Our call to worship this morning is from Ephesians chapter 4, if you'd like to follow along. I'll read verses 1 through 16. I therefore, prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the columns which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There's one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth? The one who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, and each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. This instruction and admonition from the Apostle Paul to the church in Ephesus is as good and bonding and supportive and helpful for us today as it was then. Let's pray. O Lord our God, we praise your holy name that you are good and gracious and merciful. Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Always fulfilling your promises. always glorifying your name, always ministering to your saints. Would you please come this day, Lord, and minister to us? Would you come by your spirit and meet with us as we seek to give you the praise and honor and glory that is due to your name? Cover our worship now with the blood of Christ, and it's in his name that we pray, amen. Turn with me if you would to hymn 100 in your hymns and stand with me if you're able. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy Lord God Almighty Early in the morning ♪ Shall rise to thee ♪ ♪ Holy, holy, holy ♪ ♪ Merciful and mighty ♪ ♪ God in three persons ♪ ♪ Blessed Trinity ♪ ♪ Holy, holy, holy ♪ All the saints adoring, Casting down their golden crowns Around the glassy sea. ♪ The pen and seraphim ♪ ♪ Falling down before thee ♪ ♪ New birth and all again ♪ Holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee, Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see, Only Thou art holy! There is none beside Thee Perfect in power and love and purity Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty All Thy works shall praise Thee sky and sea. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Please remain standing and turn with me in the back of your hymnal, if you would, to page 808. We'll recite the first 20 verses of Psalm 68 together. Psalm 61, or excuse me, 68, beginning at the bottom, on page 808. It goes over to page 809. A brief summary of this psalm is God wins and everyone who is trusting in him also wins. Whoever is an enemy of the Lord loses and the Lord conquers his enemies in one of two ways. He either converts them or he destroys them and many of us and he has conquered us with his grace and mercy. And so consider that as we read this and then consider how the Apostle Paul quoted this Psalm in Ephesians 4 that I read for our call to worship. Psalm 68, I'll read the fine print, we can read the bold print together. May God arise, may his enemies be scattered, may his foes flee before him. As smoke is blown away by the wind, may he blow them away. As wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God. May they be happy and joyful. Sing to god. Sing praise to his name. Extol him who rides on the clouds. His name is the lord and rejoice before him. A father to the fatherless. A defender of widows is god in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. He leads forth the prisoners with singing. But the rebellious live in a sun scorched land. When you went out before your people, O God, when you marched through the wasteland, the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain before God, the one Son, before God, the God of Israel. You gave abundant showers, O God. You refreshed your weary inheritance. Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, O God, you provided for the poor. The Lord announced the word, and great was the company of those who proclaimed it. Kings and armies flee in haste. In the camps, men drive the thunder. Even while in sleep among the campfires, the wings of my dove are sheathed with silver, its feathers with shining gold. When the Almighty scattered the kings in the land, it was like snow falling on snow. The mountains of Basin are majestic mountains. Rugged are the mountains of Basin. The chariots of god are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. The lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary. praise be to the lord to god, our savior who daily bears our burdens. Amen. Please be seated. Let's go to the The Lord our God, we praise you for the psalm we just read and we praise you for that encouragement that you are forever faithful and that you have kept your promises from of old for even us. And Lord, one of those promises is forgiveness of sin through the blood of Jesus. And so we praise you that we can come to you even as poor and needy Sinners, filthy sinners like Joshua the high priest standing before your throne in Zechariah chapter 3. We are filthy. Satan is right to accuse us and yet you rebuke him, Lord, because we are brands plucked from the fire. And so we pray to you for your mercy, and we ask your forgiveness. We ask that you would lead us in repentance, that you would help us, as we read earlier, to walk worthy of the calling to which you've called us. And we cannot do that in our own strength. Holy Spirit, would you come and help us. For Jesus' sake and in his name we pray, amen. assurance of forgiveness this morning is from the same book that our sermon text is. Chapter 3 of Titus verses 4 through 7. But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy. by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. It's pretty encouraging. Praise the Lord for his glorious gospel and these words of scripture. If you would turn with me to Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Hymn 481. Whom so are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see. There's light for the Lord and the Savior, and life more abundant and free. ♪ Turn your eyes upon Jesus ♪ ♪ Who hath full in His wonderful face ♪ ♪ And the things of earth through the world strangely dim ♪ ♪ And in the light of His glory embrace ♪ ♪ Through death into life everlasting ♪ He passed and we follow him there. No rest in the morneth, dominion, for all his wonders we know. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace. His word shall affirm the promise, The air and all will be well. Then go to a world that is dying, His perfect salvation to tell. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face. Thank you. Amen. Please be seated. Oh Lord our God, we praise you. We praise you for the truth and encouragement in the passage of scripture we've read this morning. Thank you for the hymns that we've sung. You are holy, holy, holy. Lord, we approach you. but we praise you for the person and work of Christ, that in the fullness of time, you sent forth your son to be born of a woman, to take on human flesh, to be humiliated from the throne room of heaven, to take on human flesh, and to live a perfect life, sinless. And Lord Jesus, you are the only one that could save us. and your death in our place as our substitute on the cross was sufficient to pay the debt of our sin in full. And that was proven when you were raised from the dead. The debt having been paid in full, you were released from the prison of death and then ultimately ascended to your throne in heaven, where you reign now, ruling over, protecting us, advancing your kingdom in our own hearts and all over this globe. Would you continue to do that, Lord? Would you permeate our hearts with your gospel truth? Holy Spirit, would you lead us in the paths of righteousness for your namesake? Lord, would you help us to turn our eyes upon you? And yes, Lord, when we do that, the things of this earth do grow strangely dim in the light of your glory and grace. Lord, we praise you for your amazing grace. And we praise you that you are faithful. Lord, you've promised to save a people for your name from even before the dawn of creation, And then you've built on those promises ever since Genesis chapter three, when you promised that the seed of a woman, Jesus Christ, will crush the head of the serpent. And Lord, we're seeing you in the process of reversing the effects of the fall ever since. Please continue to sanctify us, Lord, we pray. Lord, we praise you how I praise you and thank you for each of these here today. I pray that you would come and meet with us, that you would fill us with yourself. And Lord, that you would please bless dear Pastor Thornton as he preaches your word to us this morning. Please preach through him and again, fill our hearts up. Lord, would you be pleased to be praised by our worship? Lord, if we pray for those who aren't able to be with us, but we praise you for those who are able. Lord, thank you for your healing hand upon many who have experienced sickness. Lord, we continue to pray for each of these families, each of these children, that we would be salt and light wherever we go. and then in our workplaces, wherever we are, at school. Bless us and keep us, Lord, we pray. Lord, please continue to be with us now as we continue our worship, and we pray this in Christ's name, amen. Turn with me for our Old Testament reading to Numbers chapter 23. I'll read verses 19 through 24. The context is many of you are familiar with this. This is Balak, the king of Moab, hiring Balaam, the prophet, to curse Israel. It didn't work out, and Balak was furious. Balaam was disappointed because he was trying to get gain, financial gain. But this passage is consistent with our sermon text today, and so let's read. Verse 19, God is not man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Behold, I received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I cannot revoke it. He has not beheld misfortune in Jacob, nor has he seen trouble in Israel. The Lord their God is with them, and the shout of a king is among them. God brings them out of Egypt and is for them like the horns of the wild ox. For there is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel. Now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel, what God has wrought, or what has God wrought? Behold a people, as a lioness it rises up, and as a lion it lifts itself. It does not lie down until it has devoured the prey and drunk the blood of the slain." Brothers and sisters, this is the same God that is our God, and we are His people. We are part of His people, and so this truth is for us and for our children, for all who will call upon Him. Turn with me, if you would, in your hymnals to Hymn 345. Glorious things of Thee are spoken. Hymn 345. Stand with me if you're able. Yes, things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God. He whose word cannot be broken, formed thee for his own abode. On the rock of ages found him, what can make thy sure repose? With salvation's bolts surrounded, Thou mayst smile at all Thy foes. See the streams of living waters, Springing from eternal love, Well supply Thy sons and daughters, And the fear of want removed, Who can faint while such a river Ever flows their thirst to sage? Grace which, like the Lord, the Giver, Never fails from age to age. Round each habitation offering See the cloud and fire abate that the Lord is near. Thus deriding from their manner, life by night and shame by day, safe they feed upon the manna which He gives them when they pray. Savior, if of Zion I will show solid joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion's children know. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. Brother Chris is going to come read our New Testament passage for us. Good morning, everybody. The New Testament reading is Titus 1. 1-4. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness in the hope of eternal life that God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. In his own time, he has revealed his word in the preaching with which I was entrusted by the command of God our Savior to taught us my true son in our common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. I think my sermon notes disappeared. But we will go on. Anyway, welcome this morning. Great to see everybody in this facility, this place that we didn't even know we were going to have. We got an email. And one day they told us you're out of 103 and they didn't tell us we're going to be looking for a place for you. There was sadness and concern. But look what the Lord has done, praise the Lord. And you know, I'm just thinking, there'll probably come a day, should the Lord wait to return, where they're going to tell us we got to move out of this place. And so now's the time to begin praying for a place, another place, right? You know, I don't think we need some kind of big capital fund or even a small one. The Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills. We just need to ask him for a beautiful place to meet. Now, I say beautiful because I think beauty honors the Lord. He's the creator of beauty. And I would like to have a beautiful place to worship. I think this is very beautiful. But this is the property of the state of Tennessee and subject to the state of Tennessee and the administration of the university here. And we're thankful. But let's pray for a place of our own. Now, like I say, no capital fund. I don't believe in going into debt. You know, if you all do and you outnumber me, that's fine. You know, we do have elders, and that's one reason I'm starting this series, is because we have elders, but they are not here. They are in Kingsport. And so, I see the Lord building His church here, and we eventually want to become what's known as a particular church. And that would involve us having elders from right here among us. And so that's what we want to get to. And maybe this will be the year where we can become a particular church. Our Book of Church Order is still being worked upon. So maybe this year we can do it by the grace of God. But anyway, Don't worry about some big capital funding thing. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and He will provide for us, I do believe. We just need to pray. And we just need to pray also for an understanding of Scripture. And you're going to see why here in a minute if I can get this going, which I will, Lord willing. If I have to use my iPad, I will. It always helps to be prepared with two devices instead of one. And so, Okay, so we're very thankful to be here this morning. I was wondering if we could get here. Thank you for your prayers. We made it. But anyway, we got to get down to business here with the scripture. Titus chapter 1. You know, Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And so how does he build his church? How would you build a building? If you had to build a building, how would you do it? You'd build on a solid foundation, wouldn't you? You would dig footers. You would pour concrete or you would build upon a rock. You'd want a steady foundation. That's what we begin with here in Titus, a steady foundation. But before we do that, let's pray. Gracious God, Heavenly Father, thank You for how firm a foundation we have. Jesus Christ being the cornerstone. Him saying that Scripture cannot be broken. And then the instruction that You give us in Your Holy Spirit. Oh Lord, we thank You and we praise You. Be with us today. Open our hearts and minds, our ears, and help me to preach it, we pray in Christ's name and for His sake. Amen. And so when Jesus told Peter, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, what we've seen here is how to build a church. What's it all about? Is it just a matter of personal taste or what I like? No. No, God has determined how to build His church, and He builds it. And you know what He told Peter? after asking, who do men say that I am? And finally, you know, Peter answers this, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And what does Jesus say? Upon this rock, this profession of faith, I will build my church. Yeah, the church is built upon the truth, the gospel, the Bible, You know, we have churches today that are calling good evil and evil good. I might even, or maybe Tiger Woods could hit a golf shot to one of them so close to here. That calls evil good and good evil. We've got this going on all over the world. Matter of fact, you have to wonder if the apostasy that's talked about in Thessalonians is not upon us. That there is a huge falling away I mean, how many churches are willing to, how many pastors are willing to preach the word? It's not necessarily popular, is it? Especially with the unsaved. If God's not working in their hearts, what is it? It's enmity. The natural man is at enmity with God and the things of God. Enmity is in enemies. They don't like it. Matter of fact, they try to seize it. They seize it and they start playing with it and redefining terms and redefining meaning and theology, God talk. That's what they do. You know, it's interesting that right here in the first four verses of Titus, look how the truth is emphasized. Now, listen. First of all, in verse one, that Paul is a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. What? According to the faith. According to the faith, according to the teaching of the Bible, the faith now stay with me here and the acknowledgement of the truth. Here's another reference. to the gospel, the Bible, and truth, which accords with God. See, he's telling you more about it. He's telling you more about it here in verse 2. In hope of eternal life, which God who cannot lie. What's he doing? He's talking about the truth again. God cannot lie. God has given us a message, a gospel. God has given us the Bible. Now God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. Now think about that. Try to wrap your mind around that, that God promised before time began. I want to stop and talk about that, but I will in a minute. Now listen. but has in due time manifested His Word. Here it is again. His Word. See all these references to truth, to gospel, to the Bible over and over and over again because this is what the church, the true church is built upon. This right here. Now listen. Manifested His Word through preaching. You see, God has chosen to make Himself known through this Word and through the preaching of this Word, the study of this Word. Which was committed, which what? This truth, this preaching, this gospel was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior. Now, think about that commandment and commitment there for a minute. God didn't say, if you all don't mind, I'd like for you to You know, see if the people will accept this message. No. He has commanded this message. He's not messing around. His love is so strong. His love is so great. And His love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. And He knows what we deserve. You see, the wages