So That Pastor Doug McNett: December 30th, 2018 Text: Titus 2:1-14

Transcription

1 So That Pastor Doug McNett: December 30th, 2018 Text: Titus 2:1-14 An attractive life is a godly life. Well, Good morning! How are we? Good! Good! It is good to be with you this morning! Welcome also to those of you who are joining us from across the courtyard worshiping in the chapel and welcome to those of you online as well. As we gather here in our Live! service the rest of our family is also gathering in our other venue and online to spend time in worship and to join us in the study of God s Word. I love it! It s the whole body unified by One Spirit in His One Word. So good! Well, if we haven t met, my name is Doug and I am the Pastor of Student Ministries here at Foothills Church. And this morning, I get the privilege, the joy, really...to dive into the Scriptures with you and to spend some time chewing on an exhortation, an urging, a call, to you and I, as believers, as followers, as disciples of Jesus. If you ve got your Bible you can take that out and open up to the book of Titus chapter 2 that s where we re going to be camping out this morning. You know, we re in a season in our culture right now of refreshing. It s the Christmas season where people tend to get a bit more time off work, friends and families are coming together and there s a sense of joy in the air. We then move into the New Year celebration where there is again a refreshing. A refreshing of goals for the year, the setting of resolutions. There s the talk of doing things differently in the new year. From eating healthier, or exercising, or putting money away for retirement. For some of you there have been some areas of sin that you have been wanting to let go of and find victory in that keep coming back to haunt you and you re resolving to grow in those this year. Maybe you're new to the Christian life and you re trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus or maybe you re not seeing the change in your

2 life that you were hoping to or maybe you ve been doing the Christian life for awhile and feel like you ve hit a wall in your growth, so you re feeling like you re at a dead end. Or maybe you re in a place where you re finding your life to be cyclical, you wake up and go to work or go to school and come home, eat, take your 23,000 or so breaths, go to sleep, wake up and do it all over again and you re wondering why? Why am I doing this? What am I supposed to be doing? What is my mission? Is it really just swarming around the current issue of our day that is so momentary that we re not pulling back and seeing the big picture of what our lives are supposed to be? Or maybe everything has been fine and you re just kinda going through the motions living life and maybe you have realized that there s something more. There s something more to your relationship with Jesus. There s something more with your salvation. Or maybe today can merely be an encouragement, and an opportunity for me to say well done and press on! Regardless of where you find yourself, what we get to hear this morning is a game changer. If we can hear God this morning through Paul s instruction some incredible winning is going happen in this game called life. So I do want to review just briefly what the book is about as we launch into chapter 2 of the book of Titus, written by Paul to a guy named Titus. Paul led Titus to Christ, discipled him and then launched him into ministry leading a church in Crete. You see in the previous chapter, Titus 1:11 that there was false teaching, there were false doctrines being spread in this young church and that this teaching was disrupting whole households of the faith. And so Paul, with a great burden, and a great care and concern for the church writes this letter to Titus.

3 Because of this unhealthiness in the church, Paul writes the letter and says to Titus, "I want you to reorder and reestablish health in the church. Paul s going, "It s a new year! We re starting fresh!" So, Paul says, Titus, go do that! Teach the church how faithful gospel proclamation and faithful gospel application changes everything. So Paul has just talked about this false doctrine, this, this false teaching that has infiltrated the church in chapter 1. He says, "I want you to push back on this false doctrine, this false teaching." This is where chapter 2 we pick up in verse 1 You, (Titus) however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. or you could read that as You, (Titus) however, must teach what is a fitting response") to sound doctrine. Right out of the gate, Paul contrasts the false teaching or false doctrine of chapter 1 where he launches into chapter 2, You, [Titus], must teach these things as an appropriate response to the gospel. What Paul is getting at is that true, genuine faith is going to produce true, genuine fruit. And that s not happening in the church. In fact, they re getting reports of the opposite! Paul is telling Titus! Preach the true gospel! Preach sound doctrine that is being true, being pure, being right, being healthy. Interestingly, the word Paul uses when he speaks of sound doctrine, actually means to be in good health. So the soundness of doctrine that he's talking about here, not only in this verse, but in verse 2 and throughout the rest of the chapter, carries the idea of a health. This idea of being without infirmity.

