In his letter to Titus, a younger minister, Paul charges him to “set things in order.” The interpretive key of the whole letter is found in Titus 1:5: “For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking.” There were critical matters that needed to be settled to produce an orderly and godly expression of the church of Jesus Christ. Titus lived on one of the most beautiful islands in the Aegean Sea, inhabited by what someone referred to as some of the most bull-headed people you could ever meet in such a lovely spot. Paul’s letter shows how sound doctrine leads to godly living.

Okay, so open your Bibles to the letter to Titus, and let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this letter to help us see important things for our own lives, for our own church, that we would learn your order of things, and that you would take the minutes that we have now here, Lord, and that you would teach us the ways in which we should go. Amen. Well, it's a very godly thing to bring something from disorder to order. God is one who orders all things well, and this letter to Titus speaks to this matter of orderliness and how things can be so messed up and the only hope really is that God would come and bring order to what has been so messed up.

And so That's really the essence of this message to Titus. Titus was a young minister. He lived on one of the most beautiful islands in the Aegean Sea, inhabited by some of the most bullheaded people you could ever meet on such a lovely spot. And the heart of Paul's letter to Titus is summed up in these words, For this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking. And so this was the issue that Titus had to deal with.

Things were not in order. And of course this is the truth about all of our lives. The Lord picks us up when we're dead and our trespasses and sins. There's lots of disorder and He spends the rest of our lives bringing order to things that have been in disarray. He puts us back together.

He heals us. He knits us. He knits back the tear, And this is what the Apostle Paul is calling Titus to do on this island. And so during our time here I'm going to identify from this letter eight critical matters that needed to be set in order on Crete in order to bring a godly expression of the Church of Jesus Christ on that island. It was a wild island in a lot of ways, only 30 miles wide, but it was an island of significance that God had called this man to come and bring order to.

What Paul instructs Titus to do is to make sure that the church is sitting on a firm foundation. That's one thing that he makes very plain right at the beginning. Elders need to be appointed. False teachers need to be rebuked. The young, the old in the church need to be instructed.

The older women need to know what to do. The older men need to know what to do. They needed to be instructed about how to be obedient and beneficial citizens. As I said, Crete was a wild place with a bunch of wild people. And the people in the church, because of their natural independence and bullheadedness, needed special instruction to keep them from insurrection in the civil realm.

So they were commanded to be a blessing to the civil government. Most likely they had a tendency to mock, not to be meek, and so the Apostle Paul addresses this. It's quite likely they were a combative people who needed to avoid dissension because the Apostle Paul issues various commands regarding the way that they relate with each other. They needed to have compassion on others. They needed to learn how to meet urgent needs.

They needed to dwell in the grace of God. All of these things are addressed in this letter, and the church through all of these things was being urged on to good works. So that's the basic message of this letter, put things in order. There are a number of doctrinal statements also that appear in the midst of practical applications. You'll see a heading for this in the second item of your outline, and what Paul does is he shows Titus how sound doctrine leads to godly living.

Godly living doesn't just pop out of nowhere. It begins with godly thinking, and godly thinking begins with setting sound doctrine in order in your own mind. Everything really flows from the mind. God begins there, and then He works outward, And there are two critical passages of Scripture that identify how this doctrine is designed to create right living. If you go to chapter 2 verses 11 through 14, what you learn there is that it's grace, the grace of God that teaches you how to live.

And there's a way that saving grace is actually a training mechanism in your life, and This is really the heart of the letter, that it's the power of the Gospel that creates this orderliness out of disorder. In chapter 2, verse 11, the apostle writes this, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age." Notice the language that he uses here. It's the grace of God that teaches. Grace is a teacher. And then he continues on in verse 13 by saying, "...looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works." Well, this is the power of sound doctrine.

When it's embraced, it creates a zealous people full of good works. And then he also in chapter 3 verses 3 through 8 communicates a very similar thing that we are saved from foolishness to good works. And so he says in chapter 3 verse 3, We ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." So he's speaking of how sound doctrine actually creates a godly life. You have to begin with sound doctrine.

