to do with sanctification. I think that's sort of what he's getting at. You are chosen to be sanctified. Well, how do you get to be sanctified? You have to get saved. Okay, some will concede this, I don't believe, I've heard this explanation, I don't believe that God chose who's going to be saved, but no one can get saved unless the Spirit draws them, because they can't explain away John chapter 6, which we're going to get to on Sunday nights shortly. So they say, I know the Holy Spirit has to draw them, but I don't believe God chose anybody who's going to be saved. Okay, so is the Holy Spirit part of the Godhead? Okay, does the Holy Spirit draw every single person to salvation? Obviously not, because people go to hell. So therefore, the Holy Spirit then, to draw someone to salvation, has to make a choice. You see what I'm saying? None of these arguments will hold up. Now, this is, I admit, not a comfortable truth when you first address it. Because what does it infringe on? What does it solely smack in the face of? Free will. Okay? And we don't like that. Why? Because we've been taught from birth, we have a free will. But let me ask you a question. How do we say God is sovereign and man is free at the same time? without delineating or diminishing God's sovereignty. So this is what I like to ask people. Where are you going to try to limit God's sovereignty? Because obviously you can't limit God's sovereignty, but where do you try to limit God's sovereignty? Is God sovereign over all? And the most common Christian is going to say, well, yeah, yeah, God's sovereign over all. Nobody will deny God's sovereignty right off the hand. So, if you can determine what you want, when you want it, then He's not sovereign over you. That's the conclusion you're making. But God is sovereign overall. Now, in God's sovereignty, has He given us volition? Has He given us choice? Yes. It does not violate His sovereignty. Now, where we talk about freedom, does somebody, let's go to somebody who's not saved. Before you were saved, in your unregenerate state, in your unsafe state, did you have freedom of choice? To an extent. You were free to choose whatever sin you wanted to do. What you could not choose was what you most desperately needed, and that was Christ. Why? Because you were, as Paul says in Ephesians, dead in your sins. And you've heard me say this a million times, and I'll say it a million times more. What can a dead man do? You cannot choose. Someone in their sins cannot choose Christ. You say, well, how do we come to Christ? We make a choice, right? For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift, the antecedent to gift. It's not just grace, it's grace and faith. Your faith is a gift of God. That is another one that's not just hit there, but hit several other places in the New Testament. He grants you the gift of faith. That gift of faith then allows you to repent and believe, and you make the choice for God. All right, so do you have a responsibility? Are you responsible for your actions? Is God sovereign over all, but man responsible for his actions? Yes. You say, explain that. I say, I can't. No one can. What I can tell you is that the Bible teaches that man is responsible. And what the Bible teaches is that God is sovereign. And these are two doctrines that I can't explain because I'm not God. In fact, Charles Spurgeon said this about this. What shall we say to God's sovereignty and man's responsibility? How shall we reconcile these two truths? Charles Spurgeon said, I don't try to reconcile brothers. for these are two parallel tracks that exist on the same plane. No, I don't have to reconcile these because they are true." That's what Spurgeon said about this. And by the way, this is what helps me with this truth too, besides the fact that I see it all through Scripture. It's all over the Bible. I'm not off my rocker for believing this, as some of, especially my family, say that I am, okay? I'm not off my rocker because I'm in pretty good company. Because every single person that we've covered in the last two years in those biography sketches believe the exact same thing. From Clement of Rome all the way to John Knox. Martin Luther, William Tyndale, Hugh Latimer. And by the way, we're going to get to several more. John Bunyan believed this. Let's see some other Puritans. Jonathan Edwards believed this. George Whitefield believed this. William Carey believed this. Charles Spurgeon believed this. In fact, interesting story about William Carey. William Carey is known as the father of modern missions, who took missions to India for the first time in the 1800s. and they were on a boat to India. They were on an old ship to India, and he had a team of guys that were with him. And he found out that one of the guys on there, through argument with some of the other mission team, did not believe in the sovereignty of God over man's souls. He did not hold what is popularly coined the term Calvinism. William Carey got so upset that he had one guy on his team that didn't uphold that, he threatened to turn the ship around and send him back to England. And somebody asked this, what is the purpose? I like this, this is one of my favorite answers to this objection. Well, if God is in control and God is sovereign over who's gonna be saved, then why evangelize? First of all, and I know I've gotten way off topic as far as the verses here, but what did Paul say was the purpose of his ministry according to the faith of God's elect? His goal of his ministry was to give the gospel. Evangelization is exactly his purpose in ministry. But there was a question and answer session at a Ligonier conference, and somebody asked the question, if God is gonna choose who's gonna be saved, why, what's the motivation for evangelism? And it was quiet. And