Beacon Sunday Service: October 6th, 2024

Hey, good morning.

I'm gonna go ahead and do a little formal introduction of myself so that you know this is my first Sunday here. My name's Peter Chung. I'm married to Becky. She's sitting there in the back, the cute little lady right there. I've known her since she was 18. And so it's been a while. We've been married 17 and a half years. We've got a twin boy and a girl. I'm 46, so this was a good period of transition, a good age for me to transition to take on a senior pastor role. For about the last 20-ish years, I was one of the pastors at Berean Community Church in Irvine. When I first started going there, it was in the like 30 or 40 ish people, and now it's about 1200. So we were busy there. I've been a pastor since about 2001.

So this is year 24 of ministry. And in 10 years of the middle, I was a missionary to China, and I worked for Compassion International. And in 2018, we came back, and it really is my joy and great privilege to be your pastor. And so I do want to get to know each and every one of you. I think I've learned everybody's names.

So don't be surprised if I get if you get a random text or an invite to uh grab a meal, or if I tell you, I'm coming to your house. Um don't be shocked, don't be surprised. Um I came as a guest speaker on August 4th. Um, but it's wonderful to speak my first official sermon today as your pastor. And I'm gonna read uh Titus chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. And I like to use the Legacy Standard Bible, and this is uh the reading of God's Word. Titus 1, 1 to 3 reads, Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the full knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness, and the hope of eternal life, which the God who cannot lie promised from all eternity, but at the proper time manifested his word in preaching with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior.

Would you uh join me in a word of prayer as we seek the Lord's blessings? Father, we thank you for this morning, and we are so glad, God, to be in your house singing your praises and to hear your word. I pray that as we begin a new chapter of this church that you would cause us to be more sober, to be more zealous and diligent, that we would commit to simply being faithful to you and to your word. Nothing is changed in terms of the passions for this church, the purpose for this church, and so I pray that you would simply use us, minister in and through us, because the people around us need to hear that there is hope and the people around us need to hear that there is only hope in Jesus Christ.

So help us to be an infectious people and use us to really magnify your name. All this in Jesus' name. So today is the first uh day of my new chapter in my life and in the history of the bird uh the beacon church. And for the first few pages of this new chapter, my desire is to clearly lay out for all of us, uh, both new and longtime members the direction towards which I want our church to go. Uh the direction towards which I believe God wants our church to go. I want to build this church according to God's ways and for his purposes, and my assumption is that most all of you want the same thing to build this church according to God's ways and God's purposes. Over the past few months, as I've transitioned out of Berean Community Church and now here, I've had many conversations about this new role as a senior pastor of the Beacon.

And one of the questions that has come up more than once is this. Do you have a special vision for your church? What will be the vision of the Beacon Church? And this has been my answer. I don't have a special or unique vision for this church. There's nothing novel or unique in what I'm hoping to do. There's nothing cutting edge I want to implement. I'm committing simply to faithfully preach his word. I'm committing to sacrificially love his people. I'm committing to shepherd his flock. And my vision for the beacon is to honor Christ by building this church according to his ways and to make disciples according to all that God has commanded. So my obsession and my vision for the church will be the following.

Matthew 28, 18 to 20. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all Los Angeles, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you, and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. You guys have seen this before. Right? This is a section of scripture that I'm sure you're all familiar with. It often is read most in the summer, right before mission send-off services. But in this passage, there's only one imperative, one command. And unlike what it looks like in the English, the main command is not go. The primary command is mate to sate, which is make disciples.

And that command, mate tusate, comes with three attendant participles, three ing words. And it's going, baptizing, and teaching. And I've underlined them for you on the slide. So how do we make disciples? One, we go to where the need is for gospel ministry. Okay, so we're going. We're constantly moving. Two, we baptize, which literally means we avail ourselves, we don't have any power to save people, but we avail ourselves to getting people saved to be united with Christ in his death and to be raised with Christ in his resurrection to the newness of life. So we get people saved. And three, we teach. And what is it that we teach? Everything that was taught about Christ and taught through Christ in the Holy Scriptures.