It's that sound doctrine that changes your thinking and it brings order to your thinking and as a result it sets things in order in your life. So if you want things to be set in order in your life, then you have to begin with sound doctrine. And the letter to Titus is a brilliant display of how this works because He works through various applications of life, a life that is well-lived, but he always ties it to the doctrine. So that's one thing that you need to recognize when you read through the letter to Titus. So let's talk about the author.

The author is the Apostle Paul. At the very beginning, in the introduction to the letter, Paul identifies himself. He calls himself a bond slave. What's a bond slave? It's a slave.

Paul was identifying himself as a slave. By the way, John MacArthur a few years ago wrote a book with a very controversial title. The title is Slave. It's right here in my library, But it's a remarkable book and in that book he explains what this word bonslave actually means. Now in Roman society there were three levels of society.

There were the patricians at the top of society. There were 400 patricians. They had all the rights of land ownership. They were wealthy. They could do whatever they wanted to do.

And then there were the plebeians. These were the common men and women. They were just the ordinary folk. They were second class citizens. And then thirdly, there were the slaves.

That's who Paul identifies with. They couldn't own anything. They couldn't go anywhere they wanted to go, and they couldn't do whatever they wanted to do. They had masters, and they were only able to do what their masters desired them to do. That's why the Apostle Paul identifies himself as a slave, a slave of Jesus Christ.

He willingly, happily put himself under the tutelage of the Lord Jesus Christ. When you have such a good master as Jesus Christ, you're a happy slave. And Paul was a happy slave. It's a blessing to put yourself in servitude to the Lord Jesus Christ because He always leads you to the best places and He always teaches you the right things, and He carries you all the way. You know, Moses said that the children of Israel were like a father who carries his son.

This is what the Lord Jesus Christ does. He's a good shepherd. He gently leads those who are with young. So Paul happily declares himself to be a bond slave, and he really is explaining what it means to be a Christian. You go from being a slave to the world to a slave of God.

You transfer from one order of authority to another, and so the Apostle Paul identifies himself that way. Also, let's talk about Titus the man. Titus is regularly mentioned in the New Testament. He's mentioned 12 times outside of this letter. Galatians 2 verse 3 tells us that he was a Greek.

In chapter 1 verse 4 of this letter, Paul says that he was his own son in the faith. Titus was loved by Paul. Titus had a dear relationship with the apostle Paul. He was a fellow worker close to Paul. Titus is mentioned nine times in 2nd Corinthians alone where Paul refers to him as my partner, my fellow worker, my brother.

So there was a great deal of tenderness and intimacy from this old, wrinkled, beat-up man, the Apostle Paul, toward this young pastor in the island of Crete. Paul would send him out to do certain things. He sent him to Corinth to see how the church was doing there in 2 Corinthians 12 verse 8. He sent Titus to see what impact his first letter had on the church there because he was hearing all kinds of rumors and he wanted to know what was going on there. So he sent Titus and Titus brought back a glowing report.

Titus brought back a report that said, you know, Paul they listened to you. They took your advice. They obeyed you. There's still some real problems in the church, but there was real repentance, and they're ignoring sin and different things like that. Paul also sent him to Corinth to help bring the collection for the poor in Jerusalem.

You remember the apostles were gathering funds from the churches in Asia to take to Jerusalem where there was a great famine and a terrible persecution and they had gotten down to the place where they needed food, which is why what you read in the New Testament about the sacrificial giving that took place in the early church where Barnabas sold a field in order to feed people. So it got down to that point where food was such a matter of concern that they were trying to collect money all over Asia and people were selling what they had so that people could eat. And so okay here's the deal with Titus. This young man was involved in the remarkable growth of the New Testament Church. Amazing projects.

He saw the problems in the church. He had a front row seat on the expansion of the church. He was involved with Paul in his interaction with the churches and the relief of the poor. He maintained a remarkable travel schedule. If you can imagine the distances these men were walking to go from a church to church, from city to city.

