Relationships that Reinforce Our Faith

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

Well, we have seen a few times recently, actually we see it all the time, but even in recent times, we’ve seen a few instances where some public figure will get in trouble because they publicly say one thing and then they’re caught doing something completely opposite, right? Sometimes it can be something huge, like a politician preaching family values and then suddenly they’re caught having an affair. And what people then look at is their actions.

And they don’t question, oh, did he really mean that affair because he said family values all this time? No, they look at what he did and question whether or not he really believed what he said. Or it can be something, you know, here lately we have seen, it seems like the politicians who are pushing hardest for the lockdowns tend to be the ones getting caught going to restaurants or running around without their masks on where they’re telling us to do it.

And nobody says, oh, I wonder if they meant to forget their mask. I wonder if they meant to go to the beauty parlor. No, we say they don’t even believe what they’re telling us.

You know, we look at what they do and we assume it reflects on how much they really believe the things they say they believe. You know, that’s true for all of us. our actions are going to be a reflection of what we truly believe.

We can say one thing all day long, but if we do something that’s completely opposite, and we as a habit do things that are completely opposite, people are going to look at us and say, yeah, I don’t think he really believes the words that are coming out of his mouth right now. And we’ve probably all heard, hopefully nobody’s ever said it about us, because if I ever hear these words said about me, it’s going to be, ow, you want the knife back or should I keep it right here? But we’ve all heard the statement, oh, I thought they were a Christian.

They talk about being a Christian, but look at what they just did right there. You see, this is true for us as Christians. How we live tells others what we really believe about Jesus Christ and what He’s done for us.

Tonight, we’re going to go back to the book of Titus, where we’ve been for the last several Sunday nights and looking at the first part of this book where Paul really focuses in on some of the things that are necessary for a strong church. Next week, we’ll continue in the book of Titus, but we’re going to shift our focus a little bit as Paul does. But tonight, I want to continue on with this idea of building a strong church and some of the things that are needed.

And he talks about godly examples, and he talks about relationships that help provide those godly examples. And we’re going to turn in just a second to that to that passage and stand and read it but I I want to apologize because as I was getting the messages ready this week I thought boy I’m going to be repeating myself sunday night and sometimes that happens I will typically if I have enough time and I’m organized enough I will have messages or at least the where I’m going with a series mapped out a couple weeks to a few months in advance. And I don’t always compare Sunday morning and Sunday night.

And sometimes I end up even in a completely different series with a message on Sunday night that repeats a lot of what was said on Sunday morning. And at first I used to feel badly about that. And then I realized, wait a minute, I don’t have to tell my children something just once, right?

And God doesn’t have to tell us something just once. So I figure if I’m, if I’m repeating it because God’s Word repeats it. It’s probably just because we need the reminder.

So some of this may sound familiar from this morning. Some of it may sound new, but it’s from a totally different area in God’s Word. So we’re going to be in Titus chapter 2 tonight, and we’re going to start in verse 1.

If you would stand with me, if you’re able to stand with me as we read from Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 1, it says, But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine, that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience. The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things. That they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded. In all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works. In doctrine, showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned.

That one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. Exhort bond servants to be obedient to their masters, to be well-pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. And you may be seated.

We’re going to stop there tonight. So keeping in mind everything that I’ve shared with you the last few weeks about the situation of these Christians, these early Christians on Crete, many of them were first-generation converts. And what I mean by that is, if you are the first person in your family, and you may not know several generations back, but if you’re the first person in your family that raised you to be a Christian, to be a born-again believer, then you’re a first-generation convert.

And I gave the example of my dad a couple weeks ago. My grandparents came to faith late in life. My great-grandparents, I think, were believers, but as far as the environment my dad grew up in, he was a first-generation convert.

He did not grow up with parents who taught him what it meant to follow Jesus Christ. These people on Crete were in that same boat. because the gospel was fairly recently come to Crete. And so you didn’t have a lot of people like you’ll find in church today and in Bible Belt communities where they grew up in church and their parents grew up in church and their grandparents grew up in church and it’s been part of their raising down through generations to be taught right from wrong and be taught what the Scriptures say and be taught what God expects.

They didn’t have that. They were coming into this new. Many of them had become believers as adults.

