Envelope

[00:00:00] Let's pray. [00:00:03] O Lord our God, in the presence of your holiness and your majesty, we have to acknowledge our sinfulness. [00:00:15] We confess freely that we have not loved you. Our hearts have strayed. [00:00:23] And as we come before you, we feel this acutely. [00:00:28] We thank you for the words of this psalm, which assure us that as we confess our sins and draw near to you, you give us freedom and peace, forgiveness through your son Jesus. [00:00:43] We thank you that you remember our sins no more, but remove them far from us. [00:00:52] O Lord our God, we ask that you would open our hearts now to receive your word, and that as we receive your word, we might receive the blessings of salvation that you give us in Jesus Christ, your son. [00:01:09] Oh, Father, help us to see him and his love and his grace more clearly, and help our hearts by faith to receive him, that we might be at peace with you, that we might know your compassion, your love, that we might be surrounded by your mercy, and that we might rejoice in these things. [00:01:38] Hear us for Jesus sake. Amen. [00:01:43] Our sermon text this evening is Titus 1:4. [00:01:49] Titus 1:4. I'm going to read from a different translation this evening from the new King James. [00:01:58] So if there's a word or two that's just a little different from what's in your pew Bible, that's why hear God's word for you and for me. [00:02:10] To Titus, a true son in our common faith, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. [00:02:24] Amen. Thus far, God's word. Please be seated. [00:02:48] But when you want to share something with someone that you love or care about who lives at a distance from you, you're going to tell me, well, you know, I Snapchat them, or I FaceTime them, or I send them a text message. But before all of that, in the last 15 years, and if you go back, even just a short while, 100 years ago, what we had to do this was to send a letter. And hopefully some of you still send letters. There's nothing like checking the mailbox and getting an envelope in it that's not printed on the outside, but has your name handwritten on it. [00:03:28] And then you recognize the handwriting, maybe, or at least you recognize the. The return address. And you know that you've just received a letter from someone you love who cared enough about you to write out by hand a note. [00:03:43] Well, when you get that note, what do you find first? [00:03:47] You find first some of the things that we've been looking at the last month or so. [00:03:54] On the front of the letter. You find what we call the from and the to. Right. The return address and the to address. Right. [00:04:02] We've been looking mainly at the from part of the envelope where it says who this letter is from. From the Apostle Paul. And we've been looking at some of the things that he shared in connection with telling us who the letter was from, about his ministry and what that means for us. [00:04:20] But now we're getting to the middle of the envelope where you write the to. [00:04:25] Who is this letter? [00:04:27] And of course it's written to Titus, but this to is joined with a greeting, isn't it? [00:04:37] He says this is to Titus, and then he wishes or prays a blessing on Titus. Grace, mercy and peace to you, Titus. [00:04:49] Now we're inspecting the envelope here as though we'll pretend that Paul's letter were packaged like a modern letter in an envelope. As you're inspecting this envelope, if you flip to the end of the Book of Titus, you find another greeting. [00:05:09] And this is kind of like the back of the envelope where you lick the sticky part and you stick it shut. [00:05:18] The greeting at the end is like the back of the envelope that encloses the, the letter. [00:05:25] And if you look at Titus 3:15, the very end of the letter, the enclosing of this, you find another greeting. [00:05:35] So the beginning of the letter and the end of the letter match each other. It begins and ends with a greeting. And it begins and ends with a matching greeting. It began with grace, mercy and peace. [00:05:49] It ends, all who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. [00:05:57] It began by praying a blessing of grace on the recipients of the letter. And it ends with a prayer of grace on the recipients of the letter. [00:06:09] The letter is bracketed or enclosed or unfolded like an envelope, like a modern day envelope in blessing, a blessing of grace. [00:06:21] The entire letter comes enveloped in the grace, the blessing of God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:06:33] Now I want to inspect then more closely. We'll look together more closely at this opening greeting. [00:06:40] The one side of the envelope. You might say what we find here in summary form is Paul praying that Titus would be the recipient of the blessings of salvation. [00:06:56] That's what you find. Grace, mercy and peace is a summary of all the blessings of the salvation that God has to offer sinners. [00:07:05] That's the what of this blessing or this greeting or, or this envelope. [00:07:12] All the blessings of