But there's something about Titus that is probably the most important thing to remember. Don't forget this about Titus. Go and do the same. In 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 5 through 7, there's a side of Titus that the Apostle Paul speaks of that we would all do well to emulate and that is this, Titus was a comforter of the brethren. He was a refreshment to those who are in times of trial.

He had a word of comfort for the weary. And so in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 5 through 7, we learn that Paul and his companions became very weary. They became despondent. They actually became depressed. Has that ever happened to you where you just seem to have lost your heart, and you just can't pull yourself out.

That's where the Apostle Paul and his companions were. And so we read about it beginning in verse 5 in 2 Corinthians 7, For indeed when we came to Asia, our bodies had no rest, but we were troubled on every side outside were conflicts inside were fears those two things outside tremendous outside, tremendous trouble, inside turmoil, pain. You know, they had no rest. So verse 6 says this, Nevertheless God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus. These are some of the most wonderful words in the New Testament, that the God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus.

And there are two ways to think about that. One is think of the different ways that God's people have comforted you. God sent someone to comfort you with a word. Maybe it was an exhortation. Maybe it was even a word of rebuke that snapped you out of your pity party, but it's a God that comforts the depressed.

Or on the other side of it, you know, has the Lord ever used you to comfort the depressed, to come alongside and help, to weep with those who weep, and to rejoice with those who rejoice? This is one of the great functions of Christians with their brothers and sisters, that they're used of the Lord to comfort the downcast. You know, if you know someone who's downcast, what should you do? Pray that God would give you the heart of Titus and go and be a blessing to them. Do you know anybody like that right now?

Somebody, they've just lost their heart, they're confused, they're in turmoil, they're depressed, they've got pressures on the outside, they have fears on the inside. Here's the problem with fear. People often carry it silently and they don't show it, and so it's still very critical for us to recognize that we can be used to the Lord to encourage someone even when something that they're hiding. They're hiding their discouragement. And verse 7 here just completes the whole thought of what Titus did, and not only by His coming but also by the consolation with which He was comforted in you when He told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, your zeal for me, and so I rejoiced even more." So not only was Titus a source of comfort, the people that he comforted were a source of comfort to him.

And so there's this sort of circle of comfort that God desires to create in His church, where the people of God are like that, that we would be like Titus, a refreshment and a comfort to one another in the times when we're depressed. Now let's talk about the context of Titus' ministry. Titus was on the island of Crete. It was the fourth largest Aegean island. According to Greek mythology, the island was famous for the origin of famous Greek gods like Zeus and Bacchus, you know, the god of wine, Bacchus.

It wasn't a place that was known for Christian morality, and this is why one of the great Greek poets Epimenides said, Cretans are always liars. And of course the Apostle Paul quotes Epimenides, he quotes this Greek philosopher, in order to explain what kind of culture we had going on Crete. So, you know, to act the Cretan became an idiom for to play the liar. So if someone came to you and said, you act the Cretan, It was not a compliment. He was telling you that you're nothing but a liar.

You're just like a stinking liar from the island of Crete. And so, Cretans were problematic. That's why The Apostle Paul is very clear and stern with Titus about what he should do. He says, look Titus, men are upsetting whole households. Silence these men.

He was sent to do such a thing. You know there were a number of Cretans present on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, so some of them were saved, probably, on the Day of Pentecost, and they went back to Crete, and they were living life large out there, and then Titus is sent to set things in order because things weren't in all that great order. Well let's move on to the outline and we're going to walk through this letter because I want to identify eight critical steps that every church should pay attention to to bring things into biblical order. Now this is going to be fairly easy to do because there are only 46 verses in Titus and it only is composed of three chapters. Now I'm going to give you two outlines.

First of all, I'm going to give you a really simple outline that's a lot easier to remember, and then I'm going to walk you through a more complex outline that gives some of the detail. But chapter one addresses the government of God in the church and in the family. Chapter 2 is an explanation of how sound doctrine changes people's lives. Chapter 3 speaks of how one ought to conduct themselves in the civil realm. So that's a simple outline, but the outline I'm going to follow gives some more detail and itemizes Paul's instructions there for the church.

