00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
It's been such a beautiful weekend,
hasn't it? And I have a nephew visiting from out of town and
we decided to get outdoors a little bit yesterday and do a little
hiking up in the mountains. And I have a new book and it's
about waterfalls in the upstate and tells you how you can find
them, hike to them and see them. And so I thought, let's go find
this waterfall. And so he and I drove up and found the trailhead
and headed off. and started looking for the right
trail and ended up on the wrong trail. And it was nice. It was
beautiful. We ended up hiking up to the
top of some mountain and then finding some beautiful stream
and taking pictures and eating our snacks and just enjoying
the sunshine and the breeze and all of that. And it was beautiful,
but we never did find the waterfall. I didn't look at the directions
carefully enough or look at the kiosk at the parking lot closely
enough and we just headed off in the wrong direction and it
was great and nice and fun and enjoyable but we never did see
what we went to see. As we were doing it and trying
one trail and then another and I said, you know, we're kind
of living and learning, aren't we? You know, you kind of Try to
figure things out as you go and try this and doesn't work so
well. So you try that and maybe you end up where you were headed.
Maybe you don't. And that's we call that learning and living
or living and learning when it comes to life. Right. And I was
thinking about that in relation to what we're doing in our study
of Titus, because we're trying to flip that around, aren't we?
Not just figure things out as we go and make a lot of mistakes
and maybe not end up where we're supposed to be. Actually, we're
trying to do the opposite because the book of Titus is about doing
the opposite. It is about learning. And then
living, we find out the truth, we understand God's word, we
know his will. He tells us how to know him,
how to receive that grace, the grace that saves us, the grace
that strengthens us that we've been thinking about and focusing
on here this morning. We we learn these things and
then we live them. We live them out. We live day
to day, we live through the tests and the trials and the temptations
and the problems. And so so we learn and we live. And that's that's what we're
endeavoring to do. And we're going very, very carefully through
the book of Titus. And today we're going to be in
Titus chapter two, looking at a couple of verses here. I'm
still calling this healthy living, healthy living, because, as we
have pointed out before, Paul uses the word sound. Comes from
a word that means to be healthy. He talks about sound doctrine. What we learn must be true. It must be right. It must be
healthy. But he also talks about ways to practice sound living,
sound thinking and sound behaving. And so our lives are to be healthy
as well. And we talked about healthy living
for Older men, we talked about healthy living for older women
and younger women. And today we come to a section
that talks about two more groups of people. And Paul is telling
Titus what to teach his people. They lived on this island called
Crete in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Greece. And in chapter
two, he tells Titus to address these specific groups of people
about healthy living. And today we come to these two
groups and one of them is an age group. The other one is a
group by vocation. It is a group of people who follow
a certain vocation. So look with me at Titus chapter
two and let me read for us verses six, seven and eight. Titus two,
starting with verse six. Paul tells Titus, Likewise, exhort
the young men. To be sober minded. In all things,
showing yourself, he says to Titus, 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. Would you pray
with me again, Lord, as we look to your word this morning, we
acknowledge our weakness. We cannot understand spiritual
truth without the help of the spirit of God. And so we ask
you for that help today. Or there are many, many things
on our minds, burdens, distractions, problems. Things that will take
our minds away, but I pray now that you'll help us to reign
it all in. And to concentrate our thoughts on the word of God.
Help us to open our hearts to the spirit of God, help us to
yield our wills to the will of God. Lord, teach us, I pray,
so that we might learn and live. And I pray it in Jesus name.