salvation summarized under grace, mercy and peace. [00:07:19] Secondly, we note the recipient of this blessing. Who is it that God's salvation comes to. [00:07:33] The key here is How Paul addresses Titus. So Paul is. Is praying that this blessing would come to Titus. And in order to show us how and why this blessing of grace, mercy and peace of salvation should come to Titus, he very carefully says to Titus, a true son in our common faith. [00:08:01] So the reason Paul here is laying out the reason why he has an expectation that God will grant grace, mercy and peace to. To Titus. And it is because Titus is a son in the common faith. [00:08:17] He's drawing Titus attention and our attention as to why it is or how it is that anyone might hope to receive the blessings of salvation, of grace, mercy and peace. [00:08:29] Titus is not Paul's son by blood. [00:08:33] He is Paul's son in the common faith. Faith, that is to say, Paul had brought the gospel to Titus and Titus came to believe in the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. [00:08:47] That's the common faith. [00:08:49] And Titus, as a result of believing in Jesus Christ, became an adopted son of God. Through Jesus Christ. [00:08:58] Paul is an instrument of Titus salvation in the sense that God used Paul to bring this message of salvation to Titus, Titus. [00:09:07] And in this sort of secondary sense, Paul says, I'm like your father and you're like my son. [00:09:16] But ultimately, Titus is a son of the living God through faith in Jesus Christ. [00:09:24] As a child of God by faith, Titus receives then the blessings of salvation. [00:09:31] But is Titus the only one who receives the blessings of salvation? [00:09:37] We know that's not true from the rest of Scripture. [00:09:40] But is Paul saying something more in this verse? Is it only Titus, or is it only the pastors of churches like Titus was whom Paul was praying this blessing for? [00:09:54] This blessing acts like an envelope, we said. [00:09:58] And if we inspect that envelope a little more closely, get your magnifying glass out here and look at Paul's wording. He gives us clues as to whom to whom this blessing is sent. Yes, it's sent to Titus, but it's sent to him because he's a true child of God in the common faith. [00:10:21] Our common faith. Yes, that faith that Paul says, I share with you, Titus, but really that all Christians share. [00:10:31] And that because Christians share this faith, they all are children of God. [00:10:37] Yes, this blessing is for all who hold to the common faith. [00:10:43] And if you look once more at the very end of the letter, Titus 3:15, this becomes very clear. [00:10:52] Grace be with you all. [00:10:55] As we argued last week, Paul intends that this letter not only be for Titus, but that Titus would take this letter. Having read it, he would share it with his flock in Crete. [00:11:07] So then play here, riff on this theme of the envelope and the enclosing. [00:11:17] Not only is Paul, including himself, as a recipient of these blessings, with Titus we share this faith, but he enfolds or encloses both pastor and flock, both Titus and the Christians on Crete, who share a common faith, a common savior, Jesus, our Savior. [00:11:39] This blessing is for all who belong to Jesus by faith. [00:11:46] Finally, one third thing that we can draw out of this verse very clearly. There is the blessings of salvation and grace, mercy and peace. The recipients of salvation, children of God by faith, pastor and flock. But finally, there is the source of blessing. Paul says grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior. [00:12:12] The blessing comes from God and from His Son, Jesus Christ. [00:12:20] From the Father and the Son. And not just from the Father and the Son as God. [00:12:25] But our attention is the source of grace and blessings and salvation. But our attention is drawn especially to the Son of God in his role as the Savior. [00:12:36] He doesn't just say blessing from the Father and from the Son, but from the Father and from Jesus, who is the Lord our King, who is the Messiah, the Christ, and who is our Savior. In other words, the blessing that comes to us from God through the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:13:00] So we have the blessing of salvation. We have the recipients of salvation, and we have the source of salvation. See them all clearly in this verse. [00:13:12] Wrap this all up then. In one lesson or one doctrine, one teaching, we can say it this way. Paul is teaching us that God gives the blessings of salvation to all. Pastor and flock. To all who believe in Jesus Christ. [00:13:29] The blessings of salvation God gives to all who believe in Jesus Christ. [00:13:35] Let's pick that doctrine apart now. We've drawn it out of the text. [00:13:39] That's what it is. [00:13:40] Now let's pick it apart just a little bit more. [00:13:45] What are these blessings of salvation, particularly that Paul draws our attention to this Grace, mercy and peace. [00:13:54] What is God giving you, dear Christian who believe? What is God giving you? [00:14:01] Through Jesus, His