So we obey the command to make disciples of all nations by going, by baptizing, by teaching, and teaching everything means that we will need to spend a lifetime also thoroughly learning everything. And the teaching isn't just to be some informational academic exercise. It's supposed to lead to action. It says teaching them to keep, other translations say, to do, to observe all that God has commanded. So going, baptizing, teaching, to live out the commandments of God, that's going to be my vision for the beacon. And I'm pretty confident that this vision is going to keep us more than busy. And my job is to lead us and to teach us in worshiping and in loving God. That's my job. I can be your counselor, I could be a shoulder to cry on, I could be your life coach.

But that's not my main job. The main job for me is to preach and to teach and to example well. That's my job. So that's what you can regularly pray for for me. That's what you must pray for for me. It's easy to start well, but I'm hoping to be here until all you die. I want to do all your funerals. I'm planning to be here for the long term, but it's hard to finish well. And I want you to pray for me that I will preach faithfully, teach faithfully, shepherd sacrificially, and that I'll do this until the Lord calls me home. Amen. So my job is to shepherd us in learning his word, in loving his word, and in living out his word. It's not complicated. And if I faithfully do that, my expectation is that I'll equip each and every member of our church to help others to learn his word, to love his word, and to live out his word.

Amen. Every other good thing that comes as a blessing, a strong community, vibrant fellowship, numeric growth, a strong children's ministry, outreach projects. These are all good things. But they are all just byproducts of healthy churches. When you have those as the goal, the church falls apart. These good things are never the goal. They are never the target. They are never to be the obsession. The goal is worship. The goal is to produce worshipers who will worship in spirit and in truth. The goal is to produce worshipers who will worship in such a way that infectiously invites others to worship in spirit and in truth as well. So the goal is to be the beacon of hope to those who have need of Jesus Christ.

And as Jesus has said here at the end of Matthew chapter 28, all authority has been given to him in heaven on an earth. So it means he alone has all authority in heaven and on earth, and the on-earth part means Los Angeles too. And if he has all authority, that means all things belong to him and exist for him. And the beacon church must, and Lord willing, will be all about Jesus Christ. It'll first and foremost be about Jesus Christ. And the Great Commission, it has to be the great obsession of every church that bears a name of Jesus Christ. Right? That's the what for every church that's made clear in the scriptures. In the book of Acts, which chronologically happens a little bit shortly after, we'll see the how made clear as well.

Acts 1, 7 to 8. But he said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. So first, gospel ministry, the mission's endeavor, it was always spirit-charged. It didn't employ clever strategies. It didn't mobilize like talented and charismatic people. It didn't need cutting ed cutting edge ideas. It didn't need a fancy building or a large budget. It was completely spirit-powered and spirit-driven. My hope in the same way for the beacon is that we're a spirit-empowered church.

Amen.

Just show up on Sunday, check off a box. I would like for us to powerfully bring the lost to saving faith. And that's not something that we can do in the flesh. So the secondly, the strategy is always to build healthy churches full of healthy witnesses. You will be my witnesses. And what's a witness do? A witness doesn't write new things. A witness just speaks what he has heard and seen. Right? It says, we will be his witnesses. And so my desire is to build healthy churches full of healthy witnesses. When the remaining 11 apostles received this great commission, they didn't engage in some spiritual multi-level marketing pyramid scheme. Right? If you look through the Bible, the apostles who received these commandments, they established churches.

They built churches. Everything they did. They ministered in and through the churches, and they started locally. They were committed to the local until the Lord moved them to the global. So they started this church-building disciple-making endeavor in their hometowns in Jerusalem. They ministered where they already were. They bloomed where they were already planted. So all of the apostles' ministry was to the Jewish people, the people of Israel. Even the apostle Paul, who we know to be the missionary to the Gentiles, his first decade and a half of ministry was to the Jews. And the church matured and grew. The gospel spread and it moved into all Judea and Samaria. And the gospel didn't spread because of some clever strategy.

