Truth Tightly Packed (Part 1 of 3)

When the apostle Paul wrote his letter to a young pastor named Titus. He offered him helpful, practical instruction, but does his counsel remain relevant in our day to day on Truth for Life will examine the basis for Paul's authority and determine how that makes a difference in our lives hears Alastair back with part one of a message titled truth tightly packed. I invite you to turn with me to the letter of Paul to Titus. Towards the end of the New Testament and ravens reads just the first four verses Titus chapter 1 verse one 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 and hope of eternal life, which God 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. Amen we pray together. The Lord's return to the Bible. Now we need your help both to be able to speak and to listen to pay attention to understand.

To believe you prepared us by bringing us here you prepared your preacher that his lips might speak for you.

You have prepared us by providing for is the Bible that we can read and so with that preparation and that accompanying sense of expectation. We look to you know me, but as Lord, we pray and help us for your son's sake. Amen. Well, we tried to begin.

Titus I said to my wife and I went home I was a little over the place was in it was a pause and she said yes it was actually IN a clue where you were going so I said well thank you for the encouragement and she said well you shouldn't ask, but I hear we are we going to slow the pace and narrow the focus Paul has left Titus in Crete to shepherd and teach the church.

Crete is not a very nice place. Not saying today. It was not a very nice place. One of the historians of the time said it was almost impossible to find personal conduct, more treacherous or public policy more unjust than in Crete.

Personal conduct that was treacherous and public policy that was unjust, and for those of us who are tempted to bemoan our circumstances here in Cleveland. During this in the vastness of America. I just a careful reading of church history will remind us of how vastly different our circumstances are from those who were living in the congregations that were settled in the island of Crete. This is actually a wonderful place to live is a great nation.

There are so many freedoms and opportunities that are ours and we do know service to ourselves or to our fellow members in society like I'm becoming the company of the moaning and groaning and the bemoaning. It is a bad thing when the Christian who is supposedly lifted his eyes up and be on things finds himself buried in that kind of preoccupation. So I warn you against it. I warned myself against it. They were in Crete we are in Cleveland. Paul's concern for the church. There you can summarize in three words.

He was concerned that it would be tidy tightly in the sense of verse five left you there so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every church, not the kind of tidiness that some of us are capable of where we pile things into her closet and managed just to make the door close. Hoping that no one will ever have occasion to open because then they will see just how untidy are attempted. Tidiness is being but rather the tidiness that comes about as a result of doing things God's way and particularly ensuring that the leadership of the church is put together according to God's plan that will come later tidy and secondly healthy that the church there would be healthy if you look at verse 13 of this opening chapter, now you will see that the people who are teaching falsehoods are to be rebuked sharply with the purpose that they may be sound in the faith that were there sound. My equally translated healthy. In other words, spiritually healthy and you find it coming immediately at the beginning of chapter 2. As for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

Healthy, tidy, healthy and lovely lovely. He says of the slaves that they should be argumentative, they should be stealing stuff, but they should live in such a way that they adorn the gospel of grace and other words that they made the story of the gospel attractive by the loveliness of their lives.

And of course, that word extends beyond the boundaries of Crete and comes to eyes with relevance this morning, and when this is true of a local congregation, then it will stand as an attractive contrast to some who profess to know God, but who deny him by their actions there referenced at the end of chapter 1 verse 16. These individuals who were religious at the have much to say about God, but there was a dissonance. There was a gap between their creed and their conduct between that the way that they profess their faith in the way that their faith function and so Paul says you should know that these individuals are detestable or disobedient, and actually disqualify their unfit for any good work, there's no point in giving them a job in the church because it just be a complete menace to so he then proceeds to provide us with one long sentence. By way of introducing his letter and these four verses are tightly packed with truth and in an endeavor to save us from getting bogged down in the sentence, or alternatively skimming superficially over the top of it. I want us to consider the opening four verses from the perspective.