Amen. First category that he speaks to here is the category
of young men, so we're going to talk today about healthy living
for young men in just a minute and heard about something that
happened this past year that kind of illustrates to me, I
think, some of what it is that we are talking about here today. Every year, hundreds of people
attempt to climb to the summit of the world's highest mountain,
which is Mount Everest. It's 29,035 feet at its peak. That is about five and a half
miles high. It's a very dangerous endeavor,
and people regularly die making the attempt. And last year in
May a 24 year old young man from Israel named Nadav Ben Yehuda
made the climb. And Nadav would have been the
youngest Israeli to reach the peak of Mount Everest. And he
was within 300 meters of reaching the summit. And as he was working
his way along with others toward the summit he passed one And
then another climber who had fallen and died along the way. And the other hikers and climbers
were just passing them by, passing by these fallen climbers. And
he came to a third one and he realized it was someone that
he knew. A man who was, I believe, in his 40s, actually from the
country of Turkey. He had met him before. He was
making the climb as well. His name was Aydin Irmak. Not of knew that if he pressed
on, he would make the summit, he would achieve his ambitions,
he would be famous, he would receive honor. But if he stops
to help Irmak, he would give up the possibility of summiting
Everest on that day. And he chose in that moment to
stop and to help this man, he tied this man to himself and
carried him for nine hours back down to the nearest base camp. And saved his life. I think this
is a picture of them transporting this man after they had saved
him. I don't know for sure this is actually from Nadav's Facebook
page and I think this is a picture of them transporting the man
after that after he had rescued him. This is a picture of them
after it happened. And of course the Turkish man
Aden owes his life now to not of and they have become bonded
and united in this friendship. This illustrates what Paul tells
Titus to teach to the young men on this island of Crete. And so we're talking about healthy
living for young men. And he uses this word. And it
is interesting that for for the younger men he talks to in verse
six here, he only gives them one thing to think about. So
this is not so hard, right? All the rest have this long list.
But to the younger men, it gives them one quality to focus on.
Now, of course, it's very extensive. It's very comprehensive. It's
not easy, but it is simple. He says, likewise, exhort, encourage,
call, challenge the young men to be sober minded, sober minded. Now, we've seen this word before.
It's translated other ways in the translation we are using.
Some translations use the word sensible to translate it every
single time. And it does mean that it means
to be sensible. It means to use good judgment. It means that
you are not controlled by personal ambition. You have a goal and
you're going to accomplish it and you neglect everything and
everyone else. It doesn't mean it means that you're not controlled
by personal ambition. It means that you are not controlled
by your appetites, you crave, you desire, you want something
physical, something pleasurable. And your appetites control you
means you're not controlled by your appetites or your emotions
or by circumstances or by what other people are doing. It means
you're thinking clearly and you are making good decisions. And
just like not have been, Yehuda was not controlled in that moment
by his personal ambition, by what everybody else was doing,
everybody was walking right by this man who was dying. Ignoring
him to fulfill their personal ambitions, he was not controlled
by that. He was controlled by something
more important, more valuable. And that's exactly what Paul
is telling Titus to teach the young men on the island of Crete
to do, to learn what is true. To learn what is right, to learn
what is valuable and to live accordingly, to live by that,
not these other things that would drive us and determine what we
do and how we live. Learn what is true, right and
valuable and live by that. Now, of course, the question
is, who are the younger men? Right. We've been trying to kind
of nail this down and figure out what groups he's talking
about. Well, we know from before that the older men that he talks
to in verse two are probably about age 50 and older. So the
younger men would be those younger than that. Right. So I'm dividing
this into two stages because I think there are different needs
and different challenges in these stages of life. And so I would
say that the younger men are in this age group of later teens
to late 40s. That's a pretty broad age group.
But you're here this morning and you're in that age group.
He's talking directly to you. He's speaking to you. Now, again,
I know others will automatically think he's not talking to me.
Remember, we do this in community. We live the Christian life together.
We pray for each other. We encourage each other. By the
way, we were in an awesome Bible study group this morning at nine
o'clock with a group of of other adults looking at the word, talking
about it, listening to each other, feeding on the word together,
encouraging each other, giving examples. That was awesome. I
needed that. We need this. We grow in community and fellowship
with one another. So, yes, he's addressing specific
groups, but it's somehow related to every single one of us. So
in these two stages, I would I would say the first one is
early manhood. You're up to 30 something. And there is a set of issues
and there are areas of life where you need to be sensible, where
you need to be sober minded, where you need to use good judgment,
where you need to not be controlled by ambitions or appetites or
what everybody else is doing, but you need to learn truth and
you need to live accordingly. If you're in this stage of life,
especially your late teens, early 20s, you're making some major
choices that will affect you for the rest of your life. You're
making vocational choices about what you're going to do with
your life. You're making educational choices about going to school
and being trained for whatever vocation or career or profession
that you go into. You're making relational choices.
You are dating. You are thinking about marriage.
You're getting into being a husband and having children and parenting
all of that. You're making lifestyle choices,
you're thinking, what am I going to do with in this area, what
I'm going to do in this area with entertainment and alcohol
and money, use of finances, spending habits, all these things, you're
making lifestyle choices. You have a relationship as a
as a new young adult. With your adult parents. And
sometimes there are issues there. You're you're coming out of a
time of being under their guidance and even under their control.
