The Goal of the Pastor

Opening Illustration:

A website named “Revival Outside the Walls” makes the claim that 45% of church attendees are not saved; this means there is a large opportunity for evangelizing within our local church building on most Sundays. However, should reaching the lost be the job of the pastor who has been appointed to teach that given Sunday?

My moment of salvation came to me on my drive to work. As I listened to the dry tone of the bible app, Youversion, speak dry words into my life I could feel the calluses of my heart breaking away as a heart of flesh was transplanted into its place.

Charles Spurgeon is recorded as having grown up in church, hearing the culture, being witness to the ideas behind it all. Even from a young age he knew at least the concepts of the Bible. But upon true conversion in his teens the word of God truly came alive.

This is how it felt for me. It was a moment I would dare describe as an intimate realization that I was a depraved, unworthy, disgusting, degenerate sinner. I dare say that I would have fought that if I were in church as church is often not an intimate setting for many people. Especially not for people who are as introverted as I, myself, claim to be. We, the introverted, struggle to shake the hands of strangers, much less open ourselves up to them emotionally. And, it would seem, at least 45% of other people could possibly struggle with something similar. People like me could be accused of refusing to relinquish hold of their safety nets, their walls, their emotions, in a corporate setting such as you’d find at the gathering. I will never go as far as to say that it is impossible, for I believe the Roman Catholics have it right when they claim that one cannot be saved without the Church, not that it has to be Rome, clearly, but the universal, big “C” church.

In the sense of purpose, however, we must determine if the goal of the preacher should be to reach the lost or primarily to teach through the Bible.

Scriptural Reference:

11. For the Grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,

12. Instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age,

13. Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,

14. Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

15. These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

-- Titus 2:11-15

Biblical Idea:

Often when we reference one of three epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, or Titus, we are referencing them as Pastoral Epistles, or the letters of Paul that are meant to direct or instruct the receiver on how to structure leadership, the qualifications of those leaders, or how to be a leader of the Christian Church. For example, if we were to go back a single chapter, for we know there were no chapters in the original letter, we would see Paul describe the overseer, or the elder, as someone who “must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, and the list goes on and on. The point I’m trying to make is that when we go to these epistles we are often in search of instruction on leadership. In this case, of course, we are searching for answers as to what the goal of the preacher might be.

Starting in verse fifteen, for instance, and working our way backwards, we see that Paul wants Titus to exhort and reprove with all authority the things that were previously mentioned to the congregants in Crete. The Greek word used for exhort is “parakalew” which can be translated a few different ways and one of those is “to teach.” For instance, if we were to pull from the NIV, Titus 2:15 would read “These, then, are the things you should teach…”

Before we go any further, we need to know a few things about Crete. What I mean about that is that Crete was not a great place. It is where we get the term cretin from which is usually a word that is used to describe someone who is a degenerate. We don’t often hear this word any longer but it is defined as “often offensive, one afflicted with cretinism; a stupid, vulgar, or insensitive person.” Chapter 1 verse 12 says “One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, or lazy gluttons.” Paul doesn’t stop there, of course, and in Paul-like fashion as he continues to say “This testimony is true. For this cause reprove them severely that they may be sound in the faith.”

In other words, Titus’ audience was full of people that he would need to both encourage in the faith and rebuke because they were known for the very things Paul was telling him to instruct against.

Contemporary Connection:

The people we meet in Crete are not too different than the people that we complain about today. As an example, in my day job I am a recruiter for a home healthcare company. It’s my job to hunt for people and to bring them through our application process and get them to work. It’s not uncommon for a single office to have a goal of at least thirty new people per quarter in order that business move along as usual, though, recently, this has been a hard number to hit. And, with the way unemployment has worked in the past year, all people would need to do is prove they had applied somewhere and they wouldn’t even need to respond to the recruiter or hiring manager when they called.

