Please turn in your Bible to the Book of Titus. The Book of Titus is in the New Testament. If you get to the very end of the Bible and hit Revelation, you've gone a little bit too far. Kind of make your way back a little bit. But watch out. Titus in many Bibles is only a couple of pages long. And this short book is about Paul and his co worker Titus seeking to build strong churches at the edge of the gospel frontier. So the island of Crete was in a sense the Wild West. There were scattered believers. And Paul lays out for us what it looks like to build a strong church and group of strong churches at the frontier of gospel work.
And so this series is going to be called Frontera Church or Frontier Church because we want to emulate Paul's example as we build a church on the gospel frontiers of El Paso.
So we're going to begin reading in chapter one, verse one, verses one through four. And as we read, let's remember this book, like everyone in the Bible is God's Word. 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 the truth which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life, which God who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior, to Titus, my true child in a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
This is God's word.
And Lord, we pray your blessing over the preaching and the hearing of your word today. Amen.
Well, in 1984, an upstart computer company aired an ad during the super bowl that called some that caused something of a cultural explosion. The ad looked like no other commercial out there. It looked like it was straight out of a Georgia George Orwell's 1984 novel. It had images of drone like workers all marching in lockstep over to a big auditorium where they were listening to a giant screen talking head drone on about how to think and live. But then the ad gets interrupted when a woman comes running in with a sledgehammer. And the woman hurls the sledgehammer through the screen causing a massive explosion. And then the ad copy reads as follows.
1984 won't be like 1984 Apple computer. Now you might think like, I did not see where that was going. I did not like, I would not have predicted that was a computer ad. And the ad was notable because the ad wasn't actually about computers at all. In fact, the board before the computer, before the ad aired, they showed the ad to the board of Apple, and everyone was like, nope, not gonna do this. Where are the computers? And actually, the reason it aired, it only aired one time during and aired during the super bowl because it was too late to pull the ad. And it aired one time, but then it got replayed for free for weeks and years, right? Because people were like, this is so weird. Look at it.
And so it got free advertising. And the reason it was so notable is it wasn't about computers. It was about revolution. It was about radical change. It was about rejecting the status quo.
Apple, with the spirit of this, later adopted the tagline two words, think different, meaning everybody else is marching in lockstep, but we are going to throw a sledgehammer through the way people normally think and encourage people to think different. Now, of course, in the end of the day, it was just computer. But that spirit, I think, is how we should read the book of Titus. This short book is something of a sledgehammer that Paul the apostle is handing to his fellow gospel worker, Titus. And this sledgehammer of gospel truth is meant to be hurled into the island of Crete, disrupting the status quo, creating radical change and leading to nothing less than a new way of life on that island.
Now, the reason that Paul writes this letter is that he's. He's seeking to bring organization on this frontier of the gospel. The church was not started intentionally on the island of Crete. It was started because in God's happy providence at Pentecost. Remember that there were all kinds of people present at Pentecost for that festival. Well, Acts says that some of those present were from the island of Crete. So they were there. They heard Peter, they. They were saved and maybe discipled for a few days. But they weren't from there. They were from Jerusalem. They had to go back to Crete. So they took the gospel with them back to Crete. But they were not taught. They, you know, they weren't necessarily commissioned as church leaders, but they shared the gospel.
And so you have these pockets of believers on this island of Crete that were unorganized, that didn't have strong foundations. And Pa sees a danger. The danger he sees is that the Cretan believers were beginning to drift back into lock step with the culture. They were beginning to march right along with everyone else on the island of Crete, listening to the culture around them. And so Paul hands this gospel sledgehammer to Titus and says, you got to disrupt this thing. You can't Let them go back to the old way of life.
And today, friends, we need the same thing. We need a gospel sledgehammer thrown through our lives and our culture. Because here's the reality. The world, the flesh and the devil want nothing more than for us to march in lockstep with everyone else around us. We are under siege. Maybe you don't realize that everything we watch, everything we look at on social media, everything, the culture of our offices, the culture of our city, all of it is like. It has a path for us. It says, walk like this, this way in lockstep with us. And yet the gospel disrupts everything. The gospel of Jesus Christ comes into our lives and says, you need to think different. You don't think the way the rest of the world thinks. Don't think the way the people around you think. Think according to the gospel.
