Titus 2:1-2:10 (Gospel Culture)
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Paul had just finished writing to Titus concerning the false teachers that were disrupting the church at Crete
They were mouthy liars who were lazy and were only motivated by money.
This led the people of Crete to listen to the words of men, popular culture, and just about anything other than God’s Word.
Their teachings contaminated the minds and hearts of the people.
Paul now lines out the life that Christians are to live—They are to pursue a different life than the false teachers taught.
They’re called to live consistently with sound teaching.
He defines essential characteristics of godliness in Christians of all ages.
1 But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
Old age is often associated with such things as maturity, wisdom, and patience.
This isn’t always the case.
Sometimes, it brings decreased energy, diminished vision and hearing, aches and pains.
Change becomes harder to accept, things are less satisfying. It’s easier to become a creature of habit.
For Christians, however, old age should bring a deeper love for God and for the people of God!
A church should value those who have spent many years in fellowship with Jesus, in study of His Word, and service to His church!
They have a lot of wisdom we hope to have one day.
Multi-generational church
It would be easy for a younger man like Titus to misunderstand or neglect the older members of his congregation.
“I want a church of young people!”
If we focus on that, we’ll fizzle out because one day, none of the young people would be welcomed because young people eventually become? Old people!
A church needs both old and young, and both should minister and serve one another!
God’s grace enables us to bride the generation gaps within the Church!
The older men are to conduct themselves with very similar qualities as the elder (1:7-9)
Men, we need you on the team.
Not just men—elder-qualified men.
Regardless if you serve as an elder/leader or not, men ought to be qualified to serve in those roles.
Many churches have a deficiency in elder-qualified men.
The church does not need men who can look strong.
Just because you have muscles, a beard, can drive and have a job does not make you a man.
The church needs Christian men to actually be strong
Strong in marriage
Strong in parenting
Strong at work
Not strong in toxic ways
Truly, Biblically strong.
Men who care for their own souls
Keep close watch over themselves
Sober-minded, self-controlled
Humility—Seeing where they’re weak, admitting where and when they’re wrong.
Community—Being vulnerable enough to admit that they need other men in their lives to help.
3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
Women are just as important as the men because God has given you gifts to serve the church.
Older women tend to get the bad wrap.
You’re more than just casserole makers.
This passage does not limit women to working at home day cares.
What does it teach?
This passage is a call to discipleship
It isn’t sinful to work outside?
Absolutely not.
Elizabeth Elliot wrote an article in 1997 titled, “Where Are the WOTTs?”
She wrote the article after speaking to a group of pastor’s wives and realizing that 80% were working outside the home.
How in the world are women supposed to go to work and be expected to raise children, clean the house, and love their husbands?
What do these young women need?
Older women who have time and have been there.
My own life has been blessed by having, first and foremost, a godly mother who was always there. She stayed home. She raised six children, and she set for us a holy example of femininity, self-discipline, discipline (An 18-inch switch lay on the lintel of the door of every room in the house.), humor, and love. I have also been greatly blessed by spiritual mothers—older women who happened to be there geographically when my mother was not, women who had time for me. They would not have thought of themselves as spiritual mothers. They were simply being kind to a young woman who needed their example, their steadfastness, their godly counsel, their prayers. I have called such women WOTTs: Women of Titus Two
-Elizabeth Elliott
I was not discipled by one person.
I was discipled by the Church.
It was older couples who served me as mothers and fathers in the faith
They let me sit at their tables, they fed me
They let me listen to how they speak to one another
They let me pray with them
They let me drink coffee with them
They talked about the Bible with me
They told me stories of God’s faithfulness to them
What do these tired, young momma’s need? Spiritual mommas.
We live in a culture that has no idea how to do marriage, parenting, work-worth-while.
Verse 4 says “teach what is good so as to train”
Teach them what it means to be a Christian
Teach them what it looks like to follow Jesus
This passage just called you to discipleship
For what purpose? “that the word of God may not be reviled” (v. 5)
Back to Gospel-Doctrine
Don’t think that age makes limits you in the Kingdom.
Discipling young women is a crucial part of our church.
6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
Young men, model what I said of the old men.
What do young men become? Old men.
Be students of godly, older men.
Most of us may not have had healthy, godly role models.
Attach yourself to a man that’s following Jesus and loves his wife and children.
Young men need godly mentoring.
Without it, males naturally revert back to mother-child relationship and what happens is the young women are now raising an overgrown child.