And now you're coming into more independence. And sometimes that
puts a strain on that relationship. There may be serious difficulties
in that relationship. You may have had a falling out.
There's hostility, anger, maybe even abuse has taken place. And
you've got this to deal with and to work through and wrestle
through. You have issues of purity. This is a time of desire and
temptation when it comes to sexual purity. And you got to make choices
in these areas and and make those choices not based on your desires,
what everybody else is doing or thinks is right, but based
on truth, based on values to learn and live. I ask you this
morning, if you are in this stage of early manhood, what area of
life right now is challenging for you? You probably know what
it is. There's some area of your life
right now that you're experiencing a challenge in. You're a young
man, 18, 19, 20, early 20s, up to 30s, whatever. And there's
something that that's a challenge for you. It's a question. It's
a problem. It's a burden. It's a struggle.
It's a temptation. It's a habit. It's a choice.
It's this big looming thing. What am I going to do about this?
And in that area, you need to be sensible. You need to use
good judgment. You need to not follow just your
desires and appetites, not just your personal ambitions or what
will bring you pleasure or bring you approval or attention or
fame. But learn truth and live accordingly. So there's the stage of life
of early man that I think there's also the stage of life, which
we'll just call this morning midlife. Nobody likes to think
about that, but but that's what it is. Late 30s and the late
40s. And there's a set of areas where you need to be sensible
and use good judgment and not follow your appetites or your
ambitions. Also, some of them are the same. The applications are just different.
But, you know, there are tests and trials and temptations that
are unique to your stage of life. You may have made some bad choices
in your teens and your 20s, and you're now recovering from those.
Some bad financial choices, some bad relational choices, some
bad moral choices, some bad lifestyle choices. And you're now recovering
from this. It's time for you to use your
head. That's really what this means
to be sensible means use your head. Stop doing stupid things
and start doing wise things is the idea. Yeah, you need you
need to be sensible at this point in your life. You are walking
with God. And you are learning truth and
maybe you know a good bit, but you don't know it all. And this
is a time for you to really strengthen that walk with God. To to be
careful about what you read and what you believe, there's so
much information, so many appealing ideas and so many people that
are speaking and writing and and broadcasting. and delivering
information to you. There's so much that you can
read. You've got to be careful with that and be discerning with
all that information. Some of it's truth. Some of it's
not. Some of it's there to draw you in and to get something for
what to fulfill their desires, their appetites, their ambitions,
and to use you to accomplish that. We have to be discerning.
There are physical changes in this stage of life. There are
health issues that take place. You realize that there are unfulfilled
expectations and disappointments in life. Things aren't turning
out exactly how you thought they would be. If you're married,
you are growing still as a husband. You are facing issues and challenges
as a parent at this stage in life. Sometimes there's a change
in job or career or location or an opportunity to change your
job or your career or your location. I put the question to you in
this stage of life, what is the greatest challenge you have right
now? What decision are you facing?
What golden opportunity is right in front of you right now or
just possibility or or new new thing that you might be tempted
to try? What is your greatest responsibility
right now? What is your greatest temptation
right now, today, last night, this week? What's your greatest
temptation and how are you handling that following your appetites,
fulfilling your ambitions, listening what everybody else is saying
and watching what they're doing and doing accordingly? Or are
you learning truth? And are you living by it? Now, why do we even need to address
these things? Why do we even have to talk about
this? Why did Paul bring it up to Titus
and tell Titus to pass it on to others? Because there are
dangers in this stage of life of early manhood, the stage of
life of midlife. There are dangers here. There
are dangers when it comes to your walk with God and just the
life that you live. And let me just throw a few of them out
to you. One of them is that we just do foolish things, don't
we? We do sinful things. We make
choices that affect us for the rest of our lives and there's
a danger zone there. Because if we do the wrong thing,
it can affect us in a really bad way for the rest of our lives.
A danger is that we do naturally follow our impulses and our appetites
rather than truth and principles and values. A danger is that
we are easily influenced by other people. Through the media. By the culture around us, rather
than intentionally influencing ourselves with truth. And what
is right and what is valuable, we naturally pursue material
things, pleasurable things rather than eternal things and spiritual
things. We're naturally selfish. We just are. We're just naturally
selfish. We fulfill what brings us immediate
gratification rather than investing for the long term. We fail to
get good counsel before making big decisions. We think we've
got it. Know what I want to do. Going to do it. Go for it. Looks
good. Sounds good. Here we go. We fail
to get good counsel and get ourselves in trouble. This is a stage of
life when we can get ourselves into serious financial debt.
