If you’re like me, you give differing levels of attention to different kinds of mail. We throw junk mail away immediately without opening it. We place bills on our desk to open later in the week and open them reluctantly. But when a piece of mail is from a family member or friend and the envelope is addressed by hand, we tend to open that mail immediately and with some degree of interest or excitement - especially if we think there’s some money in it!

As we begin to preach through the book of Titus, we should ask ourselves an important question right up front: if the Bible were mail, then where would it fall in your level of interest and priority? On a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being not at all interested and 10 be extremely interested), how interested are you to hear what this book says? Don’t give a rating you would like to have or the rating you think you should have. Give a rating that is accurate and honest with the way things really are.

Also, if the Bible were mail, then how serious are you about responding to what it says? We’ll talk more about this next week - our determination to do what Scripture says. For instance, we throw some mail away and we set other mail aside for another day. But if we receive mail from a boyfriend or girlfriend or a fiancé, or from the IRS, we feel a heightened desire and need not only to read what it says but to respond to what it says as well.

When we read through the opening words of a NT letter, we often move quickly through the opening verses because we view them as a formality, as though Paul says 'hello’ to a person or church then moves on to what he really wants to say. But since these opening words vary from letter to letter, we know that Paul writes each one with purpose, so we should give just as much attention to his opening words as we do to body of his letter(s).

As a church that values the Word of God, we should pay attention to how Paul opens his letters because his opening words give us valuable insights that help us better understand what he will say in the rest of the letter (or book).

These opening words also help us increase our interest and seriousness about reading and responding to what he is about to say. Paul’s opening greeting to Titus reminds us that:

We should value the Bible as God’s Word to us.

Main Thought

By this I mean that we should value it more highly than we value the words of any other person, group, or source - including our own personal ideas and views.

• Do you desire to know what it says and are you determined to do what it says?
• Do you value what it says more highly than what any other person, group, or source has to say?

Let’s take a closer look at how Paul opens this letter so we can increase our appreciation and respect for the Bible as the Word of God.

The letter opening introduces the writer.

In the U.S. today, we introduce the writer (or sender) of a letter at the end of a letter. We build a case for the importance of our letters in the opening paragraph or two, explaining why the message of the letter is important.

In first-century Greece and Rome, letter-writers introduced themselves at the start of the letter, not the end. By doing so, they emphasized upfront both their relationship to the recipients and their credentials for writing the letter. They believed that by appealing to a close relationship and stating their personal credentials, they would encourage the recipients to take respond to the letter more seriously.

Paul took this approach in this letter to Titus. He opened with his name and attaches two important facts about his identity.

• This opening should encourage us all to value this letter more highly than any mail (or email) we may receive in the week ahead.
• It should also encourage us to value what Paul has to say even more highly than what we may have to say ourselves.

He was transformed by the gospel.

Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ ...

Phil 1:1

Paul (his Roman name, Saul was his Hebrew name) had been an arrogant, self-righteous man who abused, imprisoned, and even killed people who followed Christ. He had even presided over the killing of the first Christian martyr in church history - Stephen (Acts 7:58–8:3).

Though Paul had been a brutal, leading opponent to the church, he had been transformed from an ardent adversary to a die-hard advocate of the church. He was not a man who’d grown up attending and loving the church. He was quite the opposite.

He was transformed through the gospel - the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.

As he traveled to a city called Damascus, to harass and imprison Christians there, Christ appeared to Paul on the road and impressed on his heart the truth that he was the true God and Savior. Then and there, Paul turned to Christ alone by faith alone for salvation by grace alone. This newfound belief in Christ transformed Paul into a passionate follower of Christ himself - the very kind of person he had once tried so hard to destroy.

Evidently, as he presided over the stoning of Stephen, he had heard Stephen’s gospel message from the Bible and Stephen’s prayer before his death. The Holy Spirit had been impressing the truth of that message onto Paul’s heart for months heart, like how a Far East rice farmer pokes the ribs of his oxen as they tire from plowing the rice paddy.