They primarily spread through great persecution and perseverance. So as Christians were being persecuted and they were being scattered, they just preached wherever they went. And the child the opposition and hardship became a means through which God ordained the gospel to spread. So I believe that even in seasons of hardship, whether it be inside the church or from outside the church, those times of opposition are also great opportunities to spread the gospel. And as this gospel carried by faithful witnesses into other regions of Judea and Samaria, it then spread into the Gentile world into their ends of the earth, all in the power of the Holy Spirit. So this has been one giant bacon pass for the last 2,000 years, and it's been passed on to us today.

Do you believe this? My hope is that our members grow to love Christ. And that through our members, this church truly does become a beacon to the city of Los Angeles. So we first need to establish a healthy church.

Okay. So the great obsession is to make disciples and to teach God's word in and through the local church. The source of power is not in our strategy and not in our talents. It's not in the new pastor or the old, not old. Well, old, but the outgoing interim pastor, that's not where the power is. It's in the spirit of God. And we see that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. And that all the scriptures cover to cover is breathed out by the Spirit of God. Men wrote the pages of scripture as they were carried along by the Spirit. As we commit ourselves to learning, loving and living out his word, his word will do the work and bear fruit in due time. Amen.

Our job is to cherish it, to steward it, and not to get in the way. The beacon belongs to the Lord. Not to Howard Phil or Stephen. The beacon belongs to the Lord. The beacon exists, not to serve you, but to serve the Lord. Because the beacon belongs to the Lord, and because beacon exists to serve the Lord, we're going to try to do ministry to the best of our ability according to God's ways. 1 Corinthians 8 6 reads, for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things. And we exist for Him. And one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. That's a good verse to memorize and meditate upon.

By Christ are all things, and we exist through Him. So you and I have been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God. And for those of us who have genuine saving faith, we've been purchased with his blood, and we belong to a family of believers, the church. There are many thoughts and opinions today of what churches ought to be doing or how churches should be. But the only thoughts and opinions that truly matter are God's. Amen. The church is his bride. The saints are his people. We've been created by him and for him to love him and to please him. So the primary obsession of the church should be how do we please the Lord? And the instructions, I believe, are very clear and very explicit through the pages of Scripture.

So I want to start this new chapter of my life and the Beacon Church by focusing on these instructions. This is going to be the longest introduction I ever give you. Okay, but it's my first Sunday. And I had to get a lot out of the way. Okay? Now we're on to the meat of the sermon. So for the next six months or so, we're going to be in the book of Titus on Sundays. It's only 46 verses, three chapters, but we're going to take our time through the book of Titus. There's nothing new under the sun. There are many parallels to the situations we see in the epistle and to our context today. Okay, so I want to do a quick little overview of the book of Titus. Titus is a second to last letter that Paul wrote before he was executed.

It was written to a Gentile Greek man named Titus, who had traveled extensively with Paul on his missionary journeys. And at some point, Paul left Titus to minister on the island of Crete to build the churches there. And similar to the letters of Timothy, and I know some of the brothers, you guys are looking through first and second Timothy, the epistle to Titus is written to encourage this young pastor, probably younger than me, in building up a church in Crete amidst very challenging and very difficult circumstances. So the charge is build the church, God's way, this is how you do it, and I don't care the circumstances. First, all the people of Crete were horrible people. They wrote about themselves that Cretans are evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

They're always liars. Okay? So the area of Crete was synonymous to lying people. The people of Crete were entitled people. They were a lazy people. Okay, I don't know if you're millennials or Gen Z, but it's very similar to people who think that they're due stuff. Don't be offended. Alright? I'm talking generally about our age. Okay, not people here. I don't know you enough to be able to say stuff. But in Crete, there were a very, they were, there were very divisive people. There were always false teachings that were coming into Crete. There was great opposition to real faith in Crete. Interestingly enough, there were many churched people in Crete. But many of these churched, unregenerate people were hurting the church like a cancer.

