1Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness— 2a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life – Titus 1:1-2a NIV
Paul was completely devoted to Jesus Christ. He referred to himself first as a servant and then an apostle. As a result of fully knowing who he was in Christ, he also understood his divinely appointed mission from God which included three key tasks: Reaching Out, Reaching In, and Reaching For. Let’s take a closer at each of these because they all pertain to our own mission from God as well.
1. Reaching Out (Evangelism)
“for the faith of God’s elect” (1:1b)
Jesus died on the cross to make the salvation of everyone possible, but not everyone of course will respond. God has before the foundation of the world chosen (Eph. 1:4) some to be saved and passed by the rest. You say, “This seems unfair that others are not chosen.” Don’t go there. You want to know why? Because God was not under any obligation to choose ANYONE. The fact that He chose some was purely an act of grace on His part. God did not have to choose anyone at all. And if He did not choose anyone at all, He would have been totally justified. But it was “in love” that God predestined us to adoptions as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:4-5).
Remember, God chose us not because we first loved Him, but because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). If God did not sovereignly choose some to salvation, the “some” would never come to Christ at all. The bible says that “no one seeks after God” (Rom. 3:11). However, those who do come to Christ come as a result of first being “drawn to Him” by the Father (John 6:44).
So my point is this: God has His people out there who are His chosen or elect. We don’t know who they are before salvation. They could be anyone, therefore, we preach the gospel to everyone – no one excluded. Only after salvation when a person exhibits the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23) in his her life can we know that such a person is part of the chosen family.
So Paul says that one of the mission of the church is to reach out to the lost because if you do, those who are God’s chosen or elect will hear the message and respond in faith to God’s saving call.
In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he wrote and said this: Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory (2 Tim. 2:10).
The cost of why the church is often times persecuted in other parts of the world for preaching the gospel is so that Christians will endure the pain and suffering for the sake of God’s elect. The cost of why you are rejected, ignored and mocked at work for being a witness for Christ is so that you may endure the shame for God’s elect. You don’t know whether the elect is your boss, the person who sits across from you at school, a member of your immediate family, or the person you sit next to on the bus. But you nevertheless when given the opportunity to share the gospel of Christ and be a witness – no matter the cost – you do so all for the sake of God’s elect. That’s our mission and we cannot push it to the side and forget about it.
Elsewhere Paul writes, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). What is the one ingredient every sinner needs in order to be saved? FAITH. “For by grace are you saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8). How is this faith obtained? By hearing. By hearing what? By hearing the Word of Christ. So then, when we share with others God’s plan of salvation found in Christ, and when we tell others the good news of how Jesus loves them and died for their sins, God will give to His chosen people the necessary saving faith to believe in Christ which is required to activate their election by God. Remember Paul words in Ephesians 2:8, faith is a “gift from God.” Who is it given to? God’s elect.
You see, this is why I don’t buy into the notion that we need to somehow make the gospel more relevant and more contemporary in order to see more people saved. I reject this for three reasons:
First, as stated above, God has before the foundation of the world chosen His people. You see, when we deliver the gospel to the world, we are not in a choosing mission, but a finding one. God has already done the choosing; it is our mission to find those whom He has chosen, you see my point?
How do I go about finding them? I preach the gospel and give a general call for faith in Christ. Those who hear the gospel, respond to it, and the chosen as God’s elect will respond to the hearing of the gospel in faith – a faith given to them by God as a gift – thus they are saved.
How in the world can we improve on this? Sometimes I think we believe that it is the lights in the church that causes people to respond to Jesus; or it is the comfort of sitting in a padded chair in an environment of air-con; or it is the drama ministry or the halau (dance) ministry, or the décor, or it is the program with all its elements that helps to give people an emotional lift. Now I am not suggesting that any of these things are evil, they do have a place. But these are not the things God uses to activate the elect to salvation. God uses one thing only – His Word! It is the hearing of His Word that generates faith in the chosen of God, by which their election is made activated.
So what purpose do the things you mentioned above have in the church? Such things are not done for the purpose of evangelism, but for WORSHIP! Remember, the church "gathers" for worship, then the church "scatters" for evangelism. We come to church in order to grow in our faith, then we leave the church in order to find others (the elect) and bring them to faith.
Second, I don’t believe in trying to improve the gospel and making it more relevant because all that does is to bring more unsaved people into the church giving them the false assurance that they are saved.
If there is one thing that the typical evangelical church is weak on it is this: We fail to properly distinguish between the sheep and the goats. More and more, the goats are starting to look and talk like sheep, and the sheep are looking and talking more like goats, and as a result, we leaders in the church treat them all as if ALL are born-again. When we do this, we water down our preaching, we become content with messages that become less and less filled with biblical content – more story telling, more jokes, more visual aids, shorter in length because people can’t handle sitting too long in their padded chairs surrounded by air-con.
By and large, because we are not able to distinguish the sheep from the goats, we put goats in leadership, giving them a position of some authority by which they can influence others in a negative manner – after all, they are goats, so what do we expect goats to do? And then we take the sheep who are struggling trying to find their identify and we put them in lesser positions in the church. The goats, we place in leadership while the sheep we put under the goats. Satan sees all this and must be having a grandiose time. How did all this happen? Satan simply made it possible by confusing the church by making it so hard to make a distinction between the sheep and goats. How did Satan get the church into this? By trying to improve on the relevance of the gospel.
One man-made improvement is this: Make the gospel positive and don’t mention sin and the need to repent. Don’t talk about taking up one’s cross, denying self and following Jesus. And NEVER do what Jesus had done to the rich man when he told him, “Only one thing you lack: Sell all your possession and give to the poor and come and follow me and you will have treasures in heaven” (Luke 18:22). And what was the man’s response? He left!
Can you imagine if we were to preach such a message in today’s church? “You want to follow Jesus? You better seriously consider what it is going to cost you if you do. That person you are living with who is not your spouse, God is going to command you to give that up; the wealth that you have, God may tell you to give some of it away and give it to a needy cause; that high and lofty position you have at work in which you are soon ready to retire, God may tell you to quite now and work for the church.”
“Whaaat? No way, I’m, leaving.”
And we cannot handle the possibility of people just leaving or walking away like that, so we try to improve on the bible and the gospel message (which is another way of saying that Jesus’ way is so outdated), and make the gospel more personally relevant to everyone so as to cut down on the possibility of people walking away and leaving the church.
So in the spirit of trying to be modern and relevant, we open the church’s doors and membership to the goats. Now we got sheep and goats that look and sound a like and we can’t tell who’s who.
Third, I use to fall into this mindset of trying to improve on the bible’s message – make it most entertaining, more positive, more fun, less judgmental, etc. Then I got to thinking, “Wait a minute. Is the gospel pure?” Yes! “Is the bible holy?” Yes! “Is the bible inspired by God?” Yes! Then how in the world can someone like me who is a sinner improve on that which is perfect? Won’t I as an imperfect person only corrupt the perfect?
So instead of me trying to figure out ways to improve the bible and make it more relevant, perhaps what I need to do is to let the perfect Word of God improve me and make me more relevant to those I come in contact with. You see my point? There is a need to be culturally relevant. But that does not mean we make the bible relevant – it already is by virtue of it being inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16). What we need to do is to let the bible work in us so as to make us culturally relevant to those we work and associate with. We are the sinners who need improving, not the bible or the gospel message.
So Paul tells Titus, you have a God-ordained mission – preach the Word! God has out there in various part of the world His elect. Go find them! They will listen to you and find you if you use the Word of God as your call to faith.
There are two other divinely appointed tasks, Paul tells Titus. We will take a close look at the next one tomorrow.