4 Paul is about to lay out the picture of how sound or healthy doctrine...transforms. He's about to start segmenting out different groups in the church and talking to them about what is expected from them as a response to the gospel, because true, genuine faith is going to produce true, genuine fruit. Before I jump into that, let me talk to you just briefly about this idea of doctrine and progress and where we find ourselves in our culture and as a church. What Paul is going to address is going to be very contrary to the consistent messaging that you and I hear in our current secular culture. The consistent messaging we hear about older people. Their value is lessening, and we deify (day-ih-fy) youth. You're going to hear messages about how authority should be questioned and pushed apart. You're going to see messages from our culture about rampant individualism: Follow whatever you like and do whatever you like. Our culture blatantly and unapologetically and shamelessly champions and says, "This is what you should be about: you. But, what we see this morning will feel very contrary to that. This will fly in the face of that. Let me read this quote to you from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. He says this about progress. "We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. Think about the wisdom in that. For us as a church, as we are consistently barraged with communications and messages from our culture about what is right and what is good, yet, the Word of God stands today contrary to that and is speaking against the wind, inviting us to turn back.

5 In fact...that turning may be what Lewis calls progress. And so, instead of letting the culture define the way you live, let God define the way you live. And so now, we get to see what is expected of us in verse 2. The first group that Paul is going to address is the older men. Listen to what he says in verse 2. "Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance." The older men typically are the age of about 55 to 65 years old. These men probably have grown families. They are what we would call empty-nesters. They're not in the latter stages of life, but they're no longer young. Look at what he says about the older men here. He's going to give three marks of maturity and three marks of godliness. The three marks of maturity for these older men are they are to be temperate. They are to be worthy of respect and self-controlled. What Paul is saying in this is pretty important. He's going to say these men are to have a substance about them. They even have this authority and it s not a positional authority, but it s instead attached to their character. These are the kind of men who when they walk into a room you notice them, not because of pomp and circumstance, because of the substance of who they are. When they speak, they give pearls of wisdom. They're the men this church needs more and more of. God would you bless us with more of these men.

6 What Paul does next is he joins together these three marks of maturity to these three virtues of godliness. There are the three primary virtues, It's the idea of faith, hope, and love. You hear it in 1 Corinthians. You see it in different pieces of 1 Timothy. The idea of faith, love, and then the word he uses here is endurance again communicates a hope. We're longsuffering. We're actually going to persevere. There is a very true sense where we can have a congregation filled with mature men who are not godly. You can be mature and not godly, but Paul is holding up a better ideal. Paul is calling us to a greater standard. Paul is lifting this up and says, "No. For a healthy church, we need both, joined together into one man." The man that we are called to be is dignified, worthy of respect, has an authority because of the kind of man he is. He's sober-minded, clearheaded, self-controlled, and he exudes and exhibits faith, love, and endurance. Us younger men are learning from you. It s not just faith but also love. What we're learning from you, men, is we're learning how to care. We're learning how to grow in compassion. We're learning how to have empathy. We're learning how to lead out in these things with affection and esteem and concern for others. It's this deep-seated, "We're learning how to be a friend because you're teaching us. We're learning how to care for and love others because you're showing us. If I could just summarize what it looks like, it looks like us as a family looking to you, and in looking to you, we're learning some things from you. We're learning what to value. We're learning what to pursue, what not to pursue. We're learning what to esteem, and we're learning this because you're clarifying it for us because of your life. You're speaking into us, saying, "No. That's a worthless pursuit. That's chasing the wind. You don't want that. I can tell you this winds fruitless. Which means, men, you re doing life with us. You re serving in our Children s ministry,

