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October 9, 2022
The Benefits Of Truth
Titus 1:1-4

INTRO

• The title of the sermon: The Benefits Of Truth
• 62-66 AD a safe estimate.[4]
• Constable thought that Paul may have visited Crete more than once, perhaps spending time to plant churches there after his first Roman imprisonment. Utley thought that Paul may have had an additional missionary journey not recorded in the NT. “In any case he had been there and had instructed Titus to remain there when he departed.” (Constable; Utley)
• We know from Galatians 2:3 that Titus–as his name suggests–was a Greek. He had probably become a Christian through Paul’s ministry. He was a protégé of Paul (Titus 1:4), and we know from Acts that Titus had been with Paul since the early part of his ministry.
• Titus had important roles in the ministry of the word. He served as Paul’s delegate to the Corinthian church during Paul’s third missionary journey (2 Cor. 12). He was also trusted with the important offering from the Macedonia and Achaian churches for the poor saints in Jerusalem (2 Cor. 8)." (Constable)
• His name comes up no fewer than 12 times in the NT.
• Titus was an important person in the first century.

4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith:

• my child = term of endearment
• Paul had taken Titus under his wing and Titus had learned from Paul.
• In a common faith.
  • Not a worldly faith
  1. Utley said, “This may be a direct antithesis to the false teachers’ elitism and exclusivism.” So he would see “common” here is used to speak of the faith that is commonly available to humankind.
  2. I see this as Paul saying, you are my brother in arms–my ministry brother.
     • Listen to something Paul wrote of Titus: in 2 Corinthians 8:16, “But thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you.” COMMENT

4b Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

• Common greeting: Grace and peace
• Grace is what all humans need; peace is what most humans want.
  • The peace of man always comes with his requirements. The world would claim that they offer things like peace. But these things in actuality only proceed from God.
• In verse 4 Paul wrote Jesus is Savior. In verse 3 he wrote God is. This is a good place to remember that all three Persons of God participate in our salvation.
  • When writing about Christ’s Deity and authority that he ascribes to the Father, Paul almost certainly wrote such words in his letters, in part, to combat the heretical teachings of the Judaizers and straiten out the doctrine of the newly converted Jewish Christians. (Mounce in Constable)
  • Strong Christology
  • We are trinitarian here: Father, Son, Holy Spirit

1 Paul, a servant of God [a δοῦλος of God = a slave of God] and an apostle of Jesus Christ,

• ESV et al. servant >> slave
• “Servant” is doulos, the most lowest and most miserable term in use among the Greeks for a slave. In other words, this word for slave was the lowest class of slavery. (Wuest in Constable)
• I quote in part what Wuest wrote, This self-labeled expression “refers to one whose will is swallowed up in the will of another.”[12] COMMENT (Wuest in Constable)
• Paul’s was willing to have his life swallowed up into God’s will for him without reservation.
• The title was used of the OT heroes of Moses (Josh 14:7), David (Ps 89:3; cf. 2 Sam 7:5, 8) and Elijah (2 Kgs 10:10).¹
• Can you say you’re God’s slave this morning? I can’t.
• Jesus explained that becoming a slave of God has a high price associated with it; one should count the cost. But it is a choice in discipleship.
• Servant of humankind, slave of humankind, these are the higher callings of God that is available to every believer.

End of verse 1: “AND an apostle of Jesus Christ”

• Apostle = a delegate, messenger, one sent forth with orders [and message] (OBU)
• Apostleship was at least one of Paul’s spiritual gifts.