And they were having to learn for the first time how to navigate the waters of their very wicked pagan culture as somebody who follows Jesus Christ. And so for them, it was probably a struggle at some points to know how to do this because they weren’t raised this way. They hadn’t grown up with Christian examples to demonstrate the practical application of faith in their daily lives. You notice this morning I talked a little bit about, we know we’re supposed to follow Christ, but sometimes we don’t know what that looks like in our culture.

We don’t know what the particular way is we should handle this circumstance or that. And so we look to those godly examples. They didn’t have people who’d been walking with Christ for generations that they could look to.

And so Paul was writing to them and saying that they needed those who were already stronger and more mature in the faith to model for them what it meant to follow Jesus in their everyday real world lives. He said, you may not have grown up with it, so find the people who are already doing it. This is where I’m repeating some from this morning.

Find the people who are already doing it. Because God had sent people with the gospel to Crete. God had sent people to start the church there.

God had sent missionaries like Paul and those that he worked with to plant the churches. And he said, you need to look to those godly examples. And this text provides instructions for believers of all ages and in all stations of life about how they ought to walk in a way that’s consistent with what they believe.

He says you do these things and you say these things, but it goes beyond simply following somebody else’s example. He says as you’re following Christ, this is the example you need to set for others because they’re going to need the example too. Ronald Reagan said that freedom is not passed from generation to generation in the bloodstream.

I think that’s right. I know it’s right that Christianity isn’t passed from generation to generation in the bloodstream. It has to be taught.

We have to set the example. We have to teach our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, and we have to teach those who are coming behind us that may not be our actual children and grandchildren, but they’re our children in the faith. They’re those who are newer Christians.

We have to teach them. We have to, Just as an example was set for us and just as we were taught, we have to do the same for others. And he gives some examples of this.

He divides people into categories and basically says, no matter where you are in life, there’s a role for you to play both in following the example and in setting the example. He singles out the older men first. In verse 2, he says, the older men be sober and reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, and in patience. And he says that these are the things that they ought to be doing because it reflects.

In verse 1, he talks about sound doctrine. That means true teaching. And so he says in verse 2, now do these things so they reflect that you actually believe the things you say you believe.

And for these older men, he says they’re supposed to be sober. That can apply to drunkenness, but generally speaking, it just means make sure you’re in a right frame of mind where you’re able to make wise decisions. Somebody who’s reverent, somebody who takes their faith seriously.

To be reverent doesn’t mean you have to just be boring all the time. I think we get that idea sometimes that to be reverent just means I’m a boring person and I just sit around reading the Ten Commandments all day. Reverent just means we take our faith seriously.

We take God and His Word seriously. To be temperate means to have a temper. We use this wrong so many times.

Somebody says, well, I have a temper. No, if you had a temper, you’d be calmer. Tempering something means to dial it back, to de-escalate things.

What we mean to say is, I lose my temper. Our temper is what keeps us calm. So for somebody to be temperate means they have that ability, that inner peace to be able to be calm and to be able to de-escalate things and to be able to ratchet down the crazy in their lives.

And we all could stand some more of that temperance, couldn’t we? Because the world doesn’t seem to be getting any less crazy or any less chaotic. And so as Christians, we want to model temperance.

We want to be self-controlled. To be sound in faith, that means not off teaching and believing crazy things. Sound in love, that as Christians we love others and we do it in a proper way, in a noticeable way.

and in patience. I’m told that you don’t necessarily always get more patient as you get older. Some people do.

Some people mellow with age. Some people get cranky as they get older. But as Christians, we’re supposed to fight to try to be sound and patience.

Don’t pray for it. You might just get it the hard way. But we’re supposed to try to be patient.

And that’s one of the hardest things to do but it’s one of those things that if we can do it, it really gets people’s attention and it really reflects the character of Jesus Christ to others, which is what all of this is about. None of this is about, hey, just be a better person so you can be a better person and God will love you and you can lord it over other people. All of it is saying, do these things to reflect Jesus Christ. Keep that in mind as we go through these.

Then he moves on to the older women in verse 3, that the older women, excuse me, a little tongue-tied there, The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior. Again, the way that they live, they show that they take their faith seriously. Not slanderers.

They’re not out gossiping about everybody and spreading rumors. Not given to much wine. It means what it says, teachers of good things.

