1 But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:
2 That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
6 Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.
7 In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity,
8 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.
9 Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again;
10 Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
Introduction
Dennis the Menace was trying to explain to a friend the difference between Father’s Day and Mother’s Day. He said, “Father’s Day is just like Mother’s Day only the presents are cheaper.” I think maybe fathers get cheated, not only in presents, but sometimes in church. We almost always preach a sermon to mothers on Mother’s Day, but we oftentimes just slide past Father’s Day as though it were just another day.
Today I want to speak to God’s man in today’s world. In Titus 2 the Apostle Paul is addressing five different ages and classes of people in the family. He begins in verse 2 by talking to the aged men—that is the senior men. Fathers would be included in that. And then to the senior women in verse 3. And then to the younger women in verses 4 and 5. And then to younger men in verses 6–8 and then to servants, who would be a very vital part of any household in that first-century world, in verses 9 and 10.
Five different age groups—five different classes of people: fathers and mothers, sons and daughters and servants. What he has to say to them is what he called sound doctrine or sound teachings. That word sound literally means “healthy” in the Greek. We used to say a long time ago, “He is as sound as a dollar.” Can’t say that any more. Dollars aren’t very healthy any more. These healthy teachings are doctrines that we need for daily life.
The people of Crete, where Titus was when Paul wrote this letter to him, were notoriously wicked. It was a sick society and he noted that one of their own people accused all Cretans of being liars. It is also said that they were lazy gluttons. He was not very complimentary of the people on the island of Crete, to say the least.
Paul seems to be saying to Titus that God’s antidote for a sick society is that we have healthy Christians in it. Jesus said we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The need of a sick society is not only healthy Christians, it is also to have a healthy church at work in that community. In fact Paul sent Titus to Crete to set in order the things that were wanting in the church there. The words “set in order” comes from one Greek word. It is a medical term that describes what a doctor does when you go to him with a broken bone. He sets those two pieces of broken bone into a right relationship with one another so that the limb can heal correctly. The church in Crete was out of joint. It was not a healthy church. And Paul sent Titus there to set things in order so the church would be healthy again.
God’s antidote for a sick society is not only healthy Christians and a healthy church, but also healthy homes. So Paul begins with fathers. And so in verse 2 he says very simply, “That the aged men [senior men] be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity [or love, the Greek word agape, God’s kind of love], in patience.” Six statements.
I want to take those first three and tie them all together. They are all so closely akin to one another in meaning that together they really suggest one idea—that he ought to live a disciplined, self-controlled life. That’s bound up in those first three words. The next three truths—sound in faith, sound in charity, and sound in patience—suggest other things that ought to characterize the man of God in today’s world.
The second is that he ought to have a healthy faith in God. The third is that he ought to let love grow and flow in his life. He ought to be healthy in love.
And finally, he ought to stay faithful to God as long as he lives. He ought to have healthy patience or steadfastness. And that word patience does not mean to sit around and twiddle your thumbs. It means strength of character that stays in there, that stands by the post, that carries out its duty to the end of time. Put it all together and he is saying to God’s men in today’s world, “Men, you need to live a disciplined and self-controlled life. You need to have a healthy growing faith in Jesus. You need to let his love grow in you and flow through you. And you need to stay faithful to him as long as you live.”
Nothing new about that, but preaching is not always telling you something new; it is often reminding you of what you already know. That’s what I am doing today.
1. You must have discipline and self-control. The first thing that ought to characterize God’s man in today’s world is that he lives a disciplined, self-controlled life. That is bound up in those three words that Paul begins with in that chapter. The word sober and the word grave and the word temperate. If you drop down to verse 6 he gives a word of advice to young men. He says, “Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.” That term sober minded in the Greek is the word for temperate. So in that verse 6 he sums up all of the duties of a young man in one word that is a part of all he had to say to older men.