You have that outline in front of you. So let's begin in the first section that begins with chapter 1 verses 1 through 4. In the introduction, the Apostle Paul says, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect. And there are a couple things I wanted to identify in these first four verses, and the first is this, is that true Christians are slaves. The second thing is true churches are founded on the foundation of the Apostles.

Paul declares himself to be an apostle and God in His Providence has designed the church to be built on the foundation of the Apostles. In other words, the church does what the Apostles tells the church to do. But notice the critical role of preaching that the Apostle Paul identifies here. He says, "...but has in due time manifested his word through preaching." Now this is a critical matter when you think about church life. How is it that God has designed that His people be instructed.

Well, outside of personal instruction, seeking the Lord, you know, filling up your mind with the knowledge of His will, outside of that, God has established preaching to be one of the primary means of evangelism and the equipping of the saints. The Bible calls preaching foolishness because it's incomprehensible that God would use such a poor mode of communication. There's so much better kinds of communication that you can experience in this world. Highly visual. There's communication that engages all the senses, but preaching is different.

But for some reason God has designed preaching to be one of the critical ways that He manifests His Word in the world. So we should always be about multiplying preaching. This is why we set aside men to labor in the Word and in prayer. It's a good thing to do that. It's a good thing to multiply preaching in any town that you live in, and every church should be about multiplying preaching in that town and throughout the whole world.

That's what World Missions is. It's to multiply preaching all throughout the world. Any way we can multiply preaching that is Spirit-directed and God-ordained is a good work in the world. And if you think about our church, we should be praying about how we multiply preaching in the world. So after he delivers this introduction, he moves to the second thing that the apostle is trying to communicate.

Now the first thing that needs to be set in order is that churches need to rest on the foundation of the apostles. The church doesn't do its own thing. The church does what the apostles have ordained for it to do. That's the first critical matter for church life. The second is found in verses 5 through 9 in chapter 1, and what churches ought to do is they should select qualified elders, And that's why Paul says to Titus, for this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you." So in the island of Crete there were churches, there were lots of churches, but they were lacking.

They didn't have everything they needed. They were churches, they were still identified by the Apostle Paul as churches, but they didn't have elders. When a church doesn't have elders, it's lacking and it needs to be changed. And so the Apostle is commanding Him to set this thing in order, get elders in these churches, and these elders have particular qualities about them. If a man is blameless, verse 6, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination, For a bishop or an elder, which is a synonymous term, must be blameless as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful Word as He has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convict those who contradict." So it matters what kind of men lead local churches because local churches will become a reflection of those men.

Local churches will have some reflection of what's in a man's heart and whether he's a striker or a violent man or a harsh man, churches will take on the character of an elder. If an elder has an unloving family or things like that, it'll come out in the church because the Apostle Paul says, you know, that if you don't know how to manage your own house, how will you manage the Church of God? Because your life comes out. Elders need to be men who have their eyes fixed on Jesus, not on impurity. You don't want your elders drinking of this world.

You do not want them to do that because it really matters. Now what the Apostle is telling Titus is, go appoint elders in every city, but appoint these kind of men. Go find these kind of men and appoint them to be elders. So that's the second thing that must be done and that is to appoint elders. And then thirdly, the insubordinate need to be corrected and you find that in chapter 1 verses 10 through 16.

And here he identifies one of the difficult elements of an elder's life. He says, "...for there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, the legalists of the day, whose mouths must be stopped. So here's this young pastor and this wizened Apostle Paul is saying, you need to stop their mouths. And then he says, he says they're subverting whole households. They're bringing trouble to entire households, and entire households are being turned in the wrong way.

There is dishonest gain involved in it as well. And then verse 12 is the classic verse you should never forget from the book from the letter to Titus. One of them, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. Welcome to Crete. You know, every city, you know, every church, every home has a culture, and this was the culture of Crete.

