Truth

Well, happy New Year, everybody.

- Happy New Year.

- 2024. I remember when I was a kid and I walked to school, to elementary school, and no, it wasn't 10 miles up the hill in the snow, no shoes, it wasn't that. I lived in Georgia, it wasn't snowing. But the elementary school was across from our neighborhood. And I would walk there sometimes in the morning and then I would walk home. And it was only about a 10-minute walk, to be honest with you. I cut through some neighbors' yards and they were really cool about it. And I remember having this conversation. I remember exactly where I was. I was cutting through Eric Schnitger's backyard, and I was walking along the little path to come down the hill to be able to go to my house. And I was with some other friends, and we were about nine or 10 years old at the time, and we were having a conversation. Now, keep in mind this was 1979 or 1980, and we were having a conversation of what the world would look like in the year 2000. You know what that conversation was like when you're nine or 10 years old, right? I mean, it was flying cars and teleporting to places of whatever we wanted to do. It was wild to think about. And if you would've ask me at nine years old, did I ever think that I would live to see 2024, the answer would be there's no chance. I mean, if it's 2024, I would've been living on Mars in my 9-year-old mind. Just no way I would've ever thought about it. And I used to think about the future of the world a lot when I was young. Like, what's it gonna look like in a decade? What's it gonna look like 30 years from now, when I was a little kid. These days, I don't actually think about what the future of the world is gonna look like so much. I think more about what the future of the Church is going to look like. I don't concern myself so much with what the world is going to look like, but I am concerned with what the Church is going to look like. And, obviously, some of the data from those researchers who do this kind of thing, don't paint the rosiest of pictures of what's going on in the United States. I mean, Lifeway Research in 2019 actually told us that 3,000 new churches were started in 2019, and that was something to celebrate, until we understood the backend of that. And the backend of that was, although there were 3,000 churches that were planted and started in 2019, in that same year, 4,500 churches shuttered their doors. So it was a net loss of 1,500 congregations in the United States. By the way, in 2014 when they measured the same thing, there were a few more churches that were started than there were that had closed. And then by the time you got to 2019, that was upside down by 1,500 congregations a year. And that was, by the way, before Covid! And those numbers just exacerbated even further. And so sometimes it's not the rosiest of pictures, and there are commentators, some within the Church of Jesus and those that are outside of the Church of Jesus that are asking this question: will the Church endure? That's the question that a lot of people are asking. Will the Church endure? Let me answer it in one word. Yep, it will. Do I know how it's gonna look? I don't know exactly how it's gonna look. Is it gonna look different than maybe it does today? Of course, it does. It always does, that's the nature of it. But the Church has been enduring for two millennia at this point, and will continue to endure as long as Jesus Christ is Lord. And that's not changing. And so even though that's the case, the Church that's going to endure, we all wanna be a part of a Church that endures, a Church that lives beyond us. We don't wanna be a part of something that's just temporary or that's just a flash in the pan. We wanna be a part of a Church that actually lives beyond us. And that's what we're going to explore over the next few weeks in this little book that Paul writes to his colleague named Titus. Now, I'd encourage you to find your place in the Book of Titus. If you need a table of contents to do that, that's fine. Nobody's gonna judge you if you look in a table of contents. If you don't have a Bible with you, there's probably one in the seat back in front of you that you can grab a hold of. Or if you've got a device with a Bible app on it, those are pretty easy, just type in Titus, T-I-T-U-S. If it helps you any, it's right after 1 and 2 Timothy, and it's right before Philemon and Hebrews. Some of you are going, "That didn't help me any." Okay, well use your table of contents and find it because it's a very small book. It's only three chapters. And although it's small, it's really, really powerful and it's also really practical. And basically it's a letter that's talking about how we walk out our belief in the truth. It's not just about knowing things in our head, but it's about how we walk out our belief in the truth. And it starts with an idea headed in the direction of exhorting us to understand and embrace the truth of God. In fact, I summarize it this way by simply saying, a Church that lives beyond us will be a Church built on, and living out, the truth of God. This is what we're going to get after in this morning. And we're going to limit the text that we're dealing with today to start with just the greeting. Now, we're gonna be spending all of our