Hope And Promise

It is always interesting when
you call someone for the first time and I can remember the first
phone call I made out here to your pastor and he’s right. I was very concerned. I called
another place or two because Alan was looking for a place
to do his work to become a veterinarian and I really could not find a
church where The pastor tried to exposit the scriptures. Most
of them were doctrinally somewhat different from us. And I called
out here and sensed very quickly that the church here was doctrinally
pretty much where we were. And I am very thankful that my
children have been able to find this church and become a part
of it. I’m thankful for your pastor
and for each of you who has done so much to make them feel welcome.
You will probably discover pretty quickly that I did not grow up
in the state of Michigan. There are still remnants of a
southern accent. And so I grew up in Tennessee.
And I grew up in an area that I call the beautiful mountains.
I call the mountains out here majestic. That’s my comparison. Our mountains were green all
the way to the top and something was blooming, except in the wintertime,
something was blooming constantly on those mountains. One place
in particular, how many of you even know what rhododendron is?
Almost all of you. The top of Roan Mountain, Tennessee
in North Carolina, is a rhododendron garden. It’s all natural. And
sometime in late June, the whole top of that mountain will be
ablaze with color. Just absolutely phenomenal. People
come from all over the world to see it. And so that’s where
we’re from originally. I’d like to have you take your
Bibles this morning and turn to Titus. And I wasn’t given
a time to quit, so I’m going to preach till I’m done. But the first chapter of Paul’s
letter to Titus. And let’s pray and ask God to
bless as we open the word this morning. Father in heaven, we
are grateful for every opportunity to preach your word. We thank you for the opportunity
to preach here in this church. And we ask that your hand of
blessing would be upon Pastor Ron. and the entire congregation
here at Providence Bible Church. We are grateful for our Lord
Jesus Christ, his sacrifice on our behalf, and that we have
the privilege to serve him. As we open your word this morning,
may we do so with clarity, and may the Spirit of God use that
word to impact our lives for the glory of Jesus Christ, in
whose name we pray. Amen. We are often faced when
we come to a new book to deal with, with an introduction to
that book. And very often the temptation,
I think, is to just kind of read over the introduction and get
to the good stuff. What I’ve discovered through the years,
as we have tried to exposit through New Testament books and Old Testament
books both, but especially in Paul’s writings, it seems very
clear that whatever Paul says in his introduction is really
directly tied in with everything else that comes in that book.
You also see that, for example, in John’s gospel where everything
in John’s gospel relates some way to the prologue. The first
18 verses of John’s gospel is almost that gospel in a nutshell.
And then he just expounds on everything that he’s mentioned
there in those first 18 verses. And so I want to take you just
to the second verse here in chapter one of Titus. I’m going to tie
it in with verse one a little bit, but that’s where we want
to go. It’s actually true that the first
four verses of Titus make up one long sentence of the apostle. And the context of these verses
is so rich and so deep that a full understanding of them requires
a lot of thought and a lot of study. The depth of meaning is
one of the great wonders of the word of God. For example, the
simplicity of John’s gospel is admitted by the most rigorous
Bible scholars. And yet we also find those scholars
dealing with the depth of what John says there and the teachings
of Christ that are found there for their entire lives and still
being in awe that they haven’t been able to comprehend all of
it. Someone once said that John’s
gospel is shallow enough for a child to wade in and deep enough
for the greatest theologians to drown in. And that is typical
of the Word of God. We see simplicity and depth in
the words of Christ in general. And so a man like Martin Lloyd-Jones
could preach for 60 consecutive Sunday mornings on the Sermon
on the Mount. without monotonously repeating
himself. Several years ago, I read through
a book titled Our Lord Prays for His Own. It was written by
a man named Marcus Rainsford, 19th century pastor in Ireland
and in England. The book consists of 41 chapters
or 41 sermons from the Lord’s Prayer in John 17. And you think, 41 sermons from
John 17? The man must have been repeating
himself constantly. And yet, if you read through
that book, you would find that he does not belabor anything. The Word of God is deep and rich. And it demands our thorough study
You’ll note that Paul in these opening verses of Titus is setting
out to build arguments for his letter. He begins by emphasizing
the gospel. And that is going to be an emphasis
that he continues throughout the book. And so it really encourages
us or forces us to understand the opening words of the letter
in some kind of a thorough fashion. They are much deeper than we
often give them credit for being. Now what did Paul intend to get
across in the whole of this letter to Titus and to others who would
read the letter? Well, Gromacki said this about
Paul’s theme. He said, Paul recognized that
God had proposed to give men eternal life even before the
beginning of the world and that God had personally elected him
to salvation. His responsibility was to lead
God’s elect into saving faith and to the acknowledging of the
truth, which is after godliness. This latter phrase introduces
the theme of the letter. And here’s what Gromacki said
is the theme. He said apprehension of spiritual truth should issue
in godly living. And if you think about that,
you have, following this introduction, very quickly in Titus’ words,
a listing of what is involved for someone who is in ministry.