That what they have to offer, that what they have to teach, what they have to show, are good things. Live in such a way that you’re passing on a good legacy to those who are around you.

then there are the younger women and it’s a little bit longer presumably because if you’re younger you have more to learn still but he says that they admonish the young women now this is still tied to the the older women the the older women are supposed to be teaching by example to the younger women to love their husbands to love their children and these then are things that the younger women are supposed to take and run with as they try to to be an example to others of what it means to follow Christ. So the older women are showing the younger women by example how to be good wives and how to be good mothers and how to follow Jesus Christ. There’s a relationship here where people are learning from each other. He says, admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet. That means not spreading everything you know all over town.

To be chaste, that means to be pure, to be wholesome, to have a good reputation. To be homemakers, to be good, to be obedient to their own husbands. Now listen, don’t shoot the messenger, alright?

God’s Word said it, not me. And I know you all don’t know us as well as you will, but hopefully you figured out Charla, she’s nobody’s doormat. Alright?

And I think my daughters at this point are a little more independent than my sons, and we’re working on that. But, you know, I believe what the Bible says about how wives and husbands are supposed to relate to one another. And yet I don’t believe that biblically speaking that means that the woman has to be anybody’s doormat or punching bag.

All right. So take it for what it says, not what culture has told us it says, but it says what it says. So if you’re mad about it, be mad at God.

All right. I love being able to say that when you just stick to the word. You say, don’t be mad at me.

Be mad at him. All right. that the Word of God may not be blasphemed.

And I’ll touch on this a little bit more later on, but when our behavior does not reflect what we say we believe, we give the world an opportunity. We give the world ammunition to speak ill of Christ and of Christianity. And so he stops right here in the middle of these instructions and says, do these things so you don’t give them an opportunity to blaspheme, to speak ill of Christ. And he goes on to the younger men in verses 6 through 8.

We get, I guess I’m young. Y’all say I’m young. I feel old.

I’ve got four children I have to chase. I feel old. But we get three verses here because I guess we need the most help.

He says, Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded. There’s that word again. In all things, showing yourself a pattern of good works.

By the way, not just a few things. Young men, don’t just go to church and show a pattern of good works one day a week. Every day as you’re at your job, as you’re taking care of your family, as you’re loving your wife, as you’re representing Christ around the community, in all things show a pattern of good works, he says.

In doctrine, show integrity. Stick to the truth of God’s Word and pattern your life after what you say you believe. Reverence.

There’s that word again. Taking our faith seriously. Expectability, that we’re not able to be bought.

We’re not able to be dissuaded from the things that we believe just because it suddenly became convenient to do otherwise. You know, that our principles and what we believe really are our principles, and they don’t change. Sound speech that cannot be condemned.

Now, I know there’s a reason why he put this in here to young men. I never played on a sports team, but I did have to take gym class in school. And there’s a reason I didn’t hang around with a lot of young men my age when I was in high school because I couldn’t stand the locker room talk, but it just seemed to flow out naturally.

In the locker room or not. Locker room talk, really, I don’t know why they call it that because it’s not confined to the locker room. But it just comes naturally, it seems, and it just always bugged me.

He says we’re not supposed to do that. sound speech, godly speech. Watch the things that are coming out of your mouth that cannot be condemned.

Even in your speech, you should represent Christ in a way that nobody can credibly accuse you. That one who is an opponent may be ashamed having nothing evil to say of you. And then in verses 9 and 10, he moves on to the servants.

And if you’re thinking, well, okay, he hit everybody age-wise, but now he’s moved on to the servants. Where are the masters? He deals with masters in other places.

But he says, exhort bond servants to be obedient to their own masters. Not supposed to be rebellious, not supposed to roll their eyes when they’re given something to do. Be obedient to their own masters, to be well-pleasing in all things.

The Bible says that we are to serve others. We’re to render service to others as unto the Lord. So when our boss, our master, depending on the context, says, do this.

Man, when your wife says, I need you to do this, she’s got that list for you. You know, we can grumble, we can groan, we can roll our eyes, or we can think I’m going to serve you the way I would if the Lord was asking me to do this. And I say admitting completely that that is difficult to do it sometimes.

but that’s what we’re called to do. To be well-pleasing in all things, not answering back. And by the way, not to say that we’re bond servants of our wives.

I’m just saying there’s some place where principles here apply outside of the specific context that he was talking about. So some of the things that he said for young men, older men can learn those as well, and vice versa. Not answering back, not pilfering.

I love that word pilfering. He could say stealing. which is part of pilfering.

But pilfering is a word we use with our little kids. Carly Jo is now at the age where she pilfers. She pilfers through the house.

