Preaching to Proclaim God’s Promises

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I am usually the one who takes my kids to their doctor visits. Usually there’s a reason, but I think Charla just doesn’t want to mess with it. So I’m usually the one, no, it’s easier for me to step away from what I’m doing than for her to step away from what she’s doing and me step away from what I’m doing to take care of the kids.

So it’s easier to just cut out the middleman and me take whatever child to the doctor.

And when you take them to the doctor at this age, they always want to weigh them and measure them, they’ve got these charts about where they’re supposed to be and you know are they on the curve or are they not and and sometimes the doctors get real worked up about that and and what we noticed is that one of them wasn’t one of them was growing faster than the other I’m not going to name names because I don’t want to embarrass them but one of them one of the kids was growing faster than one of the older kids was growing faster than the other older child and we noticed this the doctor noticed it as well and because with my older two children everything is a competition I don’t know where they get that from but everything’s a competition they noticed it as well and so one of the kids was kind of upset saying oh I’m not as big as the other one kind of bothered kind of bothered them and so we sat down and had a conversation about how everybody grows at their own pace I mean I’ve I have four and they don’t all grow at the pace.

By the age Carly Jo is now, I feel like Benjamin was stringing together full sentences, but Carly Jo has three older siblings who talk for her, so what does she need to talk for? She gets what she wants just fine. So we talked about how every child grows and develops at their own pace.

It’s totally normal, but I said, you know, if you want to grow bigger and you want to grow stronger, there are some things you could do that might help. They certainly won’t hurt, And so we talked about what some of those things were that they could do. You know, you could get some exercise, take vitamins, drink water.

That’s important. Drink water. Get plenty of sleep.

You hear me, guys? Get plenty of sleep when you’re supposed to. And for heaven’s sake, eat your vegetables.

It’s that last one that always gets more than the sleep one. Eat your vegetables. You know, those are some things that you can do if you want to grow up bigger and stronger.

There are some things you can do. Ultimately, you’re going to grow at the pace you’re going to grow, but those things can definitely help you and they’re not going to hurt you. So we’ve discussed those things a few times.

If you want to get stronger, here’s some things to help move you in that direction. Now, tonight, we’re going to look at a passage where the Apostle Paul had a similar goal in mind when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write to a young man named Titus. If you want to turn with me to the book of Titus, you can.

We’ll be there in just a moment. Titus was the pastor of a church on the island of Crete, which is in the eastern part of the Mediterranean. It’s just about as south as you can go and still be in Greece before you get the rest of the way across the sea into Africa.

And this church where he served on Crete, it was a decent church, But it had some problems as every church does. I mean, somebody said to me again last week, I don’t know if they were trying to get me not to join Central or what, but they quoted that old line about there’s no such thing as a perfect church and if you find one, don’t join it because you’ll mess it up. I can’t remember which of you said that to me and if you were trying to talk me out of coming here, but it didn’t work.

But it was a decent church, but like any church, it had some problems and a lot of those problems had to do with the wickedness of the surrounding culture, which has an effect on the people inside the church, especially since these weren’t second generation Christians. These weren’t people who had grown up as Christians. These were people who had grown up in the pagan culture around them.

And so coming into the church and coming to Christ meant they were bringing some of that baggage with them that the process of sanctification eventually works through. But they were coming into the church with some baggage. and so the the weakness of the culture had kind of weakened some of the believers who’d come out of it and in response Paul spent the first half of the book of Titus providing some instruction to Titus and the Cretans and that’s not an insult that’s how you say the name of people from from Crete it’s not the the word that you call somebody a Cretan or British people will call them a Cretan okay it’s not it’s not that insult that’s what you call people from Crete he spent the first half of this letter giving instructions to Titus and the other Cretans about how to strengthen their church.

And, you know, I was talking to Rick this week about I’m working through where to start. And some of the hardest messages to come up with are the messages at the end of your ministry in a place. I found that to be the hardest. You know, you’ve got two weeks left.

What do you say to them? And the messages at the very beginning, because you still really don’t know the people all that well and know their needs. I said, I’m just going to start at the book of Titus.

It’s one of my favorites and we’re going to work through it. And for me to tell you tonight that we’re going to spend a few weeks studying Paul’s advice on strengthening the church, I don’t tell you this because I think that there are any particular problems here that I know of. I’m not saying it because I think Central’s a particularly weak church, but I know that we all, no matter how strong we are, there’s always room for growth and there’s always the necessity of coming back to God’s word and saying, what is it that we need to be doing?

