The Faith that Saves and Sanctifies

1 (11m 53s): Us. Thank you. That your love is totally dependable. Lord. It's unconditional. So we can know, we can know of your love no matter what, Lord, it's hard for our, our human minds are finite minds to get ahold of the love of an infinite God. It's beyond our ability. Lord, all we can do is say, thank you. And we love you too, Lord God, thank you for just your goodness to me and to each and every one of us, we need your grace and your mercy and we just, we just need you all the time or so refresh us today where we need to be refreshed. 1 (12m 47s): I know so many people are struggling today with sicknesses and I've got people in hospitals and nursing homes and all kinds of stuff going on, Lord God. So many difficult challenges and yeah, it's on the other side of things. So many amazing things, so many good things, Lord God. And so I pray that you administer grace to those who are struggling and suffering today and encouragement to those and health to those Lord and, and God that you would also just bless those who are just so grateful today. We're grateful that you are faithful. Lord, thank you for who you are because we know all too well who we are and we need you. 1 (13m 33s): Jesus. We love you in Jesus name. Amen. This while everybody is still standing, I want to mix things up a little bit today. Why don't we take communion at the beginning of service instead of the end of service. So hopefully everybody's got elements that if not raise your hand and we will get those elements to you. I want us to stay standing. Just, this is a way to honor the Lord worship team. You guys can be dismissed. So as people grab their, okay, I've got elements. Thank you. 1 (14m 17s): So communion here at harvest church once a month, the family Sunday, fourth, Sunday of every month. And it's just a reminder of God's goodness, this, the sacrifice that he made for us, he reminds us through the scripture and we are reminded as we take communion that before the foundation of the world, God had a plan to bring salvation to us. We're going to be reading passages of scripture that communicate that truth to us. And so it's a bit tricky, but if you can peel off that top layer of cellophane on, there we go. Mine came off very easy that time. So I'm going to read and we're going to take communion. 1 (15m 1s): And I just want to encourage you if you're here today and you need to get yourself right with the Lord before you take communion, you simply do that by confessing your sins to him, acknowledging your need for Jesus, opening your heart to his love and to his life. And as you do that, the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ washes over you. The kindness of God is re is renewed in your heart and mind. And there's just beauty that follows. And so Lord, we thank you that your mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. 1 (15m 42s): We thank you that your word we're thankful that your word speaks to us life and grace and truth. So Lord, as we read your word, as we take communion, as we pray, Lord, we just avail ourselves to you. We give ourselves to you. We say yes to you. Paul wrote in first Corinthians 1123 for I pass on to you. What I received from the Lord himself on the night when he was betrayed the Lord, Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, this is my body, which is given for you do this in remembrance of me. So let's go ahead and take the wafer. 1 (16m 29s): Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus, that you willingly went to the cross, allowed yourself to be nailed to a cross. Not because you were bad, but because I was mad now because you are a sinner, but because I, I am a sinner. So thank you for taking that, making that substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf, Lord, the same way. Verse 25, he took the cup of wine after supper saying this cup is the new covenant between God and his people and agreement confirmed with my blood. 1 (17m 12s): Do this in remembrance of me. As often as you drink it for every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until he comes again. So with that, let's go ahead and take the juice. Thank you, Lord. Thank you Lord. That when we're washed in the blood of the lamb, we are made white as snow. All of our impurities are gone in Jesus name. 1 (17m 54s): All of our failures have been forgiven. All of our sins are washed away in Jesus name. Thank you, Lord. That is such a refreshing truth. Lord God. As we talked about salvation and sanctification today, we're so excited for who we are in you and for the possibility of salvation coming to everybody that we know and sanctification coming to everybody that we know. And so Lord, we pray that you would make us excited about salvation and sanctification. Lord make us excited that we carry this message and that we've got something of life to offer people. 1 (18m 37s): So Lord help us to humbly do so excitedly do so. Bring that message to those in our world. We love you, Lord. We bless you Lord in Jesus name, amen. You can be seated. You can be seated. We're a brand new study today. We are in the book of Titus. We finished up Timothy and now we are in Titus and much like Paul's letters to Timothy. Paul has written a letter to this young man named Titus. He's a Greek believer in the Lord. Jesus Christ. Most likely the apostle Paul through his life in ministry led Titus to faith in Jesus Christ. 1 (19m 23s): And I want us to get this connection. I want us to make this connection to see that a life can be radically changed. And then through a process of salvation and sanctification can be used mightily by the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And so we see that Paul was instrumental in Titus's salvation, but then also instrumental in his discipleship process, equipping him to take the gospel message and to teach others the gospel well message. Titus traveled extensively with the apostle. Paul was involved extensively in his ministry. 