And we rack up the tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of
dollars that you spend the rest or a major part of your life
getting out of. This is a time of life when you
are susceptible to get rich schemes. This is a time in life when you
can get involved in a relationship with another person. Who pulls
you down and takes you away from being the person that God wants
you to be in doing what God has directed you to do. This is a
stage of life when we can easily squander time. We can just squander
away hours doing nothing worthwhile. We all have our downtime. We
all have our leisure activities. We need a break. We need to relieve
the tension so we can get back to work. But younger men can
squander hours and hours of time, we can we can waste days, we
can waste weeks, even years of time and of life during this
stage. We want to live to be comfortable
and have pleasure rather than by. Truth. And you know, it's interesting.
We have this one little verse in Titus, this one little word.
But there is other scripture that talks about and to young
men. So let's take a let's take a
little. A little survey, a little excursion
here. I'm not going to have you turn
to all these, but I do want to put some of them in front of
you. And I encourage you to jot these
references down and look at them later. I want to deliver to you
right now some truth. If you're going to live sensibly
and use good judgment rather than according to your appetites
and your ambitions and what other people are doing, how do you
do that? Let me deliver some truth to you here this morning.
And these these come from other scriptures throughout the Bible.
And the first one comes from Ecclesiastes chapter 11, going
into verse chapter 12, verse one. Listen to what he says.
Rejoice, O young man, in your youth. In other words, he's saying,
hey, enjoy what's good about being young. Nobody wants to
take that away from you. Enjoy what's good about being
young. Rejoice, oh, young man, in your
youth. Let your heart cheer you in the
days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart
and in the sight of your eyes. But listen to what he says. Know
that for all these, listen, God will bring you into judgment. You know what he's telling you
as a young man? He's saying that you are responsible before God
for how you live as a younger man. The judgment that you will face
as someone who has never trusted Christ as your savior and you
die in your sins. Is the judgment of being separated
from God forever in the eternal torment of a place called hell?
That's the punishment for sin. Jesus died. For you. And because of your sins and
he rose again, when you trust Jesus to save you, he forgives
you, gives you eternal life. And you are rescued, you are
saved from that punishment, you're saved forever. Christians. Will stand before Jesus Christ. At something called the judgment
seat of Christ. And that's the judgment seat
of Christ. He will examine and evaluate what we have done in
this life. He will not punish us for the
wrong we've done. It's not to determine whether
we go to heaven or hell. The judgment seat of Christ is where
he will evaluate what we've done in this life and reward us for
what we have done that is for his glory and matters for eternity. And you know what we do with
those rewards? Revelation describes. All believers gathering before
this savior and laying at his feet the crowns that he has used
to reward us because he's the one that receives the glory.
If you're a Christian and you love Christ, you live for that
moment. So think about this in terms of that, what you're doing
right now in your late teens, what will you have? that will
pass the test at the judgment seat of Christ that will give
you something to give the Savior for when you were 18. And 19
and 20. What about you in your 20s if
you are if what you did in your 20s is singled out and tried
by fire and tested what will come out of that fire and pass
the test that you can say to the Savior. Here's what I did
for you and for your glory and that matters in eternity while
I was in my 20s. And I deposit this at your feet
because I love you and you're the one that gets the glory here.
What about your 30s? What about your 40s? What about
early man? What about midlife? The question
is, You have this period of time, yes, to enjoy the good things
that go with it, but you are responsible before God with what
you do with this time. There's a truth that can guide
us as we learn and live. Another one. Comes from the book
of Joel. And some other passages as well,
in fact, flip the first John chapter two. It's just a few
pages over to the right. Go past Hebrews and James and
first Peter and Get the first, John, go to chapter two. Here's
the second truth for you. You are key in God's gospel work
in the. World, you as a young man. Have a key role. Play a vital
part in God's gospel work that's going on right now in the world. Listen to Joel chapter 2 verse
28. Here's the prophecy and it shall
come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy. Listen, your old men shall dream
dreams. Your young men shall see visions. God was telling the people of
Israel through the prophet Joel, I'm going to pour out my spirit.
My Holy Spirit will come in his fullness. This would happen after
Jesus died and was buried and rose from the dead and ascended
back to heaven. The Holy Spirit would come and move upon and
move in people. And he's saying everybody is
going to experience this. And a lot of people are going to
have something to say. God is going to speak to young men and
God is going to speak through young men. Yes. You are vital
to the work of God in the world, the work of the gospel around
the world right now. Look at 1st John Chapter 2. He
singles you out again. Verse 12 I write to you little
children because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake.
