Identity Matters

Titus 1:1-4

Gospel identity produces Gospel interaction

Gospel Identity

Slave of God

He belongs to God in every way

He has been bought at a price

1 Corinthians 6:20- You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Everyone is a slave

Either you are a slave of God in Christ

Or you are a slave to sin

Romans 6:20,22- For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.…. (22) But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

This is exactly the opposite of the ethos of our culture and of the world

We, by nature, want to be our own self-determining, independent people

We say: “I’m my own person, so I can do and be whatever I want”

Apostle of Jesus Christ

He has encountered the risen Christ

Christ has sent him with a task and a message

Ephesians 3:7-8- Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

In what do you find your identity?

Do you see yourself as independent and self-determining?

Are you repulsed at the thought of yourself being a slave to God?

Do you see yourself as a slave to God?

That you are completely owned by Him

He made you

He bought you by the blood of Christ

Gospel identity produces Gospel interaction

Gospel Purpose

For the faith of God’s elect

He wants to be used for the salvation of God’s elect

For knowledge of the truth

Genuine faith never exists apart from God’s truth

John 17:3- And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Knowledge of truth accords with godliness

Knowledge of the truth is not simply something to fill our brains with

Knowledge of the truth produces godliness

1 Timothy 4:6-8- If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Genuine godliness never comes apart from knowing truth in faith

Moral demands on unbelievers never produce godliness

Our task is to call men and women to faith in the truth of Jesus

It is our task is to call men and women to faith as we point them to the truth of Jesus

What is the purpose of your life?

Have you been using your God-given life for selfish purposes?

A few reflection questions:

What is it that you think about most?

What do you desire most?

What do you spend most of your energy and resources on?

Will the purpose of your life be that which God desires?

Spend your life proclaiming the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light

Use your life for the glory of Christ

Gospel identity produces Gospel interaction

Gospel Motivation

In the hope of eternal life

Receiving faith in Christ in the knowledge of the truth of Christ gives rise to the hope of eternal life with Christ

Promised before the ages began

Literally “before time”

In eternity past God made a promise to give hope to sinners

He never lies

You can trust Him in all that He has said and promised

Who was this promise given to?

It is given to the elect

Ephesians 1:3-9- Bible

God’s wise providence is perfectly timed

It is at just the right time that the Gospel is revealed

This happens through the preaching of the Word

Faith comes by hearing

Romans 10:17- So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

What motivates you for faithful Gospel ministry?

Are you motivated at all?

If not, it's a Gospel problem of the heart

When you deeply know the overwhelming grace of God to you through Christ, then your heart’s desire will be moved with desire to proclaim the glory of His grace to others

Gospel identity produces Gospel interaction

Gospel Relationships

Titus, my true child

In a common faith

This means “in the same faith”

Titus does not simply hold to a vague similar faith in Jesus, but he stands in the same doctrine, which is good and sound

Grace and peace

From God the Father

From Jesus Christ our Savior

True grace and peace come through the truth of who God is

How do we relate to one another?

Do we just relate to one another as acquaintances we see at church most weeks?

Do we relate to each other as blood-bought family members in Christ?

Do we love one another in the grace and peace of Christ?

Gospel identity produces Gospel interaction

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Gospel identity produces Gospel interaction

We can learn a lot from the way that Paul introduces this letter. We breathe the air of a culture that is desperately begging us to define our identity by looking inside our ourselves to find who we truly are. “Be your most authentic self” they say. We see the insanity of this logic when we come into contact with transgender ideology and its flagrant rebellion against creation order. However, I fear that Christians have given so much attention to the most radical identity issues, that we have been lulled to sleep in regard to our own self-identity. Most of us have not struggled with the allurement of sexual identity changes, although if you are struggling with this, please talk to me about it. I want to hear you, help you, and pray for you. Instead, we have come to buy the subtle lies that are laced into the cultural air we breathe. I pray that this passage will snuff out these distortions and radically transform us individually and as a church. In fact, I pray that this entire series through Titus will completely transform our church for the glory of Christ.

Gospel Identity

As is standard, Paul begins the letter with a short introduction, which is our passage this morning. As he pens this introduction, what we read is profoundly instructive for us. Why is this so? It is because he gives a statement of his own identity. He so deeply finds his identity in Jesus that he can’t help but say something about it. He mentions two important truths about himself, the first being that he is a slave of God. I know that likely all of you will be holding a translation that reads “servant”, but this simply does not reflect the Greek word behind it, which is doulos. It always means slave. It never is so soft as “servant.” At its very softest it can mean bondservant. Here, what Paul means to say is that he is a slave of God. This means at least two primary things. First, he belongs to God in every way. Of course, in reality everyone belongs to God since He is the creator of all things and all people. By virtue of His creative work, he who creates an object is its owner. However, this is not the ownership that Paul has in mind when he says that he is a slave of God. He means that he has been bought at a price, just as 1 Corinthians 6:20 says- You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. He is not merely God’s in a creation sense. He is God’s in a particular way becasue he has been redeemed from sin at the infinitely great cost of His Son.

I think at this point there remain some of you who still do not see slavery to God as a great and wonderful truth, so I want to point something out to you: everyone is a slave. There are no exceptions to that statement in this room or any other room for that matter. What do I mean by saying that everyone is a slave? I mean that that clear teaching of the New Testament is that you are either a slave of God in Christ or you are a slave to sin. This is what Paul means in Romans 6:20 and 22- For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.…. (22) But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. This is exactly the opposite of the ethos of our culture and of the world. We, by nature, want to be our own self-determining, independent people. We say: “I’m my own person, so I can do and be whatever I want.” The culture seems to be winning the day in many circles of American Christianity, and I pray that our church will refuse to be seduced by the goddess of self-autonomy.

