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Titus 1:1-3
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Now our sermon text is from Titus, chapter one. We'll read the first four verses, Titus one, beginning in verse one. I remind you, these aren't just Paul's words.
[00:00:18] As though a good man wrote some good ideas, some wise things.
[00:00:22] But these are the very words of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and profitable for our salvation.
[00:00:29] So listen accordingly, Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.
[00:00:36] 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.
[00:01:17] Will you pray with me?
[00:01:20] Lord Jesus, our great God and our King.
[00:01:24] We continue to magnify you for your great works of salvation.
[00:01:31] Not only did you die for the sins of your people, but you rose from the dead.
[00:01:36] You broke the power of death, reversing it not only for yourself, but for the sake of us, your people, so that we might be set free from spiritual death.
[00:01:53] And so that one day you might come and raise us physically, bodily, from the dead.
[00:01:59] We thank you that having risen from the dead, you have ascended on high. You are glorified again for our sakes.
[00:02:07] That one day we might be changed in the twinkling of an eye and be made fit, brought into the presence of God forever.
[00:02:18] And we thank you, Lord Jesus, our King, that you have been seated at the right hand of the Father, and that from there you reign over us, subduing us to yourself, making us your people, protecting us, governing our hearts, guiding us, protecting us, keeping us safe.
[00:02:40] We thank you especially that you do so through the preaching of the Gospel.
[00:02:45] That as your word is read, as we read it in our homes, as we read it now in your church, and as it is proclaimed, you speak to our hearts from heaven and by your spirit, you cause us to believe, to understand, to feed upon you.
[00:03:04] As you reveal yourself to us in your word. So bless us. Now then, we ask, according to these things, in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:03:13] Please be seated.
[00:03:25] Well, as we're raising our children, they get to a certain age and we start to talk to them about having goals in life, don't we?
[00:03:34] Maybe they start with lesser goals, like finishing high school and making plans and aims towards some kind of a further schooling, college or maybe preparation for a trade.
[00:03:48] And we teach them that they need to set their aim on something kind of like aiming an arrow or aiming a gun at a target. You have to aim yourself and your life towards some kind of an objective or goal in order to get there, right. You have to aim that arrow at the target or there's no chance. You still might miss the target. But if you don't aim it at the target, you're never going to hit it, right?
[00:04:16] We teach our children that they have to begin identifying goals, objectives and taking aim and then marching in that direction, whatever that may be here in these verses. And what we're going to consider primarily this evening is Paul telling us, telling Titus, telling me as a pastor, telling us as a congregation, that in the Gospel ministry one of preachers chief aims is to aim at the faith of the elect.
[00:04:49] We need to take aim at your faith.
[00:04:54] If we don't take aim at your faith, we won't accomplish what God has called us to in the Gospel ministry.
[00:05:04] We're going to begin first by working a little bit through the passage, explaining it briefly, and then we'll move on to expound that idea that teaching about preachers needing to take aim at the faith of the elect.
[00:05:19] We're beginning a new book, this letter to Titus. Titus is serving as like a church planner, a missionary on the island of Crete. Paul had been there, the Apostle Paul had been there with Titus. They'd gone on a missionary journey to Crete. They'd gone around to preach the gospel in all the towns on Crete. There were the beginnings of churches. Paul moved on and he left Titus behind on Crete to finish the work of planting churches on the island of Crete. That's the basic story, the basic context of this letter.
[00:05:52] Having left, Paul writes this letter and sends it back to Timothy with teaching, instruction and encouragement to the young missionary Titus to help him finish the work of planting churches on the island of Crete. That's our context.
[00:06:09] Now, the opening verses of this letter that we just read, particularly the first three verses where Paul talks about himself and being an apostle and so on. Those three verses are already beginning to implant in Titus mind and in our hearts the nature of the gospel ministry and its aims.
[00:06:31] These verses, these first three verses serve a little bit like a business card. If someone's handed you a business card and you take a look at it, you know what's on there.
[00:06:42] There's the person's name, the company he works for, and usually his job title. And hopefully the job title is helpful enough. Between that and the kind of company to tell you what the man or woman's occupation is. That is to say what kind of work he does.
[00:07:01] Who is this person and what does he do?
[00:07:04] Paul, here is. It's as though he's handing Timothy Titus. I'm sorry, Titus. And us. His business card, saying, here's who I am. Here's my job title. Here's what I do.
[00:07:16] Now, when you learn something about a person's occupation, his job title, you immediately learn at least two things.
[00:07:25] If his business card says that he's a plumber, that tells you something about what he does.
[00:07:33] Plumbers fix pipes. They install new pipes and other plumbing fixtures like bathtubs and so on.