1 (20m 3s): We read in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians that he, he lists Titus's name nine times over and over again. Titus is right there with the apostle Paul ministering, the administered together on the island of Crete, which is where Titus is assigned to minister to churches that have sprung up all over the island. And now we're seeing that the apostle Paul is passing the Baton. This is something that is part of the Christian faith. The Baton gets passed to us. Jesus passed the Baton. I shared this last week when he said, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit this week. 1 (20m 51s): Well, last Friday we baptized 14 people at the beach. And then I think it was a couple of days after that there was this mom and her adult son. They took a mutual friend of theirs down to the beach at nine o'clock at night because he needed to get that ties. And there's no better time than the presence. And so they took him down at nine o'clock at night and the sons videotaping the baptismal and the mom is taking this man down into the waters of baptism in Pismo beach about the same place that we baptized all those people the Friday before. And they baptize him. 1 (21m 33s): Isn't that cool? The Baton has been passed to us. Jesus said, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. So we're seeing people get baptized, get discipled in the faith, get saved first and then get baptized and discipled in the faith. And we're so excited to have that Baton passed to us. And so as we study Titus, we're going to see that Paul gave very specific instruction to Titus this young pastor who is going to help strengthen the body of believers that have sprung up in this Greek island to here. And so what I've done is I've downloaded this Bible project video. 1 (22m 17s): That's about eight minutes long, and this is something that we do from time to time when we're launching a new book of the Bible study, we'll take a moment and watch the video because the Bible project people put together an amazing video that just helps us to understand the purpose of the book of Titus, the chapters, the overall message, that conclusion and all of that. So before I preach through the rest of chapter one, before we, before I preach through the chat chapter one, we're going to take eight minutes and watch this video. So let's go and throw that up here. 2 (22m 53s): Can I sit here? Paul's letter to Titus. Titus was a Greek follower of Jesus who was for years, a trusted coworker and traveling companion of Paul's. He had helped Paul in a number of crisis situations in the past. And in this letter, we discover that Paul had assigned him the task of going to Crete, a large island off the coast of Greece to restore order to a network of house churches. Now creating culture was notorious in the ancient world. One of the Greek words for being a liar was created. So to be a cretin, these people were infamous for treachery and greed. Most of the men on the island had served as mercenary soldiers to the highest bidder and the island cities were known as being unsafe, plagued by violence and sexual corruption. 2 (23m 36s): However, the island of Crete had many strategic harbors and they serve as cities all over the ancient Mediterranean sea. And so from Paul's point of view, Crete was the perfect place to start a network of churches. Now we don't know the details, but somehow these churches came under the influence of corrupt cretin leaders. They said they were Christians, but they were ruining the churches. And so Paul assigned Titus with the task of going there to set things straight. And this letter provided the instructions. It has a pretty straightforward design. After a brief introduction, Paul gives Titus clear instructions about his tasks in the church. He then offers guidance about the new kind of household and then about the new kind of humanity that the gospel could create in these cretin communities. 2 (24m 20s): Paul then closes the letter with some final greetings. So Paul opens the whole thing by reminding Titus that his message as an apostle is about the hope of eternal life. That is the life of the new creation that is available starting now through Jesus, the Messiah and this hope was promised long ago by the God who does not lie. Now this little opening comment introduces an important theme underlying the whole letter. One of the problems in the cretin churches was that they had assimilated their ideas about Jesus, the Christian God, to their ideas about the Greek gods that they grew up with specifically Zeus, their chief, God cretin. People claimed that Zeus was actually born on their island and they love to tell stories and mythologies about Zeus's underhanded character. 2 (25m 7s): He would seduce women and lie to get his way. And Paul wants to be really clear. The God revealed through Jesus is totally different than zoos. His basic character traits are faithfulness and truth, which means the Christian way of life will be about truth also, which will be a real change for these cretins. So Paul then addresses Titus with a two-fold task. He says the first one is to appoint new leaders for each church community, a team of what he calls elders, mature husbands or fathers, whose way of life is totally different from cretin culture. They're to be known for integrity, total devotion to Jesus, for self-control and generosity, both in their families and in the community at large. 2 (25m 49s): And these new leaders are to teach the good news about Jesus and replace the corrupt leaders who need to be confronted that's Titus a second task. Paul identifies the teachers as those of the circumcision. In other words, they were ethnically Jewish cretins who said that they followed Jesus, but similar to the problems in glacier, these people demanded that non-Jewish Christians be circumcised and follow the laws of the Torah. If they really wanted to become followers of the Jewish Messiah. Paul says that they're obsessed with Jewish myths and human commands. And to top it off, they're just in the church leadership business to make money. And so Paul, in a brilliant move, he pulls a quote from an ancient cretin poet at the amenities who was very Frank and honest about the character of his own people. 