Charting a Course for the Future Titus 1:1-5 March 1, 2020 An Unfinished Task Some of us remember Sunday drives. The family would pile in the car and dad would drive – often with no specific destination in mind but just to see some ‘pretty country.’ With gas prices what they are the Sunday drive may be a thing of the past. Rarely do we get in our cars without a clear destination in mind and a mental map of how we plan on arriving. Many people live as though they have no clear destination, no clear direction. We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus did not just bounce from one event to another. Every prayer He prayed, every word He spoke, every interaction with other people recorded in the gospels had a clear purpose, a clear destination in mind: to create a people through whom God would be glorified and magnified. Reading further in the NT we find those early followers of Jesus going from village to village, town to town proclaiming the good news of the kingdom – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. Over the next few Sunday’s we will examine one of these churches, one gathering of God’s people on an island off the coast of Greece called Crete. As we listen in on a letter from Paul, the least of the apostles, the chief among sinners according to his own evaluation, to a pastor named Titus we can begin to chart a course for us as individual believers and as a church facing an unfamiliar and rapidly changing world. Paul’s instruction to Titus is to - “…set right what was left undone….” (Titus 1:5, HCSB) As the letter unfolds we will read at least three specific assignments Titus is to finish. Setting right what was undone will involve setting up systems of care, refuting false teachers, and giving clear instruction in doctrine and practice for believers. 1. Finding Your Story Titus 1:1 The America in which we grew up and the America in which we live are two distinct realities. Returning to the past, though a popular slogan for winning elections, is not really an alternative. One way people are seeking to define themselves in through the popular DNA testing services. Send in a sample of your DNA and you will be given information to help link you to the story of your family – going back several generations. Charting a Course for the Future Titus 1:1-5 March 1, 2020 An Unfinished Task Some of us remember Sunday drives. The family would pile in the car and dad would drive – often with no specific destination in mind but just to see some ‘pretty country.’ With gas prices what they are the Sunday drive may be a thing of the past. Rarely do we get in our cars without a clear destination in mind and a mental map of how we plan on arriving. Many people live as though they have no clear destination, no clear direction. We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus did not just bounce from one event to another. Every prayer He prayed, every word He spoke, every interaction with other people recorded in the gospels had a clear purpose, a clear destination in mind: to create a people through whom God would be glorified and magnified. Reading further in the NT we find those early followers of Jesus going from village to village, town to town proclaiming the good news of the kingdom – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. Over the next few Sunday’s we will examine one of these churches, one gathering of God’s people on an island off the coast of Greece called Crete. As we listen in on a letter from Paul, the least of the apostles, the chief among sinners according to his own evaluation, to a pastor named Titus we can begin to chart a course for us as individual believers and as a church facing an unfamiliar and rapidly changing world. Paul’s instruction to Titus is to - “…set right what was left undone….” (Titus 1:5, HCSB) As the letter unfolds we will read at least three specific assignments Titus is to finish. Setting right what was undone will involve setting up systems of care, refuting false teachers, and giving clear instruction in doctrine and practice for believers. 1. Finding Your Story Titus 1:1 The America in which we grew up and the America in which we live are two distinct realities. Returning to the past, though a popular slogan for winning elections, is not really an alternative. One way people are seeking to define themselves in through the popular DNA testing services. Send in a sample of your DNA and you will be given information to help link you to the story of your family – going back several generations. We can’t change our DNA, we can’t erase the resemblance to our family or the history behind us. But as Paul illustrates in his greeting we can redefine our present and refocus our future. “Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, Titus 1:1 Part of the task of Titus was to help those believers on the island to recognize that their present and their future were not dependent on their past but on their relationship with God through Jesus Christ. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, HCSB) 2. Finding your Purpose - “to build up the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth...” (Titus 1:1–2, HCSB) Nicholas Kristoff, an author and editorial writer for the NY Time recently noted  Suicides are at their highest rate since World War II; one child in seven is living with a parent suffering from substance abuse; a baby is born every 15 minutes after prenatal exposure to opioids; America is slipping as a great power.We have deep structural problems that have been a half century in the making, under both political parties, and that are often transmitted from generation to generation. Only in America has life expectancy now fallen three years in a row, for the first time in a century, because of “deaths of despair.”*Titus had to confront untruth – see Titus 1:10-11; 2:1; 3:9-11. 3. The Tools of Change Titus 1:2-4 So what do Velcro and Teflon have to do with truth? God wired our brains with "loops" so that His truth could fasten to our lives. He put "hooks" in the way the Bible is communicated-both by the authors' inspired messages and the processes He has shown us-so that truth will stick. God intended for us to use our sensory learning loops-sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste-to remember His Word. Through our senses we learn, remember, and repeat things to others … The problem is that we live in a Teflon world in which information glides off our brains like water off a freshly waxed BMW. The deluge of information we are faced with today puts a coating over the normal loops that would help us retain God's truths.* We can seek to live self-centered lives or we can live in such a way to allow God’s story to be the focus of our lives. We can’t change our DNA, we can’t erase the resemblance to our family or the history behind us. But as Paul illustrates in his greeting we can redefine our present and refocus our future. “Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, Titus 1:1 Part of the task of Titus was to help those believers on the island to recognize that their present and their future were not dependent on their past but on their relationship with God through Jesus Christ. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, HCSB) 2. Finding your Purpose - “to build up the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth...” (Titus 1:1–2, HCSB) Nicholas Kristoff, an author and editorial writer for the NY Time recently noted  Suicides are at their highest rate since World War II; one child in seven is living with a parent suffering from substance abuse; a baby is born every 15 minutes after prenatal exposure to opioids; America is slipping as a great power.We have deep structural problems that have been a half century in the making, under both political parties, and that are often transmitted from generation to generation. Only in America has life expectancy now fallen three years in a row, for the first time in a century, because of “deaths of despair.”*Titus had to confront untruth – see Titus 1:10-11; 2:1; 3:9-11. 3. The Tools of Change Titus 1:2-4 So what do Velcro and Teflon have to do with truth? God wired our brains with "loops" so that His truth could fasten to our lives. He put "hooks" in the way the Bible is communicated-both by the authors' inspired messages and the processes He has shown us-so that truth will stick. God intended for us to use our sensory learning loops-sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste-to remember His Word. Through our senses we learn, remember, and repeat things to others … The problem is that we live in a Teflon world in which information glides off our brains like water off a freshly waxed BMW. The deluge of information we are faced with today puts a coating over the normal loops that would help us retain God's truths.* We can seek to live self-centered lives or we can live in such a way to allow God’s story to be the focus of our lives,