We are now completing, as I said, the final message to the Book of Titus, and it's taking us a little bit longer than expected. When I preached through Titus previously, I did end up going a little bit quicker than the pace that we've taken just now. It's been more of a marathon this time, as we have been seeking to dig out each part of the Book of Titus. The marathon, remember, is not a race of speed, but one of endurance. Similarly, as we need discipline, we need to pace ourselves. We want to make sure that we are getting through the material of scripture at a sustainable rate and pace. Well, as we think about the church's mission in an ungodly world, we are thinking of something that is a marathon. It is not a race of speed. It is something that requires endurance. It requires long-term commitments. It requires discipline on our parts, especially as we are thinking about a world that often opposes our values. How do we maintain faithfulness in that situation? How are we, like a marathon runner, always keeping our eyes on the goal, always pressing forward to reach the finish line? How are we making sure that our legacy, being built over time, will be one of faithfulness and perseverance? On a world, as I said, that is growing increasingly hostile to biblical truth, we want to be faithful. We want to be a godly church that shines brighter. We want to be sound in our commitments and in our theology. We want to be sound in our application of the truth. We want to be a godly church. We want to make sure that we are doing what the Lord has called us to do. And we see that the Lord wanted Titus to do the same thing. He wanted to make sure that the churches in the island of Crete would all be faithful churches. They would all have the right marks about them. And in this text, we see three marks of a church that is living out its faithfulness. Church is, a church is leaving a godly legacy when it is living with priority for ministry, when it's living with priority for ministry, when it is learning to perform good works, when it's learning to perform good works, and when it's loving the people of God, when it's loving the people of God. Well, let's consider the first of those. Live with priority for ministry in an ungodly world. Let's live with priority for ministry in an ungodly world. Let's reread verses 12 through 13. When I send Artemis or Tychicus to you, make every effort to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. Diligently help Zenos, the lawyer, and Apollos on their way so that nothing is lacking for them. Now, Paul begins here by urging Titus to prioritize his ministry, to prioritize his ministry, even in the face of worldly challenges. He doesn't want Titus to hit something hard and begin to cry. Because there are roadblocks out there in the world. Rather, he wants him to prioritize ministry, even in the midst of the hardships that are there. Now, Titus' time on the island of Crete is limited. He's not going to be there forever. In fact, Paul is making that clear here in these two verses, that he wants him to leave as soon as possible. Paul is going to help him with that by sending relief for him. So Titus must ensure that the churches in the island of Crete are properly ordered before he goes so that he is not leaving anything undone. This underscores the urgency of gospel ministry, not just for Titus, but for all of us, because none of us know exactly how much time that we have. And he gives here two options for relief for Titus. The first option is Artemis. Now, little is known about Artemis. There is a church tradition that he became the Bishop of Lystra. The New Testament, though, doesn't tell us much about this man. And so we just are resting on the fact that he may have been Bishop of Lystra, and if you're wondering where that is, it's a town in Galilee, or excuse me, in Galatia, in Galatia, which is modern-day Turkey, of course. Now, if that is the case, then this is probably not the man that Paul ultimately chose to send to relieve Titus, unless Artemis, also went here for a short time and then ultimately ended up in Lystra. So it's hard to say exactly. But if Paul did not choose Artemis, then he probably chose Tychicus. Who is Tychicus? That would have been Paul's right-hand man in some respects. The New Testament does offer quite a bit of information on him. And many in the early church knew him. This would have been a recognizable name. We do find his name several times in the epistles. He followed Paul, for instance, from Corinth to Asia Minor in Acts chapter 20, verse four. He then accompanied Paul on his journeys and was entrusted with delivering Paul's letters to the Colossians in Colossians chapter four, we see that, and the Ephesians, Ephesians chapter six, discusses that. And so he's a trustworthy individual, and that seems to make him a natural choice to be a good replacement for Titus. We can assume that Artemis would have been as well, but we don't know exactly which one God chose and directed Paul to utilize. But God sometimes has a pastor stay at a church for a specific purpose, and then he calls them away. We have to rely on the fact that this is all within God's timing, and we have to rest in that. We know that from personal experience, we've seen that. And I mentioned one example of that this morning in