Well, it's good to be back.
I had the gift of having about a month off to rest and replenish and sort of break the cycle of leading, teaching, or studying, teaching, preaching, leading, studying, teaching, preaching.
Like Sunday ends immediately, you know, reboot for the next one.
Just kind of keep doing that and kind of let that kind of stop.
Just kind of stop all that cycling for just a bit.
And so it was great rest and replenishing.
Three profound reminders really hit me this month over the course of the month.
I really love my family.
They're awesome.
Like I love hanging out with my family.
Number two was I'm the beloved of God.
Like I'm not a role.
Like it's just nice to step away from a role for a minute to remember who you are, like truly at your core.
And then the last, which it's just true, I love to fly fish.
I love it.
Here's a picture of us, my fly fishing buddies.
We're driving out to the river in Idaho.
Um, this is an introvert's dream, right?
There I am on the river.
Uh, and do you know what's going through my mind right there?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
It's wonderful.
Just nothing all day.
I mean, if any thought is actually going through my mind, it's like I was pretty sure there's a cutthroat trout about 15 feet out, tucked behind a rock.
And it's the real dilemma.
Does he want the yellow sally fly?
Does he want the chubby Chernobyl?
Does he want the copper John with the orange thread?
Or maybe he wants the pink thread?
I mean, these are the big debates of the day.
That's the stress of the day, you know.
Huckleberry ice cream or huckleberry milkshake.
That's the that's the extreme decision making of the day, which is great to have a break for those to be your decisions within a day.
To have that kind of replenishing.
We're gonna spend the next three Sundays studying the book of Titus, and then after that, we're gonna go, we're gonna study the book of James for the fall.
James will take us to Advent, and then we'll be at Christmas.
So that's what the fall looks like in terms of what we will be studying.
We've preached on Titus before, but I want to use it in the next three weeks to remind us, for us to be reminded.
What does it mean to be saved by the grace of God, this grace without conditions, and also and also to live and rest and grow in that grace?
Because that's the heartbeat of our church.
This summer I've been on a bit of a journey, I had a bit of a pillow journey, pillow stress.
I don't know if you've ever had pillow stress.
Are y'all one pillow sleepers?
Any one pillow?
You're minimalist, simple people, just happy?
Two pillow?
Any going to two?
Anyone going to two?
Three?
You want to admit that out loud?
Four?
Is anybody willing to admit four publicly?
Confession?
Four pillows.
Anybody got the weird knee pillow going on for the hip alignment?
I don't want to know about your weird pillows, it's up to you.
I I saw this pillow when I was shopping online.
I thought that that could be a new ministry for us, perhaps.
Just have those in the lobby for you on Sunday mornings.
Just maybe take communion, go outside, yell in a pillow.
Could be therapeutic.
So my pillow stress is that I'm a side sleeper.
Y'all, are you a side side sleepers?
Let's go ahead and back sleepers, stomach sleepers.
We don't understand, y'all.
I'm a side sleeper.
And about two months ago, I started waking up and my my shoulder would like legitimately hurt.
This is where I'm at in life.
I I'm eating injured, sleeping.
I wake up injured.
I haven't done anything.
I haven't done anything, and I'm starting the day injured, so I was like, oh, okay, I gotta I gotta transition, conversion to back sleeper.
Then the problem is, is uh like my head's flopping, I don't have any support.
Like I need a I need a different pillow, is what I realized.
There's a little bit of a pillow stress because I don't I haven't changed pillows in a while.
I don't know, do I need a down feather pillow?
I don't know anything about that, never done that.
Cut up memory foam infused with cool gel, cooling gel.
There's a lot of options.
Lots of options, very stressful.
So if you know about pillows, I'm open for your advice, counsel, prayer.
It's a lot.
It's a lot of stress going on right now.
Here's my point.
Back to the fact that I could be injured while sleeping.
Where and how you rest means a lot.
It actually means everything.
And you can actually rest in a way where you get hurt, injured.
It's not as good for you.
It can be damaging.
And you can rest in a way where you flourish.
This is why we're all shopping for pillows and trying out infused cooling gel.
The book of Titus is written by Paul.
It's written to Titus.
Titus is in Crete.
Titus is in Crete because he's getting the church is organized.
He's like, let's raise up leaders, let's get organized.
Now, the people in Crete, they're having a problem.
The problem is something that we all have, we've probably experienced, we've been around church long enough, you'll run into it.
It's what is the Christian life like?
Is it about rules and more rules?
