[0:00] Heavenly Father, we come for You into Your presence, into Your throne room, amazed and awestruck by Your grace and Your mercy.
[0:24] Heavenly Father, as we come to the book of Titus, and as we read about how You would have Your church, Your bride governed, we stand amazed at Your wisdom.
[0:48] Heavenly Father, we thank You for the privilege of being under elders in the church. We thank You for the grace that You have revealed to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
[1:12] Heavenly Father, let us ever be mindful of that. Amen. Before we get started, I want to give you the big, broad, main idea of the book of Titus.
[1:42] So that if you remember anything from this message, I hope it will be this, is that God, before the ages began, purposed to call out a people, choose a people for Himself, to be His holy people.
[2:16] God desired a bride for His church. He desired a bride for His Son, the church. And the church, you have the fulfillment of the church in the New Testament.
[2:35] You have it starting in the Old Testament. And Jesus Christ came to earth. He became incarnate. Holy God.
[2:48] Holy man. He came to earth to gather His church, His bride, and to offer her back to the Father as a love gift.
[3:05] As a gift of love and a way of honoring and glorifying God. So if you can remember anything from this message today, I hope it will be that.
[3:19] That you have God glorifying and honoring Christ through giving Him the church and then Christ honoring and glorifying God through His work in person and through giving the church back to God.
[3:39] We're going to first start with chapter 1. The first point is that the King God appoints men to govern His bride.
[4:00] To watch over her, to protect her, and to defend her. So Paul, he starts in his introduction, he describes himself as a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.
[4:21] Now this word servant in here, that can also be translated as bondservant as the New American Standard has it. Or in the Greek, the word is doulos.
[4:33] And that word usually means slave. So here, Paul is not only a servant, but a slave of God.
[4:48] That means that Paul does not have an opinion other than that of his Master. Paul does the bidding of Jesus Christ.
[4:59] Paul also describes himself as an apostle of Christ's season. As an apostle, one of the qualifications for that was that he had physically and literally seen the risen Lord.
[5:20] So with apostolic authority, Paul tells Titus to put in order what remained.
[5:35] Meaning the remnant, the church. Titus was tasked with putting elders in charge of the church.
[5:45] The church. The church. And Paul, he does this for several reasons.
[5:56] First of all, he does it for the faith of God's elect. For God's chosen people. He does it for their knowledge of the truth.
[6:10] So that they would grow in their knowledge of the truth. And he does all of this for the purpose of their godliness.
[6:23] So that they may have eternal life. Which God, and God never lies, promised them before the ages began.
[6:35] So that means that before the foundation of the world, God promised a chosen people. He elected out of every nation, tribe, and tongue a people for himself.
[6:58] The fulfillment of this opening in Titus is found in Revelation 19, verses 6-8, which is the marriage of the Lamb.
[7:25] In this, the Apostle John writes, then I heard what seemed to be a voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of a mighty hills of thunder crying out, Hallelujah!
[7:42] For the Lord, our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.
[7:54] It was granted her to clothe herself in fine linen bright and pure. If the pinnacle of all of redemptive history was the death of Christ at Calvary, then the culmination of all of history is the marriage of the Lamb and the Bride.
[8:26] That is the fulfillment of all of history. And that is why you have the voice of a great multitude like the roar of many waters. What that is describing there is all the saints in heaven, all the cherubim and the seraphim, all the angels gathered round crying out, Hallelujah!
[8:51] in praise and joy for the marriage of the Lamb. As we look to the qualifications for elders now in verses 5 through 15, I'm just going to give a broad overview of this.
[9:21] But you may be wondering why these verses are so specific. An elder must be above reproach of the husband of one wife.
[9:35] His children must be marked by obedience. He must not be open to the charge of debauchery. Again, it says he must be above reproach.
[9:48] He must be not quick-tempered or arrogant. The reason for the specific qualifications for elder is because the church must be pure.
[10:09] And you will see that as we go through chapter by chapter, one of the main points that you can bring out is that the church must be pure.
[10:20] Because God is pure. And for the church to stand before God, you must be holy. You must be clothed in white linen.
[10:35] There cannot be any spot or stain on her. There cannot be any spot or stain on her. Because for her to be anything other than full of the purest purity would be for God to have to reject her.
[10:56] Because there is nothing within God that is anything but pure. It is all pure, all holy. Verse 15.
[11:11] In chapter 1, it says, to the pure, all things are pure. All things are but for the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. This is the contrast.
[11:27] The church is pure and not only pure, but she is purity of purity. And in contrast to that, everything else is the defilement of defilement.