7 you re serving in our student ministry, you re leading service projects and bringing us a long. As one of your pastors, I have no choice but to ask the question, Are you doing that? Notice where Paul goes from here. As he uses the word likewise, he begins to address the older women. Using likewise he s connecting these sections. The same sense, the same flavor, the same tone he just spoke to the older men about he's now speaking to the older women in verse 3. He says, " Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good So there s this same sense that these older men have that carries over to the older women. There's something about you, ladies. Again, you're in the same age category. You have grown kids. You're empty-nesters. Where you find yourself in this season of life, it should be marked by the similar traits of godliness and maturity. Paul summarizes it like this, that you would demonstrate the marks of reverence. Reverence here talks of the way you are going and living and doing gives off an air of sacredness, gives off an air of righteousness, of holiness. There's a depth to you, a substance to you. When you speak, you have pearls of wisdom. You know what is true and good and right and worthwhile, and you know what is not. Again, you're marked by this. Listen to what Paul says here in this particular context in the Cretan church. These older ladies now had more spare time on their hands. Generally, as the kids leave the house, you typically have more time on your hands, both older men and older women. The way these older women were spending their time was more toward idle time.

8 What was happening is they were gathering around. They were going house to house apparently to get a cheese platter around, pop a cork, and having some wine. Then they just began to have these conversations. Hear me. They had earned this. They had deserved this. They had raised families. They were gone. They were finally like, "Yes, a little me time. But, see what Paul is going to do here. To kind of hold up a better ideal here. He talks about the idea of slander. It's where we get the word devil. It's not a great word. It's the Greek word diabolos. The idea of a slanderer is someone who is speaking words that are attacking, speaking words that are accusatory, speaking words that cut down rather than build up. In their gatherings and in their conversations, their speaking was tied to their drinking. The more they began to drink, the more they began to speak, and the more they began to drink and speak, the more that speaking began to kind of dissolve into what he called slander. Paul says, "Don't do this, but let me uphold something for you that's much better. You are to teach what is good. So he's holding up here something that's unique among you, ladies. He's holding up something here that is valuable among you, and he says, "You are to teach what is good." Notice what he's talking about here. He's talking about human flourishing. He's talking about what is beautiful, right, and true. He's esteeming something as worthwhile here, so in this spare time, he's saying, "This is how you are to use it. You are to teach what is good. Look. He transitions. "Then they can urge the younger women Do you see the discipleship? The older ladies in the congregation were to pour in and invest into the younger ladies of the congregation.

9 Discipleship is a family issue. It s not a pastoral staff issue alone! It s not a volunteer issue. No! It s the entire church! Everyone in the Church is expected to be pouring into and discipling. The older are esteemed in value and worthy to follow. Their example is good and right and righteous and holy. They're investing into those of us who are younger to draw us up. So Paul says here, "Ladies, train the younger women." The word train here runs in contrast to slander, because the word train here means to advise, to encourage, to urge. He's saying, "Rather than using your words over here like this, use them like this. Come over into this context and invest to build up and to train up these women. And so we all must remember, men and women, Discipleship is a family issue. And so, I must ask the question. How you doing at discipling? Please ask us, if you re recognizing that you ve slipped in this area and you re not in a discipleship/mentor relationship, please reach out to the church office and let us help connect you. The young women that Paul has in mind here are women who are of marriageable age, more than likely are married, and more than likely have kids according to this context, but not necessarily so. He's just saying the investment of the older women into the younger women. You're investing in those women who are right around the age of being married. This is the season of life for these young women, and your investment is deliberate and intentional and ongoing in them. This teaching that happens is through life-on-life relationships as you're passing along wisdom you have picked up throughout the years.

