God Cannot Lie
Titus • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Welcome
“Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come,…To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (Revelation 1:4–6, ESV)
Announcements
LNO on the 22nd — Decorating for Christmas, please RSVP
No prayer meeting on the 26th
Preparation #
†CALL TO WORSHIP John 4:24
Pastor Austin Prince
Minister: Christians, we have met to worship. How can we sinners worship a holy God?
Congregation: God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. By God’s help, we will worship him together.
†PRAYER OF ADORATION AND INVOCATION
"Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." (Psalm 124:8)
Let us pray.
O Father, majestic is your name!
From the rising of the sun to its setting
your name is to be praised,
Merciful God. Gracious Lord.
Hear us in the name of your Son,
For he has promised that where two or three of us are gathered in his name
He would be with us and our prayer would be heard.
Hear us in the name of your Son,
For He is the revelation of your wisdom, the outpouring of your glory,
the incarnation of your mercy toward us and the whole human race.
To you be glory, all praise and honor,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
one God, now and evermore. Amen.
†OPENING HYMN OF PRAISE #277
“Before the Throne of God Above”
†CONFESSION OF SIN
based upon Isaiah 64:1-9
The prayers of confession among the psalms express an important theological truth — humankind is a fallen creature and in need of redemption. As much as [we] would like to sweep all this under the rug, the cries of our fallen race are evident and are to be heard all about us. We are, like it or not, terribly conscious of our sin. [And] If our worship is to be realistic, it must deal with this fact.
Minister: O that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence. Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people.
Congregation: Restore us, we pray, through the coming of our Lord Jesus, in whom we place our hope and trust. Amen.
Minister: Sing aloud, O people of God, rejoice and exult with all your heart! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies.
Congregation: The Lord our God is in our midst. A warrior who gives victory! He will rejoice over us with gladness. He will renew us in his love. He will exult over us with singing.
Minister: Know that your sins are forgiven and be at peace.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 103:8, ESV) “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10–12, ESV) (11/17/24)
CONTINUAL READING OF SCRIPTURE Psalm 8
Paul Mulner, Elder
THE OFFERING OF TITHES AND OUR GIFTS
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS
THE LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
†PSALM OF PREPARATION #27A
“The Lord’s My Light”
SERMON Titus 1:2-3 // God Cannot Lie
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
Your word, O God, is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as to the division of soul and spirit. Break us down with thy word so that by abandoning ourselves we might find Christ. Amen.
Text: Titus 1:2-3
2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began 3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;
AFTER SCRIPTURE READING
Every word of God is perfect, let his people bless his Holy name.
Intro
Intro
God cannot lie.
Apparently, the Cretans, the people to which Titus is ministering to, have a culture of lying — you can see this in v.12 as Paul says that even their poets describe their culture as one of falsehood.
And it makes sense that they would be. The Greek gods that they worshipped were notorious tricksters, disguising themselves in the forms of animals or men to do wicked deeds amongst the peoples.
But the God that Paul and Titus are preaching about doesn’t lie. In fact, by the constriction of His nature and character, it’s not that He doesn’t lie, He cannot lie.
He is the one place in a fallen world that is unbent, or un-crooked. He is pure light that is unmixed with darkness.
The world can lie to you. There are a thousand theories that claim to be the sole reason why you exist and why you matter.
Advertisers can lie to you, telling you exactly what you want to hear to gain your devotion.
The news can lie to you, propagandizing you in a direction that they wish.
Educators and philosophers can lie to you.
Even doctors or lawyers.
Even personally,
Friends can lie to you.
Your own emotions can lie to you. Often times they need correction.
Our appetites and addictions can lie to us.
The accuser, Satan, the father of lies, will lie to you.
Even you can lie to you. Worse, you can tell yourself a lie that you know to be a lie and you can also believe the lie that you know is a lie.
But God cannot lie.
“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19, ESV)
It is an impossibility.
“Let God be true though every one were a liar,” it says in Romans 3:4.
In our world, as we navigate through life toward meaning and purpose and hope, in what can feel to be a starless night on a black sea, God is the fixed and orienting lighthouse of direction and truth. When all of life can be a maze, a map with no marks or keys, He is true north—a fixed position.
God cannot lie.
Paul reminds his readers of this truth while he is still introducing himself in this letter.