And let's add some more rules, and if I live up to those rules, then I'm a good Christian.
Then I'm godly, then God loves me, then I'm accepted today.
Is that what it is?
Or is it about God's grace without conditions?
No condition.
And because of that, I'm just gonna do whatever I want.
I'm just gonna go for it, just like, you know, pour another round and another round and another round because I can do whatever I want because of God's grace.
Now, maybe you've been in places where you've experienced each of these.
Many of us, if you've been around church, you've been in places where people can't have enough rules.
It was legalistic in a way to say that follow these rules, and if you follow them, you do good enough, and then you will be, because of your following, you will be accepted right with God.
God will love you today, He smiles upon you today.
Now, if you don't follow these rules, maybe God still loves you.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe not.
Depends on where you are.
But you're not good with them today.
And so your gaze turns upon your performance to God, and therefore you're really proud of yourself at times.
And then you're also devastated at other times.
You're secretly become judgmental to other people who can't get their acts together.
And on the inside, all the while, and I speak from experience, you're getting more and more anxious and more and more tired.
Because you're unsure how God feels about you.
Now maybe you were in legalism or heavy religious, lots of rules, and you just swung to license, or maybe you were in license and you swung to legalism.
Over in license, it looks like this: God is so gracious and I am so secure, I do whatever I want.
Sin all the more.
Who cares?
License.
God's grace gives me the license to sin all the more.
Legalism or license, which is it?
What's the path for the Christian life?
Well, Titus has something to say about this.
Titus 1, 1 through 3.
Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.
In hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God or Savior.
That was one sentence, heck of a sentence.
Now I don't have all the answers about election.
You saw that word, like God picks, chooses, those are his, doesn't pick others.
I don't have all the answers for that.
Here's what I do know his choosing of me empowers my choosing of him.
And because that is true, all my spiritual narcissism and spiritual anxiety can start to go away.
Because in the end, all of my pursuit of him, my wanting to know him, any of my efforts and spiritual disciplines, all of these things are inside of God's pursuit of me.
God's already choosing of me.
That makes incredible security for us.
That's good news.
Verses 4 through 9, Paul gives Titus kind of tips on guys to be, who should be pastors and overseers and leaders and church leaders.
So we can learn from that.
We learn that I, any pastor, church leader, back then, now, they should be like this.
They should be blameless or above reproach.
Now, that doesn't mean you're perfect, thankfully.
But their life has an integrity.
There's a direction of God-centeredness or godliness.
Husband of one wife, meaning monogamous.
That's good advice.
Family of believers, meaning that while your children are young, they're guided by the gospel.
I like how Eugene Peterson translates in his The Message, translates the character of the leader.
It's important that a church leader responsible for the affairs in God's house be looked up to, not pushy, not short-tempered, not a drunk, not a bully, not money hungry.
He must welcome people, be helpful, wise, fair, reverent, have a good grip on himself, and have a good grip on the message, knowing how to use the truth to either spur people on in knowledge or stop them in their tracks if they oppose it.
Now we're not perfect before that, but it's a trajectory, it's a direction, it's a description.
Jumping to verse 10, Paul says that these leaders must fight against false teaching.
And so we have to ask ourselves, like, okay, what are they fighting against?
Verse 10.
For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
So these would be the legalists.
They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.
This testimony is true.
Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
Here's what I read about this text this week.
External conformity urged by the legalizers, that was there in verse 10, the circumcision party.
External conformity urged by the legalizers merely papers over hearts seeking to gain God's approval by human efforts.
That's ultimately what they're doing.
Underneath a religion of rules and merit, performance-oriented faith, is not a love of God.
It's a love of control.
Legalism actually keeps you in love with yourself.
You're in love with your strength, your autonomy, and your provision.
This is why you're incredibly proud at times and you're devastated other times.
And it's easy to swing from license to legalism and miss gospel freedom and growth.
So Paul in verses 10 through 14 confronts the legalists.
And then in verses 15 and 16, Paul confronts those living in license.
Verse 15, to the pure, all things are pure.
But to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.
They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
Wow.
Okay, Paul tell us what you think.
I mean, Paul's incredibly gracious, and he's no pushover.
See, the fruit of our lives is not to merit God's love.
It's an imperfect but honest response that we're already loved.
Here's our points.
Two points for today.
Point number one: legalism and license are both traps.
Both of them are traps.
Three years ago we had rats in our attic.
That's probably too much information publicly, but it's true.
Maybe you've been there.
The pest control guy came out.
He brought out these uh sticky traps.
You seen these?