It says they were upsetting whole families in verse 10 of chapter 1. Okay.

Chapter 1, verse 16, that claimed to know God, but they were proving themselves to be lost and depraved, but were still religious. Men were not living as God had purposed for men to live. Women were not behaving in a manner as God had purposed for women to behave. There was chaos, even among those who professed to believe. So Titus was given a tall task to go upstream in this generation. And this was a great challenge to set the churches in order there on Crete. Okay, in chapter 1, verse 5. I left you in Crete so that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. So that's how the letter's gonna start in a couple in a month or so. But nonetheless, by the Spirit of God, all things are possible, and the Apostle Paul is giving instructions to Titus on how to minister in Crete for the glory of Christ.

And Paul gives explicit instructions on how to build healthy churches there. And I think we can glean a lot from Titus. And just like 1 and 2 Timothy, the other two pastoral epistles, there's a heavy emphasis on doctrine, and then the dispensing of doctrine. So for me, I felt it very appropriate to start everything off in this new chapter at the beacon in Titus. So here's what the rest of 2424 looks like for us. I don't think you can see all of that, but that's the calendar. I like details. We're in Titus 1-1 for a month. And then we're going to go slowly in the beginning. And then pick up a little bit of speed after the first month. And one of the cool practical reasons for starting in Titus is that even in the introduction to Titus, it hits a bunch of profound doctrinal topics as well.

So I'm going to turn our attention back to the passage I read at the very beginning. Okay. So pay attention to how many rich theological topics are hit in just this intro alone. This is one of the lengthier introductions. That's why we're in it for a month. Okay. Hopefully you'll not only see why I'm starting with Titus, but while I'll be taking my time through the first few verses, and my hope is that you're looking forward to being reminded of God's desires for the church. Titus 1, 1 to 3, Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the full knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which the God who cannot lie, promised from all eternity, but at the proper time manifested his word in preaching, with which I was entrusted according to the command of God our Savior.

So today, we're gonna simply focus on just the opening few words of verse 1. Okay? The first little cluster of words to open the letter reads, Paolaas dulas feu. Okay, which is translated, Paul, slave of God. So here's the outline of the sermon. God, slave. We're gonna just look at that. Okay. So typically I like to give my outlines in the front so that's easier for you to track. So we're gonna just look at these two points: God and slave. And for the purpose of the thought flow and for emphasis, I'm gonna flip the order of the two words. Okay, it's a slave of God, but we're gonna start with God first. And the bulk of today, the rest of today's sermon, we're gonna be looking at the attributes of God, who he is, and then figure out then what does that mean for us?

His slaves and how we fit into all of this. So this isn't gonna be an exhaustive list, but we're gonna be exploring a few important attributes of our God. And the first attribute of God that I want to direct you to is God's omnipotence. Meaning God is all powerful. Amen. There are two passages I'm gonna point you to. The first is Job chapter 42, verses 1 and 2. It reads, Then Job answered Yahweh and said, I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. At the end of the worst suffering a human being can go through, he says, You are all powerful. And I repent of all the complaints that I had. But that's his confession. God can do all things. That God is all powerful, and that his power and might are worthy of awe, terror, and praise.

If God wills it, no human being or even any angelic being can stop it from coming to pass. He can do all things. Right? He creates all things. So the whole universe was created by our God. And Ethan the Ezrahite writes in Psalm 89. Ooh, that's small. Can you guys can you guys see it? Okay. Some people are squinting. I'm sorry, just follow along, alright? Psalm 89, 11 to 13. The heavens are yours. The earth also is yours. The world and its fullness, you have founded them. The north and the south, you have created them. Tabor and Hermon sing with joy at your name. You have a mighty arm. Your hand is strong, your right hand is exalted. Tabor and Hermon are mountains. They are the easternmost and then the westernmost topographical features in Israel.