The word sober means essentially not given to overindulgence in wine. It is sometimes a word that suggests just self-control, but in this instance it is specifically related to the use of alcohol. Not given to overindulgence in wine. He is to be grave. That suggests that he is to live his life in the light of eternity with an awareness that God is watching him. You know if we live our lives conscious that God is always watching, it gives a different quality to our lives. It doesn’t mean you are sad. It doesn’t mean you are somber. It doesn’t mean you are a killjoy. To say that a man is grave means that he takes the responsibility of life seriously. He lives it under the awareness that God is watching and that God cares. He is to be temperate. The word means “moderate.” It suggests self-control that a man governs his instincts and his passions with. And that term sober minded in verse 6 means the same thing. You put these all together and what Paul is saying to us is that in this life we are to practice self-restraint. That we are to live disciplined and self-controlled lives. That we are to be governed by reason and by convictions and by morals and not governed by our passions and by our appetites. We are to live disciplined and self-controlled lives.
I want you to think about that truth as it relates in particular to the use of alcohol. Now the principle of self-control is as broad as life itself, but on a couple of occasions in this book he has pointed directly at the use of alcohol as a matter of self-control and discipline. That’s what I want to address in this part of the message.
Alcoholism is one of the major health and social and moral problems in America today. You do not have to ask the preacher about that, you can ask you physician. He will tell you so. Almost without exception they will say to you that alcoholism is one of the major health problems, one of the major social problems, and one of the major moral problems in America today. Not just for adults, by the way. An article in Time magazine pointed out that 100,000 teenagers and children as young as 11 years of age get drunk at least once every week. And that more than three million teenagers have serious drinking problems in America today. It is not just a problem for senior men or younger men, it is a problem for all of society. Because of that, I recommend to you without the slightest hesitancy that for your sake and the sake of your family and the sake of the kingdom of God, that you be a total abstainer.
Now I do not go around looking down my nose at people who drink. Nor do I say that if you drink socially you are going to hell. I am not saying that at all. What I am saying to you is that for your own sake—and that is what God is always preeminently concerned about: you—and for the sake of your children, and for the sake of the kingdom of God, the best policy for all of us who are God’s people is total abstinence.
P. T. Barnum, the entertainer, the circus owner, was at one time a heavy drinker. And then one day he heard a sermon on temperance and he decided to become a total abstainer. Not only did he become a total abstainer, he took to the platform and began to speak against alcohol. And one day as he was doing that a heckler interrupted him and said, “I want to know, how does alcohol affect us internally or externally?” And Barnum’s reply was, “It affects us eternally.” It affects you internally. It affects you externally, but let me tell you it can also affect you eternally. No drunkard shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. We are responsible for our influence on other people. And I submit to you, my friends, in the name of Christ and in light of eternity, live a disciplined and self-controlled life. That can best happen without the use of alcohol at all.
I clipped a poem from columnist Ann Landers, who noted that the author was unknown, some time ago. It goes like this:
We drank for joy and we became miserable.
We drank for sociability and we became argumentative.
We drank for sophistication and we became obnoxious.
We drank for friendship and we made enemies.
We drank for sleep and we awakened exhausted.
We drank for strength and we felt weak.
We drank to feel exhilaration and we ended up depressed.
We drank for medicinal purposes and we acquired health problems.
We drank to get calm and we ended up with the shakes.
We drank for confidence and we became afraid.
We drank to make conversation flow easily and the words came out slurred and incoherent.
We drank to diminish our problems and we saw them multiply.
We drank to feel heavenly and we felt like the devil.
We drank to cope with life and invited death.
–Author unknown
And I do not think I am overstating the seriousness of the problem at all when I encourage you and admonish you for the sake of eternity live a disciplined and a self-controlled life.
2. Your faith must always be growing. There is a second truth and that is that we are to have a faith that is healthy and growing. Paul asks God’s men in today’s world to be sound in faith. The passing of years and the experiences of life ought to deepen our faith in God. Sometimes difficult experiences shake our faith. Sometimes they shatter our faith and drive us away. This ought not to be. Sometimes when our children are older, we feel like our responsibility for them is over and so we no longer need church. We no longer need Sunday school and we walk out, we leave those things behind that are a part of yesterday. Paul is saying to aged men, to senior men, to fathers and to grandfathers, to have a healthy, growing faith. You never outgrow the need for worship and you never outgrow your influence on children and grandchildren. For their sake, he has given to us the responsibility to have a growing faith that keeps itself rooted in a personal walk with God and faithful worship of God. Live a disciplined and self-controlled life. Have a healthy and growing faith.