What elders are to live like. And elders are to live out the
realities of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are to live in holiness. Now, before your pastor wants
me to leave, Let me remind you that none of us lives out the
holiness God demands perfectly. There are no perfect pastors.
But we are to live as examples. And so he follows on the heels
of his introduction with the qualification for the elders.
And that doesn’t mean that you’re eloquent. I suppose that doesn’t
hurt, but it doesn’t mean that you are. What is required there
is a life of holiness as an example to the flock. And so Paul reminds
us that through hearing and understanding God’s word, it is vital that
we come to faith in Christ and then learn of Christ and manifest
that learning through godly living. Note that Paul has already said,
according in verse one, he says, according to the faith of God’s
elect and the acknowledgement of the truth, which accords with
godliness. The knowledge of the truth is
to result. In living according to that truth. Now, as you consider the first
verse of the book, you’ll see that it is in the gospel that
Paul is going to base his teaching to Titus and to the churches
in Crete. In agreement with this, one author
said, one commentator said that the heart of the pastoral epistles
is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And can I just say to you that
when we get away from the gospel, if we’re not careful, we start
moralizing people rather than evangelizing people. And even as believers, it is
very, very easy to start simply living by law as though it someway
can be divorced from the gospel and from what Christ has done.
And what we are supposed to do is live out the realities of
the gospel, which is an indication that we will be living in accordance
with the law that God has given. I’m currently reading a book
by Michael Horton called Christless Christianity. And he makes a
very clear distinction between law and gospel. It is true that
you cannot preach the gospel until you first preach the law.
But the gospel is not the law. The gospel is the good news that
Jesus Christ came to redeem sinners who could not obey the law and
then free them to be able to start living out the truth of
the law in their lives. And that’s really what Paul is
talking about here in this book. But he’s going to begin with
some some instruction and some encouragement. Now, one of the
things that I wondered or I thought about as I was thinking about
coming here and preaching is I’m going to have one shot, basically. Now, it’s not that I couldn’t
come back in years in the future and your pastor might ask me
to preach again or anything like that. But as far as I know right
now, This is my one and only time to ever speak to you. And
what can I give to you that I think might help you as you go through
the next week and the next month and the next year? And that’s what drove me to this
particular passage. But before we get to all of that,
let me let me just go back and kind of develop some things for
you to lay some some groundwork. And that is and again this is
something that I think and I hope will help you in the future.
That is that we very often and hopefully you’re not guilty
of that here. And having been here on Wednesday
nights I don’t think you’re guilty of that here. But we in churches
in America in general have somewhat divorced ourselves from biblical
terminology. We can’t use Bible words anymore
because people might not understand them. For example, one well-known
pastor said this. He said, I once taught a 12-week
series on sanctification without ever using the word. He’s not talking about the Bible
there. He’s talking about, I taught a 12-week series on sanctification
and never used the word sanctification. And he said, I taught an eight-week
series on incarnation without ever using the word. As though
there’s something wrong with the word sanctification or incarnation. And I would ask, how is it possible
to teach about biblical sanctification for 12 weeks and never read a
passage of scripture that uses the word sanctify? or sanctification
or sanctified. Here is a new and in my mind
ridiculous concept, and I can state it like this. Teach the
word of God, but do not use the words of God in your teaching.