Whatever Paul says in this letter, he says from a transformed perspective. He is not writing from an arrogant, legalistic, or religious point of view as in his past life. He is writing from the perspective of one who has been changed, humbled, and transformed by the gospel.

Such a radical transformation should definitely increase our interest in what Paul has to say. This transformation should also increase our hope that his message will encourage a similar transformation in our lives, too.

That’s what makes the opening lyrics of Amazing Grace so meaningful.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see.

John Newton

The hymn-writer, John Newton, had also experienced a radical transformation through the gospel. He had been a hardened, foul-mouthed, mean-spirited, bitter sailor who eventually captained a ship that transported slaves to plantations in the New World. He heard the gospel and eventually believed on Christ, becoming an influential gospel witness who abandoned the slave trade. The epitaph on his tombstone reads as follows:

John Newton, Clerk.  Once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slavers in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.

Epitaph for John Newton

Paul’s transformation should encourage us that the most hardened, resistant person can be softened and changed by the gospel.

Whatever he wrote - whether Titus, Romans, Philippians, or any other of his fourteen NT letters - we should read with enthusiasm and respect because he wrote as a man who had been radically transformed by the gospel.

He served God as his master.

Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ ...

Titus 1:1

Since slavery dismissed a person’s freedoms and rights as a human being and was so terribly abused in first-century Rome, why does Paul refer to himself as a slave of God? Why does he mention this as one of his credentials?

In Rom 6:20, for instance, he taught that without Christ we are slaves to sin.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

Christ himself taught the same perspective (John 8:34):

Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

Since Paul had turned to God for deliverance from sin, he acknowledged God as his new master. You see, God is the only master who is truly and perfectly good. He is such a good master that you are actually most free when you serve and follow him. In fact, you are freer when you serve him as your master than when you follow your own way, for God cares for you better than you care for yourself.

In the OT, other key spokesmen for God were also called “servants” or “slaves” of God, well-known and highly respected men like Abraham (Ps 105:42), Moses (Num 12:7), David (Ps 89:3), Daniel (Dan 6:20), and the prophets (Jer 25:4; Ezek 38:17; Amos 3:7; Zech 1:6). Paul was a NT version of this kind of man.

As a servant (or slave) of God, Paul longer pursued his own personal dreams, goals, and desires or cared to promote his own personal opinions, preferences, and views. He pursued God’s goals and desires for his life instead. He did what God wanted him to do and said what God wanted him to say, and he urged others to do the same.

Whatever Paul wrote in this letter, he wrote because God wanted him to write those words. He did not write down his own personal opinions or preferences. He wrote the very opinions and preferences of God.

As a called and committed servant of God, Paul guarantees he is giving us with the message God wants us to hear. This fact should be more to you than an academic, doctrinal, or theological belief. It should motivate you to listen more closely and with greater interest and intensity to what God says than what anyone else has to say.

• Will that be your attitude to this letter called Titus?
• Is this your attitude towards the entire Bible?

If not, then you need to do some serious reflection. Either you believe the Bible is the Word of God or you don’t. And if you do, how can you say you believe the Bible is the Word of God and yet be so disinterested or unmotivated by what God says?

• How can we be more interested in what a political talk-show host or favorite politician says than the Bible?
• How can we be more interested in what a weatherman, news anchor, or sportscaster says than the Bible?
• How can we be more interested in what people on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Snap Chat have to say than the Bible?
• How can we be more interested in what friends, coworkers, classmates, and even relatives have to say than the Bible?

Since we know that Paul is a servant of God just as Moses was a servant of God, we know that what he is about to say in Titus is what God says for us today. This fact alone should motivate you to value the Bible far more deeply than any other book or source of information.

He said what Christ sent him to say.

Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ ...

As an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul wrote with an extra-special purpose. Being an “apostle of Jesus Christ” further intensifies the fact that he was a “servant of God.” He had not only been saved by Christ, he had been sent out by Christ with a specific mission. He was sent on a mission by the one who left heaven’s glory to die a shameful death on the cross for Paul’s (and our) sins.

