We have a God who cannot lie. He has saved us by grace. We stand in Him and we stand counter to the culture. The Captain of the Lord of hosts
is with us. (Titus 1:1-2; Joshua 5:13)

Speaker(s): Christian Diaz, Thomas Schaller
Sermon 12179
6:30 PM on 10/10/2021

P. Schaller –

Is that where the pulpit is, is this good? I think it is, isn’t it? Good evening. Hey, what’s happening? Praise the
Lord! Alright. Joshua 5. Here we go. Thank you. Thank you. I think this is the right place. Praise
the Lord! Isn’t it awesome? Wow, thank you God. What a good number of days we’ve had.
Beautiful time of fellowship. Our pastor’s retreat was great. Do we have a picture of the guys in
the pastor’s retreat that can go up there. There it is. We had 160 men, and not all of them
pastors but they’re leaders and some students and we had a very rich time. We had a doctrinal
teaching this morning. We had P. Devries. He gave a very good message. Dr. Chung this
morning at 9:00. Very good message about – I could repeat them. Maybe we will in the rap.
11:00 on adoption. We are in the family. God is our Father with many privileges that we have
because we are in the family. We said angels are not in the family.

They are in heaven. They are spirits. In a way, we are similar, but we are made in the image of God and we are higher
though, for a season, we are lower than the angels, but our destiny is to be higher than them. For
we will be in the Son of God, his bride. And in the Son – how does it go? There’s a little poem.
In the Son I cannot higher be, for in the Son of God I am as high as he. I am as high as the Son
of God because we are his bride. So you can’t get higher than the Son of God and he is God.
We are very high. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we would
be called the children of God.” Behold – it means it’s an extraordinary thing.

I’m getting it in the Spirit over the last couple weeks as I’m reading about it and thinking about it. It’s incredible
privilege that we are the children of God and that God is our Father. This is God. God is saying to us. So, we had that message at 11:00. Tonight, I have a short piece I want to share with you. We’ll do the offering, and then we have P. Stan Collins and we have also P. Christian Diaz from Chile. He’s going to share also. We’ll end at – it’s ten of seven. What’s the time we get out of here? Twenty of eight I think. Twenty of eight will be about the time we’re done. So, is that
important? NO! Why are you saying it? I don’t know. I felt like saying it I guess. Now turn to
Joshua 5:15. This is interesting. vs. 13. What is he doing in Jericho? What is going on? Where
is Jericho? He came over the river. He came over the river and he’s going into the Promised
Land. He’s meeting people. He’s seeing the native people, the aborigines we could call them.
The native people of the area. Give me the names of some of those people groups. Canaanites,
Perizites, Gigashites is it? Who were the people in Jerusalem? Jebusites, yeah. Gibeonites.
There’s the Philistines. These are the native people.

So he’s coming in and he meets a man. And he asks him, are you for us? What does he mean “us?” He means Jews. Are you for us, the Jews? Who are you Jews? Well, 40 years ago we came out of Egypt and you heard of us and
we’re coming in. We’re coming in. Say that to your neighbor. We’re coming in. We’re coming in.
Okay. We are in other words infiltrating. Infiltrating. Say that to your neighbor. Infiltrating. We are
– hey, I got a question. The Amish people are different, right? They are in their community. Are
they infiltrating? Are they infiltrating? Well, yeah. I just bought some special custard. They came
into my kitchen. They sell their things but do we become Amish? Are Amish people preaching,
evangelizing. They are in one way. They live a certain way. But what about Greater Grace
people? We’re coming in. We’re coming in to the culture.

We’re coming in to the government. We’re coming in to the police station. We’re coming in to the hospitals. We’re coming in to the schools. We’re coming in to the university. We’re coming in. What are you bringing with you? A
message. Coming in. We’ve got something to say. We live a certain way. We love you. We’re
coming in with the Gospel. I was at the gym. I swam this afternoon and there was a guy with a
big tattoo on his back in Greek. I was trying to read it. I go, wow, you got a tattoo. It’s in Greek in
the back. I’m like spelling it out. And he goes, he goes, and I go is it Philip-pans? He goes it’s
Philippians! It’s Philippians. Then he turns around and goes, pastor. I said, do you know me? He says, I’m
in your church! Are we in our world with something to say? Right. So, look at the text here. Joshua
5:13. This is NKJV. Who is the man that he meets.