10 As you have grown in godliness, as you have raised your family, as you have picked up these things, you are now passing them on. He says, " and so train the young women and so ladies. How are you doing at training up our young ladies? Look at what he says about the young women. Starting in verse 4. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. " Again, the content of this conversation is the young ladies, the young women, would first learn to keep their hearts and then learn to keep their homes. Paul says, "First, order your hearts, ladies. Then order your home." The first order of your heart is learning to love your family, learning to love your husband and your children. This is of most importance for Paul because if you don't begin to learn to love them in a way that is good and right and true, then everything else he's going to say doesn't make sense. I'd say most of us in here, if not all of us, had the opportunity, if we're married, to spend some time with our girlfriend or boyfriend and then get engaged, and we had a choice in the matter. We had the opportunity to fall in love, but most people in this context did not have that. Most in this context had arranged marriages. What Paul is saying is there is a learning to love that is unique among these people most of us did not have to experience, for them, how much more challenging could it have been? Let me say this. I recognize some people are difficult to love. You may be married to them. I realize some people present themselves as unlovable.

11 I realize there are situations in here that are extremely painful and hard. What I'm wanting to uphold in our time together is what Paul was upholding, that the family, that loving your husband and children is good and right and beautiful. Men, you know as a man how empowering it is to have a wife who loves you, how life-giving it is to know you have a wife who loves you. You feel so full of courage, like you can just go out and do anything. Why? Because this lady loves me. She is for me and with me. It's powerful. Young women are encouraged, first, to love their husbands and then love their children. Again, I know that these words are offensive to our secular culture. Ladies, this passage is not about you working outside of the home or working inside of the home. What Paul is getting at is that your heart would be first for your home. What Paul is saying is to avoid escapism. Avoid idle living and get back in focus on what's most valuable. I do want to just pause real quick and speak a couple of things to you mothers with children, and I hope you hear my heart in this. First of all, I want to say to you, "Thank you." I don't say that lightly. I mean that with all sincerity. Thank you for what you do. In unpacking that, I mean you are unique, and nobody can replace you. Nobody can do what you can do. The value you bring is immeasurable. The absolute profound mystery of a mom, the wonder it is, you cannot be replaced. I say this as a husband who's married to one. I think about her role and the significance she brings, not only to my children and to our home, but to me as a dad, how she's helping shape me and as it pertains to our home. She's lifting my eyes to have a certain perspective and to see certain things I would easily miss. You should be championed for what you're doing. You should be applauded day in and day out for who you are and what you are about. The value you bring is eternal. It is legacy-building. It stretches beyond

12 these years. Your investment multiplies. I can say this as a dad who is married to a mom. It's really hard. These kids, most of the time, are thankless. And with that may we be a church that upholds the gift of children! If they're in here and among us and they're squirming and they're yelling and they're screaming, I don't care. I love it! It may make you feel uncomfortable. It does when I'm out there and it's my kid. I get that, but there's life in here. There's the gift of life! We want to celebrate that. May God continue to weave into our story more families and children! Okay, tanget over. I ll forward all the s to Brian for that one. Did you catch that at the end of verse 5? Did you see what the motivation for this intentional living is? Why Paul is telling the men to live mature and godly lives? Why he s calling the women to do the same? Why he s calling these young women love their husbands and children and to manage their home? SO THAT, no one will malign the Word of God. That word, malign means blasphemed, or spoken of in evil. Essentially what Paul is getting at is that it s not about us! It s just not! So often we think that if we don t cuss, if serve, is we go to church, if we read our Bible, then we ll be good with God. And Paul is like! NO! YOU RE MISSING IT! IT S NOT ABOUT YOU! IT S NOT EVEN ABOUT WHAT YOU DO, cause remember! true, genuine faith is going to produce true, genuine fruit. And your fruit is going to reveal to people who God is not who you are... So we've talked about the older men. We've talked about the older women. We've talked about the younger women. Now Paul moves to talk about the younger men. The phrase younger men here carries the idea of