I cannot count the number of days where I would throw my hands up, absolutely exasperated, because people wouldn’t respond back to me and the numbers I would need to be hitting would be looming over my head. And, to add insult to injury, I’d be scrolling through Facebook or a different social media account and see people in the area I hire for begging for work. If I were a little more cultured I may refer to them as lazy, helpless Cretans, but I often just say “These people… What’s wrong with these people!?” in typical RC Sproul fashion.

It would not be far off to say, then, that the climate that is preached to in the world today is similar to that in which Titus would have preached to in the time of Crete. We have many of the same problems, we are met with many of the same things that we need to rebuke or encourage, and the message has remained the same. Therefore, diving into the instructions of Paul to one of his prodigies will enlighten us as to the purpose of the preaching.

First Division (Point):

It is the goal of the pastor to preach how the saving grace of God has appeared to all men.

First Division (Explanation):

The Interlinear Bible, as well the King James Version, translates verse 11 “For the grace of God which brings salvation appeared to all men…” I believe this fits more with the context of the other writings of the Bible for if we reference Paul in Acts 17:27 we see him say “... He is not far from each one of us…” meaning that the grace of God has appeared to all, not necessarily bringing all salvation. Again, if we look at another one of Paul’s texts in his epistle to the Romans we see “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Even others define the meaning of this verse to mean “common grace” which we define as the grace given to every sinner from God in that He does not strike them down at the moment of sin though it deserves instant destruction. John Murray can be quoted saying “[Common grace is] every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God.” Anything the sinner receives outside of total destruction is absolute grace.

It’s interesting that Paul chooses this as the first point that he wants Titus to enumerate to the people of Crete. He takes the time in the previous chapter to explain to Titus that Cretans are the lowest of the low, the worst of people, lazy gluttons, liars, just the worst. They were given over to their own depraved minds. Another example of something like this can be found in Romans 1 Paul explains how the Romans had exchanged the truth of God for a lie, exchanging the things they knew of God for the lie of idolatrous acts that were “Contra Natura” or contrary to nature. As God had given them over to their degrading passions and they no longer saw fit to acknowledge God any longer, He continued to give them over to their own depraved mind.

Paul often does this, starting with the bad news in order to show just how good the good news of the gospel really is. And that is the good news that Paul is expressing that he wants Titus to enumerate to them. The people of Crete knew who they were. It was no secret how depraved they were, how absolutely lost they were. But despite their own depravity, the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Salvation is here, salvation is available, all the people of Crete had to do was to see the grace that had been there all along, existing in the invisible power of God that upheld the universe all around them.

Paul is saying “These people know their worth, which is nothing, but this, the saving grace of God, does not make distinction based upon social status, past deed, or mortal sin. His saving grace did not just appear to the ones those degenerate Cretans felt were deserving, but to all.”

First Division (Illustration):

Taking this back to the moment of my true conversion, Paul’s words and epistle writing style are exactly how it felt for me. Suddenly the stones, the calluses fell away leaving a heart of flesh and my depravity became extremely apparent to me. God’s goodness becoming visible in my complete degeneracy is what did it for me.

For years He had given me over to my own depraved mind. I had always been purely focused on me and what I needed to do. I had always been focused on the things of the world and “the smart” way of doing things. Anything anyone else had to say, if it didn’t fit with my own little self-involved world, would get disregarded. I’d lie, steal, maintain gluttonous addictive habits, drink as much as I wanted, all under the umbrella of my own depraved mind. And the realization of just how undeserving I was of His grace and His mercy hit me all at once. It was almost as if the life I had been living flashed before my eyes, as if when the Spirit took over, freeing me from my sin, He reminded me of what He had broken me away from.

This realization and what comes after is a storm of emotion. It can be only what I would describe as love. It is from this love that stems all of the good works, the works that exemplify and enumerate Christ in our lives, the works that shine the light of Christ into the darkness of a broken world. We do not do our good works out of gratitude or even out of debt, for the good works actually stem from Him who made us. Therefore, the more good works you do the more you’ll actually owe to God because these good works stem from His grace; therefore His grace abides all the more inasmuch as you perform good works for Him. John Piper says in His book “Brothers, we’re not professionals” that the way we give return to God is by being obedient to His word and His will. Something that we can give Him in return for His saving grace is our anxieties for that is what we are told to give Him. Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Therefore, in payment of His saving grace for us we give back to Him, out of obedience, our troubles.