Yeah, you can take those right back with you.
Back to Candyland or else they work.
I'm at war.
I don't need a sticky trap up in my attic.
So off he goes.
You thank you for coming.
I go to Home Depot, I buy 15 snap traps.
Like break your finger, old school, it's war.
This is what they're in my house.
You know, so you know, if we're in the woods, different, they're in my house.
I go up in the attic, I set these 15 snap traps super carefully.
There is no better sound in the world than laying in bed at night.
And you you hear above you just a little, just tiny little scratching.
And joy overtakes your whole body.
It was Christmas in the morning.
I'm sending pictures to my friends.
I got five last night.
I'm going reloading for tonight.
Now, I still have those snap traps of my attic.
We're a clean house, by the way.
We've been clean.
We're clean.
I still got them up there.
I'm ready.
If you come back, I'm ready.
I also have a trap out of my back porch.
It's like a cage thing.
Different trap, same result, same result.
Two different traps, same result.
Right?
Legalism and license, two different traps.
Neither are filled with grace, acceptance, freedom, growth, flourishing.
We need a third way.
Point number two is this the rescue from both traps is the gospel.
And when I say gospel, I mean specifically justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
There's no addition, nothing else is needed, nothing for you to add, no added performance.
We do not need to add a single bit of performance to Jesus' work for us.
Jesus plus nothing really does equal everything for you.
You are fully accepted, fully loved, fully forgiven, fully righteous, as you are, not as you should be.
Because Christ was as you should be.
And it's actually that good.
Tertelian, a Christian writer in the second and third century, said this: just as Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors.
See, legalism says, I perform or obey as to be accepted.
I perform or obey, so I will be accepted.
License says I should do whatever I want because God is so gracious.
The gospel says I'm already accepted because of Jesus.
And that does something to me.
That heals the heart that's self-justifying or hiding.
And a nourishing in this new identity begins and a flourishing begins.
Therefore, I want to obey.
God doesn't love a future version of you, He fully loves you now, the mess you are now.
And that truth, as we surrender into it, as we rest there, that's the right place to rest.
It begins to heal the heart, change our lives.
Listen to where Paul's taking us.
This is where we're going to camp out next week.
What does it actually mean to grow in the grace of God?
Paul says this, Titus 2, 11 and 12, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.
All right, so the grace of God brings salvation.
Verse 12, here's what it also does: training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.
The grace of God does that.
This past Sunday, my mentor texted out.
This is my prayer.
When I read this, I was like, oh, that's the prayer for Titus.
Jesus, astonish, nourish, and flourish our hearts with your love.
Astonish us even more.
May we grow more enamored that we're already accepted and loved and forgiven, worthy, righteous.
Already enough?
So Jesus, nourish us in that.
And may that flourish our hearts and our lives.
I have some purple sage in my backyard.
Gardeners, y'all know that sage loves the sun, right?
You never put, don't put sage in this in the shade.
Well, sure enough.
When I planted the sage last year, I put it over kind of behind the trampoline, this little spot.
I thought it was gonna get enough sun, but apparently, like the shadow of the trampoline is a lot of shade over there.
Within six weeks, this sage is like scraggly and brown, just sort of limping along.
Here's a picture of kind of scraggly limping along, sage, struggle, struggling sage is sad.
It's a sad sight.
Pitiful, pitiful looking.
It's easy to feel like that, isn't it?
It's easy to feel like that.
So a few weeks ago, back in May, I moved the sage from one side of the trampoline over to the other side, where it should have been the whole time, in the sun, the proper place for it to rest.
And here's a picture of the sage now.
Doing great.
Flourishing.
Nothing else changed.
It just had to be in the right spot.
It had to rest in the right spot.
We don't have to live as struggling sage.
To put it in Bible language, we would say we don't have to live as orphans when we are the beloved of Abba Father.
Where we rest, our hearts changes everything else.
And this is good news.
It means you're free from being a legalist.
And if you're a legalist, we know you are not as good as you let on.
And you're free from living in license.
And if you're living in license, we know you are not as free as you let on.
The gospel is our way.
We are enough to God and enough as human beings, not because of any work we have done, but because of the work Christ has done for us.
God loves you and He likes you.
And that's the good news that we rest in.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for this good news.
That you pursue us even while we're sinners.
This morning, may we grow even more astonished that Christ is sufficient.
And we are fully loved, fully accepted.
We are forgiven and righteous by Christ for us.
May this nourish our souls.
May our hearts flourish, and may our lives flourish.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.