This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome, whether
you're tuning in today for the very first time
or you've been following along with us. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast today. My reading
plan goes back to Titus 3 again. I know you're
thinking, you have done this a couple of times
now. Yeah, absolutely. reading plan that our
church is going through follows along with what
we teach on Sundays. What we taught on Sunday
was Titus 3, and so we look at Titus 3 a couple
times last week, and then we're going to look
at it again today to see. We're going to read
it with fresh eyes again after hearing it proclaimed
and preached. from the pulpit, and now we're
going to see what is it that sticks out to us.
Well, today I want to share something out of
the very end of Titus chapter 3, the end of Paul's
letter to Titus while he is in Crete. And he
gives some final instructions. The letter part
is over at this point that I'm about to read.
I encourage you to read the whole chapter again.
See what stands out. Write it down. What stood
out? Why did it stand out? What can you do with
that today? Why do you think it stood out to
you today? Allow it to soak in and soak it up.
But I want to read just a couple verses after
Paul finishes the letter, and then he gives some
final instructions and a final greeting and saying,
Thank you and grace be with you that moment that
Paul finishes a letter. He says in verse number
12 of chapter 3, I'm going to send a couple people
to you. I want you to meet me here in this city
because I plan on wintering there. I plan on
staying there in the wintertime. Then he says,
verse number 13, what stuck out to me, this may
stick out to you. It may not. If it does, if
it doesn't, whatever. But let me just share a
little bit of a background from verses 13 and
14. He says in verse 13, do your best to speed
Zenos the lawyer and Apollos on their way. See
that they lack nothing. Before I go any further
and read another verse, I want to say this is
ministry 101. To any of my ministry friends that
are out there or... small group leaders, or even
church members that have a ministry calling in
your life, ministry is not always about a position
and serving in a church body in a way that is
a staff position. Sometimes ministry is as simple
and practical as this verse. When he says, do
your best to speed, Zenos the lawyer. That's
the only time I do not know who this guy is.
Is he a Jew? Is he a Gentile? I don't know. I
know he's a lawyer. That's what I know. Not mentioned
anywhere else in the scripture. This is one of
those unique places in the Bible. We get a little
bit of chance to see there's people that are
being commissioned to go and spread the gospel.
Zenos is one of those people. I want you to think
about this. It's a guy that we don't know. It's
a person we've never met in the Scripture. It's
a person that obviously is... is faithful on
the island of Crete, been there so long that
Paul knew of him. Maybe Paul led him to the Lord.
We don't know. Whenever Paul was there for his
short little season. But we do know that him
and Apollos, I love seeing Apollos in the scripture.
He was that skilled orator, that preacher that
could just preach and people loved it. If he
was ever the preacher on the stage, everybody
was there. If they knew Apollos was preaching,
they were showing up. They loved when this guy
could preach. He was such a skilled orator. orator.
He was trained by a couple of great Bible scholars,
trained by them and helped to explain more of
what the Word of God meant and this person of
Christ. So Apollos has been traveling. Somewhere
on his itinerary, he showed up in Crete. I want
you to think about this. They're traveling all
over the country, all over the countryside, all
over the world, all over that side of the hemisphere.
Apollos ended up here, and there's this other
person, this lawyer named Zenos, who he tells
Titus, Titus, your job is to speed up their calling
and their preparation so they can go. They need
to go. The gospel's on the move. We've got to
send out more people, Titus. Be sure that you
don't just hold on to them because they're your
favorites. You love whenever he's preaching at
a church. You love whenever this person has a
lot of hospitality and they're caring for people
or whatever Zenos is doing. I don't know. What
I do know is that he is this. faithful believer
that Paul is commissioning out and saying, this
person needs to go. They need to go. They need
to go. Speed up that time. Let them be on their
way and see that they lack nothing. You know,
it was hard to travel in this season. It was
hard to travel, especially the political climate
going on right now. There's some speculation
as to where Paul is when he writes this letter.
I've got thoughts. They don't really matter much,
but I believe there's a moment where he was in
Corinth and there was some problems in Corinth.
He was trying to make it down to this city in
verse 12 where he's trying to winter. He's trying
to get there. Did he ever make it there? I don't
know. I've got speculation. Other scholars have
speculation. I say other scholars. I'm not a
scholar. The scholars that I read have speculation.
But I do know that Paul says these two guys are
ready to go, and you know they need to have nothing
that is lacking. You need to give them what they
need. Don't halfway do it. Give them what they
need. It's tough to be a missionary in the first
century. Nero is already blazing things out.
He is persecuting people. There's all kinds of
persecution, all kinds of pressure happening,
and the church is exploding, and the opposition
is rising. Paul says, send these two guys and
send them out with nothing lacking. Make sure
they're held to this comfort level. Make sure
they're held to this sustainability where they
can go and not be slowed down because the gospel's
got to keep going. He says in verse 14, I really
love the phrase unfruitful. A lot of times, in
my personal ministry journey as I've been at
several churches and been in a lot of different
ministry settings and seen a lot of ministry
happen around the country and around the world,
I've noticed we maybe have the wrong terminology.
A lot of times we look for really faithful people.
We say, oh, you're real faithful. You're faithful.
You're faithful. Now, it's good to be faithful.
Don't get me wrong. It's good to be faithful.
I'm glad that you're at church all the time.
I am. I love you being faithful, being at church.
That's what we look at as faithfulness, though.
Paul even kind of takes it another step further,
and I love to take it the next step further.
I'm not asking if you're faithful. I'm asking,
are you fruitful? Are you producing fruit? You
can be at church every single week and not be
fruitful. God didn't call us to be attendance
guys. He didn't call us to be at church all the
time to check our attendance box to be faithful
in that. He called us to be fruitful. to be producing
the fruit of the Spirit. And the call in our
life, the mission is to go and make disciples.
Are we making disciples or not? Well, but I'm
a faithful churchgoer. Are you fruitful? That's
the question we need to ask. I want you to examine
your life today. Here's what I had to do today,
even after a message, after a Sunday, after a
time where we were in the Word and we were celebrating
what God's doing together. I had to sit down
and say, am I fruitful or not? Just because I'm
faithful doesn't make me fruitful. Now, faithfulness
should result in fruitfulness, but what kind
of fruit are you producing? What's coming out
of your life that you can say, this is eternal.
This is going to last. That's the question of
the day. Then verse 15, the way he wraps the
whole letter up. All who are with me send greetings
to you. Greet those who love us in the faith.
Grace be with you all. I love how he says, grace
be with you all, because what's happening in
Crete? If you know much about the story and the
place of Crete, you know how the Cretans are,
you know the calling, the ministry that Titus
is called to is not easy. It is not an easy ministry.
Paul says, grace to you. You need a lot of grace
when you're going into a place that is all about
worldly passions and you're trying to guide toward
holiness. All about self -indulgence and you're
having to teach self -control. You need a lot
of grace. Grace be with you all. Today, let me
encourage you in this. I want you to be fruitful.
I want you to be a fruitful believer that is
practicing holiness, practicing godliness, and
producing fruit. I'm not asking, are you faithful?
I'm asking, are you fruitful? What are you producing
in your life? And then my encouragement to you
is grace be with you because it takes a lot of
grace to be a fruitful person in this culture.
Grace be with you today.