Titus, Pt. 2 (Critical Aspects of the Christian Faith)

Critical Aspects of the Christian Faith

Titus, Pt. 2

By Pastor Dan Kennedy

www.pastorkennedy.com

There are two roads, which can be travelled in life.

The main road is purely human and self-centered. It is a broad road to which most people are seductively attracted and never leave – leading to destruction (Matt. 7:13-14).

The Values Associated with Life’s Main Road

· What can benefit me?

· How can I get ahead and acquire what I want?

· What can make me happy and give me pleasure?

· What can make me feel like my life has value?

· What can give me the success I know I deserve?

· What can get me out of “hot water,” when I do things that are not so good?

· What can help me forget the guilt that I carry with me?

· What can help my emotions survive the pressures of life?

The Narrow Road

The other road is God-centered. It is a narrow road, which few people find because it does not focus on the attributes of pleasing ourselves, but on God. As we review the Critical Aspects of the Christian Faith further on in the message and in messages to come, we will look more closely at the pertinent belief of those who have chosen to travel on this “Narrow Road”.

The Imitation Narrow Roads

The caveat is that there are many side roads veering off the world’s main road created by the god of this world (because spiritual powers of darkness know humans were created with an innate desire for God). Association with these roads give “spiritual impressions and feelings” vying for our “spiritual” attention, imitating and pulsating with the deceptive spiritual experiences seeking to parallel the reality of God’s narrow road. These spiritually deceptive “secondary” roads plunging off the “main” road keep humans associated with the “main” road because of their same intrinsic values and associated powerful demonic spiritual forces.

There is a Creator God

There is a Creator God who made all things…to whom we are accountable. The awesomeness of God’s creation is graphically evidenced in astronomy. A recent galaxy cluster IDCS 1426, has been highlighted this week, photographed by NASA, highlights God’s phenomenal power once again.

This “Galaxy cluster IDCS 1426…[is] located 10 billion light years from Earth.”

[1 light year = almost 6 Trillion miles.]

“IDCS 1426…weighs almost 500 trillion Suns.” [1]

[The calculated mass of the Sun is 4.18 nonillion pounds - that is 4.18 with 30 zeros behind it. This galaxy is 500 trillion times as large.]

[1] http://www.wired.com/2016/01/space-photos-of-the-week-jan-3-9/#slide-5 “Galaxy cluster IDCS 1426”

If you acquire everything the world has to offer, your human body and your physical presence will still die one day. What if you succeed in this short life, in the fulfillment of your wildest dreams? What happens when you die?

What if you believe with all your heart that the spirit in you giving you life, will just disappear when you die? If you are wrong, what then?

Physics Defy Oblivion

Oblivion at death is counter to the fundamental laws of physics. Matter doesn’t just disappear; it becomes something else. Fire might burn matter, but the matter becomes energy. Black holes will not consume matter in the universe making it nothing…what it consumes becomes something else.

So it is when our spirit leaves our body:

• Our body returns to the dust of the ground.
• Our spirit returns to its Creator.

There is a Creator God who made all things…to whom we are accountable.

The Bible is the source for our information about God.

· It was written over a period of some two thousand years

· by 35-40 authors, from many walks of life, whom the Spirit of God divinely inspired (2 Peter 1:20-21).

The Bible Teaches us what we know about the Christian Faith

o The Bible reveals to us how the earth and all creatures on it were created (Gen. 1-2);

o It reveals how we fell from an honorable relationship with God (Gen. 3; Rom. 3:23);

o And it reveals how we can be reconciled to God (John 3:16; Col. 1:20; Rom. 5:9-11; 2 Cor. 5:17-21).

The Record of Scripture

God, from the beginning of time, recorded in the Bible the lives of those He has entrusted throughout the history of the world to be a light of faith and to prepare mankind for the Messiah, Redeemer, Savior and Lord, to establish His Eternal Kingdom.

✦ Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham – Those who believed God, whose faith exampled Old Testament righteousness, before the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and God’s unfolding mystery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Gen. 12:1-4; Rom. 4:1-3; James 2:20-24; Hebrews 11).

✦ The Nation of Israel – was created to be a light to all the nations of the earth (Is. 42:5-7; 49:6; Luke 2:30-32).

Isaiah 42:5–7

5 This is what God the Lord says—

he who created the heavens and stretched them out,

who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,

who gives breath to its people,

and life to those who walk on it:

6 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;

I will take hold of your hand.