[00:07:40] If his job title says that he's a plumber, it tells you something about what he does. Same thing with a carpenter. If it says carpenter on his business card, you know, hey, he probably builds houses and buildings.
[00:07:53] It also tells you something about what that man's aims are, what his goals or objectives are in his work.
[00:08:01] If he's a plumber, you know that his aim is to install fixtures and fittings and pipes that work and don't leak. Pretty simple. They need to flow properly. Water coming in, water going out with no leaking. That's his goal. That's his aim. Similarly, carpenters want to build things that are level and flat and don't fall down. That's pretty much it. Pretty simple.
[00:08:26] Build something that holds up the walls and the roof. It's all level and flat and doesn't fall down. So when you learn something about someone's occupation, you learn something about what he does, who he is, and what his objectives are.
[00:08:40] Here, like on a business card, Paul briefly tells Titus and us what his occupation is, what his work is. He's an apostle of Christ Jesus. He's someone that Jesus has sent to to preach the gospel.
[00:08:56] It tells us about his work as an apostle, that as an apostle he's going to go around representing Jesus to people, teaching people about who Jesus is.
[00:09:08] He's a preacher.
[00:09:11] Now, there's three key ideas in these verses, verses one through three, that Paul tells us about his ministry, about his ministry as a gospel preacher.
[00:09:22] First, he tells us his aims or his goals. We've been talking about that.
[00:09:26] He tells us about a promise that he has that's very important to him as a gospel preacher. And thirdly, he tells us about his preaching. You see all three there. His aim or his goals. You find in verse one.
[00:09:40] His ministry as an apostle is for the sake of the faith of God's elect. That's one goal.
[00:09:46] It's for the sake of their knowledge of the truth. So their faith, their knowledge. And then thirdly, their hope of eternal life. Faith, knowledge and hope. These are three chief aims that Paul as a gospel preacher has.
[00:10:02] You see his promise, the promise that God made before time began.
[00:10:09] Paul's ministry hangs on this promise. And then finally he talks about his preaching that was entrusted to him by the Lord Jesus. This evening we're going to begin looking at Paul's ministry aims or goals.
[00:10:25] Paul opens this letter talking about his ministry, his preaching, his promise, the work that he does.
[00:10:32] And he does so for Titus. So that Titus would be reminded about his work as a preacher, but also so that we would be reminded and and taught me as a pastor and a preacher, and you as those receiving the gospel ministry, that we would all learn about what the aims of the gospel ministry are. And tonight in particular, that aim that Paul as an apostle of Jesus Christ, has been entrusted with ministry for the sake of the faith of God's elect.
[00:11:06] This is one of his three chief aims in gospel ministry. And it's one that every Gospel preacher needs to take aim at every time he's standing up here in front of you and every time he's visiting you in your home.
[00:11:21] It's one of our chief aims.
[00:11:24] Very important. So we're going to look and consider that this evening that the preacher is to aim at the faith of God's elect.
[00:11:36] We're going to draw out three parts to this teaching or this doctrine that the preacher's chief aim or one of his chief aims is the faith of God's elect. The first thing we're going to consider is that the ministry is for the elect.
[00:11:53] What does that mean?
[00:11:54] We use the word election pretty much just about electing people to public office or other offices in our society. We don't use it very much else, but all the word really means is to choose someone in an election. We are choosing someone to be president or judge or whatever.
[00:12:12] What this word means here in this verse is that God has chosen some people and he has chosen those people to save them.
[00:12:23] That's all Paul is saying. There are some people that God has chosen to save.
[00:12:28] Mankind has fallen. We've all fallen into sin. And therefore we've fallen under God's condemnation and judgment. But God has elected or chosen some to save out of their sins and out of judgment. Jesus talks about it this way in John chapter 10. That's the chapter where Jesus talks about how he's the good shepherd and he came to lay down his life for the sheep and he tells us that it isn't just any sheep, but that there are sheep that belong to Him.
[00:12:59] They're his sheep. And his sheep know his voice and they hear it. And when they hear his voice, they follow Him.
[00:13:08] And then he tells us something very important about his sheep. He says that these sheep that he calls to Himself, that He died for these sheep are those that the Father gave Him. In other words, God chose some sheep, some people, and gave them to the Son so that the Son would go and die for them.
[00:13:29] These are the elect.
[00:13:31] The elect. And the gospel ministry is for the elect that they might be brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ. That's what Paul's saying here. So the first aspect of this doctrine is simply that there are some whom God has chosen to save. He's elected them, and the ministry is given to the church so that the elect might be drawn to saving faith in Christ.
[00:13:57] You can see already why that needs to be our chief aim, the faith of the elect.
