Introducing the Man Titus

Transcript

GR 2280
02/02/2019
Introducing the Man Titus
Titus 1:1; Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We’ve been looking into the psalms recently, but we’re going to change pace. I want to direct your attention to the book of Titus in the New Testament, and we’re going to take a little bit of time and walk through this rather brief letter of Paul, three chapters, the letter of Paul to Titus. So 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and then you’ll hit the larger book Hebrews, so if you turn there in your Bibles, the book of Titus. Many of you familiar with something of the history of the book of Acts, and when you get to the end of the book of Acts Paul is in prison in Rome, but the evidence of scripture seems to be that he was released from that imprisonment. It was a house arrest kind of situation at the end of the book of Acts, and he was freed to go and travel and do other ministries. Then later he would be rearrested, imprisoned at Rome, and subsequently executed. During that time after he was released and had other ministries he traveled to different places and he had other men travel with him.

Timothy was one of those, and Titus was another among other men, but they are mentioned. We know they traveled with him because Paul left them. For example, Timothy was left at Ephesus when Paul could stay no longer to help bring things to completion in the ministry there, appoint elders and other things. Titus performed the same kind of ministry because Paul visited the island of Crete and then Titus was left there to wrap things up, and appoint elders and other things necessary for the ministry. We call these three letters, 1 and 2 Timothy, two letters to Timothy, and one to Titus, “pastoral epistles." Now Timothy and Titus weren’t pastors as we think of it, leaders of a particular church. They rather traveled with Paul and represented him in ministry to churches when Paul wouldn’t be there, so in a way they stand between the apostles and the churches, and would appoint pastors, elders and leaders for the churches. They’re not recorded as having a ministry in any particular church, but the material they have is pertinent to the structure of local churches and to the conduct of people in the churches, so I don’t have any problem with that title.

We know the letter is written to Titus, because verse 4 says, “To Titus, my true child in a common faith.” Titus has a significant role in the New Testament, but interestingly he is not mentioned in the book of Acts by name. The book of Acts written by Luke the physician, who wrote the gospel of Luke, chronicles the early period of church history. The beginning of the church in Acts chapter 2, the salvation of the Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 9, and then the travels of the Apostle Paul picking up in chapter 13 through the end of the book; primarily the ministry of Paul. Titus is not mentioned in the book of Acts but he is there. Why don’t you turn to Acts chapter 15 in your Bibles, Acts chapter 15, and we learn something about Titus, not only from the letter Paul wrote to him, but from other references. And this would be the first reference although he’s not hereby named, but we’ll put him here from another scripture in a moment.

Many of you are familiar that Acts chapter 15 records a significant event in the early church’s history. This is called the Jerusalem Conference because it met at Jerusalem, and it was to resolve a conflict that developed in the church. Remember when the church started in Acts chapter 2, and really, until the tenth chapter it’s primarily a Jewish church. Samaritans are brought into the church in Acts chapter 8 but they’re half Jews or mixed blood Jews, so the early church is Jewish in makeup. Now what happened with the passing of time Gentiles come into the church as Paul’s ministry reaches out and then an issue comes up. Do Gentiles who come to trust the Jewish Messiah have to observe the Mosaic Law? We’ve been studying this is the book of Romans. That means do the men have to be circumcised and in effect become Jewish believers, so that’s what the Jewish (Jerusalem) Conference is about. Note how chapter 15 opens up, “Some men came down from Judea,” now a little bit, where they are. Paul is wrapping up a journey and verse 26 of chapter 14 says, “From there they sailed to Antioch, from which they had been commended to the grace of God,” he’s back home. And “when they arrived and gathered the church together, they began to report” all that had been going on, in his travels, his ministries and the sharing of the gospel.

Chapter 15 opens up, “Some men came down from Judea.” Now Antioch is Antioch of Syria, which is north of Jerusalem, but as we have talked about, in the Bible all directions are from Jerusalem, so that’s where your compass is fixed. You also, any time you travel from Jerusalem, you go down, so even though Antioch, just so you know, you’re going north up to Syria, you talk about going down. You have to remind yourself you’re leaving Jerusalem so you’re going down no matter which way you go. It’s always you go down from Jerusalem so we’d talk about if we were going from Nebraska to South Dakota, we’d have to say if this was Jerusalem we’re going down to South Dakota or we’re going down to North Dakota. But that’s why he says men came down from Judea, and Jerusalem is the capital, it’s centered in Judea.