Verse 13 I write to you fathers because you have known him who
is from the beginning. I write to you young men. Because
you have overcome the wicked one. Keep reading that right
to little children. He goes back to the cycle again
because you've known the father. I've written to you fathers because
you have known him. It was from the beginning. I
have written to you, young men. Because you are strong. And the
word of God abides in you, you have overcome the wicked one.
Nobody's telling you here. Yes, there are different groups
of people, different levels of maturity within the body of Christ.
He does single you out. He says, you know, there are
Christians who are more mature than you are as a young man.
There are people who have different roles than you do as a young
man. But you have a key role. Also, you are strong as a young
man. You have a vitality. and an energy
that older people do not have. What are you going to use it
for yourself or for Christ? You have a choice to make. He
says, you have the word of God abiding in you. You guys can
learn things and commit them to memory and they make sense
and you understand them and you remember them. Us old guys have
to go back. What was John 3 16 again? I can't
remember how that goes. The stuff just falls out. It's
back there somewhere. We try to pull it up. You're
just like this. You're just spitting it out. Things stick. They stay. You can recall them. You have
a strong body, a strong mind. God's word is going deep into
your heart. He's saying grab hold of that.
You have won some victories over Satan. You have overcome the
wicked one that happened first when you got saved. If you're
a Christian, that is a major victory over Satan. It happens
when you begin to obey God. It happens when you are baptized
and follow Christ in that way. You you let it be known. You
shout it out that you're a Christ follower when you're baptized.
It happens when you begin to obey God and change wrong habits
and resist temptation and overcome sin and share the gospel and
tell people how you were saved. You're overcoming the wicked
one. You're winning great victories. He's saying you have a vital
role, use your youth for gospel work and for the glory of Jesus
Christ. There's a third truth. You know,
you can get overconfident because of your vitality and your strength
and your knowledge, but please be careful, don't get overconfident. Living for God requires super
human strength. Which you don't have. You don't
have what it takes to fight all the battles, you don't have what
it takes to go the distance. You might be able to do the however
many K run or the Spartan race or the, you know, whatever, play
basketball for three hours nonstop. You may be able to do that. You
may have what it takes to go the distance, but you don't have
what it takes to win the battles and go the distance of the Christian
life, just as what we've been talking about and singing about
this morning is is we are weak. You've got to acknowledge that.
But he is strong. Jerry read from Isaiah 40 for
us. You know what that passage goes on to say? It says the everlasting
God, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints
nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. Yes, he gives
power to the weak and those who have no might increases strength.
Listen. Isaiah 40, even the youth shall faint and be weary and
the young men shall utterly fall. But those who do you know what
is to say, but those who wait on the Lord, Shall renew their
strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they
shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
If you try to live. The Christian life and do the
Christian things in your own strength, you will grow weak,
you will wear down, you will falter, you will fall. You are
inadequate. And you must learn to rely on
God. That's really what it means to
wait on the Lord doesn't mean sit back and do nothing. It means
to rely on him. It means that you rest in his
strength, Lord, I need to be strong for this, but I'm not
strong for this. I want to be strong in you. And that's the
truth here. Be strong, but not in your own
strength. Be strong in him. Waiting on
the Lord means you rest in his strength. It means you follow
his lead. You want to just charge out and
go after it and you've got your goal and your career, your vocation,
your financial objectives, all that, whatever it is, hold on,
wait on the Lord. Follow his lead, yes, you'll
make decisions, yes, you will pursue objectives, of course
you will, but follow his lead. Rest in his strength, follow
his lead, go at his pace. You want that relationship to
happen. It's not happening. Are you waiting on a relationship,
are you waiting on her to finally say yes, no, you're waiting on
the Lord, aren't you? You're going at his pace. And
then give him the glory. When you're strong in him, you
can turn around and say, I didn't do that. I couldn't have done
that. God did that. I praise him that he gave me
the strength. To live for him. There's one
more truth, and this one's kind of for all of us. This is interesting.