For example, if the doctrine of election is difficult, never
mention it. Now, I will say this. The Lord really blessed where
we are in Michigan because when I got there, the church would
not have held to the kind of doctrine that I would hold to
when it comes to election. I think I’m pretty safe here. We preach for some almost seven
years in John’s gospel. And it is interesting. First
mention of the idea of election or the doctrines of grace is
in Chapter 2. And then you get to Chapter 6
and Jesus just develops that thing. And salvation is all of
God’s work, all of God’s work, all of God’s work, period. And
then you get to Chapter 8 and he mentions it again. Chapter
10, he mentions it again. You get to Chapter 17, the Lord’s
Prayer, and it is chock full of doctrines. And Christ doesn’t pray for the
world, he prays for his people, his sheep, those that God has
given him. And you see that all the way
through. And so we didn’t use any of those words when we were
preaching in John’s gospel. We just preached that truth.
And somebody came to me one day and he said, is this Calvinism?
And I said, well, you call it what you want. It’s the teaching
of Christ for now. Let’s just leave it at that. I’m currently going through the
book of Ephesians. And you use the word election
and predestination a lot in chapter one. And now the church was ready
for it, but you don’t ignore biblical words because you’re
afraid somebody might turn you off. If the doctrine of sanctification
is deemed too much for people, then try to teach them to be
sanctified, but never use the wording. What do you do when
you run across a biblical word that people may not be familiar
with? You teach them what that word means. And then you use it enough that
they get familiar with it. So that they’re not in the dark
anymore. But that’s become a popular theme. And so when you get to verse
1, And it talks about God’s elect and you get to verse two and
it starts talking about hope. And we’ll talk about this a little
more in a few minutes. Hope there is not what we think
of as hope most of the time in our general conversations. And
so we need to become familiar with these words and understand
them. And as we understand that word
this morning by God’s grace I hope I’m using it in a different way
now that I’m going to help you as you face the next week in
the next month and the remainder of your life. Let’s come to the text here.
in Titus 1 and because it’s one long sentence let’s read through
the first four verses. Paul and I’m going to use I’m
going to translate this myself and I’m reading out of the ESV.
I’m not even sure what translation is typically used here but this
is from the ESV and I’m going to change a word here and I’m
going to read it like Paul wrote it. OK. Except I’m not going
to use the Greek I’m just going to use this. Paul, a slave of
God. Servant is too weak there. Paul,
a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ 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 my
true child in a common faith grace and peace from God the
Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. For our purposes again this morning
I want to focus your attention on verse 2 and the great hope
that is a part of the gospel. Note that hope energizes ministry. These are the things we’re going
to emphasize. Hope energizes ministry, it encourages godliness,
it is energized by eternal life, and it is ensured by the promise
of God. Those four things we want to
emphasize and we begin with this. Hope energizes ministry. Now, do you ever grow weary in
well-doing? We’re told not to do that, but
we’re told not to do that for a reason. It’s because we’re
all tempted to do that at times. When the way becomes difficult,
when the path for ministry seems to be too steeply uphill, where
do we go for our encouragement? According to Paul, it is our
hope of eternal life through faith in Christ that keeps us
going. Hope energizes ministry. Remember
that these first four verses make up this one long sentence
and therefore we should logically expect that the parts of this
sentence in some way are going to reflect on the other parts
of the sentence. The apostle started with the
letter with the words Paul a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus
Christ. And now he uses the phrase in
hope of eternal life. These two are in the same sentence,
these two phrases in the same sentence. And so they’re going
to have at least something to do with one another. How do these
two phrases in the in the sentence relate? Well, here’s what William
Hendrickson had to say concerning this. He says, does the expression
in the hope of eternal life really modify the entire first verse?