First, to be an apostle, a person needed to have seen the Lord and to have firsthand knowledge of his resurrection (John 15:27; Acts 1:21, 22; 1 Cor 9:1). Paul saw the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 22:7–8).

Second, the church also expected them to have been called to that role and sent out by Christ personally (Luke 6:13; Gal 1:1). This was also true of Paul, the last apostle (Galatians 1:1).

Third, the apostles continued the teaching ministry of Christ and provided the final, foundational teachings for the church for centuries to come (Ephesians 2:20).

So, since he was sent out personally by the resurrected Christ, we know that what Paul will say in Titus (and throughout the NT) is not only what God the Father wanted him to say, but it was also what Christ who died and rose again (and who is God) assigned him to say for the church.

They like to give orders to their younger siblings and tell them what to do. Yet, any kid who’s had bossy older siblings knows how to tell the difference between commands they must follow and command they can safely disregard. The key is to ask the question, “Did Mom [or Dad] say?” If Mom or Dad told the older sibling sent them give the instructions to their younger siblings, then the younger should take the instructions seriously. If they were speaking on their own authority, then the younger siblings could disregard what they were being told to do.

Whatever Paul says in this letter, he says because Christ himself had sent Paul to say these things for us. If you want to know what Christ would say to you today, then read this letter.

That God the Father and Christ the Son are the source of whatever Paul will say in this letter becomes even more clearly emphasized two verses later (Titus 1:3):

[God] has in due time manifested his word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior.

• Manifested means to reveal or uncover something which was previously hidden or covered over.
• Preaching means to speak as a herald or messenger for someone in higher authority. Speaking as a such a messenger requires that you say no more and no less than what you were assigned to say.
• Committed means that this is what God had entrusted Paul to say.
• Commandment means that God had fully provided, endorsed, and authorized what Paul is about to say in this letter to Titus.

In fact, that Paul’s message in Titus is directly from God is made even more clear later in the letter when he tells Titus what he should do as a leader in the church with what Paul said to him in this letter (Titus 2:15):

Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.

The word authority is the same word as commandment in Tit 1:3. The point here is that God and Christ fully authorized what Paul is about to say in this letter to Titus. Therefore, Titus is fully authorized to teach and train others to value and do what this letter teaches

His identity persuades us to value what he wrote.

He was not some man expressing his own personal religious views and pushing them onto everyone else, and he certainly wasn’t a boring teacher who pushed meaningless concepts and ideas onto people.

• He was a man who had been radically transformed by the gospel.
• He was a man who was devoted to serving God.
• He was a man who had been sent out personally by the resurrected Christ.

Are you transformed by the gospel?

No matter what your past or present life may be like, no matter how bad or religious you may have been, you can turn to Jesus Christ as your God and Savior. He will forgive your sins and give you a new and meaningful purpose for living. No matter how hard you try to find significance and purpose in this life, you will always fall short - like Paul - until you believe on Jesus Christ as your God and Savior.

If you have not yet turned to Christ, has he been prompting you to do so? If so, then will you come to him for salvation at last as Paul did on the road to Damascus?

Do you value the Bible as God’s Word?

• Does your attitude towards the Word of God motivate you to give regular attention to the Bible throughout the week?
• Does it motivate you to attend church whenever possible so you can hear and learn even more what God has to say?
• Does God’s Word truly govern and guide the decisions that you make in life - the big decisions (like career, marriage, and major financial purchases, investments, and giving) and the small decisions (like how you spend your time each day, how you build relationships, what you buy, where you go, and how you rest and receive your entertainment)?

When we truly embrace the authority of God’s Word in our lives, then we will agree with Job when he said:

I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.

Job 23:!2

We will also agree with Jesus himself when he said:

He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

Matthew 4:4

Today I pray that God will rekindle in all of our hearts a deeper respect for the Word of God and a greater desire to hear and do what God says to us as a church. May we recommit ourselves to the inner heart belief that the Word of God is the ultimate authority for our lives.