And so what we're going to do today is look at three ways the Gospel causes us to think different. And the first is think different about thinking.
6 · The pastor traces Paul's emphasis on truth through Titus 1:1-3, showing how Paul deliberately frontloads this introduction to reset the Cretan believers' epistemological foundation
Think different about thinking. Now, notice the emphasis in the opening verses on the particular thread of truth. Look at this. In verse one, Paul is writing for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness and hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began. And it goes on to talk about that. That truth being manifested, and then that truth manifested, being preached. And so this is no ordinary introduction. Paul the Apostle could have just said, hey, I'm Paul the Apostle writing to Titus. Let's get into the letter. Instead, he inserts this very intentional introduction.
And very likely what would have happened is that Titus would have almost brought this letter to the little groups of believers in each city in Crete and gone, hey, this is my marching orders from Paul the Apostle. Let's. And he would open by reading this. And so what Paul is doing is he's not just setting Titus up, he's setting the believers on Crete up to. To start from a totally different beginning point than they are starting in. He's. He wants them to start with the truth reground them there.
7 · The pastor explains the cultural context: Crete was notorious for deception
Now, this was important because apparently one of the issues on Crete is that the island, and I'm not making this up, was full of notorious liars. And you might think that sounds harsh. No. Paul quotes one of the poets of Crete who says, Cretans are always liars. And Paul says this testimony is true. So it's like in ancient world they had a reputation for playing fast and loose with the truth.
8 · A missionary's testimony illustrates that Crete's problem is not unique—many cultures struggle with truth-telling, and for new believers, learning to tell the truth consistently is often the hardest domino to fall
I was Talking to a missionary friend of mine who's now a pastor in the States, but he was previously a missionary in another country. And he described that in this particular country there was often this same culture, that the culture played fast and loose with the truth. And as you were discipled in Christ, he said often the last domino to fall was that believers finally began always telling the truth and not conforming to the culture around them. That was always shading, lying, misdirecting, etc.
9 · The pastor prosecutes American culture with two concrete examples: dating profiles and resumes
Now, tragically, I think we cannot say, oh, well, that sounds terrible. We always tell the truth in America. We're notorious truth tellers. And it's true that we do value the truth. But think about a few examples. I want to give you some exhibits of the fact that we may have an issue with this. Exhibit A, the American dating profile, right? There's a lot of people out in America claiming they're six one that are not right, that they look like this. Oh, that was 20 years ago, or whatever. You know, like, if you get into that world, you see that. Or exhibit B, the American resume, right? Where you're like, you have a lot of experience here? Like, oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. And so you led a team doing this. Yep, pretty much. Mostly. I mean, you could say in a way, you know, like. And you start to look at. Okay, actually, Americans are like, yeah, we believe in truth, but our culture is built around shading the truth, massaging the truth, giving a certain impression.
10 · This unit moves from illustration to doctrinal assertion: American culture operates with an anti-foundational epistemology, rejecting objective truth in favor of personalized, subjective 'truths
We have made truth in our culture something subjective, not objective. And so we often use phrases like your truth and my truth. I need to speak my truth. This is my truth. In philosophical terms, we hold as American commonly, Americans commonly what is called an anti. Foundational epistemology. Epistemology, meaning truth, meaning we don't have a foundation for the truth. And in fact, what is true is subject to the viewpoint of the person speaking. Right? That's our culture. Truth has become personalized. We evaluate things around us, going, that's true for me, or that's not true for me. I resonate with that. I don't resonate with that.
