Titus 1:1
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to the book of Titus. Our reading is Titus chapter
one, verse one. And some of you may note as someone
did, who wrote me this week asking, aren’t you going backwards? We
are going back to verse one. Last week we did cover verses
one, one to three. But today I want us to take a
little side trip into a little phrase in chapter one, verse
one. and discuss the subject of godliness. It is a subject that is sorely
needed in our day. As you’re making your way to
the book of Titus, remember that we’ll be considering it for the
next nine or 10 weeks. The study of Titus will get us
at least just past Easter. Titus is a letter written by
the Apostle Paul to Titus, one of his missionary associates.
Paul in his last days wrote two letters to Timothy, one to Titus,
and they’re called the pastorals because he’s giving pastoral
advice to these young men. Titus was a Greek convert. He
had come to faith in Jesus, and he was one of Paul’s right-hand
men in the missionary efforts. And on maybe Paul’s third missionary
journey, they visited the island of Crete, an island of about
160 miles in length, seven miles wide in some places, 35 miles
in others. And the churches there, the churches
were made up of converts who heard the gospel at Pentecost
in Jerusalem. And they had come into some level
of disarray. And so Paul tells Titus, stay
on Crete and put the churches in order. And so he has a difficult
task. We mentioned last week that Titus
is a less doctrinal and more practical letter. It’s very evangelical
in its nature. And it’s essentially going to
tell us this over the next weeks. Your godliness will dictate your
witness and its effect. Or to say it another way, the
more godly you are individually and as a church, the better your
witness to a dark and dying world that Jesus is mighty to save. Or maybe to say it another way,
we can preach the gospel. We can preach it over and over
rightly. accurately and loudly. But if
our lives individually and as a church don’t reflect the truths
and the realities of the gospel, Paul is essentially going to
say to Titus and to us that maybe we’re out of order. And so we’re
going to be encouraged to live a life pleasing to God for the
witness that it is able to bring. And so Paul is going to tell
Timothy to preach and to teach and to insist on the true things
of the faith in order that your lives may reflect the realities
of the gospel. It’s a book about organizational
health. It’s a book about sound doctrine, and it is a book about
Christian character and conduct. So let us read from Titus chapter
one, verse one, and then look to God in prayer. Paul, a servant
of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith
of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with
godliness. Pray with me. Our Lord, we bow
before your word this day. We know it’s your word because
in it, you tell us that these are the things that are written
by you for us so that we know who we are. We know who you are. We know what we are like and
what you are like. And we thank you that through
Christ and through the work of the Holy Spirit and through the
work of your Holy Scriptures, you are changing us. You are
taking us and making us into who we ought to be. You are transforming
us into the image of the Lord Jesus, the great second Adam,
the great the great man in whole, the man in perfection. So let
your word this day do its work. I let it do its work in us so
that you are glorified and that the nations may see in us the
power of the gospel. And we might have opportunity
to speak of the hope that is within us. We ask and pray this
in Jesus name. Amen. When I was in seminary,
we had a preaching professor and every week when we had him
for class, his class ended, he would raise his hands as if giving
us the benediction. And he would say, go into all
the world and keep sinning. because I need a job. That’s
a funny benediction, isn’t it? He was joking. He was a big jokester,
but he spoke of a reality. He spoke of a reality that is
true. Christians in this life will
keep sinning. And so Christians in this life
will continue to need the church. Christians in this life will
continue to need the services of the minister of the gospel. You see the Christian life is
a fight. The Christian life is a battle
from the moment we become a Christian until we die and enter glory
and are made perfect. We battle, we struggle, we fight
against sin and against worldliness and against Satan and all his
wiles. Now, we understand the scope
of salvation to be eternal. In eternity past, God chose us
in Christ Jesus for salvation, for good works. He chose us in
real space and time through the ministry of the word. And by
the work of the spirit, he called us or he drew us to himself.
