looking in the book of Titus
chapter two. But speak thou the things which
become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate,
sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise,
that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers,
not given to much wine, teachers of good things. that they may
teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love
their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good,
obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men likewise exhort to
be sober-minded, in all things showing thyself a pattern of
good works. in doctrine, showing uncorruptness,
gravity, sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that
he that is of a contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil
thing to say of you. Exhort servants to be obedient
unto their own masters and to please them well in all things,
not answering again, not purlorning, but showing all good fidelity,
that they may adorn the doctrine of our God, our Savior in all
things. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world. looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem
us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works. These things speak and exhort
and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee." Now
this is a chapter that is quite filled with practical advice
for the children of God. But we must not overlook the
fact that all of the practical advice that is given in the scriptures,
especially in the writings of Paul, is not designed just to
give God's people a checklist of things they ought to be doing
or how they ought to act. But Paul in his setting forth
those exhortations and admonitions to the children of God as to
how they should comport themselves in this world are given for one
primary reason, and that is that the name of Christ might be exalted. In other words, He doesn't exhort,
as he says here, the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound
in faith, in charity and patience, just so they'll be good citizens.
Just so people will say, well, you know, those guys are really
good. But he exhorts God's people with these things. that he says
here in the first verse, speak thou the things which become
sound doctrine. That is, those things that are
becoming of sound doctrine. If we say something becomes something,
we mean it's fit for it. The Lord Jesus Christ became
us. In other words, He became a Savior
for us. He became that which we needed. And so it is that to be becoming
sound doctrine, in our conduct is to be mindful that all that
we say and do has a reflection as the children of God on him
who called us out of darkness and into the light. And so therefore
the God's people are exhorted to walk in a godly fashion. not just so that they might say,
well, look at us, or we're different from everybody else, but that
Christ might be magnified. And so he says here that we are
to speak the things which become sound doctrine. Now, of course,
sound doctrine is at the center. We have mentioned this many times. If you have no sound doctrine,
then all else might as well be cast away. And unfortunately, what we see
primarily around about us in this world today, in the religious
world I'm speaking about, primarily among many that profess to be
the followers of Christ, is that sound doctrine is a thing that
is very little considered. The primary thing that is considered
today in most of what's called preaching is trying to get folks
to be happy. You know, you want the blessings
of God on your life. Well, who doesn't want the blessings
of God on their life? I mean, everybody wants the blessings
of God on their life. You know, everybody wants to
be happy. Everybody wants to feel good. Nobody wants to be
sick. I mean, we want to go through
life and everything work out just like we want it to. That's
just normal. But that's not what the word
of God is about. It's not what the Lord Jesus
Christ didn't come to make us happy. He came to bring us out
of darkness and into the light. And that being in the light is
a recognition of the fact that Christ is the light. See, you
can't walk in the light if you don't know who the light is.
I mean, if you don't know the source of light, you can't have
light. If you don't know the source
of righteousness, you can't know what righteous living is. Righteous living is living in
Christ. I mean, there's no other righteousness
that we have other than that which is in Christ. And so our
conduct is to be reflective. Paul said, reckon yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. Now that's a
mouthful. And he wasn't saying make out
like it's so, you know, so you can put on a good front. He said,
if you are the children of God, reckon that you are dead to sin. How can we that are dead to sin
live any longer in it? I mean, how can we embrace sin?
Can a fountain bring forth good water and bad water? No, I mean,
it's either corrupt or it's not. And so he says that in Christ,
we're righteous. We've been made righteous in
Christ. And therefore we exhort one another, walk according to
that righteousness. Walk according to the calling
that you have. You've been called as the sons
of God. Be mindful of it. And that's
really basically, if you had to boil down what he's saying
about all of these things here, that would be it. That the aged
men be sober. Now when we think of sobriety,
we generally associate that with alcohol and not using alcohol. Now of course, the scripture
nowhere condemns the use of intoxicating beverages. but it has a lot to
say about it. And it warns wise men to avoid
these things except in moderation. And so it is that when we understand
what that sort of sobriety is, that gives us a picture of what
the actual term sober means. A sober-minded person is a serious
person. A person who is not sober is
not. And what, you know, how can a
person intoxicated with alcoholic beverages cannot have a sober
mind, can he? They're not thinking straight. God's people are to be thinking
straight. And our thinking is always to be Christ is our Lord,
Christ is our righteousness, Christ is our King. Sober minded,
the aged men, he said, to be sober. Now, you know, you would
think that, I used to think when I was a kid that the older you
got, the more serious you got. The older I get, the more I realize
that's not true. The more really silly and stupid
you get, the older you get. And the more you need to be reminded,
this is serious. This is a serious business, the
aged men. See, now if the aged men need
to be exhorted to be sober-minded, how much more so the youth? Because you see, an aged man,
he has the same thoughts of ridiculousness and stupidity that a young man
has, but he doesn't have the capability to carry those things
out. And the young men, they have
the ability to carry them out, and they don't know any better.