In First Timothy, chapter five, Paul is talking to Timothy there
and he's telling Timothy as a pastor how to handle problems. And he
tells him how to handle the problem with an older man. He says, don't
rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father. In other words,
show respect to him. But then Paul tells Timothy there
also to exhort younger men as brothers. And I think the idea
is don't talk down to them. Don't disparage them. Don't feel
like you're better than they are. Even as a pastor, Timothy,
you treat those younger guys like your brothers. You talk
to them man to man. And it's true. Young men deserve
a level of respect. They don't know it all. They're
making some mistakes. They're still growing. They're
not as mature as you are if you're one of the older men. But it's
good for us to remember these are guys. These are men. They
do have thoughts. They do have a heart. Let's pray for them,
let's encourage them, let's listen to what they have to say, let's
talk through the issues that they may have. Let's appreciate
them. So that's a truth as well for
all of us, the young men do deserve a level of respect. So how do
we do this? If you are in this stage of life,
how do you do this if you say, all right, God's word says I'm
supposed to be sensible. Using good judgment, not following
my appetites or my ambitions or everybody else's doing, but
learning truth and living it out. How do I do that? What are
some ways that you can do this? Well, one, of course, is just
to learn and live. That involves learning truth. Learn truth. Go into God's word yourself. It may be difficult, complicated
or very familiar to you, but there's always something there
for you. Make time day by day to be in
the word. Continually expose your mind
and heart to truth. It's as simple as reading God's
word with an attentive mind and an open heart every day. Whether
you're on a plan or you're reading through a book or you're focusing
on one chapter, you're memorizing one verse and you're meditating
on that. Just get into God's word on a daily basis. You're
learning. You're learning truth. You're
exposing yourself to it. You're exposing your exposing
your heart to it. There's so many distractions. You've got
if you've got the scriptures on a device, that's fine. That's
great. But there's so many distractions
you can be reading. And five seconds later, you're off and
never, never land somewhere. You've got to eliminate or overcome
those distractions so that you can get God's word into your
heart. Yes, other things are important and helpful, but but
you need truth. In a situation like this, it's
good to have something where you can write down maybe not
every single thing the pastor or the teacher says, but something
reach out there and grab something that's for me. I need that. That
makes sense. I want to remember that. I want
to go back to that later. I want to pray over that. So
you engage, you actively learn and live and walk in the spirit.
That means you submit to him. That means to obey him. That
means to to turn toward the spirit rather than be driven by self
and your flesh and by the world. Another big one is to get a mentor.
If you have a dad in your life that you can look to. For counsel,
for guidance, for prayer, for accountability, that's great,
if not, Just think about it and pray about it. Is there somebody
that I know that I respect that I could talk to and just just
be around sometimes? And if that person is not initiating
mentoring, you just say, hey, sir, can we have coffee together
sometime? I just want to talk and maybe
ask you a few questions. Get some advice. Doesn't have
to be this big official program. Just do it. Can we just talk
and have some questions? I'd love to hear your insight
on this. I've seen your life. I've watched you live it out.
And I respect you. And I'd love to get some advice
on something that may turn into something more long term and
and and deeper. And I would encourage the rest
of us to to pursue this and be open to this. And maybe you think,
is there someone that I should be spending time with? And you,
as an older man, might be afraid of this and thinking, I don't
know what to say. I'm inadequate. Yes, we are. But you know what
guys want? They just want us to spend a
little time with them and say, how's it going? What are your
challenges? How can I pray for you? You think
I can help you with? And pretty soon they'll say,
actually, there is. Actually, there is something you can pray
for me about. Actually, there is a question that I have. Actually, there
is something I'm struggling with. Actually, there is a sin I'm having a hard
time overcoming. Don't open up to you. It takes time. It takes
repeated exposure. But for guys in this stage of
life, it does help to have a mentor and then become responsible. Is your 20s playtime? Is it me time? What is it for
you? These are well-known facts. Let
me review them for you this morning. This comes from an article that
I read that kind of repeats some things that have become known
over the last few years. The 20s are a black box. And
there's a lot of churning in there. One third of people in
their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move
back home with their parents at least once. They go through
an average of seven jobs in their 20s. More job changes than in
any other stretch. Two thirds spend at least some
time living with a romantic partner without being married. Marriage
occurs later than ever. We're in the thick of what one
sociologist calls the changing timetable for adulthood. And if you haven't guessed yet,
what I'm about to tell you is to grow up. Sociologists traditionally
define the transition to adulthood as marked by five milestones.
