Titus, Paul & the Relationship You Can Have

Hey, my name's Cole. I like preaching and I get to

preach quite a bit here. I'm Lee, Pastor Frontier.

If you've got a Bible, go ahead and get that open to the book of

Titus. If you don't know where the book

of Titus is at, there should be instructions on the inside your

Bible, on what page that is. But don't worry, I'll have all

of the pertinent text on the screen in front of you.

It's a, it's a short letter that's in the New Testament.

So it's probably 3/4 of of the way back.

And like Jaron said, this is week 3 of our time in Titus.

And this morning what I'm doing is I'm completing my nerdy

trilogy of the main characters of the Letter of Titus.

Two weeks ago, we looked at the guy who was writing it, Paul.

How did that guy come to know Jesus?

What does he think he's accomplishing?

Last week we talked about these odd, odd and strange churches

that popped up on the island of Crete that Paul is writing for.

And what we're going to talk about this morning is the guy

who is going to receive and read aloud the letter in those

churches in Crete. His name is Titus.

Here's how it's going to work. I'm just going to be honest with

you. This is not going to be like a a

normal coal sermon for Frontier Church.

It's going to air on the side of nerdy and scholastic, and what

I'm going to do is I'm going to create a biographical sketch of

this guy Titus. And what you're going to do is

you're going to wonder how in the world does this have any

relevance with my life, right? It's going to feel irrelevant

for probably 2025 thirty minutes.

What in the world do relationships with the Greeks

and the Jews in the 1st century have to do with my struggles to

make friends and to know God? If you can stick with me on the

tail end of it. Once we've done that heavy

lifting, hopefully you'll receive a little bit of a master

class on leadership by looking at how Paul develops Titus, and

maybe even a little bit of a master class on how to develop,

cultivate and build gospel centered relationships.

Does that sound good? Good.

One of my favorite quotes from a poet comes from, I think it was

Annie Dillard. Somebody asked her how do you

write your poems? And I just love her response.

She said writing a poem is is kind of like building a barn in

the middle of a tornado or a thunderstorm with all of these

boards flying around. All you can do, reach out, try

to grab a board and then nail it down before it blows away.

That's what my sermon is going to be like.

OK, I'm going to throw a lot of stuff at you, a lot of

information at you. I'm going to have you circle a

word. We're going to talk about Greeks

and Jews, and we might even talk about circumcision if I feel

like having fun. Take what you can, nail it down.

Oh, you just wait. And who knows, maybe the Lord

will bless this strange little sermon.

Heavenly Father, I pray that, you know, sometimes, God, I feel

the pressure to try to prove your existence to people.

And you are. You're among us right now.

You're walking among us. You're with us, You're speaking

to us. You're demonstrating your

presence to us. I don't have to prove anything.

You're here, Lord. And so I think most of us on

Sunday mornings, we walk in not even really knowing what we

believe about God or if we believe in God.

And so I think that's most of us this morning.

And so if for those who don't know who you are or what you're

like or those who don't know what an experience of your love

feels like, God, would you just like, I don't care if it's

through the whole sermon, were like a weird thing that I say or

an off the hand comment. Would you just take something I

say this morning and just nail that board down just before it

flies away and people forget about it with their lunch plans?

Would you just take that board and nail it down onto somebody's

heart and build yourself a little barn or a little house to

live in? In our hearts, yeah.

Yeah. What could what could possibly

be learned about examining an ancient friendship between a

Greek and a Jew from 2000 years ago?

The world would say nothing. But I don't.

I don't care what the world would say.

I want to know what you would say.

God, what can we learn as we examine this relationship where

Paul calls Titus his true child in a common faith?

Maybe, maybe, maybe we'll walk out of here with a deepened

relationship with you and a deepened relationship with

others. And that would be a miracle.

So perform the miracle for us this morning.

Lord, in Jesus precious name, all God's people prayed.

Amen. If you have the capacity, go

ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word.

Just a simple introductory note to the letter, but there's a

strange amount of warmth in in Paul's writing and letter that

sometimes we miss if we don't read through it slowly.

So here's how it begins. Paul, we met him two weeks ago,

a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

For the sake of the faith of God's elects.

Or these Christians that are on this island called Crete.

For the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge

of the truth which accords with godliness in hope of eternal

life, which God who never lies promised before the ages began

and at the proper time manifested in His Word through

the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of

God our Savior to Titus. This is not a private letter

that Paul's writing and tucking away in his.

This is going to end up in somebody's hands.

And Paul's expectation is that Titus is going to take it.

He's going to stand in front of these ancient churches.

He's going to read this letter out loud and explain it.

