Introduction to the Book of Titus

You can turn your Bibles with me to Titus, the letter to Titus. Lord willing, I plan to I aim to do several messages, a series of messages on the book of the letter to Titus. So we won't be doing a lot of reading here today. I'll probably use most of the time to just sort of give the introduction and possibly look at the first couple of verses in the first chapter. But we're going to refer to a number of verses here. So if you would, turn your Bibles there. And as we go through this, my heart is that we can learn the things that apply to our day today.

It tends to be a little bit of an instructive kind of book, sort of a heavy book loaded with words like rebuke and rebuke them sharply. There's also some good news here in this book. So bear with me if some of the messages come out a little bit heavy, loaded with exhortation and warning. But it is in here. First of all, I just want to think a little bit about the timeline. I think this was written from what we understand, it was possibly around the year of AD 64. Not exactly, maybe no one for sure. But it is believed that this book or this letter was written to Titus, sandwiched between First and Second Timothy.

And if you notice, we will see that it parallels much with the letter to First Timothy. So Timothy and Titus were both partners, fellow laborers with Paul in his ministry. And that will come out. Just a little bit about Titus, that we don't know a lot about Titus.

He seems to be a very outstanding man according to Paul's evaluation. I think the first time his name comes up is in Second Corinthians. Paul first mentions him and he calls him his brother. In the letter here, we will see in Chapter 1 that he calls him his son. So we see there's a relationship that is established between these two men.

And we see his name come up in the letter to the church at Corinthians, the Corinthians, Second Corinthians. I think in that letter, it comes up at least 10 times or so. So we see there that he was a partner through that time.

And I believe it would allude to the fact that he also delivered the letter to Paul that was written to or delivered to the church there that was written by Paul. Just a few highlights I want to notice.

It might help us see a little bit of the character of Titus when Paul says in his distressed time, I think it's in Second Corinthians 7, maybe verses 5 and 6 if I have this written down. Paul there is lamenting in one of his journeys. He just simply says it this way: "When we were come into Macedonia," he says, "our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side.

Without were fightings, within were fears." So get the picture. Paul is distressed. He's very heavy. There's fear inside. There's fighting outside. We're ever in situations like that. And here comes Titus along. And he says, "God, the giver, the one that brings all comfort," here comes Titus and refreshes and just sort of lights up the whole place.

Just attractive to me, the character. So he was a bearer of good news. And it tells us partly why he brought so much cheer. It's not only because he brought a letter of good news or a good report from the church, but he also was delighted. And Paul goes into that, I think, in Second Corinthians saying the delight that Titus expressed because of the good news, that in and of itself was a very positive experience.

It goes again to our relationship, our connection that our brother brought out, how we influence each other. So I see Titus as very much an influencer, a carrier of good hope and good news. So that gives us a little bit of an insight into his relationship or his character, I should say.

And then another time his name comes up is in Galatians Chapter 2. It comes up several times in there in ways that I think are important for us to grab a hold of. So if you're remembering Galatians Chapter 2, Paul all of a sudden, "Well, I'm going back to Jerusalem after 14 years." And it's not sure what the 14 years referred to. But he's going to Jerusalem to discuss a very heavy matter. Some say it was the Jerusalem Council. But if you look at the Jerusalem Council back in Acts 15 and you look at the discussion that they had in Galatians 2, I believe, it was a little bit different but along the same line.

But it was going to be a heavy discussion. So Paul goes to this big meeting to the elders and the counselors or the apostles and so on. And it specifically mentions there he takes he and Barnabas are going, but Paul mentions twice, I believe, that we're going to take Titus along.

There again, Titus. Why is this so important to take Titus along to this big brother's meeting that Peter's going to be there and Peter and Paul are going to bump heads a little bit? That's where Paul said, "I took Peter by his face." There was a discussion there. There was a disagreement between Paul and Peter. And here's this young Gentile, Titus, that's dragged into this big meeting.

And the subject is somewhat Jewish rituals and traditions and circumcision and so on. And he specifically mentions that Titus does not need to be circumcised. He was a Gentile believer from the Gentiles, a Greek. Now, on the other hand, Timothy was circumcised. Paul makes mention of that.

