Training Each Other for a Christian Life

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We’re going to be in Titus chapter 2 this evening. Titus chapter 2, just going along through this book. And last week we talked about the difficulty that Titus was going to have, that Paul pointed out, that Titus would have in trying to minister in Crete, because I tried to explain to you, and hopefully got the point across, about Crete being one of those places where we would not volunteer and say, oh, send me, send me.

Well, we might today because it’s one of the Greek islands. It’s like a Mediterranean paradise, if I’m thinking of the right island. They’ve shown things on the Travel Channel and such, and people paid big bucks to go there.

But as far as back in that day with the people being so rough, it wasn’t necessarily the choice assignment. And so Titus would have some difficulties in dealing with the people. But, you know, even in good circumstances, ministry can be difficult because you’re dealing with people.

I told one of the parents Friday as we were leaving, I said, you know, school would be so much easier without the kids, without the students. And I say that because a preacher friend told me, ministry would be so much easier without all the people. That’s true.

If ministry was just me in a room with my books, I mean, that would be no trouble at all. But, you know, we’re all people, and we all cause each other problems, and we all deal with it, and we learn to love each other and get along, and that’s just part of it. But Titus was going to have his hands full with the people on Crete, and sometimes even when people would come to be a part of the church, even when people would become Christians and come to be part of the church, there were going to be difficulties, and our lives don’t become perfect just because we become Christians.

Everything doesn’t suddenly start going our way. We’ve talked about this some in recent weeks. And so there are going to be things that Titus was going to need to do and to be able to work at to prepare his people to continue on living as Christians in a society, especially theirs, but it really applies in any society, where the prevailing culture is against what they’re teaching.

The prevailing culture is saying, no, do this instead. This is more fun. Go make your decisions.

Live your life. do what you want. And the Bible teaches not to keep us from having fun, but the Bible teaches we’re supposed to, as Christians, live our lives a certain way.

Again, not because God wants to spoil our fun, but because God designed us and knows what’s best for us and knows that sin is destructive to us. And so the church is sort of given a commission, and Titus is given a commission in overseeing this, in training fellow believers for what it means to live a Christian life. I was sort of thinking on this yesterday morning.

I was driving to my grandmother’s house. We go over there for breakfast every Saturday. And I was listening to the radio, and they were talking about some things that have changed over the last 30 years.

And one thing that they mentioned out of this whole list that really stuck with me was they were talking about Blockbuster, the video chain. And it didn’t stick with me because I ever went there much. I probably went five times my whole life.

Maybe lots of people only going five times their whole life is why it’s not open anymore. But they said that Blockbuster Video started 30 years ago. I guess they were talking about the end of 2014.

Started 30 years ago. And at one point they were up to 6,000 stores, 8,000 stores, 9,000, somewhere in there. I don’t remember the exact number.

But just a few years ago, do you remember back, that was huge. The video rental business. And now I’m thinking, that got me to thinking, I don’t know offhand where you can go rent movies.

I mean, you can go to those little red box kiosks. Maybe you’ve seen those. You swipe your card, it comes out.

But as far as a video store, I don’t know if you can. I don’t personally know of any place offhand close to my house where I could just run down the street and rent a video or DVD. Not just talking about VHS here.

And it occurred to me how much things have changed, because I remember just a few years ago, that was a huge thing, and the technology changed, and now you can stream videos over the Internet. You can have your computer hook into your TV, and it’s just right there. And how people my age tend to not even have cable anymore, because we watch TV through the Internet, and I do that.

A lot of people my age don’t have landline cell phone, or landline telephones. See, I can’t even say phone without saying cell before it. Because the cell phone technology has changed.

And I remember a few weeks ago them talking on the radio about toll-free numbers and how is there really a point to it because so many of us have cell phones and we have nationwide, free, long distance. For most people, there’s no point to a toll-free number because we can call toll-free anyway. And just thinking about all these things that technology has changed, and I would hate to be in business today because it used to be things changed over decades and over centuries, and your business model might work for 50 years.

It might work for 100 years. Now things are changing so fast, if you don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, you could be out of business next week and not even realize it. And just thinking about all the things that have changed.

And it got me to thinking about schools and kids doing school online. And I finished my degree at OU online. I went for part of my time on campus and decided I don’t like this and finished it up online and did it that way.

I thought, I hope that doesn’t make my job at the school obsolete one of these days. And then I got to thinking about church. You know how many people go to church online, if we can use that phrase?