So he says to Titus, my true child in a common faith, and

then next week, grace and peace from God the Father in Christ

Jesus our Savior. What's in here?

You can have a seat. If you want to imagine it,

imagine it. If you got a pen, go ahead and

grab that. If you have a pencil, go ahead

and grab that. If you have a highlighter,

highlight this. If you just want to play along,

play along. If I were you, I would circle

that phrase to Titus. I never grow old of reminding us

that the Christian faith is a historical faith.

It didn't happen outside of time.

It's not a myth. It's not a fable.

It happened in space and time, through real people in a

historical setting. Which of course raises the

question, who is this? Who is this Titus guy?

Now, here's an interesting thing to say.

The fact that Paul and Titus even know each other, the fact

that they're homies, the fact that they're friends, whatsoever

is, to be totally honest, from the ancient world perspective,

shocking. I'll give you one reason why,

and then I'll tease it out. Paul is Jewish, Titus is Greek.

Which begs the question, how in the world?

What in the heck happened? How did these two even become

friends? What's the story here?

Well, I have a short answer and a long answer for you.

The short answer is we don't know.

You got me there. The Bible doesn't tell about how

they met. The longer answer is we have

some pretty good idea. Scholars think most likely that

the way that a Greek and a Jew would have connected with each

other, Paul and Titus would have been probably in Antioch.

It's one of the biggest cities in the ancient Roman world and

the most likely place of overlap for a Jew and a Greek.

And Antioch would have been the marketplace.

It was a bustling hustling marketplace of trading things.

It would have been a multi ethnic hub within the city that

was filled with the sweet smells of baked bread and spices from

all over ancient world. But it was also a marketplace of

ideas, right? It was like before they had a

social media Facebook feed. The marketplace was their

Facebook feed, where they got together and they hammered out

their ideas, clarified them, crystallized them and argued.

And so the marketplace would have been alive with the smell

of bread, but also alive with a noisy crowd, where all these

diverse ideas in the ancient world were boom, colliding

together through argumentation, conversation, dialogue, or in

the sake of the apostle Paul, through preaching.

Probably how Titus would have met Paul before, before Titus

even saw Paul's face, he probably would have heard Paul's

booming voice in the middle of the marketplace preaching the

gospel of Jesus. Now, that would have been a

unique experience for Titus because as a great Titus, I'd

grown up with a pantheon of of gods.

He was not irreligious. Nobody in that world was.

It was atheistic. Nobody was agnostic.

It was a matter of monotheistic. Do you worship one God or

pantheon? Like how many gods do you have?

And so he would have, he would have grown up with this entire

pantheon of all of these Greek gods.

And as, as as a Greek, he probably would have found the

monotheism of Jewish people a little bit stifling and a little

bit crusty. But this Titus would have

thought this Jesus thing now that's, that was something new

to him. This, this idea that there was a

God who was for the whole world, not just a territory, right?

Greek gods were territorial. You had a, you had a Greek God

for this and a Greek God for the sea and a Greek God for the sun.

And you know, all these gods over all these territories and

geographies. But this Jesus guy, Paul was

preaching this Jesus guy as though he were the God for the

entire world. That was interesting.

But this was a completely new idea in Titus's world, and so

when he heard Paul's voice booming in the marketplace,

proclaiming the life, death, and resurrection of God in the

flesh. A God coming to earth, how

strange. A God dying for sinners, how

strange. This was something new, This

Jesus guy, I imagine, I suppose I'm hypothesizing that Titus

would have been frozen by the preaching of the gospel.

You can grow up here now. Hearing Paul preach it in the

marketplace would have gripped him suddenly underneath the

spell of the gospel of Jesus. A sudden, strange transformation

in Titus's heart probably occurred as he stood there,

caught in the jaws of the gospel.

A God who loves me, a God who's for me, A God who died for me, a

God who didn't stay out there, a God who came for me.

This would have frozen Titus. And maybe, maybe in that moment,

even in the Apostle Paul's eyes, as the priest swept across the

crowd and landed on Titus, not with suspicion, not with

disappointment, not with anger, but with warmth, maybe even a

warmth that potentially saw something in Titus that Titus

didn't yet see in himself. Have you ever felt that So after

the preaching of the gospel, as the crowds dispersed, maybe

maybe Paul sought out Titus or maybe Titus clamored and found

Paul. But the rest is history through

the preaching of the gospel of Jesus.

The relational bond between Paul and Titus took It's a bit of a

platonic Romeo and Juliet Cathy lesson Montagues right?

The likelihood that a Jew and a Greek would be close?