Second Division (Point):

It is the goal of the pastor to preach about how Christians are to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.

Second Division (Explanation):

There is a lot to unpack when it comes to this verse, however, it is all tied into the way that we are to live our lives. First and foremost, however, I feel it is important to note that the first thing that Paul begins with, before he gets to the explanation of how we are to live a righteous life, is that we are supposed to deny ungodliness and worldly desires. Before we can take up the yoke of Christ Jesus we must let go of the heavy burdens that come with aligning ourselves with the world.

Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light.” In order to be fully obedient to God we must first come to Him with our burdens and our anxieties in order that He faithfully exchange our troubles with what He has to offer. With that being said, we could not bring ourselves to come to Him without first our heart being changed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

It was Titus’ job to teach this message to the people of Crete. They were to stop being Cretans and start being Christians.

In Jesus’ famous sermon on the mount, in chapter five of the gospel according to Matthew, we come across something that we aptly refer to as the beatitudes. They are named this because the word “beatitude” actually means “supreme blessedness.” Therefore, when we get down to the verses that begin with “Blessed are the…” we can understand the title and where it comes from. I do not want to touch on the entire sermon on the mount, however, just one of the beatitudes, starting in verse three of chapter five.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit! For theirs is the kingdom of the Heavens.” When we talk about the word poor being derived from the Greek language we can find two different words. The first of those words is the word “penhj” (pen’-ace) which defines a person who is so poor that they have to work a day’s wages in order to be able to eat that day. The other word, or the one that we see used here in verse three, is “ptwcoj” (pto-khos’) which defines a person who is completely destitute, who has absolutely nothing, who only works in the sense as to beg for even a morsel of food. Therefore, Jesus is saying “Blessed are those who are completely empty…” And the reason He is saying this is because if we are already full of other things, worldly things, there is absolutely no way we will be able to take in anything else. Therefore, when we see Paul explaining that the Cretans need to basically die to themselves, denying worldly lusts and ungodliness in verse twelve, we can understand that they must do these things in order that they be teachable and able to grasp onto the Christ-like way of living life.

Once they have denied their flesh, Paul continues in saying that Titus needs to instruct the people of Crete in how they need to live discreetly and righteously in the present age. Putting it another way, Paul is explaining that Titus, the pastor, needs to be able to equip the current age, the current generation of those coming to the gathering and listening to the preaching, with the ability to live a godly life in the current times. And as we already know, the time the letter was written put the climate of the people in Crete in about the same circumstances as you would find in the current church today. Therefore, a sermon by Titus may be just what the Church today needs to hear!

So what, then, does it mean for us to live righteously and godly? To reiterate, we are completely empty of self and we are now able to take on the things of Christ. Verse 11 in the 4th chapter of 1st Peter says “Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterance of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” About this verse, John Piper, in his book “Brothers, We’re Not Professionals,” says “So let us work hard but never forget that it is not us but the grace of God which is with us (1 Corinthians 15:10). Let us obey now, as always, but never forget that it is God who works in us both the will and the deed (Philippians 2:13).”

In other words, the grace of God will abound through us in the good works that we produce due to our salvation. That, then, Christians, is how we live godly and righteously and it should relieve you. The equation for our salvation, as given by Martin Luther, resembles something along the lines of Faith = Justification + Works. It is God working through us, providing sanctification for us as a gift through the works that He pours out upon others through us. That godly living, that righteousness, is not produced by anything that we do but a complete surrender to the will of God and an obedience to His call.

Second Division (Illustration):

Something myself, and my wife, has had to come to terms with is the idea that, while we are doing all things to the glory of God, there are some things that we are called to do and others that we feel like we should do because it is just the right thing to do. It isn’t necessarily born from a debtors ethic when it comes to the gospel and salvation but it has been born from the idea of gratitude. We are so thankful for what God has given us that we feel the need to do absolutely any and everything we can when it comes to the gospel. We basically struggle with saying no and it has turned into a real problem.

