Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

We like people who are like us.

During the church growth movement of the 90’s, it became popular to say that you best reach people who are just like you.

So, the goal was to go out and find a whole bunch of people that had two kids like you and a middle class income like you and a Jack Russell like you and was a team mom like you and invite them to come to church where most of the people there would be just like you.

And, I won’t deny that there is some truth in what is being said, but I’m afraid that behind the curtain we were inevitably saying something else and letting ourselves off of the hook.

We were saying, in effect, try to reach people and share the good news with people who you are comfortable with and who you would be comfortable having in your church.

And so, we ended up with all of these cookie cutter churches that were joined together by something that was less than the obstacle-crushing gospel.

I’ve often heard it said that we are never segregated more than on Sundays, and I think that’s true.

And, it’s not just racial.

The more affluent go to one church and the lower income go to another.

The more emotional to one church, and the more intellectual to another.

And, it’s not just in separate churches.

Even within a single church, we segregate ourselves by generation.

So, the young marrieds go one way and the empty-nesters another.

Youth and children go to one end of the campus and retirees to another.

And, this can be so deeply that two people of different ages may be members of the same church family for years and never even meet one another.

Brothers and sisters, my goal this morning is to, by the power of the Holy Spirit and his word, to inspire you to have a grander dream for your friendships and relationships within the Church.

God’s Word

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Families Need Grandparents and Grandchildren

“older men....older women....younger women....younger men” This morning, we come to a passage that has meant a great deal to me and to my ministry.

About eight years ago, I was reading and meditating upon these verses, and it was like a bolt of lightning struck me in the head.

The Lord used this passage to cause me to drastically reshape my philosophy of ministry and my understanding of what the church is supposed to look like.

Most of you are probably like me in the way that you've seen the Church organized and taught.

Taking our cues partly from a secular education model and partly from our own propensity to be most comfortable around people that think like us and are in the same season of life as we are, we have organized our churches in a way that has stunted our spiritual growth and, frankly, lost some of the beauty of the gospel.

You see, here's how we are most accustomed to enjoying life within the church: We take all of the babies and we put them together.

We take all of the kids and teenagers and we put them together, organized according to their grades if we have enough.

We put in there just enough adults to referee them and to play crowd control, and honestly, we sometimes even try to find the adults that look and act most like the kids.

Then, you put the people who aren't married together, I suppose, hoping they will get married.

You put the newly married people together and the new parents together and the barely married together.

Then, you've got your empty-nesters together and your golden years classes.

And, I want you to understand that I'm not saying that there is no redeemable quality to any of that or that we should just scrap this altogether.

But, here's what is happening far too often: The only people in our church family that we know and love and teach and learn from are those who are almost just like us in every way.

So, within your circle, within your demographic, you may have some very close relationships and you may feel like family, but beyond that you don't really feel very close and a deep love for people that are younger or older than you.

So, you end up with a bunch of young folks pooling their foolishness together and a bunch of older folks pooling their regrets together.

And, yet Jesus has designed the church as she is because both of those groups need one another and has something to offer to one another.

This morning, we come to a passage that has meant a great deal to me and to my ministry.

About eight years ago, I was reading and meditating upon these verses, and it was like a bolt of lightning struck me in the head.

The Lord used this passage to cause me to drastically reshape my philosophy of ministry and my understanding of what the church is supposed to look like.

Most of you are probably like me in the way that you've seen the Church organized and taught.

Taking our cues partly from a secular education model and partly from our own propensity to be most comfortable around people that think like us and are in the same season of life as we are, we have organized our churches in a way that has stunted our spiritual growth and, frankly, lost some of the beauty of the gospel.

You see, here's how we are most accustomed to enjoying life within the church: We take all of the babies and we put them together.

We take all of the kids and teenagers and we put them together, organized according to their grades if we have enough.

We put in there just enough adults to referee them and to play crowd control, and honestly, we sometimes even try to find the adults that look and act most like the kids.

Then, you put the people who aren't married together, I suppose, hoping they will get married.

You put the newly married people together and the new parents together and the barely married together.

Then, you've got your empty-nesters together and your golden years classes.

And, I want you to understand that I'm not saying that there is no redeemable quality to any of that or that we should just scrap this altogether.

But, here's what is happening far too often: The only people in our church family that we know and love and teach and learn from are those who are almost just like us in every way.