What God was designing for Crete is to create a whole new culture that was built upon the example of godly men who were qualified to be elders And of course the Apostle Paul says this statement is true. It is true. Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. Of course, except for those who are in the church who are being transformed by the Lord. Verse 13, look at the language in verse 13, just so you know what kind of boldness an elder is supposed to have.

Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. So he speaks of this difficult task of correcting the insubordinate. So, so far what we've said is that in order to set things in order, the first thing that needs to take place is that the church needs to be set on the foundation of the apostles. Secondly, qualified elders need to be selected, and then thirdly, the insubordinate need to be corrected. Now the fourth is that sound doctrine and sound relationships in the church need to be established.

And this is what we find in chapter 2, verses 1 through 15. So now Paul is talking about the qualities of a sound church, and he's talking about what the relationships in a church should look like in a well-ordered church. And what you find out here is the relationships are diverse. The older teaching the younger, and you have this picture of a generational community where everyone's together. They're like a family, just like you know your family where you have a grandfather and a father and you have a mother and you have children and there might be aunts and uncles and grandchildren.

That's a picture of the church. Everybody's together and you have this diverse mix of relationships and so he's talking about this church life that engages everyone and you know in the church that the Apostle Paul is envisioning that he's asking Titus to establish, it's not the kind of church where you have a children's church over here and you have the separate children's church and you have the senior citizens church over here, and the youth church over here. This was one church. They were together. And he begins this section with the call for sound doctrine.

He says in verse 1, that as for you speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine." Why? Because sound doctrine always creates sound church life. Sound doctrine always generates an orderly Church according to the will of God. Now the Apostle, beginning in verse 2 of chapter 2, begins to walk through the various kinds of people in the church. He begins with older men who are sober.

That older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love and patience. And then he turns to older women. He starts with the older, by the way, because the culture of a church should be built as a result of maturity, not immaturity. The pace-setters of the church should be the mature, not the immature. You get that?

In our society, it's totally flip-flopped. We put the immature as the pace-setters of society. That's just an absolute reversal of the way that God has it, you know, for His church. And so he speaks of older women, the older women likewise that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be blasphemed. So older women are designed to create a particular kind of culture, and if they don't, what happens?

It's pretty terrifying, really. The Word of God is blasphemed. If older women don't live like this, it creates conditions where the Word of God is blasphemed. And it's blasphemed in different ways. When you have older women not teaching the younger women, what do you get?

You get younger women going their own way, and they create enormous problems for themselves, for their families, and for their whole future, and the Word of God is blasphemed. When you don't have older women trying to rescue the younger women, the younger women are going to do a lot of damage, and the Word of God's are going to end up being blasphemed. They're going to get divorces, they're going to engage in all kinds of silly things, and as a result the people on the outside will blaspheme the Word of God when they look in the church and they see, you know, all this immaturity running in that church with the young women. So young women can cause the Word of God to be blasphemed because older women don't teach the younger women. It's one of the biggest problems in the church today.

Where are the older women? There are so few older women in the church to teach younger women, and you who are here right now, you should set yourselves right now to become the older women in the church. Do everything you can to become an older Titus II woman. Become wise. Seek the things that are wise right now.

Build up a wellspring of wisdom so that as you grow older you're able to bring the younger women up so they wouldn't be so foolish and so that the Word of God would not be blasphemed. And then he speaks to young men as a pattern in verses 6 through 8. He says, Likewise exhort the young men to be sober-minded in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works in doctrine showing integrity reverence incorruptibility sound speech that cannot be condemned why that one who is an opponent may be ashamed having nothing evil to save you. So young men are really designed to be orderly in their lives and what they do is they live in integrity and when they do that they shame those other young men who don't live that way. And so it's the will of God to shame foolish young men because there are young men who don't live shamefully.

And then he speaks of bond servants who are obedient in chapter 2 verses 9 through 10. He's talking about the worker-boss relationship, and he speaks of how that should be engaged. And then he speaks in verse 11 through 14 in chapter 2 of the grace that produces good works. And here we find this whole idea that you're trained by grace. Grace produces something in your life.