For instance, right now we are in the process of getting things together because we are moving. We are making some menial repairs to the house in order to get it “show” ready. To add to the stress of moving, we have just begun homeschool, for the first time, and I am transitioning to a new position at work. To add to this, she continues to take on orders for shirts, as she makes shirts and decals out of vinyl for people. In like fashion, I operate a Christian memes and devotional page on Facebook. I’ve since been recruited by a group to make graphics for multiple groups, I’ve taken on assisting a friend with his online ministry, and I am recruiting for Christian promotions on Facebook. All of that while working a forty hour per week job, taking multiple classes in seminary, leading a small-group, preparing to teach lessons at church, and attempting to start volunteering at the pregnancy resource center in Shelby.

I don’t know if you have ever met a stressed version of my wife, but she tends to be all over the place and absolutely unstoppable. Sprinkle in a stressed version of me who tends to absolutely shut down when stressed and you’ve got an unstoppable force meeting an immovable force and it never ends well. All-the-while we are seeing other opportunities to assist in ministry and feeling even MORE stressed because we are not able to take on anymore because our hands are already full of things going on at home. These are not all bad things, mind you, and we are doing our best to keep the glory upon God, but therein lies the problem. We are doing OUR best to bring glory to God. We are not destitute of self, for we are doing everything in our own ability to stay afloat.

We are still struggling with this, so don’t take this as the cure-all to the problem, but we need to relinquish control. We need to have faith and allow the God of the universe, the God who cares enough to clothe the lilies of the field, to take control. We, myself and Jessy, need to empty ourselves of control, empty our hands of the things that we think are important, and allow for the grace of God to act in our lives on others. For as we see in Paul’s letter to the church of Philippi “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13)

Third Division (Point):

It is the goal of the preacher to preach perseverance to the listener. To look for the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.

Third Division (Explanation):

The language Paul uses here suggests that Titus needed to encourage his congregants, the hearers of his sermons, to look for the blessed hope and appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. In a place like Crete where darkness was encroaching on them from all sides, where it was the cultural norm to be liars and lazy gluttons, it was probably fairly easy to become discouraged and fall away from the faith. Just to imagine it, how often would the Christians of Crete share the gospel of Christ Jesus and be met with warmth and welcome only to find out later it wasn’t a true reaction.

It is important to remember, when talking about the need for perseverance, the parable that Jesus gave concerning the ten virgins back in Matthew 25.

It was a parable that spoke about ten virgins with ten lamps and they were waiting for the bridegroom to return home so that they could enter the house with him. Five of these virgins had brought extra oil for their lamps and they were called prudent, while the other five did not and they were called foolish. As the bridegroom was taking a while, the ten fell asleep. However, at midnight there came a call signaling the return of the bridegroom back to the house. The ten virgins jumped up and began to trim their lamps and refill them, however, only five were able to do so as the other five were without oil.

The five foolish virgins asked the five prudent if they would give them oil for their lamp as they had none but the five prudent refused. “Go to the dealer and get more,” they said. So they left and upon coming back it was too late. The bridegroom had returned and taken the five prudent virgins in, leaving the five foolish virgins outside. Upon knocking at the door the bridegroom answered “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.” The five, hopeful, prepared, and looking virgins made it into the house while the five unprepared, and hopeless virgins were left outside in the outer darkness.

So when Paul tells Titus that he needs to encourage his flock to be prepared, looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God, he is telling Titus to make sure they are prepared. Make sure your flock has extra oil for their lamps! Make sure that they are ready and waiting to trim their lamps and follow in behind the bridegroom upon his glorious appearing! For we, of course, do not know the day, nor the hour the Son of Man will return but the day will be glorious, indeed. It is important that the flock persevere unto the end, prepared and equipped with the oil that is the grace of God in order that they be able enjoy the gift of His endless mercy instead of the wrath of His just hand.

