Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Today is Epiphany, technically yesterday was Epiphany, but the Church can celebrate it today.

Epiphany celebrates the wise men from the East coming to pay homage to the Lord Jesus sometime after his birth.

Matthew records this event at the beginning of his Gospel.

This event is at the start of the recording of the events of Jesus’s life.

So, If we were reading this Gospel for the first time, we might be wondering to ourselves, who is this Jesus?

Who is this baby going to be?

This baby must be someone special, this person must have some kind of authority, if even wise men from the east are coming to pay him homage.

Matthew throughout his Gospel convincing the world of who Jesus is.

He lays out building blocks that make up Jesus’s identity in order to show us Jesus.

An Epiphany is that moment when the lights come on.

A sudden realization of things.

An oh I get it moment.

I had one those moments about my identity, quite a while ago.

As many of you know I spent quite a bit of time as a Land Surveyor.

The common joke among surveyors is that no one really sets out to be a Land Surveyor, it isn’t necessarily pleasant.

You either in swamps or woods with mosquitos or you are freezing and trudging through snow.

t is one of those positions you just sort of fall into.

Perhaps you picked it up in the military, or I’ve met people whose Father’s were land Surveyors, so they had to do that as a summer job, and ended up leaving, or perhaps you picked it up on the way to Civil Engineering as I did.

As a result many Surveyors have an attitude of one foot in the door, and one foot out.

People are just doing it until something better comes along.

So there I was a young Surveyor, I didn’t have my own tools, I always had to borrow some, I didn’t really have a good attitude, after all I was just there until something better came along, kinda miserable and really no help to the crew.

Finally after this going on for quite some time, the older wiser crew chief decided to have a talk with me.

He asked me what I was doing here, how did get into surveying, and I told him I was just here temporarily, and I was hoping for something better etc.

And said to me son, you are no help to the crew until you change things, he said nobody wants to be a Surveyor, but like it or not you are a Surveyor, no start acting like one.

I went home and thought about that I was a Surveyor.

I started actually acting like that.

I called myself a Surveyor, I am a Surveyor, it started to change things, I became a part of the crew, our crew worked together and I strived to do a good job, because now it was part of my identity.

When new people started the job, I could show them some things, not all things mind you I still knew my place, and I still knew that I didn’t know it all yet, I was still learning, but I was a Surveyor.

That mind set of one foot in the door, and one out, unfortunately, you see a bit of that attitude in some Churches today.

Perhaps not so much here at St. Luke’s, but in some places in American Christianity, you can find that there are people that are just at that church until something better comes along.

There are only there for a period of time until they find another place that fulfills a need, they have never identified with the Church family that God has called them to, or even worse perhaps they have not even built their identity.

Today we are starting a new series on the book of Titus.

The book of Titus is a letter.

It is a letter written to Titus from Paul.

It is a letter from one Church leader to another.

It is written for 3 primary purposes, To encourage Titus to complete the organization of Churches through the appointment of Elders, to deal with false teachers in the church, and to address proper conduct for the Cretan Christians.

Sometimes when you hear that Titus is written from one Church leader to another, and since it primarily deals with Church leadership you may be tempted to, tune out.

Ugh, I’m not a leader, why do I need to know that.

It is like High School Trigonometry right?

Why do I need this?

I will never need this.

Well you never know you just might find yourself a Surveyor,.......but seriously why study leadership if we just want to go to church?

What if we don’t want to lead?

There is a lot to learn for everyone.

As we look at what Paul says to Titus about leadership issues and false teachers, we get a great picture of what it means to be a christian.

When we look in on a letter from one leader to another, we get an opportunity to learn what genuine authentic Christian Character is.

Authentic, if you remember back before Christmas is what we hope to be as a people, a church family of authentic people.

This idea of authenticity in our Christian Character begins with the idea of identity.

Who do you think you are?

That will be the first brick in our foundation.

slide

Paul tells us right in the very in the beginning of Titus who he is.

He makes it absolutely clear.

Paul a servant of God.

The Greek word is dulos some translation say bond-servant.

Elsewhere, and quite frequently it is translated as slave.

In fact outside of the New Testament in secular Greek literature it always means slave.

I don’t want to get in a big thing here, but if you are interested, in the translation of this take a look at the book by John MacArthur called “Slave”.

He has a whole book on this.

So Paul is using this term of humility.

Paul a bond-servant of God.

Paul bought out of the slavery of sin by the blood of the Lamb.

Paul once a slave to sin is now a slave to righteousness.

Paul is a humble servant of God, yet he is also an apostle.

And an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Not so humble a term anymore.

An apostle is someone who was sent.

There were only 12 other apostles.

An apostle is someone who was with Jesus, was a witness to his resurrection, and was specifically sent by Jesus Christ.

Paul, this humble slave, is telling us that he has authority.

Authority given to him by the risen Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Paul the author writes this letter out of a very sure and solid identity.

Paul’s is laying out who he is.

He is someone who has authority, someone is sent from Jesus Christ, and yet he is a humble slave to God Almighty.

Paul is sure and solid about his identity, he isn’t just standing there with one foot in the door.

When the Risen Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, he gave him this brand new identity.

And that is how Paul starts this letter by declaring his new identity, and he builds this letter on that foundation.

Who are you?

Who do you think you are?

We are certainly not apostles here, none of has been with the risen Lord Jesus, but when we place our faith in Jesus Christ we are servants of God, We are no longer who we used to be we are now slaves to righteousness.

Paul met the risen Lord Jesus, when he was still Saul, a sinner, a persecutor of Christians.

He met Jesus on the road to damascus, and he believed the Gospel.

The Gospel came to Paul with power.

Power to see who Christ, power is to see the truth revealed, and power to give Saul a new identity.

power to make him Paul a servant of God.

That is what the gospel does for us.

It makes us a new person a slave of righteousness.

So that is what we are.

We are slaves to God.

We need to embrace that identity that we are given.

When you have truly repented of your sins and placed your faith in the Crucified and risen Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of those sins, you have a new identity, you are now a slave to God.

You don’t have one foot in the door, it isn’t optional, you aren’t waiting for something else to come along, you are all in.

You’re identity, is now slave of God.

Did you ever notice when you first meet someone often the first question they ask, is what you do.

And you say, I am a Carpenter, or I am a teacher, or I am a truck driver, or I am a stay at home parent, and that is wonderful and we have many talented people and I do not want to diminish what we do, but first and foremost we are slaves to Christ, we are His possession His people called by him by the gospel and part of his family.

This place we come to isn’t just a place we go to on a Sunday, until we find a better a place to go to.

We don’t go to our regular job or career, or life, and then say oh yeah, I have to go to church.

We are SLAVES TO GOD.

This is our primary purpose.