11 · Paul's response to the culture's personalized truth is to anchor everything in God's character: He never lies, His purposes predate time, and He is omniscient and eternal
But do you see what Paul does in these opening verses? He hits the reset button. He takes the sledgehammer and goes, yep, this has got to go. And he swings it through the. The island of Crete's culture of massaging the truth. And. And what Paul does is brilliant. He says, there's not your truth, there's not my truth, there's only the truth with a capital T. And that is God's truth. He looks at the Truth, not in. Not. He doesn't look inwardly for the truth. He looks externally. He doesn't look inside us, but outside us. And. And he says this. We don. Get to check inside when it comes to life and go, is this true for me? Does it resonate for me? But rather, we check outside of ourselves and ask, what does God say about this? And notice the phrases. This is the God who never lies, who promises things. Before the ages began, those two things change everything. One, what we. What we do is we say, okay, you and I, if I ask you to raise your hands and ask, like, who's ever told a lie? Like, all the hands would go up, right? And if you didn't put your hand up, you'd be lying, right? So then you'd have to put your hand up. So the reality is all of us have inconsistent character, but not so with the Lord. The Lord is the only being who never lies in this way, right? What it means is that intrinsic to his character is that he always tells the truth. He can no more lie. Then he could stop being the creator or sustainer. It's inherent to his very character. And he speaks truth before the ages began. His purposes stretch. His purposes, rather, are not confined to the particular perspective that we find ourselves in today, in this moment. I mean, how many of us thought something at one time? And then you learn more and you're like, oh, that's not true. Or we see something from one angle, only to realize later, oh, I need to see it from another angle. Right? The Lord never has that because he is the eternal, omniscient, authoritative voice for what is happening in the universe and in our lives. Therefore, he is more trustworthy than anything else that we could possibly go to to determine what is true.
12 · The pastor pauses the exposition to address a potential objection: 'Why spend so much time on this?' He signals that the abstract doctrine has immediate, personal stakes
Now, it may feel like I'm belaboring this to be like, okay, sure, yeah, God tells the truth. But, friends, this. This is where the rubber meets the road for all of us.
13 · This is an extended, concrete application painting a vivid picture of Sunday evening anxiety and the rapid scroll through competing 'truths'—Rise and Grind culture, victim mentality, biohacking, pop therapy
Think about how this works itself out in our own lives. I want you to think perhaps about this afternoon, Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, where as you begin to think about your week, maybe it's not uncommon for you to find a mix of anxiety about, okay, what's gonna go on this week, or a mix of fatigue, like, oh, I'm so tired. I don't know if you've had that experience where, look at your calendar Sunday. You just look at Monday through Friday and you're like, I'm already tired. I haven't even done that, but I'm already tired. Right? Or you think about that meeting with that person and there's frustration or you think about having to talk to your kids about this or your wife about this or your husband about this. And there's that, that mix of ah, that, that I'm not talking about big, high level issues. I'm talking about that everyday mundane mix of anxiety and fear and fatigue that we deal with. And so what do we do with that? Without even consciously considering it, we cast around for how, for what source of truth can help us interpret the week that we're about to experience. And so we go to all kinds of places and often we go through all of them in like 60 seconds on our phones, right? We go to all these places that frame and ground us in the way that we see what's upcoming. And so maybe on your phone you find these videos from Rise and Grind culture, right? These guys that are like, you know what? The week is going to be difficult and the week is going to be tough, but you're tougher. The way to attack the week is to be tougher than the week, right? You got these guys like, yeah, let's do it. And you're like, come on. And you see, you repeat these mantras and you get in there and you go, okay, my inner strength is how I'm going to approach this week. That's how I'm going to frame the week. Or you go to another stream of social media, the victim mentality culture, meaning when you think about your office and you have a post from an influencer that's like, all the people at your office are the problem. And you're like, that's right, they are a problem. You know, and your boss is a problem. He is a problem. Or she is a problem, right? And you don't. Your spouse is a problem too. They are. I can't believe how true this is. It resonates so deeply with me. And so you frame your week that way or you go to. It's like some brothers about this, this morning, biohacking, which if you don't know, it's just basically, what does the science all say about this? If I feel these feelings, you know why they're there? It's because I need a new diet. I should be doing keto. If I was doing keto, I wouldn't feel these things, right? I need a new wake up routine. I need to optimize when I go to sleep and when I wake up and then I'll wake up without any of these feelings, right? Or maybe you go to sort of pop therapy Right. Do you have a post from an influencer that's like, you know why you have all these feelings? It's because something your dad said to you when you were five, like, that's. That's where you got this. It's all his fault. And you're like, it is. It is his fault he did say, you know, and. And so we scroll through all these things and look, don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that there is no truth to any of this. Maybe you should go to bed earlier on Sunday night, Right? Like, I'm not saying there's no truth to this, but notice something. Often without even realizing it, when we begin to feel these things, we drift toward other sources of truth that become our anchor to which we evaluate everything else in life.