They were known to those people as beautiful grand monuments. But God created and ordained them simply by speaking them into existence. God can create and move mountains. And this is something that you guys already knew, right? But not only does God create magnificent mountains, he can even make the mountains sing.

Okay? Look at verse 12. He makes them sing. And he makes them sing with great emotion. I didn't know that mountains were sensitive beings. But God can do this. God creates, appoints, and ordains, and as it says in Genesis 1.27, by the fiat of his power, he created man as image-bearers. So you and I have been created perfectly. We've been perfectly and wonderfully made. So God's hand is strong. He can do all things. He is all powerful. Amen. That alone should cause us to tremble and worship. But the second attribute is that God is perfectly sovereign. And these words are related to each other. And the word sovereign means that omnipotent God also is in complete control over everything in the universe.

And we prayed for the election. Phil led us in praying for the election and stuff, but it says, Daniel chapter 2, verse 21. God changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings, and he establishes kings.

Do you believe this? Whoever wins the election, it doesn't matter. God's ordained it. Okay? Proverbs 21:1, it's not up there on the screen, but it says that God directs every heart of every king. Like just a water stream, however, he wants to turn it. Job chapter 2 verse 10. Job, while praising God and defending God to his wife, even says that disaster and calamity are from God. That's something that is unpopular to say today. Our God can does send disaster. Amen. If you disagree with that, you gotta you have to prove that through the Bible. God ordains it. Romans 12, 12, too says that the will of God is good, pleasing, and perfect. So think about this. Disaster strikes, suffering falls, but the will of God is good and pleasing and perfect.

And this is where people start feeling very uncomfortable. And so they have to try to smooth it over. But the Bible teaches us that not only is God all powerful, but he is perfectly sovereign. And a verse that is probably familiar to us and a source of great comfort. It reads in Romans 8.28, we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. Notread, if you've already read this before. So this attribute of sovereignty leads us to profess that God's will is perfect and that he makes no mistakes. If you believe this, and there are many people sitting in churches that don't believe this, but if you believe this, this means that you believe that God has not made a single mistake in your life.

Every single thing that has happened in your life, the good, the bad, the ugly, it's all been on purpose. Every human being that has come into your life, they're on purpose. Look to the person on your left and right, say, You are on my you are on purpose. Alright, so every person. And I'm pretty confident that you've met some bad persons. Unpleasant persons who have scarred you and traumatized you, but every person has been in your life on purpose, for a purpose. Every circumstance is on purpose. Every single gift and talent and opportunity that you have on purpose, every single weakness and quirk that you have on purpose. I have no weaknesses and I have no quirks, just as an FYI as a your new pastor.

I'm humble too. Alright. God has ordained on purpose and for a purpose, and even the evil that is around us has been purposed ultimately for our good and for God's glory. Okay. And God remains perfectly in control and he remains perfectly good. So the Romans 8.28 passage is a reminder that even if emotionally we don't understand, or even when the juxtaposition of God's goodness and my hurt are difficult to reconcile, we can trust that every detail of our lives, God has ordained it either for good or for my good. Because he is sovereign. So God is all powerful, God is sovereign. Now that, if you think about it, is absolutely terrifying.

If God was mean, if God was cruel, if he was not good, if he was playing games with my life, that would be a terrifying thought if that were true. But I believe that God is good. That he is perfect in his love. In fact, what does the Bible say? God is.

If you're a genuine believer, you cannot hold a long-term grudge. It's impossible for real Christians to harbor long-term resentment, long-term grudge, unforgiveness. It's impossible. Because God has changed your heart. Jesus is evidence of God's love. Right? John 3 16, what's it say? For God so loved the world that he gave. Okay, right? So the subject of the love of God, I'm going to elaborate on at length next week when we talk about the person of Jesus. Okay. So God is all powerful. God is perfectly sovereign. God is love, and this is not an exhaustive list, but the fourth and last attribute that I'd like to direct your attention to is the holiness of God. You've heard this term before. You've sung it, right?