First of Paul's position, then Paul's purpose then Paul's preaching and then Paul's partner so first of all, then let us look at what we are told about Paul's position. He describes himself first of all as a servant of God's servant of God may not seem like very much of an introduction in these days of blogging and ended twittering and and self-aggrandizement where people post online, totally irrelevant information anonymous should have any real concern to pay attention to and often just need the exultation of the self runs rampant, no such individuals would be thoroughly disappointed with an introduction like this. Paul, a servant of God, but actually was a title which Barclay says mingled humility and legitimate probably the primary delay in actually being described as a servant of God being called this of all things. It wasn't a task for which he had applied and when she had received an appointment to on the basis of his giftedness, but rather was task to which he had been appointed by God's grace and the wonder of it was that he now shared the same designation as is reserved throughout the Bible for some of the choicest Saints of God. The prophets were described as servants of God as the ones who were the recipients of the secrets of God. I may just illustrate it for you in the Old Testament, you can turn here.

If you choose to Joshua and to chapter 1 where we read these statements concerning Moses after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, Joshua the son of non-Moses assistant said Moses my servant is dead therefore arise, you go down to verse seven and you find him designated in the exact same way.

I want you to be careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you if you learn to verse 13 find their remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you to verse 15 then you shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you. You think to think that God wants us to know about Moses position again and again and again Moses the servant of the Lord. Joshua takes over from and when you read all the way through the book of Joshua.

You find it. Finally, on his deathbed he received the same designation and at the end of chapter 24 it reads in after these things.

Joshua the son of non-servant of the Lord thy keep in mind that Paul wasn't missing any credentials. It wasn't what he thought about introducing himself. He had nothing that he could have written no qualifications, no significant background no fine education know he had all of what he introduces himself because he has been arrested and amazed by the same grace that he is now about to remind the readers off. He would've been happy to concur with the psalmist. The job of a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord would be far more significant than pitching a stand in the realm of wickedness.

It is actually a striking thing that he introduces himself in such a simple, humble, wonderful fashion. What is your position. All a servant of God, servant of God.

Secondly, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an apostle of Jesus Christ, so he's a servant of God and he's been sent by Jesus is part of a unique and unrepeatable group who had the privilege of witnessing the ministry of the Lord Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, and you will recall, if you know your Bible that in acts Luke tells us of the occasion when Paul Saul of Tarsus discovers that Jesus Christ is actually Lord you respond by saying who are you, Lord, and in the ensuing moments. Ananias is given the responsibility of nurturing and caring for this Saul of Tarsus because it is God is my chosen instrument to bear my name before the Gentiles and it is because he was set apart as an apostle of God that his words carried the authority that they carry. He was given as an apostle and insight into the secrets of God.

So for example in first Corinthians 2/9 I has not heard I has not seen a rear hairnet as it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him but he has revealed it to us. As Paul he has revealed it to us and to the apostles has been given this insight in order that they in turn may both speak the word of God and right the word of God. Know the reason this is important to understand is because the apostles are long gone.

They are all dead and buried somewhere in the end we have apostolic authority. It doesn't lie in bishops.

It doesn't lie in a lightning that comes from the scene of role apostolic succession does not let run down the line of those appointed in that way know the authority of the apostles is left to us in the authority of Scripture, God has breathed out.

The apostles have written them down. They now are removed from us and we'll be there word.

Why because it is the word of God. Otherwise, on what basis could Paul possibly say to Timothy into too many to do and the things that you've heard me say what you heard me say you entrusted faithfulness, who will then be able to teach others also. Lindsay thinking's I want you to make sure that the things you heard me say you tell other men so that those other men may tell other, wherein lies the authority is a servant of God and is an apostle of Jesus Christ, Bruce Milne, in his most helpful book, know the truth, which, if you don't have a copy of you should buy one and I reverted frequently. He makes this wonderful statement. He says the apostles stand between Jesus and subsequent generations of Christians okay so you have Christ, he is now ascended into heaven, he pours out his Spirit upon his people and he gives to his apostles, the responsibility to proclaim the word of God, and in turn to have it written we reach him, that is Jesus only by way of the apostles and their testimony, Inc. in the New Testament we reach Jesus by way of the apostolic truth which is given to is recorded for is left to us in our new Testaments using the significance of this.

We were going around wearing bracelets and what would Jesus do I live kind of died out. Really glad they have. It seemed very pious of the time, but the find is half the time we wouldn't know what Jesus would do so was event of a silly question.

The real question should be what does God's word say because the only way that we can find out what Jesus did or would do or has done is in the Bible, not in our heads, not in our imaginations not in ex cathedra statements made by those who are religious professionals, but in the Scriptures.