of sin is death. And Christ came to be the substitute on that cross for what we deserve. And it has to be that way. Because that's the very nature of God, that He is holy. And He hates sin. And everybody here has their boundaries and there are things they hate and things they won't tolerate. So don't be judging God and don't be blaming God that He's holy and that He has standards. You've got standards and you're okay with that, right? God has standards. And the commandment of God, our Savior, He says. Well, He could have said our Judge. Because he is a judge. He could have said our creator, but he said our savior because he wants us realizing his love and his mercy. Because we'd be on the run were it not for his love and mercy. We'd be running full speed ahead getting away from him. Because we don't want to hear that we're bad. Okay. So I've entitled this sermon, Building and Keeping the Church, because I believe that's the theme of this book. And because of where I believe we're headed by the grace of God into becoming a full-fledged church. And so we need to be prepared. We need to know. Like one of the first things we'll talk about here is picking elders. We need godly leadership in this church, in this body right here. We need godly leaders. And what's that look like? That's going to tell us here. We need to be about good works. It says it about four times in here, in this three chapters. About four times. That we, the people of God, need to be doing good works. Because it glorifies God. It pleases Him too. And it helps us. And there's a new opportunity with these fires out in California. And yes, they were blaspheming God at the Golden Globes. How many knew that? About five times, I think, they blasphemed God at the Golden Globes less than ten days ago. And then all of a sudden, fire, unbelievable fire. Now, you know, I was studying Jonah one time. And you think Jonah was offending God, and you look at all the people that suffered because Jonah offended God. Everybody on the ship? Everybody on the ship suffered. Was that fair? Absolutely. Like us, they all deserve hell. And if they had to suffer a little bit, It's a wonder they didn't suffer more. And if we don't suffer more, it's a wonder that we're not in hell, my friends. But praise God for His mercy and His grace. We're not getting what we deserve. It's mercy and grace. So, I told you the title. The first point, do I know the difference between service and offices? Because right here, Paul says, look, Paul, a bondservant of Christ and an apostle. Do we understand about service and office? Because he was a bondservant. We're all servants of Christ, I hope, I trust. God wants every one of us serving Him. Every one here. Every one. We are to be serving the Lord. But Paul is a bond-servant. You know, in the Old Testament, if you were serving as a Hebrew servant for your period of time, at the end of that period of time, if you loved your master, you could volunteer to stay on. You'd have your ear pierced as a bond-servant. And that's beautiful because if we know the Lord, we love the Lord. He is so wonderful. We love Him. And so Paul is a bondservant. He loves God. He loves Jesus, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And let me just say, I don't know how you feel. I don't know. But I want you to be praying for that. praying for an understanding of the Word of God, an understanding of who God is, an understanding so that you can love God too if you don't already. Because the only way you're ever going to understand this, these Scriptures, is prayer and study and obedience, trying to obey Him. None of us are perfect. So, what about this? Do you understand? And do I understand that there are offices? I want you to listen to Ephesians chapter 4. Speaking of Jesus Christ, He who descended is also the One who ascended far above the heavens, that He might fill all things. And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. See, these are offices. Now, apostles, you had to have seen the Lord. to be an apostle. So we don't have apostles today. Thank the Lord we had them then. Because He used them mightily and He laid down the truth. Jesus promised. He said, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit who's going to lead you into all the truth. And so we have the epistles. We have the rest of the New Testament. Which He said, Scripture cannot be broken. And I was thinking, About that, you know, I just looked over the coffee maker. I thought if it was broken, no coffee. If scripture can't be broken, that means it doesn't work. Do you understand that scripture works? What does it do? It informs us, it changes us, it works in us. But you say we have these offices in the church, the church is to have evangelists and pastors and teachers, also elders, deacons. You see, this is the way God has set up. These these leaders are to be a certain type of person. And that's what we're going to see as we go forward, even in this first chapter, he goes right into two elders. After talking about these difficult people that Titus had to deal with, do you think the church can deal with any difficult people? Oh yeah. You think the church is ever going to be free of difficult people? I'm not necessarily talking about in the congregation. I'm talking about outside the congregation. There is all kinds of opposition to God and to the Gospel, the Word of God, all kinds of opposition. Oh, you know, we're accused of being haters. We're accused of being against love. But we aren't. We are for true love. We are not what we're painted to be in the culture. We're the most loving group with the most loving message. in the universe. You know what Jesus said, John 13, 20, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives me. But he who receives me receives him who sent me. In other words, if you receive me, you're going to receive the people that I call. Now that's not like, okay, they can get away with anything. No, there are standards that pastors, evangelists, elders, deacons must meet continually. And one of them is holding to the truth. If I depart from the gospel, I hope you kick me out, and quickly. And any elder, any deacon who departs from the gospel, needs to