next few weeks going verse by verse through the Book of Titus. But today I had to limit myself to just the first four verses of greeting because it's so loaded. You're gonna figure that out in just a moment. You're maybe not realizing it quite yet, and even when we read through it, you may not realize it, but here's what it says in the first four verses. "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ "to further the faith of God's elect "and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, "in the hope of eternal life, "which God, who does not lie, "promised before the beginning of time, "and which now at His appointed season, "He has brought to light "through the preaching entrusted to me "by the command of God our Savior, "to Titus, my true son in our common faith: "Grace and peace from God the Father "and Christ Jesus our Savior." Now, this is a very long greeting. It's a very long greeting, even in the ancient world, that Paul uses here to introduce the letter that he's sending to his associate Titus. And he's also using this as a platform, as an exhortation of the knowledge of the truth that ultimately leads to the practical outworking of the truth. This is really important for us because what we're going to see in a moment is how that plays out, how that formula begins to play out in just a moment. But before we begin to dive into just these four verses and see some of the incredibly rich truths about God that are located in these four verses, I wanna give us just a little bit of context. You obviously know that Paul has already identified himself as the writer of this. That's how he begins, "Paul." He's not saying this is a letter to Paul. Oftentimes, when people would write letters in the ancient world, they would start with their name. "Paul." And then he calls himself a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. These were actually statements that Paul was making about his own authority. He wasn't trying to blow himself up. He was actually trying to help Titus. See, servant of God was a term that was used about prophets of the Old Testament and some kings, and it had some significance associated with it. An apostle of Jesus Christ is indicative of somebody that's pretty unique, somebody who's been called, as the other apostles, to follow after in a special commission that the resurrected Jesus has given him. And the reason that Paul puts this in here is for Titus's sake. Sometimes I go back and say, Timothy, sometimes when I'm doing this, 'cause Paul worked with Timothy so often, and if I say it accidentally, just translate Timothy to Titus, all right? Unless I mean Timothy and then mean it Timothy. And if you don't know the difference, that's your problem. I'm just gonna move on with my life. All right? So the reason he did this for Titus is because Titus has been sent into Crete. Crete is a mess. Just like Paul sent Timothy, this is real Timothy, Paul sent Timothy into Ephesus to help clean up a mess in Ephesus, now he's sending Titus into Crete to clean up a mess that's in Crete. There's a lot of false teaching, there's a lot of chaos, there's a lot of disorder. And he's sending Titus into the midst of this in Crete, this little Greek island. And so what he does is he says, "I am a servant of God "and I am an apostle of Jesus Christ." Because Titus was going to read this letter in front of all of the congregations there. And now Paul is putting his authoritative stamp of who he is behind Titus, that he has sent in to do this. Now, this letter's probably written sometime between Paul's two imprisonments. There's one of his imprisonments that was a house arrest that was at the end of the Book of Acts. That's how the Book of Acts ends. And then there's one that Paul ultimately gets imprisoned before he's martyred for his faith. This is written in between the two of those. It's probably in about the sixties AD, and it's Paul writing to his colleague Titus. Now, who's Titus? Titus is interesting because of the people that used to travel with Paul, very few of them were anything other than Jews. But Titus is Greek. I mean, he's fully Greek. And this is a very unique thing because Titus is now traveling with Paul and has been traveling with Paul for some time. He assisted Paul in Corinth. He assisted Paul in Ephesus. And there's a number of places in the Scripture that you can go back to see that, that I'm not gonna identify just yet. And then Titus was actually exhibit A when Paul was going to meet with the apostles, when he got a revelation and was supposed to go to Jerusalem and meet with all the leaders there because Paul was now preaching and his ministry was to the non-Jews, to the Gentiles. Peter and the other apostles were primarily ministering to the Jews. And now Paul is ministering to the Gentiles. And so when he goes to have his meeting about his apostleship and all of that with all the leaders of Jerusalem, who's he bring with him? Well, Barnabas is with him, but Titus is also with him. Galatians 2 tells us about it. It says, "Then after 14 years," Paul writes, "I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. "And I took Titus along also. "I went in response to a revelation "and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, "I presented to them "the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. "I wanted to be sure I was not running "and had not been running my race in vain. "Yet not even Titus, who was with me, "was compelled to be circumcised, "even though he was a Greek. "This matter arose because some false believers "had infiltrated our ranks "to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus "and to make us slaves. "We did not give in to them for a moment, "so that the truth of the gospel "might be preserved for you." See, the great thing about this is that Paul is talking about early on in this introduction, he's talking about an exhortation to the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. But that's something that's been true about his ministry alongside of Titus all along. It's been about the foundation ultimately of truth. And now Paul's sending Titus in because he trusts Titus to help bring order in the midst of chaos in Crete. You could say it this way, Titus was like a go-to guy for Paul. Any of you have a go-to guy or a go-to gal in your life? They're just, you can just count on them. They're faithful, they've always been there. They're always gonna be there. They've been with you for a long period of time. That's who Titus was to Paul. And Paul also calls Titus a true son in the faith. What that means is this, is that at some point, probably, Paul led Titus to faith in Jesus Christ. We don't have data in the Scripture and we don't have historical data to tell us where that was, how that happened, when it happened, we don't know any of that. But because Paul refers to him as his true son in the faith that is most likely the case. So truth, what we see in the very beginning is that truth matters, that we just read a moment ago, sound doctrine matters, and that's what Paul wants Titus to reaffirm among all of the believers at Crete because they're facing so much false teaching. But it's not just about knowing truth, it's about living truth. And that progression is seen in verse number one, watch it. Here's what it says, "Paul, a servant of God "and an apostle of Jesus Christ, "to further the," watch this, "the faith of God's elect "and their knowledge of the truth." Don't miss that. That does what? "That leads to godliness." Here's what you see, faith that leads to knowledge of the truth which leads to godliness. This is the progression that we see that Paul is writing about: faith that leads to knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. So this isn't about, listen, this isn't about just truth that's known intellectually. This is about truth that's embraced and practically lived out. Ultimately, this book is getting us and this letter is getting us at the idea that right belief about God should lead to right living before God. Right belief about God should lead to right living before God. That's why Paul in this introduction, these first four verses that just seems like he's introducing himself and Titus, he loads it up with truths about God. And if we realize what these truths about God are, we also realize that they are for the purpose of us walking in godliness, not just knowing about them, but actually walking in godliness. You know what I've found? I'm not a counselor by, that's not my thing, but I've met with tons of people over 30 years of vocational ministry. And almost every single one of the issues that people are dealing with, like if they're dealing with some kind of sin issue or they're dealing with some struggle that they have or whatever, or, "I'm trying to get over this," or, "I'm trying to do this," or whatever, it almost always, not every time, but almost always boils down to one of two things: the first is a broken view of God, and the second is a broken view of who they are in God. That is almost always the foundation of the trouble: broken view of God, and a broken view of who we are in God. That's why understanding rightly about who God is, is imperative for us to build the foundation of what we are and what we believe on the truth of God is imperative. We live in a generation, we live in a culture in the West that treats truth like a commodity. We treat truth like it's something that can be contoured. "Well, that's your truth. "I'm speaking my truth." What? What? The truth! Truth! And who is the truth? God Himself. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Jesus made claim to be the truth, not a truth, the truth. And you and I will do well to build the foundation of the Church and the foundation of our belief and the foundation of our life on the truth of God, because it has implications for who we are and what we do. In fact, I'm gonna show you just a handful of these great truths about God right here in these first four verses. Here's the first one: God's unity. This is a great truth about God: God's unity. You say, "Jerry, what exactly are you referring to "when you say this?" Well, I want you to look at verses three and four, and I want you to look carefully. 'Cause too often when we start a book out, we just bypass all the very beginning stuff, like, "Oh, it's Paul, he wrote it to Titus; next." Right? Watch this in verse three, "And which now at His appointed season "He has brought to light "through the preaching entrusted to me "by the command of God our," what does that say?