Very unlikely. It's a bit like the socias and

the greasers from Essie Hinton's book The Outsiders, which I hope

you read in your schooling because it's a fantastic book.

It's a strange one in a million relationship there, right?

You got to realize in the ancient world, there were a

million walls in that world that sought to separate Paul and

Titus from one another. Custom, culture, even

circumcision. We'll get around that.

But after hearing the preaching of the gospel, it seems like

those walls came down and Titus was set.

He would give up everything, leave behind everything.

Paul would take him under his wing, and they would move the

gospel forward in whatever way they could.

Maybe even Paul looked at Titus and said, dude, you might.

I don't know if you've ever thought of yourself this way,

Titus. You might be a church planner.

Who knows? So naturally, Paul, Titus grow

close together. And as they start to move the

gospel forward in the ancient world, the gospel took root at

this strange little island we learned about called Crete,

learned about this last week. That's where this letter is

going to this little island called Crete where all of a

sudden there are these messy little churches popping up that

are, when I say messy, I mean messy.

They're full of literal pirates, right?

They're filled with mercenary soldiers and even false

teachers. And so as these churches started

to pop up and grow, and Paul, of course, being an apostle, had a

million other issues to attend to, he needed to put somebody on

Crete to put things into place. So who do you think Paul brought

with them and left behind on the island of Crete to help these

churches establish a foundation of truth?

Who's the guy? Verse 4, Titus and voila, we

have the historical reason why this is even in your Bible.

But it begs another question. OK, I see that they're boys,

they're homies, they're close. Paul calls them is what's he

called them true child in a common faith.

But why Titus? I think there's two reasons.

One reason why I think Titus was the perfect leader that Paul

picked for the island of Crete is because it seems to me that

Titus was a leader of connection.

Can you guys say connection? When I say connection, I what I

think what I mean is I think Titus was naturally very

relationally intelligent. I think Titus and I'll show you

where I get this. I think Titus was natural, a

very empathetic and caring and nurturing leader.

There's a couple different verses in the Bible that lead me

to believe that. I'll give you one.

This is second Corinthians 8. Paul's writing to the church in

Corinth at this point in time. Titus is over in Corinth helping

out that church. And listen to the way that Paul

describes Titus. He says thanks be to God into

the heart of Titus, the same earnest care that I have for

you. So the word care here has

obviously connotations of gentleness and thoughtfulness

and empathy. And this is helpful to see

because you if you want to be a leader, you need to have

empathy. I'll give you one reason why

People who do not feel like you understand them won't follow

your leadership. They won't.

People who don't feel understood by you will not follow your

leadership. Now consider Crete.

Crete is a flippin mess. It's going to need a leader who

can sit down with a literal pirate, right?

A literal pirate learning to follow the ways of Jesus and

have such a gas tank of empathy and patience that they can sit

down and say, hey, I understand why you would steal from those

merchant ships in order to provide from your family.

I don't think you're I, I don't hate you.

I don't think you're a terrible human being.

I get why you would do it. I think that you honestly love

Jesus. But the way of Jesus forbids you

from stealing anymore. Those were those were the like

the types of conversations Titus was having wasn't like, hey, is

God real? Titus was like, hey, stop

killing people with your sword. OK as a pirate.

Like that's the type of discipleship that needed to take

place and and Crete. And so naturally this place

needed a leader with an enormous gas tank of patients care and

empathy. And that seems to be quite

naturally put in Titus by by God.

But listen to me. I am pro empathy.

OK, I'm on team empathy. I really am.

But however, empathy untethered from conviction and truth is

just a relational drug. As good as necessary as

connection, care, empathy is for a leader, it is a danger if it's

not balanced out by an equally strong dose of conviction,

truthfulness and doctrine. Here's the way my favorite

leadership author, Edward Friedman, A pastoral candidate.

You know what I'm saying? Friedman says it this way.

He says, quote, brave leaders are the immune system for the

entire body. An immune system regulates the

body's functions and processes and ultimately what was the

immune system do? It defends the body by fighting

off infections. So a leader with high degrees of

empathy, which are important, it irreplaceable.

But the Bible says that a pastor needs to be gentle.

So it's this is not like a take it or leave it thing.

OK so empathy is good, but a leader with high degrees of

empathy without equally high degrees of courage cannot be the

immune system of the institutions they lead.

Instead they will function as step up Transformers.

Meaning if the anxiety in the room is 100 watts, if the only

gift the person has is empathy, then the solely empathetic

leader will take on the anxiety in the room, absorb it, and then

amplify it back and increase the anxiety up to 11,000 watts.

