Men and Women of the Faith2

Since today is Father’s Day, I thought it would be worth our while to consider the role fathers play in our lives. It is wise on Father’s Day to thank fathers for providing for us, teaching us, for caring for us, for putting up with us! It is good, and right for us to honour our fathers! Most of us have been blessed by having good fathers. We acknowledge that this isn’t always the case. And yet, what I have observed in ministry is that while no father is perfect, and even though some fathers are very far from perfect, God still grants a blessing that is passed down from father to child.

As we dig into Titus 3, it is important to remember God’s plan for wives and husbands, dads and moms. In Genesis, before humanity fell into sin, we learn that a husband and a wife work together. A husband is the provider and protector of his wife and his wife is a suitable helper for her husband. What this means is that they work together, complementing one another’s roles, responsibilities, and gifts. God designed husbands and wives—working in concert with each other. And we see this in the passage in Titus as well.

Created to Do Good Works

In the beginning, God created men and women in his image, created to do good works. Together, as husbands and wives, as single men and women, as the community of believers, we demonstrate God’s moral character, his rule, his justice, his truth, his life, wherever we are. God intended us to care for the earth, to encourage it to flourish and produce food for ourselves, for everyone.

God created us to love Him and others. We demonstrate this love by keeping his commandments. We love him by serving him alone, by not bowing down to idols, by honouring His name, by keeping the new Sabbath in Christ by refraining from sin. We love others by honouring our fathers and mothers—not just on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, by keeping the faith they have passed down to us, by passing the same faith down to our children. We protect life, we honour men and women as God’s creation, not as objects of personal satisfaction, by telling the truth, always, by working hard so that we can provide and share with others, and finally, by being content with what the Lord provides.

All of this, really, is done when we approach life in a sober-minded way. Why does Paul write to Titus to exhort younger men to be sober-minded? It is because young men (and women) are apt to being hotheaded, unconcerned, impetuous and thoughtless. Young men in particular rarely take the time to think things through, that is, taking time to be sober-minded.

It only takes a minute online to come across examples of impetuousness lack of sober-mindedness. Indeed, there are entire YouTube channels dedicated to illustrating this point.

As older men in the church, as fathers in our families, we are to encourage young men to think before they act! This means sitting them down, occasionally, presenting them with real-life scenarios, and asking them to think about the consequences in the short term, mid term and long term.

You can apply this technique in many different scenarios: “Dad, I’m going to buy a car.” “Okay, what kind of car?” “Something fast and furious.” “Alright, let’s begin with a few questions. “When are you going to get your license? How much money are you tithing to God? How much money have you saved for college, for a down payment on a house, for other things you anticipate owning in the future? How many hours are you working, and how much can you afford? How much will your insurance cost? How much will it cost to operate your vehicle, fuel, maintenance, etc.?” “Oh, I hadn’t thought about all that. I guess I’m not ready to buy a car yet. Can you help me figure out a budget?”

These questions help young men be sober minded. This is faith in action. Faith, good works done in gratitude for salvation in Christ, look like this, everyday conversations about everyday things, but with a Bible focus. The Bible is constantly drawing us up out of the immediate, and into the long-term.

These are the everyday activities of life. Sometimes, when we read the Bible, it is easy to forget that the people we read about are exceptional ones, by and large. We read so much about Moses, Aaron and Miriam. But what about the average Joe? What about the thousands of Israelites whose names aren’t even listed in Bible, but who were important nonetheless, being numbered in the book of Numbers?

What does it look like to be an ordinary Christian, doing important, ordinary things for God, for our families, for our congregation, for our community?

These are the pattern of good works that men are to show themselves to be, in being obedient and faithful.

Obedient and Faithful

Obedience and faithfulness flow out of sound doctrine, as we saw back on Mother’s Day. Sound doctrine produces faithful living, is evidence of faithful living.

It means knowing the Bible, knowing what God commands, knowing how to put such commands into practice. Jesus’ sermon on the mount is a clear teaching on God’s law, as it is meant to be understood. Jesus cuts through all the corruption that had come from the Pharisees—that still comes from those who have Pharisaical tendencies—and He zeroes our faith into what needs to be understood, and it puts things into perspective.

Then, James, Jesus’ brother, takes Jesus’ sermon on the mount and applies it to everyday living, in his book. I strongly encourage you to read those two books together. I’m sure it wouldn’t even take you an hour this afternoon. Then consider Jesus’ teaching, his sound doctrine, and then consider James’ teaching, his sound living.

See how out of the two, we get integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, and sound speech. Let’s briefly look at those things. Integrity isn’t valued as much today as it once was, even in the church! Consider how many people have turned their backs on what they once proclaimed and have deconstructed their faith. Consider how many pastors have had to leave their pulpits due to scandal.

Didn’t people see the cracks before? Didn’t they wonder, "What is going on? What are they hiding? They turned a blind eye, largely because they loved what they saw, the big flashy church stuff, they liked the fame and notoriety, more than they liked seeing Christian character and integrity. We live in an instant gratification world. And Christians are prone to sinstant gratification, if we don’t practice integrity. Take a stand, and don’t move from it.