Now these men coming are Jews, and they “began teaching the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’ And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue”. Earlier in Acts persecution broke out and Paul led that persecution and it continued even after Paul’s salvation. But many Jews professed to be saved. Now some of them, and this is where the church has to be careful, it can be confusing, and compromise becomes the danger for the church. These Jews are saying, “Its fine to believe in Christ, you must believe He is the Messiah, He was crucified on the cross, buried, raised from the dead, you must believe in Him as the Savior.”

We say, “Great they’re in,” but no, they said, “That’s not enough.” Note the end of verse 1 of chapter 15, they are teaching, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Paul and Barnabas, and others standing for the truth are (firmly) planted, and so to resolve this you have to go to Jerusalem. Because after the persecution had started there believers are scattered everywhere but the apostles and leaders of the church remain at the home base, so to speak. At this early stage of the church this is where you go to resolve a conflict. Where else would you go but to the apostles that were with the Lord from the beginning and they received the truth. Peter was the spokesman at the beginning of the church in Acts 2 and so on, and they were all Jews as well, so they could address it from a Jewish perspective as those who had revelation from God.

Verse 5, when they get there and there’s the conference, “some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed…” and that’s the confusing thing, they had believed. So you think this is wonderful, we’ve got Jews who have believed, they agree that Jesus was the Messiah that He died, He was raised from the dead, they’re believers. But they “stood up saying, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses,” so that has to be resolved. Is salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone or is salvation by faith plus? There’s still confusion today, the devil just keeps recycling the old dirt.

We say, “Well, we don’t have this same problem with the Jews.” But we have the same problem though; we had a book written a number of years ago, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics Together. Well, we can agree on so many things that what we disagree on can be resolved at a later time, we can work together. Well, wait a minute it’s the same issue. Is salvation by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone or is it salvation by faith plus there are other things? The doctrine of the church and certain things, the sacraments, and that and everything else that might be added, that’s the same issue. The devil just keeps recycling this stuff, put a new set of clothes on it, and run it back out, put a new set of clothes on it run it back out. This is what Paul’s battling, so we want to see this and say, “Well, this is just, you know, an early church issue, but we don’t deal with it.” The reason God put it in here is these are things we’ll have to deal with, it’s resolved here. Now it doesn’t go away because the devil doesn’t go away, he keeps infiltrating churches with this error. That’s why Paul has to keep addressing it, we’re seeing that in our study of the book of Romans, how does the Mosaic Law fit into the life of a believer, to God’s salvation, God’s sanctification, and so on.

Now when you’re going down for a conflict like this you want to go prepared and with people you can trust. It says Paul and Barnabas are appointed by the brethren in verse 2, “the brethren determined that Paul, and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles.” Now that is important because one of those brethren going with Paul and Barnabas is Titus, we’ll see that in a moment. I think that’s important because you’re going down where there’s going to be a conflict, those going to represent your position have to be trustworthy. They’re not going to get there and say, “Well, you know, I think the Judaizers have some good things to say, and we don’t have to be as tight as Paul is.” Paul’s taking men with him and Titus will be a good test case because Titus is not Jewish, he’s Greek and he’s not circumcised but by this time he is evidently solid enough to be settled on the fact he’s saved.

Come over to Galatians chapter 2. We don’t know for sure how Titus got saved. I think he’s probably a product of Paul’s ministry, because Paul will call him my genuine child in the faith when we look into Titus. We’re not recorded where he met him, how his conversion came about, but at least by this time Titus has a connection with Paul and is trusted by Paul to be reliable. And we know from chapter 2 of Galatians Paul’s referring back to this conference that we just read about in Acts 15. “Then after an interval of fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also. It was because of a revelation I went up; and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles.” So we know it’s that conference and the details going down here, but first he said I talked privately “to those who were of reputation, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.”

We know how these debates go. We’re watching it in our own government, and things get out there, done in a public display. It’s done for show, it’s done and driven by emotion. And so Paul’s wise, he’s going to a conference here, and there’re strong commitments on both sides. Paul and Barnabas and those with him are (firmly) planted, it’s by faith alone by grace alone, it’s not works, the law, circumcision, nothing else. The Pharisee’s they’re well equipped and versed in the Old Testament and can make a good case. Look, didn’t God give the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai? Do you think God ever goes out of date? Now I’m making this up, but the argument: does God ever go out of date? Why would you say what He gave to Moses 500 years earlier than the coming of Christ now brings to an end the Mosaic Law? I think we have a good argument, God doesn’t change.

