From His Heart

Guest (Male): Paul was on a mission from God, and he told Titus, "You’re on a mission from God." God is saying to us today, "Hey, you’re on a mission for me." God has specific things that he wants us to do. So, we’re going to talk about how to be on mission with God and to understand what that means and to be able to see it. The tragedy is so many Christians don’t see it. People float through life. They don’t really see, "Hey, I need to be focused because I’m on a mission."

Larry Nobles: When Paul wrote to Pastor Titus on the island of Crete, Paul gave him a job to do: set the church house in order. The churches needed godly leadership, good teaching, and they needed to do good works. So it is today in our world as Christians are called by God to grow in grace and good works.

Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today. We’re halfway through the month and beginning another series today of messages that will help us discover some key tasks that we are all called to accomplish as we fulfill God's call upon our lives. This lesson is the first in an insightful eight-message series based on the book of Titus called Setting the House in Order. As we go through the rest of the month, you can listen to any program you may have missed when you go to fromhisheart.org and click the listen link. Now, let’s get started setting the house in order by opening our Bible to the book of Titus and the first message in this series, "On Mission From God."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Any of you who have little kids or have had little kids, you know that little kids are a lot of fun. The thing about little kids, as I remember back and now with my granddaughter Emmy, they're so fun, but when they come over, they can make a mess. Have you noticed that about little kids? There's just something about them. They want to get out all the toys, and their toys have lots of pieces, and it just goes everywhere. Well, when my kids were little, Debbie would want to go out and be like, "Hey, I want to go shopping with my friends." That's fine, you just got to take the kids. But there would come that time where it’s like, "No, you're going to watch them, and I'm going to go out for the next five hours and you're going to be home with them."

Man, that's hard. And so there would be a mess. And once I cleaned a room, I told the kids, "You're not going back in the kitchen because we cleaned that room and nobody goes in there again." Anyway, all this mess and then it would be like Debbie would call and say, "I'm going to be home in about 20 minutes." It would be like, "Alright kids, we gotta clean up. We gotta get the house in order because if she came home and there was a mess, she wasn't going to be happy." And we all know if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. So I had to work to get it cleaned up.

The book of Titus is kind of like that. The theme of Titus, Paul says to Titus—Titus is a pastoral epistle. There were three written: two were given to Timothy where Paul is writing from the apostle to the pastor. Timothy was in Ephesus and Titus was in Crete. Both of those guys had probably been won to the Lord by Paul. He loved them. They were like his true children in the faith. And he told Titus in verse five, "For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might set in order what remains, and appoint elders in every city as I directed you."

He said, "Now I had to leave." Paul was in Crete. Here’s the story of Paul in the book of Acts. When Acts ends, he is under house arrest in Rome. Most Bible scholars believe that he was released from Rome in about 62 AD, and he went to different places. One of those places he went to was Crete. He and Titus went to Crete and Paul left Crete and he left Titus there to deal with the churches. There were problems there and things to set up what remained, to get the house in order. And then Paul went on to other places. Finally, he was rearrested, sent to Rome, and that’s when we read in Second Timothy, which is his last letter before he got his head chopped off.

But we're going to go through verse by verse this book and we're just going to talk about how God wants us to get things in order in our life. Things need to be in order in the church. Things need to be in order in our lives. Things need to be in order so that we can be a witness that God wants us to be, and that's talked about in Chapter Three. We want to talk about being on mission with God. How many people in here—I'm dating myself here—but how many people in here ever saw the movie from 1980 called The Blues Brothers?

Well, that was a big-time movie with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. And if you remember anything about the movie, the guys always wore black suits and sunglasses. They didn't care what time of day it was. But they were on—Dan Aykroyd said over and over in that movie, "We're on a mission from God." And the mission from God was to get the band back together to have one big blowout concert to raise enough money to save the Catholic school for boys that they grew up in. And so that's the theme of the whole movie. Every time they're trying to talk to these guys about, "Leave your job, come and play in the band," he would always say, "We're on a mission from God. We can't fail because we're on a mission from God."