So, and as we see the culture around us growing darker all the time, is that not true? Do we not look at it? Do we not look at things each week and say, gee, I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore.

And yet every week, the culture seems to surprise us. As we see things growing darker around us all the time, this book is a helpful reminder to us as well about how to strengthen the church for the task ahead of representing Christ in a dark world. So if you would turn with me, if you haven’t already, to Titus chapter 1, and we’re going to look at verses 1 through 4 tonight.

If you would stand with me as we read from God’s word together, if you’re able to. Titus chapter 1, starting in verse 1, it says, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie promised before time began, but has in due time manifested his word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior, to Titus, a true son in our common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. Thank you.

You can be seated. And those of you who were with us on Wednesday night heard as Brother Rick introduced the book of 2 John and taught for several minutes and said, now that was just the introduction to the letter. All right, there’s this habit in the biblical writers that they take a lot of time in their introductions to say who they’re talking to, who they are, and to set the tone for the letter.

It’s more than just what we would do today, dear church, or to whom it may concern. So he begins, all of this is just from the introduction. But even now in the introduction, He’s talking to the people at Crete about how to strengthen their church, what it’s going to take for their church to be strong.

And what we see already in this passage is that the strength of any church or any believer is directly tied to the strength of their commitment to the Word of God. Let me say that to you again because I think it’s important. The strength of any believer or any church is directly tied to the strength of their commitment to the Word of God.

How spiritually strong we are depends on how strongly we are attached to this book right here. How dedicated we are to knowing it, how dedicated we are to absorbing it, how dedicated we are to applying it and obeying it. And so Paul begins this letter by explaining his commitment to God and to God’s word before he turns and calls the people of Crete to the same kind of commitment.

He introduces himself in verse 1 as a bondservant of God. Now that Greek word there that’s translated bond servant is the Greek word doulos, which is also a word that’s used for a slave. It’s sort of translated interchangeably in the New Testament.

It’s somebody who is in total subjection to God, somebody that works on God’s behalf. Now it’s not somebody that God is a harsh taskmaster to, but it’s somebody that their every waking thought is obedience to their master. And Paul is saying, I am a bond servant of God.

I work for him. I do his bidding. I’m called to serve him.

So he calls himself a bondservant of God. He calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now, because he is a bondservant of God, he’s taken on this additional role. The bondservant is sort of his relationship and the apostleship is sort of the job that he does as a result.

Being an apostle of Jesus Christ, that’s a word that they would have used for an ambassador. Somebody who represents their leader to somebody else. Somebody who would travel on behalf of the person they work for and represent them to another group of people.

So he says, I’m an apostle of Jesus Christ. That means I’m traveling around and wherever I go, I represent Jesus Christ to the people I meet. And it’s not just a part-time gig either. Sometimes in our culture, we want to make it that way.

And he says, no, I’m a bond servant of God. I work for him. I don’t clock out at five.

I’m his bondservant and that makes me Christ’s apostle. And he says this is according to the faith of God’s elect. Now don’t be too concerned about that.

I mean, don’t be too worried about that word elect there. I know sometimes that carries some pretty loaded theological connotations, but that word elect basically means those who’ve been called out and belong to God. All right.

And he says his message was to proclaim. He talks about this apostleship being according to the faith of God’s people, his message was to proclaim this faith that they held in common, the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And his status as an apostle, to be an apostle, it required him to be somebody who had been called by Jesus Christ to be that, and somebody who had been witness to the fact that Jesus was risen again. And Paul, even though he wasn’t there during Jesus’ earthly ministry as one of the disciples, I think he might have been around in Jerusalem and saw these things going on.

But we know that he was called on the road to Damascus where he saw the resurrected Christ appear to him and call him out for a purpose. And so it became his role now as somebody who knew about the resurrection of Jesus Christ firsthand. Somebody who had witnessed Christ after his resurrection and been called out.

It was now his responsibility to go out and tell the world what he had seen with his own eyes. and to share this faith that God’s people have in common. And he says, and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness.

His calling here was to proclaim the gospel, to preach God’s word, to help people who believed grow in godliness. As we take in a steady diet of God’s word and do what it says, it’s going to have the effect of making us more godly. Not because we suddenly got our behavior in line, but as God works in us through that word.

and so he was going and proclaiming the gospel so that others would grow in godliness. What we see here and elsewhere but especially here tonight we see that his ministry was focused entirely on God’s word and the promises that that were revealed in God’s word and making those promises known to other people. He talks about the promise the promise of God’s word and what is that promise.