What is the difference? So you have Titus. You have Timothy. The one gets circumcised. The other doesn't. Well, I believe we can learn something from that. We can learn, first of all, that it was not required for salvation. Otherwise, Titus would have needed to be done.

Timothy, maybe out of respect, it says that because he had a Jewish mother. He's half Jew. His father is Greek. We learned that he got his godly and this is something for the mothers. We learned that Timothy got his godly value, his godly heritage from his mother who was a Jewish convert. Therefore, Titus says, "I think out of pure respect to the mother and the grandmother, there was circumcision, not for salvation but out of respect." Titus, on the other hand, was taken there to this debate, I think as an example or an object lesson to say, "Here is a convert from the Gentiles." And look at his character. Look at his conversion. Look at his testimony.

He doesn't need to be circumcised. I don't know. We can think for maybe several reasons. Or maybe it could be that this was a learning experience for young Titus, fresh born again from the Greek background, going into a setting like this and discussing things in a heavy way and walking away, still being strong and encouraged. Let's think about the island here that it's written to. It's Crete. It tells us here, verse 5, "For this cause, I left thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order that things that are wanting," or some translations say that things that are lacking, and so on. So this is happening on the island of Crete. If we look on the map, the island of Crete is in the Mediterranean Sea and approximately 160 miles long by about 35 feet wide.

So if you think of that area and compare it to the Cumberland Valley, possibly another time the size of the Cumberland Valley, just to give us a little picture. It was a mountainous, I think, fifth in line of the biggest island in Greece there. A mountainous area, heavily somewhat populated there in Paul's day.

If we look at some of the religion of the time or the inhabitants, they were a difficult, problematic people. That comes out in our text. It'll come out later as we read through in the next following, especially Chapter 1, verses 10 and so on. And it is, according to history, what I've read, the Philistines, if you remember, those that constantly hassled the Israelites and gave them trouble back in the Old Testament, according to history, these had their roots on this island.

So I think of that, but we don't have a way of knowing necessarily. I think of the giant Goliath that approached or David struck down with his little stone things. Possibly he was born on that island. I don't know where the timeline all comes in. But that, according to history, is the background.

And he keys us in in some of the verses here. Just give us a little bit of the people that were there. It's really rough language, actually. In verse 10, Chapter 1, "For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake.

One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, 'The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts and slow bellies.'" That's verse 12. Just look at that verse. I mean, they're always lying.

Evil beasts, slow bellies. I think some translations say lazy gluttons. Well, you just can't sugarcoat it, can you? I think I would just assume Paul would be called a slow belly as a lazy gluttonous or an evil beast. But that gives us a picture now. These aren't Paul's words. They're not necessarily God's words. If you notice, Paul says, "One of their own people described them that way." So it's like an American person saying, "This is who we are."

And then Paul comes in the back and he says, "This is true."

He just simply says, "I didn't say that. Their own guy said it. But the little bit I know about these people, he's right on."

That is what the task is going to be for this young minister to go into a culture like that. And he's supposed to set things in order. And let's talk about when I read that verse, my mind goes to one thing.

Years ago, I was at a customer's place. Do you remember the potbelly pig days?

Those cute little things that had a belly this big and a body this big. I was at this customer's place. And this woman came and said, "I have two potbelly pigs here that we need to get rid of. We're tired of them. They're a nuisance. And they're" Well, I thought potbelly pigs were worth a lot. I mean, they were really the thing.

This was apparently on the tail end of phasing out. And she said, "Would you know of anybody that would like potbelly pigs?" "Well, I don't know. I thought for sure somebody would want potbelly pigs because they were the in thing just a year or two ago."

So she said, "Well," I said, "I don't know offhand." Well, she said, "Would you just take them and find a home for them?" "Well, you mean you just give them to me?" "Sure. I'll take them." I took two potbelly pigs home. And you know what?

As I watch those things and just marvel over them, I think of this verse. The belly, it's all about the belly. It's more about the belly than the pig. And the belly doesn't just come automatically. The belly is fed. The belly, it's about eating and filling and satisfying the belly.