I will keep you and will make you

to be a covenant for the people

and a light for the Gentiles,

7 to open eyes that are blind,

to free captives from prison

and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

✦ The Law – The Ten Commandments revealed God’s expectations for truth and holiness…revealing mankind’s sinful nature and inability to keep God’s Laws, pressing us to need the Redemption in Christ (Ex. 20:1-21; Gal. 3:24-25).

✦ The Levitical Sacrificial system – a picture of the coming Messianic Sacrificial Redeemer (Heb. 9:11-28).

✦ John the Baptist – the one who “prepared the way of the Lord” (Matt. 3; Mark 1; Luke 1; Matt. 11:7-15)

✦ Jesus Christ – The Messiah, Sacrificial Redeemer, our Savior, and Coming King (1 Peter 2:24; Isaiah 53:4-6; Heb. 9:28)

Isaiah 53:4–6

4 Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

After Jesus Christ’s birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, the Holy Spirit came to reside in the hearts of those who believed on Jesus Christ as their Messiah, Savior and coming King. People of like faith gathered together in groups large and small. These gatherings became the first churches. Those who had been appointed by Jesus as His disciples (those who had lived, learned and ministered with Jesus for three years during His earthly ministry), these then became the teachers and leaders of these Early Churches, sharing what Christ taught them.

God raised up another man, by the name of Saul of Tarsus, who had previously been persecuting believers in Christ. Paul’s letters to the Early Churches make up most of our New Testament. Christ spiritually transformed this man (whose name was changed to Paul), after confronting him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). Christ taught Paul for three years in the deserts of Arabia (Gal. 1:11-24) – away from the traditional links of Judaism and away even from the Jewish disciples, now called Apostles, who had begun leading the Early Church. During these three years Jesus taught Paul the revelation of the mystery, which would propel Christianity to be the Good News of Salvation, in what God’s intended plan had been throughout the Ages. The mystery God now revealed was that God wanted to offer His Redemption and Salvation through Jesus, His Son, to the whole world, not just to the Jewish race.

1. Jesus’ Redemption and Salvation paid the penalty for our sin and restored our broken relationship with God, through Jesus’ death and atoning blood Sacrifice on the cross. Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and broke the power of sin through His Redemptive death.

2. Next, Jesus broke the power of death, through His Resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. This gives those who accept the free gift of Salvation offered in Christ’s Sacrifice, the assurance and Hope of Eternal Life. Just as Jesus Christ rose again, so we will rise again to enjoy eternal life with God, our Creator.

3. Following Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, the Holy Spirit was sent by God (at Pentecost) to empower the transformation of a sinful person, by spiritual New Birth (John 3), through His indwelling power. Subsequent spiritual growth would also continue through His Power so God’s Children could become spiritually mature.

4. The Gospel of Salvation through Jesus Christ is meant for the whole world! (John 3:15-16; Romans 1:16)

✦ The Apostle Paul – the one entrusted by God to understand God’s mystery of Salvation, following Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, and to preach to the world the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Gal. 1:11-24; Acts 13:46-47; 26:19-23)

1 Corinthians 15:3–4

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures….

Acts 26:22–23 – In his defense before King Agrippa

22 …I have had God’s help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen— 23 that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles.”

Persecution scattered 1st Century Christians. They took with them this message of the forgiveness of sin through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which spread, by God’s Power, across the world, and is still spreading today.

What is Church?

The Church is a place where we gather to know more about God, to worship Him and to fellowship with others who, in like manner, worship and serve God.

Critical Aspects of the Christian Faith

The Letter to Titus

Today we are studying the book of Titus. The Apostle Paul wrote this personal ministry letter to Titus, a Gentile coworker in the faith. Titus had become a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ, most likely under Paul’s ministry, and Paul continued to disciple Titus to become a pastor and leader of the church on the Gentile island of Crete, just off the shores of Greece. Titus was one of the many servants of the Lord who ministered faithfully together with Paul toward establishing churches, before being given the responsibility of becoming a pastor. Paul’s letter to Titus instructed him on the basics of what to teach the Cretan church, as well as important qualities to look for in choosing Church leadership.

Paul began to specifically point out key areas to teach the church at Crete, in the first three verses of Titus 1.

Titus 1:1–3

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness— 2 a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, 3 and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior…

These three introductory verses itemize at least seven key aspects and doctrines that should be in the teaching, fellowship and purpose in local congregations of believers in Jesus Christ…at the beginning of and throughout the Church Age – to its very end.