APPLICATION

• Regarding Spiritual Gifts
• Spiritual gifts are assigned by the Holy Spirit
• Everyone has at least one.
• Every believer should know his spiritual gifts(s). Look to our website for gift passages.
• Believers should desire the greater gifts.
• God puts all gifts, honor wise, on equally footing so there should be no jealousy or animosity in the Body.
• We are supposed to practice all the gifts of the Spirit although we may not be specifically gifted in each gift.
  • Hospitality
  • Evangelism
  • Giving
  • Even Apostleship! Roman 1:4b-5 says, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

Paul was an Apostle—look at it at the end of verse 1—for the sake of the faith of God’s elect

• Almost all spiritual gifts are for the benefit of the Body of Christ—with at least one exception.
• Paul knew his ministry’s purpose: “the faith of God’s elect”
  • Faith—of course—is a key ingredient for justification (saved from the penalty of sin), but it is also a key ingredient for our day-to-day salvation (our sanctification).
    • In faith we are saved from sin’s power unto holiness and good works)
    • Paul’s drive was for the building up of the faith in the church.
  • We focus here on the faith of santification due to the phrase "of God’s elect = ἐκλεκτός and ἐκλογή
    • ἐκλεκτός = picked out, chosen; selected (Thayer)
    • There has been much debate—for 2000 years—it would seem on what that means.
    • But I like to focus on the universal agreement: the elect of God are those that are in Christ.
    • When one goes much further one will find those—2000 year old arguments and disagreements.
    • It is my opinion that we must conclude some mystery in this matter of election, especially regarding difficult verses such as Romans 11:28.
    • Although surrounded with some mystery, the biblical teaching on election must be in part to assure believers that “their salvation is all of God from beginning to end.”[14] (In Constable)
    • PAUL’S MINISTRY WAS FOR THE CHURCH–THE ELECT OF GOD AND FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE…look at verse 1:
• and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness,
  • Paul worked tirelessly in the building up of the saints, and one of the purposes that comes up time and time again in his letters to the churches was his constant efforts to strengthen the members’ knowledge of truth.
  • knowledge = ἐπίγνωσις = by implication > full discernment (Strong) BUT lit. means: recognition; recognition of a mistake, determination of a fact (LSJ).
• Knowledge of the “truth”
  • Truth is based in the facts of the faith … what God has said.
  • We don’t make truth. We discover all truth. Whether it be math, science, or theology, all truth is God’s truth.
  • Paul of course had theology in mind here.
• Knowledge of the truth will always be—look at it in verse 1b: “accords with godliness.”
  • truth always likes up with Christ-likeness.
  • In other words, we are in possession of truth only as evidenced by good works.
  • Paul absolutely agreed with James.
  • We act on what we believe.
• Paul’s effort for the knowledge of the truth was needed for several reasons:
  1. The church was being persecuted.
  2. The seeds of Gnosticism and Docetism had began to take root which held out a secret knowledge to its disciples. This “knowledge” separated itself from a holy life due to one of their core beliefs: all matter is evil.
  3. Many in the Church had come out of the worst kinds of paganism. He wanted to help them and that help comes from God and His life changing truth.
  4. Least we forget too: the church members still have their flesh too.
  • The flesh is constantly warring against God’s knowledge of the truth.

The world will constantly give all people a presentation of its truth.

ILLUSTRATION

From Stanford University

In “Pluralist Theories of Truth”:

The plausibility of theories of truth has often been observed to vary, sometimes extensively, across different domains or regions of discourse. Because of this variance, the problems internal to each such theory become salient as they overgeneralize. A natural suggestion is therefore that not all (declarative) sentences in all domains are true in exactly the same way. Sentences in mathematics, morals, comedy, chemistry, politics, and gastronomy may be true in different ways, if and when they are ever true.¹

In “Logical Truth”

As it turns out, it is very hard to think of universally accepted ideas about what the generic properties of logical truths are or should be.²

APPLICATION

• That is where man’s knowledge will take us. Where mathematics is talked about in the same way as comedy. Where there is no such thing as objective truth save of course there is not such thing as object truth.
• Did God really say …?
• Cultural rejects God’s truth to seer their consciences so they may have their immorality.
• God’s truth >> godliness
• If we start to see godliness slip in any area of life, knowledge of the truth has been diminished.

TRANSITION

Now that we see that God’s truth leads to godliness, let’s look at a key ingredient Paul pointed to for his motivation in the ministry of knowledge of the truth.