3. The love of Christ must flow through you. Third, Paul says that we are to let love continue to grow and flow through us. He says you are to be charitable. The Greek word is agape, God’s kind of love. You are to let God’s kind of love grow in you. You are to let God’s love flow through you as long as you live and you never ever are to let it die.
You see when we get older we can die. We can become carping, critical, negative, faultfinding people who resist every new idea, every new venture. It happens all the time. And we can fail to live on the cutting edge of life because love inside of us dies a natural death. Don’t let it happen to you. You keep love growing and flowing as long as you live.
I have a friend who some time ago was in trouble in his church. It looked like he was going to be fired. He came to talk to me about that. As he tried to explain the circumstances in his church he told me about one of his members. He said that this man had a father who was not a Christian and a mother who claimed to be. He said that the man’s parents had fought like cats and dogs all of their life. It was a history of continual strife between this nonbeliever and this church member. One day the man said that his dad had told him, “Son, don’t ever make those Christians mad at you.” You know that has been my experience. I don’t want the Christians to get mad at me. They can be vicious.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a letter. Some of you have heard about that letter in defense of a friend. And in the last two weeks I have received more vicious mail from Christians than in all of my other 32 years put together. Now don’t feel sorry for me. I knew that the kitchen was hot when I walked in there and I can stand it. But what troubles me is that people in the name of God can be so vicious. It troubles me that people can claim to have walked with God through the years and know him and love him and serve him and apparently have so very little love. There is no excuse for it. There is no justification for it. I am telling you that the older you grow, the sweeter you ought to be. And if you walk with Christ and your relationship with Christ is not making you sweeter, there is something wrong with that walk and that relationship.
So Paul is saying, live a disciplined controlled life, let your faith be a growing one, and let the love of Christ grow in you and flow through you.
Folks, don’t ever make the Christians mad at you. You know I’ve fought the liquor crowd and they are a whole lot better crowd than the Christians. In fact some of you may be a part of that liquor crowd. I like you better. I didn’t intend to say that. It must have been a moment of inspiration from above.
4. Stay faithful as long as you live. Be healthy in patience, Paul says. And that word patience means “steadfastness.” It means that enduring quality of life that makes a man stay by his post, to keep doing his job, to hang on as long as he lives. It is the very nature of things that as we grow older we grow weaker in body. But we ought to grow stronger in our commitment to the Lord Jesus.
We ought to be like an iron peg driven in the frozen ground, unmovable in our commitment to him. A young pastor was new on the field. He asked one of his deacons, an old rancher, to take him around the countryside so he could meet the members of his congregation. He was especially impressed with one family. They talked with such enthusiasm and glowing terms about the church and the work of God. And as he walked away from the house with his rancher deacon he said, “Those people are going to make wonderful members of our congregation. They are such fine people.” And the deacon said to him, “Pastor, they are fine people. They are wonderful quarter horse Christians.” The preacher asked, “Quarter horse Christians—what are you talking about?” The deacon said, “Well, a quarter horse runs a good race for a quarter of a mile, but after that they are not much good in the race.”
There are a lot of quarter horse Christians around. What we really need are plow horse Christians. I mean the kind you can hook to the plow early in the morning and when the sun goes down they are still there, still pulling, still doing their job. Now the plow horse doesn’t get nearly the attention of the quarter horse. But in the long haul and in the work of God, it is the person who stays, who hangs in there, and who keeps pulling who matters most in the kingdom. That’s the council—stay faithful as long as you live. Put it all together and here is what Paul says to us: “Men, fathers and grandfathers, and young men, live a disciplined life, control yourself by the grace of God. Let your faith keep growing as long as you live. Let the love of God flow through you so that people benefit from it. And stay faithful to the Savior as long as God leaves you here.”
That will make for healthy homes and a healthy society. You cannot master yourself though until you surrender to the Master, Jesus.