Paul begins by identifying what should be a foundational purpose of the Church and a primary goal of its leadership:

1. The Purpose of the Church is to strengthen the faith of God’s Children:

“For the (sake of the) faith of God’s elect”

God’s Word, the Bible, gives the believer in Jesus Christ, those who are God’s Elect, a secure foundation of Truth on which to build his or her life of “faith”.

The term “Faith” can have diverse definitions.

· “Faith” can be used as a generic term for any religion, such as, “What ‘faith’ do you belong to?”

· “Faith” can be used when speaking of those who seem to be “religious” in our world, these are often referred to as “people of faith”, regardless of what faith to which they may adhere.

· “Faith” can also be a term that the Scripture uses to determine the reality and depth of a person’s commitment to Christ as Lord of his or her life. Merely receiving an affirmation that a person “believes in God” does not define the depth of their “faith”.

“For the (sake of the) faith of God’s elect”

· Faith, in this context, has to do with the building up and spiritually strengthening the faith of those who are in God’s Spiritual Family – His “elect” those He has chosen and those He knows to have chosen Him.

Hebrews 11:6

6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

“The Elect”

Ephesians 1:11 (see also Eph. 1:3-10)

11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will….

God’s “Election” healthily balances tensions between “fate” and “choice;” “election” and “freewill;” “robotic” determination and “foreknowledge,” honorable “reward” and God’s remarkable “grace” and undeniable “sovereignty”.

Who but God would be able to orchestrate these complex dynamics together for His Glory and the eternal blessing of His Children?

Romans 8:29–30

29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Biblical teachers and leaders, such as Paul, both in the Early Church and today, should have a purpose to teach and encourage sincere and deepening Christian fellowship among those who know God and earnestly seek Him – as “the Elect” of God.

2. The Purpose of teaching God’s Word is to build up believers lives so they will become more and more honorable to God and mature in their faith:

“The knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness”

Knowledge of the Truth that leads to godliness should be paramount in the Church and the Christian’s life. Furthering our knowledge for the sake of our knowing “good and evil” has been a self-centered allure ever since the Garden of Eden. Vain human knowledge puffs up our pride, while love, on the other hand, builds up one another (1 Cor. 8:1-3).

A growing Christian’s goal should be gaining the aspects of spirituality, including knowledge of the Truth, that strengthens one’s spiritual depth to more mature Godliness.

1 Timothy 4:7–8

7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. 8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

3. The Foundation of our faith and knowledge rests on our Hope of Eternal Life!

2 “A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life,”

Without the hope of the hope of life after death – resurrection and eternal life, as revealed in Jesus Christ’s resurrection, we would be:

· Misrepresenting God,

· Our faith would be futile,

· We would still be in our sins,

· And we, of all people, should be pitied the most!

(1 Cor. 15:13-19)

4. Our Hope of Eternal Life is based on the genuineness of God’s Promises:

“Which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,”

Numbers 23:19

19 God is not a man, that he should lie,

nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.

Does he speak and then not act?

Does he promise and not fulfill?

Hebrews 6:13–20

The Certainty of God’s Promise

13 When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” 15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.

16 Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. 17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

5. God’s Mystery of the Sacrificial Savior was Revealed in the fullness of God’s Timing:

3 “And at his appointed season (the proper time) he brought his word to light”

Galatians 4:4–5

4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Ephesians 1:7–10

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

6. God entrusted the Apostle Paul with Mystery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – a message of salvation for everyone in the world.

“Through the preaching entrusted to me”

1 Corinthians 2:7–8

7 No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

~ The Church – the local and universal Body of Christ on earth, following the coming of the Holy Spirit and transformation of those who believe in Christ (Col. 1:18-20; Eph. 1:18-23).

~ Jesus Christ’s Eternal Bride (Eph. 5:28-32; Matt. 22:1-14; Rev. 19:6-9; 21) – Those in God’s Eternal Kingdom, who by God’s Grace have been Redeemed by faith, throughout the history of the world, either looking forward toward the Messiah’s coming and Sacrifice, or in generations following Christ’s crucifixion, those looking back at Christ’s redemption on the cross as the Suffering Messiah.

7. The Message of the Gospel was not devised by Paul or other men, but by God Himself – a revelation of the Mystery revealed in the fullness of time, for salvation through Jesus Christ offered to the world.

“By the command of God our Savior”

Galatians 1:11–12, 16a

11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

16 …to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man….

Ephesians 3:6–7

6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.

Conclusion

What are the Values Associated with Life’s Main, Broad Road leading to destruction?

How do we find the Narrow Road that leads to Life?

How was God’s Plan revealed?

Why do we attend a Church or Christian Fellowship Group?

Titus 1:1–3