- Savior.

- Who? Who, our Savior?

- God.

- God our Savior, right? Listen to this, "To Titus, my true son in our common faith: "Grace and peace from God the Father, "and Christ Jesus," our what?

- Savior.

- Huh. God our Savior. Christ Jesus our Savior. God the Father is not God the Son, God the Son is not God the Father, but both are our Savior. God the Father is distinct from the Son. God the Son is distinct from the Spirit. God the Spirit is distinct from the Father. It is the three Personhood of God who is one in essence. So much one in essence, that Paul can actually write God our Savior and Jesus Christ our Savior. That's how unified God is in His essence. God is three Persons in one essence, making up one God. You say, "I don't know how that works." Okay, stand in line. But it's the truth. And this is what we have to build out the lives that we lead on. You say, "Well, what does that have to do with me?" Everything. God's unity has everything to do with you and me. Because what Paul does is he talks about Titus and his relationship with Titus based upon his understanding of the unity of God, that God is one in essence. Remember when the Shema in the Old Testament says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one," it's not referring to number, it's referring to essence. God is one; Father, Son and Spirit. So much so that God the Father can be called Savior, and Jesus can be called Savior because there is a unity, a oneness of their mission in the world, but it's distinct. God the Father did not die on the cross. God the Son did. You see, you have to be able to understand there's distinctions. Maybe we could say it this way. Within the Trinity, watch this, there is unity within its diversity. There's a fundamental essential unity within its diversity. Now, when you start to understand the unity of God, you start understanding why this matters to you and me. Listen to what Paul said about Timothy in verse number four. I'm sorry to Titus, I told you I would do it. "To Titus, my true son in our common faith." You know what background ethnically Paul is, right? Paul's a what? He's a... Okay, That was like... He's a Jew. Wasn't a trick question. I've already told you what Titus is. He's a what?

- Greek.

- He's a Greek. And you know what Paul does? He says, "We're family." He says, "We're family." Why? Because the essential unity of God means that that should be imaged in God's people. That now, regardless of our backgrounds, we don't lead with our chosen identity. Man, is this a word for the culture that we live in. Because too often in the culture that we live in, what we do is we like to assert whatever priority identity that we want to assert. And in the body of Christ, this should not be. This is not how we do it. But this is what we do, we assert our particular identity. Maybe it's our gender identity. And just so that nobody is confused, God made us, "male and female He made them," according to Genesis 1. There are two genders that are male and female. The world tries to tell our kids and all of us that there's something beyond that or different than that. We stand here on the truth of God. And God said, "I made male and female." Now, that is not an applause line, nor is it a way to try and be judgmental or ugly to people. We have compassion on people that are confused, compassion on people that may be dysphoric for some reason, but we do not compromise the truth of God in what God has said. Everybody love me still? Are we good?

- Yes.