Son? [00:14:04] First he gives you grace. [00:14:07] This is God's gift. [00:14:10] He's saying that salvation is God's gift. [00:14:13] Something that you don't deserve, that you didn't earn. [00:14:18] Or to use the big theological word, something that is unmerited. You did nothing to deserve this gift, and God gives it to you freely, no strings attached. [00:14:33] Salvation is completely and wholly a gift from him through His Son to you. [00:14:39] Paul says in Romans 11:6, if this salvation is by grace, then it is no longer of works. [00:14:48] Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. [00:14:53] Grace is just that, something you cannot and did not earn. God gave to you And I want to stress here that it is the whole of salvation. [00:15:05] We sometimes in our minds, attach this idea of grace to faith. That we receive salvation by faith, not by works absolutely. But it is the whole of our salvation. Everything God offers to us in Christ we do not earn, God gives to us as a gift. Titus 2, verse 11. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. [00:15:32] The grace of God that brings salvation, the whole package deal, forgiveness of sins, the righteousness God offers you in Christ, the Christian life as he changes us to make us more like His Son, and eternal life with God forever, all of it, God gives to you as a gift. [00:15:53] Grace to you. [00:15:58] Mercy, the second category, Paul gives us here to summarize our salvation. [00:16:04] If grace is that whole thing, unmerited, undeserved, that God gives us as a gift here in Mercy, Paul is drawing our attention to. To the heart of God. [00:16:19] The compassion that God has on wicked, miserable sinners like you and me, pastor and flock. We are miserable, undeserving sinners and we wallow in our sin and we struggle with it. And Paul is saying, God looks on you and he has pity and kindness and compassion in his heart towards you. [00:16:44] That's his mercy. [00:16:47] And it isn't just what's in his heart, his mercy towards you that he feels towards you, his desire to save you. It also includes his actions that he didn't just look upon you in kindness and pity, but that he sent His Son to die for you so that he could take you out of the mire and misery of your sin and wash you clean and make you his child. [00:17:14] God's mercy upon you is his compassion in his heart and how he expresses that to you in Jesus, His Son. As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. [00:17:29] As a father has pity on his children, he has pity on you. He knows your weakness, your frailty, that you are but dust. And he looks on you and he loves you. And he says, I will save you. [00:17:45] His grace. [00:17:46] It's a gift. His mercy, his kindness, compassion and pity towards you. [00:17:51] And his peace. [00:17:54] God gives peace to his children. [00:18:00] This is referring to, primarily to our relationship with God, the idea that we used to be God's enemies. [00:18:08] We were at war with him. He was at war with us. And of course we can't defeat him. We have no chance of victory over him in our rebellion and sin. So that meant that what we faced was his law, which stood against us, condemning us, and we faced an eternity of his wrath. Poured out against us. [00:18:31] We were the objects of God's eternal wrath. [00:18:36] But Paul here says no more. [00:18:39] If you're a child of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, you have received the blessing of God's peace. [00:18:47] He took you and he took away your being an enemy. He changed your heart. [00:18:53] He made you to love him. And he took away what it was that divided us, our sin. [00:19:01] We read in Colossians one that we were alienated and hostile in our minds and in our wicked deeds. [00:19:09] But God reconciled us through His Son Jesus. [00:19:13] And he made peace through the blood of the cross. [00:19:18] And so we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:19:24] And of course, that peace that now we have as friends of God means that we have the feeling of peace. The objective reality that we're his friends, we have. Peace means that he begins to fill our hearts with that peace through the Holy Spirit. No more terror, no more sense of God's wrath. But now peace and quiet. Knowing that he loves us, his mercy surrounds us and he gives us everything we need. Doesn't depend on us. That's peace. So there's a summary of the gifts of salvation, the blessings of salvation that comes to us through Jesus Christ. [00:20:03] We talked about the source. I think we've said enough about that. The Father grants us salvation through His Son as He comes as the Savior. [00:20:14] And we've also pointed out the recipients of blessing and salvation. It's those who are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. [00:20:23] So once again, God gives the blessings of salvation to all pastor and flock who believe in Jesus Christ His Son. [00:20:34] Let's begin to apply this to ourselves. [00:20:39] What is it like to receive God's blessings if you're a child of God? Every week we say this, don't we? You stand. And