Now, it’s true, His Son has come, He has died for our sins, so that all that the Law talks about now we can enjoy, and realize, and make possible. Hmm, that’s a reasonable argument. It’s maybe reasonable it’s just not biblical. Now, I like it because it tells me something about Titus. I don’t know how long he’s been a believer, but he is solid, Paul can trust him, and it comes out with later things as well. Paul says the problem here, look at verse 3, why Titus is a good test case. Verse 3, “Not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.” Here’s a genuine convert but he hasn’t been circumcised. You’d have to say he’s not saved. He is! And so the truth of the gospel is at stake. We say, “Well, these details, I don’t like to get into these theological conflicts and …” No, but you have to because Paul says in verse 5, “We didn’t yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.”

If Paul compromised on this, what would we have today as gospel? What would we … ? I mean, you corrupt the beginning it just gets more corrupt. It’s bad enough, it comes down, how many people … “Yeah, I believe in Christ.” “How are you going to get to heaven?” “Well, I try to keep the Ten Commandments.” We’re back to the Jerusalem Conference and you’re going to try to keep the Law. It’s confusing. We have people who we’ve been talking about in Romans. The truth of the gospel is at stake. I like it that Titus is there and he’s on the spot, here’s the test case. Well, is he going to hold firm, is he going to wilt under the attacks of the Pharisees who claim to be believers? Paul says they’re unbelievers who snuck in to spy out our liberty. He called the curse of God down on them in Galatians chapter 1. So Titus, good man by the account we have here.

He also shows up repeatedly in another difficult situation. Second Corinthians and this is where we have him named in connection with Paul’s ministry, so turn to 2 Corinthians and we’ll go to chapter 2 first. Now you know Corinth was a difficult place for Paul. It was a great place, a great church. Paul said a church that had been gifted greatly by God and he has compliments to say to them, but they were constantly fighting, drifting away, and false teachers had come in, and it said every false teacher that came in they wanted to give consideration. You know, sometimes you just have to decide, here’s the truth and I’m not open to anything else. Well, how are you going to know that it may not be true? Because I know what the truth is. How many times in the years of ministry have I had people that, well, this is what I heard and I think you ought to be open to consider it. Why? If you have the truth you don’t have to consider everything.

You know, when I go to visit my doctor, and that’s more often as I get old, I don’t want to know that he’s studied every goofy thing that’s been put out there on the internet or whatever. I just want to know that he knows what the best way to treat my problem is. Now sometimes I want to help him out by telling him, and he reminds me that he’s the one who knows and I’m not, and that’s fine. We have absolute unchanging truth. Nothing new coming down through any of these doors is going to change the truth, so we have to be fixed and planted, we stay with the truth. All that to say, the Corinthians, because they had problems, you know who Paul’s going to send there, Titus. That tells you something about Titus. When you get to chapter 2 Paul’s written them a letter. There’s a debate whether it’s a first letter, whether there was a letter in between 1 and 2 Corinthians, we talked about that when we did Corinthians. I’m comfortable that it’s 1 Corinthians, but it may have been another letter.

It doesn’t change what we’re looking at right here. Titus has to take a letter and it’s a rebuke. There’s a rebuke, strong rebukes, in 1 Corinthians and if it wasn’t that it was another letter that had strong rebukes. Paul’s talking in 2 Corinthians and he’s waiting, he had Titus go with this letter and that tells you something. You’re going to send one of your tough letters to a church, you don’t want to send it in the hands of wimpy washy. You know it has to be someone whom you can trust with that letter and trust to stand firm. You don’t want to give them the letter and say, “Now this is from Paul, I don’t want you to think that I agree with everything in it, I know not everybody agrees with Paul and I don’t agree with him sometimes myself.” You don’t need that kind of person. You’re going to send a person with this letter who’s committed to the same truth you are and is unshakeable in support of your ministry and that’s how Paul can view Titus.