the sermon. But Titus, though, he was to focus on what remained. Paul is telling him to hurry up. Remember in chapter one, verse five, he had told him, I left you at Crete so that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. Titus doesn't have time to get distracted with any number of church issues that may have been going on in the island of Crete. He has a mission that needs to be accomplished. He doesn't need to leave things undone by the time either Artemis or Tychicus arrives. He doesn't need to be leaving work for them. He needs to do what Paul has set him up to do so that when they arrive to relieve him, whichever one it may be, Titus can say, yep, all the churches are set up, all the things that were left remaining have been resolved, and the churches are ready for you. He needed to have that mindset that ministry is taking priority here. And sometimes ministry is not always just preaching or visiting with people. Sometimes it is that, but that's not all of what ministry is. Sometimes ministry is administrative. Sometimes ministry is making sure things are set up. There's a book that came out a few years ago called The Trellis and the Vine. Sometimes you do have to worry about the trellis, but if you spend too much time on the trellis and not enough time on the vine, the vine may wither. You have to work on the vine as well. Sometimes we get too distracted on buildings and properties and whatnot and not focus enough on the people. Part of the people is making sure that the right people are in place. That's all part of ministry. And that's all part of what needs to happen. Now, Paul has confidence in Titus's ability, obviously, but Paul is ensuring that Titus is ministry minded here, that he's making sure, or that Titus is making sure that he is focused on getting everything into place as it should be placed. And so Paul wants Titus to come eventually. and to be diligent to come as soon as possible, actually, as soon as the relief gets there. Where is he supposed to come? Well, he says, come and meet me at Nicopolis, the victorious city, or the city of victory, that we could translate that. which is a neat name for a city, in fact, so neat there are a few cities in the ancient world with this name. And so there is a little bit of discussion as to which one of these cities it could be. This is probably a city in southwestern Greece, which would be, we're thinking of a map of the Mediterranean. I'm trying to reverse it in my mind so that it's facing you. We would have Greece, and then we would have, kind of in the middle there, the island, the long island of Crete. And so if Nicopolis is in the southwestern region of Greece, then that would be to the northeast of Crete. And that's where Titus ultimately needs to go. Why? Because Paul says he has decided to winter there. What does that mean? Well, we still talk about ships needing to winter at port sometimes. It gets cold, seas get choppy, there may be issues. that are unpredictable in those cold seasons and so the ships just weigh anchor and the folks just need to hang out in a port city for a little while. This is where Paul's gonna be. Why? Because he has his own ministry mindset. Paul is going to go on, and we read that later on in Romans chapter 15, verses 20 through 21, we read that Paul aspired to preach Christ where he was not yet known. Paul's ministry for souls meant that he wanted to go on to preach in Europe, throughout throughout there. He wanted to go as far as Spain. He wanted to make sure that that the gospel of Christ was going to the ends of the known world at that time. And so Paul is ministry-minded. He wants Titus also, therefore, to be ministry-minded. Paul knows Titus can take care of the elders. He left him there to take care of the elders while Paul is thinking about going to the next stop and getting the gospel message out to the next stop. And so that's why he wants Titus to be ministry-minded. Now, some of you, might have gathered this already as we were reading this text, but verse 13 tells us that Titus is not the only big name on the island. There are two other people who could potentially help Titus out. The first one is named Xenus. Xenus, not Xena, but Xenes. Xenes, the name means Zeus given. Zeus given. You know, it's funny how, as we think about that, it's kind of interesting to think how hard it is to escape our pagan roots, right? It is difficult, and he is carrying a name with him that is a testament to his pagan roots. He's not the only one. We have Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but those are not their names, right? Uh, in the, in the book of Daniel, sometimes we have those pagan roots that do seem to cling to us. And, and that's what we see with Zenus. Again, we don't have much information on him, but a tradition places him among the 70 disciples. And he eventually became the Bishop of Diosopolis. Diosopolis. Now there are a few cities by that name, but since Enos is a lawyer, perhaps he settled as a bishop in one of the, or in the one that was in central Israel, which is also known as Lod. So that's possible, but we don't know. I don't like to rest too much on church tradition, because they can be contradictory sometimes, and we just don't know for sure. But we do see here in the text of scripture that he's a lawyer, a