When you embrace the grace of God, it's such a blessing. It makes you valuable because you are being trained. And so he says, "...for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust we should live soberly." And then in the final verse of chapter 2 he issues another one of those really strong statements. He says, speak these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one despise you. One of the roles of pastors is to exhort and rebuke with all authority, and they should do that recognizing that they should not be despised for doing that.

We live in a Christian culture today that does despise anybody who rebukes or exhorts, but it's actually part of the job. You're supposed to do it. Then in chapter 3, there's this fifth matter of setting things in order, and that is to be obedient and beneficial to the civil authorities. This is the fifth element of putting things in order in the church, and this is spoken of in chapter 3, verses 1 through 10. Now Paul gives four commands for involvement in the civil realm.

This is really important. We live in an environment where people have different attitudes toward the civil government, and there are four commands that the Apostle Paul issues here, and the first is be subject and obey. He says, remind them to be subject to the rulers and to obey. So here you have these independent, rebellious, lazy gluttons on Crete and God is trying to create a whole new way of relating to the civil government. And the second command is to be a blessing with tangible good works.

Instead of undermining the government, you should, as he says, be ready for every good work. When you think about your city, when you think about your nation, don't try to undermine it. Don't try to take it down. That's not what Christians do. Christians are ready for every good work.

They want to be a blessing to their city. We should always be asking, how am I a blessing to the city here? How is my house? How is my behavior? How are my relationships a blessing to this city?

And then thirdly, don't speak evil of your leaders. To speak evil of no one. He's obviously including leaders, but you know living in the civil realm means that we're not a bunch of snarky slanderers of those who are in the civil realm. It's so easy to look at your civil leaders, especially if they're corrupt, and to speak evil of them. But here the Apostle says, don't speak evil of anyone.

And then fourthly, remember that you're not the controller of the civil government. He says, but be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. So those are the ways that you're supposed to function in the civil realm. You know, don't follow your own heart. Don't follow the talk show hosts who are the snark wizards, you know, of the airwaves, but follow the Lord.

Do what He told you to do. And then He gives the reasons for this in verses 3 through 8. He gives several reasons that they should conduct themselves in such a way. There are three reasons that we should always remind ourselves for why we should conduct ourselves in this way in the civil realm. The first is we should be this way because of who we were.

That's verse 3 in chapter 3. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. Here's what he's saying. The next time you're tempted to be the snark master toward your civil leader because they are so foolish, they are so deceived, they're so disobedient, they're so pleasure seeking, they're so full of malice, they're so full of envy, they're so hateful, and hating one another, he's saying, remember you used to be that way too. If you see some sin in someone else, think of how you were that way.

That's why you shouldn't treat him that way, because you were once that way. And the second reason is because of the grace that we've received. That's found in verses 4 through 7. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. Through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

And so the second reason he gives her why you should be such an obedient person in the civil realm is because you've received grace. And because you've received grace, you should also give grace, even to the wicked who are running your government." Now remember who was emperor at this time? Nero. Not exactly the poster child for Christianity. He was one of the most brutal civil leaders who ever walked the face of the earth.

And the Apostle Paul is giving this instruction. And then thirdly, to fulfill a faithful saying in verse 8. This is a faithful saying and these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. So The third reason that you should act this way is to fulfill this faithful saying that those who believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.

That's a faithful saying. What's a faithful saying? A faithful saying is like a well-worn, often repeated saying. You know how that works. Your father does this all the time.

He repeats himself. He says the same thing all the time. He quotes the same verses all the time. What's that all about? Well, these are faithful sayings.

You shouldn't despise faithful sayings because they're given because God desires them to be delivered. But this is a faithful saying that we should maintain good works in the civil realm and then that we should also avoid dissension in verses 9 through 11. But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, strivings about the law for they're unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned. People who want to be divisive, you should reject them after the first and second admonition.