Writing to Titus about what he needs to do as the Pastor at the church on the island of Crete, Paul’s ambition, which he is entrusting to Titus and which Titus should entrust to faithful elders, and which we saw last week, was to shepherd and preach the promises of God for the sake of the faith. What these people believed mattered. What we believe matters. And in a world of lies, they needed to hear what God, who cannot lie, has to say to them. More than says, promises them.
What is the promise that they needed to believe so urgently? What was this faith to be in, specifically? And why did it prompt Paul to burst out the reminder that God cannot lie?
It’s the promise and hope of eternal life.
What God isn’t lying about is is the single greatest question that any of us has since the fall of Adam: Hope for our redemption, life, real and abundant life, and our eternal life. God has made promises to us in an area where we are all desperate for clarity and meaning and hope, and He cannot lie.
In our text for today, Paul here does something interesting and he does is quickly. He grounds God’s promise in three ages of time:
The promise made before time
The promise manifested in time
And the promise extending beyond time
And then he says that the promised is manifested to others through preaching.
Let’s look at those together beginning in Titus 1:2
Before Time
Before Time
“…God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (Titus 1:2, ESV)
What we should notice is that God’s promise of eternal life is not a reaction to a problem, but an eternal intention.
The gospel message is not good news because God figured out a way to fix things after His initial plans went awry. God isn’t scrambling to make the best of a bad situation. No, the gospel message, the good news of God’s love and of God’s grace and redemption at God’s own expense and His promise of eternal life, was planned before time even began. The great glory of Christ’s death and resurrection that eclipses all the drama of love and sacrifice and grace and victory that the world knows, was not haphazard or accidental, but it was intentional.
Ephesians 1:4-6,
“even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:4–6, ESV)
When Titus was to call someone to faith, when we are to call someone to faith, it is not to be proclaimed to them as the last ditch effort of a frenzied deity. The call of faith is the call to trust the plan and promise that God set in motion before time even began. We are not calling people to faith by telling them that God can love them or might love them and show grace to them if they do something for Him now. No, the call is to let them know that God is the initiator and He has planned mercy and love before time as an expression of His free grace.
When did God determination to save us? The OT or NT? Answer, in eternity past.
And this promise is validated in His character. God is incapable of making a promise that He won’t keep. We give our trust to God based on what we think about Him: Is He trustworthy? Is He consistent? Is He mad at me? Is He paying attention today? But Paul is pulling us beyond ourselves and reminding us that God’s promises are rooted not in us but in His own nature. He will be faithful. He is not deceitful. He will never drop the ball. He will always keep a promise. As Paul preached last week, He is unchangeable.
Our hope for eternal life is a promise given on the basis of God’s character, and God cannot lie.
But it can be hard to believe an eternal promise. So Paul keeps going. This promise is not only made before time, but also manifested in time.
In Time
In Time
“and at the proper time manifested in his word” (Titus 1:3, ESV)
What Paul and Titus are preaching is that the ancient promise of God has been validated in time through the word made flesh.
As you may know, “The Word”, is a descriptor of Jesus.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1–5, ESV)
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, ESV)
Can we really believe an ancient promise that God will love us? Can we really believe that He will be gracious? Is He actually worthy of our trust and faith and affection?
And the answer is a humbling and glorious, YES!
In time, manifested before us, Christ is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,” (Colossians 1:15–22, ESV)
Christ is the promise of God enfleshed. Look at Him and see the eternal love of God. Look at Him and see what amount of grace God is willing to give to you. Look to Him and see redemption and the hope of eternal life as He takes upon Himself the wages of sin and death and yet knows the way out of the grave.
Our faith is in the eternal promise of a God who cannot lie. And as we look to Christ, we are reminded that the promise was manifested in time, that God did not lie.
Beyond Time
Beyond Time
“Paul, a servant of God and an 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,…” (Titus 1:1–2, ESV)
Our faith produces active hope. Hope not only because God cannot lie, and that God did not lie, but also that God will not lie. It’s a Trinitarian hope based on God’s unchanging character, Jesus’ revelation, and The Spirit’s active help and comfort.
A common construction in scripture is to describe Christ as He who was, and is, and is to come.
