The following is a transcript of a sermon preached at Pioneer Bible Church on May 28, 2023. This is the introductory sermon in a series on Titus. You can find the outline of this sermon here.
Titus: An Introduction
Right Belief with the Right Confidence Should Lead to the Godly Living
Good Morning, Church.
Let’s pray together:
Father, we need You. We are so thankful that we have access to You through the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit. We ask that the Holy Spirit be our Teacher and transform us. May the Lord Jesus’ prayer be answered that we be sanctified in the truth. Amen.
Please take your Bibles and turn with me to Paul’s letter to Titus.
I would like to read Titus 1:1-5, and we are going to look at the introduction to this short book.
Titus 1:1-5. I am going to be reading from the English Standard Version. Please follow along as I read.
Titus 1:1-5 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, (2) in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began (3) 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;
(4) To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
(5) This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—
Paul wrote this letter. Paul’s letter to Titus is short. It is only forty-five verses long in our English Bibles. Ephesians has 155 verses, so Titus is about a quarter of the size of Ephesians. However, its small size does not at all diminish its depth.
Paul wrote this letter in a very straightforward, to-the-point, cut-to-the-chase manner. It is as if Paul reached for his legal pad and found that he only had two pages left and no time to go to the store. It is like a Tweet – Let me just give you the quick facts. But these facts are intended to equip Titus and the churches he served with knowledge of the grace of God and the confidence of eternal life, so they may live in godliness.
Paul begins by giving his credentials and purpose. Paul is the bondservant, or, literally, the slave of God. Paul is putting himself in a long line of godly men with this title. The prophets of old were said to be the slaves or servants of God. Moses was said to be the servant of the Lord (Joshua 14:7). David and Elijah were also called the servants of the Lord (Psalm 89:3; 2 Samuel 7:5, 8; 1 Kings 10:10). He is not writing with his agenda in mind. He is writing God’s message as God’s slave. His purposes are God’s purposes. He lives to serve God.
Paul also writes as the apostle of Jesus Christ. He is Jesus’ messenger, bringing Jesus’ message to Titus and the churches that Titus served. The message Paul brings is Jesus’ message, not his own. He is an ambassador for Jesus, a representative of Jesus. He serves as one of the foundation pieces of Jesus’ church in the office of apostle (cf. Ephesians 2:20) bringing Jesus’ message to the church.
His purpose as God’s slave and Jesus’ apostle is to strengthen the faith of God’s chosen. His ministry as an apostle and his purpose for writing this letter is to strengthen and help the faith of God’s people. He also writes for God’s people to grow in the knowledge of the truth. He writes so that Titus and the Cretan church and us by extension may know the truth. He writes this so this truth will lead to godliness.
“Godliness” could be translated as “piety.” The idea is that knowing the truth is intended to lead the church to live devoted to God. Right belief should lead to godliness.
However, it is not the right belief on its own that leads to a life devoted to God. Right belief grounded in hope should lead to a life of devotion to God. This godliness is to be grounded in the hope of eternal life.
The word “hope” is not like our English word “hope.” It is not an “I hope so.” It is not like, “Well, I hope I have eternal life.” This word could be translated as “certainty” or “confidence.” I am certain I have eternal life. The knowledge of the truth, knowing what the Lord has accomplished for us in salvation and what He is going to do for us in the future, leads us to have confidence. We have confidence in eternal life. As a missionary friend of mine, Bill Commons has put it, “Hope is a present confidence based in a certain future.”
Assurance of eternal life leads to godly living. Lack of assurance leads to self-absorption and deep anxiety.
Paul writes so God’s people at Crete and Titus may have their faith strengthened and their knowledge of the truth deepened. This will lead to confidence of eternal life and godly living based on that confidence.
This confidence in eternal life does not come from our work or the way that we are living. Proper living does not bring confidence of eternal life.
Proper living comes from resting in the confidence of eternal life. The confidence of eternal life does not rest in proper living.
This confidence of eternal life rests in the promises of God. Notice this eternal life and the confidence of eternal life was promised by God before the ages eternal. In other words, before God created the world, He promised eternal life for those who come to Christ. He not only promised eternal life but the confidence of that eternal life.
Some teach that we cannot know if we are saved. As a result, many believers doubt if they are truly the children of God. Paul says that God promised that you can have that confidence. It is the birthright of every child of God to have the assurance that they have eternal life. This is because that confidence rests in God and His promises, and God cannot lie.
It is absolutely against the nature of God for Him to lie. Not only has he never lied, but He also absolutely CANNOT lie. This confidence in eternal life comes as we grow in our faith, which is taking God at His Word. This confidence grows as we grow in our knowledge of the truth. As we grow in our knowledge of the Word of God, we are to grow in our confidence in that Word and rest in the confidence of what that Word promises to us.
This was Paul’s purpose in his ministry and his writing to Titus. And this can be ours as well as we grow in our knowledge of the truth together.
This promise made before time began has been manifested, which means God has made this promise known. God has turned the light on regarding this promise of eternal life. He has done so in His Word, which has been written down. It is the teaching and preaching, that God has revealed through Paul.
God made this known at the proper time, which means He did this at just the right moment. He did so through the proclamation that He entrusted by the commandment to the Apostle Paul.
Notice that Paul was entrusted with this proclamation by the command of God our Savior. In Titus and 1 Timothy, there are multiple places where God the Father is called our Savior. I point this out to remind us that the Trinity is working as one in our salvation. Each person of the Trinity has His role, but it is a work of the Godhead in unity. This is seen at the end of verse four where Christ Jesus is also said to be our Savior. That not only proves that Jesus is God, but it shows the shared work of the Father and the Son in our deliverance from sin.