The world is full of divisive people. You should reject them and run the other direction. That's basically the same message of Romans 16 and 17, that you should mark and avoid those who try to divide. And there are two elements to this division. One is dividing you from the truth of God through false doctrine, through heresy, and also through the dividing of brethren.

There's six things that the Lord hates. One of them is brothers who divide one another, and so he's speaking of this avoiding this kind of dissension and reject the people who act like that. And then the seventh thing that needs to be said in order is that they need to meet urgent needs with others, and that's in chapter 3 verses 12 through 14. Here as we get to near the end of chapter 3, there's this urging to meet urgent needs, and the Apostle Paul speaks of it in the whole context of his needs and other people's needs and the way that people are moving about to help one another in the church. So look at verse 12 in chapter 3.

When I send Artemis to you, Orticus, be diligent to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. Send Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey with haste, that they may lack nothing." So the Apostle Paul is saying, please send me my brothers to help me. And when you send Zenas and Apollos out, make sure they don't lack anything. Meet their needs. Help them on their way.

Make it happen. And then he says, "...and let our people also learn to maintain good works, " number one, "...to meet urgent needs." Why? That they may not be unfruitful. In the Church of Jesus Christ, we look out for those who have urgent needs. The Apostle Paul had urgent needs.

He's asking for a lawyer. Perhaps it's because of the legal trouble he's in with the Roman government. He's been wrongly arrested. He's a Roman citizen. He's not being treated like one.

And so here's a lawyer over here being perhaps sent to the Apostle Paul to help him work through the legal problem that he's in. We don't know much about it except he was a lawyer and he was being gathered together for a purpose, but in the church we look around and we say, where are the urgent needs? How can we help one another? Is there an urgent need across town? Is there an urgent need in Africa?

Is there an urgent need in South America? Are there urgent needs that we can participate in? Meet urgent needs with others. And then finally, the final element of setting the church in order is to dwell in grace. And you find this in the very last verse, all who are with me greet you, greet those who love us in faith.

Grace be with you all. Amen. It's the grace of God that gives us the strength to set things in order. It's the grace of God that creates a godly society. It's the grace of God that brings obedience into His church.

And so this is the final objective that the Apostle Paul has for Titus, that there would be this grace that would cover all the things that are done in that church. Because churches need to be set in order, and the Apostle Paul had appointed Titus to set things in order in Crete, and he wanted to make sure, first of all, that the church was set on a solid foundation of the apostles, that the church wasn't doing its own thing. It was doing God's thing in the world. Secondly, that there were qualified elders that were appointed. Thirdly, that the insubordinate would be corrected.

Fourthly, that they would speak sound doctrine in order to create sound relationships where the older men were sober, the older women were reverent, the young men were a pattern, the bond servants were obedient, and that grace was producing this life of works. And then fifthly, that they would be obedient and beneficial to the civil authorities. Sixth, that they would avoid dissension. Seventh, that they would meet urgent needs together with others, and then eighth, that they would dwell in grace. Well Titus was sent into this island in order to do all of these things.

Imagine that. He had his marching orders. It's a blessing to know why you've been sent into a certain place. You know, here's a question. Do you know why you've been sent into this place?

Do you have a real sense of what God has called you to do with your time on this earth. Do you have a really clear mission for your life in the church? Do you have a really clear mission for your role in your life and your family? Do you have a really clear mission for your life and your role in the civil realm and in public society? And do you understand how you are designed to conduct yourself in that way?

Well if you do, and if it arises out of sound doctrine, The Lord will use you to bring order to disorder. He'll take the things that are in disarray and in the places that you walk, He'll put them back together. He'll heal them. He'll bring them back to a place of health and usefulness. And this is one reason God has put His church in the world, to set things in order.

You know, there's so much disarray in the world, and there's disarray in every church, and how is it solved? Through the preaching of the Word of God, through the embracing of sound doctrine, and through the recognition that we are slaves of God to create a culture of order and beauty and love and grace. And that's exactly what Titus was called to and I think we're called to the same thing. So there's the letter to Titus.