Living Waters of Grace 02-03-26

This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Lewis

Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland

County in Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Lewis as he

continues teaching through God's Word.

Paul says I am a bond slave. In other words, he says I am

willingly submitting my will to God.

I am a slave of God. That should be all of our

testimonies that we are a bond servant to God.

We are giving our will to willingly submitting our will to

God, Not out of, you know, not out of coercion or because we're

being forced to, but because we desire to please God.

So we live for him. Most of the time when we think

of slavery, we think of those who were forced into servitude.

But that's not the only form of slavery that has existed in the

world. For some, slavery meant to

chance at a better life. No one forced them to become

slaves, but because of the opportunity to live a better

life and work for their own needs, they would willingly

pledge themselves to their masters.

In Pastor Lewis's message today, he encourages you to willingly

pledge your life to God, knowing he offers you everlasting life

now. Here's Pastor Lewis in Titus

chapter one with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

As Paul wrote these books, First and Second Timothy, First

Timothy and Titus was actually the first 2.

They were written after his first imprisonment.

And then, of course, Second Timothy was written while he was

in his second imprisonment waiting to be executed.

But we understand that as he wrote these epistles or these

letters, they are for the purpose of pastoral direction,

but not as they're not just for pastoral direction.

I mean, we could look at that and we can say, OK, what's OK

for us who are not pastors do not have to obey.

We don't have to deal with this. That's for you, man.

You need to pay attention to it. You guys.

You want us up there talking? But no, he don't let us all off

the hook. We are all committed to the Word

of God, and the things that he teach us in these epistles

actually give us very, very good direction for living the

Christian life. And that's one of the reasons

why I do enjoy so much reading First Timothy and Second Timothy

and Titus, because it's clear direction on what it is that God

intends for us as the church, how we should look and how we

are separate from the world and how we should treat each other

while we are here because we're going to be spending eternity

together. So we may as well learn now

while we're here, how to get along with each other, how to

love each other, how to deal with each other, how to pray for

each other, how to serve each other, and how to just be with

each other. We got our eternity.

Look forward to us. We may well deal with it here,

right? Amen.

But as we get into the book, I tell you some very interesting

things that we have to first look at.

First of all, we, we look at the fact that with Paul, it was Paul

who gave Titus this assignment as he left him in Crete.

Now Paul, Paul initially had gone into the Macedonia, into

Macedonia, into the, into the Asia region.

And he did set up some churches there.

He set up churches in, in Ephesus and of course in

Corinth. And he set up a church and the,

it's actually one of the largest islands on the Mediterranean

Sea. They're in Crete and as Paul

began to set up these churches, now some of these churches, he

was able to stay for a while. Like with the church, the when

he was working with the 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, the

Thessalonian church, he was able to stay there for a while.

Ephesus, he was able to stay there for a time.

And then of course he had to leave Timothy there so that

Timothy could be the pastoring to put things in order there

that Paul wasn't able to do. But he spent a small amount of

time in Crete, and when he spent the time in Crete, he had to

leave early for whatever reason, probably because he was on his

way traveling toward the Troas, where eventually he would be

arrested and taken to Rome and executed.

But while he was in Crete, there was other churches that were

there and he sent Titus, a trusted worker in the faith.

In fact, Titus is described a couple different ways and I just

want to go through with that because this was a very faithful

worker and very useful for Paul. In fact, it Titus is described

in the 1st chapter right here in verse 4.

He's described as being a son, a son of the common faith.

And we'll get into what that means a little later on.

But he's also described in second Corinthians chapter 2 and

2 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

verse 13 describes him as Paul's spiritual brother.

And then in in second Corinthians chapter 8 verse 23,

2 Corinthians 8:23

he describes him as Paul's partner and helper.

And even in even also in second Corinthians chapter 8, he also

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

talks about him or describes him as being sort of a a positive

spiritual role model for those who were that were Paul sent

him. Now Crete wasn't the 1st place

that Paul ever used Titus. He had actually sent him to

Corinth. And we know that Titus was a man

of integrity because while he was in Corinth, Paul not only

used used him to help put some things in order while he was in

Corinth or to help deal with some issues that they were

dealing with in Corinth, but he also used him to bring back the

money, the offering that the people of Corinth had put

together that they were going to take to Jerusalem.

Titus was one of the trustworthy people that he used to bring

forth that money. And you know that whoever people

select to work with the money are people who are trustworthy.

They are the trustees, so to speak.

But just to give you a little bit of information about this

place, Crete, it's an island on the Mediterranean Sea.

It is a Greek island. And and of course, Titus was a

Greek convert. You know, Paul had ministered to

that island and Titus was one of the people that he administered

to. So Titus was a son who came into

the faith through Paul's ministry.