Well, you and I are on a mission from God. Paul was on a mission from God and he told Titus, "You're on a mission from God." And God is saying to us today, "Hey, you're on a mission for me." There's a reason why you're here and that's to be on a mission for me and with me to do what I want you to do. And God has specific things that he wants us to do. And so we're going to talk about that tonight: how to be on mission with God and to understand what that means and to be able to see it. Because the tragedy is so many Christians don't see it and they float through life, as we began that series, Living on Purpose. People float through life. They don't really see, "Hey, I need to be focused because I'm on a mission."

So this is what the scripture says, beginning in verse one. And notice in the New American Standard, Paul starts this letter. It is four verses that's one sentence. It's long. He says, "Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested even His word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior, to Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior."

All that is one sentence. It's very long and seems kind of formal. It’s kind of interesting because when Paul writes to Timothy, his child in the faith, he doesn't go into all this stuff that he does with Titus. Some people say Paul must not have known Titus as well, or maybe didn't like him as much, or maybe they weren't as close. No, they were very close. But what Paul is doing in this book is he is establishing Timothy as the leader and he is giving him authority. That authority is coming from the Apostle Paul, and Paul got his apostleship from the Lord Jesus Christ from God the Father. So he's giving him all this authority. That's why he is coming at him with all these things right off the bat.

Now verse one is a lot easier to digest in the New Living Translation, so let's read it in that. It says, "This letter is from Paul. That's how they always started letters in the first century. They would tell you right off the bat who the letter's from. You know, when we get a letter today, you gotta thumb through it to figure out, 'Who wrote me this?' right? So here it is. 'This letter is from Paul, just so you know. A slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives.'" The New Living Translation is a great translation because it's very readable and it's easier to understand so much of the text.

But here's our question: Do you see your mission? Let me share with you four discoveries about your mission, my mission. It's the same mission that Paul had, the same mission that Titus had in a general sense. Discovery number one: Every Christian is called to be God’s slave. This letter is from Paul, a slave of God. The New American Standard says a bondservant of God. The Greek word is doulos. It means a slave. It's translated a lot of times bondservant. Why? Because bondservant sounds a little bit better than a slave. But a doulos was the lowest rung in society. It was the lowest. There’s the doulos who would wash the dirty feet at the table. That's why when Jesus washed the disciples' feet, they're like, "Why would you do this? You're the Lord and you're doing this? That's the most menial of jobs. That's for the doulos to do that."

Well, Paul says that he is a slave of God, a doulos of God. Now, if you think about it, when you read the word servant, in our Western culture and in our minds, you think of servant as a job. And so if I'm a servant for somebody, if I serve somebody, I'm their butler or I'm the maid or I'm some servant. Well, if I don't like it anymore, I can quit because I'm the hired help. I'm a hired servant. It's much, much different when you're a slave because you're not hired, you're purchased. You're bought and the master owns you. Paul was letting it be known that he is owned by God, a servant, a slave of God.

The scripture says in First Corinthians Chapter 6, Verse 19, he says, "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your bodies." Some people don't realize that. Now, we know that that verse in First Corinthians 6 is so powerful because your body is literally the Holy of Holies.

Larry Nobles: That is so true, yet we all have to laugh a little at how we most likely don’t treat our bodies so well. Pastor Jeff will elaborate a bit more on this topic in just a moment in the message called "On Mission From God" from the series Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus. He'll be back in just a minute.

You know, before we can set our church house in order, we have to first realize if we have personally drifted from what God wanted our churches and us to do in the church. We’ve wandered. The old hymn song so aptly states it: "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love." Have you noticed how easy it is to lose your passion and fire for Jesus? It happens quietly and subtly. One small compromise here, one missed quiet time there, another compromise there, and before too long, little by little, a believer who once burned with passionate love for Jesus finds a cooling heart, fading joy, and a soul running on empty.