So leaders also need a backbone that allows them to stay in

touch without getting zapped to remain non anxious.

Love empathy, but it needs to be balanced by equally strong

dosage of truth and conviction. Which brings me to the second

reason why I think Titus was a good fit for Crete.

He was a leader of connection. He was also a leader of

conviction. I personally, I personally, this

is a guess again, OK, I'm hypothesizing I personally not

because I don't love the word of God, but because sometimes we

fail to see the emotional relational depth within the word

of God. So I personally think that

having a backbone was a learned skill for Titus and not a

natural skill for Titus. I think he had to develop and

cultivate that who a sue. He wrote a Pulitzer Prize

winning book called stay true. He has this little quote on

friendship. He says quote.

There are many currencies to friendship.

We may be drawn to someone who makes us feel bright and

hopeful, someone who can always make us laugh.

Perhaps there are friendships that are instrumental, where the

appeal is what they can do for us.

There are friends we talked to only about serious things,

others who only make sense in the blitzed merriment of deep

night. What a wonderful sentence that

is. Wow.

There are friends who only make sense in the blitzed merriment

of deep night. Some friends complete us, while

other friends complicate us. I personally think my hunch is

that Titus was drawn to Paul because he was strong where

Titus was weak. And the reason I say this is

because if you look at the Jewish culture of that day and

the Greek culture of that day, they actually create pretty

predictable types of human beings.

The Jewish atmosphere that Paul grew up in prized faithfulness

to truth, prized doctrine. Breathing that air as a child

would naturally produce a more bold, courageous, brave person

like Paul who stands on the corner of the marketplace and

preaches the gospel and lets all the criticisms bounce off of

them. The Greek atmosphere that Titus

grew up in prized intellectual curiosity more.

There was more openness to different ways of thinking about

this God and that God. And so naturally, the Greek

culture would have produced somebody who's more empathetic

towards others, probably like Titus.

So my hunch is that see Titus seeing Paul so confident in the

gospel, right, that the criticism bouncing off of him on

the marketplace, standing his ground with a backbone.

My hunch is that seeing Paul so convicted made a light bulb go

off above Titus's head, and he thought, I wonder if you've ever

thought this before? Huh.

I should probably be more like that, luckily for Titus.

If you did think that, luckily for Titus, following Paul around

on a daily basis would have been a master class for boldness,

read the book of Acts. Dude has a backbone.

I'll give you my favorite holy crap moment from Paul and

Titus's relationship. Master class on what does it

look like to stand your ground and stay convicted in the truth.

It would have been amazing for Titus to follow Paul around in

the ancient world. Paul mentions this moment in

Galatians 2 verses one through three.

OK, he says Galatians. After 14 years I went again to

Jerusalem with Barnabas taking who?

And he took Titus along with him.

What happened when they went to Jerusalem?

Well, Paul tells us what didn't happen.

He says even Titus, who was with me was not forced to be

circumcised, even though he was a, a Greek.

He what? He didn't have to do what to his

what? What happened?

What what is it? What does that have to do with

anything? Titus wasn't forced to be

circumcised. Well, OK, the moment that Paul

is writing to roll up your sleeves, we're having some fun

here. Grab a towel, bite down on it.

Luckily for you, the moment Paul's writing about is

documented in Acts chapter 16. I'll give you the SparkNotes

Acts 16 · chapter mention

cold IKEA version of it. So Jerusalem's churches at that

point in time were still predominantly Jewish, which

meant that there was a lot of Jewish custom in there.

And naturally that created a lot of arguments of like, OK, well,

what? What does a person have to do to

follow Jesus and to be a Christian?

Paul was preaching the gospel of grace.

Paul said faith alone in Jesus alone you're in.

That's everything. The Jewish people were like, not

so fast there, cowboy. The Jewish people were like,

well, we've been doing all of this other stuff for super long.

So we think that you've got to do these other things in

addition to believing in Jesus in order to be saved.

For instance, we think that people should be circumcised,

otherwise God doesn't love them, right?

This was you can criticize them. It would have felt pretty

natural for these Jews in Jerusalem to think that way.

Yeah, Bros got a snip snap there.

You know what's in circumcision? Otherwise they're not

Christians, and otherwise they're not really dedicated.

Now, this was a form of works based salvation.

You got to do something in addition to believing in Jesus

that Paul's entire career was opposed to.

He hated us. It ran contrary to the gospel of

grace. And so, luckily for Paul in

Jerusalem, they decided to have a council on the matter.

Let's get together and let's make an official decision.

Does a person need to be circumcised to be fully included

in the church and to be a full member of the family of God?

Let's have a council on it. So what do you think Paul did?

