The God Who Cannot Lie: Your Rock When Everything Shakes

Introduction

What is your faith really standing on? When everything around you keeps shifting (opinions, trends, the "truths" people sell you), what can you plant your feet on so you don't collapse? In the first four verses of his letter to Titus, Paul answers with three words that echo one another: the God who does not lie, the God who speaks, the God who saves. Three faces of one good news. Your foundation isn't in what you feel, or in what everyone else happens to think right now. It's in God himself. This passage is short, but it pours a foundation under your life that nothing can crack.

Outline

1. The God who does not lie

Paul writes to Titus "for the faith of God's chosen ones, and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who can't lie, promised before time began" (Titus 1:1-2). Two questions rise up as you read that first verse: how can we be sure our faith is solid? And why keep pursuing what pleases God? The answer follows. Your faith rests on a hope that didn't start yesterday: eternal life, promised before time began. This isn't improvisation. Before a single clock started ticking, before the trees, before humanity, God already had in mind this life he wanted to give his people.

And this life is what Paul here calls godliness. Godliness isn't just a religious habit or a way of practicing worship. It's life in God: the beautiful, good life that pleases God. Beautiful, because everything that comes from him is beautiful. Good, because it does good to the one who lives it, the one who receives it, the one who gives it. It's the life according to his heart, the life he calls you into and holds you fast to, like a carabiner clipped tight.

Here is the first foothold, simple but massive: truth exists. We live in a world of relativism where everything is supposedly equal, where "that's your truth, this is my truth," and in reality nothing is true anymore. Postmodernity doesn't just deny that truth exists; it lives inside that denial, it settles into it. In the middle of that fog, one statement cuts through the text: our God cannot lie. You can savor this good news. In a world tempted to tamper with reality, fake the facts, and stay trapped in algorithmic loops that only ever echo your own voice back at you, there exists a God who has never once said anything false.

Which also means you need him in order to know the truth. You don't want to be controlled by "the ruler of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2), the devil, "a liar, and the father of lies" (John 8:44), who feeds our whole culture the idea that no truth exists at all. Anchor yourself to the God who does not lie. Depend on him. That takes courage.

2. The God who speaks

The good news doesn't stop there. The God who does not lie is also the God who opens his mouth: "but in his own time revealed his word in the message with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior" (Titus 1:3). Three key words: revealed, message, commandment. God chose to make himself known. He could have stayed silent. He could have left his realm and ours like two lines that never cross. We would have been left to relativism, which loses people, poisons them, and destroys them. But he spoke.

Unlike idols, which have no mouth, the God of the Bible speaks. Our modern idols ("I have my own truth, there is no truth") are like puppets we animate ourselves. We make them talk with our own hand. We worship them, but really we're worshiping ourselves. Among eight billion little personal idols, the God who does not lie is the only one who actually speaks. And he spoke through his apostles, through men who put his truth into our own language categories, so you could understand it in your own tongue.

Already in the Old Testament, about 850 years before Jesus, the LORD said through Isaiah: "You are my witnesses," says Yahweh, "with my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, neither will there be after me" (Isaiah 43:10). These words are here to grip your heart, to captivate you with his truth, his beauty, his goodness, his love, so that your life gets shaped by his.

If God speaks, the mark of his people is that they listen. That's not a box you tick on your evangelical conscience. It's praying, reading the Bible every day, meeting in a weekly group, in a trio, one-on-one, so that in your home you can say: "Thank you, Lord, because you are the God who does not lie. Thank you because you speak. I love you, I want to listen to you, I want my life to be shaped by yours." This is how God equips you to stand in this world when so many others have no backbone at all.

3. The God who saves

Paul closes these four verses with a word that carries weight: "to Titus, my true child according to a common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior" (Titus 1:4). Notice the title carefully. Paul doesn't say "Lord," or "thrice-holy God." He says Savior. The mark of the God who does not lie and who speaks is that he saves.

He saves you from your rebellion. He saves you from a world where many voices shout, but none of them is anchored in truth. He saves you from your sins, your false lives, your hypocrisies, your inconsistencies, your falls. Remember Titus 2:14: "who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works."

This salvation plays out in every tense. He has saved you: Jesus died 2,000 years ago to set you free and give you access to the God who does not lie. He will save you: when the last judgment comes, the God who does not lie will make his truth burst forth and judge every lie, and you will be saved, not because you were more truthful than others, but because he himself delivered you. And he is saving you, right now, day by day. As English puts it well with its present continuous: God has saved us, He will save us, He is saving us. God is saving you constantly. From yourself. From the world. From the lie. From everything that is fake.

Isaiah already said it: "I myself am Yahweh; and besides me there is no savior. I have declared, I have saved, and I have shown; and there was no strange god among you. Therefore you are my witnesses," says Yahweh, "and I am God" (Isaiah 43:11-12). The logic is airtight. Someone stuck up to their neck in mud cannot pull you out of the mud. In the same way, you can't expect the gods of this world (themselves caught in the lie, under the grip of the father of lies) to lead you toward the truth. You need a Savior who frees you from every false front and brings you into a life of light.

And here's the miracle: this eternal life you're called to, he has already begun living it in you. Everything you're learning to reject because it produces lies and death, everything you're learning to love because it pleases God: that is already the life of God, lived out day by day.

Key takeaways

• Your faith rests on a promise older than time itself. It's not improvisation. Before time began, God, who cannot lie, promised eternal life on his own word.
• Truth exists. In a relativistic world where everything is supposedly equal, this statement is revolutionary, and it comes from God.
• God speaks. Unlike the mute idols we animate ourselves, he has opened his mouth: in the Old Testament, in Jesus, and through the apostolic message recorded in Scripture.
• God saves. In the past, the future, and the present. He saved you at the cross, he will save you on the day of judgment, and he is saving you today from yourself.
• Godliness is the beautiful, good life that pleases God. It's not ticking religious boxes. It's already living, now, the eternal life found in God.

Personal application

1. What is your faith actually standing on right now: your emotions, what the people around you think, or the word of the God who does not lie?
2. Where have you recently given in to the logic of "everyone has their own truth"? Is there an area where you're tampering with reality, living in appearances rather than in truth?
3. How much room do you make each week to listen to God (Bible reading, prayer, a weekly group, one-on-one time)? What could you adjust this week?
4. What do you need to be saved from today? Take a moment to tell God, in the present tense, as a Savior who is acting today.
5. If Jesus is the God who saves, which "false front" in your life do you want to ask him to shine his light on this week?

Scriptures referenced

• Titus 1:1-4 - main sermon text
• Titus 2:14 - "who gave himself for us..."
• Isaiah 43:10-12 - "You are my witnesses... besides me there is no savior."
• Ephesians 2:2 - "the ruler of the power of the air"
• John 8:44 - the devil, "the father of lies"

FAQ

What does "promised before time began" mean?

It means that salvation and eternal life are not some improvised reaction from God to sin. Before time even began, God already planned to give eternal life to a people who would live with him forever. Your faith isn't built on an idea that just crossed your mind: it's anchored in God's eternal plan.

How can we know God does not lie?

We know it because he said so himself in his word (Titus 1:2; Numbers 23:19), and because his entire plan of salvation, culminating in Jesus Christ, confirms it. Unlike the idols we make and then make talk on our own behalf, God has revealed himself through his written Word and through his Son. His faithfulness isn't a theory; it's proven throughout the history of salvation.

What is "godliness" according to Titus 1?

Here, godliness isn't primarily a set of religious practices. It's life in God (beautiful and good), the life he created you for, and the life he has already begun to birth in you through his Spirit. Living godliness means already living today, in seed form, the eternal life you will live with him forever.