Now here’s where we pick up. Paul says in verse 12, now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and when a door was opened for me in the Lord.” And it means there was an opportunity there at Troas for ministry and presenting the gospel and the people seemed responsible. It’s hard for Paul to let go of opportunities like that but he said, “I had no rest for my spirit, not finding Titus my brother.” When he talks about Titus he talks about him in these warm, one soul, we are together, he’s a brother. He expected Titus to return and bring him news. You know, when you had those days with letters and you had the extended period of time between a letter being sent out and then response returning, you begin to read all kind of things into it. You’ve experienced that, you know, you send an e-mail, and if you don’t get an answer in 4½ seconds you think the person doesn’t like you anymore, and in those days, you know, you had to wait and you begin to say, “Well, maybe they’ve rejected what I say, maybe Titus is in a tough spot.”

Your mind begins to fill in the void, so he says, “I couldn’t wait so I left Troas and went over into Macedonia. Macedonia, he’d been in the northern part of Greece where cities like Philippi, and he would have gone down to Corinth. “I went on to Macedonia,” and then it later breaks off, “but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph.” And you have this glorious excitement about the ministry that God has given to Paul. You don’t get back to the subject of Titus until you come to chapter 7, and, you’ll note, verse 4 ends with Paul saying, “I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction.” What has happened? Verse 5, now he picks up where you left off when he’s looking for Titus. “For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within,” I mean, Paul was human, “but God who comforts the depressed.”

The depressed Apostle Paul, so if you’re depressed I have Paul’s solution. Get up and do something, go do it. He didn’t say, “I can’t do ministry anymore, I’m depressed, I have fears within, I can’t get out of bed.” He’s going to Macedonia and he gets there things haven’t changed, because he hasn’t seen Titus. That’s the situation, “But God,” verse 6, “who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus.” It wasn’t a direct vision from God. God uses other believers to bring comfort and encouragement and help, and he did with Titus. Titus comes back with good news. He doesn’t say why it took so long, but the news he brings is good. Maybe he had to help defend Paul, explain the letter and why Paul had to write a letter like that, but the news is good. So Titus was the instrument that Paul had the confidence in, he’s that kind of man, to have him go as his representative with this tough letter. Paul has some deep-seated concerns about the Corinthians about how they’ll accept the letter. You’ve got to send a man you have full confidence in. We’ll find that confidence well placed, because Titus will be with him at the end. But we’ll get there in a minute, so you keep on in Corinthians.

You know, one thing when you do a good job you sometimes get another job, and sometimes its a difficult job, so Titus is going back to Corinth. Come over to chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians. You know, another tough job, go and get money from people. Paul’s taking a collection for the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. This is just not for poor churches because there are a number of those, but this is the home church, this is Jerusalem where the apostles and prophets are. Persecution, has taken its toll, you know, people losing their jobs if they’re believers and things like that, and Paul thinks it’s only fitting. The gospel came from the Jews, these Gentile believers ought to be willing to step in and help them, so he’s taking a collection, and we’ve studied this. Paul doesn’t say you have to do it but the way he words it, if you’re going to be a godly person you will do it. So who’s going to go and represent him? Verse 6 of chapter 8, “So we urged Titus that as he had previously made a beginning, so he would also complete in you this gracious work as well.”

Come down to verse 16, “But thanks be to God who puts the same earnestness on your behalf in the heart of Titus. For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest, he has gone to you of his own accord.” You know, the Corinthians had made a commitment. Paul doesn’t want to take an offering when he comes, Paul’s very careful about money, particularly taking it from those that he leads to Christ and haven’t matured. When he went and presented the gospel, he wouldn’t take money, he made tents, did whatever he could to support himself. Otherwise, he’d be open, oh yeah, Paul came, he preached, he told you how to get saved, and he took your money, too, didn’t he. Well, you don’t want to be open to those kind of attacks, so what Paul is sending Titus to do, the Corinthians made a commitment, we want to be part of that offering.

You know, sometimes people respond emotionally and well, Paul said, “I think you were sincere.” He wants the offering to have been taken before he gets there. Then when he gets there he’ll take what has been collected and carry it to Jerusalem with the other he’s collected and with men that are traveling with him, but he entrusts this to Titus. “And he loves you, I didn’t have to talk him into coming. He came of his own accord,” that’s what we just read, “he was very earnest.” I don’t want to put it this way and be misunderstood, but you do the dirty work, you’re here representing Paul. It’s one thing to do it with Paul, it’s another thing to do it without Paul, but Titus is the kind of man, he does, and you know what? Come to chapter 12, you’ll see him here at the end of the letter as well.