Jesus said, "But I have this against you, that you have left your first love." That’s from Revelation Chapter 2, Verse 4. Those words aren't meant to shame us. They’re meant to awaken us and call us back to a vibrant walk with the King, a walk where our soul is on fire for Him. Revival is the holy, sovereign God breathing fresh life into our weary heart. It is a love restored. And you can find out how to find that when you go to fromhisheart.org and ask for a copy of the series Soul on Fire: God’s Plan for Revival. It's our gift of thanks to you this month for your support of any amount. Just call 866-40-BIBLE or go online to fromhisheart.org to make your gift today. And thank you for standing with us. Now let's conclude part one of the message "On Mission From God."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: In the Old Testament, the temple that they built, that Solomon built, it's a house of three rooms. You had the outer court where the people would gather. You had the inner court where only the priests could go. And then you had the innermost court called the Holy of Holies. And that's where God's presence was, and it was represented through the Ark of the Covenant, the box with the angel's wings over it. And in the box was the Ten Commandments and Aaron's rod that budded and a jar of manna. That was what was in the box. And you never went back there. There was a thick veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies. And that was where the glory of God was, the Shekinah glory of God.

And the Bible says, "Don’t you know, your body is the Holy of Holies and that's where God's Spirit dwells?" And don't you know that you don't belong to yourself anymore? He purchased you with his own blood and you're bought. You're not hired, you're purchased. And you and I, we're slaves. As Christians, we are slaves of God. Now, a slave has one will, and that's the master's will. He has one job, and that's to do what the master says. He has one focus: to please his master. And that's how Paul lived. And that's how Titus was living and was to live. That's how you and I are to live.

And when you train your mind to wake up every day saying, "You know what? I'm a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. I belong to God. He's purchased me. I'm not my own anymore. I don't get to make my own decisions." Lord, what do you want? What's your will? What do you have for me to do today? Where do you want me to go? Who do you want me to talk to? What do you want me to say? Because I belong to you and I want to please you because any good slave wanted to please his master.

And so that's the first discovery on this mission. Well, I'm a slave of God, just as Paul said, a slave of God, a bondservant, a doulos of God. And it's interesting, this is the only time in any of his letters that Paul calls himself a bondservant, a slave of God. He almost always calls himself a bondservant of Christ Jesus. But now he says, "I'm a slave of God, a bondservant of God, and I am an apostle of Jesus Christ." So every Christian, discovery number one, is called to be God’s slave.

Discovery number two: Every Christian is sent by Jesus to be His witness. Paul, a bondservant of God, a slave of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Apostle means one who is sent. That's literally what that word means. But now in the New Testament, we know that there is an office of the apostle, right? Jesus chose the 12 to be his disciples or his apostles. He prayed all night before he chose those 12 guys. And he knew one of them was a devil. He even said that. "Did I not choose you the 12, yet one of you is a devil?" speaking of Judas Iscariot. But he chose these guys, and then when Judas defected, they chose in Acts Chapter 1, chose a man to replace Judas. His name was Matthias. And then the Lord chose another man named Saul of Tarsus, Paul the apostle.

So there were 13 guys, 14 if you count Judas, but he wasn't genuine. So 13 apostles. We have people today who call themselves apostles. The Bible talks about that in Revelation Chapter 2 in the letter to Ephesus. He says, "You have people who call themselves apostles and they are not. You put to the test those who do that." The office of apostle was something that the Lord set up to lay the foundation for the church. That doesn't exist anymore. One of the requirements of being an apostle was not only were you hand-selected by Jesus Christ, but you had to see the resurrected Christ.

So you can't be an apostle, I can't be an apostle, nobody can be an apostle today. The Lord doesn't have that today. The Lord doesn't use apostles and prophets like he did when he set up the church. He uses pastors and evangelists and teachers. And so when we talk about being an apostle, you're like, "Well yeah, I can't be that." No, you can't be that and I can't be that. But you know what we can be? We can be one who is sent. And all Christians are to be apostles in that way, one who is sent. An apostle of Jesus Christ means you're sent by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sent to do what? Sent to be his witness. That's what Jesus said before he ascended into heaven in Acts Chapter 1. He says, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth." When you think to yourself, "Why am I here on planet Earth?" as I told you before my friend when I was in college, I was witnessing to this Jewish guy. He said, "If heaven's so great, then why doesn't God just take you there?" I said, "Because he's left me here to talk to you. That's my reason for being on this earth: to be his witness, to tell you what Jesus has done for me."