We began to see ourselves as centers. We began to hear the
gospel and understand that we were centers in need of the work
of Jesus. We were given new life. We were
regenerated. We were brought from death into
life. Faith was worked in us and we
believe the gospel. We trusted Christ alone for our
own salvation. And at a moment in time, God,
the judge of the earth, justified us or he declared us righteous
in his sight. He saw us as if we have never
sinned. And just as if we always obeyed,
not because of any work done by us, not because of any righteousness
in us, but only because of the good works and the righteousness
of Jesus that we received by faith. We were adopted into God’s
family, given all the rights and privileges of sons and daughters
of almighty God. We’re being sanctified. We are
persevering and someday we will be glorified. We will be made
perfect as we are brought into God’s heavenly presence, both
body and soul. But back up to sanctification
and to perseverance. The Christian life is a fight
and we are in an ongoing battle, a lifelong battle, a perpetual
war of striving to do what the Holy Spirit says, striving to
do what the Bible teaches, striving to please Jesus, yet all the
while warring against the flesh, the sin that remains in us, that
rears up its ugly head and tempts us. We had a wood stove when
I was growing up. And when it was cold like this,
we kept that wood stove stoked up. We had firewood delivered
in the warmer seasons. We would chop it, we would split
it, we would stack it. But when it got cold like this,
we would keep that stove heated and warm. And it literally blew
us out of the house. There were some times it was
so warm we had to open the windows to let a little cool in. But
every morning after We would wake up, we would go downstairs,
we would open that wood stove and in the stove you would find
gray ashes. And you would think the fire
had died out. But under the top layer of those gray ashes, you
would find red hot coals, the remains of the fire from the
night before. And all you had to do in order
to get a raging hot fire again, in order to heat the house on
that cold morning, was to pull back those ashes, add a little
kindling and a little wood, and you would have a raging hot fire
again. And brothers and sisters of the
Lord Jesus, that is what remnant sin in us is like. It is like those hot ashes. They
remain in us. And if we fuel it and if we stoke
it, those remaining ashes of sin can become a hot, deadly
fire in our hearts and our lives again. And so as a Christian,
as a church family, we must recognize the battle that each of us faces.
We face it together and we face it with Christ and with the Holy
Spirit and the word. But we have remaining sin in
us. as well as the world and Satan.
And they tempt us. They push us. They drive us to
hate God and to worship ourselves and to live in a way that pleases
us and not almighty God. But there is a call in the scripture.
It’s a call throughout all of the Bible. For us, as God’s people,
to be holy. Do you know what the word church
literally means? In the New Testament, it’s the
word ekklesia. And the prefix attached to it
literally means we’re the called out ones and the gathered ones.
Ekk from out of and klesia together is we’re a called out assembly. We are called out of the world.
called out of sin, called out of shame, called out of darkness.
And we are called into the family of God to live in his marvelous
light, according to his holy and righteous laws in the power
of Jesus and through the work of the Holy Spirit. And so throughout
the Bible, you will see that God calls us to be holy. He calls
us to be godly. He calls us to be sanctified. Now, We’ve made Christianity
in America a lot like fire insurance. Our evangelism has come to this. We approach somebody and we say,
you want to be saved, don’t you? You want to go to heaven and
not hell, right? And so we treat it like fire
insurance. Now, who in their right mind
would want to go to hell and not heaven? I mean, We would
all answer affirmatively. Oh, I want to go to heaven. I
want Jesus, if that’s what it takes. But you see God’s calling
on our life. God’s salvation in our life is
way more than a bus ticket to heaven. Great. plane ticket to
glory or a chariot ticket so that when that chariot swings
low, we can say swing low chariot. Here’s my ticket. Take me home. The Christian life is way more
than that. God calls us while we live in
this life to live holy and pleasing lives for his glory and for our
good. One of the themes in Titus that
we will see is that God calls us to be holy and that will affect
our witness. That will affect how the world
sees us. I want us to take a look at a
couple of passages in Titus. First of all, we read just a
moment ago, Titus chapter one, Paul, a servant of God and apostle
of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and
their knowledge of truth, which accords with godliness in hope
of eternal life. And if you skip down to chapter
two, And you read beginning at verse 11, the grace of God has
appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to
renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled
and upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for
our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God
and savior, Jesus Christ. And then if you look in chapter
three at verses one through six, Remind them to be submissive
to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, and to be ready
for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling,
to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For
we ourselves were once foolish. And it goes on then to speak
about the grace of God. So you see in Titus, the call to be
godly, the call to be holy, the call to live as children of the
living God. Now you’ll find the same call
throughout the scriptures. You read in early chapters of
Genesis. Maybe some of you this week picked up your yearly Bible
reading and you read through Genesis and you ran across Enoch.