be corrected. And if they won't repent, they need to go. And there are people who object to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Scripture, you know, on the front of our bulletin, you know what it says? Sola Scriptura. Scripture only. This is our authority. You know, there's a tremendous problem among the churches, and it is the problem of authority. You know what we've got? We've got people claiming to be the authority. We've got these false teachers claiming to be the authority. I was looking at one of the books last night of one of them. He claims to have come up now, at this time in history, with the secret teaching of Jesus Christ. Like the church for all these centuries, these millennia, have done without the truth. It's absurd. But now I was telling you that the Lord Jesus gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. Now the prophet thing, there's some people that will get a hearing, kind of like prophets. But the idea of prophets who get new revelation, that's 1 Corinthians 13 said that would cease at the completion of the canon, when the perfect came, when the scriptures were finally compiled. That would end. But we have people who will get a hearing. Open air preachers, for instance, they'll get a hearing. They'll get out there in public and people will hear them. Praise God. But, you know, there's people who can capture the attention of other people. In a church, a teacher, a preacher needs to be able to do that. But that's not the gift of prophecy that was. Okay, but what's the purpose? Ephesians 4 tells us the purpose. Look at verse 12, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. You see, God wants all of us here in ministry, in reaching this lost world. Well, how are you equipped? The Word of God, these offices of pastor, teacher, evangelist, elder in particular, an apostle. We need to hold to the apostolic teaching. Now, there is no apostolic succession. What does come along is the apostolic teaching. It's not the people. Now, some people think Peter, because Jesus said to Peter, upon this rock I will build my church. Some people think that was Peter. But you know what Peter did after that? He denied Christ three times. You know what else he did? When Jesus was talking about having to go to the cross, Peter rebuked him. Not so, Lord. He tried to stop Jesus from going to the cross. And this guy is supposed to be the successor to Jesus Christ? No. And then, at the church at Galatia, Paul had to rebuke him for holding himself aloof from the Gentiles. This guy was not. a successor to Jesus Christ. There is no apostolic succession. What there is is the apostolic teaching that has not changed. It's been misunderstood. It's been misinterpreted. It's been lied about. Satan has done a massive work against it. But right there it is in the Bible. And those people, oh, you know, the Bible's been translated so many times. It's been changed so many times. No, it hasn't. You can go back to the first century manuscripts, an embarrassing amount of them. There's so many of them. And what does the Bible say in the first century? Same thing it says today. You can't change it without getting caught. And some have tried and been caught. Like the Jehovah's Witnesses. They've changed it and they've gotten caught. But what's he saying? What's the purpose? Till we all come to the unity of the faith. And this the faith is the teaching of the Bible. The same thing the apostles taught. The substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. He died in the place of the believer on the cross. He was the sinless Son of God, the omnipotent. All-powerful Son of God. You know, somebody was complaining the other day that, oh, you can't have two omnipotent, all-powerful beings in the universe. Oh, yes, you can. Because they're on the same page. Matter of fact, you can have three. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. See, that teaching that came out of Vanderbilt down here, erroneously claims that Christianity couldn't be true because there would be conflict between omnipotent, omniscient beings. Well, no. No. Jesus said, I and the Father are one. He said, I do my Father's will. They are one. Three persons in one Unity won essence. And it's blasphemy what they were saying down there from Vanderbilt. Blasphemy. I mean, the Bible says. Jesus said, I and the Father are one. Who's Vanderbilt to dispute that? That's what I want to know. You know, you want to go to seminary, go to Vanderbilt. So, my second point is, do I understand THE FAITH? There's a lot of meanings to the word faith, but this is THE FAITH. THE TEACHING. Do I understand THE TEACHING? 1 Timothy 6, Paul says, O Timothy, guard what has been committed to your trust. avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. Babblings? Profane and idle babblings and contradictions. Next verse. By professing it, some have strayed concerning the faith. You see, there is the faith. God did not leave us without His Word. You know, I was reading one of the Reformers, and he said, imagine if it was all left up to public opinion. Well, today we see that a lot of it is. A lot of what churches are doing is just, well, what pleases the culture? And we see the madness today, the insanity of it. We don't have to try to imagine it. We can see it. It's bizarre. No, we have the faith, the teaching of the Bible, man. What is man? What is sin? God's holiness, Christ, heaven. Now, by the way, it mentions eternal life right here in the introduction. This is part of what the church is built upon. Look. in hope of eternal life. Verse 2. You want to know how to get to heaven? Right here. This organization, the church. Not that it's through the church, it's through Christ alone that we have eternal life. And of course, the older you get, the more important that gets to you. But it should be important to all of us because life is uncertain. We know that. We know life is uncertain. But do we really take it to heart, especially when we're young? Well, we need to, because it really is uncertain for all of us. This life, how long are we going to be here? Well, God knows. We don't know. It could be any time. It could be today. But eternal life, That's where