We can trust Him to be faithful now and beyond time as we live in hope. As we ourselves live amongst Cretans, as it were, where people lie and let us down, our hope is not in them or with false gods and shifting hopes that our age makes into idols. What are their promises and how have they proved to be true? Where are their scars and their empty tomb? Our anchor is moored in an eternal God who cannot, and does not, and will not, lie.
And how might that change the way we live?
When God has made promises, how will you relate to them? With skepticism? With nervousness, or will you take Him at His word and trust Him?
With the eternal promise of eternal life, are you actively finding comfort that your salvation is by the grace of God and held secure by the sovereign hand of God, or do we think He may be a liar? Do we have a faith that is insecure because we trust in ourselves and our performance of duties more than we trust in the unwavering promise of God?
With the specific promises of God from day to day, to flee sexual immorality, to turn the other cheek, to love our neighbor, to sacrifice ourselves for our wives, to forgive seventy times seven, do we believe Him to be faithful to His promises? Will He truly be our living water and our bread of life if we give ourselves away like that?
Our faith is in the eternal promise of a God who cannot lie, did not lie, and will not lie.
I want to conclude by looking at how these promises are applied. As Paul in this letter is teaching Titus about how to minister this hope to his congregation, He tells how it is that this promise of eternal life is brought forth into the world—It’s through preaching.
Through Preaching
Through Preaching
“and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;” (Titus 1:3, ESV)
Just as Jesus as the Word of God was manifested in real time to reveal the promises of God, so it is that preaching manifests the word of God in real time.
One preacher describes preaching like warm breath that you can see on a cold morning — it’s something invisible made visible. Titus was to so preach and live in accordance with godliness, that the word is made visible.
And there is a difference between teaching and preaching. We are not merely to teach the content of the good news of God’s promise but call for belief in the good news. We are calling for faith. No one escapes the demand upon our lives for belief. We all believe something. Preaching is the call for belief in the true promises of God.
Do you trust God’s eternal promise of love and redemption? Are you looking at Christ? Do you see the grace of God? Do you see your sin paid for in love and blood of Jesus? Will you throw your worries upon Him? Will you forsake complaining, lust, bitterness, or anxiety today walk today at rest?
Don’t just hear a message this morning about God who cannot lie, hear preaching about God who cannot lie to you. Trust Him. Trust His word and His promises to you.
Our hope, our living hope, is anchored in the eternal promises of a God that cannot lie, in the name of Christ who proves that God’s promise was not a lie, and lives daily in the assurance of the God who will not lie. Throw yourself upon Him unreservedly. Test Him daily and see if He is a faithful to His word. He is. He will be. God cannot lie.
THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER
Minister: Lift up your hearts!
Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord.
Minister: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
Congregation: It is right for us to give thanks and praise!
THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION Mark 14:22-25
Hear Jesus’ words as he offers the supper to his disciples:
And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it.
And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
CONFESSION OF FAITH Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A’s 75, 80
Minister: Christians, what do you believe about these words?
Congregation: By these words our Lord commands all believers to eat this broken bread and to drink this cup in true faith and in the confident hope of his return in glory.
In this supper God declares to us that our sins have been completely forgiven through the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which he himself finished on the cross once for all. He also declares to us that the Holy Spirit grafts us into Christ, who with his very body is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father, where he wants us to worship him.
Minister: Let us worship him together. Be seated.
INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE
The Lord has prepared this table for all who love him and trust in him alone for their salvation. It is for those who belong to Christ through repentance, faith, baptism, and abiding union with his Church.
“O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.” Let’s pray.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Minister: Lord, our God, send your Holy Spirit so that this bread and cup may be for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we and all your saints be united with Christ and remain faithful in hope and love. Gather your whole church, O Lord, into the glory of your kingdom. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS
[Ask elders to distribute the trays].
Does everyone have what they need?
SHARING OF THE LORD’S SUPPER
As the Lord Jesus has commanded us, take, eat and drink, remember, believe, and proclaim.
†OUR RESPONSE #213
“Glory Be to God the Father”
Glory be to God the Father, glory be to God the Son,
glory be to God the Spirit, God Almighty, Three in One!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!, Glory be to him alone!
†BENEDICTION: GOD’S BLESSING FOR HIS PEOPLE
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. 2 Thess. 2:16-17