Paul's like, I'm going, bro, I'm coming.

I'm going. And you, I'm going to do I'm,

I'm not just, I'm not just going to it.

I'm bringing Titus with me. I like, I can't prove this.

I like to imagine that he didn't even tell Titus why he brought

him with him, right. Like you just kind of snuck him

in. Like, hey, Titus, you want to go

to, you want to go to a Christian Passion conference

now? Chandler's preaching, Piper's

preaching. You want to come to the school

conference? Titus was like, yeah, I want to

learn how to be a leader, right? And so they roll.

They roll into Jerusalem. Paul's like, I'm crashing the

party. I'm going to bring an

uncircumcised Greek with me just to make my point.

I'm going to do it. So the two of them arrive in

Jerusalem, only batting 500 in circumcision between the two of

them, one out of two. It's not.

It's not. It's great baseball.

They'll get in the Hall of Fame, not great in Judaism, in

Jerusalem. OK.

So they walk in, only one of them circumcised.

And as they walk into the council, the tension in the room

is already thick. They're already arguing, right?

This is heated. Paul.

I don't know. He's probably smiling, right?

Because. Because push back.

And criticism for Paul is like protein.

He loves it. So he walks into the thick

atmosphere. He's like, yeah, baby, let's,

let's do this. And Titus sits down.

They sit down, ready to hear about the subject at hand.

Somebody gets up to announce it. We're talking about whether or

not a person needs to be circumcised in order to be a

Christian. You can imagine Titus.

He goes ghostly, pale white, clutches his pearls, goes, What

do they want to do? Paul's like, relax, bro, I got

you read, read Acts 16. They start pressing him on it.

All right? They don't leave it like a

hypothetical, like, hey, let's draw.

Should a person be certain? Let's draw it out on the

whiteboard. They, they press after Paul and

Titus, right? They, they're like, hey, you're

not circumcised. And it's hard for us as modern

people to understand what the big deal about circumcision was.

Do you like, do you ever hear stories like this?

And you're like, what's the big deal?

Well, I'll give you 3 no brainer facts about the ancient world,

about circumcision that made it a big deal.

I won't be terribly crude. I'll just say the facts and you

can choose what you want to do with your imagination.

Here's #1 here's number one, they didn't have fact number

one, why circumcision was such a big deal.

They didn't have social media, duh.

But because they didn't have social media, they actually had

to choose other ways of boldly declaring their faith rather

than just writing it on their bio.

They couldn't just host what they believed.

They had to actually, I know this is a novel concept.

They had to actually show it with their lives.

And suppose there was a certain part of male anatomy that was

more tender than the other parts of male anatomy.

It would make natural sense that to see whether a person was

really in or out on this whole God thing was their willingness

to embrace pain in that particular area.

Are you guys following me? Do you want me to stop #2 #2

Here's why it was such a big deal in the ancient world.

They didn't have painkillers in the ancient world.

Yeesh #3 they didn't have sharp metal blades or knives or

surgical knives. What they had were stones.

Yikes, give me a towel, I'll bite down on it and let's do

this. All of that forms a culture that

says we all did it. Abraham did it in his 90s.

Bro, are you not really committed?

So you see how this all forms a culture where, like, this is

actually a big deal to them. So as they're arguing about

this, you can imagine a man sharpening stones in the

background while making shady eye contact with Titus.

Step up to the plate, bro. And in a stunning display of

gospel conviction, Paul says no. Not going to do it, bro.

Paul stands his ground. He doesn't capitulate, he

doesn't give any ground, he doesn't cave.

He preaches the gospel. He says no, The gospel of Jesus

is by grace through faith alone, apart from any works of the law.

Amen. Nothing you can do will save

you, only the saving work of Christ.

So you can be circumcised or not, You can eat meat or not.

If a person has faith in Jesus Christ, that's the one and only

thing that makes them a Christian.

And Paul wins the argument. Titus breathes a large sigh of

relief. And I'm assuming a deeper bond

of affection and gratitude between Paul and Titus emerges

as a result of this. Can you imagine what their

friendship felt like after that? You are my dog, OK?

I'll follow you wherever you want to go.

I'll follow you, right? A deep breath and here's here's

the point. Titus learned this was all

training for him as a leader. Paul's not just bringing him

along as an object lesson and put him on the cutting board.

This is all a leadership lesson. Titus learned in this very

nerving situation, what it looked like to be a leader who

didn't let people walk all over him.

He learned and this experience very anxious top room, what it

looks like to stick to gospel doctrine alone and to not let

people bully him into compromise.