That promise that he describes in verse 2, he also explains in verse 2 that promise was eternal life. So here’s the ultimate promise of God’s word. It’s not the only promise of God’s word, but it’s the ultimate promise of God’s word that he had to proclaim to the people, and that was eternal life.

Paul was looking forward to eternal life. He talks about this hope of eternal life that’s been promised by God, so he had this hope. And we need to understand that when the Bible uses the word hope, it does not use it in sort of the flimsy way that we use it today.

Well, I hope, I hope this guy and the title company will get everything sorted out and we can move into our house soon. All right. I have no assurance that it’s not going to take until the end of September, but I hope it’s kind of wishful thinking, fingers crossed kind of deal. That is not the way the Bible uses the word hope.

When the Bible uses the word hope, it describes a confidence in something that we know it’s true that we know even though we haven’t seen it come to pass yet because of the God’s track record of faithfulness we can move forward with the utmost of confidence that God is going to do exactly what he said he’d do and so when he talks about this hope of eternal life it’s not like the man that I spent years preaching to in church and and counseling with and talking with that even after years I would say do you know do you know if you were to die tonight you’d go to heaven and he’d say well I hope so I think no no there’s more to it than that he didn’t know but he hoped so it’s not wishful thinking my hope that I’m going to have eternal life is it rests squarely on the promises of God and the fact that I know that he’s going to do what he promised I don’t I don’t doubt it anymore and I’m not knocking you if you do doubt I have had doubts as well but I finally came around to realize that it’s not based on my goodness or my efforts it’s based on what God has done, what Jesus has done, and what God has promised.

I’m getting off track of my notes here and I’m going to run out of time. It’s more than wishful thinking. He was teaching others to rest with confidence in the same way that he was in the promises of God.

God said it. I used to have a bumper sticker on my car that said, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. That’s one third unnecessary.

You can cut out that middle part that says, I believe it. God said it, and that whether we believe it or not we should believe it because God said it and that settles it and he says in verse 2 that God had promised this hope before time began see the gospel was nothing new the promises of God to redeem man are written all over the pages of the old testament I may do I may do a series on this at some point because I love to study it but you can go back and begin to see God revealing his plan to redeem mankind from the earliest pages of the bible you can go back to Genesis chapter 3. And unless I’ve missed something in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, I think the earliest references to the gospel are where God tells Adam and the serpent that he’s going to put enmity between the woman’s seed and the serpent’s seed, and the woman’s seed will crush the serpent’s head and he will bruise his heel.

I believe that’s a reference to Jesus at the cross and Satan thinking he’s defeated Jesus because he’s inflicted this flesh wound, and yet the seed of the woman comes and crushes the serpent’s head. Satan was utterly defeated at the cross. And on top of that, there in Genesis chapter 3, something we miss a lot of times, when they recognized their sin and God confronted them about it, he made a covering of skins for them.

That skin came from an animal, and right there in the garden, God established the precedent that the innocent died to cover the sins of the guilty. It’s a picture of Jesus right there in Genesis chapter 3. And it’s all throughout the Old Testament.

God’s promises and God’s plans and pictures of the gospel. This was nothing new. This was the promise of God going back to the earliest days of his relationship with mankind, even though we didn’t fully understand it at the time.

And this hope that this promise was going to be fulfilled, just like God said, this hope was certain because of the character of God. See, he tells us in verse 2 that it was promised by a God who cannot lie. We’re told as children, there’s nothing God can’t do.

And I understand the point of that. The Bible says there are some things that God cannot do, and I’m glad. God cannot lie.

God cannot deceive us. God cannot sin in any way, shape, or form. There are some things God cannot do.

I’ve taken to telling people God can do anything that’s consistent with his nature. Because he’s a God of truth, he cannot lie. And so if God cannot lie, then we know that his promises are true.

And God made these promises known through his word and throughout his word. We find his promises right here in his word, and we find it in every book and every chapter as he points to his promises. And even though it’s there in his word, he opened the door for those promises to be amplified, for us to broadcast them and for us to explain them by the preaching of his word.

Paul said in verse 3 that he has in due time manifested his word through preaching. God opened the door so that those promises that are revealed in his word could be broadcast far and wide. And that message, those promises that have been committed, that have been manifest, he said, through preaching, they’ve been committed to his people.

You see, verse 3 says also that the proclamation of his word was committed to me, that’s to Paul. The proclamation of his word was committed to Paul, and it’s not just that God’s people have the option now of making His promises known to the world. It’s that we have the responsibility.