14 · The pastor issues a direct charge: this afternoon you will face the choice—look inside yourself, look to shifting cultural voices, or look to the Lord
But what Paul does is he goes, no, not over there, not over there. Definitely not inside your life, but rather the capital T. Truth of God is where you start, and from there you begin to see everything else. Else. He re centers our epistemology, to use the philosophical term, our foundation for our epistemology and our beliefs about truth is the capital T. True, honest, eternal, authoritative, omniscient. God of the universe. And friends, this is so important. This afternoon you will face the choice between looking inside of yourself or outside of yourself for the authoritative perspective on life. Or you will look to some other person who, by the way, they probably changed their views 10 times in the last 10 years with another series of videos. You go to them. Do you go to you, or do you go to the Lord?
15 · The pastor articulates the first church-level implication: this church is unapologetically confessional
And in this series, as we do the Frontena church series, we're going to. I'm going to kind of pause and go, okay, this is an implication for our church and the kind of church we want to build. And the first implication for us is this. We are unapologetically confessional as a church, meaning that we are rooted not in our feelings, not in our culture, not in whatever the latest Christian bestselling book is, but we are rooted in the Bible and our confession of faith unapologetically, because we know everything else in culture shifts and changes, but we want to be rooted as tightly into the Word as we can. I was talking to somebody in the new membership class, and they were like, man, you guys, compared to other churches I've been to, you guys have a really long statement of faith. Is there any way to kind of, you know, kind of bullet point that? And happily and gloriously I said, no, I think it's all important because it's our commitment to root ourselves deeply in the truth of God's word. And so we want to be unapologetically confessional that in a culture that says, what's your truth? We say, there is no my truth or your truth. There's only God's truth.
16 · Clear structural pivot to the second movement: thinking differently about self
All right, second point here. Think differently about ourselves, think differently about self.
17 · The exposition begins by contrasting Paul's self-description ('servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ') with American self-construction
Notice the way that Paul sets this up. He's gonna, he's gonna go to work in this letter on the Cretan culture and shaping them to the image of Christ. But right up front, he gives an example of what this looks like. In his very introduction, he introduces himself this way. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now this is going to push on us because we as Americans often have no more precious thing than our sense of self, of who I am. We want our clothes and our, our music tastes and our online profile pictures and our jobs to reflect us fit our sense of self. But Paul does not start there. He doesn't start with what does he want to be? How does he think of himself? He starts with how the Lord has redefined his sense of self.
18 · The pastor traces Paul's identity transformation—from Saul the elite Pharisee, Roman citizen, and hater of Christ to Paul the servant and apostle
And this is so notable because if you, if you don't know Paul the apostles story, he doesn't enter the New Testament with this description. Paul the servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now he enters the story as Paul at Saul. Rather a. A chief and leading rising star among the Pharisees, hater of Christ, hater of the church, with a bright future among the Jewish people. And side note, a Roman citizen because most people weren't Roman citizens. So he's like the elite, both theologically elite culturally and elite even governmentally. That would have been his bio. And yet you see how different it is all of a sudden. It's just gotten reshaped. It's like the sledgehammer of gospel truth has smashed the old Paul to pieces and rebuilt something new.
19 · Deep exegetical work on 'doulos'—bond-servant or slave
And you got to see how radical this is. He describes himself in two ways. As a servant and an apostle. So the servant word. Oh man, servant word is doulos. Now we have a one I was trying to find. Is there any equivalent in American culture to this. The only thing that's even slightly similar is that we have the modern term doula, who is someone, a woman who helps another woman through labor, serving her, walking alongside her. And they're the person that's like, do you need anything? Do you need your music? Do you need. What do you need? I'm here to serve you. Right? That kind of gets at the sense of this. The word doulos in the ancient world meant slave or bond, servant, someone bonded into service. Paul will say later in First Corinthians 6, I am not my own anymore. I belong to Christ, for I have been bought with a price. So Paul is saying, listen, I was once on the Damascus road, headed to persecute Christians, but not just headed to persecute Christians. I was on the Damascus road, headed to hell. I was on the Damascus road, headed to death. I was on a trajectory that would have left me utterly hopeless and helpless. But Jesus stopped me, and my dead heart was brought to life by Jesus. My hopeless life was given hope by Jesus, and he has reshaped me. And he is my Savior and my Lord. And now I'm oriented not around serving, Listen, myself, but around serving the Lord, around serving God himself.