2 (26m 35s): He said, Cretans are always liars, vicious beasts, and lazy gluttons. They blur the lines between true and false between good and evil and they're just in it for the money. And so while these leaders claim to know God, they're cretin way of life denies him, they have to be dealt with. And this leads Paul into the next section because of these corrupt leaders, many Christians in these churches now have homes and personal lives that are a total wreck and three different times. Paul highlights the result of all of this, the message about Jesus is discredited. Their non-Christian neighbors now have good cause to make evil accusations. And all of this makes the teaching about God, our savior totally unattractive, not compelling to anybody. 2 (27m 18s): So Paul paints a picture sure of the ideal cretin household that is devoted to Jesus. It would be elderly men and women who are full of integrity and self control. So they can become models of care, character to the young people. And the young women shouldn't be sleeping around and avoiding marriage as was fashionable and Crete at the time. But rather they should be looking for faithful partners so they can raise stable, healthy families. And the young men are to do the same they're to be known as productive, healthy citizens, Christian slaves on create we're in a unique position because we know that because of the gospel, they were treated as equals in Paul's church communities. However, there was a danger that they would use that equality as licensed to disrespect their masters and then become associated with slave rebellions, which would further discredit the Christian message. 2 (28m 6s): You can see Paul negotiating a fine line here. He believes that the gospel about Jesus needs to prove its redemptive power in the public square. If it's really going to transform, create and culture, and that's not going to happen through social upheaval or by Christians, cloistering away from urban life. The Christian message will be compelling to cretins when Christians fully participate in public life, when their lives and homes look similar on the surface, because after it closer look, their neighbors will discover that Christians live by a totally different value system out of devotion to a totally different God. And that's the difference that Paul beautifully summarizes at the end of chapter two, he says the value system driving the Christian way of life is God's generous. 2 (28m 52s): Grace, which appeared in the person of Jesus and will appear again at his return. This grace was demonstrated when Jesus gave up his life honor to die a shameful death on behalf of his enemies so that he could rescue and redeem them. And it's that same grace that calls God's people to say no to corrupt ways of life that are inconsistent with the generous love of God. Paul then zooms out from the Christian household to a vision of Christians living like new humans and credence society of all people. Christian should be known as the ideal citizens, peaceable, generous obedient to authorities. Yeah. Known for pursuing the common good, but this is really different from how cretins grew up. 2 (29m 35s): How are Christians it's supposed to sustain this counter-cultural way of life? And Paul believes the power source is the love of the three in one God announced in the gospel. And he explores this with a really beautiful pawn. He says, God's kindness and love are what saved us despite ourselves. So that through the holy spirit, God washed and rebirth and renewed people and through Jesus has provided a way for people to be declared right before him. And all of this opens up eternal life. That is a new future in the new creation. This living story is so powerful. It can produce new kinds of people. 2 (30m 15s): Paul convinced that spirit empowered faithfulness to the teachings of Jesus will declare God's grace all over the island of Crete and all over the world. Paul concludes by promising to send back up for Titus, either Artemis or tickets. And then he says hello to their common friends. And so the letter ends, the letter of Titus shows us Paul's missionary strategy for churches to become agents of transformation within their communities. It won't happen by waging a culture war or by assimilating to the Korean way of life. Rather, he calls these Christians to wisely participate in creating culture. They need to reject what's corrupt, but also embrace. What's good there. 2 (30m 55s): If they can learn to live peaceably and devote themselves to Jesus and to the common good Christians will, in his words, show the beauty of the message about our saving God. And that's what the letter to Titus is all about. 1 (31m 12s): Good stuff, good stuff. You can watch. Any of those videos, a video, I believe for every book of the Bible, how's that you think after all of these years, I would have that microphone figured out. Thank you, pastor Ron. Hey, we're looking at a, the title of the message today. The faith, the faith that saves and sanctifies that's really what Paul was talking about is, is what he's talking about in the letter to Titus. And that's really what we were just understood is that God is in the business of saving people from dark and destructive cultures. 1 (31m 60s): And then it's not just saving us out of our culture and out of our sin, but then sanctifying us as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And so we're not just meant for fire insurance, where we just get saved and move on with our lives, but we're actually saved for the purpose of serving God and becoming more and more sanctified as we follow him throughout the course of our life. Now sanctification is a lifelong process. Salvation happens immediately when we trust Jesus for our salvation, but sanctification takes to the rest of our lives. And we have to be patient with that process patient with ourselves and then patient with one another, because every one of us are in a different place on that sanctification process. 1 (32m 44s): So let's take a look at Titus chapter one, verse one, we'll get through all of Titus chapter one today. It says this, this letter is from Paul. A slave of God ended up possible of Jesus Christ. So Paul out of the gate reminds everyone. Now he doesn't need to remind Titus who he is. He doesn't need to speak to Titus and communicate who he is. He's writing this for the benefit of everybody who will read this book after, or this letter after it's been dispersed to Titus into the churches. Or so even to this day, we're reading this letter, understanding who the author is and what the purpose of it is all about Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. 