The Father is not begrudgingly saving sinners just because He is obligated to because of Jesus’ death. The Father is the Savior as well. The Father loves to save sinners. He has saved us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior.
This God who cannot lie made a promise before time began to give eternal life. He has kept His promise to give us eternal life and the confidence of that eternal life. He has made this known through the preaching of the apostles.
This letter is written to Titus (v. 4), who is a faithful helper for the Apostle Paul as we see in various places in the New Testament.
Titus is never mentioned in Acts. Paul’s work on Crete is never mentioned in Acts. This has led most to believe that this letter to Titus was written after Paul’s release from house arrest, which he faced at the end of Acts (Acts 28:11-31). Paul has the freedom to move around and work as he pleases. He left Crete and left Titus there. He has also decided to spend the winter in Nicopolis (Titus 3:12).
Titus was a Gentile and was used as a clear example that a man did not need to be circumcised to be a believer in Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:3).
That was a huge question at the beginning of the Church Age. Must Gentiles keep the law of Moses and be circumcised to be Jesus’ people? They even had a whole church council about it in Acts 15. Paul had another of his fellow workers, Timothy, circumcised, not to make him right in God’s sight, but for effective ministry to Jews, since Timothy was part Jewish. However, Titus, a Gentile, a non-Jew, was never required to be circumcised, because individuals can never be declared right with God through keeping the Law (Romans 3:20).
Titus is described here as Paul’s true child in a common faith. Paul is likely the man who shared Christ with Titus and then trained him in the ways of Christ. There was a close intimate bond between Paul and Titus that was founded in the fact that they both trusted Jesus Christ.
Paul’s relationship with Titus is incredibly special. Titus was a Gentile. Paul was a former Pharisee (Philippians 3:5).
The transforming power of Jesus’ Good News in Paul’s life is phenomenal. Here is a man who would have hated Gentiles before. Now, he calls one of them his child in the faith.
Titus’ relationship with Paul is also going to serve as ammunition in Titus’ battle with false teachers on Crete. These false teachers are said to be of the circumcision party (Titus 1:10). They were Jewish false teachers who were teaching Jewish myths (Titus 1:14). They may have looked at Titus as a Gentile and dismissed him on that ground and led the churches to do the same. But Paul says, “I am an apostle of Jesus Christ. Titus is my true child in a common faith. His ethnicity makes no difference. When Titus ministers, he ministers under the authority of Jesus Christ.”
Titus was a man Paul had trusted with some heavy responsibilities. He had been sent to Corinth to deliver a letter from Paul that may have caused sorrow. It is a letter that is not part of the Bible; it was written between 1 and 2 Corinthians (2 Corinthians 7:5-13a). In 2 Corinthians we learn that Titus was sent to Corinth to collect a love offering for the hurting saints in Judea (2 Corinthians 8:16-24). 2 Corinthians 7:13b and 8:16-17 tells us that Titus had a real love for God’s people, even when they were difficult. So, he was perfect for the ministry on Crete.
Looking at Titus 1:5, we find that Titus was left on the island of Crete, which would have been a terrible ministry assignment.
One of their poets said, “Cretans are ALWAYS liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” Paul said this testimony was a true witness to the reality of Crete (Titus 1:12-13a). Crete was known as the birthplace of the mythical god Zeus, and all the characteristics of Zeus were common traits of the people of Crete. Cretans were known for sexual immorality, bestiality, lying, and gluttony. This was Titus’ ministry charge.
In verse five, Paul told Titus that the reason he left Titus on Crete was to set the remaining things in order and to appoint elders in every town as he had been directed. This word for “set in order” is the same word for setting a broken bone or straightening a crooked bone. Things were a mess. It was dangerous for the church. It was going to be a nasty and painful job, but Paul left Titus to set the Cretan church’s broken spiritual bones.
He was also left to appoint elders in every town. Titus was not attached to one local church, but he had the ministry of moving around the island of Crete, working with the local churches within each town, and appointing elders to serve the church of each town. It would likely have been multiple house churches in each town that all identified with one another as one church.
It was not only going to be a nasty and challenging task, but it was going to be a big task. This was going to be a difficult task and one that would require a firm hand. However, Titus was not ill-equipped for the work.
Paul gives a blessing right at the beginning of the letter in Titus 1:4: “Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.”
Paul in essence says, “My son in the faith, may you be encouraged by the grace of God that saved you, and may that grace continually empower you. May you be strengthened as you experience the peace of God. The Cretans may rage and the false teachers wage war, but your war with God is at an end. May the assurance of this peace enable you to live in peace in this difficult situation.”
And Paul is not insensitive to the believers on Crete, even the difficult ones. Turn to the back of the letter to the last verse. This is a personal letter to one individual, namely Titus. However, it was a letter that would have been read, and its teaching shared in the local churches that Titus served. This personal letter becomes corporate in the last part:
“Grace be with you all.”
This work was not only going to be hard for Titus, but the transformation of life that was needed and the continuing work would not be easy for the Cretan believers. So, Paul sends a blessing of grace to them as well. May you rest in and be encouraged by the grace of God that saved you, and empowered by the grace that continues to train you to live in godliness.
May it be so with us as well.
May grace and peace be multiplied to us as we study and respond to this letter to Titus. Amen.
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