Enoch walked with God. And Enoch was not because he
pleased God and God took him. That’s all we know about Enoch.
Enoch did something that pleased God and God did not let him die,
but he just took him straight to heaven. He makes it into the
book of Hebrews to the great hall of faith. Enoch walked with
God. Walking with God is a phrase. It’s a euphemism. You might say
it’s a descriptive term for being godly. He walked with God. When God is speaking to Solomon,
he says to him, you walk with me just as your father David
did. Walking with God is in a sense
synonymous with being godly. What does it mean to be godly?
Well, the scriptures tell us to be holy as God is holy. We obey his law, we live a life
that is pleasing to him. And so when Paul tells Timothy
and Titus much the same thing in the three pastoral letters,
he tells them that you must teach and preach and train people in
such a way that when you are imparting knowledge, that knowledge
will lead them to godliness. Let’s put that another way. Whatever
we teach in Sunday school at this church, Whatever we preach
from this pulpit, whatever we learn on Sunday nights, whatever
we learn in book studies and Bible studies and informal and
formal gatherings, whatever we learn must lead us to live more
godly lives. You see, truth is unto godliness. It has a fruit, it has an aim,
it has a direction. We don’t simply learn things
in Sunday school. or learn things from the pulpit
or learn things from our discussions together about the Bible to learn.
Knowledge puffs up. But knowledge unto godliness
helps us live a favorable life before God’s almighty eyes. What does it mean to be godly?
Who is a godly person? Is it something that is outward?
Is it inward? Is it some of both? I mean, we
might say today, the most godly person is the one who is the
most well-dressed sitting in their same pew with their nice
Bible sitting on their lap. And they appear by all accounts
to be attentive and worship singing and praying and confessing and
listening and taking a few notes. And then they walk out of here
decently and in order and they go home and they live an outwardly
fruitful and maybe by all appearances, a good life. Or is it someone
who maybe does all those things, but their heart beats and it
thumps and it bleeds and it desires and it can’t wait to be around
the things of the Lord. You see, there is a difference
between outer godliness and an inner godliness. And inner godliness
results in something that is outward, something that we can
see. And so how do we look at the subject of godliness? Well,
I want us to very briefly look at it in two ways. A God-centered
life, and then a God-like life. A God-centered life, a life of
devotion to God, and then a God-like life. maybe more related to our
character. First, let us consider what is
a God-centered life. We are living in a very self-centered
world. I mean, after all, what do we
call it when we hold up our own phones in front of our faces
and we snap a picture of ourselves? We call it a selfie. And I can’t
tell you how many times you’re sitting in public, you’re at
a ball game, you’re in some public venue, and there is a camera
in someone’s own face, and they fixed their hair, and they’ve
got it just right, and they’ve taken a selfie. We are a self-centered
world. But it hasn’t been that way just
because of the invention of cell phones and selfies. It’s been
that way all along. Remember Satan, he was an angel
of light. He was one of the top created
beings that God made and he couldn’t stand the fact that someone else
ruled and he wanted what? He wanted to rule himself. He
wanted to be autonomous, to have self-rule. And so selfishness,
self-centeredness, it comes from sin. It comes as a result of
our hating God and loving ourselves more. And so how do we live a
God-centered life in a self-centered world? That is a conundrum, isn’t
it? That is a difficulty. That is a $64,000 question. We’re living in a world that
is devoted to many things. We are devoted to sports. Oh,
we are devoted to the NFL. We are devoted to fitness and
to exercise and to travel and to entertainment. We binge watch. I mean, can you imagine 15 years
ago, if we didn’t have these little devices and these Amazon
Primes and Netflix, could you imagine binge watching something?