1 (33m 30s): He's a bond servant of God and an apostle taking the message of Jesus, the message of the gospel to those that he is called to take it to you. I've been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to change them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives. So there we have it in the first verse, we see the purpose of this letter. I had been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows, shows them how to live godly lives. So in this opening verse, we see the purpose of this letter. 1 (34m 13s): Faith brings us salvation and sanctification. Faith brings salvation and sanctification. Paul said, I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives. Number one, in your notes, faith in Jesus first and foremost saves simplistic, right? But we are here as followers of the Lord. Jesus, because our faith in the risen savior has saved us. Or we're here sitting in church this morning with the opportunity before us to receive this salvation that is made available to us because of what Jesus has accomplished. 1 (34m 57s): We, we can't jump over this point. We can't forget about this point. This is why we take communion on a regular basis because it reminds us constantly of our desperate need for the salvation that is available through our faith in Jesus, this expression, those God has chosen that he said I've been sent to proclaim faith to those. God has chosen this expression embodies. It embodies the true balance of the gospel that says God initiated salvation and then respond. There's a divine initiation where before the foundation of the world, God saw our for him before you ever knew you needed God before you were even ever born before the foundation of the earth. 1 (35m 47s): God saw you and saw that you needed salvation. And so he made a way through Jesus, this to offer you salvation, there's this balance. And so this, this divine work of God, God, coupled with our need to respond. And so we have this information, this revelation, this gospel message communicated to us. And then we get to choose what to do with maybe you're here today and you've heard the gospel over and over and over and over and over and over again. But you've never truly embraced the gospel message. 1 (36m 26s): You've never truly accepted that race message of the Lord. Jesus Christ. That message is before you again, today that Jesus loves you and he died for your sins. And he's welcoming you with open arms, into his family, wanting to, to forgive you, to save you and to say defy you. And you simply accept that grace gift by saying yes to Jesus. Some of us have said no to that grace gift because we don't feel like our lives are in order or because we don't feel like we can follow through on our commitment to follow Jesus. 1 (37m 6s): Some of us have a dozen different excuses for not saying yes to Jesus. Maybe we just don't want to surrender our lives to him. Maybe we just don't want to allow someone else to be in charge of our lives. Jesus, grace is there for you. What will you do with them? The Bible says, if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, that God has raised him from the dead. You will be saved the Bible. Doesn't say, get your whole life in order. Get all of your biblical questions, answered, figure out every dilemma in your life and then come to faith in Jesus. 1 (37m 49s): He said, if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead. You will be saved. There's this divine initiative and the human response that is before us. And I would just encourage you to accept the grace and the mercy of the Lord. Jesus Christ. I can't tell you how my life has been radically transformed since coming to faith in Jesus. My BC days are nothing like my AAD days, my, my after Christ days. And I'm so grateful for that. Verse two says this truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life. 1 (38m 30s): So Paul it's writing truth to those who have decided to follow Jesus. And this truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God who does not lie, promise them before the world began. So we're told in scripture that we're saved by grace through faith. And we see that throughout the old and the new Testament. And we can believe that we're saved by grace through faith because God does not lie. It's actually impossible for God to lie. So if God says that we're saved by grace through faith, and we have accepted that grace gift of his, then we are indeed saved by grace through faith. Some of us have a hard time believing that we're actually saved. 1 (39m 13s): And so we maybe confess our sins over and over again, come to, you know, make that prayer of declaration over and over again. And I think there's something great about confessing our sins to the Lord. If we confess our sins, he is faithful. And just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so I think we need to be regular confessors of our sin, but it's not for the sake of salvation over and over and over again. Once we come to faith in Christ, it's a finished work of the Lord, Jesus Christ. God can not lie. And if we can not believe God about our salvation, we're going to have a whole lot harder time believing God about everything else in our lives. We're going to have a hard time believing that God loves us. 1 (39m 54s): We're gonna have a hard time believing that God is a provider for us. That he's a healer for us. That he's a Redeemer for us. That he's good. And we're going to have a hard time believing all of these things that we sing and read about in the scriptures. Hebrews six 18 says this. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore he or we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. So in creating culture, Paul's communicating this message with Titus they're ministering on the island. 