It’s a commandment of God for us to go and make His promises known. Jesus’ great commission to the church was to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He says in verse 3, this is the commandment of God our Savior, that His people would go and make His promises known.

So as we look at the book of Titus for some of the building blocks, this series will not cover everything that will make a church strong, but as we look for some of the building blocks for a strong church, we recognize that a strong church requires a strong commitment to the word of God and a strong confidence in the promises of God that we find there and a strong commitment to proclaiming those to a world that needs to hear it. Our responsibility, ladies and gentlemen, tonight is to proclaim the word of God. I know none of us in here are apostles.

I don’t think anybody’s in here old enough to have seen Jesus when he rose from the dead. That’s supposed to be a joke. It’s all right to laugh.

None of us are apostles. Most of the people in this room are not called to preach. So I’m not saying you have to get up on a soapbox on the street corner or get up like I’m doing now in front of a group of people.

Sometimes we hear preaching and that’s what we think of. It’s your responsibility, even if you’re not called to either of those things. It’s your responsibility to proclaim the promises in God’s Word.

So how can you do that? How can you do that if you’re not called to preach? First of all, I’m going to tell you the first step is to know the Word of God, to be able to proclaim it.

You ever had a conversation with somebody who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but they’re pretty sure about it still? Anybody ever had one of those conversations? It’s kind of like when you turn on the TV and you listen to celebrities talk about politics.

Or when you listen to me talk about sports. All right, I love watching a football game, but I know nothing about it. The year Benjamin was in soccer, it took Charla all year to convince me that I was taking him to soccer practice, not soccer rehearsal. Somebody can know a few words, but it just doesn’t sound right because they just really don’t know what they’re talking about.

That happens with the Bible. I call it Facebook theology because that’s where I see it a lot of times. We need to be familiar with the word of God.

We need to know what it says. We need to know how to use and how to apply what it says correctly. For us to help anybody, we need to have a familiarity with God’s word.

Paul, before he took off preaching, Paul knew God’s word. Now I’m not saying you can’t tell others about Jesus if you don’t have this book memorized. Take what you do know, but commit to studying deeper and learning more so that you have more of it here and more of it here to share with others.

And we will have the opportunity to proclaim it in our everyday lives by treating it with the appropriate importance. Once we know it, once we’ve got it here, and once we’ve got it here, God’s going to give us opportunities to use it. Opportunities you may not even think of.

I mean, somebody may sit down across from you in the break room at work and start talking about a personal problem they’re having. Trouble in their marriage, trouble with their children, trouble with their finances. A friend, a neighbor, a family member may come to you about these things.

And you have the opportunity to tell them what God’s word says, whether you open the book or not. You’re able to counsel with them from what God’s word says. And don’t be surprised when we do that if God eventually opens doors through that to point people to Jesus, because that’s the ultimate goal. That’s the focus of his promises anyway, is on eternal life through Jesus Christ. We have opportunities every day to proclaim God’s word in how we talk to people, how we deal with people, how we live according to what this book says.

So as individuals, just get into the word, make a commitment that you’re going to read God’s word, you’re going to love God’s word, you’re going to try to be obedient to God’s word, and God will begin to open those doors for you as an individual to proclaim those promises of God’s Word. And then we can proclaim it as a church by refusing to compromise on what the Word says. There’s a lot of pressure to do that nowadays.

Have you noticed that? There’s a lot of pressure for us to soften things or change definitions or agree to things that the world wants to do, but by preaching and teaching the Word of God, we refuse to go along with the culture. The culture is so confused.

And I don’t say this to try to be mean to anybody.

That’s never my goal. but nowadays the the culture around us is confused about some basic bedrock definitional things that humankind has known about for 6 000 years and it’s just been the way it is and science backs it up and logic backs it up but but man there seems to be no objective truth around us in the world that the culture is confused this book is not confused the god who inspired this word is not confused and as the world tries to get the church to go along with it in its confusion so it can feel better about its confusion we proclaim the word and I when I say proclaim I don’t mean we have to be be out there shouting in people’s faces okay I am not mr confrontational that is not my spiritual gift okay but in a quiet and loving and respectful way simply by saying this is what god’s word says we love you but this is what God’s word says we proclaim his word and we proclaim its promises because our ultimate goal is not simply to teach people the rules that’s where a lot of people get off in the ditch about Christianity they think the church is all about rules they think the bible is all about rules they think the gospel is all about rules and and maybe we’ve maybe we’ve given them reason to feel that way Christianity is not about the rules our goal is not simply to get people to follow the rules.