in God's name we pronounce his grace and his peace on you. [00:20:57] That means if you're a child of God, if you believed in Jesus Christ, these blessings belong to you. [00:21:04] What does that look like? As one who is folded and folded, enclosed like an envelope in the grace, mercy and peace of God through Jesus Christ? [00:21:17] What does it feel like to receive the unmerited, undeserved favor of God in Christ, his grace? [00:21:28] Think about the gift of forgiveness. [00:21:31] We read from Psalm 32. [00:21:34] When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. [00:21:43] So long as the sinner holds onto his sin and doesn't confess it and doesn't seek forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ, what does he experience? [00:21:53] He experiences the heavy hand of God on him. [00:21:58] But when he turns to God through faith in Christ Jesus and receives the gift of forgiveness, the grace of forgiveness. [00:22:07] What happens? [00:22:08] All of that's changed. [00:22:11] Jesus takes away the burden of sin. He says, you're heavy and weighed down. [00:22:17] Come to me. I'll take away your burden. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. [00:22:25] This weight of guilt is lifted. The terror is gone. [00:22:30] Now we experience that peace that we were talking about. Right now. We know a sense of freedom even. [00:22:41] And that's another aspect of experiencing grace, is that not only are we no longer in terror, but we have joy and we have freedom. [00:22:51] We used to be bound over to hatred and to selfishness and to lust, and we couldn't get away from these things. No matter how many times we tried, we were always back, like a pig back at the trough. [00:23:09] But the one who's received the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ now knows freedom. [00:23:16] You know how wonderful it is to see God doing good things for others rather than hating them and feeling selfish toward them. You look at them and you say, well, what a wonderful thing that not only am I the recipient of God's good grace, but God is doing good things for the people around me. [00:23:36] And not only do you feel the joy in that and the freedom that comes from that. [00:23:42] Now you see, you begin to see that not only do you not have to hate and be selfish, you can begin to love your enemies. [00:23:51] That's a remarkable freedom. [00:23:57] Psalm 32. We read a moment ago, the psalmist who's turned from his sin, who's received this gift of freedom. At the end of the psalm, he just is basking in this freedom. And he says, be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous. [00:24:15] He says, I'm rejoicing in this gift of freedom. [00:24:18] Everyone join with me. [00:24:21] You've been forgiven too. What a thing. We have to rejoice in this freedom from sin and from the heavy hand of God now knowing his pleasure and his love towards us. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous and shout for joy all you upright in heart. [00:24:42] These are some of the kinds of things that the person who's begun to experience God's grace, his undeserved gift. [00:24:50] These are the kinds of things we see in our lives. What about God's mercy, God's pity toward the miserable? [00:25:00] We wallowed in our sins. We were miserable. [00:25:05] We were helpless. [00:25:09] Think here of a sick person. [00:25:12] Maybe you've been sick and you've had a bad fever and you're tossing and turning. Maybe you're. [00:25:18] You're in pain. [00:25:20] You're in utter agony and misery. And there's nothing you can do for yourself laying there in the bed. [00:25:27] And someone has pity on you, maybe a nurse, maybe it was your mother. [00:25:33] And she came to you and she spoke soothing words to you. [00:25:39] She said, it's going to be okay. It's hard right now, but you're going to get through this. [00:25:44] And she maybe brought a cold washcloth to help soothe the fever. Maybe she gave you medicine and the fever began to recede. [00:25:54] You've experienced this kind of pity in a natural way in human relationships. Someone who looked on you and your suffering and had compassion on you and came and helped you and you got relief. [00:26:07] It's something like that. But of course, far better and far greater when we experience the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. [00:26:16] The Christian knows the kindness of God. We used to be his enemy. We were afraid of Him. [00:26:22] But now we know his kindness. We realize that he cared about me. [00:26:28] He loved me and had so much pity on me that he was willing to give his own son for me. [00:26:36] And you have that sense of being loved and being cared for by your heavenly Father, who knows just how awful we are. And yet he loves us anyway. [00:26:49] We look to Jesus and in his face as he smiles upon us. And he loves us and we receive his forgiveness. And he washes us clean. [00:27:01] There in Christ by faith, we experience the compassion and mercy of our Heavenly Father. [00:27:09] And what did our hearts want to do? We say, I want more of this. [00:27:14] Can I meet