Those pigs I found, I couldn't peddle those things for nothing. And I finally got tired and said I took them along to the sale barn, thought, "Well, somebody might be there that wants to eat some potbelly pig." They didn't bring enough to pay their way getting there, put it that way. I found they're worthless at that point. And this is the picture we have here.

A slow belly, I can think of nothing else but worthless in society, to society. The good news, though, is Paul saw enough of worth there with the slow bellies, the evil beasts, and the liars that they're worth going after. So the burden of Paul's heart says, "Though they are described that way, I still know they have an eternal soul behind them that is worth more than the whole world.

And Titus, I'm going to drop you off at Crete." I get the picture that, according to the wording, they traveled somewhere along the line, "Here you go. You're staying here." And then he gives the reason in the letter. He goes home and writes a letter. That's sort of the picture we get.

How did the gospel get there is the question. We don't know for sure. It does seem they were some established churches on this island. Just simply by the tone of the letter, scholars and commentators and so on have discussions as to how the gospel might have gotten there. We have no record, really, that Paul ever went there and ministered and established churches in his journeys. He could have and maybe just not made it in the Bible.

We know from Acts, I think, 27 when Paul was on his journey as a prisoner, transported from to Rome, I think. They got into that storm, if you remember, and they detoured things. And they ended up on the island of Crete for a time. But we have no record that he even really interacted with the people in Crete at that time. So what is this connection there? Also, in Acts 2, we have it there on the day of Pentecost that there were Cretans there listening to the Holy Spirit, taking in the Holy Spirit. And we might just believe that those men, those faithful men, took the gospel back home and established some sort of good news within this country.

However, we take from the letter that somewhere along the line, apparently, Paul and Titus were visiting there and got a picture of this thing. And Paul said, "You stay here." And then he writes the letter and tells him, "Why I left you there."

A huge task to set in order the things. We read some of the verses there, the exhorting, the rebuking, the shutting their mouths and so on. But we get a picture here that to set things in order, there had to be a lot of weeding done first. And isn't it that way in our life? When we want good things to happen, we must take care of the bad things first, just like the weeds in the garden.

In verse 3, Chapter 3, verse 10, the word reject is used. We'll look at those later then as we go along, Lord willing. But if we notice, there is an emphasis throughout this letter that comes up again and again and again. And I want our attention to turn to these verses.

I mean, Chapter 1, verse 16, it says, "They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him." All right? You notice what comes up? Works or good works. Godliness is going to come up, that theme, the emphasis in this letter. So let's go to the next one, Chapter 2, verse 7, "And all things showing thyself a pattern of good works." See, the good works is going to keep coming up again and again. If we go to verse 14, "Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous, of good works."

It just keeps coming up again. Then we go to Chapter 3, verse 1, "Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work." You notice the theme, the emphasis that go through there.

Let's look at one more. There's several more here.

3, verse 8. I think this is probably if there's a key verse, it might be this one. And we see in verse 14, it says, "Let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses," and so on. But let's back up to verse 8 of Chapter 3. "This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men."

Let's just think about that verse a little bit. This term, good works, is a term that is really sneered upon in our Christian American culture, isn't it? If we keep repeating that term about good works and I just want to really pound this in us this morning. It is a Bible term.

And the Apostle Paul, the one who taught that we're saved by grace, also taught us it's actually a favorite term of his is through the epistles is good works, godliness, and holiness. It comes up over and over again.

Now, let's just think of this verse 8. "This is a faithful saying, and these things I will," he's saying to Titus, "that when you go to this land of slow bellies and evil beasts and what's the other terms? Liars, I want you to affirm constantly that they which have believed in God," so you got converts there. "This is your task to the church, to the converts, that you constantly remind them and teach them to maintain good works." Let's think about that. So Shippensburg Christian Fellowship, every time we come behind this pulpit, every time we meet together, we're going to affirm constantly. It's going to be our message.

It's going to call in, "Did you take the trash out this morning?" If you didn't, are you going to do better next week? Edsel, were you nice to your wife this week? Did you love her? If you didn't, the coming days you're going to do better. Philip, did you bless your neighbor this week?