20 · The pastor draws an analogy between military/fire academy training and Christian identity
Now, look, if you. If you're in the military or been through the police academy or fire academy, you know a little bit about what this is like, because in those training programs, you very quickly have reinforced to you very explicitly that your life doesn't belong to you anymore, right? I was talking to a brother from the fire academy where they have a ritual where you come into the fire academy and you have to shave your head, right? If you're a guy and it's like a little marker going like, you remember the guy that used to be that guy had hair. This new guy, no hair, He's a new guy. Like, he's owned by the fire academy now. And you're like, oh, man, I like that old guy, right? It doesn't matter. Or in the military, if you're like, cool, I've been through basic. I would love to live, like, in Florida. The military's like, whatever, like, you're going to Alaska. And you're like, I don't like Alaska. It's too cold. The military's not going, oh, Bud, I'm so sorry. We're gonna try to find something that works for you. No, you're going to Alaska, right? You guys have experienced this, meaning this, that your identity shifts. You're not your own anymore.
21 · The pastor qualifies the analogy—military reorientation has limits, but Christian reorientation is total, eternal, and deeper
Now, obviously, though, there's limits to that, but in a truer, deeper, more eternal way. Paul's had such a radical transformation that he says, I'm not my own anymore. I don't go where I want to go. I go to where Christ wants me to go, right? I don't. I don't stay where I want to stay. I stay where Christ wants me to stay.
22 · The pastor unpacks 'apostolos' (sent one), carefully distinguishing between Paul's unique capital-A apostleship and the lowercase-a apostleship of all believers
And then the second thing is, I'm not just a slave, but I'm an apostle. That word apostle mean is apostolos. Now that's a technical word that means sent one or two emissary. And now caution here in a, in a sense that no one can replicate, Paul is a capital A apostle. And he's a capital A apostle like the original 12, because he was personally appeared to by the risen Christ and commissioned to the work. Right. In a way that none of us have been. Now, if you think you have been, I would like to talk to you after the meeting. We'd love to get a meeting with you as pastors because Paul is the last of the capital A apostles, full stop. But there is a sense in which every Christian is also a lowercase apostle A apostolos meaning a sent one. And you see this for example in Mark 5, where Jesus heals the man that was, was inhabited by a legion of demons, if you remember that. And he casts them out. And the man is, is saved and he's clothed and in his right mind. And the man says, jesus, I want to, I just want to follow you. And Jesus tells the man, no in Mark 5, no. Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. That in a sense is the commission for every Christian from Matthew 28 to Acts 1 to be witnesses. So every Christian is not just become a servant of God. They are all say, also a sent one from the Lord. And this changes everything. It's not a. A on and off from 9 to 5 kind of thing or just for a few hours at a Christian meeting. This is a whole life reorientation.
23 · A personal story about a consular officer whose identity carries 24/7 weight—tipping, driving, all of it reflects his official status
I remember a few years ago, there was a friend of ours who was an officer at the consulate in Juarez, the U.S. consulate in Juarez. And one of the things he was sharing is very quickly, as a consular officer for the United States, you're taught that you don't just clock in and clock out like a normal job. You might be working certain hours at the consulate, but everything you do outside of those hours still reflects on your identity as a consular officer. So they would even talk about how they would do things like tell them, listen, if you're going to a restaurant, don't you dare not leave a tip, right? You know, or if you're driving around, don't cut people off with the consular tags, right? Like, meaning everything you do reflects this identity.
24 · The pastor synthesizes: both 'servant' and 'apostle' identities are defined by the Lord, not by self-preference
And in a much truer, greater way for the Christian, everything we do reflects Our identity as sent 1. Commissioned ones from the Lord. And notice this, Notice the reason those two things change, servant and apostle change, is that the Lord and who he is, recenters who we are. Notice the phrases slaves of God and sent ones by Jesus Christ, meaning that our encounter and relationship with the Lord reshapes our identity. We start with, who is the Lord and what has he done for me? And that changes everything. We don't start with who do I want to be? Who do I like being? What do I like doing? Right?