Chapter 12 verse 17, “Certainly I have not taken advantage of you through any of those I have sent to you, have I? I urged Titus to go, and I sent the brother with him.” Now even though Titus was fully agreed to go, “Titus, I sent him,” so Paul wants to be connected with Titus, because he didn’t take advantage of you either. See, he could trust Titus. He “didn’t take any advantage of you did he? Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps?” What a beautiful way! Wouldn’t you like to be commended by Paul, someone of his stature, character, usefulness? We are of the same spirit, we walk in the same steps. What an accommodation! You know, full confidence in Titus. Well, you don’t know what Titus did when he was here, I don’t think he really represented you. He said he had some things he was uncomfortable about. Well, when you do that though you’re undermining, but that wasn’t the way of Titus. Paul has full confidence in him and I like it that we have to come right back to Titus.

Now I take you back to Titus because if you get to Titus . . . come back to a page or so and you’re in 2 Timothy, and this is Paul’s last letter, this is his final imprisonment. He was released at the end of Acts, he had various ministries, those letters to Timothy and Titus were written when he was in between those imprisonments. Then he’s rearrested and he’s confident that this will result in his execution, and tradition says he was executed in the persecutions of Nero in 68 A.D. But what is important here when you look, difficult times . . . keep your finger in chapter 4, before we read that, come back to chapter 1 verse 15, “You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me.” You know, the seven churches of Asia that are later in Revelation 2 and 3; the church at Ephesus was a church like that. That doesn’t mean that everyone back there had turned against Paul, but there were significant people from those churches in Rome. Some of Asia decided it would be too costly to be identified with Paul so they abandoned him.

We looked at David in the psalm we looked at last time. All my friends, my kinsmen, my loved ones have abandoned me. This is where Paul is at the time he needed the friends and he’s very open about it. Two very significant people that by their reputation would have thought would have been trustworthy, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. What a way to be remembered in scripture, you were one that didn’t stand either, you were one that didn’t stand. But Onesiphorus, he did, he refreshed me. You know, sometimes we don’t know the significance of what is going on. We want to be sure that we’re faithful all the time. Did Phygelus and Hermogenes know that this would be immortalized in God’s eternal word that they didn’t stand with Paul? Did Onesiphorus know that it would make such a difference? This is just a Roman prisoner and there are many of those, and this is a difficult time, it could cost you your job, your life, for being identified with a guy like this. They didn’t know how important this would be, but this is not the only ones.

Come back to chapter 4, there’s another, Demas, and if you’ve done some New Testament study, you know Demas comes up on other occasions and he was a faithful worker with Paul, but you know sometimes they don’t finish well. “Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” He ran away, got too much, finally caved and bailed as we might talk about it. Joined the rest, joined others, but “Crescens has gone to Galatia,” he was evidently sent there by Paul and “Titus to Dalmatia.” So two of these workers, Paul’s still got ministry to go and things to be corrected. What I like is Titus is still here. He was with Paul, he leaves when Paul sends him on a mission and Paul wants . . . Luke is with him, wants others to join Luke there, he wants others to come, Timothy to come. You get some of the sense of Titus, he’s a man to be honored and respected. He’s not Paul, he’s not an apostle, but he is a faithful worker.

You come to Titus and this is what he’s doing. Paul has visited Greek in between these imprisonments, visited Crete and Crete is an island in the Mediterranean off southeast of the coast of Greece. You’ll see it in your Bible maps and that. They visited there, there are churches there. Paul can’t stay, Paul’s a man of focus, he realizes what the ministry is, how long he should be there, when it’s time to go. And he trusts others and Titus is one he trusts here. He trusted Timothy at Ephesus, “I’ll leave you here, you finish up the work.” Crete, “Titus, I’m going to leave you here, you finish up the work.” So that’s the context that we’re in, and he’s writing to encourage Titus, and to strengthen him in the sight of these churches and give him the information he needs for completing the work in the churches.

The theme of this letter is going to be godliness, godly behavior, good deeds. That’ll come up again and again, so we won’t walk through those references right now for two purposes: it’s necessary for believers in their walk and then it’s important for the testimony before the unbeliever, so the letters to Timothy. First Timothy particularly, which is similar to this letter is more focused on the doctrinal error and it talks about the life, Titus is more focused on the life of godliness, but also deals with the doctrinal error. The introduction is one long complicated sentence. Some of you have taken Greek and diagram and when you diagram long sentences you know how it goes, and this is one long sentence. The introduction, the salutation as we call it, it identifies the writer, the recipient, and gives a greeting like we put at the end of our letters; they put it at the beginning.