lawyer. Well, what does that mean? Well, that means that, well, lawyers, of course, tempted Jesus. That doesn't mean that he was one of the ones who tempted Jesus. We don't know. Perhaps he was an expert in non-Mosaic law. We don't know that either. So all we know is that he is someone who is trained in the law, very possibly Mosaic law, but We are not entirely sure about that. He may have been a Hellenized Jewish lawyer who early on came to Christ. That's all we can say. If he was a Jewish believer who came to Christ, then he was skilled in the law of Moses. He was someone who knew the Old Testament. And so he was someone that Titus could have leaned on. The other name is also a name he could have leaned on, Apollos, Apollos. Again, a pagan name, but he was a friend to Paul and a skilled teacher in scripture. Now, originally, he only knew Christ through John the Baptist. And you might remember that a certain ministry team, a couple by the name of Aquila and Priscilla, had to take him aside and teach him the way of Christ more perfectly. And so he was able then to proclaim Christ. We read in scripture that he was mighty in scripture and fervent in spirit, and he traveled like Paul and was an encouragement to the saints. By the time the book of First Corinthians was written, Apollos' teaching was so well known that he became one of the original celebrity pastors. Let's see if we can get Apollos to come and speak at our church. And so some were saying, I'm of Paul, and some were saying, I'm of Apollos, and some others who's, Felt like they were a little bit more spiritual. They said, well, I'm of Christ. Paul says this all needs to stop. This is prideful. We are all of the same spirit. We should act like it, right? We don't need to be priding ourselves by who we follow. We don't need to be engaging in factionism. But obviously, Apollos and Zenos were two men, two heavyweights, who Titus could have used to not only teach in the churches, but to help silence false teachers in the churches, because he had to deal with false teachers as we've been studying. The temptation that Titus would have had was to lean on them to do all his work. He could have just said, okay, you guys do all the teaching. He could have said, I really need you guys. Tried to convince them to do something other than Paul had instructed them to do. I need you guys on my team over here. There are a lot of churches, a lot of cities here on the island of Crete. It's not a small island. It's a big island. We have a lot of places, a lot of ground to cover. He could have said, I need you guys here. That would have been his temptation. But these men were needed elsewhere. So Paul says, using construction here, an adverbial construction, diligent. Help Zenos, the lawyer, and Apollos on their way. Not just help them on their way, diligently help them on their way. Don't just lean on them to do the work. In fact, be diligent to send them along because they have somewhere else to be. The word here is related to the previous verse, obviously, and the ESV translates both these words here as do your best, do your best. The sense here is to do everything possible, right? Titus needs to do his best to send these two men along, ASAP. Now, again, we have to keep the priority of ministry in mind. So we can do all without dilly and without dally, right? We need to do everything without delay, right? And so he calls him to do what he can, whatever the cost, to send him along. We need to do the same thing with our own ministry. It doesn't matter if it costs us our tax exempt status. It doesn't matter if it costs us jail time. It doesn't matter what it costs us, we have to be just as ministry-minded here. We may make decisions that, from a worldly perspective, are actually bad for us. But we need to be diligent in doing what is right. What is right. And so in this case, Titus is to send them along. He says to make sure that they lack nothing. They are to go. And so Titus must think about the kinds of provisions that they need for their next mission. This will not only help Apollos and Zenos move on to the next place, but it's an example of good works to the Cretan believers, those who need to learn to do good. works. See, ministering in an ungodly world requires us to be ready and to, in fact, plan for these kinds of instances where there may be a need. And that brings us to the next point. We must learn now how to perform good works in an ungodly world. Let's look at verse 14. Our people must learn to engage in good deeds, good works, to meet pressing needs so that they will not be unfruitful. So Paul now transitions from the urgency of ministry to the necessity of good works. And he writes that they need to learn. The Cretan believers need to learn, or keep on learning, because this is in the present tense. This is something that we need to continue to learn. We don't just know how to do good works. This is something we have to continue to learn. In fact, as disciples, as disciples, we should be learning how to do good works. This is something that, again, is part of that marathon that we're running. And sometimes we have to learn, we have to make adjustments along the way so that we can make sure that we are doing the good works that we should be. We might have one plan moving forward, and that plan