There are a lot of people who stay home, and this used to be the case. I remember my grandmother used to stay home and watch Charles Stanley on the couch, and she did her church for the week. But there are people who attend church online.

I don’t know how you attend church online, and maybe I’m not as with it as other people in my generation. But I’m part of this church, and the churches sometimes will gear it toward this and say, yeah, you’re part of us. We can discuss things online, and you can watch a video of the service.

And I’ve got no problem with services being online. I’ve put my audio of my sermons online for years, usually much later, so it’s not like you’re going to know what’s going on today if you weren’t here and listened to it on the computer. But people will go to church online.

and I got to thinking about that. And there are some things that, no matter how much technology changes, that a computer will never accomplish. A computer can change the way we watch videos.

A computer can change the way we do schooling. A computer can change the way we order our food. You can now go online and order food from Chick-fil-A and have it ready to pick up.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m guessing this is a really good thing. But you can go online and do all sorts of things, but there are some things that technology will never change, and one of those is how we interact, how we learn from one another. You know what?

You can have some really good discussions online, and you can have some really good discussions through an online church group, but I don’t see any day coming, ladies and gentlemen, where we’re going to be so plugged into technology that somebody over the internet is going to be able to give you a pat on the back when you need it. I don’t see a day when somebody’s going to be able to come and put their arm around you when your world is falling apart. I don’t see a day where somebody’s going to come pull you aside and say, why don’t you participate in this ministry with me?

More than typing. Yes, more than typing. Folks, part of being the church is being together.

Not just gathering together on Sundays. If that was all it was, if all the church was about was to come together and hear sermons and sing songs, we could very easily stay home and do that from our computers. But that’s just the Sunday worship service.

That’s not the church. The church is this body. The church is the way this body works together.

The church is the way this body encourages each other. It’s the way we care for one another. It’s the way we challenge one another and grow together.

And you can’t do that sitting behind a screen. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing wrong with technology. I think it’s great, but it can’t replace the human interaction in so many areas, and especially not the church.

We are supposed to, as members of a church, any church, we are supposed to be part of each other’s lives. There’s supposed to be real fellowship there. And you can have discussion, and you can have shared experiences over a computer, but you can’t have fellowship.

Fellowship takes place when we’re together, and not just on Sunday. when you’re involved in each other’s lives throughout the week. As we go to the passage in Titus chapter 2, why is he talking about Redbox and ordering online a Chick-fil-A?

Because we’re talking about this concept of us being together and growing as a result of being together. And there are some things that I don’t care how far society progresses. I don’t care how far technology progresses.

There are some ways that the church will never outgrow the things that we’ve been supposed to be doing for 2,000 years. It’s just never going to happen. God designed the church to work in a certain way because he knew there were some things about being human and some things about our needs and our spiritual needs in this world that are never going to change until he retires.

So we go to Titus 2, starting in verse 1. It says, But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. The things that Titus was supposed to teach are those which become sound doctrine.

And it doesn’t mean they turn into. Like I can, don’t take this the way, not that any of you are thinking this, but don’t take this the way, I believe it’s, please don’t take this bad either. I cannot remember if it’s Hitler or Bill Clinton.

And some of you may have voted for the man, so that’s why I say don’t take this bad. I’ve just heard it attributed to both and I honestly don’t remember which one said it. that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.

Now, I don’t know which one said it, so either of those. Don’t take it this way, that you can speak unsound doctrine long enough, you can speak heresy long enough, wrong teaching long enough, and eventually it becomes sound doctrine. That’s not what he’s saying here at all, that you can just repeat something wrong long enough until it becomes right.

Think of what people used to say. Oh, that hairdo is very becoming. It fits you.

It suits you. So, in other words, speak the things that are suitable to sound doctrine. Speak and teach and proclaim the things that are true to God’s word, is what he means by speak thou the things which become sound doctrine.

And teach things that go alongside of it. There are things that the church is supposed to teach and train our people that are not necessarily doctrine, but come out of biblical doctrine and are compatible with biblical doctrine. And what I’m talking about here is what he covers in the next few verses about how we live our lives.

Now, how I act, what my attitude is, is not necessarily a doctrinal issue. It’s a heart issue. Now, I’m not saying it’s totally unconnected to doctrine, but you’ll notice we have a church covenant and we have a doctrinal statement.

There’s your difference. The doctrinal statement where it discusses what we believe about God, what we believe about the Trinity, about the scriptures, about heaven, about hell, about all that, that’s doctrine. And how we live is a separate thing, but connected to doctrine as well.

