Couple of weeks ago I spoke with Rob Van Drimlin, our worship team leader, because I knew that I was going to take this service today and so the way it works is you give the worship team your text and so that enables them to theme the service and so on. So I spoke to Rob and told him what my text was and it was a bit strange really, I was Rob. So pulled out his phone. And I'm still trying to get used to the fact that people have the bible on their phone. So Rob goes I'm not into feel good preaching, but that wasn't what he meant.
That wasn't what he meant. When he read the text, he could see the encouragement, the beauty, the strength, and the glory of God in this text for us this morning. And this text is addressed to the believer. To the believer. So I wouldn't want anybody here this morning who wasn't a believer to go home just feeling good because, oh, that was nice.
This message is for those who know the Lord Jesus, whose lives are being touched by God's grace and the encouragement and glorious strength that flows from that. So here's our text then. 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, in hope of eternal life, which God who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested it in His word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God, our Saviour, to Titus, my true child in a common faith, grace and peace from God the father and Christ Jesus, our Saviour. That's his opening of the letter. You could do one day just a nice little thing.
Just go through the opening of all the letters, particularly Paul's letters, and often they're quite short. You might say, Paul, an apostle of Christ, and if Timothy's with him and Timothy and so on, grace and peace to you. But this has got a much larger opening, and there's an even better, longer one in Romans. I was tempted to do that, but we would be here till next Sunday. So I'll go with the shorter one.
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Christ, and he here as he opens his message, he establishes his authority. He's a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, and the gospel, the message that he brings has been entrusted to him by the command of God. Now we all know the story of the apostle Paul. He was born in Judaism. He was extremely excellent scholar.
He was zealous, and he was a persecutor of the church. So his zeal was misplaced. And then on the road to Damascus, God broke into his life, and he had an encounter there with the Lord Jesus. And it turned him around completely the other way from being a persecutor to a promoter, so to speak. And so the apostle Paul then went into this ministry, this magnificent ministry of being the apostle to the Gentiles, but also to the Jews, but mainly to the Gentiles, and he had this amazing ministry.
This book that we're reading probably comes from near the end of his life. It's probably written about '64, sixty five AD, excuse me, and it's written to Titus, to his co worker, to his child in the faith, so he's got this unique bond as it were with Titus. And so he writes to Titus, but it's also to the church. So it's not just a letter to Titus. It's a letter to the church.
And in it, of course, Paul spells out directions for Titus in how the church is to be living and working and so on. But it's not just an historical thing. It's not just something where God reveals the will of God for His people way back then. This is part of the inspired word of God. This is part of the genius of God, isn't it?
That God could take a letter written by a man in the first century to a bloke on the island of Crete telling him how to organise the church there and it's part of the word of God. Just like He did with what Moses wrote and what Isaiah prophesied, what Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John did, what Paul did. The early church gathered these writings into the holy scriptures, and all scripture we know is breathed by God, the old translation we're probably used to is inspired. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. So this morning, as we look at this ancient letter, we realise that it is not just to Titus.
It is not just to the church in Crete. It is to us, together with the church of all ages. So let's look again at that opening salvo that he fires. Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of 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've been entrusted by the command of God our Saviour. It's a real mouthful, isn't it?
But what about these things in here? This eternal life which God who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in His word. Here we see this amazing truth. This is a staggering truth. Rob, you had it in the songs.
Thank you for that. It was in the songs. God knew us before time. When I started preparing this message, I really was going to focus mainly on this piece here that God promised before the ages began. And then when I began to investigate the scriptures more and more, I saw how time and again that glorious truth of God, that at His proper time, He manifested in His word through the preaching.
We see when you look at the scriptures that God is unfolding His redemption plan. For those of you who might remember ten or so years ago when we used to have a whiteboard up here, at this point, I'd be drawing a timeline. And back here would be the Garden of Eden, about here would be the cross, here would be us, and there would be the return of the Lord Jesus. But the amazing thing in this text today is that it's back before the Garden of Eden even. Remember in the garden how God said to Satan, the seed of the woman will crush your head, you will crush His heel.
The prophecy of the Christ who would defeat Satan categorically there on the cross of Calvary. But even before then, before the creation of the world, God had His redemption plan in mind. So I was talking to Sandy about this, and she said, how in the world are you going to explain that to the congregation? She knows my limitations far better than anybody else. And I can't.
I can't explain it. But it is the clear teaching of the word of God. Now at this point this morning, you've got a choice. When we look at the truth like that, God promised eternal life before the ages began, before time began, before time's eternal, you can translate it a whole different range of ways. When you come up with that truth and when you're confronted with that truth, you have a choice, I think.
You can believe it and accept it saying, God, Your ways are so far above our ways. You're an amazing God. And so I accept this truth even though I can't explain it. I can't explain it completely about it. Or you can begin to doubt the word of God.
So you've got that choice. It's a shocking choice to make. If you want to decide, no, sorry, that bit there, here, no, that's a bit dodgy. I'll just knock that aside. What other bits of the word of God are you gonna just to the side.