[11:46] It is defiled and perverted and detestable and unfit for any good work, even to the utmost. That is the contrast between the church and the world.
[12:01] Between the church and anything else. And this is because the church is the bride of Christ. Now, before I go any further, just so you understand a little bit more about why I'm using the analogy of a king and a bride, because in the text, you're not going to find that language explicitly in the text.
[12:36] But if you think of it this way, if there is a king and he goes off on a long journey, and if he is a good and godly king, he's not going to leave his bride, his queen, alone.
[12:55] He is not going to abandon her. There are enemies within and without. His kingdom is under attack from every angle.
[13:10] And because he loves his queen, his bride, he cannot stand the thought of coming back to his kingdom a widower.
[13:25] He cannot stand the thought of anything hurting or defiling his bride. He must be kept pure at all costs. So therefore, the king will appoint trusted men.
[13:42] Men who he knows will protect and govern and watch over his precious bride. These men cannot only do whatever they think is best.
[13:59] it is not only their opinion that matters. They are not to come up with any theories of their own.
[14:12] But they are to abide by every rule, every qualification, every standard that the king has given them.
[14:26] Likewise, God, because he cannot stand the thought of anything harming or defiling his church. He cannot stand for her to be impure.
[14:44] So he appointed elders to watch over and to govern and to love and to care for his church. men who would put everything aside for the benefit of the bride.
[15:07] That is an example, an illustration of the love of Christ and of God for his church.
[15:20] Moving on to chapter 2, we get into the actions of the bride.
[15:30] How the bride is supposed to conduct herself in the absence of the king. The bride is to live honorable. She is to live a life of purity, waiting for the king to return.
[15:50] We're now looking at Titus 2 verses 11 through 14. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing, the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, who are zealous for good works.
[16:35] God's grace. This can be illustrated through looking at the Old Testament.
[16:49] If you turn to Malachi chapter 3 in verse 14, the very end of the Old Testament, what we have is portraits of a harlot, really a people that have abandoned God for gods that are no gods, gods such as Molech and Baal.
[17:30] You have them committing continual spiritual adultery with other gods, refusing to obey the one true God, the God who made a covenant with them.
[17:46] The God who put them in covenant relationship with Himself for no other reason than that He loved them.
[17:59] And here now at the end of the Old Testament in Malachi, you have true heart revealed of the people.
[18:14] God says to them, you have said as if to condemn them, it is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping His charge?
[18:28] what is the profit of keeping His charge? Did not God in the garden tell Adam and Eve that He desired for them to be fruitful and to multiply and to have dominion as a blessing to them?
[19:01] And when they ate of the fruit, did He not give them mercy? Did He not allow them to live day after day after day?
[19:15] Did He not give Abraham promised land?
[19:26] Did He not give Noah an ark? Did He not give Moses a people to lead out of Egypt? In the desert, did He not give the Israelites manna from heaven?
[19:45] Did not He provide for them every day? Constantly? Did He not provide Moses with a bronze serpent in the desert to be lifted up for the salvation of His people?
[20:06] And yet, His people say it is vain to serve God and what profit is there in serving Him? They would rather serve wood and stone gold and silver.
[20:27] Gods who can do nothing for them. And understand that they knew that these gods could do nothing for them.
[20:38] They knew that these gods were dumb. They could not speak. They could not listen. They surely could not answer prayer. They would serve and yet, they said, we would rather serve these abominable works of our hands than the one true and living God.
[21:11] However, even in these darkest times at the end of Malachi, there is hope.
[21:23] There is hope found in the beginning of Mark, where he says the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There is hope in the beginning of the first chapter of John verse 9 where he says, there is the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man.
[21:44] John also wrote that there is hope and that although the light shines in the darkness, the darkness did not overcome it.
[22:05] This is the promise of the ages. This is the promise that God had spoken before the ages began.
[22:18] God was not going to let the fullest vain attempts of men destroy His plans. The New Covenant, the New Testament, the Incarnation of Christ was not plan B.
[22:35] This was not God in panic mode wondering what He was going to do to be able to take a remnant out of Israel and to make them His chosen people.
[22:48] This was what God had desired and purposed all along for His glory. You look to Jeremiah, we see the problem with the Old Testament.
[23:13] And that is this, that Israel is guilty of spiritual adultery and that not even the pagans, not even the God hating heathens all around Israel, not even they would commit spiritual adultery.
[23:39] They were so attached to their gods that not even they would leave Baal and Molech for the one and true and living God.
[23:57] So in Jeremiah chapter 2 verses 11 through 13, we read this, has a nation changed its gods even though they are no gods?
[24:10] But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be soft, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord.