Don't misunderstand these. If you don't have these in place,
it doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't a grown man or an
adult woman. That's not the point. But these
are characteristics of someone who is not living selfishly,
but is taking responsibility for adulthood. Five milestones. One is completing school. One
is leaving home. one is becoming financially independent,
one is marrying, and one is having a child. In 1960, 77% of women
and 65% of men had achieved all these five milestones by the
time they reached 30. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according
to the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of women and
one-third of men had done so. Now, I know there are circumstances
and various reasons for maybe not reaching one or several of
those milestones. But again, we're talking in general
categories here. What I put to you is it's very possible for
you as a young man to enter your 20s in self mode. And be thinking
that it's playtime. and continuing to be dependent
on others and never really entering life and taking responsibility
and holding down a job and and pursuing a relationship and becoming
a husband or a father. And it's just because you're
selfish or immature. What he's challenging you to
do here is to grow up, is to to be responsible and become
responsible. This is a time for you. And again,
I'm addressing especially in that early manhood stage. This
is a time for you to transition to adulthood. So what does that
mean for you? What does it mean for you to
become responsible? That's homework for you. Go think
about that. Talk to a parent. Talk to someone
that you respect and say, OK, here I'm at this stage in life.
Am I being responsible? Am I irresponsible? Maybe I'm
being selfish. Maybe I'm immature. How do I need to take a step
into or in adulthood at this point in my life? The 20s are
a time to learn and live. The 20s are a time to grow and
serve. The 20s are not me time. They
are man up time. The 20s are time not just for
yourself, but for God to invest and use for God and for others. Another way to be sensible is
to think long term, not have been Yehuda If he had been thinking
short term, accomplishing my goal, achieve my ambition, get
the fame, get the notoriety and the attention and the fame that
goes with it. And he could have pressed on and left the other
man laying there who would have minutes later died. Instead,
he stopped. Everybody else passed him by.
He started yelling at the man. He shook him. He woke him up.
Slung him over his shoulder, as it were, carried him nine
hours back down the mountain to base camp and saved his life.
In that setting, he made a choice that was not for short term satisfaction
or achievement. But for what was valuable, another
man's life that would have certainly have long term benefits for the
other man, certainly, and for both of them. What is it for
you? Is there something right now at your stage in life where
you are on the path? And you're about to make a choice.
Or, you know, you'll be faced with one soon and you could choose
short term enjoyment, satisfaction, fulfillment, achievement. But
maybe you need to choose to do something else that will bring
long term benefit, maybe even eternal fruit for the glory of
God. And then just make wise decisions,
think things through, be sensible, get wise counsel, pray about
things. Seek God's will. Paul tells Titus
to teach these various groups. To learn and live. What we see,
starting in verse seven of Titus two, is that he does not leave
Titus out. Pastors should be learning and
living also. I'm going to touch on this, honestly,
not because I want to brush past it, but because of time, you
don't want to be another 20 minutes, do you? I didn't think so. I know this doesn't apply to
most of us here. But we do have seven pastors here at Calvary.
A number of you. Are in ministry. Probably some of you are headed
into ministry, these things are important for you. Remember,
we do our Christianity in community. So I and we as pastors and men
in ministry need your encouragement, need your prayer, need your accountability
in these areas. If you're the wife of someone
in ministry or headed into ministry, these are areas where you can
pray for your husband and encourage him. Healthy living for pastors
includes the area of the pastor's daily and personal life. Notice
Paul says to Titus in all things, verse seven, showing yourself
to be a pattern of good works. I see three things here. First
of all, transparency, showing yourself means that the pastor's
life is on display. I don't always like that we in
ministry don't necessarily always like that, but it goes with the
territory. Our lives are on display. And
we are to be living out our Christianity In front of the body and the
church family, there's transparency there doesn't mean, you know,
every little detail about me, my family, my life, my relationship
with my wife or other pastors. You don't know everything, but
you do see a lot and you should be able to. There should be an
element of transparency there. It also includes authenticity.
It means that the pastor lives out what he teaches. He says
in all things. He talks about a pattern of good
works. These are specific aspects of obedience. It means that everything
you know, Paul told Titus to tell his people a lot of things. I mean, you read those lists,
right? But Titus himself is included in all those things, good works
that summarizes everything in this book, all the living side
of learning and living. So Titus was supposed to be living
out those things also. So pastors are to be authentic,
living out what we teach, and it also includes consistency.