But now we can hole up in the corner of our house with our
gadget and we can watch 18 episodes in like two days and drink a
bottle of soda and all to boot. It’s, it’s interesting what we
are devoted to. And over time it changes through
seasons. It changes, but we are devoted
to things. But are we devoted to the right
thing? Are we devoted to the glory of God? His majesty being
made manifest to the ends of the earth. Are we devoted to
the fear of God? that God is God and we are not,
and that he is to be feared and adored and worshiped and reverenced
and awed and to be thought of in a very special way. Are we
devoted to the love of God? The fact that Jesus saves sinners? Are we devoted with a desire
for God? I mean, think about if you were
locked in a Desert island, that doesn’t make a lick of sense,
doesn’t it? Especially locked in a room and stranded on a desert island.
If you’re stranded on a desert island or locked in a room, what
would be the things you would want? Well, we’d all want our
smartphones and we want internet access. Why? Because we would
need to be entertained and heaven forbid, we’d have to sit and
think. Or heaven forbid, we’d have to sit and look at nature.
Or heaven forbid, we’d have to do something other than just
be amused to death. But wouldn’t it be glorious to
be locked in a room or stranded on an island with a copy of God’s
word and the beauty of his creation around us? Oh, that would be
a terrible thing, wouldn’t it? We’d be bored to death. But do
we have a God-centered life devoted to his glory, devoted to his
fear, his love, and his desire to be with him? The apostle Paul
uses several words in his epistles about living a God-centered life. Words like pursuit. Do we chase
holiness and godness, godliness? Do we fight the good fight? Do we box as in a boxing match? Do we run the race with perseverance
and endurance? He uses words like commitment.
wholehearted devotion, committed only to that one thing, to getting
godliness. He uses words like discipleship.
I am a student, God is a teacher, I’ll sit under his word, under
his church, and when the word is opened, I will be there, teachable
and ready to hear. Or words like perseverance. We agonize, we persevere, we
struggle until we attain the prize that is promised to us. You see, a God-centered life
is devoted to the things of the Lord, and it strives after, it
fights for, it pursues, it chases those very things. Now, what
does a God-centered life look like in reality? That God-centered
person worships. He worships together with God’s
people. He worships every day in his life as he serves unto
the Lord. He worships with his family or
personally as they read and sing and pray and struggle to live
life before a watching world but with God at the center. A
God-centered person prays. And a God-centered person prays
that they will be more God-centered because you know the tug. You’ll
leave this place this day and the world will be calling. Your
gadget will be buzzing. The advertisements will be pleading.
and on and on it will go, but a God-centered person, not only
praise, but praise, oh God, give me a heart for you. Give me a
devotion for you and your glory and the fear of God, the love
of God. Give me a desire that cannot be satisfied until I get
what I need from you. The person who is God-centered, also
strives to live an obedient life, not a perfect life. You won’t
live a perfect life in this world. You’ll struggle with sin. You’ll
disobey. You’ll know the right thing to do. And like the apostle
Paul says in Romans seven, you won’t do it. But the righteous
person, the godly person, the God-centered person strives to
be obedient to the will of God. Every question, every decision
says, what would God have me do? The God-centered person serves
God. He serves God’s people. He serves
God’s creatures in the world and finds his place, his niche
in the world and says, I will serve God. And the God-centered
person also studies the word. He knows the word. Heard recently
a question asked of a theologian, how do you study the Bible? And
the person quoted C.S. Lewis and says, you study the
Bible with a pipe in one hand and a pencil in the other. You
know, C.S. Lewis, the great Oxford scholar,
he loved to sit and to read and to sit and think. And just as
if we were stranded on the desert island or locked in a room, we
would have a hard time just sitting and thinking and meditating. You know, we’re living in a world
that is by nature, attention deficit disorder. We’re living
in a world that with the gadgets and the Facebook and the, the
dings and the info coming into us, it has made us so that we
are, we’re like puppy dogs in a field full of rabbits. We can’t
figure out which one to chase and which one to catch. And what
to do next? We are so distracted by things. But the person who lives a God-centered
life has a place, and they have a time, and they sit with God
quietly, and they read, and they pray, and they think on things. I think of one of the most blessed
pieces of furniture in my in-law’s house. My mother-in-law, she
has a rocking chair. It’s an old one. It’s an old
one that’s been passed down from family to generation to generation.