We live our lives a certain way, and we talk about that in the church covenant, I will behave this way, I will do this, and that comes as a result of what we believe. And so the two things are different, but he ties them in here together and says, Teach your people things that are compatible with sound doctrine. Teach them to live the right way as a result of believing the right things.

And there are a lot of things that we can teach and profess and say we believe. And I feel like I’ve talked about this a lot and it’s not on purpose. It’s not because I think you’re doing anything wrong.

It’s just because I’m working through this book and here it is. But we can say and profess to believe a lot of things. And we can be completely right in our doctrine and our lives not match up with it.

And guess what the world sees? Guess which makes a bigger impact on people? And so it’s important that we learn and that we teach things that become sound doctrine, things that fit, that are suitable to the things that we believe.

And so he says that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. You’ll notice a lot of these are the same as what he gives us the qualifications for the elders. It’s not exactly the same, but some of these are the same words.

That’s because the elder, because the pastor, is not the only one in the church who is supposed to live a godly life. He’s not up on a pedestal, well, he’s the godly one. No, no, no. Yes, all believers.

All believers are supposed to live godly lives. Pastor just has a little added responsibility with it. Held to a higher standard, but that doesn’t mean that everybody else who’s not a pastor gets off scot-free and can do whatever they want.

He says here the aged men should be sober, should be grave, be temperate. That word sober, we know what that means. It means self-control.

We could take it to its literal definition in our day and age that is not a drunkard. And the reason for that is because somebody who’s drunk is not in control of their faculties. The alcohol is in control of their faculties.

So he’s talking about men being self-controlled, being grave, means to be serious. Now that doesn’t mean that we have to be serious all the time. It doesn’t mean we can never take a joke.

But there are things that are serious matters that need to be treated as serious matters. And part of being an adult, part of being one of the aged men in the church, is knowing when to treat things as a serious matter. Do not even get me started on the tendency in our world today to expect men, especially, I’d say all adults, but men especially, are not only expected but encouraged to act like teenagers well into their 40s.

And we wonder why our families are going down the tubes. Some men need to grow up. And I say this, not that any of you in here have anything to do with that, but it’s just some men need to grow up in our churches and in our society and start being grave and knowing what things to take seriously and start acting like it.

And it wouldn’t be fitting in the church to have men who are of an age where everybody looks at them for wisdom and for example, and they’re running around like teenagers. Temperate. It means in control of our temper.

When it talks about the qualifications for an elder, it says not a striker. Well, yeah, you don’t want somebody who goes out and beats people all the time. You want somebody, again, who is self-controlled.

And he says, Titus, you need to teach the aged men to act this way, to be sober, brave, temperate, sound in faith. that what they believe about God is correct, that not only they believe the right things doctrinally, but they also take God and his word. They have faith in God, in charity, in patience.

We should be generous. We should be patient people. And he says, these are the things that you need to teach your elder men to be.

Not elder in the sense of the office, but the grown men of the congregation. He says in verse 3, the aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness. There’s that word, becometh again.

Things that are fitting. Things that if you were to say, oh, she’s a holy person. Okay?

Do the actions go along with it? Do they become holiness? Not false accusers.

Not given to much wine. Teachers of good things. You know what?

I have seen this. I have seen this in churches. Not in this one, thank goodness.

But I have seen this in churches. Some of the older women get together and decide to start talking about things that they think they’ve seen, and this thing about false accusations. I saw once where an older lady in the church accused two other people in the church of having an affair who were not having an affair, because I sat them both down and talked to them about it at length, not having an affair, and yet just making the false accusation tore everything apart for months, and not just affairs.

I’ve seen false accusations in church and gossip, if we can use that word, just tear things apart. And usually, please don’t think, ladies, that I’m singling you out because of age or gender, because young men have our own issues to deal with. But usually when it’s happened in church that I’ve seen, it’s been this group that he talks about.

And so he says, teach them to behave as becomes holiness. not false accusers, not given to much wine. Hear that?

You hear that? No, I’m not falsely accusing anyone. But he says not given to much wine.

You don’t want the older ladies of the church who are supposed to be setting an example sloshing as they walk down Main Street. You want them in control of themselves. Teachers of good things.

Teachers of good things. You know what? A lot of women have the wrong idea that they can’t be used in the church.

because the Bible does teach very clearly that men are supposed to be pastors and teachers of the congregation. And so a lot of women have concluded, well, God can’t use me. That is absolutely false.