Now the island of Crete is located like southeast of the

island of Greece. In fact, if you look at Cyprus,

and now since my son had gone to Cyprus to play ball there, I

look at everything around the Greek or the Mediterranean and,

and kind of look at it around Cyprus to see where things are

located. And Crete is actually located

West of Cyprus. It's a larger island than what

Cyprus is. Very beautiful area there.

Now, Crete is about 150 miles long and it's about 35 miles

wide. And like I said, it is the

largest of the Mediterranean islands.

It has over over 100 villages that are located right there in

the island of Crete. But there's six main cities that

they have there, and that's where the churches are located

in, in those six main cities. So when he sent Titus back to

Crete to put things in order, it was to those churches that he

was going to be working with. Now Crete had a very bad

reputation, industry wise, business wise, Crete was a very

good place, very nice place to be very prosperous.

But in terms of its morality, Crete was a very immoral, just

like Ephesus was, and just like Corinth, it was a very immoral

area. So he sent him back to a very

difficult place to be able to try to put things in order.

In this particular church, Titus was used almost like a little

point guard. That's because a point guard is

that guy on the team that the coach can give instruction to.

And he goes and puts everybody in place.

He goes and make sure everybody's in the right

position, Everybody is doing what they need to be doing.

Everybody is functioning together.

That's what a point guard does. And he can look and see he's

actually the coach on the floor. And that's kind of what Titus

was there in Crete. He was, he was Paul's point man.

He was his point guard. He made sure that the leaders

are put in place, as we're going to see later.

He made sure that there were things in order there so that

the church could function properly.

So anyway, we go on and we see here as we go to chapter 1 here

with Titus, we see here that Paul, when he starts off his

letter, he describes himself as a bondservant.

Paul was a bondservant. Paul says that I am a

bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

So Paul says I'm a slave, but he's not just a slave because

there's a couple types of slaves and he and he did that because

in the Roman culture, they are big on slaves.

I mean, Romans used slaves for a lot of different purposes, but

Paul described himself as a slave of God and he was a bond

servant of God. So what Paul is basically

saying, like I said, there's a couple different types of

slaves. There's a slaves that that that

people use that forced, they're forced into labor.

OK, There are those kind of slaves forced into labor.

Those people don't want to be there, but they're there.

They're not there willingly, but they are there because they were

overpowered. They were conquered and they

were forced into labor. But Paul was a willing slave,

like the bond servants. And these are people who

sometimes give themselves to be slave.

These are the downloads, the people who give themselves to be

slaves so that they can either pay off debt or that they can

just live. I mean, they're just poor and

they don't have any income. They don't have a way of making

enough income for them and their families to live.

So they sell themselves into slavery and they work for a

owner for so many years. And then they get their freedom.

They get their freedom again, and some of them choose when

it's time. God bless you.

God bless you. And some of them, when they

choose to get back, when they have the opportunity to get

their freedom back, they choose not to.

They choose not to. They choose to stay a slave

because maybe they love the family or they have themselves

made a family while they were there and they want to stay with

their family. So they choose to remain a

slave. And if they do that, then they

would have to go into a doorway. The slave owner, OK, would take

an animal and he would put it into the ear, OK, put a like a

big plug into the ear of the slave and that indicated that

this slave was with us for the remainder of his life.

So anyway, Paul says I am a bond slave.

In other words, he says I am willingly submitting my will to

God. I am a slave of God.

That should be all of our testimonies that we are a bond

servant to God. We are giving our will to

willingly submitting our will to God, not out of, you know, not

out of coercion or because we're being forced to, but because we

desire to please God. So we live for him, we are his

bond servants and he says, and this is he's an apostle of Jesus

Christ, which means that he is a messenger of Jesus Christ.

Please don't always just separate the two like there's

two different people. It is not.

And that's why Paul, it had put God and Jesus Christ together

because they are equal. They are equal.

So he is a bondservant of God and he is a messenger of Jesus

Christ. And now Paul goes into talking

about it's really loaded everything he has here in these

first 3 verses. Now he goes in and talk about

the purpose of the ministry that God has called him into.

And he says according to the faith of God's elect, according

to the faith of God's elect. And what Paul is saying to us is

that he is a messenger of God or messenger of Jesus Christ to

bring the gospel to God's elect. That is the Gentiles and it is

the people of, of Israel who is God's elect, those who trust in

Jesus Christ for their salvation, that God before the

foundation of the world had chosen in Christ Jesus.

And what that is saying now, you know, and we, we know that

there's a whole issue that comes up about will versus will versus

election and all those things. I can't begin to tell you that I

understand everything about how all that connects.