And it’s in a little corner of her room and taped on the wall
and beside her chair are prayer lists and pictures and her Bible. And as far as I know, she spends
a little time there daily, weekly, often. And so I know that my
family is prayed for. I know that this church is prayed
for by her. But you see, there’s a time and
a place, and maybe a New Year’s resolution for you is to have
a chair and a lamp. And if you wanna be like C.S.
Lewis, get yourself a pipe, but at least get a pencil and a pad
and meditate on the things of the Lord. And so have a God-centered
life, a life of devotion to his glory, to fearing God, to loving
God, and to be so desirous of him, you can’t wait to be in
his presence. But the second, the second aspect
of a godly life is this, a god like life. I mean, it’s all well
and good to read your Bible. It’s all well and good to pray.
It’s all well and good to keep a journal. It’s all well and
good to read your table talk and to watch your videos and
listen to your podcast, all that wonderful, but it must make you
God-like. Notice in verse one, Paul says
he is a servant of God. He’s an apostle of Jesus for
the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of
the truth, which accords with godliness. Your desire to knowing
the truth is to be more godly. And so you want to have a God-centered
life for sure, but you want that to lead to having a God-like
life. The reason God has rescued you
from darkness and saved you from sin is to make you less like
sinful Adam and more like sinless Jesus. And as God is at work
in your life by his word, through his spirit, And yes, through
your God-centered life and the devotions and the practices and
all the helps and exercises that you may do, it must lead to you
being more Christ-like, you being more God-like. Here’s a question
for you. It’s a question for us. This
is a question in the spirit of the book of Titus. This is a
question for us in the spirit of we as a church desire to grow. We as a church desire to speak
and preach and proclaim the gospel so that men and women and boys
and girls come to faith in him. Here’s the question. What about
your life individually? Or what about our lives collectively
as a church? Make the world outside stop and
say, who are you and where have you come from? And how can I
be like you? You see a God-like life stands
out before the watching world. So the people have to say, there’s
something different about you and you and you and them. I mean,
we can be the church that has a rock climbing wall and the
biggest youth program. I remember pastoring in Greensboro
and we fought against that. We’ll never have a great youth
group because they got a rock climbing wall. We could have the best rock and
roll music. I could show you the best movie clips. I mean,
I could even fix my hair upright and wear skinny jeans. That won’t
happen. But the greatest thing for the
watching world to see from us is to live God-centered lives
that are God-like. So what about your life? What
about our life is God-like? I mean, do we just check the
boxes and say, I come to church, I’ve kept the Sabbath. Do we
just check the boxes and say, I was in Sunday school. I got
my attendance pen. I’ve listened to Ligonier. I’ve
checked off my Bible reading plan box. I’ve, I’ve done my
podcast. I’ve, I’ve done everything. I’ve
checked the boxes. Or is there a real work of God
in us that is shining so brightly? It is emanating from our lives.
And people say, who are you and where have you come from? Is
God the potter in our lives and is he shaping the clay in such
a way that you are a vessel useful in his kingdom? Is the refiner
burning away the dross from your life, removing the impurities
and making you into a special piece of jewelry that is shiny
and bright and interesting to the world? The hammer and the
chisel of God’s workmanship, is it striking you and shaping
you and forming you from a rough-hewn rock into a beautiful piece of
art? Is there progress in your life?
Is there Christ-likeness in your life? And we know from are struggles
that it’s two steps forward and one backwards. And sometimes
it’s three steps forward in godliness and grace and growth, and it’s
five steps backwards. It’s a struggle. It’s a battle.