It says later there, he is the commander of the Lord’s army in vs. 15. Who is that? That’s Jesus. This is called a theophany or a Christophany in the Old Testament. This is Christ appearing to Joshua but he’s a man. He has a
sword drawn. Joshua says to him, are you for us, the Jews, – are you for us or are you against
us? We’re coming in. We’re coming in. Are you for us or against us? And the Lord does
something precious that I think is good for us. He answers him. Go to vs. 13. I think he means
I’m changing the conversation from “for” and “against.” I want you to be in another way. I want
you to worship. I know you’re a general. I know you’re a leader. I know God has a mission for you. I know you are a warrior, but I’m going to answer you and just not say I am for you. I’m
going to say no. This is what he says. vs. 14. No, but I’m the commander. Joshua fell down and
worshiped him. Then he said, what do you have to say to me?

And a commander could easily say get your troops ready. He could easily say I want you to swing south and head in a west direction and drive north and I’ll be with you and we’ll take over the Promised Land, which is
what happened. But he didn’t say that. This is what he said to him, vs. 15. Where else was that
said? To Moses when he was called. Take your sandal off your feet. If you are a warrior, your
shoes are important, but in this case, your shoes are not important. Are you for or against me?
Change the conversation. I want you to take your shoes off because I am God. I want you to be
a worshiper. That’s how you will overcome. I think the devil wants to draw us into a fight. I think
it’s better we would be wise, we would be understanding, we would be worshipers and then we
would be able to infiltrate but in a way we are not hating people that are different. We are loving
people that are different. In a way, we don’t have to be right. We just have to have love. The
issue is God. And he said no, the Lord. That’s the issue.

The Lord is the issue. vs. 15-16. This is where his batteries will be recharged. His inner man will be renewed. He will be in the church with his shoes off and listening to God and being led in joy. There’s sometimes joy. There’s
intimate relationship of Christ between us. There’s a spirit of worship and through God, we will
do valiantly. Through God we may live 15, 20, 30 years. Through God we will do our work and
not fight. It’s kind of like, do we want to fight against the city of Baltimore? No, we just want to
worship. We want to worship God and he will give us the wisdom and strength to help the city of
Baltimore, to pray for the city of Baltimore. Are we looking for enemies? No, we are looking for
God. And with God in the working place we have the wisdom. We have the grace. We have the
ministry. We’re not fighting. We are worshiping but as we worship God makes us capable. The
walls of Jericho came down without a shot fired.  God did it. I am with you Joshua. I am with you. If God is with us, then we can do great things and have the right target as we live in a world that is sometimes very blind. Very blind, but very needy. Okay. Amen.

Turn to your neighbor and say, what did he say? And try to repeat it back.

We’ll move on. Let’s do a little shout out thing. If you were a pastor at the retreat, would you stand up where you are. This is without the microphone. So you got to do anything fresh. Stay standing. Anything fresh on your mind that you can shout out to the crowd? (soliciting responses). Unity? Beautiful. There really was. He is working.
Awesome. Oh. For the internet audience it was so good. Aged women teach younger women to
love their husbands, Titus 2. Counter-culture. Beautiful. Wasn’t that a good message. It was
refreshing. We hadn’t seen some guys for a while. We’re in a different environment, different
guys. Forty or fifty guys got to share.

Every part of it was rich. One more? How about over here? Perilous time and the Scripture is what we need, Titus 2:1, 2 Corinthians 3. Beautiful. That’s good.
Thank you so much. (offering).

P. Hadley –

Good evening. It’s my privilege to introduce to you P. Christian Diaz. I have known
P. Christian since 1987. We met in Santiago, Chile in a third floor of a building where services
were being held. They now have four children and they are expecting or waiting for their first
grandchild in February. They are pretty excited about that. It’s great. We’re going to hear from
him right now.

P. Christian Diaz (Chile) –

Good evening to everyone. I want to invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Titus, chapter 1. All the brethren from the church in [?], Chile greet you. Titus 1:1-2, God does not lie. We have a God that does not lie. vs. 2. This is the idea. It opens the book of Titus for us when we understand this idea, we can understand the book of Titus. We have a
God that cannot lie. Why does Paul say that? Why does he say that? The Greek gods and Zeus
their most important God, they were lying gods, deceitful gods. They were gods that deceived
women. The Greek gods were immoral, liars, deceivers, false gods, false gods, false gods. This
is what the Cretans said that they thought about their gods. Paul said to Titus I left you in Crete so
you correct things. You have to correct and then we have P. Stan Collins and we have also P.
Christian Diaz from Chile. He’s going to share also. We’ll end at – it’s ten of seven. What’s the
time we get out of here? Twenty of eight I think. Twenty of eight will be about the time we’re
done. So, is that important? NO! Why are you saying it? I don’t know.