If you did, in what way? If you didn't, are you going to make sure it happens next week? Older women, did you teach the young women to love their husband? Chapter 2, if you didn't, you're going to do next week, right? The list could go on and on. John, have you been nice to all those phone callers this week? Did you cut anyone off?

If you're a truck driver, did you cut somebody off in the traffic? If you have an enemy out there, did you bless him and forgive him and love him this week? Did you if you didn't?

Irvin, were you at clothes sorting Tuesday evening? If you weren't, you better be there next month. Who was at soup kitchen last week? Raise your hand. If you weren't there, you're going to be there. Edsel was there.

Wives, ladies, mothers, did you discipline your children this week? Did you love them in that way? Did you forgive your enemy? We could make a whole list of what we call good works. And you know what? If you'd hear that every time we have a meeting, that's what Paul's telling Titus, to constantly align these people up and get them in order, help them to be disciplined people and to just, "Well, you know what? We would have a reputation here very soon." Those guys back there on Blind Lane, you know what they do on a Sunday morning? They just talk about their good works. That's all they do. They surely must believe that they're saved by their good works.

It's a works doctrine, really. What's Paul saying here? Isn't this the same Paul that said in Galatians and Romans and other places, "Your works can't save you"? Is Paul teaching that your works are going to save you? I don't think he's telling us that, but he is telling us something.

Here's the part we want to get. Paul is teaching, and James teaches this. Jesus teaches this. The term good works is a Jesus term. Matthew 5, I think it is, where he says, "Let your light so shine before men that they might see your" say it. Good works. Good works. Let's not be scared of that term. It's a Bible term. It's an apostle term. It's a Jesus term. And it comes up over and over again.

Let's not be scared of that. Here's the point we're going to learn in this letter. We're going to talk about faith. But let's think about faith and good works. Paul makes it very clear in Ephesians 3, I believe it is, "Not by works lest any man should boast." I think I have those right. Can't quote it exact. "By grace you are saved through faith," Ephesians 2:8, "and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of works," there it is, "lest any man should boast."

The same teacher is telling Titus, constantly be talking about good works. What's he saying here? Often we stop in verse 9, Ephesians 2:8 and 9. Verse 10 says, "For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works." There we are again.

Two sides of the coin that Paul is bringing in. So let's think of two words when we think of the subject of being saved by faith and then good works and how they blend together. Two words, root and fruit.

The root, faith is the root of our salvation. And good works are the fruits of our salvation. We get it? The faith is the root. That's where it all begins.

But that faith is then tested by the fruits of our salvation. And Paul is teaching these people that if there are no fruits that come forth, then there is a root problem. We do that as farmers, as with fruit trees. We expect fruit. If it's not there, there's a fruit problem.

Verse 16 of Chapter 1 says, "They profess they know God." What does that mean?

They have a testimony. They've been born again. They love Jesus. They listen to Christian music. They engage in singing. They engage in worship. They say they know Jesus. They say they pray every morning. They might read their Bible every morning.

They profess to know God. And whenever the Bible has a but in it, that means when we stand back and say, "What's going on? He just said something good and right about these people." But in works, could we say, in their good works, they deny him.

That wasn't only a problem back in Crete. Does that problem sound familiar today?

I just had a conversation this past week. We were talking about spiritual things. I didn't know this man from Adam, basically. And he engaged in the conversation, started agreeing with almost everything I mentioned about Christianity.

And I thought, "Wow, this is great." And then here comes a woman, and I find they're not legitimately married but living together. Oh, dear. Was this a waste? Did we just talk these things? Were they so nice? Now what do I do?

He professes to know God. But in reality, the Bible says, "If I live with a woman that's not my wife, I'm living in sin." Is that an American problem or just a problem in Crete? But this was the task that young Titus had to go into that.

I like the thought that Ephesians 2:10 brings out. We have God's role, and then we have his Son, the Lord Jesus,'s role. In Revelation, we see God making man. He breathes into the nostril. He gets some dirt together, and he forms this thing, and he calls it a man, and that is us. And then Ephesians 2:10 comes says that we have been created in Christ Jesus to be his workmanship.