Holy, holy. You've sung it. Okay. God is holy, holy, holy. Revelation 4.8 is not on there. Oh, it is on there. Okay? It reads, the four living creatures, each of them having six swings, are full of eyes around and within and day and night. They do not cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God the Almighty who was and who is and who is to come. This attribute of God. This is the attribute of God that those in heaven and on earth and under the earth will be singing about for all eternity. We're gonna be singing for all eternity about the holiness of God. This is what those in hell will be screaming about for all eternity, that God is holy.

He is completely other, he is set apart. The word holy, if I were to ask you to define it for me, you would come up with many different kinds of like clean, saint, like saintly, righteous, those kinds of words, but it actually just denotes incomparability. Okay. God being holy means there's no one, nothing like him. Hannah's confession in her prayer captures well the essence of the word holy. If you don't know who Hannah is, this is Samuel's mother, who is barren, who was praying, and God gave her a son, but her prayer, it speaks and captures the essence of the word holy here. There is no one holy like Yahweh. Indeed, there is no one besides you, nor there is any rock like our God. So the word holy sometimes makes us think of synonyms like good, perfect, righteous, sinless, and those would not be incorrect.

Raise your hand if that was one of your words. Okay. But those don't accurately capture the meaning of the word. You kind of want to also add things like purity, clean, set apart, right? But you also need to throw in the word hatred. Are you guys following this? God's holy nature means that he is so other that any hint of sin, he can't tolerate it. He hates sin with a perfect hatred. And he's justified in doing so. You get a glimpse of this a little bit when you see Isaiah's response when he gets a vision of God's holiness in Isaiah 6 5. It reads, Woe is me. And this is a holy prophet of God. He sees God, he says, Woe is me, I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips.

I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, Yahweh of hosts. There's never a time in the Bible where someone sees God and is bored or apathetic.

They're freaking out. They're trembling. This righteous man trembles. Holy God cannot tolerate sin. He hates sin with a perfect and a wrathful hatred. So God is all powerful. God is perfectly sovereign. God is love, and God is holy, holy, holy. And I swap the order there just so that we can follow the train of thought. And those are just four of his attributes. It's impossible for us to accurately and comprehensively grasp and understand this God.

Right? As high as the heavens are above the earth, how high is that? Miles. His ways are higher. His thoughts are not like our thoughts. It says that in 1 Corinthians, no eye is seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what the Lord has prepared for those who love him. So what he has prepared is not something that any human being has ever imagined. So he is so completely other.

And to be made known by us. He could just say, everybody know me, and that would solve it. But why would he include me to fumble around and miscommunicate the attributes of God? Even more absurd. This all-powerful, perfectly sovereign, loving, holy God, who can make the mountains sing for joy, wants to be known by me. Who am I? What is man that you are mindful of him and the Son of Man? Or that you care for him. Psalm 8.4. What? Thrice holy God. Who hates sin, desires to draw intimately near to man. That's what the book of Leviticus is about. In the event you get lost in there. That's what the gospel of Jesus Christ is about. God desires to reconcile sinful, fallen, corrupt man to himself, and to be intimately known by him.

It says in John 17 3, eternal life is knowing God. It's not enjoying a heaven here and then a heavenly or heaven after you die. It's not about a banqueting table with the best food where you get you eat all you want and you never get fat or full. It's not about that kind of stuff. It's this. This is eternal life, and that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Believe it or not, if you have put your faith in Christ, when does eternal life start? It's already started. Right now, just we know in part, but then we will know in full. Right now, we see like just glimpses, like a poor reflection out of a really messed up mirror. Then we will see face to face. And we will spend the rest of eternity being amazed and awed and terrified and so thankful all at once by this God.