- All right. Hey, listen, 2024, 2024, no time to play. We don't lead, listen, we don't lead with our identity based on gender. We don't lead with our identity based on ethnicity. Paul didn't. We don't lead with our identity based on our political party. We don't lead with our identity based on our age or our affinities or whatever else. Jesus shapes all of this for the body of Christ. And so our essential unity within our diversity is the most important thing about us. We do not divide in the body of Christ over gender, male or female. We don't divide in the body of Christ over ethnicity. We don't divide in the body of Christ over political affiliation. Those things are secondary to the most important things. We can enjoy them, we can appreciate them, we can be blessed by them all, but we are as the body of Christ an essential unity within diversity. That's who God is and that's who we should be. You see, that's how this truth about God makes a difference in who we are and what we do. But there's a second truth about God and it's God's salvation. Here it's a beautiful picture that we see in verses one and two, it says this, "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ "to further," watch this, "the faith of God's elect "and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness," and then thirdly, "in the hope of eternal life." All of that's staring, it's why I'm hoping that you're looking at this passage of Scripture, because what you have here is you've got all tenses that are present at the same time in terms of God's salvation. You've got past, present, and future. Our faith, the faith of God's elect; the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, that's the present; and the hope of eternal life, that's the future. If we were talking about this theologically, we would say it this way. Paul refers to our justification. Our justification is by faith in Jesus Christ, what He has done on our behalf, dying for our sin, rising from the grave. We are justified. We're now viewed legally right in standing with God because of faith in Jesus, not because of what we've done. That's justification, that's in the past. In the present, our knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, that's sanctification. That is the present being separated out from sin and separated to God in the way that we live our lives in righteousness. And then the future, our hope of eternal life, that's glorification. That's what we look forward to, this eternal duration that we have with God. So right here in this passage, we've got all of the phases of salvation, the past, the present, and the future. We've got ultimately justification and sanctification and glorification, which are all a part of the great salvation of God. Because what you've gotta remember is that salvation is holistic, friends. It's holistic. That means we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. 