Now, that talks about a second making of man. God had his role in Genesis. He made a man, and he made him breathe. And here comes his Son, the Lord Jesus, many years later. And he comes back, and he redesigns, could we say. He recreates, as Paul says another place, a new creature. And he creates us to be a worker for God.

Those testimonies are powerful when we see Jesus coming in and recreating the man, the natural man that God made. I just talked with a man this past two weeks ago. He said he's a healthy, godly man, working hard. He got up at night, and he said, "I somehow tripped or something happened when I got up in the middle of the night, and I fell over, and I fell right on the footboard of my bed, and I broke my ribs."

What a bummer. Apparently not quite awake, and he stumbled half dizzy or whatever. He got up, and he said, "All my ribs," he said, "I'm so sore." And two days later or so, I called him. I said, "How are you doing?" I was hoping to hear that he's doing better, but he said it's only getting worse.

And I googled this, and he said if you break ribs, that it's going to get worse rather than better for the next few days because of the swelling. And he said, "I can hardly I dare not sneeze. I dare not cough. I can hardly get out of my chair, and I can hardly do my work." I just felt so sad. I said, "I'm sorry." I said, "That's just a bummer. I'm sorry.

Just getting out of bed at night and falling on your own bed, and you go through all this, why?" And this was his comment, "Consider this a very godly man." And he said, "Well," he said, "this is how God has been working in my life." He said, "When I don't have things like this happen in my life, I tend to become sort of proud and self-sufficient. I got this. Life is good." He said, "I need things like this in my life to keep me humble."

And I'm like, "Praise God." I went away challenged. I'm like, "There you have that recreating." And that is a lifetime work for some of us. But that is what Jesus does. He takes even our most difficult trials in life, and he uses that to shape us, to recreate us unto a beautiful felt sorry for the brother with his broken ribs, but I just loved being around his spirit, humility and brokenness. And he took it as a godly lesson to shape, to form, and to become more like Jesus.

Oh, if we can take our tests, as James tells us, "The trying of our faith worketh patience, the recreating work." Let's remember root and fruit. We get into through our faith is the root, and our good works are the fruits of our salvation.

Let's just look in closing here. Wow.

Verse 1, Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul. Do you ever open a letter like that? Paul, put your own name. Cedric, you're writing a letter, put your name, Cedric. We do sort of backwards, don't we, if we do write letters? Put our name sort of in the back, don't we? This is typical of Paul. Is he proud of his name? What's going on here? Let's just think about this. Now, definitely, Paul says he's writing this. He's saying, "Paul," and then verse 4, he says, "To Titus."

Now, is this just a casual letter that Paul is writing to Titus, addressed to Titus from Paul? It's more than that. Now, whether Paul knew it's going to be more, I'm not sure. I take that he probably did because at the end of the letter, he sort of opens it up and says, "Give them all my greetings." So it was going to be somewhat of a public letter. But I don't think Paul ever realized that it's going to be written in the Bible. It made it in the Bible. This letter is there for billions, if I can say it that strong, people to read thousands of years later. Therefore, I believe there were a lot of things written back then that never made it in the Bible.

So a lesson again for us, when it made it in the Bible, it's there for our day. It's not only a cultural thing for their time. If it made it in the Bible, it's here for us. It's not just a greeting here. It is also a statement of faith in verses 1 and 2. Paul is servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness, and hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.

Let's just look at a few things in closing here out of those couple of verses.

First of all, Paul, as he says, he's not saying Paul because his name is important. He's saying Paul because his position is important. He says, "Paul, the servant." Some translations might say a prisoner or a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. And I want us to get something here in this opening statement. So when we say a bondservant or a prisoner or just plain old servant, we think sort of in negative ways. Well, I'm just sort of held by this position that is less than ideal, and I have to be here, and it's heavy and discouraging and disappointing. Shouldn't that sort of be the attitude of a slave?

Let's think of it. Paul doesn't open his letters with that tone. If I'm a slave, whether it's a bondslave, a prisoner, a servant, that means I have a master. And the highlight here is the honorable position here is that God is the master.

And then he says, "An apostle." What's an apostle? Any definition, modern English? What does that mean?

An official representative. Wow, I like that term.