25 · The pastor anticipates and answers an objection: 'This sounds harsh—God defining me instead of me defining myself
And here's the thing. You might think, well, that's really. That seems harsh. Here's the thing. The reality is this. God, as your creator and savior, actually knows what you need better than you do. Right? The reality is this. He made you. He knows you better than you know yourself. He, according to Titus, he has good works prepared for you. He has purposes for your life. He wants to bring you into his design for you and his purposes for you.
26 · The pastor uses childhood career dreams (shifting constantly from firefighter to astronaut to banker) as an analogy for how unreliable our self-knowledge is
And look, one of the things we do as Americans is we go to, you know, five year olds and we go, all right, little bud, what do you want to be when you grow up? Right? Isn't this like a right? I don't know why we ask kids that are 5 this, but I do it too. And then if you ask them again at age 8, they want to be something totally different. I want to be a fighter pilot. Age 10, I want to be an astronaut. At age 12, I want to be a banker. They make money, you know, whatever she's like. It changes constantly. Look, I'm willing to bet that what you think you want to be has probably changed in the course of your life, hasn't it? Like, When I was 18, I was dead set on becoming a lawyer. I am currently not a lawyer. Right, That's. It's just the Lord saying, look, you think you know who you are, and you think you know what you're meant to do, but I can see it. I've made you and I've made you well. And I have good purposes for you. And those purposes are tied up in the eternal eternity, altering plans of God. And I want to bring you into those things. And so trust the Lord when He says he knows who you are. Trust the Lord when He reshapes your identity, because he always builds something better than we would build ourselves.
27 · The second church-level implication: this church is unapologetically strange
Now, the. The second implication, though, as a church, is this. I want you to just prepare yourself for this. We are unapologetically strange as a church. I just need you to get comfortable with that. Because in a world that is marching in lockstep toward the what do I want to be? What do I want to do? How do I define myself? Seeing in a world that views everything in life in relationship, first to ourselves and preferences and desires, we recenter the God of the universe, our creator and savior, and then build a new life out of that. And that is unapologetically strange. And it means that everything in life is going to look a little strange or should to the world around us. The way we do dating is going to be strange. The way we think about marriage is going to be strange. The way we think about sexuality is going to be strange. The way we think about money is going to be strange. The way that we think about work and retirement and all the rest of it is going to be a little strange because we're starting in a different place.
28 · Clear structural pivot to the third and final movement: thinking differently about priorities
Third and last point. We think different about priorities. We think different about priorities.
29 · Pastoral aside preparing the congregation for dense exegesis
Now, Paul's logic is dense here. This is a dense introduction. And you got to remember, he's a lawyer, okay? So I have never read a real clear sentence from a lawyer. And I love the lawyers here. But, like, if you read a legal brief, you're like, there's a lot of commas and semicolons and stuff like that. And sometimes you have to go, okay, how does this work together? So let me trace this for you, because there is an important point being made here about why Paul is focused on what he is focused on.
30 · The pastor catalogs the island of Crete's overwhelming needs—lying, violence, gluttony, political corruption, war threats, food insecurity—to set up a contrast
And. And I want to preface that by saying there's a lot of needs on the island of Crete. If you look at one, was it 112? He quotes a Cretan prophet that says, cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. That's in the Bible. I feel bad if you're from Crete. I'm sorry, I didn't say that. The Lord did. And the reason I bring that up is to say there's obviously a lot of cultural and practical need on the island of Crete. They have a. They're gluttons, and they need a health program. Okay. They need a fitness program of some kind. Evil beasts means they love to fight, right? They were just like bar fighting from one day to the next. And so you think, okay, we got to do a program around that. Like, if you're a social worker, you get assigned to the island of Crete. You're going, oh, this is a mess. I got to do this. Here's all the programs we have to run. In addition to that, you have overlaid on all of the needs of first century Roman Empire. You have often corrupt governments, you often have threats of war, you often have food insecurity and shortages. There's all of these needs.