And these two pieces of his personality coming together

would have made, I think, Titus a very convicted leader and a

very connective leader. And this is the critical blend

of the Christian leader. They must be connected and

convicted and pathetic and truthful.

Not 5050. It's not about picking like, oh,

you know, I'm just 80% conviction, but 20% connection,

right? It's not.

You can't be like, yeah, relationships are my thing.

Truth isn't my thing, right? It's 101.

See, This is why you need friends, because you're going to

hit your notes off the table and you're going to be lost.

And then you've got a will cook in your life, bro.

Dude, I didn't have a sermon analogy to end it with.

I might come back to that, thanks homie.

Didn't need it. It's not 5050, right?

It Christian leaders need to be 100% empathetic, caring,

empathetic, connected, loving, and 100% convicted of the truth.

This is important to recognize because in a lot of times people

just, they naturally have a, they have a propensity towards

one or the other. And to have one at the expense

of the other always results in disaster.

Like if you have a, if you have an empathy fetish, then what

you're going to be able to do is make people feel really

understood. But if you don't care about

truth and doctrine, you, you will.

You'll be the type of leader who empathizes, empathizes people

all the way to hell. You'll see them drowning in the

lake of fire. And rather than leaning down and

trying to pull them out, you'll say, I can see how your family

of origins would make you jump in this lake of fire.

There's a lot of us who have just a doctrinal truth

conviction fetish, and if that's not equally balanced out by care

and nurture, then you'll just end up starting a bunch of

bullying fights with people. And you'll make the truth look

ugly to people. And you'll be the type of people

who goes around wielding truth in such a way without any

relational warmth that people will jump into the lake of fire

just to get away from you. So you don't want to pick one or

the other. You want to say, God, where do I

need to grow? Do I need to grow as a leader in

conviction, or do I need to grow as a leader in connection?

Crete needed both of them. You'll see that as you walk

through this letter. Absolute crapshoot.

There's literal pirates. There's mercenary soldiers.

These people love Jesus, but they were a mess.

Mixed into that group was false teachers eager to leverage the

church for their own agenda, arguing, fighting, stealing on a

daily basis in these churches in Crete.

But do you know what doesn't sound as hard after the

Jerusalem circumcision debacle? Leading and loving pirates.

Titus was well trained to walk into this environment with both

conviction and connection. So of course, who did Paul trust

enough to leave behind and Crete to lead these churches through

establishing doctrine and truth and training up elders to lead

the church and teaching the church how to live out the

Christian faith? You know, Paul left Titus behind

and Crete. And So what this whole letter

is, is it's Paul writing to Titus a manual for how to be a

church. They don't know how to do it,

how to be a church. And as we walk through it, we'll

probably recognize that we don't know how to be a church either.

We have our own struggles. And I love the way that Paul

like, did you see what Paul calls Titus?

He he calls him a true child of the common faith.

Why true child? True child?

I think because Paul didn't have any biological children.

He never knew what that felt like.

But because of the gospel in the church, do you know what?

Paul had a lot of children. Why is that modifier true in

front of the word child? Why true child?

Because Paul wants to let you know that father son

relationships or mother daughter relationships in the church are

not second rate relationships. Family is not a metaphor of the

church wrong. It's a fact of the church.

The church isn't like a family. The church is the family of God.

You're either good or bad at acting like a family.

You're not either a family or not a family.

It it's the reality. And so Titus de Paul is a true

child of the common faith. You feel the depth of this

relationship. You feel the warmth of this

relationship. I'm doing all of this

biographical sketch, trying to get a picture of Titus and Paul

in your imagination. I'm doing all this because I

just want to boil it down to a single question and ask you, do

you want these types of relationships?

You don't have to be best friends with everybody in the

church. You don't have to be tight with

everybody who wants to be tight with you in the church.

It's OK to have boundaries. Also, the quality of your life

will be determined by the quality of your relationships.

It's just a fact. You don't have quality

relationships. Life is not going to feel like a

quality of life. And that's not just pop

psychology crap. That's theology.

The you can't get rid of the feeling in your heart I want

deep relationships. You can't get rid of it.

And the reason it's there, it's because it might be the best

evidence that God exists in the entire cosmos.

It's evidence of the God whose image you're created in.

The Christian God is triune, He's Trinity, He's three persons

and one godfather, Son, Holy Spirit.

They're distinct in personhood. The Father's not the Son, the

Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit's not the Father, and

they're one in essence. The Father is God, the Son is

God, the Spirit is God and they are one.

God is He is literally like the essence of his character.

He is relationship to be created in his image means if I don't

have deep relationship, I'm going to feel dead inside.

