Believing Means Behaving

Titus chapter 2 verse 1 but as for you he writes to Titus teach what accords with sound doctrine older men are to be sober minded dignified self-controlled sound in faith in love and in steadfastness older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior not slanderers or slaves too much wine they are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled pure working at home kind and submissive to their own husband's that the Word of God may not be reviled likewise urged the younger man to be self-controlled show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works and in your teachings show integrity dignity and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say about us slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything they are to be well pleasing not argumentative not pilfering but showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age waiting for our Blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works declare these things exhort and rebuke with all authority let no one disregard you amen father as we turn to the Bible together we pray for your help that we can understand what we read that we can believe what your word says we will trust you and live for you so help us to this end we pray for Jesus sake amen the grace of God Paul writes here and Titus transforms people transforms people and it is important we recognize that he is not providing in Titus a short manual giving instruction for various segments of society to learn how to live if you like from the outside in which would just be moralism or religion but he is writing to those who have understood the grace of God in order to help us to live our lives from the inside out from the inside out the story of the Bible is essentially the story of God who puts us in his world in the garden in the enjoyment of his company and in the enjoyment of everything that he had made that was good man rebels turns his back on God and finds himself living life upside down views things in a skewed way doesn't understand God doesn't seek God isn't chasing around looking for God isn't searching out a Bible so he can understand and read the Word of God he's living life upside down the work of the gospel what Jesus has done on the cross is the story of what he has accomplished in order to put men and women right-side up and when a man or a woman comes to believe in Christ to trust in Jesus then they're upside down life is rectified and they're now standing the right way out put back by the power of Jesus they are then to live their lives from the inside out and to live in such a way that what God has accomplished in them he is now going to accomplish through them and I want you to understand this all of us to understand it but perhaps some who've come and they're wondering it would be possible I suppose to be misunderstood and for people to think that this is a kind of self-help manual that we're going through particularly this morning as it relates to various categories within the church no verse 11 is important the grace of God has appeared that grace brings salvation in verse 7 of chapter 3 he is reminding them that they have been justified by his grace becoming heirs according to the promise of eternal life and in verse 8 these are trustworthy things to be insisted on so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing good works you see the process it's absolutely crucial it's not that they're to devote themselves to doing good works so that they might be accepted by God but because they have believed in God who has provided acceptance for them in the person and work of his son the good works flow from His grace and in the context in Crete it was going to be when the people who were in these congregations lived out their lives that the gospel then would be adorned as he says that the news of the gospel which men and women by nature have no interest in and actually in many cases will really hate I was playing golf with somebody this week a man I'd never met before in fact I was playing with four men that I never met before and one of them was a believer and he went through the other three fellows he said that they were in various stages of agnosticism he said except for the gentleman over over there he is not simply agnostic he hates God and he hates anything about God well I said I suppose it's good that you have the relationship with him and that you are so markedly different because the church is always at its best when the people of God are different from the surrounding culture we have to hold on to that and understand it I don't mean different in the sense of wearing funny noses or dressing in a certain way but different because before we came to Christ we were living our lives upside down and probably living any kind of religious life from the outside in but in Jesus we've been turned the right way up and through our understanding of the gospel we've realized that this is something that has worked from the inside of me to the outside of me so that I am NOT like the religious person who is hoping to be accepted by God as a result of doing all these things and I don't have to try and tell all my friends that I'm just like them in every respect as if somehow or another they're going to like me better no it is the distinctiveness of the believers in Crete that is going to make an impact for the gospel now Paul as we saw last Sunday evening has specific instructions for Titus throughout the letter and we isolated them last Sunday evening noticing verse 1 which is directly to Titus as for you Titus teach what accords with sound doctrine then we looked at verse 7 and 8 used to show himself to be a model of good works in his teaching and with dignity and so on in soundness of speech and then in verse 15 he is to declare these things he is to exhort at least to rebuke with all authority and no one is to just don't let anybody disregard you that is the mandate of the pastor if you like that is the calling the responsibility the challenge and it is a distinct challenge that's why James says let not many of you become teachers brothers for those who teach will be judged with greater strictness and the lips of Titus are not to be in contrast to the life of Titus and what is true for him is to be true for the rest and so Paul gives instruction for these various categories of people that are in the congregation's that Titus serves these various categories of people whether they are slaves or whether they are young women young men older