It’s a lifelong process. I want you to think about two
passages of scripture that speak about how we can be more godlike.
Think first about the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the
poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn over
their sin. Blessed are those who are meek
or teachable. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness. They’re devoted to God. And what’s
the fruit of that? What’s the outcome of that? They
are merciful. They are pure in heart. They
are peacemakers. And when the world finds them
offensive because of their love and devotion and service to Jesus,
they are persecuted. That’s God likeness from the
Sermon on the Mount. Or how about from Paul’s epistles
where he tells us to put off the flesh, to put off our old
nature and to put on godliness, the fruit of the spirit. We’re
not to live lives that are characterized by debauchery and lewdness and
filthiness and sexual immorality and all other impurities, drunkenness
and the like, but we are to be full of love. joy, peace, patience,
kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Or as Paul tells
the Colossians, put on then, therefore, put off, old things,
put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
and above all, put on love, which binds us together in Christ Jesus. Remember, brothers and sisters,
we are new creations in Christ. The old is gone, the new has
come, God is at work in us, and our devotion or our God-centeredness
leads us to be God-like. A couple years ago, I read a
book about Christian education, Christian schools. And there
was, I haven’t finished the book. I’ll be honest. It’s like a lot
of books. I read about the first 10 pages and quit. You probably
know how that goes. But in the first 10 pages, there
was this really good quote. Don’t want to yell. I think I
read a lot of books. Christianity is not a condiment. Okay. So you go to the barbecue
restaurant and what’s on your table. There’s salt. and there’s
pepper and there’s Eastern Carolina sauce and there’s Western and
then there’s some kind of hybrid for those who are confused. Those
are condiments. You put them on your meat. You
put them on your hush puppies. You put them on your French fries.
Friends, Christianity is not a bottle of ketchup where you
take your rotten life and you squirt a little ketchup on it
and make it more tasty. No, God comes into your life
and he changes it. And he makes it so blessed that
every aspect of your life is for him. It is for his glory. And so we cannot live a Christian
life where we sprinkle a little Sunday school on our rottenness
that exists during the week. And we do a little of this and
a little of that and we try to make our life Christlike by putting
on a little salt and a little pepper and a little ketchup and
a little Eastern Carolina sauce or whatever the case may be.
No, the reality is that God is at work in us from the inside
out. And as we live a God centered
life, we will then live a God like life. And we live in the
South. And we live by rules in the South,
you know, we don’t drink, we don’t cuss, we don’t smoke, we
don’t chew, and we don’t dance, and we don’t go with girls that
do. And moralism, that’s what that is, has seeped into the
church. That’s a condiment, that’s sprinkling
on a little something. Or nominalism, I go to church,
I wear my tie, it’s nice and straight, I carried my leather
Bible, I sat in my pew, I checked the box for the day, it’s in
name only. Or we could even be reformed.
I’m reformed. I’m Presbyterian. I believe in
predestination. I’ve got my tulip all in order. I’m right. And
our lives may not reflect it. No, you see the Christian life
is knowledge unto holiness. And we’re like Isaiah. Remember
Isaiah, he bumped into the presence of God and he said, I am unclean. And God touched him and made
him clean. And he was able to go and to serve. Or John, who
on the Isle of Patmos saw into heaven and he saw a glimpse of
the future and he felt on his face as though dead. Friends,
the knowledge of God must lead to holiness and reverence in
all. and fear. Pray with me. Our Lord and God,
we thank you so much for the scripture and how it grabs us
by our head and it turns us from looking away at lesser things
and causes us to look at the best things, the great things.
And help us to see this day that living a God-centered and God-like
life is pleasing in your sight and it’s a witness to the world,
to the greatness of Jesus and all that he is able to do. Help
us, give us grace, and prepare us for great things as we serve
you in this world. Amen. Let’s stand together in
preparation for the Lord’s Supper and sing number 325 here. Oh
my Lord, I see thee face to face.