1 (40m 38s): They leave. And then Titus gets sent back to minister in this culture where Zeus has been there, prominent God, and he's a liar and a womanizer. And so they've got to go into this culture, explaining something about this new God who never lies and who is always good and who is always faithful. There, there, there needs to be a differentiation in their hearts and minds about that. True living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the three in one God, the God that God, the father, the son, and the holy spirit, they need to see the difference. And this is part of the reason that God saves us out of a culture and sanctifies us so that people can see the difference in the lives of believers, of the Lord, Jesus Christ. 1 (41m 25s): But it's also what causes people to hunger for something that they haven't experienced before that they are used to following Zeus and his role model as a liar and a womanizer. That's all, they know, people are hungry for something of choice, true religion, true faith in the living. God people know that this can not be a proper representation of who God is. And so the gospel comes in and as the gospel goes throughout the island of Crete house, churches are popping up all over the place because people are hearing of this real gospel. 1 (42m 5s): Good news message. And they're believing it. And they're beginning to walk in it. And they're beginning to abandon Zeus abandoned this small G God, who's not a God at all. Who's a counterfeit. Who's there just to distract and to hinder people from following their real Lord and savior Jesus Christ. And so people begin to see the reality of the truth of who God is. And they begin to follow that. Some of us have done though, what the Christians have done. And we've kind of married Christianity with, with pagan culture. We've blended the two in such a way that people are confused by the way that we live our lives. 1 (42m 47s): They see us calling ourselves Christians, but we, we engage in pagan, cultural type things that cause confusion and hinder our ability, our sanctity education as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And so we're dealing in our culture, what the cretins we're dealing with in their culture. This temptation to bring our old life into this new life with Jesus and try to marry those things we've been saved by God's grace, so that we might be redeemed and delivered out of that old life and sanctified by his grace because he's good. Not because we're good. So our God is real. And God's plan of salvation was determined before the foundation of the world. 1 (43m 31s): So you think about zoos, he's a liar, he's a womanizer. He's all about Zeus, right? God, on the other hand, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the try, you and God, father, the son and the holy spirit. They're all about you and me. So before the foundation of the world, imagine the Godhead, they have this plan to create mankind, but they know because they know everything. He knows everything. I'll say he knows everything. When I say they I'm talking about Trinity is there it's, it's, it's a really, really difficult concept to, to fully internalize, but they, God had his, they speak among themselves being one God in three persons, father, son, and the holy spirit. 1 (44m 14s): They're thinking about how things will unfold. And they're saying, Hey mankind, we'll see. And God said, let's make a way of salvation for them so that we might know them and have relationship with them and bring them into fellowship with us. This is what it says in second Timothy, one nine for God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time and that interesting. So before you would ever sinned, before you would ever born, they made a plan. God made a plan for you to know him. And it happened before the beginning of the time to show us his grace through Christ Jesus, all right, Titus one, three. 1 (44m 56s): And now it just the right time. He has revealed this message through the Bible, which we announced to everyone. It is by the command of God, our savior that I have been entrusted with this work for him. What's the work that Paul's talking about. The writing of the inspired word of God, the proclamation of the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ, right? Like on the road to Damascus, the apostle gets the Baton handed to him and he gets saved on the road and that the Baton is passed to him. And then he begins to take the message of the Lord, Jesus Christ, everywhere he goes. And then God uses him to write two thirds of the new Testament. 1 (45m 36s): And we're talking about the apostle Paul again, who, who persecuted the church and who was a hater of God and his people. And yet God redeemed him by his salvation. I am writing to Titus my true son in the faith that we share, may God, the father and Christ Jesus, our savior give you grace and peace. Paul's entails about what he's writing to Titus. This grace and peace that he's writing about is contrary to what the experience is of the church or the people who live or living in Crete. It's, they're not experiencing grace and peace because they're following false God. 1 (46m 16s): A false ideology. May God, the father and Christ Jesus, our savior give you grace and peace. So Titus working, create a title. So again, the faith that saves and sanctifies, number one, faith in Jesus saves. And the second point, the last point, faith in Jesus sanctifies, what does it mean to be sanctified? It means to be made holy or to be set apart, to be used for God's purposes, to be consecrated, to be dedicated to God. So Titus was set aside for his work on the island of Crete. I wonder what you are sanctified, set apart to do what work are you sanctified and set apart to do here in the earth? 1 (47m 4s): Because I always say this, I believe this is true. Then if you've got a pulse, you've got a purpose. If you're here in the earth, you've got work to do. And so the question is what is the work that God is calling you to do? Christie Suiza will be sharing a ways to get involved at harvest church here in just a few minutes. When I invite her up after I preach, she will talk about small groups that you can be involved in. And in those small groups, you can learn what salvation is all about, what sanctification is all about. And you can help lead small groups. You can be involved in the work and ministry of harvest church. As we get ready to move into 1 0 2 here in the next few months, we're going to need more people. 