In other words, is hope here viewed as a kind of energizing
cause both of Paul’s apostolic ministry and of the elect’s complete
devotion to God? This would seem to be the most
natural view. Also, it harmonizes, says Hendrickson,
with Paul’s teaching everywhere. And so with respect to hope,
viewed as a spur to faithfulness in the performance of God’s own
task of Timothy, he says, for to this end we toil and strive
because we have our hope set on the living God. And then if
you look at the second part of that, hope viewed as an incentive
for holy living of believers, that is clearly taught, for example,
in Titus chapter 2, verses 11 to 14, where he says, And so
he ties that in. We are energized in our ministry
to work for God and to live holy lives because of our eternal
hope. It’s a vital spur to ministry.
Now, why would the church need that kind of encouragement? It’s
due to the fact that the message we are to carry into the world
will not only be unpopular among the masses, it will be a message
that is actively opposed by the masses. Jesus told his disciples that
the world hated him, and if the world hated him, it would hate
those who follow him. And that played out very clearly
in the life of the Apostle Paul. We won’t take the time to read
the entire passage, but he said to the church in Corinth that
He was in more labors than others, in stripes above measure, in
prisons more frequently and deaths more often. From the Jews, he
said, five times I received 40 stripes minus one. Three times
he was beaten with rods. He was stoned. And he goes through
that long list of being in perils everywhere he went. What was
it that kept the Apostle Paul going in those circumstances?
What was it that kept Paul moving forward for Christ? And I would
tell you that in large part, it was that his ministry was
energized by the hope of the eternal life that he had in Christ
Jesus. When I was younger, growing up,
I heard a lot of people say that of, you know, some person usually
they were talking about. He is so heavenly minded, he’s
of no earthly good. Can I rephrase that? If you are
not heavenly minded, you will not be of any earthly good. If
your focus is not on eternity, if your focus is not on Christ,
if your focus is not on your eternal life in Christ, you will
wither and you will stop serving Christ in the way that you should,
because you will grow so discouraged by the world around you. That you will stop. Do you and I need to be energized
for ministry? Well, of course we do. And if
we do, then focus your attention on the eternal life that is yours
in Christ Jesus. Now, remember. If you do not
know Christ, none of this applies. None of the promises at this
point in your life apply to you. It is only when you are in Christ,
it is only when you have recognized your sinfulness. It is only when
you have stood guilty before the law of God and realize that
you cannot attain salvation on your own and come to him alone
for salvation. It is only then that these things
apply to your life. But if you want to an encouragement
to continue moving forward for the Lord then you focus your
attention on your eternal hope in hope of eternal life. Now moving on before we move
on to the next phrase and the next emphasis it might be good
to define hope. So let me define it for you very
quickly. The biblical writers did not use this word like we
use it today. I hope so. Or I hope someday
we’ll get to heaven. I hope nobody here would ever
use that kind of a phrase. For the biblical writers, hope
was something confirmed but not yet realized. And so Vine rightly
said the word hope as used here and as used in scripture generally
has nothing to do with what we might currently think of as I
hope so. The word hope describes rather
a settled assurance. Vine calls it a favorable and
confident expectation. It is our hope. Hendrickson said
this hope is an earnest yearning, confident expectation, and patient
waiting for life everlasting, salvation in its fullest development. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ,
then this hope is yours as much as it was Paul’s or Titus’s.
And therefore, as with them, we need to let this truth energize
our ministry for the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, not only does hope
energize ministry, but it also encourages godliness. If you’ll
look at verse 1 again, Paul says, “…and their knowledge of the
truth, which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life.” Hope
is an incentive to live in a godly manner. And Paul again deals
with this theme in chapter 2 verses 11 to 14 that we read earlier.
He also mentions this theme of looking to the future blessing
in order to help ensure present, endure present trials and to
be holy when he said, for this reason I also suffer these things.
