More than a footnote: Titus

All right, we are in just week two of our summer series. We've been looking at kind of different individuals in the Bible. And so I've kind of been trying to pick some people that maybe are lesser known. You might know their name or know of them, but maybe I've never really studied them a whole lot. And so I wanted to do that. And this idea comes from Hebrews 12, 1 3. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, and so we just have people who have gone before us and will come after us for centuries and centuries and millennia that they're pointing to Jesus. They are witnesses witnessing about Jesus. And even looking at someone like Hagar, who never heard the name Jesus, but the way she lived and the way that her life just pointed to a messiah, something bigger, something greater, points us to Jesus. And so that's where we're going to be. And then as we look down at verse three, it says, consider him Jesus, who endured such opposition from sinners that you will not grow weary and lose heart. So these witnesses will point us to Jesus. So let's see if we can do that again. This morning. I'm gonna put some images on the screen. I wanna see if you can figure out what they have in common. So I've got a play there, specifically. Brigadoon. Doesn't really matter. I was in that place. That's why I picked that one, not that one. Cameras weren't invented when I was in it, so there was no images of me. And then there's the moon landing again. Doesn't matter. It happened, okay? All you conspiracy theories, it happened, all right? But this is the moon landing. And then we've got. Is it a new hope? Is that what that one is? A new hope? Yeah. Look at that. Got it. Nailed it. Yesterday, I was at a wedding and I made a Star wars reference. Crickets. No one got it. No one got it. I was talking about hope. And I said, after all, hope is. Or rebellions are built on hope. Nothing. You were there. No one got it. Did you get it? No. You didn't get it. Anyways, so here we are. What's in common? Any idea? Probably. Probably. Nah. Maybe a little bit. Here's the point that I was trying to make with this is none of these things happen without a lot of people in the background doing the hard work, right? That Brigadoon doesn't happen without the managers and the stage builders and the directors. That there's no moon landing without the test pilots who probably crashed and burned and died giving their lives so we could go to the moon and knew the new hope of these people who just seemingly come on the stage and. And get all the credit and glory and get medallions. Doesn't happen without the sacrifice of good men like Andor Cardassian. Kurt. I don't know even know his name. Andor we'll just say, oh, Cassian Andor. There we go. First name. Here's the point. Today's sermon is that we're gonna look at Titus, who's more than a footnote. I mean, you know, when you read a book and I'm doing some research right now, and you gotta have the proper footnotes. And they're important. They're very important. They're vital to research. And yet it's not the main thing. You would never open a book and just cycle through and only look and read the footnotes. Right? That's not the main character. And so you read the book and you might see a footnote. You might see a little numeral at the end of a sentence. But Titus, we're gonna be looking at today, this individual who does so much for the kingdom of God is just kind of behind the stage doing things. He's on the front line of ministry for sure, as we'll see. But he doesn't write a book of the Bible. There's a book written about him, or at least to him, not about him. But Paul writes a book to him, which we'll look at briefly. But we're not going to necessarily do a study in the book of Titus. I want to look at the man that is Titus. And so we'll be kind of all over the place this morning. Not going to necessarily go through a passage of Scripture the way we might normally do or go through a book. Just kind of works a little better in the summer to do that. And so. So let's look at this guy who is Titus. Obviously, he was a contemporary of Paul, a student of Paul, most likely led to Jesus by Paul. He's a Gentile, so he's not. Not Jewish. But he would have known a lot of the Jewish customs, because that's just what was part of the gig back then. He was part of, if you remember, going through the Book of Romans, the Book of Hebrews. And it's okay if you run around for that. That he was part of this circumcision controversy, that he is a gentile who's uncircumcised. And they're like, whoa, you can't believe in Jesus and not have this physical Demarcation that says you are a people of God. And Titus and Paul and Timothy have to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you got this all wrong. We need Jesus, not something else. You can't add to Jesus. He's taught the gospel by Paul, and as we're going to see, he's called his true son. Again, he's never on stage, but he's always the stagehand. He kind of reminds me of like, always the bride. Never the bride, but always the bridesmaid. That's Titus, okay? He's not the main character. He never gets married. He doesn't have any children. We don't even know where his home is, if he even had one. He moves around so much, he runs into extremely difficult situations very quickly when asked. Titus lived in a culture similarly to what we looked at last week with Hagar, that where marriage and legacy and children are signs of success. But he doesn't build a physical household. Rather, he builds churches and he builds the church up. So let's, let's look at this. So Paul, or excuse me, he's trusted by Paul with difficult tasks. And so age wise, Titus most likely is in his late teens, maybe early 20s. Paul here is in his late 40s, maybe early 50s. So roughly