We usually put whom we’re writing to at the beginning and then who wrote it at the end. There they put it all up front, who’s writing this letter, who it’s written to, and then a word of greeting. We do that, put it at the end of our letter. I hope all is well with you and your family, say hello to ___ if you have a relationship with a person they know, so we do the same kind of thing, little different arrangement, but the letters haven’t changed. If you’re writing to someone you identify yourself as the writer and in closing. It may be just a personal brief greeting, I’m writing you in the name of Christ our Savior, may the Lord bless you, or various kinds, but it’s the same kind of thing he’s doing here. So he starts out, “Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ,” and we just take that first part of this long sentence to start out. As you would expect he identifies himself, Paul, right out front, who is he. He’s going to identify himself not only by name but by two of his positions, he is a servant, a bond-servant, and he is an apostle.
Then he’ll elaborate on what that means. We know whom Paul is, the man converted on the Damascus Road. A direct revelation from God that strikes him blind and his life is changed completely and he becomes a fiery servant of the Lord, carrying the gospel primarily to the Gentiles. He calls himself a bond-servant, a bond-servant. There’s a word for servant in Greek and there’s a word for slave. Customarily they usually translate the word slave, not always, but often translate it servant, or bond-servant to give more stress. Why they didn’t translate it slave, there’s a variety of reasons given. But it’s the word slave, and by definition, you look up this word “doulos,” slaves were property with no freedom or rights. That’s basically what a slave was, you have a master, he owns you. Put in other ways, Paul wrote to the Corinthians in chapter 6 (verse 20) of his first letter and said, “You are not your own. You were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” You don’t belong to yourself, you were a slave of sin. You were purchased out of that slavery, now the new master owns you and you must obey him completely, so that’s the concept of a slave.

We’ve been talking about this, if you have been here, in our study of Romans. Come back to Romans chapter 6. Then we’re going to be in this again, the Lord must really think we need it. Romans chapter 6, the word slave, “doulos,” some of you have taken some Greek, it’s someone who is owned by someone else, the property of someone else who is sovereign over that person. In Rome, life and death. It was what we think of as a slave in many ways. Now everybody is a slave, there are no other categories, we have the slave category; you’re either the slave of sin and the devil or a slave of righteousness and God. Those are the only two categories, those are the only two groups. Everyone in this auditorium, I was going to say is either a slave of sin or a slave of righteousness, but it’s not divided that way, it’s a personal division, so that’s what we’ve looked at if you’ve been in Romans 6.

Look at verse 6, “Knowing this, that our old self (our old man) was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with (rendered powerless) so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.” And the Scripture is clear, the only way to get freed from your slavery to sin is to die with Christ. So everyone starts out as a slave to sin. The psalmist wrote, “In sin my mother conceived me,” not that conception is sin, but the sin of Adam is passed on to every one of his descendants. And every one of us is a descendant of Adam, we all are descendants each of us individually, and so we are slaves of sin.

Then we come down, if you die with Christ by believing in Him, you are spiritually identified with Him in his death, burial and resurrection. You can be freed from sin and that means now you’re free to do what you want. Well, that was the question we looked at when we studied verse 15, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” No, and the point was, verse 17, “Thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin,” when in your heart you believed the gospel, verse 18, “Having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” You’ll note there are only two categories, they’re fixed, we all are in the category of being a slave to sin. If you don’t think you are that’s just an evidence of how you really are. You’re deluded, there’s nobody ever who’s not a slave of sin, because you were born into it.

Now you have to be reborn to get out of it, and the way you get free is someone pays the price for you to be set free. The wages of sin is death, the only way to be freed from being enslaved to sin. And we think, “Well, well, I never committed murder, I never was immoral, I never stole …” But pride, selfishness, all the things that go on, God says we’re all sinners, in fact, He says, “No one knows how sinful they are, because the heart is so deceitful and desperately wicked. I’m the only One.” You can read that in Jeremiah 17: 9 and 10, so to deny is to say God is a liar, so everybody’s in that category. To free you from that, the price that has to be paid is death, that’s why Christ came, stepped in, took our place to pay our penalty. When we are “obedient,” verse 17, “from the heart,” we believe in our hearts that we are sinners that Christ died for us, and I’m trusting Him alone, not my works, not my church, not my being baptized, I’m trusting Him, you are born again. You are raised from your spiritual death to spiritual life, you’re freed from slavery to sin and become a slave of righteousness.