All I can tell you is that I believe that what the Word of

God says is that both of those things are true.

And how that happens, I'm not exactly sure.

But we do know that Jesus Christ is able to through His

foreknowledge. God, through their

foreknowledge, will know who will receive His salvation and

who won't. Jesus Christ already said that,

that He already knows those who will receive His salvation.

He knows those are going to follow Him and He knows those

who won't. So he he's called to the gospel

according to the faith of the elect.

That means he's the one that will speak the gospel to them,

to bring them to faith, to share the faith with them so that they

will receive salvation. And then the second thing is

that and the acknowledgement of the truth.

Now this acknowledgement of the truth just simply means that

they understand what this true doctrine is.

And it's this true doctrine by them hearing true doctrine, just

like us when we hear true doctrine coming across the

pulpit, it's the doctrine that we can trust in that causes us

to live godly. It produces good fruit in us.

It's that truth that we hear that causes us to live godly.

And that's why it says which accords with godliness or that

leads us to godliness. And that godliness we're going

to see also is being demonstrated or described as

good works as we go through the rest of the books here in Titus.

And then in verse 2, it says in hope of eternal life, which God

who cannot lie promised before time begin.

So that is the end point of our salvation and us walking with

the Lord and godliness, the reward that we receive from that

or the glory that we receive from that is eternal life in

Christ Jesus. That's what it's all about.

That's what we're living for. That's that's that hope that we

all have that we can share with other people that we will have

eternal life because we are those who have trusted and

believed in Jesus Christ. So and he said, and that's

eternal life that we have was promised to us.

Now, it would be one thing if your uncle or your aunt, people

that you think that are really popular in your life, that you

trusted and that you know, they, you hang on every one of their

words and they promise you eternal life.

OK, that's one thing. But even beyond their own

control, they can lie to you. They can put you down.

I mean, they can let you down. They can disappoint you, might

not be intentionally, but they can disappoint you.

And not only that, but people can lie.

God cannot lie. So we're promised this from

someone who cannot lie. And the reason why I want to

emphasize that because in some versions it has God who will not

lie. OK, I like the fact that it says

God who cannot lie. Because if you know, there are

people that we have in our lives and we say, you know what?

I know this person and this guy just will not lie.

He will not tell a lie. Well, somewhere along the line,

he will tell a lie. Somewhere along the line, he or

she will tell a lie. They are capable of telling a

lie. Even if you've not heard them

tell a lie, they are capable of it because we're all born in

sin. We don't have to teach a kid how

to lie because he's born in and sin.

He has the character or he has that the nature that will allow

him to lie. God's nature says he cannot lie

because he's God. If God ever lied, he would cease

to be God. He would no longer be God.

He cannot lie. And I like that because I can

grab onto that, say wow, he gave me a promise and he cannot lie.

It has to be true. So I mean, so that's something

that we as believers, we can always grab onto that and say,

you know what? Every promise that God has given

me in this word, it's going to come to be because he cannot

lie. Now that's good news for us as

believers, but it's bad news for those who are unbelievers

because all the promises that he gives to us are true or yeah and

Amen. But so are the promises that go

against the unbelievers. He who believes the Son has

everlasting life. He who does not believe the Son

has will not see life, but the what wrath of God abides on him.

That's true as well. So that's something that non

believers are going to have to deal with this God that we

serve. He cannot lie.

He doesn't lie in our favor as believers, but he doesn't lie

also what he promises to unbelievers as well.

So he goes on in verse 3 and he says and but has in due time

manifested his word through preaching, which he has

committed to me, right? He says, according to the

commandment of God, our Savior, Paul has been committed the

ministry of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in this ministry

that he has. It has come about in due time

because the ministry, you know, God talked about this this

promise that he has. You know, he had talked about

this before time even began. You know, this promise which was

true, and he talked about it in the Old Testament.

And then when the time was right, right when the time was

perfect for his plan, you know, then he manifested.

That means he made visible, He caused it to be.

He brought this thing forth through preaching.

And that's how men know about this eternal life.

That's how men know about salvation.

That's how men know about godliness and the true doctrine

that leads to godliness. That's how men know about it.

It's through the preaching of the gospel.

And it's amazing to me that God uses mere men to preach the

gospel. This is a very, very powerful

thing. The gospel was very powerful.

The gospel is a truth that has been through ages.

And he uses men, and not perfect men either.

We're talking about men who were flawed, men who were imperfect.

He uses men like us to preach the gospel.

He uses people like you to share the gospel.

That's how the gospel gets out there.

First Corinthians. What is it 121 that says, you

know that it's it's, you know, it's through the foolishness of

preaching the gospel that men would be saved.

So he preaches through he uses the gospel that the men preach.