You know, I grew up in a church where the pastor we had at one stage, he had a big pair of scissors when it came to the word of God. Miracles? Nah. Didn't happen. They you know, that was fair nickname when they wrote it but we're modern scientific people.
We know it couldn't happen. Physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead, gone. Virgin birth, gone. It was horrendous. It was horrendous.
And I want to suggest to you this morning that if you're not willing to take the word of God at its face value, word for word, the inspired inerrant word of God, you are on the slippiest of slopes. And you might want to justify it by saying, ah, well, but I'm only doing this little bit here, but believe me, you've opened a door that slides right away for the authority of God's word. And so let's have a look at some passages that back this truth up. When Peter was writing in 1 Peter 1:20-21a, Christ was foreknown before the foundations of the world and was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God. Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world.
We're talking here about intertrinitarian existence and relationship, the God of eternity, Father, Word, Spirit. And in God's time, the word became flesh, made His dwelling among us, the incarnation of the Lord Jesus. Beautiful, beautiful truth. Paul writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:9-10, God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus. Does it not begin, brothers and sisters, does it not begin to give us a sense of the glory of God, the majesty of God, the wonder of God?
Now I understand that there are massive theological questions come with all this, and you can talk to KJ about them till your heart's content. Infralapsarianism, supralapsarianism, Arminianism, go for it. But the truth is quite clear that before the creation of the world, God had His redemptive plan in place. Ephesians 1:4. Oh, what a cracker.
God chose us in Him, that is in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. Now I had the privilege my dad was very very conservative, very down the line, very reformed. This was his bread and butter. Oh, laddie, he'd say, oh, laddie, do you realise, laddie, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. And because he was reformed, he didn't then jump up and go, hallelujah.
He just sort of danced inside. But, nevertheless, it's a tremendous, glorious truth. You're a believer in the Lord Jesus. Are you beginning to get the picture that no matter what's happening to you now, and stuff happens. We live in a fallen world and we're still under construction, so to speak.
This process of sanctification. Do you begin to get the sense of the God, the God who reigns supreme over all things, the God who spoke and creation had its being, that God had you in mind before He even created. The whole effect that that's gotta make a difference to the way you think about yourself, to the way you see yourself, to the way you see the church, the way you see your brothers and sisters, to the way you see life. See, these are the sorts of truths that will hold us through the rough and the tumble of life when Satan has a go at us big time. These are the sorts of truths we need to hold on to.
Matthew 13:34-35, Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables and this was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet. Said I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world. So here's this unfolding thing, this unfolding thing also in the teaching of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 2:7, but we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
Oh, we could dine out on that. A secret and hidden wisdom of which God decreed before the ages for our glory. It's a wonderful, a glorious, feel good. Later on in chapter 2:11-14, Titus wrote this, for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to 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 appearance of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good works. Again, it's a big sentence, but oh, it's brilliant, isn't it?
Isn't it? And see here right up on the top, it's the grace of God has appeared to us and it's training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions to live Christianly. You know, our pastor brings that to us week after week after week. It's the grace of God that is the motivation for our lives and for our living. But in the first three verses, we had that backward looking, if you like, eternal perspective before the foundation of the world in eternity, before time began.
Then we have the promise in the Garden of Eden. We have the fulfilment in the person and work of Christ and His perfect life and death. We have His ascension back to the right hand of the father, and there He awaits God's time to come again on the clouds of glory. That is the history of redemption and you and I are in that. Amen indeed.
See, if we don't have this sort of perspective, when bad things happen and they do, We're gonna get knocked. We're gonna get bowled over by it. But time and again, we need to go back. What is God saying in His word? And this morning, your heavenly father is saying to you, I've got a plan.
I got it under control. You might not understand it all, but I am in control. If we lose that, basically we're shot, so to speak. So there's our opening, our text, and there's the time lines underneath. I'd like us then just to have a look at the purpose, the purpose that he wrote the book.
It's for the sake of the faith of God's elect, their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness and the hope of eternal life. Those four things, the faith, our knowledge of the truth, in accord with godliness, in the hope of eternal life. Those things just hold together. They're held together. We had them in the opening songs.
There's a part of me we won't do it, I know, but I'd like to go back and sing those songs again in the light of the preaching. I hope when you come to worship, I hope you come open hearted and you're looking for themes. You're for the way in which the worship team put things together. I'm telling you, they do a brilliant job. The songs aren't there just for a bit of padding before the preacher gets up and does his thing.
So I'll be cheeky, have been known on occasion once or twice. I've got some homework for you. Three chapters in Titus. Three chapters. They're only small.
I think it's, I forget how many verses, 70, something like that. You could read Titus easily before lunch. And then this afternoon, depending on what you're doing and what activity you might be participating with a silver eye in the corner, I don't know. You've got plenty of time to read Titus another twice, once before the race and once after. And then tonight, before you go to bed, or as you go to bed, you'll read Titus again.
And I think if you do that, you'll begin to see the flow of Titus. You'll begin to see the sense in which the apostle and you will hear God speaking to you and encouraging you in your faith, in your knowledge, in your godliness, and in your hope of eternal life. Now when you read Titus, you'll see that basically Titus got three jobs. Sorry, that's the wrong one. He was to appoint elders, teach sound doctrine and encourage good works.