31 · The pastor carefully traces the logic of verses 1-3, showing Paul's prioritization: not stomachs or politics, but faith anchored in truth manifested through preaching
But Paul is laser focused and he sends Titus laser focus on a very particular need. And I want you to trace this with me in verses 1 through 3. Notice this. A servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect. So notice this. He is aimed not just at people's stomachs or people's practical needs, he's aimed actually at faith. And he's aimed at faith because that has eternal implications. And that faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth. So he's aimed at faith. But that faith must be anchored in truth, which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began. And notice this, at the proper time, manifested this truth in his word. So Paul is aimed at the faith of the people on the island of Crete that must rest on the truth. And that truth has been manifested. It bursts onto the island. How? Through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior.
32 · The pastor names the first principle governing Paul's priorities: the eternal trumps the temporal
Paul is saying, God himself has given me this mission. Now, notice this is incredibly important because it lays out a different set of priorities than anyone else in our world has. Notice this. First, Paul sets out the eternal over the temporal.
33 · The pastor applies the eternal-over-temporal principle with concrete examples—house, job, possessions, cars—all of which will fade
Everything around us screams for importance, but not everything around us is eternal. We need to let that sink in for a second. Not everything around us, not everything around us is of eternal significance. Your house, your job, your possessions, your collections, your car that you had when you were 20, that you lost, that you finally found and repurchased, that too will fade and crack and crumble. And none of those things will you carry with you into eternity. Look, that's sobering. The world around us goes. All that we see in front of us, that's all there is. That's all there is. That's all that matters. And the word of God comes in and goes, bam. No, it's not. All of this will fade. But human souls will live forever. And the destiny of those souls, and whether their destiny is glorious or terrifying depends on their faith in Jesus and where they are in relationship to Jesus Christ. And that resets everything in life, doesn't it? All of a sudden, things that are screaming for importance go, okay, important, but not the most important. It resets us to think about the eternal.
34 · The second prioritization principle: not just eternal over temporal, but most important over also important
And then second, Paul also resets the important. Sorry, he resets the most important over the also important. That's important. Okay, I want you to hear that. He sets out the most important things over the also important. But of secondary importance, there were so many needs on the island of Crete. There were. There were political needs. There needed to be political change. There needed to be economic relief. There needed to be help, practical help. And Titus and Paul could have gone after any of those needs on the island of Crete. And Paul will get to many of those needs later as of also importance. But Paul from the beginning is laser focused on the eternal most important priorities, which are all centered on the gospel.
35 · The pastor grounds the 'most important' principle in 1 Corinthians 15—Paul himself declares only one thing of first importance: the gospel
In first Corinthians 15, later, Paul says that only one thing in all of the Christian life, in all of Christian doctrine, is of first importance, and that is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the only thing on that tier. Only thing.
36 · The beloved Pontiac Vibe becomes an extended metaphor for priority clarification
And that, friends, that changes things, doesn't it? Remember a number of years ago, Jen and I were moving from el Paso to D.C. area for a pastor's college program that I was undertaking. And we decided we would only take what would fit for that year in or on top of my beloved Pontiac Vibe. And it was the greatest car ever made. It's a tragedy that's not being made anymore. And Jen hated that car so much. And yet we decided this little thing with this little janky engine, whatever it could carry, is what we would take with us into the next stage. And so it was actually really clarifying because, you know, you want to buy stuff for your house or your home or whatever, and the whole month or two before we relocated, I would want to buy something, but then I would remember. But is that going to fit in the Vibe? I don't think it's going to fit on the Pontiac vibe. And there were a few things were. I'd say, okay, well, let's bring this, let's bring that. But there's a whole bunch of stuff that I went, yeah, that's. That's not coming with me. It's just, you know, it's not coming. So I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna buy it, right?
37 · The pastor completes the analogy: just as the Vibe forced hard choices, eternity forces hard choices about what matters
And in a similar way, what Paul is causing us to do is he's causing us to go. Friends, brothers, sisters, not everything will carry into eternity. So much of what we slave for and agonize over in this life will not come with us to eternity. And you know what the two things that will last into eternity are? They are human souls and the kingdom of God. Those are the only two things that will make it into eternity. And if you remember that, it really radically changes everything else.