then needs to change. As I was writing this also, I was thinking about all the discussion on in churches on hyper grace, hyper grace, antinomianism kind of teaching. Someone who believes that your personal holiness is not important to God, or at least that you don't need to strive to grow in good works and holiness, that kind of thing. But that's not a biblical position. We should be growing in good works. You know, this would include that crowd that says homosexuality doesn't matter. If you're born wanting something, then not only should you pursue it, it's wrong to suppress that within you. Some would say that. Of course, that's silly on the surface. We teach kids that they should suppress their emotions all the time. It's not okay to have outbursts in public, for instance, just because you want that snack. That doesn't give you the right to throw a temper tantrum. We teach them that there is good behavior and bad behavior. This is something that we all have to learn from time to time. There's nothing wrong then with saying, yes, there are certain kinds of desires that people may have that are not good. If every time you walk by the money box back there and you have a desire to take it and run out the door, well, that's a desire that you should suppress, right? And I think most people would agree with that. Yeah, no, stealing is wrong, you shouldn't do that. Well, that is true of all sin. We should learn to push down sinful desires and learn obedience. You know, in fact, that's Christ-like. It's Christ-like. Hebrews chapter 5 verse 8 says that Jesus learned obedience. Did you know that? He learned obedience. That doesn't mean that he ever sinned, of course. But as he grew from from being an infant to being a toddler to being a child, he had to gain knowledge because his human brain, as he was in flesh, his human brain had to gather information just like the rest of our brains, and he had to learn some things, including you do what mom and dad say, right? He had to learn that. He learned obedience. He didn't learn it because he was a sinner. He was perfect. He was righteous. But still, he had to learn submission. He had to learn obedience. That's something that we all have to do. We have to learn proper behavior in Christ. We have to learn good works. and we have to learn how to live out what the Lord has commanded us in our lives. And so the Bible consistently teaches us that this is something that we are to do, but it also shows us that grace helps us in this regard. And this is something that we saw in Ephesians chapter two, where we see that we've been saved by grace, not by works, lest anyone should boast. But then verse 10 says that we are created at Christ Jesus for good works. We're created for good works. Grace is the fruit of our, or excuse me, good works are the fruit of our salvation. Not the root, but the fruit of our salvation. And this is something that should be produced within us. And God's grace will help us in that. Chapter two of Titus here, we learn that. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. God's grace will help us to learn to do what's right, and we can learn to do good works and to do them better as we grow in Christ. We should see within our own lives that maybe as a 20 year old Christian, we did so many good works, but they maybe were not the best good works, and they weren't as plentiful as they could have been. But then as a 40-year-old Christian, we are doing a lot more now, and maybe they're still not perfect, but there's a lot more of them that we regularly practice. What's the difference there? What creates that distinction, time, and the grace of God? Time in the grace of God helps us to learn to do what God has commanded us better. And so this is something that we must all learn. Our people must learn to engage in good deeds, to meet pressing needs so that they will not be unfruitful. You know, sometimes we have to think about what is the best thing to do. We have to think through this practically. When Titus sends Apollos and Zenos on their way, Titus has to think, what do they need for their journey? It's not like they can check into the next Motel 6. They're not gonna encounter one on the way. They might encounter robbers, and they might go for a while without encountering any hospitality from anyone. They need food. They need water. They need money. They have needs so that they can be sent on their way. Titus has to think through that. As he's doing that, that's going to help the Cretans to see, okay, this is how we should be. We need to think through things. This is something that we are all continuing to struggle with. There was a discussion, I remember, with one church. They were debating how much we should apply 1 Timothy 5 in the case of widows. And they were saying, look, if a widow has a need, we're gonna help that widow with the need. But Paul says in 1 Timothy 5, if any widow has children or grandchildren, They must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and to make some return to their parents, for this is acceptable in the sight of God. Obviously, we're supposed to take care of widows, but Paul says, no, part of teaching people, part of training people in righteousness and in good works is teaching people to take care of their own family. We don't just all get together