And that was committed to Paul according to the commandment of

God, not the commandment of men. Man never called Paul.

He was called by God. And it's the Titus, the true Son

in the common faith. This common faith is the common

word of God, this Word of Faith that was delivered once and for

all, once for all to the Saints, OK?

Not a Word of Faith that someone took and changed and, you know,

reduced, watered it down. Not that it's the true Word of

Faith that was delivered, that was first delivered once and for

all to the Saints. It came from Jesus Christ, which

came to the apostles, and it came to the rest of us through

the preaching of the gospel. That word, that same word that

never changed, that was delivered to us even through the

word of God here, through those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus

Christ. We have that truth.

And that's the word that that's the common faith.

And then grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord

Jesus Christ and Savior. You know, there's not every one

of his epistles that he offers grace, mercy, and peace.

Usually it's grace and peace, which is the Greek and Hebrew

greeting. We talked about that before, but

now we know that he also offers mercy.

And all the epistles that are pastoral epistles, he adds mercy

to mercy to it. And the reason why is because we

as teachers, you who are teachers, are held to a stricter

judgment when it comes to the Word of God.

We're held to a stricter judgment and we need his mercy.

And that's why it's so important that you pray for teachers, you

pray for pastors, you and elders, you pray for them as we

pray for you because we need the mercy of God.

We need the mercy of God. And then verse 5 says, for this

reason, I left you in Crete. So now he's going to go into his

purpose for even having Titus stay in Crete for.

And there's a number of purposes.

There's three we're going to talk about the first one, the

first purpose is that he puts in order, sets in order the things

that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I

commanded you. OK, So he says, I, I'm setting

you the creep because there's a there's a need, there's some

things lacking there some things that I wasn't able to stay long

enough to put in order. So he says, I'm going to you

first need to set in order the things that are lacking.

Now this whole word to set in order, that whole word really is

a medical term and it's a term that really deals or refers to

setting a bone, setting a bone setting something that is out of

place in your body, some orthopedic problem that you may

have that's out of place, Paul says.

It's it's a setting in order when those things are out of

order. If we have a limb that's out of

order, if we have anything that's not lined up right, which

is why a lot of people will go, you know, to the specialist to

line them up and get their bodies right because things are

out of order. And when they're not in order,

it causes pain, it causes discomfort, it causes

overcompensation of other limbs or other areas of your body,

making just cause of dysfunction in your system when things are

out of order. Sometimes a bone out of order

causes problems. And if the body or limb is out

of order, it will let you know because there is, you know the

body system is is chaotic and it just doesn't function properly.

Well the church is exact same way when things are out of

order. If there is no order in the

church, there is problems. It doesn't function properly.

It doesn't function properly. Then there has to be

overcompensation because somebody is doing too much

because it's not enough. This is lacking.

So somebody feels they got to go over and do that and then that's

lacking. So somebody feel like an

overcompensation. So people are being burned out.

People are being, you know, not used properly or people are

getting upset. I mean, when the church is is

not in order, things happen in the church.

But when it's set in order, when leadership is set in order and

things are in order in the church, things go away a lot

more smoothly. There's not as much affliction,

there's not as much chaos. There's not the vision and the

kind of things that can happen when things are out of order.

This has been Living Waters of Grace, a ministry of Pastor

Lewis Harrell of Calvary Chapel, Westmoreland.

Today's message has been on the book of Titus.

This book is a master class in how Christians should live in

modern culture. Titus was ministering to the

people of Crete, an island off the coast of Greece, but he was

facing many challenges. The Cretans who came to know

Jesus seemed to assimilate Jesus into their existing culture

instead of allowing themselves to be transformed by the Holy

Spirit inside of them. Others were fully devoting

themselves to Jesus but shutting themselves off from the world

around them. And the apostle Paul encourages

Titus to help his audience find a middle ground where they can

live in this world while still following a different way of

life in Jesus. If you would like to learn more

about what it means to faithfully follow the teachings

of Christ in a world full of darkness, we'd love to get

connected with you in person. If you are in Greensburg, PA,

we'd love to invite you to join us at Calvary Chapel

Westmoreland. We need every Sunday at 10:30 AM

at 400 E Pittsburgh St. Ste. 6B.

Also, if you visit us at calvarychapelonline.com, you'll

find links to our mobile app, our giving page, and our contact

form where you can leave a prayer request if you have one.

Before we go off the air for today, we ask you to invite

someone to tune in next time right here on Grace FM 91.7 or

streaming online at Grace Radio dot FM.

Word of mouth is the best way to spread the good news of the

Gospel with those who are hungry to hear.

Until next time, this has been another edition of Living Waters

of Grace.