So right here in this passage, we've got all of the phases of salvation, the past, the present, and the future. We've got ultimately justification and sanctification and glorification, which are all a part of the great salvation of God. Because what you've gotta remember is that salvation is holistic, friends. It's holistic. That means we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. That's how the Scripture talks about this. And here's why this is important. This is why this great truth about God, who is the initiator of salvation, nobody here, nobody in the history of ever God saved because of their initiation. God started it all; all of it. You're gonna see that really clearly in just a minute. All right? He started all of it. But here's the beautiful thing, for some of us, you need to understand the holistic nature of salvation because you get stuck in one spot. Let me explain what I mean. Some of you feel like you get overwhelmed by the world you live in. You just get overwhelmed by it. You get just caught up in it and overwhelmed by it. I get it. You know when I see that happen a lot? In election years. What is 2024? Yeah, it's one; it's an election year, so I'm just gonna go ahead and get started here in January before some of you turn flat crazy, and I'm gonna remind you of something. Election years are usually the great exposure of Christians' immaturity. And the reason that's the case... You're like, "Dude, you're just going in 2024, "like you're just going in." I am. I am. You know why? Because we've lost sight of the holistic nature of God's salvation. Just as a heads up. The Messiah has never been elected President in the United States. Check your history, it just hasn't happened. Not going to happen this year or any years following, as long as you shall live. But there is coming a day that the One upon whose shoulders the government will rest is going to return. And His name is Jesus. And until that time, what we have to remember is that we have leaders. And basically, I just think in America, we're just getting what we deserve. We just get what we deserve. 'Cause I've come to a place in my life where I'm just not sure if I can even vote without sinning. Did I just say it? I did just say it. Doesn't mean I don't vote. Just means I vote and repent because I just don't think I can vote without sinning anymore. That'll tell you what I think. But I got the microphone, so it's your problem. But here's the problem, here's the problem. We get so caught up because when an election happens, particularly of a president, when an election happens, either, "Oh, it's the new creation." It ain't. Or, "Oh, it's the apocalypse." It ain't it. And you've lost sight of a King and a Kingdom over lesser figures. We should participate in the process and we need to vote our conscience and vote as biblically informed as we can, but at the end of the day, it's about the King and the Kingdom. And He may choose to work in some very unique ways, in ways you couldn't possibly understand. I don't know how all of this always plays out because God is so much greater and wiser, but sometimes we need to make sure we understand the holistic nature of our salvation. It's not just about right now. There's coming a time, there's coming a time because of God's great salvation. But some of you, the reverse is the problem, because you think, maybe when you were nine or when you were 11 or when you were 15 because you got emotionally wired up at some particular event and you made some kind of decision or whatever. And basically what you think is, is that you just purchased fire insurance for the rest of your life. "Yep, I'm staying outta hell. "I just, I told Jesus everything He needed to hear." Let me just remind you of something because God's salvation is holistic. If a decision from your past hasn't changed your life in the present, then I don't have a lot of confidence for your future. Because the nature of God's salvation is holistic. So keep it in mind, it changes the way that we live if we understand God's salvation. Let me give you a third: it's God's sovereignty. I've got more to say than I've got time to say. God's sovereignty. Look in verse number one, "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ "to further the faith of God's elect." Some of you are going, "Dude, he's stopping there. "He is stopping there. "It's 2024, he doesn't care anymore. "He does not care anymore." You see, why should we be all freaked out about the use of the term "elect of God"? This is the truth of God. We need to just understand what it's telling us to the degree that we can. Where we get real upside down with the doctrine of election, of God's elective purposes and God's sovereignty in the world, we get upside down because we frame the narrative completely wrong. Here's how we frame it: versus. God's sovereignty versus humanity's free will. I reject the premise of that. Or Calvinism versus Arminianism. I also reject the premises of that. This does not have to be a versus. This just simply needs to be, what does God say? And by the way, if we have to live with the tension of some of that, then that's on us. We're never gonna fully understand everything about God's sovereignty, because as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are God's ways above ours and His thoughts above our thoughts. He's God, we're not. If we think we're