I felt like saying it I guess. Now turn to Joshua 5:15. This is interesting. vs. 13. What is he doing in Jericho? What is going on? Where is Jericho? He came over the river. He came over the river and he’s going into the Promised Land. He’s meeting people. He’s seeing the native people, the aborigines we could
call them. The native people of the area. Give me the names of some of those people groups.
Canaanites, Perizites, Gigashites is it? Who were the people in Jerusalem? Jebusites, yeah.
Gibeonites. There’s the Philistines. These are the native people. So he’s coming in and he
meets a man. And he asks him, are you for us? What does he mean “us?” He means Jews. Are
you for us, the Jews? Who are you Jews? Well, 40 years ago we came out of Egypt and you
heard of us and we’re coming in. We’re coming in. Say that to your neighbor. We’re coming in.
We’re coming in. Okay. We are in other word infiltrating. Infiltrating. Say that to your neighbor.
Infiltrating. We are – hey, I got a question.

The Amish people are different, right? They are in their community. Are they infiltrating? Are they infiltrating? Well, yeah. I just bought some special custard. They came into my kitchen. They sell their things but do we become Amish?
Are Amish people preaching, evangelizing. They are in one way. They live a certain way. But
what about Greater Grace people? We’re coming in. We’re coming in to the culture. We’re
coming in to the government. We’re coming in to the police station. We’re coming in to the
hospitals. We’re coming in to the schools. We’re coming in to the university. We’re coming in.
What are you bringing with you? A message. Coming in. We’ve got something to say. We live a
certain way. We love you. We’re coming in with the Gospel.

I was at the gym. I swam this afternoon and there was a guy with a big tattoo on his back in Greek. I was trying to read it. I go, wow, you got a tattoo. It’s in Greek in the back. I’m like spelling it out. And he goes, he goes,
and I go “is it Philip-pans?” He goes “it’s Philippians! It’s Philippians!”.  Then he turns around and goes, “pastor!” I said, “do you know me?” He says, “I’m in your church!”

Are we in our world with something to say? Right. So, look at the text here. Joshua 5:13. This is NKJV. Who is the man that he meets. It says later there, he is the commander of the Lord’s army in vs. 15. Who is that? That’s Jesus.
This is called a theophany or a Christophany in the Old Testament. This is Christ appearing to
Joshua but he’s a man. He has a sword drawn. Joshua says to him, are you for us, the Jews, –
are you for us or are you against us? We’re coming in. We’re coming in. Are you for us or
against us? And the Lord does something precious that I think is good for us. He answers him.
Go to vs. 13. I think he means I’m changing the conversation from “for” and “against.” I want you
to be in another way. I want you to worship. I know you’re a general. I know you’re a leader. I
know God has a mission for you. I know you are a warrior, but I’m going to answer you and just
not say I am for you. I’m going to say no.

This is what he says. vs. 14. No, but I’m the commander. Joshua fell down and worshiped him. Then he said what do you have to say to me? And a commander could easily say get your troops ready. He could easily say I want you
to swing south and head in a west direction and drive north and I’ll be with you and we’ll take
over the Promised Land which is what happened. But he didn’t say that. This is what he said to
him, vs. 15. Where else was that said? To Moses when he was called. Take your sandal off
your feet. If you are a warrior, your shoes are important, but in this case, your shoes are not
important. Are you for or against me? Change the conversation. I want you to take your shoes
off because I am God. I want you to be a worshiper. That’s how you will overcome. I think the
devil wants to draw us into a fight. I think it’s better we would be wise, we would be
understanding, we would be worshipers and then we would be able to infiltrate but in a way we
are not hating people that are different.

We are loving people that are different. In a way, we don’t have to be right. We just have to have love. The issue is God. And he said no, the Lord. That’s the issue. The Lord is the issue. vs. 15-16. This is where his batteries will be recharged. His inner man will be renewed. He will be in the church with his shoes off and listening to God
and being led in joy. There’s sometimes joy. There’s intimate relationship of Christ between us.
There’s a spirit of worship and through God we will do valiantly. Through God we may live 15,
20, 30 years. Through God we will do our work and not fight. It’s kind of like do we want to fight
against the city of Baltimore? No, we just want to worship. We want to worship God and he will
give us the wisdom and strength to help the city of Baltimore, to pray for the city of Baltimore.
Are we looking for enemies? No, we are looking for God. And with God in the working place we
have the wisdom. We have the grace. We have the ministry. We’re not fighting. We are
worshiping but as we worship God makes us capable.