and give money to people who could be getting money from their own family members. We need to train up their family members to take charge, to take care of their own. It's not that we're not giving money to people who have need, but we need to prioritize those who maybe don't have family and have that greater need, and we need to teach people how to meet needs within their own family if that is an option for them. Now, one church I saw, or I heard of, applied it in this way. They said, well, what we're gonna do is help with a portion of the widow's bills only if the teenagers living in the home get jobs. If the teenagers are just living at home and they don't have jobs, then we won't help with the bills. Now that's an interesting application of that, saying no, the teenagers are old enough, there's no child labor laws that are going to keep them from working, but if they're just going to sit at home and play the Xbox, Well, we give them money, that's not the optimal situation. They need to go out and get jobs. You say, wait a minute, an entry-level job that a teenager could get at, say, maybe minimum wage, that's not gonna meet all the bills. You're right, and so we help in addition to that. But that's teaching the teenager to help take responsibility for the whole. And that's something that needs to be taught, especially in our culture. In other cultures, that's not something that necessarily has to be taught. It's more innate in other cultures where family knows, okay, we got to take care of our own. That is something that is more innate in other cultures. But in our culture, it's not as innate. And so we need to take that instruction there and teach our people to do good works. And so that's a good application of that. It's not harsh. I don't think it's ungracious at all. It is biblical, and it is a way of teaching people how to learn godliness. And so this is something that we all learn over time. And when I start talking about practical issues like that, it's like, okay, yeah, we actually do have things to work through. We actually do need to think about how to best do this. Sometimes I'm thinking, what is a good work? Sometimes when I'm walking around here on Monday, I'm picking up trash that I see that I've been left in the pews and everything. So that's good work. Well, that's the easy one. That's like low hanging fruit. When we are dealing with issues like how do we deal with widows or deal with other people who may come in who are, say, asking us for money, how do we handle that? If it's a non-member, we've never seen this person before, and he's asking us for a handout of several hundred dollars, how do we handle that? We have to think through that. We have to plan. We have to say, okay, if we give this person money, that may take away from our ministry to our own people. Is that the wisest use of our money? What is this person gonna use that money for? And is that gonna help the person? We have to ask that too. So these are issues we have to wrestle through. We have to learn to do good works. Why? Because we don't want to be unfruitful. We don't want to be unfruitful. If we want to have a church with a legacy, we want to be fruitful. We don't want to be unfruitful. We want to engage in good works that Keep God's people from slander. We want to engage in good works that are honorable before the Lord. Good works that can give a good report to the ungodly world so that they can say, yes, that is the way that we should be handling things. Why didn't we think about that? Because you don't have the word of God. You don't have the spirit of God. Let me tell you about the God who has done good works for us. Good works are urgent, they are necessary, and they are needful for so many people around us. So Christians are to live with priority for ministry, and they are to learn to perform good works so that they will not be unfruitful. So this is a act that requires constant reminders, it requires education, it requires teaching. That's an act of love that brings us to our final point. We must learn to love the people of God in an ungodly world. We must learn to love the people of God in an ungodly world. Look at the last few words here of the book of Titus. who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. As Paul signs off here. Don't forget that the mail moves slowly back then. Even our snail mail today is fast by comparison to how quickly someone would get a message back and forth. But as they got that message, they would see that there was encouragement happening between churches, between the people of God. And this would be important for the people of God who may feel like they're alone on the mission. You are not alone. There are others out there who are fighting the same good fight. And this already begins to teach us about the love that should be shared among Christians, especially as things may get more heated here. Paul says, greet those who love in the faith, who love us in the faith. This is Christian fellowship. Of course, I see a little bit of a distinction in the text here between those who say love the Apostle Paul or the other writers of scripture, and those who love their own teachings, the false teachers, those who want to create their own factions, those who want to create their own followings. You know, Paul says, greet those who love us in the faith. This is something that should be present in Christians. We should love the church. Take a look over to 1 John for a moment as we consider that. John says this in 1 John 4. 