women are older men they're all to be taught he tells Titus so that they might understand the Indus all Yubel link between what they profess to believe and how they then in turn behave so that if you like their Creed will be revealed in their conduct that their faith is a faith of functions that their belief is then established in their behavior and you will notice that it begins with older men with older men I find it quite striking that he begins with older men and I hope you do too I think if somebody was writing in our present culture they might be tempted if they were influenced by the culture to begin with children or with teenagers because that's why you always hear that's what you read in the literature they always tell you is the children is the teenagers that are the future of the church well in one sense that is true but they're not the key to the development of the church they could never be the backbone of the church they could never be the group that is giving the wisdom necessary for the church to function as God intends who would you go to for that for maturity physical maturity spiritual maturity biblical understanding a grasp of the gospel who should be these people older men so he starts at the right spot make sure he says that the older men are sober minded dignified and self-controlled well there's a challenge to begin with isn't it sober minded keeping their heads dignified and under control every stage of life has its own peculiar challenges and its own peculiar responsibilities older men don't need the same instruction that the teenagers are going to get but older men need to be taught to live in such a way as you would expect to be becoming of senior members of the community that's why it's not a good thing when old guys try to look like young guys whether it is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees which we just were treated to here some of the geriatrics of the Rock and Roll world could barely get across the stage and most of them looked like they had borrowed other clothes I ordered some 14 year-olds closet they don't have to do that you're old you're allowed to look old why are you wearing those dumb shoes and what is that leather thing with no sleeves on it that never looked good when you were 17 and it's 60 years since you were 17 for goodness sake you're an old guy you're supposed to be dignified sober minded you say well well nothing Hippocrates in his day had the stages of a man's life in seven not dissimilar to what we find in Shakespeare and the sixth stage of life according to hypocrite ease calculations was the age between 50 and 56 so that once you got beyond 56 you were in stage seven the final stage no stages after that now I know that apparently 40 is the new 20 and all that jazz but nevertheless we understand that as in society so in the church the people of God ought to be able to expect that those mature men will display a maturity that is marked in the way that Paul intends so that they will be notice sound in faith sound in faith healthy in their faith not just coasting but growing in faith towards God in love towards others and in steadfastness in relationship to the circumstances of life which bring their own peculiar challenges at every stage now let me just mention what I see is the biggest danger in responding to this and then seeking to apply it and this is just my own personal observation I've observed that what a man is in his 30s in his 40s unless corrected by grace and held to account by his wife and his children what he is in his 30s and 40s he will be to a greater or lesser extent in his 60s and in 70s now in a trivial level if he's got if he's got the corniest jokes you've ever heard when he's 35 look out avoidin at 70 because they're still going around and they were no good then and we even worse now okay if he was our complete complainer and a whiner in his office all the time everything was half empty half empty half empty if it was half empty at 35 there's barely anything in the milk bottle at 70 trust me and when you take that in church life I've lived in church life for all of my life I've noticed that older men at the end gravitate to one of two extremes on the one hand is kind of sentimentality they sort of seem to have lost it you know they're just sort of oh yes yes it's not that grace has done anything to them they just kind of they just punched out but on the other hand is sensoria sness you know if they over here it's like oh I love it when they when the little one you know it's like get ahold of yourself for goodness sake okay and then over here it's like if these kids don't get out of here within two minutes I think I'm gonna go nuts it's always been the same in this church you know so the guys are like those two guys they're like the two guys up on the balcony and the Muppets right Waldorf and Statler just stop they're going like I can't believe that that's such a district damn ridiculous no so you need your wife to help you because you're moving in one direction or the other and to becoming a sentimental old fool or or or a really annoying disheartening critical person and the antidote to it is the grace of God but the pastor's role given to Titus here is to see to it that the older men in stage seven which is over the age of 56 our sober-minded dignified self-control and healthy in their faith in their love towards one another and in their ability to remain steadfast in face of trials and I think all of us who in Christian circles for any length of time would be able immediately to write down on the Flyleaf of our Bible the names of those who have helped us in this regard I tried it for myself I wrote down mr. Koster mr. Barun mr. Blair and mr. Cochran man who scared me when I was in my 20s because of the fact that they were both dignified and steadfast and sober minded and self-controlled and a wonderful testimony to the grace of God he goes on from there to the older women the older women are not going to be left out from the equation of course they shouldn't be because they're absolutely vital in the same way that older men have such a significant role to play in a developing congregation soda older women and the older women notice the word likewise in the same way in the same from the same perspective these women are to be reverent in behavior reverent in behavior in other words their disposition is a disposition which is developed before the searching gaze of God they are to be if you like like Ana who served in the temple at the time of