[00:14:05] There's two aspects to this aiming at the faith of the elect. And the first is that we are in the gospel ministry to take aim at saving faith.
[00:14:20] Or to put it another way, in our preaching, in our teaching, in our prayers, we are aiming at bringing people who don't believe in Jesus yet to come to believe in Jesus. We are aiming at the conversion of sinners to be brought from unbelief to belief, to be brought from denying Christ to. To confessing him and putting their trust in Him.
[00:14:48] We can break this down, this idea of saving faith down. Very simply, all that's necessary for salvation of sinners comes through Jesus Christ.
[00:15:02] If you are to be saved. Everything that's necessary for salvation comes in Jesus. The Bible is very clear on this.
[00:15:10] Secondly, you receive Jesus savingly through faith, that is to say, by coming to know him and putting your trust in him and depending upon him and him alone for salvation. That's what happens in saving faith.
[00:15:26] Paul says this in Romans 10, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
[00:15:46] There in the context of that chapter, Paul is talking about the fact that in order to come to saving faith, the Gospel has to be preached. People have to hear the word of salvation in Jesus Christ and then they have to believe it in their hearts and confess it with their mouths, and then they will come to saving faith.
[00:16:05] Or we could turn to another passage that teaches Something similar that. Salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:16:12] Ephesians 2:8, we read by grace you have been saved through faith.
[00:16:18] Salvation comes only through faith in Christ.
[00:16:24] So very clearly here then, Gospel preachers need to aim at the faith, the saving faith of the elect, that you might come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:16:37] There's a second aspect of this, aiming at your faith.
[00:16:41] Once you've come to know Jesus, we continue to take aim at your faith. What do I mean by that?
[00:16:48] We take aim at the preservation and growth of your faith.
[00:16:54] You come to know Jesus Christ. You're united to him, you need to remain united to him. And not only do you need to remain united to him, but you need to grow in that faith. You need to come to know more of him, more of how loving he is, more of how merciful he is, more of how powerful he is to deliver you from sin and from anything you could encounter.
[00:17:18] Paul says this in Colossians chapter one.
[00:17:22] He says that one day Christ is going to present the church, Christians before himself, without fault or without blemish, all of our sins taken away, not just in terms of guilt and condemnation, but actually in terms of all of our sins being removed, no longer having any desire to sin purified perfectly and completely. He's talking about the final judgment day, when Jesus is going to glorify all of us.
[00:17:53] He says this, Jesus will do that if, and I read from verse 23 of chapter one, if indeed you continue in the faith stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, not only do you need to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, you need to remain in that saving faith. And it's my job as a preacher to strive for that with every sermon and every interaction with you.
[00:18:28] But we don't just want you to stay in the faith, we want you to grow in the faith, yes, to be preserved, but to expand.
[00:18:39] There's more.
[00:18:40] You've begun to know Christ. There's always more of him to know.
[00:18:45] Paul prays this in Ephesians chapter 1.
[00:18:49] He prays that God may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.
[00:19:14] When we come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, our faith is probably smaller than a mustard seed. It's a tiny little speck But God wants it to grow.
[00:19:24] There's always more of Jesus for us to lay hold of.
[00:19:31] So our great aim in preaching, the first of the three great aims, is that the elect would come to saving faith.
[00:19:40] Let's start applying this.
[00:19:46] First, we want to comment on what you might call the absolute necessity of this aim.
[00:19:52] There are probably a number of ways in which you could get at this. To see that it's absolutely fundamentally necessary that preachers always be aiming at your faith.
[00:20:03] You can think of the necessity of faith for salvation. Christ has accomplished all that's necessary for you to be saved. But you need faith in order to be united to him and the means that Christ has ordained for that is the preaching of the gospel. If the gospel isn't preached in general, sinners aren't led to faith in Christ. It's necessary simply because God has ordained it so that he promises to work through the Gospel preaching to bring sinners to faith in Christ.
[00:20:35] That should do it. But we can go a little further.
[00:20:40] As preachers and pastors, we need to never lose sight of this aim. There are all sorts of shiny little objects, you might say, on the horizon that could distract us. All kinds of things that we might want to do or we might think would work well. We're often trying to get people into the church and grow the church.
[00:21:00] There are all kinds of things that will get people into pews that if we started doing them, this place would be full very quickly.
[00:21:10] But guess what?
[00:21:12] Those things don't bring people to saving faith.
[00:21:17] They don't do that. They're human means, human techniques, whether it's marketing, whatever gimmicks that might get people in the door, but they don't bring people to Christ.
[00:21:27] There's all kinds of temptations constantly as preachers to go a different way, to do something else, to take our aim off of this and onto something else.