arrogant enough to figure out everything there is to know about God's sovereign purposes in salvation, then we've got another thing coming to us. Salvation is God's initiation. And what God has chosen to do in His sovereignty is He has elected One, Jesus in whom everyone that puts their faith is now a part of this communal body called the elect of God, because He is the elect one. This is not inconsistent with what happened in the Old Testament either. If you look in the Old Testament, you have this picture of election. If you look in the New Testament, you have this picture of election. And election in the Scripture itself is predominantly about a group, not about an individual. All you have to do is research and look at the text itself. In fact, in the Old Testament, the people of God, called Israel, you know who they were? They were in Abraham, through the line of Isaac and Jacob. They were in Abraham. And everybody who was in Abraham was a part of the chosen of God for His purposes in the world. It wasn't just about salvation there, this was about how He was using them, what He chose them to do. But in the New Testament, there's an elect One, that's Jesus. He's the seed of Abraham, the promised One from the very beginning. And in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile, whoever is in Him is now a part of the elect of God. Now you're like, "Yeah, but I wanna know "how all of that happens." Stand in line. I don't know fully how all of that happens. There are people that try to give descriptors of how all of that happens. But I can't fully embrace and understand everything there is to know about it. I remember when somebody asked Charles Spurgeon at the end of a message when he preached on the election of God and the free will of humanity and all of that stuff, and they said, "Pastor Spurgeon, "how do you reconcile the elective purposes of God "and the free will of humanity?" And he paused for a moment, and then he responded by saying this, "Ma'am, you don't have to reconcile friends." The sovereign purposes and election of God are friends with the free will of humanity. You're like, "How?" I don't know how, I just know that it is because God actually teaches us about both. Now, God initiates, and this is not to say that God doesn't individually draw people. No one comes to the Father unless they are drawn, Jesus said. But how does all of that play out? I don't know exactly. I'm not 100% sure. I just know that it does and that we have to live with the tensions therein. So, what it doesn't mean is if you're like, "Well, if God's the initiator and all that stuff, "I don't need to do anything. "He's just doing what He does, and I can just..." Except for God told us to be ambassadors. God told us to share the Gospel. We are a part of what God is doing in the lives of people. So you can't, listen, you can't be disobedient to direct commands of Jesus and still think you're being obedient to God. That's just nuts. So you're like, "Okay, what does that mean do I do?" Live in blissful ignorance and just do what He asked you. Be an ambassador, be a messenger, be a witness. Tozer said it this way in "The Knowledge of the Holy," he said, "God's sovereignly decreed "that man should be free to exercise moral choice, "and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree "by making his choice between good and evil. "When he chooses to do evil, "he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God, "but fulfills it, "inasmuch as the eternal decree "decided not which choice the man should make, "but that he should be free to make it. "If in His absolute freedom "God has willed to give man limited freedom, "who is there to stay His hand or say, 'What doest Thou?' "Man's will is free because God is sovereign. "A God less than sovereign "could not bestow moral freedom upon his creatures. "He would be afraid to." A great reminder for us. What does this truth about God's sovereignty actually help us understand? It should encourage us, first of all, to walk in humility. The second that you walk around as a believer thinking that you did all of this, you are in a mess. Walk around in humility, understanding that had God not acted, had God not initiated, had Jesus not come you would be dead in your sins and you would be subject to eternity separated from God. God has done this, and we should walk in great humility as the people of Jesus. Christians ought not be arrogant. We have been rescued. But you know what else it can do? It can encourage us that even though we don't understand how all of this works together, we know that it does work together. And I know this. God used a young lady named Kay to speak to me and the Holy Spirit of God transformed my life. Now, was this a part of God's drawing? Yes. Did God use her as a part of drawing me to Himself? Yes. Did she see that coming that night? Probably not. Did I see it coming? Definitely not. But hey, what if you just put yourself in the flow of what God does in the world and let yourself be used by God, who knows what God may wanna do with you and how He wants to do it. So be encouraged to do that. And you know why? Because God's good on His promise. In fact, you wanna see another picture of his sovereignty, man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man. I've got more than I've got time for, so just give me a moment, all right? You with me?