The good news that I want to offer you, however, is that perseverance is one of the many divine gifts that are bestowed upon the followers of Christ. To explain, after the parable of the good shepherd in John 10, Jesus says in verse 27 and 28 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” If we continue on to verse 29 we see Jesus say “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” Jesus is explaining that God, the Son, Father, and Spirit, keep the sheep with a divinely inspired perseverance. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. And while we know this is the case, that those who are saved, truly saved, cannot fall by the way-side, Paul and Jesus, alike, both encourage the believers to encourage one another.

Third Division (Illustration):

I’ve always always been a “take life as it comes” kind of person when it comes to pretty much all parts of my life. I grew up with that mentality and made it through school with that mentality. There were always minor setbacks, of course, but nothing I could not deal with in the moment. Most of the time, course corrections with this type of thought process weren’t all that major, especially in growing up as most of these were not serious life decisions.

My life, of course, was the exact opposite. Much of her life she planned, and replanned, and had plans on top of plans because most of the time her original plans fell through. She was always prepared when something happened that deviated from her original plan because that was how she had to live her life. If she did not have multiple different kinds of plans there was a huge chance that she wouldn’t be able to do whatever she needed or wanted to do.

These two different kinds of mindsets coming into a marriage have met with some good things and some bad things. To explain, we are packing up our house in order to move. She has planned fifteen steps ahead and she basically just asks me to tackle the grunt work. I have absolutely no problem with this because I’d rather take life as it comes. And she doesn’t just leave me with the grunt work, either, she actually helps. But because she has done this we have managed to get our house together, in sorts, in almost record time so that it can be ready for viewing.

On the other side of that, however, when things start to really stress her out I can be a bit of a grounding agent. Like I said previously, I am not a planner so I do not have a plan to make up for what has just gone wrong. Despite this fact, I walk up to her and grab her hand and look into her eyes and I say “Honey, it’s okay. We will get it figured out. Really, it’s no problem.” A few moments will go by, usually in silence, before she says “Begone. I never knew you.”

In all seriousness, however, all of her planning has already, and will continue, to pay off. If she hadn’t brought extra oil we would both be stranded when these problems seem to come from nowhere at the least expected times.

Fourth Division (Point):

It is the goal of the preacher to preach the gospel and how it implants within the chosen people a heart zealous for good deeds.

Fourth Division (Explanation):

It is not a big secret that the understanding of the gospel in the current Christian climate of the Church is broken today. Many people, of course, can explain that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and was raised on the third day. But beyond that they run into a lack of understanding. Even more people refer back to 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, which records Paul saying “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” As you see, here, this is the cross event but what good news is this for us? That is what the word “gospel” means, is it not? Just from these two verses I do not see any good news. I see our Savior dying on a cross.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” The gospel, Christians, is not that Jesus Christ died for us, as valiant and heroic as that may be. The gospel, the good news, the “euaggelion,” is that through His death on the cross we find atonement. Through something we call propitiation, or the appeasing of God the Father through the sacrifice of the Son, our transgressions and condemnation are imputed to the God-man Jesus Christ while His righteousness is imputed to us so that we can be counted as righteous before God.

The first instance in the Bible where we see that justification is by faith alone is in the story of Abram. Abram was being told by God that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. The story goes, in Genesis 15:6, that Abram believed in the Lord and the Lord credited it to him as righteousness. We know through the story of Abram that God chose him to be His chosen people, and through Abram’s belief he, Abram, was justified. This is one of the proof texts where we conclude the Protestant idea of justification by faith alone.

It is in the New Testament in the book of James that we then find the idea of faith without works as being dead. This is not to be confused with our justification, however, as we just went over how that is through faith alone. Works are merely the evidence of a regenerated or changed heart. Jesus says that from the abundance of the heart spilleth over to the mouth. Another reference to this is when He talks about the fruits that are produced from the tree. While this is in reference to false prophets, yes, it is also explicatory of the evidence of what is going on within a man. A saved person will produce the works of one who is saved while one who is still dead will produce the fruits of death; it goes deeper than this, though.