one guy put his microphone up to his mouth and said, guaranteed success. I love that. It's exactly right. Okay? This is not an easy truth. but Paul deals with it right there as it's just understood. So, we see then, let me finish up these next two verses. For the knowledge of the truth, the Greek word here translated acknowledge is epigonosis, which refers to experiential knowledge or practical wisdom. Someone without epigonosis can genuinely believe a truth, yet lack the practical skills to apply it effectively. And then he says, which is after godliness. And then he continues on, and this is where I think it shifts to talking about God. Number two, God. First, God's prohibition. And hope of eternal life, which God, that what cannot lie. When I was in West Virginia, we did these little booths at the fair. We had this little thing set up, three things God cannot do. And God cannot lie, God cannot change, and God cannot let anybody into heaven without being born again. I mean, God cannot lie. He can't lie. Numbers 23.9, God is not a man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind. He has said and he will not do it. Or he has spoken and he will not fulfill it. That's a question. Then God's promise. God's promise. Verse 2, In hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. What is the promise? The same hope that Paul's talking about to begin with. The same context. He's talking about the gospel. This gospel that he promised from Genesis 3.15 that the serpent would bruise the heel of Eve's seed, but he would bruise the head of the serpent. That is a direct prophecy in reference to Jesus Christ coming with the gospel. And that was his promise. Then we see The win of His promise before the world began. Ephesians 1 verse 4 says, "...you who He hath chosen before the foundations of the world." This promise was set up before the world was even created. Then we see the win of His proclamation. Verse 3, "...but hath in due times or in the proper time manifested or made clear His word through preaching." Here in the Bible we have the setup for expository preaching. You say, yeah, it doesn't say that. What is expository preaching? Expositional or expository preaching is preaching that explains the Bible. It's preaching that goes through the Bible, whether verse by verse or character study or maybe topical, but it explains the Scriptures first and foremost. What is the language he uses? He uses manifested, which is to make clear, to make visible. So, explaining His Word in the preaching. This is the word kerugama, which is a form of the word keruso, which is used in the New Testament for the preaching of His Word. So, see here you have set up the method of how He's going to get His purpose out. His purpose is the faith for God's elect to spread the gospel and He does so in the manner of preaching. He made clear expositional preaching. Warden Reesby said he wanted Titus to make the Word of God a priority in his ministry. Throughout all three pastoral epistles there is an emphasis on teaching the Word of God. Local churches ought to be Bible schools where the Word of God is taught systematically and in a practical way. And then the who of the proclamation, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Savior. He says, this is my purpose. This mission was given to me, Paul, as a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. and then the how of the proclamation according to the commandment of God our Savior. It was commanded by Jesus Christ to do this. So then we see Titus. Let's get to verse 4. I'm running out of time. So verse 4, to Titus. Now we finally, after those three verses of doctrine, I mean this is straight up theology. He gets to verse 4, 2 Titus, mentions Titus now. 2 Titus, my own son after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. Titus is first beloved by Paul, his own son after the common faith, and then Titus is blessed by Paul. He gives him this greeting. This greeting is important. He says grace, this is the provision of God's Son. Matthew Henry said grace is the free favor of God and acceptance with Him. Then he says mercy, the protection of God the Father. Mercy is the fruits of that favor and pardon of sins and freedom from all miseries by it both and hereafter. And then peace, the product of God the Holy Spirit and peace, the positive effect and fruit of mercy." Grace and mercy, unmerited favor, withholding of divine punishment. He is blessing him with these two things. The product of those two things are peace. That's the product of the gospel. Peace. Not this world's definition of peace, peace and quiet. That's the world's definition. Don't go to the world for definition of biblical terms. But this is God's peace. The peace of your soul. So that is the greeting. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. From there, Paul goes on to start explaining about what Titus needs in his church. And what he says is you need elders. You need men to lead your church. So he gives him some qualifications, some ways to pick out and know what are good men to have in the church. And so we're going to break down verses five through nine next, not next week, next week is homecoming. But the week after that, we're going to do that. So that's verses five through nine. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us. You are a great, wonderful, loving God. And we pray that we can honor you by getting into your word, understanding theology, and we pray that you will help us to grow closer to you and understand our purpose in ministry as Paul did, understand our identity, and live in the grace, mercy, and peace that you provide in the gospel. We pray that everything that is done in the worship service will glorify your name. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.