the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist's and she was bowed before the greatness of God and awed by the wonder of his provision when older women are filled with those kind of things then you will find that they won't be filled with many of the other kinds of things if they do not find themselves filled with the Holy Spirit then they may decide that they should try to fill themselves up with much wine and if they fill themselves up with much wine they may find that when their tongues just rattle they become slanderers rather than those who are supporting the ministry and undergirding the gospel and so on there's a direct correlation there isn't there it's not uncommon for wine to loosen a person's tongue and once their tongue is loosed and they feel loosened feel a little bit of freedom then what may come out may not exactly be that which is commanding the gospel you see how practical this is this is not theoretical stuff this tells us something about the context in Crete if he says now when you're thinking about the older women in the church he doesn't say now the older women in the church should all make sure they're members of the choir you know make sure they do this and make sure they do that he says no the older women in the church are to be reverent towards God they're to live under the searching gaze of God and you need to make sure that they're not slanderous and they're not filled with wine in other words that they're not out of control their tongues are under control both in terms of the output and also in terms of the input in first Timothy of course he addresses it even in relationship to the matter of apparel and to the way a woman dresses and to the necessity of deportment and the necessity of that which is enhancing to a reverent perspective on God and in the same way that you see some old guys trying to dress like they're teenagers the danger is that an older woman may decide that she needs to take on the challenge of her daughter not by allowing her to be her daughter and remembering what she was herself 35 years ago but in seeking to outdo her daughter and the at the worst level of it all in our contemporary culture is the kind of Kardashian phenomenon there's to be none of that in the church know the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit is supposed to be the jewelry of the lady of deportment and externally she not to be looking forth for that now the reason this is so important is because the role of these older women in the church they must be reverent in their behavior you will notice not slanderers not given to much wine because they're to teach what is good now the teaching here is the lifestyle teaching before it is any other kind of teaching and there to teach what is good teaching by example in the home and in the community does that rule out the possibility of formalized teaching no it doesn't but it's formalized teaching what Paul has in mind here I doubt it very much indeed I don't think for a moment that when Paul wrote these words he was anticipating a classroom setting with a three-ring binder and some woman are up the front telling everybody else how this is supposed to happen I'm not saying that there isn't a place for women teaching women in that way there clearly is but I'm just suggesting to you that the calendar vascular's which is here which is a unique word in Greek is not embodying that kind of instruction where it's sold and he would have used the appropriate word he used a very interesting word so in other words how then does this instruction take place well it takes place in the everyday events of life it takes place in the casual conversations it takes place in the arranged meetings it takes place in the way in which women within a congregation rub shoulders with one another and learn from one another and give to one another and the training that is taking place of these young women is training training so in other words the picture is a not uncommon 21st century picture that of a personal trainer a personal trainer somebody who is coming alongside not now to help us lose two inches of our our waist or whatever it might be but someone who is coming alongside us in teaching us what is good let me tell you what's good here well I love this yet but it's not good well I thought I should do that yeah but it's not good and so train the younger women the place of older women in a congregation is a vital place as it is with older men that's why I'm always I know I get criticized when I talk about the people going to fossilize in Florida but the fact of the matter is there is a lot of fossilize in down in Florida and and and I say it not with a spirit of judgment why should we let's put it a disappointment I understand what that's about but but we need people here part aside needs older women that have run the race that have kept the faith that have modeled these things not to go in classrooms and wait for people to walk in but to live in such a way in the community that you will be attractive to people who are younger than you who will seek you out and who will be encouraged by you because these younger women are to be under the tutelage of the older women isn't it interesting that Titus is not told to teach the younger women he's not told to teach the younger women he's told to make sure that the older men are fine that the older women are fine but then it's not the older it's not his job to teach what is good to train the young women but it's the job of the older women to teach what is good and to train the young women bears testimony to what what Paul says to Timothy and first Timothy where he says treat the younger women as sisters and treat the older women as mothers there's great wisdom in that isn't there both in terms of moral purity in terms of not allowing your affections to wander in terms of the peculiar risks that are wrapped up in the intimacy that a younger woman may feel with a pastor with a confidant with somebody who means a great deal to that now what are these older women to teach these younger women to do what are they supposed to be doing well there are a number of couplets here and we're not gonna be able to get very far into them and I'll stop before it gets really tough tough I will have to come back to when it's tough but first of all there to teach them train them how to love their husbands and their children now we know that so well that we might not be caught off guard by it a training a training on how to love your husband but isn't this Annie Get Your