Paul's second identity statement is this: an Apostle of Jesus Christ. What in the world does that mean? In short, it means that he has encountered the risen Christ who has sent him with a task and a message. The entire picture of Paul’s identity could be packaged like this: “As I was zealously persecuting the saints in my bondage to sin, the risen Christ met me and transformed my life. He made me His own and I belong to Him in every way. He gave me His Gospel and now I am sent by Him to declare that message to the world.” This is what he means in Ephesians 3:7-8- Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

So, here is the question: In what do you find your identity? Do you see yourself as independent and self-determining? Are you repulsed at the thought of yourself being a slave to God? Or do you see yourself as a slave to God, that you are completely owned by Him because He made you and He bought you by the blood of Christ?

Gospel identity produces Gospel interaction.

Gospel Purpose

This identity for Paul leads him to a clear purpose for his life. It is also twofold as his identity statement was. He says that he is a slave of God and an Apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth. Let’s take those one at a time.

For the faith of God’s elect- He wants to be used for the salvation of God’s elect. God’s elect is not a special class of Christians. It is simply one of the most common terms to refer to all Christians. We will say more about this in a few minutes, but for now, let’s think about the “for faith” piece of his purpose. He is saying that he wants to be used as an instrument in the hands of God for the purpose of God to bring His people to Himself through faith in Christ.

Paul knows that faith never comes apart from knowledge of the truth, so he also says his purpose is to be used for the knowledge of the truth. Any notion of faith that comes apart from the truth of Christ as clearly revealed through God’s Word is simply not Christian faith. It is even possible to put faith in a Jesus that is not the Jesus of the Bible, but a construct built on the ideas of men. Just because someone uses the name of Jesus as the object of their faith does not in itself mean that they are Christian. This profession must accord with the truth of Christ found in the Bible. Isn’t this exactly what Jesus means when He says in John 17:3- And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent?

This knowledge of truth produces something in the lives of all who have faith in accord with knowledge. Genuine faith in knowledge always accords with godliness. Knowledge of the truth is not simply something to fill our brains with. It moves its way from our heads to our hearts and transforms us by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We could see this in many passages through the New Testament, but for time’s sake I will mention one. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:6-8- If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. Genuine godliness never comes apart from knowing truth in faith. It always comes in accord with biblical truth. That is why moral demands on unbelievers never produce godliness. It is our task is to call men and women to faith as we point them to the truth of Jesus, and as we do this, it is God’s work to cultivate godliness through His truth.

So, what is the purpose of your life? Have you been using your God-given life for selfish purposes? Will you resolve to make your life's purpose what God desires? Spend your life proclaiming the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Use your life for the glory of Christ.

Gospel identity produces Gospel interaction.

Gospel Motivation

There is a motivation behind Paul’s purpose in Pual’s identity. He says that it is “in the hope of eternal life.” The hope of eternal life fuels the Gospel purpose of Gospel identity.

Receiving faith in Christ in the knowledge of the truth of Christ gives rise to the hope of eternal life with Christ. What you have your heart and mind set on in hope will dictate the resolve you have for faithfully living out your Gospel purpose.

Here is perhaps the most amazing part. Paul tells us that this hope was promised before the ages began. More literally, the Greek means “before time.” This means that in eternity, God promised to give hope to sinners. Before He created anything He knew exactly what He was going to do, and so He promised hope. Paul wants to be abundantly clear that if God says it then you can believe it. He says that God never lies. You can trust Him in all that He has said and promised.

Here is an important question: who was this promise given to? This might seem like a waste of time to answer, but the way we answer that has a huge impact on the way that we live. So, who is this promise of future hope given to? It is given to God’s elect. Paul has already said that he is a slave and apostle for the sake of God’s elect, not every single person. This does not mean that he only evangelizes the elect because he has no idea who is and is not the elect until God begins to save them. However, Paul is clearly strengthened in his Gospel purpose by the truth of God’s sovereignty over salvation. He states it even more clearly in Ephesians 1:3-9- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us[a] for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ. And His eternal purposes will never fail. That is true confidence for ministry.

Not only will they not fail, but God’s wise providence is perfectly timed. It is at just the right time that the Gospel is revealed. Not too early and not too late. How does it come? In view of the cross, it happens through the preaching of the Word. That is why Paul says that faith comes by hearing in Romans 10:17- So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. This is why Paul gave his life to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles who knew nothing of the true God. He knew that faith comes by hearing, that God has made an eternal promise to save His people, and that He will carry this purpose out in His infinite wisdom and power.

Brothers and sisters, what motivates you for faithful Gospel ministry? Are you motivated at all? When you deeply know the sovereign grace of God to you through Christ, then your heart’s desire will be moved with desire to proclaim the glory of His grace to others. He always accomplishes that which He sends His Word out to do. If for faith, then faith will flow; if not, then it won’t. There is no greater motivation and confidence in Gospel ministry than this.

Gospel Relationships

Titus, my true child

In a common faith

This means “in the same faith”

Titus does not simply hold to a vague similar faith in Jesus, but he stands in the same doctrine, which is good and sound

Grace and peace

From God the Father

From Jesus Christ our Savior

True grace and peace come through the truth of who God is

How do we relate to one another?

Do we just relate to one another as acquaintances we see at church most weeks?

Do we relate to each other as blood-bought family members in Christ?

Do we love one another in the grace and peace of Christ?