- Yes.

- All right. Look at verse number two. He says, "In the hope of eternal life, "which God, who does not lie, promised "before the beginning of time." God promised the hope of eternal life before the beginning of time. Listen carefully to me. Is that promise to you? Were you around at the beginning of time? I don't think you were. I think God was. Do you know who God made that promise to? His Son. This is what theologians call the covenant of redemption. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit were in agreement about how the world was going to be redeemed. God the Father assigned God the Son to the purpose of redemption. "You're going to be born of the flesh. "You're gonna live among them, You're gonna die for them, "but You're going to be resurrected from the dead." Jesus embraced that willingly. With the joy set before Him He endured the cross. Jesus did this willingly. And the Holy Spirit said, "I will apply the benefits "of the redemption of the Son of God "to the hearts of every person," Father, Son, and Spirit in complete agreement before the foundation of the world. Before time even began, God had promised His Son, "This is what I'm going to do. "Every person in You is going to have eternal life with me "because of what You've done "and because of what We are agreeing to do "for the redemption of humanity." God is good on His promises, brothers and sisters. And you know how we know that? Because of the fourth great truth about God: God's character. Watch this. This is super simple. Verse number two, "In the hope of eternal life, "which God, who does not lie, "promised before the beginning of time." I know that you and I don't know anyone ever that has never lied. We don't know a human being, including ourselves, who has never lied. But God knows everything about everything all at the same time, and always is speaking about reality. When God knows everything about everything and cannot lie, shouldn't we trust His Word? Shouldn't we trust His will? You know what the will of God is? It's the revelation of who God is. But if I could summarize it in a real package for you, you know what the will of God is? It's what you would choose if you knew everything God knew. It's what you would do if you knew what God knew. So here's the thing, you're like, "Yeah, but I don't know what God knows." Right. But God knows what God knows. So why shouldn't He be trusted? He knows, so why shouldn't He be trusted? We are to build the foundation of our life, the foundation of our decisions, we build all of that on the truth of God. This is how the Church is built. This is how the Church moves forward. This is how a Church lives beyond itself because it is invested in believing and building and acting on the truth of God. So let me ask you this question. How seriously do you believe the truths of God? And do you allow those to actually shape everything about you? Do you even believe what you say you believe? 'Cause I'll be honest with you, I've heard a lot of people talk to me about what they say they believe, but their lives testify differently. What you believe is what you do. Everything else is just religious smoke. Because you don't really believe it if you're not willing to do it. I believe God's called me to be a steward of my possessions, but you don't consider God with those possessions. You don't really believe it. You don't think He can be trusted. You think you can outgive Him. You can't. He can be trusted. What's the gap? What's the gap between what you believe or say you believe and what you actually do? What's the gap? That's what needs dealing with; the gap, the delta between those two things. What do your actions say about what you believe about God? What do your relationships say about what you believe about God? What do your emotions say about what you believe about God? What's your bank account say about what you believe about God? What does your time investment say about what you believe about God? Do you have a plan? Do you have a plan to allow the truth of God to impact your life? Because what happens at this time is that everybody makes a whole lot of promises on what they're gonna do and what they're gonna eat, what kind of weight they're gonna have, or lose, I should say. We already did that earlier, right? What they're gonna do about working out. Business goals, school goals. How about truth goals? Who's got those? 'Cause if you don't, you should, because that's the foundation of who we are as the people of Jesus, is the truth of God. Maybe you don't have a way or a thought about how you're gonna read the Word and allow the Word of God to transform your life. We can help you with that, thechapel.com/readingplan, just go there. There's a bunch of different ones. Some of them, you can read the Bible in a year. You can read the Bible in a week. You can read the Bible in five seconds. I don't know if you can, you probably can't. You can do whatever you wanna do, there's a bunch of different ways that you can do it. I don't care what it is, get in the Word, spend time in His presence. Let it wash over you and transform you because that's how we grow in the grace of Jesus Christ. Do you have a plan for worship? 'Cause everything else gets planned. Vacations get planned, fun events get planned, watching football teams get planned. Do you have plans like commitments to be in worship with the people of God? You should. So let me ask you, there's so much, I just gotta quit, 'cause there's just, what one thing are you gonna do to respond to God? Based upon the truths of God, what one thing are you gonna do? You may need to do five, start with one. What is it? Ask the Holy Spirit. And then just do that. Walk in obedience to the truth of who God is. See, what we're being called to is to be a Church that lives beyond us. And the only way that's gonna happen is if we're a Church that's built on and living out the truth of God. Let's bow our heads together. In a moment we'll be dismissed. And if you're here and you've been so patient to listen, it may be that you've never before entrusted your life to Jesus. We talked about that earlier, Dan talked about that a few moments ago when we were taking communion. And if that's your need, your great need is to know Jesus as Lord and Savior, there's gonna be a handful of men and women that'll be standing down front that would love to take a moment and just pray with you, talk to you about what that means. No greater decision you'll make in your life. Maybe for the remainder of us, we need to recognize that sometimes we don't allow fully the truths of who God is to impact how we then respond, who we are, what we do, choices we make, actions we take, relationships we embrace. So whatever that is, maybe you need to just sit in your chair for a few moments and do business with the Lord. Maybe you need to talk to one of the folks down here, you can do that, any of these men and women, let them pray with you. Maybe you wanna wait till you get home and you wanna just set aside some time. Whatever it may be, just do what God asks. Father, thank You for Your truth. There's so much of it we don't even know. Don't even know how we can possibly mine the depth of it, 'cause we can never mine the depth of You. This isn't just for our intellectual stimulation. This is to know You. We wanna know You. And I pray that You would help us to know You in accordance with the truth You've revealed about Yourself. Not who we wanna make You, but who You are, so that we can conform our very lives to the truth of who You are. Would You shape us, mold us more and more into the image of Jesus for the sake of the mission that we have, so that the world can see us living, talking, and thinking, and making decisions as people of Jesus? We trust You to do this in Jesus' name. Amen.