Nevertheless, I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed
to him until that day. And then in order to further
encourage Timothy in his efforts, For the Lord, he said this, he
said, this is a faithful saying, for if we died with him, we shall
also live with him. If we endure, we shall also reign
with him. If we deny him, he also will
deny us. If we are faithless, he remains
faithful. He cannot deny himself. But the one that really ties
this in with our holiness, with our godly living, is the Apostle
John, who understood the purifying aspects of our hope when he said,
Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it has not yet appeared
what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, We
shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and everyone
who has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure. The Apostle John is saying exactly
what the Apostle Paul says here when he says and their knowledge
of the truth which accords with godliness in hope of eternal
life. There is a direct link between
your looking to the return of Christ your future hope and your
holiness. If you know the Lord, you should
be continually striving for greater and greater godliness because
Christ is coming back. You have the hope of eternally
dwelling in the presence of one who is perfectly holy. And therefore,
you should seek holiness now. Hope and courage is godly living. And I don’t want to put people
on unnecessary guilt trips or anything like that, but we always
can ask ourselves the question, would I want Christ to return
while I’m doing what I’m currently doing? That’s a very simple,
practical question to ask yourself. Or when you’re about to watch
something that you probably shouldn’t or be involved in something you
probably shouldn’t, would I want Christ to come back while I’m
doing this? We had an interesting experience
yesterday. took a little hike up toward
Horsetooth Rock. And as you start up the trail,
there’s a sign that says snake habitat. I can remember starting up a
trail in northeast Tennessee one time in the mountain there,
and they didn’t have a sign that said snake habitat. Somebody
had hung a timber rattler on the sign. That was really That got your
attention. But we made a decision. We got
to a certain place on the trail. And if you’ve been there, you
know where this is, where you could go down toward what would
be a waterfall. And you don’t get enough water
to have waterfalls all summer. Or you could go up toward Horsetooth
Rock. And it was decided we’d go on up toward the rock. And
so we got up there a little ways. And we turned a little corner.
And Alan said, there’s a snake. And I got up close enough to
take a picture and it rattled at me when I got
close enough to take the picture. Now I use that to illustrate
this. I’m glad the snake was seen several
steps before we got to it. Even if it wouldn’t have bit
us, any of us, you ever get close to a snake and jump when you
finally do see it? I can remember an uncle of mine
one time on a trail in the mountains in northeast Tennessee. He stepped
on a board. There was an old barn there that the Game and
Fish Commission still used. And there was a board just laying
on the ground. And he stepped on the board, and he was kind
of looking around. And then he looked down by his foot, and there was something
there that looked like a penny. I don’t think you have copperheads
here but we do. And he realized immediately that
that bright copper thing was not a penny. And have you ever
seen these cartoons where people take you know they just run in
the air. My uncle looked like that for just a minute as he
decided it was time to get out of there and let the copperhead
have its its area. We sometimes get too close. To sin. Rather than saying what is obviously
right and let’s do that. We need to ask ourselves, is
that the way we want Christ to come back and find us? Or do
we want Christ to return someday and we are living in a godly
fashion? For his glory. Our vision, our hope encourages
our godliness. Let me quickly move on. Hope
is also energized by eternal life. It says in Hope of Eternal
Life, the concept of eternal life in scriptures includes both
everlasting nature of the life and also the quality of a life
that lives forever in the presence of a holy God with his blessing. life forever to be lived, righteousness
forever to be mine, God’s presence forever my dwelling place, that
is the hope of the believer. In these verses we have Paul
teaching what might be called the assurance of the believer
or the perseverance of the saints. Note that justification guarantees
glorification and that is seen for example in Romans 8.30. Moreover,
whom he predestined, these he also called. Whom he called,
these he also justified. Whom he justified, these he also
glorified. And note that the one who is
active in all of that is God. It is God who predestines, God
who elects, God who calls, God who justifies, God who glorifies. Salvation is God’s work for helpless
sinners. So Paul says in Titus chapter
1 verse 2 in hope of eternal life, which God. It is his work. The apostle is
consistent in his teaching, God is active in every aspect of
redemption. It is true that all those who
trust him come willingly to the cross for salvation, but it is
also true that we only come in this manner after the Lord has
regenerated us and drawn us to himself. All who God saves will also attain
to the glorification that He has promised. And we won’t even
bypass sanctification on the way there. Just a little more about my background. I grew up in a, I would call