Paul references life as “running the race.” Before salvation we are entirely at enmity with God going in the opposite direction of anything He is. However, upon being regenerated, we stop moving away from God and being at enmity with Him and we start running toward Him. We start moving closer to Him, but not at a slow pace. And by moving toward Him we start to reflect His light more and more, becoming more and more like Christ. Paul goes as far as to say “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” This births within us what I’ll refer to as the need to produce good works. It’s more than just a want out of gratitude or a need out of debt but a need because it is the fulfilment of our satisfaction. The writer C. S. Lewis says “We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed."

Our zealousness for good works is the expression of our pure enjoyment in the goodness of God. It is through His grace that we touch other people’s lives. It is through His grace that we show grace to others. And it is to His glory that we strive to do good works as evidence of the heart of flesh that was given to us upon our salvation. Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The Spirit is speaking through the apostle Paul to tell us that we were made by Him, created in Jesus for good works! We don’t just do good works because we need to in order to express the joy of the goodness of God, we quite literally do good works for God because that is what we were made to do. And we are zealous to do so because of the joy these good works produce within us.

Fourth Division (Illustration):

The more I mature as a Christian the more my heart breaks for my fellow believers. The more I learn the more discouraged I am by what I see in the world often exhibited by other believers. It used to be the other way around.

I used to look around as an immature believer and see things that would wow me to my toes. This was before I knew what the gospel really was and what it truly means for us. I was a new believer rocking out jeans in church and thinking with a hint of rebellion that my church has it right on all things and these traditional folks are just legalists.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my church has it far off but I don’t think it is perfect, just like no other church is perfect. However, that hint of rebellion that I felt, that feeling of “this is okay” when I see a violation of sanctity in the church has all washed away.

Now, outside of my own church, I’ll hear these celebrity pastors preach something that is contrary to the gospel and they’ll make crude illustrations and make disgusting jokes from the pulpit and it will break my heart. The sons of Aaron the priest were burned alive for using different incense in the church. Uzzah was struck dead instantly when he violated the law of God in an attempt to catch the Ark. Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead instantly due to their lies. And we have celebrity pastors, wolves, preaching a false gospel and leading people away from the God of the Bible to focus on themselves. And to hear people defend them time, and time again breaks my heart because they cannot see the message that is being handed to them from a supposed man of God.

But also, the more mature I get, the more zealous I get to go out and do good works. I still see these people, these celebrity pastors, but my focus is less and less upon them and more upon what I can do to glorify the kingdom of God. Of course I still warn people to not listen to those teachers, as fruitless as it may be, but my focus is more on how the kingdom of God is at hand because I have a need to satisfy my joy in Christ Jesus by expressing that joy through good works. I feel a call in my Spirit to go out and bring forth the kingdom of God with my works with the grace of God that only He can produce within us.

Conclusion:

The final verse of this section, in reiteration, is “These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” We know that through this Paul is explaining to Titus that he wants Titus to teach these things, to preach these things to his congregation.

I believe that Paul’s message goes further than this, however. The very fact that these things are so broadsided, so open, is that Paul is expecting Titus to not just minister to the people but to equip them to become sharers of the gospel, or ministers, themselves. Maintaining the same idea as just mentioned before, I want to phrase it a little differently in order to highlight a point. Paul doesn’t just want Titus to preach to the people, he wants the people to take what they hear from Titus and become ministers of the word, or preachers of the gospel themselves.

With the logic of that in mind, then, we must conclude that the reason Paul wants Titus to equip his congregants with these abilities is in order to share the gospel with the lost. So, by the question I proposed at the beginning of this sermon, “What is the goal of the preacher?” I believe the answer is two fold. On one hand, the goal of the preacher is to equip the hearers of the message who are believers to go out and share the gospel. On the other hand, the goal of the pastor is to share the word of God to the lost. Paul says in Romans 10:17 that “... faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”

Therefore, it makes what Titus, the preacher this epistle is addressed to, does all the more important but it also adds an implication that can be missed if we breeze over this passage too fast. The preacher is to provide a catalyst by the grace of God for the Spirit of God to work in the hearts of the hearers of the word of God.