we're headed as believers. That's where I want to be because we're all dying. Oh, you don't like me saying that? Well, it's what the Bible says. And by the way, I'm just I know that. I just know some people don't like it, and there's people. You know, watching either now or later, and I think I think you all like it, but But I don't know what goes on in everybody's heart and mind. But anyway, I just know, you know, I think when I was younger, I might not have liked it. I wasn't a Christian. Okay, now. And listen to this quote by the pastor from Geneva around the 1500s. He said, deeply rooted in all of us is an arrogance which persuades us that we are righteous, truthful, wise, and holy. There is an arrogance in every one of us that persuades us that we're righteous, that we're truthful, that we're wise and whole. Now, this is hard to believe if you haven't seen it. Well, look in the mirror, right? All of us can look in the mirror and see this if we're honest. the multitudes of people who think they're good. And I know I often refer to this, but I'm amazed. You know, go on, go on YouTube and watch some of the videos by the evangelist out there in California with Living Waters, Ray Comfort. And he's always interviewing these unbelievers and they're always telling him 99.9 percent, oh, I'm a good person. And then Ray will say, have you ever lied? Well, yeah. Hasn't everybody? Have you ever lusted? Oh, yeah, yeah. You ever stole? Yeah. And he has to tell them, okay, by your own admission, you're a lying, thieving, adulterer at heart. You still think you're a good person? If God was to judge you by this law, would you go to heaven or hell? And usually when you put this mirror in front of their face, they'll admit that they would go to hell. But see, it's like leprosy. We have this disease where we think we're good. And we get carried away with that. And then we start thinking we can judge God. We can judge Christianity. We can judge the preacher who's preaching exactly what he's supposed to be preaching. We can judge him. And that's what they do. That's what they were doing here in Titus. These cretins. Oh, you know what he says here in In verse 12, one of them, a prophet of their own, they're admitting it. They said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. Paul says this testimony is true. He had been there. This was characteristic of this most characteristic of humanity. 1 Timothy again, chapter 1. Paul says, as I urged you when I went to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. What? He told him, look, you're going to have to tell some of these people to stop saying what they're saying. that they teach no other doctrine. You see, we have a doctrine to teach. It's right here in the Bible. And woe unto us if we don't do it. We're under obligation. He goes on to say, now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart. You know, if you really want to experience the love that God has for you, in a relationship, say, a marriage. You better be listening to God and following His commandments, because if you listen to the culture, you're going to go off the rails. The culture is not going to tell you how to deal with temptation. The culture is not going to tell you how to love your spouse. Not the way God does. Now, some of them have a little bit of wisdom by the common grace of God. Paul goes on to tell Timothy why he should guard this Scripture, the faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, from a sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. They've gone off into misunderstanding. They've gone astray. Let's make sure we don't go astray. How can we do that? Let's be praying. Let's be in the Word. Let's pray for understanding of what exactly the Bible says. And let's be honest about it. Around the time of the publication of the New English Bible, James Boyce was invited by the BBC in Britain to discuss problems of translation. Now I can just see the BBC thinking, oh, we'll get them here. Problems. It's got to be really hard to translate this. It's probably been translated so many times. You know what they say, the unbelievers, as I mentioned earlier, it's been translated so many times, they forget that we have an abundance of first century manuscripts that we can look at. So listen to what happened. Dr. E.V. Rue. who had himself recently produced a translation of the four Gospels for Penguin Classics. Towards the end of the discussion with Boyce and Dr. Rue, Rue was asked about his general approach to the task and his response was this. How did he approach the translation of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? My personal reason for doing this was my own intense desire to satisfy myself as to the authenticity and the spiritual content of the Gospels. And if I received any new light by an intensive study of the Greek originals to pass it on to others, I approached them in the same spirit as I would have approached them had they been presented to me as a recent discovery. A few minutes later Boyce asked him, do you get the feeling that the whole material is extraordinarily alive? I got the feeling that the whole thing was alive even while one was translating. Even though one did a dozen versions of a particular passage, it was still living. Did you get that feeling? Dr. Rue replied. I got the deepest feeling that I possibly could have experienced it. It changed me. My work changed me. And I came to the conclusion that these words bear the seal of the Son of Man and God and that they're the Magna Carta of the human spirit. He went on. I found it particularly thrilling to hear a man who is a scholar of the first rank This is one of the interviewers. I found it particularly thrilling to hear a man who is a scholar of the first rank, as well as a man of wisdom and experience, openly admitting that these words written long ago were alive with power. They bore him. They bore to him, as to me, the ring of truth. You know, it's amazing. Sometimes God sustains us with one word of this. You know, you can be all depressed. You pick up the Bible, start reading it, it transforms you. Now, what is this gospel? What is the faith? 1 Corinthians 15. Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, and which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word with which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain." I'll tell you what, if you don't hold on to this faith, the faith, you have believed in vain. So Paul says, you know, unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you first, all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve. After that, He was seen by over 500 brethren at once. There it is. Now, we've got to move on. Do we understand the character of God? He says right here, God cannot lie. You ever thought about this? God cannot lie. Why does he throw that in here? Because he wants us to know that the scripture is true. This is the word of God. God cannot lie. And you know what? We need to hold on to this and who God is because we are in a battle here now. We have all kinds of people saying, oh, you can't believe the Bible. Jesus would be ashamed of the Bible. They tell us, but not so. Now listen, Ephesians 6, 12, for we wrestle. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. There is spiritual warfare going on. And it's against the faith. It's against the truth. It's against the God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There was another professor at Oxford. Oxford is supposed to be one of the greatest universities in the world. Over there in the UK. In his autobiography, Mr. C. Day Lewis, one-time professor of poetry, I can't say it, poems, I always have trouble with that word. He's not a Christian, but this is what he said about his life at Oxford. Each proposition, each sentence advanced by Plato or Aristotle, Hume, Berkeley, Spinoza, seemed irrefutable until I read the opposite viewpoint. It appeared that everything that was true, the opposite was also true. Now that's absurd. That's a violation of the law of non-contradiction. The left side of the road out here on the interstate cannot be the right side. If you're heading up to Knoxville, you better be on the right side or you're going to have a head-on collision. The law of non-contradiction is a fact of life that we live by. And yet, he said that's what he learned at Oxford. And now listen to what else he says. He went on to say that he did not find this an asset. Having once been to Oxford, you can never really again believe anything that anyone says. He tells us he was in trouble. He was disturbed and distressed. Here's what he said. My mental confusion spread outward from the subject I was reading to the life around me, so that I found it difficult to make up my mind about anything at all. It produced a mental state of doubt, uncertainty, skepticism, and confusion that made positive action almost impossible. He says it was like a thick fog. He went to the greatest university, could be argued, The greatest. He needed the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now listen. 2 Corinthians 10, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for the pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We've got weapons. We need to use them. We need to cast down these arguments by looking at God's truth. What does the Bible say? You know, one day after Jesus was crucified, There was great discouragement among his followers. And on the road to Emmaus one day, two were walking. They had heard of the resurrection, but they didn't believe it. They conversed along the way. But Jesus drew near to them and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so they didn't know it was Him. And then He said to them, what kind of conversation is this that you're having with one another as you walk along and are sad? What are you sad about? Then one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? And have you not known the things which happened there in these days? And he said, What thing? What things? And then he went on to explain to them from the Old Testament that the Messiah had to suffer and die. And then they said, we're not our hearts burning within us. Now, see, this is what the Scripture does. I want to ask you, do you have the burning heart? Do you get lifted up? Do you get emotional about these truths? Do you get hope? Do you get courage? You know, we've got to be careful that we're not letting our emotions rule our lives. We need to be letting the truth rule and influence our lives. Because our emotions are like the ocean, and this is a rock that does not ebb and flow. I've got to move on. Do we understand that we have a duty and orders? Listen to what Isaiah 820 says, to the law and to the testimony If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because they have no light in them. If they don't agree with what God has laid down here, they have no light. Don't listen to them. Get away from them. Listen to what Peter said, 1 Peter 1.22. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth, Through the Spirit, in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, obeying the faith. James 1, Therefore lay aside all filthiness and the overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Receive the Word. Receive the Word of God. Read it daily. Have family devotions. Pray for understanding. Receive it. Receive it with meekness. Power under control. Your sinful heart may rage against some of the things it says. Be meek. Control that sinful heart. You don't like being disliked because you're a Christian? Control that. I'd rather be disliked by them, the unbelievers, the scoffers, the blasphemers. I'd rather be disliked by them than God. I don't want God to be my enemy. That's crazy. Second Corinthians 519, that is that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses against them and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. We have message, we have orders, we have duty. We've got a word, we've got orders. And chapter 4, verse 2 of 2 Corinthians, But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth. There's people who handle the word of God deceitfully to tickle ears. By the grace of God. We don't want our ears tickled, do we? I want to know the truth. I want to benefit from the truth. I don't want to go astray. They handle the Word of God deceitfully. I've been reading this book, Shepherds for Sale. I