Gun I mean isn't this doing what comes naturally I mean you just love us don't you ladies I mean be honest you just you need a training program to know how to love me yeah cuz I'm going to some of these older men to find out how to love you know you see when we think in terms of love we think almost inevitably on love being the victim of our emotions when an actual fight what Paul is reference here is love a love which is the servant of our wills that serves our wills because when we got married we weren't asked anything in our wedding vows about emotion unless you had somebody who let you write your own vows which should never happen if you had any sensible vows at all then you know that no one ever asked you so how do you feel about your husband today all of that feeling is anticipate assumed and anticipated and expected but those are in the questions and there's a reason those are in the questions because emotion will come and go well a band flow challenges and difficulties inevitably come so the questions are do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband to live together according God's ordinance in the special relationship of marriage we love him comfort him obey Him in sickness and in health and keep yourself only unto him so long as you both shall live answer I do I will okay you're going to need an older lady because you're not going to go very far along the road before you go hey wait a minute I didn't bargain for this when you said you were going to work hard and we were going to live in the suburbs I didn't realize that that meant you were going to leave before breakfast you were going to come home after supper you're gonna fall asleep with that jolly remote control in your hand every single night and I'm sick of this okay well hang on don't go crazy look around there'll be a lady here who's been through this she'll be able to tell you let me tell I sorted them out I can I can help you I lived through it I can help you how do you love your teenager when they've gone into I don't want to talk to you ever again in my into our life mode when they've gone into how do I ever get parents that are such idiots when they've gone into earphone mode when they're in hay talk to the hand and you just about going totally out of you're out of your box with it what are you gonna do well you can come and see a pastor and we can tell you we pray with you and everything but you need an older lady you need somebody who said you know what X and I almost despaired of Zed when he/she was let me tell you how we live through it let me tell you what we've done let me tell you how we prayed let me tell you about the grace of God let me encourage you and what about the tiniest ones you bring your baby home from the hospital you don't even like it doesn't happen routinely but it does happen right it's called postpartum depression who's gonna help you with that what do you need a three-ring Biotek binder no you need an arm around your shoulder you need tender eyes and a lady that understands you need compassion you need an encouragement you need everything that you can get from the embrace of a woman who is not theoretical but is able to be there for you you see Paul is not instituting a program here he is describing a life here he's describing the way in which ministry inter-related ministry and the church is supposed to take place it's not programmatic it is relational it is as a result of knowing people it is a result of being able to open up to people it is a result of being able to say or for the older woman to take the initiative as she sees the person they've got three under the ages of four and the mother looks as though she's just about to make a run for Finley Ojai or somewhere just and and just leave them all behind and you don't have to come up and go you know oh I see you're having great difficulty here use it just come up and say hey come here and and come on let's get a coffee let's I can help you with this a training program for loving husbands and your children now I've lived through this what do you do when you're overwhelmed in three-and-a-half thousand miles from home and your husband's a pastor he's not paying any attention to you well then you need Mary Mary Lindsey it's all very tender so very real it's so very biblical now what Paul is actually unearthing you see is the nature of life itself within the community here are all these people from Crete the chrétien the context is so anti-christian and he's saying to them listen you better make sure that you find in Christ and in one another the relationships that will not only sustain you as you seek to follow Christ but also as you live your lives with one another our time is gone and so we'll stall but it gets it gets more even more daunting into this we will return not only to train the young women to love their husbands and children but also to be self-controlled and pure and to be working at home and kind now that phrase is liable to start a fire in an age of feminist activism are we going to really take this seriously remember what we said at the beginning the church is at its greatest not when it is embraced the culture and is able to show oh yeah we just believe the same thing about you about the nature of family life we believe everything you believe about raising children this is what we do as well yeah we're the day care generation know when they actually say to the culture we actually don't believe these things boy that's a bit of a change isn't it now the gospel takes on a different look for people then they're going to want to know well why would you ever do that and you can say oh it's cuz of this old lady in our church she's the problem she's responsible she started me on this it had never crossed my mind until I began to meet with her for coffee well we'll come back to this let's pray Lord God in heaven we are walking along in our life's day passes day every stage of life brings its own challenges and responsibilities and we long that in our lives and in our homes and in this church here that you will be glorified in everything and we want to pray to that end I've made a grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God our Father and the fellowship of the holy spirit rest upon and remain with all who believe now and forevermore amen

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 29,673

Rating: 4.9203539 out of 5

Keywords: obedience, biblical womanhood, biblical manhood

Id: lB03sAG4f9A

Length: 35min 11sec (2111 seconds)

Published: Thu May 24 2012