And if I do have deep relationship, I can deal with

all the other crap. I can do the taxes, I can do the

50 hour work weeks, I can do the sleepless nights.

If I have relationships, I'm good.

You're built that way. You're wired that way because of

what God is like. But here's the rub.

The modern human being has cultivated a view of friendships

that echoes the slogan of Target.

Expect more payless. That's everybody in the room.

Why relationships are hard for us?

It's because we expect more and we payless.

We have expectations for our friends that we don't hold

ourselves to. And so we go on our life as a

crusade of destroying relationships and then leaving

them, destroying them and leaving them not dealing with

problems. And the reason why is because we

have expectations for them that we don't have for ourselves.

If the friendship isn't deep enough, it's because they never

asked me questions about my heart, It's them.

If the friendship isn't strong enough, it's because they never

do anything nice for me. It's them.

If if the friendship doesn't take, if it's not constant

enough, it's because they never pursue me, right?

Marriage counseling is this way, right?

Couples famously get together and he said, she said, your

friendships are like that too, right?

You all whenever your relationship isn't working out,

you always look at it and say it's because of him.

It's because of her and I. I need you to listen to me for

your joy and for your sake. Stop the healthiest thing you

can do if you want to develop deep lifelong Jesus centered

relationships. You take the responsibility for

the quality of your friendships and put them on your own

shoulders. If you do that over the long

haul, your relationships will get deeper and wider and you'll

blame less and enjoy more. But you've got to be willing to

look at the weaknesses in your friendships and say, OK, that's

my responsibility. Too many minor people, they

just, they refuse to get on the field and play and they sit in

the nosebleeds willingly. They sit in the nosebleeds and

then they complain about the view, right?

If you stand at a distance from people, you'll throw rocks at

them. I guarantee you.

If you stand at a distance from our church, you're going to

throw rocks at it. It's always how it works.

But the people who give more are invested more, experience, more

joy in it. And so I know this is hard to

hear, but are you lonely? You go start up a conversation.

Do you wish somebody would pray for you?

You go pray for them. Do you wish somebody would

encourage you? You go encourage them.

You can actually control that. You can't control them.

Do you wish somebody would initiate with you?

You go initiate with them. The ultimate form of hypocrisy

is you expecting something to be in a relationship that you're

unwilling to bring. Yeah.

The ultimate form of hypocrisy is you expecting something to be

in a relationship that you're unwilling to bring in.

The Christian standing in the blood of a God who sees

relationship is so valuable that he shed his own blood for it.

The Christian goes to the cross and says here, my Lord, send me,

send me here, my Lord, send me I it's Some people think the

church is just about truth, and it is absolutely.

If you miss truth and you miss doctrine, you don't have a

church. So I'm a truth guy.

But if all you have is truth without relationship, I don't

even think Satan finds the church a threat.

When did Satan, like have you read Genesis?

Ask yourself the question, when did Satan show up in Genesis?

It's not when God creates Adam. It's not when God creates the

cosmos. It's not when God creates the

sun and the moon and the stars. It's not when God creates the

animals. When does Satan show up?

Satan doesn't. Satan shows up when God creates

relationship between Adam and Eve.

That's when Satan's like, oh, I got to, I got to get in the mix

of this. That's the threat is the way the

gospel comes through relationships.

I mean, you see this even like God calls Genesis is all a

cascade of God saying that's good, that's good, that's good.

He creates something. He says good, good, good, good.

And then the first instance of not good in the Bible, it comes

before sin is even there. Have you ever noticed that

there's no sin? Adam is in, he's walking in

relationship with God, paradise. He's in paradise and God finds

something to look at and say that's not good.

What is it? It's not good for man to be what

alone? Some people say things like all

I need is God, and that's true for your salvation, but that God

that God doesn't actually say that right?

He he says actually you need my people too.

Not not good for man to be like imagine.

OK, this is crazy. Imagine yourself in paradise.

Nobody's there. Nobody's bothering you.

There's no sin, no shame, no anxiety.

You are in a perfect relationship, harmonious with

God. In paradise, God would call that

not good. Why?

Because you need companionship, friendship, relationship with

other image bearers, God. And so that so much of church

and the Christian life is allowing the truth of the gospel

to work itself out in the context of our relationships.

It's massive. I came across a 15 second clip

on Instagram that I just, I get in these moods where I just get

sappy and soft and I find these stupid clips on Instagram and I

just watch them on repeat, you know?

And the one that I found that really I just, I watched on

repeat for like 5 minutes. All it was was a high school

pitcher. He was throwing a strikeout in

the 9th inning. And the strikeout was recorded

by his dad in the stands on his, on his phone.