We get stuck in adolescence, where we can go to work, grow big muscles, and grow facial hair but our minds are still in middle school
There’s science behind this!
Having no idea how to lead a home, love a woman, or raise a generation.
Young men, we need discipled toward Jesus.
Not all mentoring is good.
We don’t need males stuck in adolescence teaching the future leaders of our church.
1 Corinthians 13:11 “11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”
We need another man to talk to and reinforce our maleness and help us be better husbands and fathers.
We need godly men to teach us what it looks like to love and follow Jesus.
We need older men to hold us accountable when we don’t represent the gospel well!
When we do and say stupid things.
Young men, we need to strive to look like Jesus and we need the help of older, godly men to do it.
Young men, attach yourself to older, godly men.
Older, godly men, step up.
Christians don’t retire.
You don’t put 20 years into a church and get to coast in the back row.
Get on the field!
9 Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
This is not the same slavery that the United States held to.
In the first century, 1/3 persons in Rome and 1/5 elsewhere was a slave.
Exalting Jesus in 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus Servant Evangelism: A Biblical Perspective on Slavery (Titus 2:9–10)
A person could become a slave as a result of capture in war, default on a debt, inability to support and “voluntarily” selling oneself, being sold as a child by destitute parents, birth to slave parents, conviction of a crime, or kidnapping and piracy. Unlike the slavery that arose in the Americas in the 1600s, slavery in the ancient world was racially indiscriminate, cutting across racial, social, and national lines. As
More often than not, people voluntarily “sold themselves” to settle a debt.
They would work their debt off to freedom.
We sell ourselves to an employer for 40 hours per week to receive a paycheck.
Paul’s point here is that ultimately, we are servants of God.
Working hard is an honorable thing, not for your own reputation as a hard worker, but because our hard work honors the Lord as King.
Colossians 3:23-24 “23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”
We want to work hard for this employer, help this employer, honor this employer, because to do so is to honor and exalt the name of Jesus.
Are there exceptions to this? Of course!
If there is unbiblical, illegal, unethical, or immoral issues, get out!
Outside of these, our goal is to submit to King Jesus in every way.
Titus 2:10 (ESV)
10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
There’s a goal here: “so that”!
All of this stems from gospel doctrine (v. 1)
We live as if the Bible is the true authority over our lives.
We live as if God has transformed us through His Word!
There is no “I love Jesus, but I still know how to party like a rockstar”
There is no “I love Jesus, but I can still get down”
It’s not, “I’m a Christian but I still”
I want to devote all of my life to Jesus.
I heard a Christian say something this week that lit a fire under me: “I’m saved, but I keep a little bit of the devil to give me some spice.”
What!?
That ideology elevates our sin to be fun!
This makes Jesus look dull and boring—So not true!
In Jesus’ presence there is fullness of joy! (Psalm 16:11)
You need both feet to follow Jesus.
You can’t have one saved foot and one dead in sin
You can’t have one foot following Jesus and one foot hanging over the cliff to hell.
Conclusion and application
Conclusion and application
Christians ought to live like gospel doctrine is true
Christians ought to live like gospel doctrine is true
At our last worship gathering, we learned that we have to believe every true thing about Jesus.
The Bible gives us the sound doctrine it commands us to have!
But it’s more than head knowledge!
It must be life-transformational!
Our lives are not to remain as they were before we started following Jesus.
Some people have been hurt by Christians who did not according to the gospel.
“When I get to heaven, then I will behave like Jesus wants me to”
Christian, we get to live in the Kingdom now!
Jesus said that the Kingdom is already here with us!
We get to live as citizen’s of God’s Kingdom now!
Luke 17:20-21 “20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.””
Jesus came to bring the Kingdom to us now! Not just in the future!
Jesus died so that we can be set free from the bondage sin holds us in!
He rose that we can live in the Kingdom!
The Kingdom is more than a place, it’s a people!
“The Church isn’t a building, it’s a people”
The Kingdom of God is His rule and reign over His creation and His people!
It’s so much more than what we could imagine.
It’s life with Jesus.
What our passage today taught us is to lead people toward life in the Kingdom.
I want to invite you into this
You have a place in the Kingdom of God and here at Graceland Church!
If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, you can be today!
There’s so much life to be had in the Kingdom of God.
Not rules/moralism
But freedom from sin.
Life with the Church.
Joy in Christ.