1 (47m 44s): It's another venue we're holding on to all of this venue, all of this, these buildings and location. And so we're going to need more people to be involved. Many of you are involved in para church ministries and organizations where you're ministering in the community, doing the things that God has called you to do, even as Titus was set aside for the work of God on the island of creed. I want us to figure out what we are set aside to do what sorry, serving opportunities are before you. How is it? The Lord has equipped you to do the work that God it has called you to do. So just be thinking of about that and be praying about that. 1 (48m 24s): And maybe as you hear Christi present today, all of the opportunities, maybe the thing will peak your interest and you'll say, Hey, I'd like to be a part of that. Or I'd like to be a part of that. And then just jump in with both feet and watch what we'll do Titus in verse five, I left you on the island of Crete. So you could complete our work there and appoint elders in each town. As I instructed you, I liked that. He said complete our work there because it means that Titus isn't in it by himself. Paul started the work. Titus has carry on carrying on the work, but others will be there with him supporting him along the way. 1 (49m 7s): You are not in this life. As a follower of Jesus Christ alone, others have gone before you, there are people who will support you in your journey, and then you will pass the Baton at some point in your life. I left you on the island of Crete. So you could complete our work there and appoint elders in each town. As I instructed you, an elder must live a blameless life. And now we're going to kind of get a snapshot of what sanctification looks like. And these are actually qualifications for those who want to serve as elders within the church of the living, God, there it's a high bar. This list of expectations and qualifications, for those who want to start as elders, it's actually very difficult, but by the grace of God, nobody would be able to manage this list and live up to it. 1 (50m 4s): So an elder must be a blame. A leader live a blameless life. Maybe your Bible says to you live above reproach. That means that somebody, because as if your lifestyle is not even able to actually use you, it's not that you get accused and acquitted it's that your life is so far above reproach that can even accuse you of doing wrong. That's the standard. Isn't that crazy? That's the, that's the standard. But this is by God's grace. What is capable for us as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. When we allow the sanctification process that God wants to accomplish in our lives. 1 (50m 45s): So an elder must live a blameless life. We see it here in verse six, and we'll hear the same qualification repeated in verse seven. Let's continue verse six. He must be faithful to his wife. That just means a one woman, man, someone who's married to one woman at a time and his children must be believers who don't have a reputation for being wild or rebellious. That's going to disqualify most of us, right? That's a tough one. She's children must be believers who don't have a reputation for being wild or rebellious. So part of the, the, the what's to be understood about that text is that we actually, as parents, as people who follow Jesus, have that responsibility to pass the Baton to our kids. 1 (51m 37s): And so it's not actually the church's responsibility, the Sunday school or the youth department. It's not our responsibility to make sure that your kids are saved. It's actually your responsibility. And we as Sunday school teachers or youth leaders come alongside what you are already doing, helping your kids to know Jesus. So that's part of that process. Salvation comes as your kids, see you model godliness in your life. And this will only happen if we allow the sanctification process happen in our lives. If we allow that sanctification process in our lives, then our, our kids will see something in us that they desire. 1 (52m 19s): They won't see perfection, but they will see on an honest pursuit of who God is and honored pursuit of God. And out of that, we get saved and sanctified, and our kids see something that is genuine. It's something that they want a child, a church leader and oversee, or a Bishop is a manager of God's household. So he must live there. It is again, he must live a blameless life. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered often when we're arrogant, it's because we're comparing ourselves to someone else. And we estimate that our lives are in better shape than somebody else's life. And so we become arrogant a few weeks ago, Dr. 1 (53m 0s): Stacey Harmon, when he was teaching and preaching here from the pulpit, he said the, he said, we need to remember that we are not the standard. Remember when he said that you said we are not the standard, meaning that my life is not the standard. Your life is not the standard God. And his word is the standard. And so we need to make sure that we're when we're comparing ourselves, we're comparing ourselves to God and his word and trust. All arrogance will go out the window. You want to have any room in your life for arrogance. If you're looking at the word of God on a regular basis and comparing your life to the word, you will eliminate all arrogance from your life. So you must not be arrogant or quick tempered. 1 (53m 42s): It must not be a heavy drinker, violent or dishonest with money. I think Paul's writing this list in light of the culture, in the island of Crete. He's writing this because he understands the culture that he's up against. And so he's writing about living a blameless life, not being arrogant or quick tempered, or a heavy drinker or violent or dishonest with money because he's seeing all of these things happen on the, in the creed and culture on the island of he's seeing the people do all of these things. He said rather, and then he gives a whole list of things that we should be doing. 