So Paul says to Titus. Here I and Titus and realize this is both a private letter, but it's also a public letter. Why would you be telling Titus that he was a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Titus would've said I know that because the little mentor would get a public meeting and so the people are hearing it are reminded of the fight that here is Paul here is Paul and this is where his authority lies and this is the basis of his humility as a first his position as a servant and a simple secondly his purpose. Why is he a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ really tells us for the sake of the faith of God's elect for the see of the faith of God's elect who are God's elect. The people of God, those upon whom God has said his lot. The story line of the Bible is the story line of God taking the initiative in seeking out a people who are his very own, completely out of the blue is aware from a human perspective.

He calls a run out of all of the qualities he calls Abraham to himself and the entrusted Abraham the privileges that will flow from him and tells him that through his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed by the time you get to the book of Deuteronomy, you have the record of what God is doing and why God has acted as he's acted and I may just read to you. Deuteronomy 7 and verse six. God's is for your people holy to the Lord your God, the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It wasn't because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord said his love on you and shows you for the you were the fewest of all people's but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers of the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love. And so 1000 generations and on.

When you get to the New Testament, you find that the apostles pick up this terminology and use it to describe all who have been embraced by the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the elect of God comprises those who in every age have been redeemed on the basis of the work of Jesus on the cross so that the Old Testament believers have been redeemed, put right with God.

On the strength of a sacrifice that was perspective to them. The New Testament believers unknown. Subsequently, I redeemed on the strength of a sacrifice that is retrospective to us but all who are included in the family of God are near. As a result of grace through faith. And so you have this amazing juxtaposition of the people of God of the Old Testament being married into those who are added in the New Testament that the one who is a child of Abram is not, says Paul, the one who is been circumcised or comes from a certain lineage, but it is the one who shares the faith of Abraham and the one who, like Abraham has been declared righteous in God's sight, who has been justify this tremendous mystery and that there is no dye llama and it when you realize that it sits on the very surface of the Scriptures. So here we are with the reality of the doctrine of election three things concerning number one. It is a biblical doctrine is a biblical doctrine. Secondly, it therefore follows that it is an essential doctrine is essential. And thirdly, it is practical and is practical in this sense that in the face of all that threatens to on hinges and to undo us the children of God are able to rest in the security of the initiative of God, we saw that didn't week when we study Romans chapter 8 what shall we say then, in response to all of this if God be for us, who can be against us, who shall bring any charge against God's elect. It is God who justifies.

Who is to condemn and saw so when we find ourselves confronted by all means, onslaughts when we are made aware of our own propensity to wander and to stray our security lies in the fight that we've been in love before the dawn of time. Now that is an immense thought is, he chose us in him, says Paul to the Ephesians before the creation of the world that we should be holy and blameless in his sight so that the significant identifying feature of these Christians in Crete was going to be not simply the healthiness of their doctrine, by the loveliness of their life's. It's not just what we believe what we say that matters when it comes to representing Christ and how we live as well listing to Alistair Begg and this is Truth for Life we been learning today about the apostle Paul's concern that the church would be organized according to God's plan that would be sound in faith, and that members would live in a way that would make the gospel attractive to others. That concern is just as relevant for today's church. That's why we are recommending to you Tony Marino's new book, love your church eight great things about being a church member. This book is all about why it's important and how important it is for believers to be active EM and contributing members of a local church. The New Testament describes the local church is an essential part of life for those who follow Jesus in this book Tony Marino points out that membership isn't optional were called to worship together to care for one another. In Christian love in this book you will look at eight privileges and responsibilities that accompany being a church member, including the responsibility to welcome and witness to send out the gospel message and mission. This is a book that will help invigorate your love before your church and help you put that love into action. Whether you're new to your church or you been attending for years. Request the book love your church when you donate to support the teaching you hear on this ministry, you can tap the book image you see on the mobile app or visit our website Truth for Life.org/donate if you prefer you can call us. Our number is 888-588-7884 by the way, the author of the book.

Love, your church, Tony Marita has been invited to join Alister as a guest speaker at this year's basics conference for pastors and men involved in church Leadership Conference Will Take Pl., May second through the fourth. The theme is back to basics along with Tony, Marita, Alister and John Woodhouse will be speaking if you're in ministry can register online at basics conference.I'm Bob Lapine. We hope you can join us tomorrow would will find out by the doctrine of election doesn't solve us from a responsibility to preach and believe the gospel.

The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living