The walls of Jericho came down without a shot fired. God did it. I am with you Joshua. I am with you. If God is with us, then we can do great things and have the right target as we live in a world that is sometimes very blind. Very
blind but very needy. Okay. Amen. Turn to your neighbor and say, what did he say? And try to
repeat it back. We’ll move on. Let’s do a little shout out thing. If you were a pastor at the retreat,

would you stand up where you are. This is without the microphone. So you got to do anything
fresh. Stay standing. Anything fresh on your mind that you can shout out to the crowd?
(soliciting responses). Unity? Beautiful. There really was. He is working. Awesome. Oh. For the
internet audience it was so good. Aged women teach younger women to love their husbands,
Titus 2. Counter-culture. Beautiful. Wasn’t that a good message. It was refreshing. We hadn’t
seen some guys for a while. We’re in a different environment, different guys. Forty or fifty guys
got to share. Every part of it was rich. One more? How about over here? Perilous time and the
Scripture is what we need, Titus 2:1, 2 Corinthians 3. Beautiful. That’s good. Thank you so much.
(offering).

P. Hadley –

Good evening. It’s my privilege to introduce to you P. Christian Diaz. I have known
P. Christian since 1987. We met in Santiago, Chile in a third floor of a building where services
were being held. They now have four children and they are expecting or waiting for their first
grandchild in February. They are pretty excited about that. It’s great. We’re going to hear from
him right now.

P. Christian Diaz (Chile) – Good evening to everyone. I want to invite you to open your Bibles to
the book of Titus, chapter 1. All the brethren from the church in Vancouver, Chile greet you. Titus 1:1-2,
God does not lie. We have a God that does not lie. in verse. 2, Paul says to Titus “We have God who cannot lie.  And this is the idea. It opens the book of Titus for us when we understand this idea, we can understand the book of Titus. We have a God that cannot lie. Why does Paul say that? Why does he say that? The Greek gods and Zeus
their most important God, they were lying gods, deceitful gods. They were gods that deceived
women. The Greek gods were immoral, liars, deceivers, false gods, false gods, false gods. This
is what the Cretans that they thought about their gods. Paul said to Titus I left you in Crete so
you correct things. You have to correct these things and that’s why I left you in Crete because
the people on this island have this idea, this concept of God. Lying gods.

Your gods are lying gods. vs. 12. of chapter 1, Paul mentions a prophet, a Cretan poet. vs. 12. One of the Cretans a prophet of their own says Cretans are always liars. Why were the Cretans always liars? Why were they
liars? Because their gods were lying gods. Their gods lied. They deceived. Their gods were
tricksters. They were exactly like their gods. Here we have a principle in Psalm 115:5-8, so it
says the pagan idols they have a mouth but they can’t speak. They have eyes but they can’t
see. They have ears and they don’t hear. They have noses that can’t smell. They have hands
that can’t touch or feel. They have feet and they can’t walk. They don’t speak with their throat.
But vs. 8. says like their gods, are those that worship them. There is a direct relation, there is a
direct connection between the God that we worship and who we are. In one way or another, in
one form or another, we end up becoming like the one we worship.

If the Cretans had lying gods, deceitful gods, so then they had a lying culture. They had a deceitful culture. Paul says to
Titus, correct these things. The message that I have for you Titus is not a popular message. It is
not a message that everybody would want to hear. It’s a message that goes against the culture.
It’s a message that goes against the culture of lying, against deceit. Brothers and sisters, we
have a counter-cultural message. We have a message against this culture. If we believe in the
Bible, we have a counter-cultural message. The Bible has a message that’s against the culture.
Paul starts to tell Titus about some things that he has to do, and he mentions a few things that
are against the culture. The first thing he says is the leadership of the church. The older men,
they should be men without fault. They should be men with one wife.

This is against the culture. The Cretans married to divorce and divorced to remarry. Husbands of only one wife. Against the culture. Not proud. Not covetous. vs. 9. of Titus: Keepers of the faithful word. Those that retain the
faithful word. They had to preach the word faithfully. The leaders of the church of Crete had to
preach the word faithfully. Paul says to Timothy, preach the word. Timothy, preach the word.
Paul didn’t say to Timothy preach about the word. He said preach the word not your opinions,
not your dreams, not what you believe. It doesn’t matter what you believe. We want the Bible.
We want the Bible. We want the Bible. We want that this pulpit preaches the Bible. How many of
you want that this pulpit continues to preach the word?  After Paul is going to speak about the women. How many women do we have here?