[24:22] For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me. The fountain of living waters and huge abscessions for themselves. Broken cisterns that hold no water.
[24:37] The actions of Israel throughout the Old Testament again and again and again is illogical, irrational, deluded.
[24:52] It doesn't make any sense. And in Jeremiah 3, verse 1, God tells His chosen people this.
[25:13] He says, You have played the whore with many lovers and would you return to Me? Would you return to Me? God is disgusted with His people in the Old Testament.
[25:31] But yet, but yet, He will not divorce them entirely. He will not destroy them. But He will, like a surgeon, He will take a knife and He will carefully cut out the cancer from Israel.
[25:51] He will be wounded. He will be in pain. He will cut out a remnant for Himself. A people for Himself.
[26:10] And that is what the new covenant is. It is an answer to the end of Malachi.
[26:22] To the entire New Testament. It is God. God who can never lie. God who can never tell a falsehood. It is God keeping and fulfilling His promise to His covenant people for the glory of His Son.
[26:40] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[26:57] Remembers her low estate. She remembers that she was once on the street in places where respectable men and women do not go.
[27:14] doing things, vile things that ought not to be done. She remembers what and who she was before Christ came.
[27:32] Before He came and rescued her. And because of that, she waits for Him in purity.
[27:44] Chapter 3, verses 4-7 read, But when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared.
[27:59] He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
[28:25] Amen. God appeared.
[28:35] God appeared. The goodness and loving kindness of God was made manifest. It was made incarnate in the work and person of Jesus Christ because He was only full of goodness and kindness and mercy and grace and tenderness toward His covenant people.
[29:01] Amen. Chapter 3 speaks of the grace and goodness of God appearing.
[29:16] I would also like to take us back to chapter 2 for a moment and also look at verses 11 and following in chapter 2.
[29:29] It says, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, to live self-controlled, 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, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.
[30:07] Titus is not just about how the elders are supposed to act or how the church members are supposed to conduct themselves.
[30:18] No, it is about the appearing of the grace of God and the person of Christ for the salvation of His people.
[30:38] The goodness of God can be found in many examples. Examples which we don't have time to turn to, that there's in Isaiah, in Zechariah, in Malachi, you will find examples of the goodness of God.
[31:00] Why? Why should God be good? Why should God be good? Is His people always obedient?
[31:13] Are they always pure? Are they always acting in righteousness? No. Far from it. You and I, we are guilty of gross iniquity every day.
[31:34] Even our best efforts are like filthy rags in the sight of God. God. But yet, as Paul writes in chapter 3, it is not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.
[32:04] The washing of regeneration is the death of Christ on the cross. It is His atoning death at Calvary that cleanses us.
[32:20] It is His Holy Spirit invading our person and creating in us holiness and godliness.
[32:33] Godliness. It is not by anything that we do. And it is because of this that the church is pure and holy and undefiled.
[32:55] Don't let anyone tell you differently. Don't let anyone tell you that the church is unholy. that she is impure. That she is divided.
[33:09] She's not. She's the bride of Christ. How can she be unpure? How can she be unholy? She's the bride of Christ.
[33:21] The remnant of Israel. The chosen, the elect of God from before the ages began. Now the reason why God would bestow His loving kindness and His goodness on the church for three reasons.
[33:53] because Christ is the bridegroom. Christ is the bridegroom. Looking at 2 Corinthians 11 verse 2 it reads that Christ is the bridegroom of His people.
[34:30] It says, for I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
[34:45] God is filled with divine jealousy for His people. And it has been that way since the Old Testament. It has been that way since the garden.
[34:57] And no act of disobedience. No act of wickedness or iniquity. No act of spiritual idolatry and adultery has ever changed His mind.
[35:10] He doesn't change His mind. He's jealous. Divinely jealous over you.
[35:22] His people. That has never wavered. That feeling has never grown weak. It's never faltered.
[35:35] It's strong and stout and steady and trustworthy and true and pure. Secondly, the church is the bride.
[35:56] And that is another reason why Christ has come in all His goodness and mercy and why God has given us Savior.
[36:11] Romans 7 verse 4 says, it says, Likewise, my brothers, you have died to the law through the body of Christ.
[36:30] through the body of Christ. The church has died through Christ so that she may live.
[36:49] So that she may be raised from the dead. Verse 4 continues, so that you may belong to one another. To Him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
[37:09] Do you understand that? You are His and He is yours. You belong to one another.
[37:22] You and Christ. Christ and you. And Christ and the church, the whole assembly, the whole congregation, the whole body of believers and the invisible, invisible church belong to Him as well.
[37:40] Thirdly, God bestowed His love and grace because God and Christ are Savior.