He says a pattern of good works, that is an example, it does not
mean that we are perfect. It certainly does not mean that
we are up on a pedestal. We are men just as you are men. Our humanity is no different
from yours. Our sinful nature is no different from yours. We
are not perfect. We are not on a pedestal, but
the people that we shepherd should be able to observe our daily
lives and our family relationships and how we respond to trials
and what we do when we succeed, how we handle it, when we fail
and see how it works. When you're a Christian. You
should be able to see how truth works in the life of a real man,
and you should be able to see the grace of God at work in our
lives. There should be consistency there
to the point that you can observe and say, oh, that's how it works
and follow it to that degree. He also talks about the healthy
pastor's message. And this includes motivation
that is pure. That's what the word integrity
means, it means not corrupted, not susceptible to corruption.
Corruption is doing something for the wrong reason, for personal
gain. It means you exploit your position or the trust that people
have in you for personal gain, for pleasure, for esteem, for
money, whatever. No, your message should not be
corrupted. You should not be doing this
for some gain that you get. It also means that you're not
infected by the society, the Cretan society and culture should
not infect and contaminate Titus's life. The views of the false
teachers should not affect his beliefs and his teaching. And
the same is true for us. Our motives should be pure. The
reason that we do and say what we say should be pure. We should
have integrity. It includes delivery that gets
respect. That's in the word reverence.
We talked about in Chapter two, verse two, for the older men,
they should be reverent. It's the same word. It means
that you give a reason to people to respect And he's talking here
about doctrine, probably talking about how Titus delivered his
message. Don't have time to show you that
this morning, but the word means means the things what he was
saying and how he was saying it here, focusing especially
on how he was saying it, how the message is delivered. Doesn't
mean that the pastor or the preacher has to be somber and always serious.
It does mean that the way we deliver the message brings to
it The respect it is due. The pastor is not a stand up
comedian. The pastor is not the host of
a television show. The pastor is a teacher and a
preacher of the word of God. We should deliver it in a way
that gets respect to it. And. As we preach and teach our
message. Includes content that is true
to the word. That's the idea of sound speech. The word speech
here probably has to do with what is being said, the content
of the message. A healthy message is based on
healthy doctrine. It comes from truth. It conforms
to truth. It is not based on opinion or
experts, whether they be secular or Christian. It is a message
that arises out of truth that represents truth. Represents
truth accurately, confidently, clearly, courageously and fully. And this message. Actually becomes
one of the major sources of what all of us. Learn. And live how important that is,
but a great responsibility that is. Let me remind us. That what we're
talking about this morning whether for younger men, pastors or any
of us, is not just a list of things to work on. These are
not things for you to do so God will bless you. Notice with me
again, chapter two, verse 11, for the grace of God that brings
salvation has appeared to all men. Teaching us. So we're learning. What are we
learning? We're learning from the grace of God. The grace of
God here who appeared is Jesus. Jesus came. He died. He was buried. He rose again
to save us from our sins. Read on teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live. There's the living
side. We're learning and living. And you see the next word soberly.
Guys, that's the word, same word as sober minded that we looked
at this morning. Sensibly using good judgment,
what this is telling us is that these qualities are what God
has saved you. To be and to do. His grace. Makes it possible
for you to be forgiven for the times in which you are not these
things. Makes it possible for you to
be restored to fellowship with God. His grace makes it possible
for you to develop these qualities and to grow in them as he infuses
you daily with grace. As you rely on him and trust
in him and yield to his spirit, he works this in you as you yield
to him and submit to him and obey him, it comes out in your
life. And we respond to him, we submit to him. We pursue these
qualities, we cultivate them the best we can by the grace
of God. Young man. What needs to happen today for
you to be sensible? What needs to change today for
you to be sensible? You need to be forgiven. Accept
it by the grace of God. Do you need to bring your whole
life into submission to God and say, you're the Lord. I've been
living for myself, you're the Lord, I submit now to you. You
need to make a choice, something you're faced with right now,
a decision, I need to do this sensible thing by the grace of
God and for the glory of God. Respond to God's grace. Let's
pray about it, would you pray with me? We have heard from You. We now
respond to You. Thank You for Your grace that
forgives. Thank You for Your grace that restores. Thank You
for Your grace that enables and equips and strengthens. Oh God,
we need Your grace today. It comes to us in the person
of our Savior Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, we need your grace. Thank you for speaking, thank
you for teaching. Thank you for what we've learned,
help us now by your grace to go and live. In Jesus name, Amen.
Healthy Living Part 3
Series Titus
| Sermon ID | 32513751593 |
| Duration | 53:50 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Titus 2:6-8 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.