• again in verse 1, “and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness,” 2 in hope of eternal life,
  • The three supreme Chritian virtues are Faith, hope and Love.
  • Hope looks to the future in relation to the promises of God.
  • Truth thrives INSIDE OF hope of eternal life. COMMENT

  • [Barclay wrote,] The Christian offer is nothing less than the offer of a share in the life of God. It is the offer of God’s power for our frustration, of God’s serenity for our dispeace, of God’s truth for our guessing, of God’s goodness for our moral failure, of God’s joy for our sorrow. (Barclay)

• which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began
  • “God, who never lies.”
  • The truth we are holding today was promised, predicted and prophesied.
  • Eternal life to the elect was determined before the “time of forever” (αἰώνιος).
    • Knight III said, “Eternal life was something that God had promised from eternity past.”[16] (In Constable)

ILLUSTRATION

Isaiah 11:1-9
Isaiah 25:8-9
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
John 14:2
Philippians 3:20
1 John 3:1-3
Revelation 21:4-7
Revelation 22:3-5

APPLICATION

• These verses describe the truth of eternal life awaiting for us.
• These are given to us to drive our hopes to heaven.
• It’s these promises that motivate us to godliness by fully embracing God’s truth.
• To take advantage of the truth that leads to godliness, our focus must remain on the finish line, the starting line of 1000 millennia times 1000 millennia times 1000 millennia of eternal blessings.
• If your focus is not there you will find an erosion of godliness.
• Misplaced hope is a core problem of the carnal Christian.
• Our hope is in the world and its solutions or it is in heaven with God, our ultimate destiny.
• Godliness cannot thrive without hope. TRUTH IS PRODUCTIVE IN HOPE.

Now that we have seen and read the truth of God leading to godliness must be IN HOPE of eternal life, let’s see a means by which eternal life is to be communicated. Look at 3b.

3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching

• manifested = be made known; make actual and visible, realized (OBU)
  • revealed look at it >>> “at the proper time”
    • It sounds cliché but, God’s always on time.
• We need to remember, all people throughout time have not had as much insight into the mind and heart of God as we do.
  • We have no record of much specific revelation to man from God from 6000 to 1425 BC. COMMENT
  • Over the course of 1500 years God communicated His truth to mankind.
  • It’s was settled in via the Canon over 1600 years ago.
  • Now we have much revelation. Why? It’s the proper time.
• Now is the time to preach Christ and Him crucified for the sins of the world.

with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior,
- Paul had a charge from God: preach truth that results in life change of people.
- He passed that passion on to others.
- Paul exercised his spiritual gifts for God’s glory.
- “entrusted” = given something one must use or guard carefully.
- 1 Corinthians 4:1-2, This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

ILLUSTRATION

“Tradition has it that Titus, having become first bishop of Crete, died there in advanced years. His successor, Andreas Cretensis, eulogized him in the following terms: ‘The first foundation-stone of the Cretan church; the pillar of the truth; the stay of the faith; the never silent trumpet of the evangelical message; the exalted echo of Paul’s own voice’.”[3] (Hughes in Constable)

CHARGE

• We are the elect of God.
• Godliness is the evidence of the knowledge of truth being real in our lives in the moments.
• The hope of eternal life must guide our decisions today and in the future.
• You and I have been given a trust too.
• We have been gifted by God.
• We have been given truth by God.
• We must prove ourselves faithful.

Notes

¹ Pedersen, Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding and Cory Wright, “Pluralist Theories of Truth”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/truth-pluralist/.

² Gómez-Torrente, Mario, “Logical Truth”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2022/entries/logical-truth/.

Bibliography and Works Cited

• NOTE: Please click here to access the web-page for all of the works cited–save those below under the “Other Works Cited” (if any). Most of the works cited on the web-page, correspond to the verses they are outlined with. In the case of background information and other general reference citations, one will find cited material with the Bible books the citations are associated with.
• Scripture quotations [unless otherwise noted] are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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