1 (54m 26s): And again, these are things that we do as we allow the sanctification process of God in our lives. We can't do it in our own strength with our own willpower. Yeah. Make these things happen. We can do some of these things okay. For a while. But if we want to do all of these things well for the long-term, we have to be filled with the holy spirit, the power of God that gives us the ability to do what God has asked us to do. So we can't not do the things. And we can't do the things apart from the work of the holy spirit, sanctifying our lives, rather Mercede he must enjoy having guests in his home, speaking of elders and, and what they should be doing. 1 (55m 9s): He must have enjoyed having guests in his home. Why? Because that's where fellowship and relationship and connection takes place. That's where people are getting, getting a discipled in their faith and growing as a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He must love what is good. He must live wisely and be just, or fair again, thinking about what's going on in the culture in that day and thinking about what's going on in the culture of our day, this is the list. This is the standard that by God's grace, we are able to accomplish. As we just allow that sanctification process in our lives, we must live a devout and discipline life. 1 (55m 56s): You must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught. So not a new believer, but someone who understands and believes wholeheartedly the message of the gospel and what the scripture teaches. Then he will be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it, where they are wrong. So wholesome teaching is teaching that confronts. This is what essentially Paul doing. He's offering wholesome teaching that is confronting the culture of the day. Wholesome teaching confronts the unbiblical teachings of those who are confused about God's plan of salvation and sanctification. 1 (56m 41s): Okay. First Sandy goes on for, there are many rebellious people who engage in useless talk and deceive others. This is especially true of those who insist on circumcision for salvation. So he's saying, Hey, if anybody's saying it's Jesus plus anything else, and that's the gospel, they're wrong. They're confused about what the gospel is all about. So if we say it's Jesus plus tithing, that equals salvation. That's wrong. If we say it's Jesus plus serving we're wrong because it's Jesus plus nothing else that equals salvation. 1 (57m 22s): Now sanctification is the process whereby we come, we become more and more like Jesus and less and less like our old self, our old man, our old woman. So there's a sanctification process that begins to change the way that we live our lives, the way that we spend our time, talent and treasure. So they were Judaizers in the island there and they were saying, well, if you really want, like, we are here on the video. If you really want to be a follower of the Messiah, then you, you have to be circumcised. And the disciples had already put that dispel, that myth and said that that wasn't accurate. It's Jesus blessed, nothing else. 1 (58m 4s): That equals salvation. First of all, 11, they must be silenced because they are turning whole families away from the truth, from the truth, by their false teachings. And they do it only for money. So they were spiritual leaders within the church who were operating only for financial gain. So they were being dishonest, not doing the true work that God called them to do. And so we have to be careful that we're not being conformed to the culture in which we live, but that the Bible is shaping us and be, and we're becoming more like Jesus and the culture of Christian, true Christianity, even one of their own men, a prophet from Crete. 1 (58m 51s): He said about them. The people of Crete are all liars, cruel animals and lazy gluttons. You know, that's the culture that they were in. I wonder what could be said of our culture. What would be their little pithy statement that would be said about our culture? I don't know. No, I haven't taken the time to write it out, but, but there are challenging and desperate and sinful things about our culture that are trying to influence us and draw us away from the things of God. People of Crete are liars, cruel animals and lazy gluttons. 1 (59m 31s): This is the culture. Titus is ministering. Yeah. And it's helpful for us to know the culture that we're in. Let's just play a game real quickly. I'm out of time already. Anyway. So let's just play a game and you just go with that. What would you use as a word to describe our 21st century culture? Sure. In Western and the Western part of the world here in California on the central good G get, get specific to like to the central coast. What would you use as a word? What is it unfocused? Interesting. Very good word on the word is unfocused. What else could we do you use to describe the culture of the central coast, worldly, unfocused, and worldly. 1 (1h 0m 15s): So we're, we're, we're kind of getting close to this year. Where, what else? Unfocused and worldly, let's do one more. Oops. That was a bunch of them. Who, what was it? Fearful, depraved, fearful and depraved. So it's helpful for us to understand our culture so that we, number one, don't become like our culture, but number two, so that we understand what we're trying to, what we're trying to do to help what we can do to help people who are stuck in that culture. So think about the culture of your family. Think about the culture of your work. Think about the culture of your neighborhood, and then ask the Lord, Lord, how do I operate within that culture? 1 (1h 0m 57s): So that I might bring salvation to those who need salvation so that God, you might work too, brings sanctification to their lives. Here we go. Let's finish this up. This is true. So reprimand them sternly to make them strong in their faith. They must stop listening to Jewish myths and the commands that people who have turned away from the truth. So Jewish myths are Jewish laws and traditions that NOLA Phi and contradict the holy scripture. So anything that we're believing that either no Ify replace or contradict the scripture is something that we need to be, be wary of circumcision. 1 (1h 1m 38s): Hand-washing these, these are examples, extreme rules around the Sabbath. I, I D these are all things that were happening in the day. And these are things that not even Jews even knew how to honor and obey. Let's get to these last couple weeks. Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure, but nothing is pure to those who are corrupted and believing because their minds in common, the agencies are corrupted to the right. Everything is pure. Have you noticed that in your life, like when you're in a really good place with the Lord, like everything is pure. Somebody can tell you a story. And all you do is see the episode about the story. But when your mind is corrupt to the perverse, everything is, somebody might tell you the same exact story, but you can come up with this perverse conclusion about, about the story. 1 (1h 2m 28s): Maybe you're seeing someone of the opposite sex walking down the street, a man, or a woman. And you're attracted to that man, or that woman, someone who is pure, what might say that is a handsome person, right there. Someone who is perverted would say, let's take that a step further. And it's not just a handsome person. That's someone that they want to get with. And because their perversion is in their mind, everything that they think about ends in perversion, but to the pure, everything is pure. So you've got this culture where there's perversion everywhere. And then the culture is they're trying to shift the culture by bringing purity into the culture. 1 (1h 3m 11s): And this is what they're up against. They're trying to communicate truth and trying to live differently. And there's perversion in the culture. There's corruption in the culture, verse 16. So people claim, they know God, but they such people claim. They know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient worthless for doing anything good. So you see the value of sanctification sanctification actually helps us to be qualified. We're qualified by God's grace and through the process of sanctification to do the works that God has called us to do. And so there's a process there, the faith that saves and sanctifies, faith, faith, faith in Jesus saves and faith in Jesus sanctifies. 1 (1h 3m 52s): And we can't, we don't want one without the other. We don't, we can't be sanctified without salvation, and we don't want to be saved without sanctification. We need both. We need both. And that's God's plan for both for, for all of us in Jesus name. Well, we've already taken communion. That's the end of my message. I'm wondering if it's Christie Suiza here. There she is. Christie's going to talk to us today about opportunities to get involved, to get plugged in. And so this is Christie . Christie has been on our staff team for the last dozen years or so. Something like that long time, she's only 20, but she's been with us for a very long time. 1 (1h 4m 33s): Christie, your full attention. 3 (1h 4m 35s): Good morning, everybody. Don't worry. I'm not going to sing. Yeah. I'm the director of discipleship here at harvest, and I have some exciting ways you can get connected and get plugged in. I know many of you are newer to our church and looking for ways to build those relationships, grow deeper in your faith and have that community of connection outside in our driveway. On the right-hand side, you'll find a couple of tables today. One of them has a list of all of our life groups that are going to be launching here in September. We have a lot of different groups, something for everybody just to highlight a few things. We have quite a few home groups that meet in a Royal Grande date. We have some home groups this time focused on parents of teenagers, and that are focusing on family groups. 3 (1h 5m 19s): We have a couple that meet in the Nipomo area. We also have a young professionals group as well as a college group. So those are great ways to get plugged in with others, your age in the community. Here we have men's groups and women's groups, both daytime and evening for men. We have a morning, one for women and one for young women. And then we have a new financial peace university class that's starting up as well. So if you're interested in learning about budgeting and how to honor God with your finances, stop by the table, and we'll be able to answer questions for you there on those. So stop by pick up a flyer and ask whatever questions you have. We'll also be out there next week as well, taking signups and getting as many people plugged in as possible. 3 (1h 6m 4s): Our second table is for getting involved in an area of ministry here at harvest church. And ed is such a blessing to serve and be involved and connected with the heartbeat of what we do here at harvest. So if you're not plugged in to a ministry team, I really encourage you to pray about where God wants to connect you. We have so many ways you can connect children's ministry. Don't worry, not everyone is teaching. And children's. We have people that help people that serve behind the scenes, people that greet children. So there's lots of ways to connect there. We have a women's ministry team. We have folks that serve and our coffee bar ministry that make the coffee and keep that area refilled throughout our Sunday morning services. 3 (1h 6m 46s): Believe it or not. We actually have people that clean this place too during the week. And we love our cleaning team members. So if you have free time during the week and would love to help clean, there's a big need. There, we have folks who serve on our tech team, behind our camera's up here on our worship team and our prayer ministry as well. So we have so many ways you can get connected here at harvest. So pray about it. Stop by the table, ask questions, and we'd love to help you find a spot or the Lord can use you here in our body. So thank you. Please stand with us. We're going to sing one more song bursty inside. 3 (1h 7m 47s): Yes, we can surely see 4 (1h 11m 9s): Thank you for salvation, for who you are, Lord, and for just this place, you have us in our community. And I just, I just pray that our Holly ladies would be multiplied in, would just stretch out across our region and across our, our, our communities and our families. Lord, when people just be pointed straight to Jesus, because of it, because of the, the worship that we give to you. And thank you for today. And I see blessed. It says, we go, let us never be the same.