this Jesus one day? Yes, you. Yes, you will. [00:27:19] That's the mercy of God to us in Christ Jesus. [00:27:25] And we can speak similarly of the peace, grace, mercy and peace that Paul prays for us. [00:27:33] Peace in our relationship with God. We were his enemies. [00:27:37] We couldn't stand to be near him, nor he near us. [00:27:43] In fact, it wasn't just the future. [00:27:46] Even now we lived under a curse. [00:27:49] Why do we get sick? Because we're under curse because of our sin. Why do we die? [00:27:55] Because we sinned. And we're under curse our whole life long until we experience the peace of God that comes through Christ Jesus. We were under curse. And then Jesus came and he took our curse on the cross. [00:28:08] He became a curse for us. As he hung on that cross there. He took all of our suffering and our death that we deserved. [00:28:20] And then Jesus comes to us as we draw near to him in faith. [00:28:24] And he says, dear child, I've taken all of that away from you. You are no more under curse. There is no more wrath for you. I've taken it all away. [00:28:35] Be at peace. He takes us by the hand. He washes us clean. He clothes us in his robes of righteousness. And he takes us by the hand and leads us to the forest. [00:28:47] And he says to the Father, this is your dear son. [00:28:51] Receive him for my sake. [00:28:54] I have made peace between him and you. [00:28:59] And you feel that peace in your heart. [00:29:03] This is something little glimmers of what it's like to receive God's blessings. And if you're a Christian and you know the Lord Jesus by faith, and you know these things and you have experienced them, what do you do with the psalmist? Say, rejoice in the Lord, you righteous. Praise God, you are blessed. [00:29:25] But maybe you say, preacher, I don't know the things you're describing. [00:29:32] I don't feel this sense of warmth and love towards God. [00:29:36] I've never felt free to love others. [00:29:41] I do still feel in chains to my sin. [00:29:45] I don't know this grace. [00:29:50] Maybe you say, I know the misery that you were talking about. I know that heavy hand. [00:29:57] I feel like I've become a dry and weary land in the summer drought that the psalm was talked about. [00:30:05] I've experienced all those things. [00:30:08] But God's warm smile on me and Christ, that He has pity on me, I haven't experienced that. [00:30:17] And peace, no. When I hear about sin, I avoid it. [00:30:23] I turn away. And I turn away because when I hear about sin, my heart is pricked and I begin to feel a sense of dread. [00:30:33] Because the more I hear about sin, the more I feel that terror. [00:30:38] I don't know that peace. [00:30:45] The answer to all of these problems is found right in this verse. [00:30:50] Titus used to feel just the way you do. Every Christian used to feel just the way you do until he came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:31:03] There is embedded in this verse. [00:31:05] As the Church receives the letter of Titus and reads it. There is embedded in this verse not only the promise of blessings to the believer, but the offer of blessings to the one who does not yet believe. [00:31:20] God holds forth to you in Jesus Christ, His Son. [00:31:24] Grace, mercy and peace. And everything, everything that goes with that. [00:31:30] And he says to you, I ask of you one thing, that you believe in my Son. [00:31:37] And yes, I know you can't believe in him. You don't have the power to believe in Him. You're still wallowing in your sin. [00:31:43] But I am a gracious God. And I give the gift of faith to you. [00:31:52] Come to Jesus. [00:31:54] Come and receive this common faith. [00:31:56] All of us have put our trust in Jesus. That's the only reason we have any hope. [00:32:02] Come join us in trusting in Christ our Savior. [00:32:06] Jesus will give you all these gifts, the new heart, the peace, and he will lead you to his Father. [00:32:15] If you know the Lord Jesus, you are enveloped, wrapped like a letter is wrapped in that envelope, sealed, in fact, inside that envelope, the envelope of salvation in Jesus Christ. [00:32:32] Let's pray. [00:32:35] O Lord our God, as we see the goodness of your salvation to miserable sinners through Jesus, your son, we see just how much we need him. [00:32:59] We need him not just for the big things. We need him for everything in our lives. [00:33:08] O Lord our God. We thank you, though, that there is nothing that we can do but turn to Christ. [00:33:16] We ask, O Lord God, that you would turn us. As the prophet said of old, turn us, O Lord, and we will be turned. Heal us, and we will be healed. [00:33:28] We cast ourselves upon your mercy and we thank you that your mercy has no bounds, that your compassion towards us is higher than the tallest mountains, indeed as high as the heavens are above the earth. So great is your mercy toward sinners. [00:33:49] We ask that by your spirit you would draw us to Christ and that you would wrap us in his arms and fold us in his love. [00:33:58] Help us to know his grace, mercy and peace toward us. [00:34:04] Amen.