When you think about a witness, a witness in a court of law, he tells, he gets on the witness stand, he tells what he saw, what he heard, what he experienced. That's a witness. A witness, unless you're an expert witness, when you're just a run-of-the-mill witness—and they have tons of them in court—you don't have to study really hard to be a witness, right? If you're at the convenience store and somebody walks in and shoots the clerk and runs out the door and you saw the whole thing, well they're going to ask you. I mean, you're not cramming before an exam. "Man, what are they going to ask me?" They're going to ask you, "Did you see this guy? Is that the guy that you saw?" That kind of thing.

When we witness for the Lord, "You shall be my witnesses," we just tell people what Jesus did for me, how Jesus impacted my life. Your story is powerful. And so God has us on mission to be his witness to tell people what Jesus has done for us. Now you witness, you have to keep that in mind everywhere you go because you're on. Everywhere you go, you're to be a witness. You go to the restaurant and you have bad service. You gotta remember, "Okay, I don't like the service, but I'm here to be a witness for Jesus Christ."

What would Jesus do in that situation? Would he go off on the waiter? Would he, you know, say, "Well this is a crummy place, I'm going to leave, here's a dime, you know, the tip is work on your serving skills," that kind of thing? He wouldn't do that. When you go to a football game or basketball game or a baseball game and you watch your kid play, you remember you're a witness. And that referee and that umpire is a human being and you need to witness with your life and let your light shine so that you're not just going off on somebody. And then they find out, "Hey, I saw you on TV, you sang in that choir at that church. Well, you're not a very nice person," you know, that kind of thing.

It's important. You go to the cleaners, you go to the grocery store, hey, you're on! And your job for being on this earth is to be his witness to let people know that you belong to Jesus. So that's our mission: to be God's slave. We're called to be that. We're called and sent by Jesus to be his witness. Discovery number three: Every Christian is commanded not only to be his witness but to share the truth. He says in verse one, look at it again in the New Living: "This letter is from Paul, a slave of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives."

And then in verse three, he said, "And now at just the right time, he has revealed this message." God's revealed this message which we announce to everyone. It is by the command of God our Savior that I have been entrusted with this work for him. Paul said he was commanded by God, given authority by God, to share the message. So are you as a believer. So am I as a believer. Not only to be a witness but then to really share the message, share the truth. See, when you share your testimony, you're just sharing, "This is what Jesus did for me." But it goes further than that, to really share the gospel with someone. And the Lord's called us to do that and commanded us to do it and empowered us to do it. And so we have authority to share because the Lord said, "Hey, I've given you authority. You are my ambassadors and you need to be an ambassador for me and get out there and talk."

Larry Nobles: Being a witness really is as simple as telling what the Lord has done in your life, and every true believer has much to describe in that regard. Are you the witness you ought to be? You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve and the message today entitled "On Mission From God." It’s from Pastor Jeff’s series Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus. You can find out more about this eight-message series when you go online to fromhisheart.org. And when you’re there, we trust that you’ll consider a gift this month to From His Heart to help us continue to reach you and into hundreds of stations around this nation and in most nations around the world.

Just go to fromhisheart.org and make a gift this month and we’ll send you the series Soul on Fire: God’s Plan for Revival. Again, go to fromhisheart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE. Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I’m Larry Nobles, trusting you’ll be here tomorrow for part two of the message "On Mission From God." Here’s part of what’s to come then.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: You're on a mission. You may not have known it, but you are. And there's grace for you. No matter what's going on in life, you can have peace because God is a God of grace, and God's grace ushers in God's peace. I don't need to fear the future. I just need to do his will because I'm on a mission.

Larry Nobles: That's on Friday when Pastor Jeff will open up God’s word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God’s heart here on From His Heart.