So, within your circle, within your demographic, you may have some very close relationships and you may feel like family, but beyond that you don't really feel very close and a deep love for people that are younger or older than you.

So, you end up with a bunch of young folks pooling their foolishness together and a bunch of older folks pooling their regrets together.

And, yet Jesus has designed the church as she is because both of those groups need one another and has something to offer to one another.

Illustration: If the church is like a family, think about how it should look.

Now, I know there are exceptions, but for the most part, could you not say that very often its grandchildren and grandparents that have the most extraordinary relationships within a family.

There are things that I would tell my grandparents that I didn't feel comfortable telling my parents.

Sometimes they would even defend me!

Still some of the greatest memories of my life is sitting with my pawpaw or my nana and listening to them tell stories that seemed like they were from another country.

My kids are the same way.

Last year, we were going to take GK to Disney World to see the princesses.

Just to aggravate her, we told her that we were going to leave her with her mimi while we went, and she was like, “Okay!

Y’all be safe!”

And, in a healthy family, aren't the 50-somethings there to help and support the 30-somethings we young kids and a tense marriage?

Aren't the younger generation there to supply physical strength when the older generation needs it and the older generation there to provide wisdom and experience when the younger needs it?

Brothers and sisters, this is to be the picture of the NT church.

Families need grandparents, and families need grandchildren!

This is part of what makes a family so beautiful and so wonderful.

One of the ways that a NT church shows the beauty of the gospel is by showing how it brings so much love and so many people into our lives that we otherwise wouldn 't have known or even cared about.

And, if we always stay with people who think like us, look like us, and are the same age as us then we are conceal some of the beauty of the gospel.

Illustration: If the church is like a family, think about how it should look.

Now, I know there are exceptions, but for the most part, could you not say that very often its grandchildren and grandparents that have the most extraordinary relationships within a family.

There are things that I would tell my grandparents that I didn't feel comfortable telling my parents.

Sometimes they would even defend me!

Still some of the greatest memories of my life is sitting with my pawpaw or my nana and listening to them tell stories that seemed like they were from another country.

And, in a healthy family, aren't the 50-somethings there to help and support the 30-somethings we young kids and a tense marriage?

Aren't the younger generation there to supply physical strength when the older generation needs it and the older generation there to provide wisdom and experience when the younger needs it?

Brothers and sisters, this is to be the picture of the NT church.

Families need grandparents, and families need grandchildren!

This is part of what makes a family so beautiful and so wonderful.

One of the ways that a NT church shows the beauty of the gospel is by showing how it brings so much love and so many people into our lives that we otherwise wouldn 't have known or even cared about.

And, if we always stay with people who think like us, look like us, and are the same age as us then we are conceal some of the beauty of the gospel.

TRANSITION: I think this is exactly the picture that Paul is painting for one of his sons in the ministry, Titus.

And, I am convinced that lying behind these very words is a safe full of life-changing, grace-giving power for the life of our church.

As we look at this text together, I want us to keep kind of a bird’s eye view of what is happening.

This is a rich text that we could drill down on, but this morning, I really want us to stay zoomed out so that we can take in the big picture of what is happening.

We Need Every Generation

TRANSITION: I think this is exactly the picture that Paul is painting for one of his sons in the ministry, Titus.

And, I am convinced that lying behind these very world is a safe full of life-changing, grace-giving power for the life of our church, if only we will take this key and open it.

“so train the young women” The first thing that jumps out at us from our text is that it’s ‘intergenerational.’

And, I want you to note that I didn’t say ‘multi-generational,’ and that’s because I believe that there’s a difference.

There are a lot of churches that are ‘multi-generational’, meaning there are different generations worshipping together in the same church.

But, Paul is calling Titus to something bigger and better than that; he’s calling the Church in Crete to be ‘intergenerational.’

That is, not only attending the same church, but apart of one another’s lives.

Having each generation playing a key role in bringing Gospel good into the life of the other generations.

So, you have Titus, the pastor who is probably on the younger end, instructed to teach them all ‘sound doctrine’ and to ‘model good works’ for them.

But, the work doesn’t stop with the pastor.

Then, you have the older men mentoring the younger men, and you have the older women mentoring the younger women.

It’s easy for us to fall into self-pity and say that the other generation doesn’t need me, and it’s just easy for us to fall into self-sufficiency and to say I don’t need the other generations.

But, brothers and sisters, this is unbiblical, and this conceals the Gospel!

says, "The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."

And, you know what that means?