God has given ladies an incredible capacity to be used of him, to teach one another and to teach the next generation especially. And I firmly believe the old saying that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world because the people who grow up and are going to be the ones in power and leadership and influence tomorrow have got to learn how the world works somewhere, and whoever teaches them how the world works has tremendous influence over what they do. And their accomplishments are the accomplishments of the ones who raised them.

And so he says they need to be teachers of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet. That’s often a difficulty among younger ladies. To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

He says here in verse 3, talking about teachers of good things, ties into verses 4 and 5, and says that the older ladies of the church have this tremendous ability to influence the ones who come up behind them. They have an incredible amount of influence on the direction of the church and the families in the church just by their relationships with the young mothers of the church who are going to help point their families in the right direction, point their children in the right direction, teach them how to love their husbands and their children, and to do what they’re supposed to. It says that the word of God be not blasphemed.

Because when the young people, and I never know how to classify myself in this, because I’m a young person chronologically. I’m not even 30, but I will be before this year is out. And so chronologically, I’m a young person, but I was 80 when I was 8 years old.

So I never know which category I fall into, to be quite honest. But when the young people have no direction, when the young people of the church or the community have no direction, it leads to all sorts of problems. And especially when it takes place in a church and sin runs rampant because of what the young people are doing left to their own devices, then the Word of God is blasphemed. And the world outside looks and says, look at how all those Christians behave. They’re just like the rest of us.

Sometimes they’re even worse. And the only guys that. .

. There’s a verse in Proverbs that says where there’s no vision, the people perish. I’ve spent a lot of time studying that verse trying to get at what it really means.

When you go back to the Hebrew, it means where there’s no revelation, where there’s no instruction, the people run amok. Now, it’s been taught that where there’s no sight of where we’re going, the people die. Not exactly the case.

Where there’s no godly wisdom and instruction, the people run amok, they do their own thing. And guess what God’s plan was for godly instruction for the young? Not just to be left to their own devices, not just to be left to figure it out on their own.

is the older people in the church. They’re supposed to train them and guide them and lead them the way they’re supposed to go. Now I don’t say this to put you on a guilt trip and say, oh, what have we done?

We’ve done a horrible job. No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying this to encourage you.

Because we live in a society that sort of rejects the wisdom of older people. Sort of rejects really the contribution of older people to society. It says, well, if you’re not 25 to 34 we don’t care about what you think about our or anything else.

They want young dollars. They want young people. And I’m here to tell you, God intended for his church to be a mix of people, and you cannot have a healthy, well-balanced church without older people to bring godly wisdom and keep the younger people in line.

And so I say all this to you not to shame you and say, oh, what have you done? This is what you’re supposed to be doing and you’re not. I’m telling you, yes, you may have, there may be younger people who come to this church sometimes and you’re related to some of them and you try to have a godly influence on them and they don’t want to hear it, so keep doing it.

You know what? Don’t get discouraged. You just keep doing what God’s put you here to do.

You know what? You do what He tells you to do and He’ll bless you for it. He’ll honor your efforts.

So I’d rather encourage you tonight more than anything else to just keep doing what God has designed the church to do and the older people in the church. I need to move along here. I haven’t even gotten to point one yet.

Verse six says, young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded. Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded. Wait, you mean the young women get verses four and five and this long list of things and it tells the young men to be sober-minded, that’s it, they get one thing?

How many of you know young men who are not me, who were not born 80 years old? the whole sober minded good judgment thing doesn’t come naturally it has to be taught it has to be trained in some cases it has to be whooped in but that has to be taught and for young men that is the single greatest lacking thing I would say in most cases if you just get some good judgment about you you’d be alright you know what older men that’s That’s the job here in the church. And sometimes they’re not going to want to hear it.

Because as men, we tend to be kind of bullheaded. We don’t want to hear what anybody else has to say about, leave me alone and let me do this my way. You know what?

Keep doing what you’re supposed to be doing. We teach those who are coming behind us to be sober-minded, to be discerning, to judge the world wisely and make good decisions. To make the right decisions, not just for ourselves, but for our families, for our children.

And I’m speaking even of people who don’t have families and children yet. I do not claim to be perfect. I don’t claim to have lived a perfect life.

I let God down on a daily basis. And yet, I will tell you, and I think I’ve told you this before, a few of us a couple years ago were talking about the most rebellious, outrageous thing we ever did in our lives. I think this was in our Sunday school class in college.