recommend it. Shepherds for Sale about how many in what they call Big Eva, Big Evangelicalism, have accepted money from some of these people who are not acting in the best interest of the faith. And some of the people who are receiving money are starting to not tell it all. And she names names. They are handling the Word of God deceitfully. Listen to this, 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13, For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God. which also effectively works in you who believe. Is it working in you? If it's not working in you, if you can't say, I know that the Word of God is working in me, you need to pray. You need to ask God for help. Because this is what's normal. Now, some of you children may not be there yet. You need to be praying when your family has devotions. asking the Lord to help you understand and receive it as it is the Word of God. You can't build a church if you don't have the Word of God. Do you know what you'll have? Public opinion. Culture. And that's what's happening out here. In the liberal churches, the emergent church, it's just popular opinion. What's the culture want? Listen to this again. I'm going to hammer this home. 1 Thessalonians 2, 4, But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak not as pleasing men, but God who test our hearts. Your heart will be tested. Because you want to please men. We want to be liked. We don't like being disliked. We don't like being disrespected. But I'll tell you what, we've been entrusted, it says, with the gospel and God is going to test our hearts. What's the test? The test is just what I said. A lot of people don't like it. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, 16, For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of. For necessity is laid upon me and woes me if I do not preach the gospel. We are required to preach God's truth. It doesn't matter who gets offended. We don't want to do it in an offensive way. We want to respect everybody. But we preach the truth that God has revealed. We have to do that. Now here's what Galatians says, you think this, you know, do you realize how serious this is? Galatians 1.8, but even if we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. Somebody comes up with a different gospel as they do, they are accursed. Man. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel, you want to be established or do you want to be wishy-washy, uncertain, not knowing, or established? It says here, he who is able to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began. And by the way, I said I wanted to get back to this part that is so beautiful. It says that He promised, right here, verse 2, in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. Now, what are we talking about here? We're talking about, look at what it says in verse 1, the faith of God's elect. God set His love on you believers before the foundation of the world. He said, I'm going to create this one and this one's going to be mine. Now, there's a bona fide offer of the gospel to every human being. They won't take it because they love sin, but they're the ones are keeping themselves out now. He's he set his love on the elect before the foundation of the world. Before any any of us existed before Adam and Eve existed, God had his plan. Now he didn't leave it up to chance. Well, maybe, maybe this will get saved. Maybe that will get saved. No, he chose the elect. Make no mistake about it. The love of God was set upon the elect before the foundation of the world. How beautiful is that? We need to be like they were in Acts 17 and 11, the Bereans. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. In that, they received the Word, the faith, with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. You see, we have a standard. Don't ever believe anything just because I say it, or some charming teacher says it. Some charismatic, you know, in the sense of very attractive personality says it, don't believe it unless the Bible says it and teaches it. That's what that's all about. We need to be like these Bereans because what? There are false teachers who will lead people astray and are doing it. You know, we're we're in a war. We are in a war. Well, I've got to close. Thank you. Now, listen to this. I'm going to close with this. Now, thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. What's that knowledge? The faith, the gospel, the Bible. That's it. This is what the church is built upon. Are you willing to build to help build the church upon this foundation? This is what God wants. God doesn't want us out there getting our ears tickled and being popular. I mean, praise God for the people of God who love one another. That's a beautiful, wonderful thing. If they don't want to be part of this, we'll pray for them, we'll love them, we'll share the gospel with them, but we're not going to give in to their false teaching. Can we stand together on this? That's what we need to do. This is what God is calling us to do. This is the church that He said, I will build my church. This is it. It's built on this foundation. who God is, the Word of God, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, the Gospel, the Word of God, which Jesus said cannot be broken. It works! Our hearts should burn within us because of this message that gives us hope and certainty and knowledge. Oh, we struggle, Let's stay with the cure. Let's stay with the word. Let's stay with the church. Let's stay with the fellowship. Let's stay with the church he said he would build. And let's keep our eyes wide open and be like the Bereans. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the foundation of your church, which you clearly lay out. It's not for us to decide. Lord, it's it's you. It's your church. It's your word. And Lord, we thank you for it because we want certainty. We want knowledge. We want hope. We want eternal life. And we thank you for justification by faith. We thank you that Christ died for the sins of the believer and gives his righteousness in justification of forensic act that happens one time when we believe doesn't need to happen again. In Christ's name, amen. Okay. The truth we can taste right here.