Come down to verse 22, “Having been freed from sin and enslaved to God,” there’s no middle ground, there’s nobody. Well, you know I’m not a slave to sin, I’ve never trusted Christ. No, there’re only two categories. When we blur this then we create confusion and we begin to destroy the truth, so that’s what he’s talking about when he talks about being a slave of God. That’s why Paul wrote to the Corinthians you are not your own, you were bought with a price. The price of getting you free from slavery to sin was the death of Christ, He paid the redemption price, He paid what was necessary for you to be set free from sin, now He owns you, He owns me. He is the Lord, before it was the devil and sin, now it is God and righteousness.

Come back to Titus. He not only says he’s a slave . . . “I want you to know I come not on my own authority, not in my own power, I come representing my Master.” A slave is about his master’s business; we have to remember that we are about our Master’s business. He says he’s also an apostle of Jesus Christ, he’s a servant of God and an apostle. Now I think there’s another dimension of a servant that we should keep in mind, it is a positive, it is an elevated view. That may be why some translators were uncomfortable translating it just slave, because people sometimes just think of that as the negative. It depends on who owns you. It is a high honor to be claimed by the living God as His slave, as one who belongs to Him and is under His care, protection, one for whom He provides, and one who serves Him.

We call him a slave of God. Usually Paul refers to himself as a slave of Christ or Jesus Christ or that kind of expression. Here he calls himself a slave of God and he’s going to refer to himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. An apostle is a particular ministry he has, gifted ministry, as a slave of God. He’s sent out to represent Jesus Christ. Now in the Old Testament significant individuals who had been selected by God and given special ministries were called slaves of God. So when Paul says he’s a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, I think the two are connected. He’s not just emphasizing that I’m in complete obedience, submission to Him and all that goes with that aspect of living, but I come on behalf of my Master. We don’t have time, we’re not going to look at all the references, but I wrote down some of those that in the Old Testament are called slaves of God and it is a position of honor.

Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Zechariah, it’s an honor to be in that line. So when he says he’s a slave of God, for anyone, and he’s going to deal with Jewish issues in this letter, this is a reminder I stand in the line of those appointed by God in their service for Him. It’s a special task and as an apostle he’ll have a ministry like those men did, and you begin to realize they were men that God spoke to, they were men through whom God spoke, and that is what an apostle is. An apostle is one sent to represent someone else, sent on behalf of someone else like a slave might be.
When the servant was sent by Abraham to get a wife for his son Isaac that slave… that was an honored position. You’re going to go find a wife for my son who is my heir, this is an important job. They could be honored and when they go they go representing their master, and they go to fulfill the task. Paul’s task to fulfill was he was an apostle, one sent on behalf of Jesus Christ, representing Him, making Him known. He’ll elaborate that, we won’t get to it, but that’s where he’s going in this long sentence.

Let me say a couple of things about apostles. You know every error cycles back around, back around, back around. I studied under a professor in a program I was in a number of years ago while I was pastoring him, but I was out on the west coast doing studies, Peter Wagner. I enjoyed Peter Wagner in many ways and had good conversations with him, but he was into charismatic things and drifted further and he became the key figure in the New Apostolic Reformation. The New Apostolic Reformation is God raised up apostles in these last days. And I’ve shared this with you on other occasions if you’ve been here awhile. He wrote a book on this and then a book of the testimony of those who are apostles. And somehow Peter Wagner became the chief apostle and then he appointed other men as apostles and they are those who lead the church and God directs in supernatural ways. And that’s not a New Testament apostle, there are none today.

There’re specific requirements, number 1, you had to have seen Jesus Christ after his resurrection from the dead. We don’t have time to go through this and we’ve done it on other occasions, but Acts chapter 1 they want to replace Judas, they pick Matthias. He had to be someone who traveled with the apostles and had seen Christ after His resurrection, because one of the things the apostles were to do in this time was to be able to confirm the resurrection of Christ because they saw Him. Now there were others who saw Him, they weren’t apostles, but it was a requirement for an apostle. Another requirement for an apostle was his ministry was accompanied by miraculous deeds, because there’s new scripture being given. Apostles received new revelation so they validated that by miracles and they did receive direct revelation. That’s important. We’re reading the book of Titus, you know who wrote it, Paul under the direction of the Spirit of God. So you have new revelation being given, that’s why they had to have their ministry validated by miracles. Otherwise, you have everybody . . . Like another professor who was gone by the time I went to that seminary, removed because he claimed he was receiving revelation from God, new revelation. You know, it pops up all the time. One of the popular TV people said while he was shaving God came and put His arm on His shoulder and called him by his nickname. And where does it stop? Fools proclaim it and fools believe it.