He wants to draw near. What in the world? The book of Micah ends with a similar musing. And if we've grown up in the church or have been Christians for a long time, we can take these things for granted, but sit and think about this. All powerful, sovereign, holy God is love. And he wants to draw near to rebellious, dirty, lying, evil, sinful man who were supposed to be image bearers of his glory and to draw him back and to restore him to himself. What? Who is a God like you who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgressions of the remnant of his inheritance? He does not hold all powerful that.

Why? He delights in loving kindness. This all-powerful, holy, holy, terrifying God, his delight is loving kindness. He will again have compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. So this God, he calls us son, daughter, co-heir, slaves. The word slave in the English language comes with a lot of baggage. Right? Right? And it triggers.

That's why the English translations, they softened it. And translated it like servant or bond servant. You know the appropriate word for servant in the Greek is just deacon? That's not offensive at all. Oh, deacon of God. It's almost like a noble title, right? That's why I like one of the reasons I like the LSB is they just straight up said, you know what? We don't care. Who is offended? Slave. Do last literally means slave. It means how offensive would you feel if you were like, I am proper team. If Becky were to say something to somebody like, Peter's my property, I would feel a little bit disrespected. How dare you? Wife. Or if I were to say, Becky is my property. She is completely at my mercy.

Completely at my bidding. Completely at my disposal. She has no rights. You would feel uncomfortable. Unless I am the best husband. Who is all love? Paul calls himself a slave of God. And I believe that he's treating this like a privilege. Slave of the most high God. Better is a thousand days serving you like a slave in your courts than a thousand days elsewhere. To close, I want to illustrate for you the words justice, mercy, and grace. You guys know these words? Right? In relationships, legal transactions, broadly the words mean this. Justice means recompense for what is due, what is right. Right? It's almost like it's like an equality. Mercy is the withholding of the negative that is due.

Right? You deserve my wrath, but I'm just not going to give it to you. And grace is actually the giving of a positive where the negative is due. So what this means is we could never demand God to be gracious. You can't you can't demand that from your neighbor. How dare you? You need to be more gracious to me. No, grace is you don't deserve it. But it's given to you anyway. And these are terms that you're very familiar with, but I want to illustrate this, and this is one of my favorite illustrations, it's original from me, okay? But I want to illustrate this so that you feel it. Okay. How many of you guys like mosquitoes? Mosquitoes. You like them? How many of you guys feel passionate about the well-being of all the mosquitoes in the world?

Yesterday, my daughter, we were driving to go to Chuck E. Cheese, right? And so she saw a bug on the ground. She said, Daddy, step on it. And I said, okay. No one called the police. It was just a bug. Neutral. I don't even know what kind of bug it was. I was just moving, so I squashed it. Now a mosquito. Nobody keeps a mosquito as a pet. Right? Who's the weirdest person in the room? Pastor Dean. Do you keep mosquitoes as a pet? No. There's nothing inherently lovable or worthy. If LA County discovered that the mosquitoes around LA County carry dengue, Zika, malaria, all in one. Would you be alert? And if we started the Sunday service and I were to say, everybody, before anything, let's hunt.

Everybody kill all the mosquitoes that you see. Would you deem that a wise good thing or a horrible thing? If a mosquito was like and I killed it. Who would be offended? If you're offended, you're the weirdo. Because not only are mosquitoes not valuable, they actually are hurtful. They're harmful. They're disease carrying worthless things. Justice, in a sense, is a mosquito. Done. No one's mad. Mercy is and I'm gonna take him home.

You know what? I can always use more kids. I'm gonna adopt him as my third child. I'm gonna go to the courthouse, fill out all the paperwork, give him a name, Amos Amos Kito Chung. Well, Amos is his name. I'm gonna build him a room in my house. I'm gonna seat him at my table. I'm gonna open a 529 savings account for him. I'm gonna bring him to church. And if Tiffany says, you can't bring how dare you? This is my son.