it a hyper-fundamental background. And easy-believism had just inundated
that whole realm. And so there are places who have
been infected by that false teaching to the point that they have thousands
and thousands and thousands of professions of faith maybe in
a year and maybe a handful of baptisms and pretty much no one
new ever shows up at church. And I’m not exaggerating. And it’s because The gospel is
all out of whack and they would actually tell you because they
have all these professions and nobody ever in lives don’t change. They would actually tell you
that justification leads to glorification and you can some way bypass sanctification
in the middle. And I will tell you that’s a
false view of the gospel. There was a lot when I was growing
up about following people up once they made a profession of
faith, you have to chase them down all the time. I don’t ever
see that in scripture. What I see in scripture is when
somebody actually truly, genuinely gets saved, they want to be in
church. They want to be with God’s people,
hearing God’s word, learning the truth so that they can live
it. And so. We have here this great truth that we live
wholly because of our eternal hope and that God is doing this
work in us and we then are encouraged in our walk by the
fact of eternal life. Now that brings us to one last
point. Hope is ensured by the promise of God. Hope of salvation,
which finds its end in glorification, is a hope that is based in the
promise of God. Paul stated that thus in hope
of eternal life, which God who never lies promised before the
ages began. I like another rendering of that
a little better. Instead of God who never lies,
God who cannot lie. We don’t often think of things
that God cannot do. But it’s important that we realize
that God cannot do some things. God cannot lie. God cannot be
tempted and he is never tempted by sin. You say, well, what do
we do with the fact that Christ was tempted? Well, we got to
remember that he was truly God and truly man. And as man, he
was tempted, but not as God. Faith then believes the promises
of God. Moses recorded of Abraham that
he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness. The writer of Hebrews picked
up on that, saying, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called
to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance.
And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt
in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in
tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder
and maker is God. Bible teachers for years have
seen Hebrews 11 10 is expressing the fact that Abraham yearned
not so much for an earthly city as for the heavenly city. He
longed for heaven for his ultimate hope was not bound to this earth. His ultimate hope was in God. The hope of Abraham is the hope
of every believer today. God has promised and we can rest
assured in God’s promise. Again, think about that. A God
who cannot lie has made the promise. So what God promises, He performs. What God promises, He performs. And if He has promised eternal
life to those who come to faith in Christ, then He will perform
that. It is not so much us holding
on to God as it is God making sure He holds on to us. And once He adopts us into His
family, He will not unadopt us. It’s also interesting, when was
this promise of eternal life made? It says, promised before
the ages began. The Greek word for time here
is used, and this is a very difficult phrase to bring over into English,
but the Greek expression, the Greek word for time is a word
from which we get our English word chronology, and it’s followed
by the Greek word for eternity. We might literally render this
in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised
from times eternal. The promise of eternal life is
fulfilled in time. in that its benefits come into
the life of the believer at the moment he or she believes. But
the promise of that eternal life is from eternity past. John MacArthur said the father
showed his perfect love to the son by promising him a redeemed
humanity who would serve and glorify him forever. Let the promise of God assure
your heart through the most difficult times. And so let me crystallize this
or bring this all down very quickly. Let the hope of eternal life
energize you for ministry. When you grow weary, remember
that this life is not all there is. There is hope for eternity. Let it encourage you to godliness. Let hope itself be energized
in your heart by the knowledge of eternal life. Keep that in
mind and let that build up your hope that this God who cannot lie
has promised it and so be ensured that eternal life is certain
because it rests in the promise of God who cannot lie. I said in the beginning of the
message, this may be the only time, I don’t know that for sure,
it may be the only time I ever get to speak to you. And so let me sum it up with
this phrase, with this one sentence. Remember your hope and live for God. Remember your hope and live for
God. Let’s pray. Father in heaven,
we ask that you’ll take the truth of your word and apply it to each heart as
your spirit sees fit. And for believers here today,
that they will be encouraged in their walk as they remember
their hope. And if there are unbelievers
here, that they will be convicted by the spirit of God of their
sin, that they will come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and
for the first time in their lives have this hope as a personal
possession. Again, we thank you for the opportunity
to preach your word. May the spirit of God use it
in our hearts to change us and mold us into the image of Christ,
in whose name we pray. Amen.