[37:59] They are Savior. Throughout the book of Titus, as I was studying, I took note that in each chapter of Titus it says that God and Christ are Savior.
[38:21] Titus chapter 1 verse 3 and at the proper time manifested in His Word through the preaching which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior.
[38:38] in the following verse, grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Savior. Titus 2 verse 10 so that everything may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
[39:03] Chapter 2 verse 13 waiting for our blessed hope be appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Titus chapter 3 verse 4 but when the goodness and love and kindness of God our Savior appeared and in chapter 3 verse 6 whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
[39:39] It is not just Jesus Christ acting as Savior but it is God acting as Savior. There is a distinction of His person of all three persons of the Trinity Father, Son, and Holy Spirit there is a distinction in their work and what they do.
[40:06] But the same God that died for you at Calvary the same God that lived a perfect life the same God that rose again from the dead is the same God in Heaven.
[40:28] The same God who is your Father. There is a unity and purpose. The Son is not subordinate to the Father nor the Father and the Son nor the Holy Spirit to the Son or the Father they are all co-equal co-powerful co-eternal.
[40:52] All three working together for your salvation. All three complementing one another. And you see when I told you about that big idea that main idea at the beginning of the sermon that God gathered Himself a people a chosen people for Christ to be His bride.
[41:17] And then He came stooped down from Heaven to Earth and came for His people. That He did that.
[41:28] That He did that as a love offering as a love gift from the Father to the Son. and that it is returned from the Son back to the Father.
[41:45] Each one honoring the other, glorifying the other. It could be likened to them trying to outdo one another in honor and in glory.
[41:59] Trying to one-up one another. But they can't if they're so equal. people. In conclusion, and then I'm going to give an application.
[42:18] God has not only sprinkled grace and mercy and love and kindness on His people. He has not only given them a little, no.
[42:37] God has flooded His people. From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, He has flooded His people with grace and mercy and kindness until they're drowning in it.
[42:55] the people in the Old Testament were not able to understand because of the wickedness of their hearts the love and the mercy of God for them.
[43:12] But in the appearing of Jesus Christ, and that is why the text in chapters 2 and 3, why they both say when Christ appeared.
[43:26] When Christ appeared, that was the pinnacle. That was the culmination. That was the end goal of all of history. Of all the grace and the mercy of God.
[43:39] It was that Christ would appear that He would become incarnate for the benefit of His people and the glory of God. to the believers, I would urge you to remember King that He while now in Heaven seated at the right hand of His Father, that while He is there, that He has given you His Holy Spirit so that whether you be an elder or a church member, that you can fulfill these qualifications.
[44:34] These are not suggestions to you. These are how you ought to live. These are how God is commanding you to live. To live in purity and holiness.
[44:49] Secondly, I would tell you that you are to live this way and to remember the King for the purpose of awaiting His coming.
[45:00] We are not idle. We don't just sit down and stop doing what we're doing and just wait for Christ to come back.
[45:14] No, He has given us work to do. He has given us the people to be. We are to act out, work out salvation with fear and trembling.
[45:29] We are to wash the linens of our clothing so that it may be pure and white. Our wedding gown is to be pure and white.
[45:44] And we are to be at work making it so. I would also urge you to remember, believers, your low estate before He came and ransomed you.
[46:04] All of us, young, old, men, women, doesn't matter. This is the entire state of the human condition.
[46:18] We were all as harlots. We all had many lovers. We all were living in wickedness and in vileness.
[46:28] We were all committing idolatry and adultery. But then, Jesus Christ appeared. Then He manifests Himself.
[46:42] Remember that. Not only what you were, but what you are because of Him. Lastly, I would urge the unbelievers, if you read Titus.
[47:07] I would strongly suggest you read Titus. Read it, not looking at all these little qualifications, all these details. No, but look at the big picture.
[47:21] Particularly verses 2 and 3, the verses that we went over. Look at Christ. His appearing, His incarnation, His work in His person.
[47:39] You may have been able to legitimately reject God in the Old Testament before Christ had come because maybe, and this is a very doubtful, very, very doubtful maybe, that maybe excuse can be made, well, God wasn't that great at sowing His love.
[48:04] He was wrathful and angry most of the time, for it seems. But now you have no excuse, unbeliever. You have no excuse.
[48:19] Jesus Christ has manifested, has appeared. God has come down from heaven for you, for your salvation.
[48:30] God has saved. God has saved. I would urge you, think on that. Let us, in conclusion, remember that Titus is for the good and benefit of his people so that they can be given in marriage Christ, the bridegroom, the Lamb, the glory of God.
[49:08] Amen.