13 young, new, novice. Listen to what he says. "Similarly " He's connecting, you see that, similarly or likewise "encourage the young men to be self-controlled. Paul says to the young guys, 'Hey, one thing, guys. Just get it together. Just be self-controlled. Just focus on this one thing,'" but there's more to it than that. He uses the word likewise. He's reaching back, and he's pulling in a lot of the same themes. He's pulling them right into this idea of younger men. So he says, "Younger men, you need to be self-controlled." Let me say this to you, young guys. It means if God did not expect it, then he would not have said it. He wouldn't have said it if it wasn't possible. By God's grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit, self-control actually is attainable and achievable. You'll see it's woven throughout this text four different times. Let me say this about self-control. Self-control does not mean holding onto the rope tighter. Self-control does not mean exerting more of your will to kind of white-knuckle your way through this thing. Self-control, if you remember, is a fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5. It is what flows out of a heart that's yielded to the Spirit. A heart that is submitted to Christ Himself through His Spirit is a heart that will exhibit self-control for the young and for the old. Really, as Paul is talking about self-control for the older men, the older women, the younger men, the younger women, what he's saying is a godly life is submitted to and dominated by the Spirit. That the mark of your life is that you have submitted yourself to him. He says your example in this particular case is Titus, and he says to Titus, "Hey, you are to be a model of good works. So in your teaching, teach with integrity. Teach with soundness of speech so no one can bring a

14 charge against you." He's saying to this young man, Titus, "Young man, you be an example to other young men in the church. I would say this to the young guys in our family: Rise up! It's not only the older people who have the opportunity to be an example, but to Titus right here Paul s saying, "Titus, you be an example." This idea of a model is like a heavy rock that's in the ground, it's lifted up, and it leaves an imprint you can see the form and the substance of what was there. Paul is saying to Titus, "You be that kind of man," Titus, being a young man. Speaking to young men in this church, "You be that kind of man. WHY? SO THAT! No legitimate challenge or criticism can be offered against the Christian. There s not doubt that we will be challenged, even with hostility, but Paul is calling the young men to live godly lives SO THAT those critics would ultimately be publicly ashamed and lose the respect of the people around them as their claims are found to be groundless. Notice what is missing from this list so far as he has run all the way through the church. What's missing are talents and gifts. You notice that those aren't what's on display here. He's not saying, "Chase after this guy and want to be like this guy because he's really good at football. You want to be like this guy because he's really good at music or he's really good at this or that." No, that's not what any of this is talking about. You want to be like this guy because he's godly. You want to be like this lady because she is worthy of respect. Young and old across the church, our children, our teens, are to be raised up and discipled by you. They want to emulate you. Why? Because you're lives are supposed to be worthy to follow, because your yes is your yes and your no is your no, and you know what is right and good to

15 pursue and to chase. SO THAT, others might grow in their faith. SO THAT, the gospel would be spread. There are so many students in my ministry from Jr. High all the way to our Young Adults who have not been raised in the church. They long for godly men and women to emulate, to learn from, to be invested in by. It s not about your gifts, your strengths. It s the godly character that grows from our connectedness to Jesus. And so the challenge for you and I today is take very seriously our connectedness to Jesus SO THAT we can be a model for those who are watching us. I d like to close by looking at the last few verses. Starting in verse 11, For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say No to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. What should be evident in you is the gospel of Jesus Christ, that you're a changed man at the core, that you're a changed person at the core, and there's something fundamentally different about us. What makes us different? It's none other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Pauls going to point to the past grace that rescued us (see that in verse 11) He's going to talk about the present grace that redeems us (verse 14 he gave Himself), reforms us, and renews us. He's going to talk about the future grace that reassures us (verse 13). a true gospel confession is seen in a true gospel commitment.

16 This is our hope, church. This is what makes us distinctly different. SO THAT WE CAN DO WHAT IS GOOD! What is that? Please Him with our lives! Church, we have been saved by Jesus Christ to do what is good! And so we need to commit, we need to resolve to do 2019 THIS WAY. To live our lives in pursuit of godliness. So that we can model for those who are watching, so that the lost may see the glory of God and the Truth of the gospel... SO THAT GOD MAY BE GLORIFIED! Church of the Foothills 2018