Reverence flows out of integrity. Reverence is holding something so valuable, that you will not compromise yourself by turning to another. We are not yet made perfect, so we struggle with this, but even after we sin, we keep turning back. We repent, and revere God, again and again, and again, recognising that He is worthy, he is our everything.

Incorruptibility is something we cannot manufacture. It is something placed in us by the Holy Spirit. Every moment of every day, we are enticed to become corrupt. Embracing incorruptibility means choosing to avoid corruptibility, by walking in step with the Holy Spirit, He sits us down, much like a father to his son, and brings sober-mindedness to table. The Holy Spirit invites us to think this through, he asks, will this bring you eternal joy? No? Then don’t do it!

Sound speech is hard in our day and age. It is not merely the words we say, it is the words we write. Consider blogs, and comments, and tweets and posts, Snapchats and Tiktoks, you name it. What are you communicating about yourself? Do you look like Jesus, or do you look like the world? When brought to trial, no one, not one person was able to corrupt Jesus’ speech. They could not find two witnesses to condemn Jesus. Think about what you say, and be sober-minded. Ask questions, is this gossip, is this slander, does this build up the other person, or does it build up me? Does this encourage, or discourage. Is a godly attitude being shown?

When in the world, consider your thoughts, words and actions. Ask the Holy Spirit to temper your emotions. How will you respond in situations, will it be with grace, or with self-righteous indignation. This means considering others as better than yourself. Consider your words and actions, so that even an opponent will be ashamed, for they will have nothing to hold against you.

Watch what you say, don’t steal. We live in a world shaped by Robin Hood. This has led to people thinking they are entitled to taking more than their wage, whether by laziness, or by taking things from their employers, etc. Don’t do it. Show faith, trustworthiness, truth. Such things adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour.

Deny Ungodliness

While demonstrating obedience and faithfulness, we simultaneously deny ungodliness. The grace of God that brings salvation produces sanctification. Jesus Christ, by dying on the cross, bought our salvation, once and for all. We are saved.

But, you may have noticed, if not in yourself, then certainly in others, that sin still happens. People sin against God and against you, and you sin against God and others. This is because, while we are perfectly saved, we are not yet perfectly, or completely sanctified.

Sanctification is the process of becoming more holy, set apart, more and more like Jesus. One day, when Christ returns and makes all things new, we will be holy. We will be unable to sin. But until that happens, we are already holy, but not fully holy. We are able to sin, and we, through Christ in us, are able to not sin. We can choose, in the Spirit, to turn, to deny, to reject, to walk away from ungodliness.

This means we first get our thinking right. Again, we see that in denying ungodliness, we turn from worldly lusts, those are the natural desires of the flesh, the things that are good in proper contexts, such as marriage, but are not good and proper outside of marriage. We need to live soberly, thoughtfully, consistently, intellectually, looking at the long game, not just immediate gratification. We are to live righteously, that is, rightly focussed on all the right things that God has laid out in his Word, in his law. For those things that he has commanded are for our protection, for our benefit, so that we can get the most out of this life. It is for our good, yes, but also for the good of others. In order to live righteously and godly in this present ages, we need to know what God commands us. We need to know God’s Word. And knowing God’s Word makes us zealous for Good Works.

Zealous for Good Works

God created us to do good works. But there is a very, very important aspect to this fourth point. God calls us to be zealous for good works.

Now, what were the Pharisees known for? They were known for being zealous for good works. What are traditionalists, conservatives, legalists known for? They are known for being zealous for good works.

But all those have a negative connotation to them. So, how to we avoid being traditionalists, legalistic, conservative, pharisees? We do it by keeping our focus, our attention in the right place.

We think back to the two tables of the Ten Commandments. Who benefits from our observance of the first four? God does. Who benefits from our observance of the second six? Our neighbours do. So, in our zeal for good works, where is our focus? It is first on God, and then on neighbour.

What is the failing of Pharisees, traditionalists and legalists? Their focus is on self, proving one’s righteousness, proving one’s zeal, proving one’s good deeds. They do things so that people make much of them. They do what they do, with all zeal and determination, to make much of themselves, not God. The point to themselves and say, “See how faithful I am? See how good I am? They are great at creating an image of faithfulness, but rarely is it more than skin deep.

In contrast, when you are zealous for doing good deeds, prepared in Christ Jesus for you to do, keep your attention focused on the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. By doing things for his glory, you are keeping your focus on Him! You are keeping God as your first priority, your neighbour as your second priority, and yourself third.

This Father’s Day, we honour our Father in heaven, we honour our earthly fathers, thanking God for them. Those of us who are fathers, or uncles, or men of the church, we seek to honour God by being men of faith, loving God, loving our children, our nieces and nephews, the young people in church, by teaching them the faith. Amen.