38 · The third and final church-level implication: gospel proclamation is the church's first-importance priority
And so here's the last implication for our church. We are unapologetic about prioritizing gospel proclamation as of first importance as a church. Paul will say later that there are many good things that we should do in life that in his language, adorn the gospel, meaning that our good deeds do matter to the Lord. They are helpful, but their purpose is to adorn the gospel. They are the picture frame the gospel goes in. But, friends, often what we will do is only think about the picture frame and not the substance of what it frames, meaning the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so we, friends, our commitment as a church is we want to do good to those around us. We want to continue to help young mothers in crisis pregnancies. We want to help continue to serve those at the children's home in Guadalupe across the border. We want to continue to help those in Africa that we work with in covenant mercies, receive an education and help. But friends, our overarching priority in all of it is that people be fed and clothed, not just this year or in this life, but fed and clothed and given a home and a hope in eternity. That is our hope.
39 · Direct evangelistic appeal
And so, friends, listen, let me just make one comment here. If you're not a Christian, I hope you see the implications for you. You have a lot of needs in your life. If you're like any human being, you have relational needs, financial needs, emotional needs. You know, all that stuff. You have a lot of needs in your life. But let me just tell you, friend, nothing is more important than the need in your life to relate to Jesus Christ and to think about eternity. So many of the things you're worried about and agonizing over, they will not come with you into eternity. And deep down, the reality is this. We all know that, that there is more to this life than this life. We all know that. And so, friends, think about eternity. Where are you in relationship to Jesus? Is he your Savior and is he your Lord? Because that changes everything. And the good news is this, that Jesus today can change your eternity if you will call on him as a savior and a Lord, right, as your Savior and your Lord. That makes an eternal difference, and it can happen today. And so friends, call on him as Savior and Lord.
40 · The conclusion returns to the Apple 1984 sledgehammer metaphor and Orwell's 'two plus two equals five' to frame the church's stance: we refuse cultural lockstep
Well, let me. Let me close with this. One of the challenges in the world around us, as we've talked about, is that the world wants us to march in lockstep with them, right? We live in a world that, just like Orwell's 1984 wants us to say two plus two equals five, right? That's one of the things that happens in 1984. The novel is that they convince a guy, they brainwash a guy to such an extent that he's like, two plus two equals five, right? He finally gives in. And, friends, that the world, the flesh and the devil are trying to push us into their mold. But, friends, here's what we want to do. The beginning of Titus and the beginning of this year. We want to set the trajectory that we are those who start not with ourselves, not with the culture, but with the Lord. And it's not about our truth and your truth and my truth. It's about the Lord's truth. And we want to be those who always say two plus two equals four. We are those who say God is real. We are those who say eternity is real. We are those who say hell is real. We are those who say Jesus was a real man who lived and died and rose again for us. We are those who say God made human beings and he decides what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a human being. And we are those who say that few things matter and the things that matter most are eternal. And we are those who say there is only one ultimate hope for the world and it is found in Jesus Christ. And so, friends, let's lean in and allow the next number of weeks to help rebuild our lives and allow the Lord to smash what maybe needs to be smashed, that he might build something far more beautiful in its place.
41 · Closing pastoral prayer with two petitions: (1) encourage believers who are living counter-culturally that they are doing what is right and eternal, and (2) invite the Lord to adjust what needs adjusting in lives not yet starting with His truth
Would you stand and let's pray? Oh, heavenly Father. Lord, I. I just pray that you do two things. One, you would encourage the saints this morning. Lord, we live in a world in which we are told often when we follow the teachings of scripture, that we're crazy, that we're strange, that we're weird. But Lord, I pray that you would encourage the brothers and sisters who are following you, who are living their lives differently, that they are doing the right thing. That, Lord, you are in it. That as they say, I'm a servant of God and I'm a sent one from the Lord, that as they build a different life than those around them, Lord, you'd encourage them and say what they're doing is to going good and right and it will matter forever. But Lord, I also pray that we would put our lives before you and just say, lord, adjust what needs to be adjusted. Lord, if there are places in our lives that we're not starting with your capital T truth that you would just graciously redirect us that we might build something better. In Jesus name, amen.