And the title of the video was, it was like a 10 second.

It was 10 seconds. And the title of the video was

my dad's reaction to my final strikeout in the game.

So dad's watching his son. Son throws a strikeout and the

dad's responses, he starts screaming into the phone after

the strikeout. He starts screaming with pride

and joy. He's like, he goes, yeah, baby,

that's my boy. He says it like 5 times.

He's like, that's my boy. Yeah, baby, that's my boy.

And I was like, oh man, that's, that is so sweet.

And then what took it to the next level was a pinned comment

underneath the video, the comment that they pinned to the

top. Some random anonymous stranger

on the Internet was watching this father celebrate his son.

Yeah, baby, that's my boy. And typed out the comment, The

stuff I would do to hear this. There are people in this room

never had a father figure, mother figure, coach, authority

figure, teacher, ever. They would do anything to hear

it. They've never had an influential

figure in their life. Look at them and say, yeah,

baby, that's my boy, that's my girl right there.

And that breaks God's heart. It is not good for woman or man

to be alone, and God has a solution for that.

His solution is to die on a cross to redeem people and to

make them into a family called the church.

And so the church, it's supposed to be the play.

It's not just the place you go to hear preaching.

I love that you love that. The church needs to be the place

where people who have never heard.

Yeah, baby, that's my boy. And think the stuff I would do

to hear this. The church needs to be the place

where we don't have to do any stuff to hear that we're friends

or spiritual fathers, Spiritual mothers look at us and say to

it, you're kicking butt as a mother.

That's my girl. Go get it right.

It's so important for us to have that.

Jesus shows us this at the foot of the cross.

Gosh, OK, I'm sorry. Just look, give me this and I'll

be done. When Jesus is, when Jesus is

dying on the cross, he's stretched out in pain.

He's being crucified. He's absorbing the wrath of God

for all of the sin of this people.

He's dry to the bone, man. He's bleeding from every square

inch of his body. And standing in front of him are

a lot of people, but two people in particular.

His mom, right? Mary's watching all of this.

This is mom. He loves her.

There's also John, the only disciple who didn't bail on him.

That's his buddy. OK, Jesus is about to leave.

And it is not good for Mary to be alone and it is not good for

John to be alone. Those two are just

acquaintances, right? I'm, I'm assuming Mary and John

bumped into each other while Jesus was hanging out all

together. They knew each other.

They were acquaintances, but Jesus didn't want them to remain

acquaintances. And so he bleeds for them on the

cross. And do you know what he says to

Mary? He looks at Mary and he says,

mother, behold your son. And he says to John, John,

behold your mother, what's going on in the blood of Christ there?

He's not just saving individuals from their sin.

Yes, he is, but he's establishing in his blood, in

the shadow of the cross, a family.

He's giving his mother to John to have a mom, and he's giving

John to his mother to have a son.

And if you stand in the blood of Jesus long enough and in the

shadow of the cross long enough, you should be knit together with

other believers so that you become a spiritual mother or

father or a spiritual son or daughter.

Jesus died for you to have deep discipleship oriented

friendships that magnify and put the glory of Jesus on display.

That's what's behind this verse. That's why Paul can look at a

Greek but have anything in common with and say, you are my

true child in the faith. It's so moving and touching.

And I think it's the gospel that allowed Paul to look at Titus

and say, hey, you might be a church planter.

You might be a, you might be a a great friend.

I think you can become a great follower of Jesus.

You might become a great worship leader, whatever The thing is,

have you ever seen something in somebody that they haven't seen?

Maybe you want to start doing that by the power of Jesus this

morning, Heavenly Father, I pray that you would make a make us

into a family. Make us people who are the

people behind us in the pews right now.

That's our mother and father in the faith, the people who are in

front of us right now. Those are our true children in

the faith, our true sons and daughters.

And so would you build this church together?

Would you make Paul Titus relationships, mother, daughter

relationships, father son relationships.

May the church be the place where people who look at a

father celebrating his son throwing a strike out and

yelling, that's my boy, where people who say I would do

anything to hear that this is the place where they should hear

it. And if they don't hear it from

other people, that's a shame. If they don't hear it from other

Christians, that's a shame. But if they don't hear from

other people, I pray that they would hear it from you, that you

in this moment, right now, would look at those whom you have

adopted and made your family, and that they would hear

themselves by virtue of the gospel alone, That they would

hear you say, My beloved daughter, my beloved son, in

whom I am well pleased, would the familial affection of a

heavenly Father floor us this morning.

Please do that in and through our hearts.

In the precious name of Jesus, all God's people prayed man.