If Christianity is just about getting people to behave well, you just end up with a bunch of well-behaved people in hell. Christianity is about so much more. We proclaim the word, not because it’s where we find the rules, but because it’s where we find the promises of God.

Because it’s where we find the truth of God. It’s where we learn of this common faith that he described, that he and Titus held in common, and he and the people in Crete held in common. This faith of Jesus Christ crucified for us, risen and coming again.

That’s the message that’s going to bring hope and change to people, not the rules. It’s where we find, it’s where we learn about the grace and mercy and peace that God offers that he wishes to tie to us in verse 4 here. If we’re not in the Word, we won’t really understand a holy God who could offer us judgment, but offers us love and grace and peace instead.

I submit to you that if we’re not in the word, we’re not going to have a thorough understanding of what those words mean to begin with. Because what God means by love and grace and peace are not necessarily the same thing that the world means by love and grace and peace. But the love and mercy and grace and peace that God offers are so much better than what the world has to offer anyway.

And this word is where we discover the Lord Jesus Christ who provided all those things to us to begin with. That’s what we want for our friends and neighbors and family members, isn’t it? Not just for them to start acting right.

And we have trouble getting us to act right, right? It’s not just for them to act right, although the Holy Spirit will deal with that in his time. But what we want for people around us is to come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior.

And we do that by being willing to talk about it, by being willing to talk about the truth that we find here by being willing to stand on the promises of God and make those promises known and let people understand around us that yes they feel alienated from God yes they feel separated from God there’s a reason for that and it’s called sin and yet God loved them enough that Jesus Christ came to fulfill all these promises that God had been making for millennia and that those same promises that were available to Paul and Titus and the people at Crete 2,000 years ago are available to people in Lawton Oklahoma today. We want them to understand that. And we stand on the word in order to do that.

And when we neglect the word, we undermine the foundation of the gospel. When I hear people say, well, there are certain parts of the Bible you can’t take literally, or you can’t take as absolute truth. Immediately, I want to handle my Bible and say, show me which ones.

Show me which ones and we’ll talk. But what happens when you start undermining parts of the Bible. What happens when you start saying, well, I don’t like that part?

We begin to undermine the foundations of the gospel. As you look at the book of Romans and Paul explains the gospel going all the way back to Adam and Eve in the fall. And he talks about God’s definition of sin.

And he talks about the role of the law. He talks about the holiness of God. And if you begin to tamper with any of those things, you undermine the basis for people to understand the gospel that God loved them in spite of their sin and made a way for that sin to be forgiven.

You take away the necessity of forgiveness when we neglect the word of God. And when we neglect the word of God, we neglect his promises in favor of either legalism or license. We make it all about the rules or we just make it about a God who’s so loving and open-minded that he doesn’t mind what you do and it’s all all right.

And either way, we point people away from the true gospel. But on the other hand, the church is strengthened. I think the church is only weakened when we let go of that firm commitment to God’s word and proclaiming his promises through it.

The church is strengthened by the constant reminder of God’s promises. When we go back, what is that song? I love to tell the story.

For those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. I became a Christian when I was five years old. You know what? I never get tired of hearing about what Jesus Christ did for me.

Sometimes it’s like I’m seeing it again through fresh eyes. Sometimes I learn new things. Sometimes I come away with a deeper appreciation of what Jesus did for me.

As a church, we are strengthened by this commitment to proclaiming the promises of God through his word. We are strengthened, but also we’re strengthened by sharing those promises with the world around us. Have you ever been around somebody who shared their faith for the first time and the excitement they come back with.

And they may have made a complete mess of it. They may realize they made a complete mess of it. They’re excited they had the opportunity to share the gospel.

That kind of excitement, that kind of zeal for the gospel is contagious. We are strengthened by sharing those promises with the world around us. As we begin to do it, we’ll get more and more excited about doing it.

We’ll be more and more intentional about doing it. But it all begins with going back and studying God’s word and being committed to those promises that we find there. And the most important promise that God made in all of his word, not the only promise, not the first promise, but the most important was the promise to save man from the problem of sin.

And as I said to you earlier, it’s a promise that he made all throughout the Old Testament. It’s a promise that he fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and it’s a promise that he still makes to people today. So I would tell you tonight, if you’re within the sound of my voice and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, whether you’re here in person or whether you’re watching online, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, you need to understand that you are separated from God by your sin.

But God loved you enough that He promised from the earliest