[00:21:40] Paul says this in Galatians 1:7.
[00:21:43] He says that there are some who want to trouble you the church, and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
[00:21:50] This is a continual temptation for preachers, that we would tamper with the message, we would change it, we would start peddling something else other than faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:22:02] Paul says this about such preachers. And I hope and I pray that this never is me, and please pray for me that it is never me, he says in the next verse. But if even we, or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.
[00:22:21] Let him go to Hell is what Paul is saying.
[00:22:25] If as preachers, we drop this aim, if we lose sight of it, if we get distracted, if we start aiming for something else, it's not the gospel ministry anymore.
[00:22:42] Now I have a warning here, something I've encountered, and I'm sure many other preachers have encountered this.
[00:22:50] Sometimes people hear the preacher's message and they hear months, weeks, years.
[00:23:01] They keep listening and they say, boy, I feel like I keep hearing the same things over and over again.
[00:23:09] I feel like the preacher doesn't talk about anything else.
[00:23:13] He talks about God's wrath against sin. He talks about the way of salvation from sin in Jesus Christ.
[00:23:20] He talks about the fact that I need to have faith in Christ alone and not in myself.
[00:23:25] And he keeps talking about this and he doesn't seem to talk about much else.
[00:23:32] I'm getting really tired of it.
[00:23:34] I got the basics, Pastor. Let's move on and get on to the more important stuff.
[00:23:41] I've heard this. I've had people put it in writing and send it to me.
[00:23:48] Don't ever ask your pastor to take his aim off of your faith, off of leading you to faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:23:58] Don't ever do will only be to your detriment and to his.
[00:24:04] Instead, pray for us.
[00:24:06] Pray for us that we would remain faithful in this matter.
[00:24:11] And not just me, and not just Pastor Christopher, but all the other pastors across the city of Tucson and all the other preachers around the world everywhere Christ sends them. Pray for all of us that we would keep this as one of our chief aims.
[00:24:29] Secondly, let's begin to apply this maybe more directly to you.
[00:24:36] If this is the chief aim of the preacher, your faith, consider your faith.
[00:24:48] Are you in Jesus Christ?
[00:24:54] There are many people who have been in the church for many years.
[00:24:59] They were born in the church, baptized, maybe as infants or maybe as young people. They've spent months, years, decades in the church.
[00:25:09] But they do not yet have true saving faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:25:14] And that's one of the reasons this needs to remain a chief aim for preachers. One of the reasons Paul lists it as one of his chief aims.
[00:25:22] If you don't believe me, consider Israel. Israel was full of people just like this.
[00:25:27] Descendants of Abraham who were Jews, who were circumcised, who went to the temple, offered the sacrifices, went to the synagogue. Everywhere Jesus went, he bumped into people just like this.
[00:25:40] They had all the externals, but they didn't have true saving faith in Jesus the Messiah. And so when he came, they rejected him.
[00:25:50] And we find in the New Testament. It's quite clear in various places in the letters that the same is true in the Christian church.
[00:25:59] In 1 John, he talks about those who went out from us, left the church, but they were not really of us. In other words, they didn't really have true faith in the Lord Jesus.
[00:26:12] Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13, examine yourselves whether you are in the faith.
[00:26:20] Test yourselves.
[00:26:22] Do you not know yourselves that Christ Jesus is in you?
[00:26:28] He's saying, you need from time to time to look into your own heart and say, do I really know the Lord Jesus?
[00:26:35] Have I really entrusted myself to him for my salvation?
[00:26:41] If this is the preacher's aim, if this is what he's aiming at week after week, every time he preaches, from time to time, you need to examine your heart in light of the Gospel message that you've heard.
[00:26:55] Ask yourself some simple questions.
[00:26:59] You see, not everyone, when he asks them in his heart, can say yes to these questions.
[00:27:07] Do I understand my sin?
[00:27:11] Do I understand that it displeases God? The things I do every day that I know because I hear it all the time, I know they're sins. They break his law when I lie or I don't tell the truth or something, whatever it is, do I know that this is sin and it truly displeases God that it incurs his wrath?
[00:27:35] Secondly, do I understand that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone, that he is the only way of salvation, that nothing I can do will earn my way out of this.
[00:27:49] But it's only in him do I understand this and accept it, that it's true, that it's real. Some people sit in the church, they take the Lord's Supper and take. They haven't yet accepted it.
[00:28:01] They do it outwardly with their actions, but they haven't done it inwardly in their hearts.
[00:28:07] Thirdly, ask yourself, okay, I know these things to be true.
[00:28:12] Am I now resting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation?