That's just in bare outline. To appoint elders. One of the strengths of churches of the Reformation is their ecclesiology, that the church is run by elders under the supervision of the Lord Jesus, of course. So we're not, there's a corporate sense of leadership in our churches to a wonderful thing. Well, it's God's plan so therefore it is wonderful.
But the elders, interestingly, and you will read some stuff there about elders and who they are to be and how they deliver their lives and their families and so. The elders are to be able to teach sound doctrine and refute error. Because if you read when you read not if, when you read Titus, you'll see that it wasn't the easiest church in the world to belong to in Crete. There was arguments. There was false teaching.
There was schism. It wasn't good. Paul even went to the point of saying, look, these blokes don't shape up. Worn them once, worn them, worn them twice. After that, they're gone.
It's pretty harsh words but it just shows how much the true teaching is to be protected and promoted. So appoint elders. Second, teach sound doctrine. Doctrine. It really irks me when people turn their nose up at the word doctrine or theology.
A, that's ignorance of what it is. B, it's disrespectful to God and I could go on, but I better not. Sound doctrine can easily be translated healthy teaching. Healthy teaching. The words can be done in either way.
It's really, really important because doctrine is only, or good doctrine is only, the truth of the word of God. That's all it is. I mean, you look at our nation today and the things we're going on with the whole so called marriage debate and all the rest of you know, if people had sound teaching of the word of God, it's a nonevent. But when you leave those things go, when you want to disregard what God says, then you slide away from Him and terrible results unfold. So it's used to appoint elders, teach sound doctrine and to encourage good works.
Now I want to just say this, when you're reading Titus, there's something in there for each one of you. It's amazing. It's absolutely brilliant for old blokes, mature ladies, younger women, married, singles, children. The whole it's there. It's fantastic.
It's fantastic. And it's to encourage in good works. So, see that's an old habit. That's my clicker changer from St. Mary's.
It doesn't work here apparently. Belongs in New South Wales anyway. Let's go back to this to finish. It's the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to you, training you to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and for you to live a self controlled and upright and godly life in the present age while you were waiting for your blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of your great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Indeed, He who gave Himself for you to redeem you from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous of good works.
What God's calling you to. That's what God's calling you to. So don't laugh at me, but my wife is away looking after her mother, and so I'm sitting up there on the mountain on my own. It's very lonely. And so I'm going through the old dad's old book of worship.
And this particular song gets five stars. Another one gets two. This one gets a question or two. He changed a few words too, dad. That's not reformed.
I'll be speaking with him in eternity about that. And this is one of the hymns that he marked. We finished with this. And he underlined this second verse, he says, this verse from Augustus Toplady from the eighteenth century. How vast the benefits divine which we in Christ possess.
We are redeemed from sin and shame and called to holiness. Tis not for works that we have done. These all to Him we owe, but He of His electing love, salvation does bestow. And here comes the underline. To You, O Christ, alone is due, all glory and renown.
No merit of our own, we claim, nor rob You of Your crown. You were our only surety in God's redemption plan. In You, His grace was given us before the world began. Within the arms of sovereign love, we ever shall remain. Nor shall the rage of earth or hell make God's sure counsel vain?
Each one of all the chosen race shall surely heaven attain. And here they will share abounding grace, and there with Jesus' reign. Hallelujah. Amen. Let us pray.
Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God of all eternity, of all majesty, of all glory, of all honour, of all power, of all authority, we bow before You now and acknowledge Your greatness, the wonders of Your redemptive love. Lord, I can't understand how all this holds together before the creation of the world and before time began, but yet it comforts us to know that You, O God, You had a redemption plan and You were working that plan out. So when we have questions and doubts and challenges, father, would You please bring us back time and time again to the fact that You are the one who is in control, that You are the one who is working Your purposes out. Oh Lord, when Jesus was crucified, the disciples of the day, that they were devastated. They thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen.
And Lord, if we were there, we'd have been exactly the same. And yet we know because Your word teaches us that that was Your plan. The heart of Your redemptive plan is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of Your people. And so, O God, help us and strengthen us to have that gospel perspective that we may live increasingly motivated, strengthened, encouraged. And, yes, Lord, feeling good about Your grace and Your mercy and Your love for us.
Thank You that we are wrapped each believer in the sovereign arms of Your love and that nothing can take us from You. We thank You that You are building Your church. We pray for Your blessing upon the ministry of this our local church family, and we pray, O Lord, that You would strengthen and bless us and enable us to increasingly hold forth Your glorious truth to a dying world. O God, give us courage. Give us strength, give us insight that we may honour You also in the way we live also as a local church.
So we commit each other to Your grace. We pray especially this morning, father, for those who find life's journey hard. And, O Lord, sometimes there are people and sometimes they're very close to us who for many, many years struggle, and life is hard. O God, we pray that You would particularly be with those who need extra love and care and attention. Your word tells us that You carry Your people like a shepherd nursing the little lambs, O God.
Bless and nurse Your lambs. Strengthen and uphold Your people. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.