about 30 years difference in there in the age gap. And again, Paul is a single man who never marries and is writing and mentoring and discipling the next generation of church leaders. And so when I say that Paul here is trusted with difficult tasks, it's ironic because Paul sends Titus into situations where Paul seems to make the situation more difficult, right? Paul goes on, and he kind of just blows it up and he goes, hey, Titus, fix this, right? I did something here. Can you please, can you please be the boots on the ground? I wrote a letter, right? I wrote a letter. I state I need to go into town. Sent it an email, sent the memo, made some crazy things happen. Now, Titus, you go. You go fix it. And we're going to see Titus doing this. We see this specifically at least where Paul, he says this in Second Corinthians, chapter seven. He writes a letter to the church in Corinth, and he says this in second Corinthians. Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while yet. Now I'm happy not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. So he writes the church in Corinth this letter, and it's, we don't even have it. We lost it by the grace of God. He must have said some pretty nasty things to Corinth. And they say, hey, but it's leading us to repentance. And he says, you guys are doing things right. Well, we do know from first Corinthians is that they were. They were involved in incest and debauchery on a level that he says even the Gentiles, even people who aren't part of the church, look at you with disgust, right? He's like, this is bad. You need to repent of that. Titus, go. You go take care of that. And so if we look just even the verses right before that in second Corinthians, we can see here that again, Titus is trusted by Paul. He says this, for when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest, but were harassed at every turn. Conflicts and the outside fears within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort you had given him. He told us about your longing for me and your deep sorrow and ardent concern for me, so that my joy was greater than ever. We see that he is also revered by others. He says, in addition to our own encouragement, we were especially delighted to see how happy Titus was because his spirit has been refreshed by all of you. I had boasted to him about you, and you have not embarrassed me. But just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting about you to Titus has proved to be true as well. And his affection for you is all the greater when he remembers that you were all obedient, receiving with him with fear and trembling. I'm glad I can have complete confidence in you. So Titus goes, and they just love him as their leader, as his past, as their pastor. But he's just there for a short time, and he establishes leaders, he mentors people, then he grows the church, and he establishes elders. And then he moves on to the next task that Paul has for him. And that's where we see that he is also then passionate for Christ. And moving on just further down in the book, in 2nd Corinthians 8, 16, and 17, and then verse 23, it says, thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you. For Titus not only welcomed our appeal, that is, by going to you, but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm, on his own initiative. I don't know if I would be enthusiastic if my boss, Steve Trichler, was like, hey, I know you're doing this thing in Lowertown, but I want you to go to a completely different city that's just known for its debauchery and its chaos. I just want you to just go do that. I don't know if I'd have enthusiasm behind me on that enthusiasm and on his own initiative. Then verse 23, it says, and as for Titus, he is my partner and my co worker among you. And then if we look at the book, the letter that the apostle Paul writes to Titus, he's not in Corinth, he's actually in Crete. A letter. That's the only letter that we have that's written to an island. Not that that matters at all. Who cares? To Titus, my true son. How cool is that? Very fitting for Father's Day to look at a man, Paul, who's a single guy who doesn't have any biological children, writing to Titus, a single man who doesn't have any biological children, and says, titus, my true son, in our common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and of Christ Jesus our Savior. And he says, the reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. And so when I say that, Paul sends him into some pretty hostile and chaotic environments. That's Crete. Crete is one of these. We don't really talk about it a lot because it's really only mentioned just a handful of times and just kind of in passing. But Titus is sent to Crete. Crete was known for being an island of just mercenaries, but just this vile pit. And so in Titus, chapter one, if we skip to. If we look at verses 12 and 13, Paul here says, one of Crete's own prophets, one of Crete's own writers, has said this about Crete. Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons. And then Paul adds, this saying is true. Okay, this checks out all right. This is a vile, vile place. Very similar. Maybe I can make another Star wars reference here where Obi Wan Kenobi says this about Mozoi's Oz, that place, the Cantina, something. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. That's creed. This is Crete. And you say, well, hang on a second, but wouldn't a family unit be better? Wouldn't it be better for a man to have a wife to support him, to have children? Paul's like, no, no, no, no. This is a man. This is a job for a single man to go to an island of mercenaries and preach the gospel. We see because of this and because of his advantage, as we'll see, in his singleness, he is able to give undivided devotion. Now listen, I want you to hear me. This is not a sermon necessarily on singleness. It is about Titus. But Titus was single. And so it would be three foolish to not make some connections about maybe some things that we can look at singleness. So let me jump into that and use Paul's words and see if we can all have some takeaways from this as we see Jesus in Titus. One rabbi once wrote, Benzai said this. Why should I marry? I'm in love with the law. Let others see the prolongation of the human race. One Greek philosopher, a contemporary of Paul and Titus Epictetus, said this. I am doing far more for the world by being a teacher than if I had produced two or three ugly nosed brats. How can one whose function is to teach mankind be expected to run for something in which to heat the water, to give a baby its bath? I don't fully know what that means, but it doesn't sound positive. So is that what it is? Is that what singleness is? Is singleness then? Oh, that just means, then you don't have children. Like, is that what is the whole point of this? Is it God then saying, hey, I want you to be single because I don't think you should have kids? Is that really what singleness is? And as we look at even Jewish culture and writings and Christian writings, that's clearly not the point of children. But there is a point to singleness. And so let's just see what Paul has to say about this, because I think that we will see that in many cases, and specifically here in Titus's case, that the lack of a wife, or if this was a woman like Lydia, for example, the lack of a husband and children can actually be an asset. It can actually help and propel the gospel further in the kingdom. So let's look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, maybe a little bit of context. The apostle Paul, again writing to the church in Corinth, and he says this. What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. Let's give a little bit of context. This book of First Corinthians is written in 55 AD and there was a lot of turmoil. The burning of Rome hadn't happened. Nero doesn't do that till about 64 AD. But this is. There's a lot of chaos and wars and rumors of wars and all these things. But Paul is under the understanding, is in the understanding that the whole world is about to burn down. Why? Because Jesus said it would. Okay, if we look at Matthew 24, 17, 19, what does he say? He says, he's talking about. They're like, hey, when's all this going to happen? Kind of this end times thingy that you're talking about, That's a whole nother sermon. But he says this in Matthew 24. Let no one on the housetop go down or take anything out of their house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. And then actually in verse 34, in the end of that chapter, he says, this generation certainly will not pass away until these things have happened. So it's no crazy connection that Paul would say, hey, hey, hey, hey. Don't even think or worry about getting married or having kids. Cause the whole world is gonna explode in just a little bit. Let's preach the gospel. Let's get as many converts as we can, because it's all gonna end soon. So that's kind of the tenor that the Apostle Paul is writing in Corinthians. And so we can read this. What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short from now on. Those who have wives should not live. Should live as if they do not. Those who mourn as if they did not. Those who are happy as if they did not. Those who buy something as if they were not theirs to keep. Those who use things of this world as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away, right? There's. There's. There's this urgency behind this, right? You can hear it because Jesus is coming back as soon as possible. But then when we get to the book of Ephesians and all the other later letters, you hear the tone and the tenor of his letters change to one of more permanence, to the one where, especially in Ephesians, that he uses the permanence of marriage as an example of Christ's relationship with the church. That there's somewhere in there a shift where he goes, okay, Jesus hasn't returned yet. Maybe this thing isn't going to end as quickly as maybe. I had thought at one point that there's a permanence here. So because of that, let's settle down. Let's set, build churches. Let's do this. So when we look at this book, at least 1 Corinthians, you gotta do A little bit of hermeneutic interpretation that you gotta do, a little bit of study and digging. Because if you don't, if you just take a little verse and pull it out of context and just say, hey, this is what it means, you can get yourself into some trouble. And so just want to keep that in mind. And you can hurt some people with these verses. So let's look at this. Moving on here he says, I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs, how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife. And his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs. Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, how she can please her husband. I'm saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. Just this morning, I was praying, and I just won't name names, but a single guy prayed for the dads this morning. That and for our children, that we would be dads in a chaotic time. That it is right now to be able to raise children and not feel fear in the world that our children are growing up in. The fact that that prayer comes from a single guy. Stupid. Okay, here we go. Where am I? Click the page. Here we go. Okay. What was Titus able to do that a family would have a much harder time doing or simply wouldn't be able to do? One, he was able to travel without hesitation, and again, like I said, into some pretty hostile environments. Two, he's able to shepherd across vast regions I can't imagine. And I mentioned, you know, my boss, if Steve said this, if the physical Lord and Savior Jesus Christ walked in front of me and said, I want you to leave your family, or I want you to take your family and go into a hostile, like, very hostile to Christianity and women and children. I want you to take your family there and I want you to plan a church. It'd be hard, I don't even know if I could look my savior in the face and say, yeah, I'll do that to my family. I don't know. But Titus, he says, of course I can. That's not to say that Titus doesn't have ties or connections or other family members, but he's not distracted in that sense. He's able to be undivided in his devotion to the Lord. Singleness wasn't a loss in this case. Again, or something that is lacking. Rather, it was something that was a tool. It was a tool that could be used as an advancement to the kingdom. In some ways, this ties into what we talked about last week of looking at Hagar, that the apostle Paul quotes Isaiah looking at Hagar and says, if you are a single woman who's devoted to Jesus Christ, you will have more children. Or you can have more children than someone who is married. Because we can have true sons and true daughters. I cannot force my children to believe in Jesus, but we can have true sons and daughters with one another, with someone who wants to be discipled. And I can have the most important thing in my life be one and unified with somebody who's not a blood relative. Again here, Saul or Paul. Sorry. Paul calls Titus his true son. So maybe a word to those of us who are married, whether we have kids or not, don't look at our single brothers or sisters as projects to marry off. Right? What is it? Tibia. Is that the. From rich man. The fiddler on the roof, right? Where he's matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, right? That's not our jobs. Okay? Now, singles, if you're like, I don't mind, I don't mind, great, you let us know. But that's not the point. Singleness shouldn't just be something to try to end in that sense. And that we should look at our friends as sons and daughters. They're not less than. As we looked at last week, at Hagar looking down on Sarah, that she's not too small, that just because you're single doesn't make you different or small. That's completely not what we see here. That it can be used as an asset. Boy, I don't know why this happened. Another Star wars reference in Andor. I don't even. I mean, I like Star wars, but this is wild. Okay. All right. Anyways, in the series andor spoiler alert, he's got this girlfriend and she's like, andor, you're called to do something great for this rebellion. You're called to do something and you can't do it with me. I'm a distraction. And so his girlfriend leaves him because he's better off being single than to be married and tied down to her. That's Star wars talking, some deep Paul and Titus stuff. All right, that one landed. So there might be kingdom advances. But listen, this is not to take away from the difficulty and hard aspect of being Single of feeling alone. And that's where we need to be a family, that we need to love one another. And so I'm in no way minimizing the challenges that come with being single. It's not what I'm doing here. We see here that Titus points us to Jesus. I do want to make this explicitly clear. The point of this sermon is not simply single people should be doing the most for Jesus. Okay, don't. I don't want you to hear that in the sense of, like, if you're a single man or woman, what are you doing here, man, you should be getting out, getting into the wild and plant churches and being missionaries in a foreign field, learning a language. Cause you don't have to worry about little ones or a husband or a wife. That's not what I'm saying. That's Titus. That was Paul. But you might go, well, man, Titus was single. Paul was single. Jesus was single. Lydia was single. They did some pretty cool things for the kingdom of God, and they used their singleness as their advantage. It kind of makes me feel like a piece of garbage, because I'm not doing that. Listen, you are a piece of garbage, okay? We are all. We are all pieces of garbage. That is the whole point of the gospel. That's the whole point. But God the Father, as a prodigal son returns. He embraces you as a beloved son, as a beloved daughter. And he says, you don't have to do the most, because I already did the most. And that's what propels us then forward to live for Christ with Jesus. You lack nothing. That's what's true. Titus doesn't need marriage to validate his worth. And this is true for everybody. Whether you are married with kids, whether you're married without kids, whether you are single. This is true, Titus. And you shouldn't. We don't. I don't like using the word should a whole lot, as you know. But your marriage should not validate your worth. Because as we. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago with one author, D' Mello Anthony DeMello. We talked about this idea of labels, right? That my labels don't define me. I am a dad. I am a husband. I am a pastor. I can lose all three of those titles in an instant. But one thing that I cannot lose is a child of God that will never be snatched out of God's hand. That is true. That is who I am. And so my marriage doesn't validate me and my worth or anybody. I am a beloved child of God. He Pictures. The bridegroom who gives up everything. This is just such a beautiful picture of Titus, who serves and lives behind the scenes. And he just points us. He embodies Jesus Christ, who had everything, who could have just not taken on flesh, not gone into a chaotic world, not had to deal with temptation and the devil and betrayal. He could have not done that. But Titus gives up everything so that he can in some way embody Jesus and point us to him as this cloud of. Of witnesses. And then we wait in anticipation and hope for the wedding that will end all weddings. What a day. Just had a wedding yesterday. It's just. It's just so much fun. Weddings are a lot of fun. It is a. It is a party. It is just a celebration of marriage. And whether you are single or not, there's going to be a wedding feast that we are all going to be parties, going to be part of. And it is going to be the party that will end all parties. Because it's gonna just keep going and going and going. It's gonna be awesome. We read this In Revelation, chapter 19, 6, 9. It says this. Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like the sound like loud peels of thunder shouting, hallelujah. Just meaning God is winning and he has won, and he will always win for our God. For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him the glory. For the wedding of. Of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. The bride is us. It is the church goes on. It says, fine linen, bright and clean was given for her to wear. Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God's holy people. Then angel said to me, write this. Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. And he added, these are true words of God. So simply in application this morning for us. Do you see I'm talking to everyone here. Do you see singleness as detrimental? Little. Little tell here. I remember I wrote that word. I wrote that sentence. And then I was like, what does detrimental actually mean? Right? I was like, I know it fits in the context, but what does it mean? So then I had to look it up, and it fit better than I could have ever imagined. Okay, here's the definition of detrimental. It means causing harm. You're like, how did you not know that? That's what I thought it meant. That's what I thought it meant. But causing harm. Do I view singleness or being single or single people as causing harm either to themselves? Cause they just don't, they just don't get the joy of what it is to be married or it's causing harm. Because, man, they're just, we gotta fix it. That's not the point. Right. Because when we see something as harmful or detrimental, we do everything we can to avoid it or to fix the problem. That's not singleness. That's not what we read in our Bible and from our Lord and Savior. And so if you are single, an exhortation, how can you use your singleness as, as a tool, as a resource, whether it's to this church or just to Jesus and your time and your endeavors? And so again, I'm not saying I'm calling Jesus, is calling anyone who's single or childless to, to just to, to go do that. If God's calling you to do that, go do it. How can I help you? But how can you serve? How can you, how can you help? And how can you be a resource for Jesus and then just finally look forward to the wedding celebration? It's just going to be a party that we're going to see Jesus tangibly and he's going to be there and he's going to say, welcome. What a day to have and to celebrate with our Lord and Savior. We have communion every week here at Lowertown. And so we're going to enter into a time of communion. And so we've got the juice that represents the blood of Christ that was shed for you. We have the wafer and the, there's a gluten free on this side if you need that. And that is meant to represent the body of Christ. It's been broken for us. And in some way this, the whole point of the, of this, of Passover and of the Lord's table that we call it, it was a feast. And so in some way we get to take these elements. And obviously it's just a little, a little juice and a little bit of a cracker. But it is representative of this feast. It is representative of looking back at the feast, finished work of Jesus who says, you don't have to add anything to who I am. You don't have to start doing something. You don't have to not do something. This is who I am. And I'm gonna wrap my arms around you and I will call you my beloved daughter, I will call you my beloved son. And then we take these elements and we look forward to the feast, to that day where we get to see Jesus, we get to see God face to face and thank him. For all that he has done in spite of us and our inadequacies. You don't need to be a member of this church or any church, but if you're a follower of Jesus, if you say, hey, Jesus is my king, and I look forward to that day, then I would love for you to take these elements with us. And the worship team's gonna come back up, they're gonna play two songs, and so feel free to take the elements, stand in worship as you see fit, and then we will close. Let me pray. Father, thank you again just for our time together this morning. As we look at Titus, someone who just more than a footnote, he just seems to be just kind of mentioned here and there throughout Scripture. But he was a real documented person who gave his life to develop leaders in a local church in many different hostile regions across that area. So, God, I don't know what you're calling any of us to do or how to live or how to be, but I pray that we would not look at singleness as detrimental. Whether it is if they are. If there are individuals who are single and they view it as a curse or something, that it doesn't need to be that. That it's not that. That those of us who are married, that we would not look at singles as some kind of pet project, that we would see them as an asset, that we would see our single brothers and sisters not just as brothers and sisters, but as sons and daughters, because that's what they are. So, God, I pray on this Father's Day that as you called Titus a true son, that those who might feel lacking or less than would know that they are a true son, that they are a true daughter, and that you are good and you are a loving father. We pray these things in your name. Amen.