So how should the women be. Reverent in their behavior. What does this mean? Women who are not frivolous. Women who are not frivolous. Teachers of good and then it says two things. These women they should teach to the younger women two things: To love their husbands! To love their husbands! Is there anything more counter-cultural than that? You know what we hear now? I’ve seen it on the walls in Chile: Kill
the man! Kill the macho man! Kill the man! Kill the man! Kill him if he’s a baby boy! It’s not just
equality. It’s supremacy. They say we don’t need men. But we have a counter-cultural message.
The older women should teach the younger women to love their husbands and to love their
children. Do you know what that means to love your children? Teach them. If you love them,
teach them. Teach your children to honor the adults. Teach them to love God. Teach them to
love authority. Teach them to love the country. To love the country where you were born. To
sing the national anthem with love. To love the flag.

What we said this morning. We prayed for the police. We have to teach. We’re called to that against the culture. And now he speaks in vs. 9 to the servants that they are obedient. That they please their boss in everything. That they
please their boss in everything. But pastor, you don’t know my boss. No, I don’t but I have a
boss, too. But do you know what Paul is saying here? But our boss is really no one other than
God. Because everything we do, everything we do, everything we do, we do it for God. John
Calvin said every factory, every market, every work should be a temple, should be a temple
because there we worship God. Every nail that we hammer, every person that we talk to, we
don’t do it for our boss. We do it for God. We do it for God because we work for God. I’m going
to go fast. We have a salvation that is against the culture. Chapter 2:11.

The grace of God, the grace of God, you’re saved by the grace of God. We’re saved by the grace of God without any
human merit. Well, I’m a good person. Oh, pastor I do good things. Years ago I taught Romans
3:19. God gave us the law to close every mouth. God gave us the law to shut every mouth.
When people say I’m a good person, I pet the dog, animals. I help people. I drive my car and
when someone cuts me off, I go, please! Oh, you want my parking space that I was about to go
into first? Oh, of course! Oh, go right ahead. I’m a good person! Paul says God gave us the law
to shut every mouth. “I’m a good person.” Shut up! “I do good things.” Shut up! There’s nobody
good. No one goes to heaven because they are good because there’s no one good. We go to
heaven by the pure grace of God because it’s God who saved us. It’s God who searched for
me. The way to hell, I was on the way to hell, one day the Lord appeared in my life searching for
me, looking for me. We are saved by the grace of God.

Last point: Now I really mean it! Chapter 2:13 we have a leadership that is against the culture. We have families that are against the culture. We have servants against the culture. We have salvation that is against the culture.
Now listen to this. We have a hope against the culture. We have a hope. We have a great hope.
We wait for the promise. Yes, Lord Jesus! Yes, Lord Jesus come, come for your bride! Come for
your church, the church that you bought with your blood! That church that belongs to you! We
believe in this! We wait for this!! We hope in this!! We desire this!! How many have this hope? The
glorious manifestation. We have a hope that is against the culture, contrary to the culture. We
don’t look to man to solve the problems that we have. We trust in God. Our hope is God.

We walk in the shadow of the, the valley of the shadow of death. We are strangers and foreigners.
It’s not our land. This is not our place. We have a place. We take God by the hand as we walk
through the valley of the shadow of death because we have hope. Three youth. When we hear
the sound of the trumpet, we need to kneel down. We have to kneel down and worship the
image of Nebuchadnezzar. Everybody has to kneel before the image of the statue of
Nebuchadnezzar. When you hear the sound of the trumpet, everyone bow down except three
young men, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego. We don’t bow before this system. We don’t
kneel before this system. As Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. The
gates of hell will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ. We will not kneel before the
system. We will not accept their lies.

We are a church that is against the culture! We have a leadership that is against the culture! And families against the culture and salvation that is against the culture! And a hope that is against the culture!  Do you know why? Because we have a God that is against the culture, a God that cannot lie! He cannot lie! Our God is a God who
cannot lie. He does not lie, our God. 2 Corinthians 13:8, Paul says we can do nothing against the truth
but for the truth. Our God is a God who cannot lie. This is the church. This is your church. It’s a
church that goes against the culture. We will not bow, kneel. We’re not going to do it. God bless
you.