God's my master, and I am a representative of Jesus, the best position that a person could be. So Paul opens his letters often sort of this way. It's not about Paul. It's about his position. Who's his master? God. Who's he working for and under? It's Jesus. That's the picture we get. And I think this is a very foundational statement of faith for not only Titus, but it's also for us today. Let's not forget our position that we have as servants of God and apostles of Christ.

And then he says another interesting thing that's very foundational according to the faith. He just told us his position. Now he tells us how he got there. Jump down to verse 4, "To Titus, my own son, after the common faith." Think about two words there, according in verse 1 and after in verse 4. According is for Paul. After is for Titus, which means basically the same thing. He's simply saying, "I came to this position that I'm in, this honorable position, according or through the faith." And then he says, "Titus came into this same position after," does he call it, "the common faith." And I want to just simply highlight that. Jude calls it the faith that was once delivered to the saints.

I find real peace and rest when I think in those terms, what Paul is teaching in the statement of faith that there is one true, authentic faith that gets us all in. Jude says it's the same faith that is good for all the saints. Paul says it's the faith that's good for me. It's the faith that's good for me as a Jew and an ex-Jew. It's the same faith that's good for Titus, that is a converted young Gentile. And then Jude says it's the faith for all the saints. And then in verse 1, Paul brings in another group of people, and it's God's elect. You see that? What about the doctrine of election?

Those elect and those saints that Jude talks about, are they two different groups of people? I think they're the same. So I see that even the elect of God, as the doctrine says, that the elect has nothing in it. But here it teaches us that it is the faith for God's elect. So Paul comes in according to the faith. Titus comes in after the common faith. All those and Jude come in through the faith. Let's grab onto the faith that was once delivered. It doesn't have to be with every generation. There's a tendency in us people that every generation comes along, and we have to make adjustments to the Christian faith.

Do you ever notice that? Well, I think those old duffers, they were a little bit off. So we'll make a few okay. I realize things change. Technology changes, inventions, you name it. There's a lot of things that change. But one thing that never changes is our human nature. And another thing never changes is the sin problem. Never changes generation to generation. And there is one thing for sure again we see here that never changes. It is the faith.

So let's get a hold of the faith that Paul was teaching for Titus to go into a land. Good for us today, the faith. I rest in that. When I saw my father of a whole different generation really coming to the end of himself and finding grace and salvation through Jesus Christ, that's good enough for me. It's going to be good enough for my children. It's going to be good enough for my grandchildren and their children. You get it?

Let's not try to refurbish or add something or take something away from the common faith. Now, does Paul believe in faith or good works? He believes, and he teaches that the root of our salvation is the faith, and the fruits of our salvation is our good works.

And we see that right here again.

He gives a measuring stick for the faith then in verse 1. He says the acknowledging, he's saying how he got in through the faith or according to the faith, and then the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness.

There's something here we can never separate. The faith, we cannot separate from the truth. It's just impossible. The faith is always going to be in cahoots, if that's a word to use here, with the faith and with the truth. And then that equals or it produces godliness. You see that?

So a measuring stick is that if I have been liberated in the faith of Jesus Christ, and it keeps going in a more worldly direction and for the ladies, a more less modest direction, and the covering is starting to sort of go away or become an adornment, those are measuring sticks that we can use to say, does it have its roots in the true faith?

If it does not point toward godliness and shaping me more and more like God, then it can't be the true faith. It's patterned after godliness. We see that. And that's going to come up again and again and again in this book. We're just going to close with a more positive note.

And we're going to do a test between the gods now. And if we think of Zeus, I think it's the name of one of the Greek gods that this mythology brought along. Was a popular god that they set up as whether he's visible or invisible, how all that worked in their time, I don't know.

But he was believed to be born on this island. And one of their writers described him this way, that he seduces women, and he always lies to get his way. Does that key us in why the Cretans were always lying? If they sort of had the concept or the pattern of a god that just tends to lie to get his way. Every time he talked, you'd sort of scratch your head, and you're half skeptical. Is it true? Is it not? Well, if he always lies, then I guess you can just assume it's not true. And you live under that kind of false religion.