Come back to Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2. At this rate, Titus only has three chapters, we ought to be done in about six years. I knew what you were thinking out there. Look at Ephesians chapter 2 verse 19, and the church at Ephesus is a Gentile church, it’s in Asia Minor. Paul says to them, “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.” He’s talking here . . . the apostles, why are they the foundation? God has given the revelation in Ephesians 3 as it goes on. Paul says in verse 3 of chapter 3, “That by revelation there was made known to me the mystery,” verse 5, that was not made known before, so you see apostles are receiving new revelation.

New Testament prophets, these are not the Old Testament prophets, these are the New Testament prophets. There were prophets, the gift of prophecy in the church and some of you are taking the class on spiritual gifts, important to have these clear. How are we going to get new revelation? The difference, I think, prophets received revelation from God. Apostles could receive direct revelation from God as well but apostles had a broader authority over the churches. Prophets seem more limited. They received direct revelation, that revelation could be for the benefit of the churches, but there it didn’t exercise the same kind of authority that the apostles do, and so we don’t see them as much.

We don’t have time to go to Corinthians but Corinthians sets out the gifts in order of importance. Number 1, Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 are apostles, number 2 are prophets, number 3 are teachers, and then he doesn’t categorize the rest, he just numbers them. You’re in Ephesians, come to Ephesians chapter 4, we’ve been through this passage so many times and we will end with this. The gifts were given to the church after the resurrection of Christ, so we know that these are new gifts. These aren’t just the Old Testament continuing on, its God giving revelation but in new and direct ways to newly prepared and gifted individuals.

The end of verse 8 tells us, to break in because of time, “He gave gifts to men.” After the resurrection of Christ He ascended, He gave gifts to men and then you come down to verse 11, “He gave some as apostles, some as prophets . . .” He has here evangelists, a word from the word “gospel,” the gospelizers. Means those who were particularly interested with carrying the gospel to new places. “Some as pastors and teachers,” here he adds pastors with teachers, it would be like an apostle. Now don’t get confused, apostles and pastor-teachers are not the same, but where there’s similarity . . . apostles had authority, the prophets primarily just received revelation that they could pass on. Teachers teach the truth that has been given, they don’t get new truth. Apostles and prophets could get new truth, teachers don’t, they take the old truth. I don’t get new truth; I teach you what was given to Paul because that’s the foundation of the church as Ephesians 2:20 said. So these gifts connected to the ministry of God’s word are foundational, verse 12, “for the equipping of the saints.” So everything centers in the fact that God has spoken, that’s why Paul is starting out this way.

He’ll elaborate the truth is foundational to everything, so Paul’s authority as a spokesman of the truth. And his authority stands behind what Timothy is going to say because Timothy will have that letter that’s relatively short as we have it, three-chapter letter, to share with the people. This is Paul’s authority, I am Paul’s representative, that’s why Paul puts his authority behind Titus so that he can deal with these matters. The authority ultimately comes from God because God has spoken. That’s why we get together and we study God’s word and we do it again and again and again and again because we forget, we get distracted, and all these things. We want to be sure that we are being faithful. When all’s said and done, I want to be like Titus, I want to be there at the end. “Well, where, what happened to Gil?” “I think he wandered off here, wandered off there. I don’t know, he was doing all right I thought.” I don’t want to be like Demas, ran off, I don’t want to be like those from Asia who just were gone. God didn’t say it should be easy. The pressure comes when there might be cost involved. I want to be sure it’s because I’m being faithful and not just because I’m being ornery. But we want to be faithful, may that be true of us individually and as a church.

Let’s pray. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of Your word. Lord, it is a treasure, a treasure entrusted to us, Lord, a treasure that we are not to hide but we are to hold fast. We are to proclaim it, we are to live it, we will give an account for it. Lord, we are Your church in this place, we have been established to be a pillar and support of the truth, may we by Your grace be faithful to that. Bless this day we pray. May our lives be a reflection of the truth we believe. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen
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