[00:28:18] Am I leaning upon him and him alone? Am I saying, lord Jesus, I throw myself on you, you're my only hope.
[00:28:29] I look to you alone for salvation.
[00:28:37] Fourthly, you should probably ask yourself. We should probably all ask ourselves if we're being honest as we do this examination.
[00:28:47] Do I sometimes doubt.
[00:28:51] Do I sometimes doubt my faith because of my own sin and my anxiousness? Do I sometimes worry, man, I sinned this week.
[00:29:02] Do I really trust Christ?
[00:29:06] If the answer is yes to these four questions, then you belong to the Lord Jesus.
[00:29:15] You're his and he's yours.
[00:29:19] You're a Christian. You're going to have doubts and fears.
[00:29:23] But if you trust Christ, he's got you covered.
[00:29:28] But if the answer is no, no, I doubt. Doubt. I'm not worried about my faith. But I also, when it comes down to it, I don't really trust in Him. I'm not really worried about my sin.
[00:29:41] Then you need to hear again the gospel message.
[00:29:44] Consider the seriousness of it and turn to Christ and be saved.
[00:29:51] Say, lord Jesus, give me faith.
[00:29:58] I need your help. Faith is a gift. I don't have it. Change my heart and give it to me.
[00:30:07] And if you believe and you have doubts, be like the Father who doubted whether Christ could heal His Son and say, lord Jesus, I believe, but help my unbelief.
[00:30:19] The aim of our ministry is your faith that your trust would not be in yourself, but be in the Lord Jesus.
[00:30:27] Take this matter seriously.
[00:30:31] Secondly, if you answered yes to those questions, there's another aspect. Are you growing in your faith?
[00:30:39] Sometimes in the Christian life, things feel stagnant.
[00:30:43] We hear sermon after sermon. We come to the Lord's Supper over and over again. Things that are meant to build up our faith, draw us closer to Christ.
[00:30:55] It's good to say, examine yourself. Am I growing?
[00:31:00] Do I see progressively more and more of the Lord Jesus? And do I taste more of his sweetness? Does he become more precious to me as time goes on? Or does my heart grow dull? Do these things not matter as much to me as they used to?
[00:31:20] The end the goal of our preaching is that your faith would be built up if you say things are stagnant.
[00:31:30] Sit up straight.
[00:31:32] Listen up.
[00:31:33] Jesus loves you.
[00:31:35] And sometimes he gives you a period of feeling distance in your life, of not feeling his closeness to you because he wants you to long for Him.
[00:31:45] But come back to him again and say, lord Jesus, I believe.
[00:31:51] Help my unbelief.
[00:31:54] Paul's Great Ministry Aim the first of three. Here was the faith of the elect.
[00:32:01] Jesus calls you to put your trust in Him.
[00:32:04] He says, this is the work of God, that you believe him whom he sent, put your trust in me. Jesus says, that's all I call you to do.
[00:32:15] He says, I'm the bread of life.
[00:32:17] He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never hunger.
[00:32:23] Thirst.
[00:32:25] Do you lack faith?
[00:32:27] We all do.
[00:32:29] We don't come to Jesus because we're able to believe in Him. We come to Jesus because He calls us to Himself.
[00:32:40] Hence your faith is the end of the preaching of the Gospel.
[00:32:45] Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they Follow me. He's calling you. And as he calls you, he works faith in you.
[00:32:59] He says, all that the Father gives to me, those elect all that the Father gives to me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out.
[00:33:10] Let's pray.
[00:33:14] Lord Jesus, we thank you that you have appointed a regular, ordinary, plain way that our faith would be built up.
[00:33:28] You take fallen sinners, men who make mistakes in all sorts of ways, men who are imperfect, and you put them in front of your people and you use them and their preaching ministry to call men to saving faith.
[00:33:48] Lord our God, these things are too much for us.
[00:33:53] Who is sufficient for these things?
[00:33:55] But we thank you, Lord Jesus, that it all depends not upon the preacher nor upon the hearer, but it depends upon you working through your word and by the power of your spirit in our hearts to give us the gift of faith and to draw us to yourself, that united to you, we might have everything we need.
[00:34:19] Lord Jesus, we ask you then that you would grant faith to those who hear, that you would especially change the hearts of those who do not yet know you.
[00:34:30] Grant them true saving faith that they might come near to you and be saved.
[00:34:37] And we ask that you would use those means of the Word and of the sacraments and prayer to build up our faith that through all the changing seasons of this life, through all its trials and tribulations, through our depression and darkness, through our anxieties as well as through the joys and through the high points, that through all of it we might remain close to you and ever grow more in our love for you and our trust in you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