That means she has started climbing onto things and Charlotte says, well, you left it out. I left it on a cabinet, on a counter. I thought it would be safe.

But she’ll get my laptop and she’ll open it like a book and carry it around the house. She’s going to break it one of these days. She washes her hand in my drink sitting on the table.

She gets in cabinets and she finds things and she carries them off to other rooms. Just basically wandering around, being up to no good, and doing things you’re not supposed to do. He could have said stealing. But when he’s talking about pilfering here, he’s just talking about generally not living up to the trust placed in you and not being up to any good.

And he warns against that. Not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, but showing yourself somebody who can be trusted, showing yourself to be somebody who can be trusted. And all these instructions, they’re all a little different, but all of them have the same intention of challenging the believer to live a life of faithfulness wherever he is in life, wherever she is in life.

And again, I say the principles apply across these divides here. there are things that he says about the older men that could apply to young women there are things that he says about servants here that can apply to masters you know there are things none of the I don’t think any of these if you were to practice them god’s going to say oh no I said that was only for the young women I don’t think it works that way but these were some specific things that they needed and all of these challenge us that no matter where we are in life we can and should be trying to live a life of faithfulness. We never get to a point where we say, well, you know, I’ve been faithful to Jesus for 50 years.

It’s my time now. We don’t ever get to that point. No matter where we are in life, there is always an opportunity to represent Jesus.

It doesn’t matter if you’re just a young person. You say, I’m just a young person. Well, Paul also said, don’t let anybody despise your youth, but be an example to the brethren.

You know, all these things, and he makes a list. Somebody might say, well, I’m just a lowly employee. He was talking to bond servants. Depending on how you translate it, could be talking to slaves at this point and saying, you have an opportunity to live a life of faithfulness that provides an example to somebody else.

No matter where we are in life, there is always an opportunity for us to represent Jesus well. But we don’t want to miss out on the fact, too, that there’s a relational aspect to all of this. Because Paul never says, go sit down and go teach a class, get all the younger women to sit down, and you just go through three points, and you explain to them these five steps, and then send them on their way.

At no point does he say that. Instead, the picture we see here, he’s telling these people to live in community, to be part of each other’s lives, to have relationships with each other, and he’s telling the older women, hey, as you are trying to be faithful and represent Christ, You should have young women around you that you’re also teaching by word and by example. As they live in proximity to you, as they watch your life, as they see how you deal with your husband and with your children, they should be learning from you.

Same thing with the men. And in the church, there’s this call for us to disciple one another. I’ve told you before, I’m not against discipleship training.

I just wish we’d call it something else in churches where they say, We’re going to have discipleship training and it’s like a 5 p. m. Sunday school.

There’s nothing wrong with it, but discipleship takes place primarily in the context of relationships. When we spend time together, when we go through our daily lives together, when we do ministry together, that’s how a church grows closer together. That’s how we build relationships where we can encourage each other, where we can challenge each other, when we know what’s going on in each other’s lives and we can speak God’s Word into those problems We can encourage one another.

There is a relational aspect of discipleship that we cannot miss. He’s telling them as they are spending time together, as they are going through their lives, they are going to both be an example and follow an example. Believers are not told anywhere in Scripture to go off on their own and live Christ-like lives in total isolation from one another as spiritual hermits.

We are just not told to do that. We are supposed to surround ourselves with other believers that we can encourage and be encouraged by. Look at the commands of this passage.

There’s a command in verse 1 where he says speak. In verse 4, he uses the word admonish. That’s telling somebody what to do, but Jimmy and you were talking about the finger before church.

There’s a little bit of this involved in it. Exhort. In verses 6 and 9, he uses that word.

That’s an encouragement. That’s kind of a cheerleading. Come on, we can do this kind of thing.

All of these commands describe the way that one person affects another person. None of these are go off and do this on your own. It’s always go and encourage somebody by the way you’re doing these things.

There’s room for each person in the church to be an example. And when we’re walking with each other every day in relationships and friendships that encourage both of us in our service to Jesus Christ, then what’s happening is discipleship. We think, oh, that’s fellowship.

It’s part of it, but it’s really discipleship. That’s how discipleship is supposed to happen. You notice a few times in the Gospels, Jesus had everybody sit down and He taught, but most of the time He spent discipling His disciples, they were just spending their day together.