I just love this next verse. And he tells us that at the very helm of this new faith that he's supposed to introduce, there's a god that can't lie.

Their god is made up of lies. It's his nature. As the Bible says, the devil is the father of lies, the other god, the god of this world. Paul says this god, if you want to do a little test between the two, this god can never lie. He just doesn't know how.

If he would try, he couldn't because it's just not there. The nature of our god is true. It's faithful. It's always the way he says. I never have to read the word of God. If God said it, I don't have to go, "No, I just must believe it because I know it's true," whether it makes sense to me or not, the mysteries of our great God.

Number two, another thing that our god, the god described here, can do that no other god can is keep his promises.

Do you know the god of this world? I like Brother John sometimes when he prays for the war. I hear in his prayer that he talks about the demon of war.

Let's say that demon, I guess you're referring to the god of this world, the demon, the god of this world.

Let's just think about the god of war and the promise behind that, the peace, right? So we go and fight, and we scrap, and we kill, and we kill, and we bloody murder. And in the end, our goal is peace.

That's a lie from the god of war, killing thousands, if not millions of people in hopes to gain peace. It's a lie. It will never, never bring peace. What about the god of materialism? There's that old Amazon truck that I follow sometimes. On the back, it says, "Warning.

This truck or this container may have contents that may cause happiness." That's sort of funny when we read that. Do you think that has its roots in the truth? I think that statement has its roots in a lie because I know some people, in fact, I could name a person I know right now that is surrounded with things. In fact, if you go to the house, it's so full of things that you have to find your way through this way.

And I also happen to know that it's one of the most unhappy persons that I know.

The god of wealth, the god of materialism, says that if you just had this one more thing, if you would have one more million or one more thousand, and you could buy that thing that you wanted for 10 years, it would push a little button in you that say, "Now I'm good."

It's the deceitfulness, I think Jesus calls it. But those are all lies. And you go to an old people's rest home, and you hear stories, and you listen to the old people, and you listen to their story. If they've been listening to these kinds of languages, they're ending their life in a very disappointing way.

But our god, he says, he promises, and he keeps his promises. There's no other religion that can do that. There's no other god that can ever do that. But in this promise, he has given to us a promise of the gift of eternal life.

There's nothing else that we treasure more than eternal life. There is nothing this world can offer that even comes close to eternal life. In fact, Jesus said that the hireling came to kill, to steal, and to destroy. "But I came that you might receive life," Jesus says, "and you might receive the abundant life." And here he's promising with it. And the statement of our faith today, it's not just for Titus. It's for us.

It's compiled right into this statement that we have a promise of eternal life. Let's close in by just looking at John chapter 17 and the prayer that Jesus prays, a very inspiring verse. John chapter 17, the Gospel of John. And we're going to look at verse 3.

I'm in the wrong book here. Sorry. This is why I need to mark my John 17, verse 3. Jesus is praying, and he said, "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

Sometimes we say eternal life is future, and it is. We believe that when we go through the last enemy of death, on that other side of death, we're going to experience eternal life to its fullest. But Jesus says in several different ways that eternal life has a beginning here on earth. And right here, he tells it very clearly. "And this is life eternal, that they may know thee, God, the only true one, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." James says, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." The take-home piece here, the challenge I want to leave, the encouragement, the positive note, folks, this day, let's go home, and let's make a special effort to draw near to God this week in a special way.

The promise is that if we know that God, and we cozy up to that God, and we hear from that God, and we pattern our life after that God, the Bible promises that he's going to come close to us. And then our prayer, when we pray, "Thy will be done on earth." There's a beginning of eternal life here. The closer I draw to God, the closer I walk to God, the more heavenly my life is going to be. The opposite is true. The farther away from God that I drift, the more hellish my life is going to be here. May God bless us. Let's stand for a closing prayer.

Dear God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the challenges of the morning. We thank you for your sharp word to us. And I pray that somehow we could take it, allow it to shape us, penetrate down deep, and not only inspire us but change us where we need to change. Bless our time together in fellowship meal. And bless the food. And we thank you for all that prepared it, we pray. Dismiss us with your goodness. In Jesus' name, Amen.