1 John 4. He says in 1 John 4 verse 20. If someone says, I love God, Hates his brother. He is a liar. Oh John that's so mean. This is the Apostle of love saying that right If someone says I love God and hates his brother he is a liar For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he is not seen Now there are a lot of folks out there who say I love God They hate the church. They hate the people of God. They hate Christians. How is it that they love God, then, if they hate God's people? Now some may say, well, listen, you don't understand, I was abused in the church, I was hurt by the church, I was this or that, that may be true, that may also be false, that person may have just been told to stop sinning, like a child trying to get at something that could hurt it, and you say no, no, and the child's kind of mad and starts to sulk away. Adults do that too, right? Where it's like, no, I wanted to do one thing, and the church told me I couldn't do it, so the church hates me, so I hate the church. Well, that's a sign that you are not a Christian. And that's what you see with a lot of folks, a lot of folks who won't be in church. They come for a little while, maybe, like one of the four soils. They may have initial growth that springs up, but as soon as the sun starts to hit, or the wind starts to blow, there's no root there. And the whole plant comes down. Christians are supposed to be affectionate to one another. We are supposed to engage in a Brotherly love, there should be a special camaraderie which happens amongst believers. Well, this line grants a special acknowledgement to brothers and sisters in Christ. We should love one another in the faith. And if we are going to build together a church with a legacy, we have to love one another. We have to love the church. We also have to rest in God's grace. We have to rest in God's grace to do this. I mean, after all, we should have a camaraderie with one another. It doesn't matter if you're just coming from out of town. Believers know believers, right? We are all recipients of God's grace. We all realize it's undeserved. I didn't earn this salvation. Some people say, well, yeah, you know, I have a past. Well, we all have pasts. Some may be more colorful than others, but you know what all these pasts tell us? We don't deserve God, and yet God saved us. Where does that lead us? Well, that leads us to love God. And when we meet other people who have been recipients of that same grace, we just instantly have some kind of synchronicity with them, where we're saying, yes, hey, let me tell you about what God's done in my life. Oh, that's so great. Let me tell you about what God has done in my life. It's amazing. When the Soviet Union fell, and Christians for the first time were able to go into Russia, sometimes they were not always speaking the same language, sometimes they were singing hymns in different languages, but the tunes were the same. and they would start humming a tune. The other person would start humming a tune. They knew they didn't know each other's language that well, but they could hum that tune together. And here, across languages and across cultures, you have people who have fellowship, who have a true camaraderie, true comrades, right? And the Lord, because they are singing about the Lord. They understand each other, even without saying a word in a shared language, because they do have a shared language, a language of grace. God's grace brings us salvation. God's grace teaches us how to be godly in this morally confused world. God's grace helps us to love where we would normally be unloving. It helps us to love others where usually we were just more concerned about loving ourselves. God's grace helps us. It teaches us how to live with priority for ministry. It teaches us how to learn to perform good works and to love the people of God. Now to wrap this up, these guys who we are reading about here, Artemis, Tychicus, Zenos, Apollos, These are individuals who likely became pastors of various cities throughout the Mediterranean world, and they were there ensuring that the gospel would continue to spread through those areas, as was Titus. And this was all while there was Jewish and Roman persecution of believers. And those persecutions came and then they went. But you know what stood? The church. Because of that dedication to ministry, because of the legacy that was left, the gates of hell could not prevail against the church. So let us, therefore, live with the same priority for ministry that they had. Let us learn just like they had to learn how to apply good works in this current age, this technological age, this age with so many temptations and so much heartache out there, potential pitfalls out there. Let us learn to do good works in this kind of age. And let us learn to love one another in a world that is hostile to us. Let's not be hostile to one another. but rather let's learn to love one another. Let's do so quickly because the time is short. We don't have forever with us. The day is coming to an end. The night is coming. So let us do our best to leave a church with a legacy.