And they were learning from Him that way. And that kind of relational discipleship where we spend time together and we encourage each other both with the things we say and with the example we set and we learn from each other, that kind of relational discipleship makes a church stronger. So if we want a strong church, we need to build relationships with one another that reinforce our faith.

And as I tell you this, I already know that this church is doing a pretty good job at it. You are very welcoming. You’re a very loving group.

I have already had so many lunches with you. I can’t keep up with my Weight Watchers points because I keep getting invited to lunch and spend time with you and go fishing or go, you know, whatever. Y’all are already doing things to spend time with each other.

And y’all are just bringing us right in. And I don’t think that’s because I’m the pastor because I’ve seen the way you, and I’ve heard about the way you’ve done it with others who are not your pastor. So I believe the church is already doing a good job at this.

It’s just something we need to be intentional about because it’s going to make for a stronger church. The better we are at doing this, the stronger the church will be. And on top of that, it just improves our witness, which is just as important.

It improves our witness in the community for Christ. We don’t ever want the community to say, Central Baptist Church says a lot of things. But when you see how they act, you have to question whether or not they really believe the things they say. We don’t ever want to have that reputation.

So being and following these godly examples, having these kinds of relationships where we encourage each other, it’s going to improve our witness. He says in verse 1, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. The things we say and the things we practice should reflect what we really believe about Jesus Christ and what He’s done for us.

He says that we’re supposed to do these things in verse 5 that the Word of God may not be blasphemed. at some point people sometimes people are just willing to make up things about you but we shouldn’t give them opportunities to have negative things to say about us in our faith we shouldn’t provide more ammunition for critics to attack christianity some people are going to do it anyway but we shouldn’t give them ammunition for it and he he reiterates this in verse 8 when he says that the one who is an opponent may be ashamed having nothing evil to say of you. We should be striving to be so Christ-like together that if they decide they want to make up something about us, they can’t figure out what to make up.

And he says in verse 10, that all these things are so that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. And when I see this word adorn, what it makes me think of is decorations. You adorn a Christmas tree.

I don’t. Charlie doesn’t want anybody but her to decorate the Christmas tree, but it looks really good afterwards, right? With all the adornments on it.

Our behavior, the way we live our lives on a daily basis, it should be like fitting, appropriate decorations that are going to reflect the beauty of the gospel. It should be like the beautiful ornaments and lights that hang on the tree and bring out the natural beauty that’s there and enhance the natural beauty that’s there. The gospel, the gospel is precious enough.

Our behavior should just be like the decor that brings out the natural beauty that’s there. And so looking at this and saying, all right, we understand what it says, what do we do about it? We need to look for opportunities to build those relationships within the church that are going to grow us and that are going to encourage us to practice our faith.

Like I said, I think this church is already doing a great job at that. But we need to be intentional about it. Is there somebody that God’s telling me, you know what, I should reach out to them.

Maybe I should take them to lunch and get to know them better. Share with them about what God’s doing in my life. Tell you, when I have grown in my life to become more passionate about, for example, evangelism, didn’t come about because I read a book.

It came about because there was a man, and I think I’ve mentioned him before, there was a man at our church named Brother Parker. I was a teenager. Richard Parker was a truck driver, retired truck driver, and retired Marine, if you’re ever really retired as a Marine.

Big, tough guy. Intimidating. And he came to me one day and asked me, did I want to go with him to Bricktown?

I said, what are we doing in Bricktown? He said, there’s people going to hell and we need to go get them. Okay.

I was kind of afraid to say no. I was a teenager. I was kind of afraid to say no. So I went with Brother Parker, a couple other guys, and I went. And we used to go down on Thursday nights and stand out and harass people outside the spaghetti warehouse.

Not really harass. He would harass them. I just meekly offered them the tract and try not to get hit when somebody took a swing at him.

But I tell you what. That man loved people. He loved people too much to let them die and go to hell without trying his best to stop them.

And I found, I took courses in evangelism. I did various trainings and this and that. Any zeal I’ve ever had for evangelism did not come from reading a book.

It came from hanging out with Richard Parker and that infectious passion for other people’s souls. And I’m still not where He was. I don’t know if I’ll ever be where He was.

I think God broke the mold with Him. But God used that relationship to encourage me and challenge me to be more intentional about evangelism. And those are the kinds of areas where we can rub off on each other.

Those are the kinds of places where we can encourage each other. And so I’d just tell you, our relationships in the church should encourage our behavior to reflect our beliefs. So as we try to do that, pray and ask God who He would have yo