When everybody comes into my house, they're gonna have to acknowledge his place of status at my home. Because he's my son. What's the greater distance? You and God? Or you and the mosquito? Are you more like God or are you more like the mosquito? And if in your heart you answer, I'm more like God, you don't know God. It's exponentially far greater the distance between me and God. As high as the heavens are from the earth. Mosquitoes and I are created things. We do as he pleases. He is completely other, other, other. But he adopts me.

Ephesians chapter 2 says, I was a child of wrath. But God being rich in love. Because of his great love with which he loved us. Even while we were dead in our transgressions, raise us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved. This thought of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast. Because what mosquito can ever earn your favor by dancing? Or playing a song, or writing you a note, or by choosing, okay, today I will not bite anybody. Today I will spread love. Could a mosquito ever keep you from squashing it? No. Your natures are that far opposed. Killing it is the right thing to do. Chapter 2, verse 10, for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works because we're slaves.

Amen? Slaves of God. Is he worthy of our worship? Absolutely. Does he say jump, we jump? Absolutely. Does he say sit? We sit? Yes. Preach? Yes. Teach this. Okay. It is a joy and an honor to do your bidding. Because not only are you all powerful, not only are you sovereign, but you're good. You are love. And what's it not even amazing grace. It's absurd grace. That this God of the universe wants to know me. And wants to use me to make himself known. Strange. And that's why we gather. By way of reminder, we're here on Sunday, not to meet friends. Amen. We're here on Sunday to learn about this God who is really unknowable.

This Sunday is to give worship to a God who is so different from us that he chooses to love us. Despite the fact that we are blasphemers and rebels. Wow, what a joy it is to come to church and to give him glory. But our churches in our generation have dumbed down the doctrines of the gospel of grace and made God more palatable to ourselves. He is other, other, other. Amen. Last passage I want to point our attention to. For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ. This church is not for man. It's for God. For I make known to you, brothers, that the gospel which I am proclaiming as good news is not according to man.

Because if it's according to man, he dumbs down the attributes of God and make God like us. It's not according to man. Paul says, I neither received it from men, nor was I taught it. But I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Slaves of Christ who preach the gospel of Christ, who proclaim Christ. One day I'm going to see God face to face. One day I will know God perfectly, just as I am perfectly known and perfectly loved. One day I will be a co-heir with Christ. One day I will even judge angels. Isn't that crazy? I will judge angels? 1 Corinthians 6 3. I have that kind of power? Uh-huh. I have that kind of authority. Uh-huh. I can go to LeBron James and critique him for his basketball.

Uh-huh. How much? I mean, the angel comparison is bigger, but I wanted to kind of hit home. What? I will do this one day, but while I'm here. I am absolutely thrilled to be called a slave of the Most High God. I'm a slave of God. It's a privilege. We are but the clay. He is our potter. Amen. This church, it does not belong to any human being. This church, we are called to steward it. But this church belongs to her bridegroom, which is Jesus Christ. So my hope is that we build his church his way for his glory and for our joy. Amen? Titus 1, 1 through 3. Paul, a slave of God, and in an apostle of Jesus Christ. And we're going to look at that next week. For the faith of God's elect and the full knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness in the hope of eternal life, which the God who does not, cannot, will not lie, he promised from all eternity.

But at the proper time, it was manifested in preaching with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior, Titus, my genuine child according to the faith, and that's how this begins. So we're gonna start this new season of our history really trying to build God's church God's way. Amen. Sounds like a plan? Amen. Let's pray together. Father, help us not to forget who we're not and who you are. Help us to be dumbfounded in aweed. That holy, holy, holy God would draw us near to himself. Help us never to demand grace. Help us never to take grace for granted. But Lord, would you amaze and humble and terrify us each and every day by your attributes? And I pray that you would use our church really to preach the gospel unadulterated, clear, powerful into the city around us.

And would you bring many to yourself? Where it says you desire all men to be saved. So we pray that you would grant us the great privilege of bringing many to salvation, to baptizing them and the teaching them to observe everything that you commanded for your glory and your eternal pleasure. We exist for you. And we pray this in Jesus' name.