I couldn’t think of anything, and I asked my mother. She couldn’t think of anything either. I’ve just lived a pretty quiet life.

And part of that is because I was scared of my parents and still am a little bit, which is not a bad thing. But part of it also is that my parents, they didn’t tell me these exact words, but the lessons they taught me instilled in me that I needed to think ahead. And I still, when I make decisions to this day, I’ve been doing this since high school, and still to this day think, how is this going to affect me 10 or 15 years down the road?

You know what? You stay out of a lot of trouble when you start taking a long view of history. Stop living for just today and making stupid decisions and start thinking down the road and trying to make good decisions for those who are around you.

And you know what? Part of that was drilled into me by my parents. Part of that was modeled for me by men in church.

And I wish more young men were getting those lessons from their parents and from their churches. I don’t say all that to brag on me. I say that to brag on my parents and the churches that have led me to where I am today.

Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded. In all things, showing thyself a pattern of good works. In doctrine, showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned.

That he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. And you know, all sorts of books are out there today. All sorts of books are out there on the market, Christian books, about how to make disciples, how to train up those who come behind us.

And there are all sorts of programs you can buy and use. And those are all good tools. But we really need to come back to the simple idea that God designed discipleship to take place in the church.

It’s not, I mean, it can take place outside, but really the church is supposed to be the plan A for where this takes place, for where we train the next generation of Christians, for where we train those who are coming after us and are trained by those who are going before us. And these things don’t have to take the shape of a program or a class. How many of you learn to be parents by taking a class?

How many of you have ever been to a parenting class? I went to a birthing class once, but never a parenting class. How many of you went to a marriage class?

There are marriage seminars and things out there that are useful, but nobody sat me down and gave me a class on this is how you be married. You learn parenting. You learn marriage.

You learn all sorts of things. First of all, by doing it, that’s where you really learn it. But you learn enough to get started by watching others around you.

I knew what my parents had done raising us. I thought, okay, this is what needs to be done. You can look at good marriages around you and learn from them, this is how you’re married.

This is what you do. You know what? You can even look at bad marriages around you and say, this is what you don’t do.

But we learn by watching and observing. And if we want to train the young people, the younger people in this church or the younger people in our families, wherever we may find them, if we want to train younger people how to act like Christians, we don’t have to have a class or a program to do it. We need to be in their lives and sometimes in their faces.

And we need to show them by the way we live our lives. And we need to impart godly wisdom as we’re going through life. It can be something as simple as, like with my son, singing Jesus loves me while we’re making cookies and talking about what that song means.

That’s discipleship. It can mean some of you ladies getting together with a young mother and helping her with the kids. It’s overwhelming.

You remember these things. I’m still in it. It’s overwhelming being a parent of young children, and sometimes they need help.

and doing things to help them, and just being around them, and being a friend, and them seeing the way you live your life. Now, I’m not talking about live your life in such a way that they’ll come to Christ. Relationship evangelism, you know what, we build relationships, but we still need to open our mouth and share the gospel. What I’m talking about is other believers.

I’m talking about your relationship with a brother or sister in Christ who’s coming behind you, who’s where you used to be, and could benefit from your godly wisdom. It doesn’t have to be a class. It doesn’t big production.

We go through life together and share what we’ve learned along the way. And I’m going to give you my three points for the message. I feel like I’ve already given you so much out of this text.

I’m going to go through my three points for you here in less than 30 seconds if I can. So listen fast. First of all, each believer, every believer has something to teach others. If you’ve been where they are now and you know how to get through it and how to live as a Christian, you have something to teach them.

You have something to offer. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that you have no place in ministry. You have something to offer.

Second of all, every believer has something to learn from others because it even talks about the older people needing to learn such and such. And it doesn’t matter how far along we get in our Christian walk. There are always going to be people who are ahead of us in the journey and there are always going to be people behind us.

And we shouldn’t ever get to a place where we think I know everything I need to know. There’s always something for us to teach, and there’s always something for us to learn. And third of all, we train fellow Christians by our lives as well as our words.

In all things, showing thyself a pattern of good works. In doctrine, showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned. That he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing.

And now the Bible says, though, that we are joint heirs with him. in this relationship, in this eternity with Him, in this wonderful place called heaven, and everything else that goes along with it. We’re joint heirs.

We are looked on as God’s children. I understand what they’re going for, but I hate when people use phrases like, well, we’re all God’s children. I get what you’re g