And as you get older, you do know better, but you have no
more regard quite often for those things than the young men. So the aged men ought to be sober. Examples to the flock. Are we
not? I mean, it's not becoming of
an old man. to be un-sober, either with drink
or with his conduct. That these men be sober. Grave. Serious-minded. This is a serious
thing, a grave. You know, that's a word, is it
not? When you go to the graveyard
and you look on the graves, that gives you a different perspective,
does it not, of life? Because you realize that that
is the place. That is the final resting place
of these bodies. That's grave. So when we exhort
one another to be grave, we have a thought to that. This world is passing. Our lives
are passing. We live our lives as a tale that
is told. Our lives are as a vapor. And
we ought to be mindful, temperate, Sound in faith. Temperate means
moderate. It means considering what you're
doing. Don't do something and then think
about it. Think about it and then decide whether or not it
is to be done. Sound in faith. In charity, how
can you be sound in faith if you don't know what faith is?
See, you cannot be sound, that is, have a basis if you don't
know what the basis is. And the basis of our faith is
Christ. And so in all things, that's
how we consider what it is that we believe, is that we come back
to Christ. See, it's not about having a
confession of faith. You know, all of the major churches
and organizations and religious communities and what not, generally
have a confession of faith. There's nothing wrong with a
confession of faith. Nothing wrong with writing one
down. But a confession of faith is not the thing upon which we
stand. You know, our confession of faith is a confession of Christ. These things may help us to understand,
you know, the ways, the basis of things that we believe, but
the faith that we have comes from Christ, sound in faith,
in charity, in patience, in love. One towards another. I mean,
of all things that we're exhorted to do in the scriptures, love
the brethren, is it not? Love one another. Esteem one
another above ourselves. That's the hallmark. That's the place, there's no
higher calling for God's people than to love one another. I mean,
read the book of John's three epistles. It's centered in loving
one another. In fact, he said by this, this
is how we know that we are in the faith, because we love the
brethren. Oh, what a glorious thing. I
believe this is a true thing, that God's people love God's
people. They can't help it, because we have that in common. If I know that you love Christ,
that makes you special to me. and vice versa, because that
is our common love, in patience. Now, I've shared this with you
before. My mama used to have a saying.
And I sometimes turn it around the other way, but she said that
patience is a virtue. Possess it if you can. It is
seldom in a woman and it's never in a man. And you know, that's
the true thing. I mean, patience is not something
that's easy to come by. Now it's easy to have patience
when everything's like you want it to be. You know, we can be
patient. Oh, you know, everything's all
right. But just let something go contrary to how we want it
to be, and patience kind of flies out the window. But this is not
really, while that is a good virtue, to be that sort of patient,
the patience that he's speaking about here is waiting upon the
Lord. See, that's the patience that
we need, is to wait on the Lord. A difficult thing to do. I mean,
we want to go ahead, do we not? We know best. Wait, I say, on
the Lord. The aged women, likewise. Now, women don't like to think
about being aged. Men don't mind it. I mean, we
don't like what comes with age, but we don't mind telling somebody
how old we are. In fact, a lot of times we think
it's a badge of honor. Somebody will say, well, I'm
69. And you say, well, that's nothing. I'm 72. And it's like
you've really accomplished something by living those few more years
or whatever. But women, they don't like to
think about that. as a general rule, and I'm not
picking on the women by any means, but it does say, Paul says, the
aged women. He understood that women age
just like men do. And so the aged women, that is
those women who have, who've learned some things as they walked
in life. And the scripture does speak
of young and old. And there's a good place. There's
a good place for the fathers, good place for the young men. You know, there's a good place
for children. The Lord has those things and he would have us to
understand that there's a difference in how he would, those things
that he would press upon us. I mean, it's impossible for us
to think that a young man's gonna have a thought process that an
older man has, he can't. because he can't have seen these
things. That's why it is that men, or as young men grow older
in life, they come to recognize that their father has learned
a lot as he's gotten older. As they got older, they realized,
well, you know, he's coming along pretty good. But the thing is
that they can't know these things, and you can't tell them. You can do all you can to tell
a young man, I'm talking about in the flesh now, you can tell
a young man a lot of things, but he knows better than you
do. He figures he's got it figured
out. He's got the tiger by the tail.
He knows how to do it. But the aged women likewise,
that they be, in behavior as becometh holiness. It's a glorious thing to see
a man who walks in godly comportment and in a manner that adorns the
gospel of God. But I think it's an even greater
blessing to see women who walk in this way. I know as I think
back in my life of the influence that women who have adorned the
gospel of Christ and loved the way of God and
sought to walk in that, that they have had in my life of seeing
them. And I remember my Aunt Callie, she was always giving praise
to the Lord in all things. And you know, as I think back
on that, I think what an influence that was. to me. They age women
that in behavior as becometh holiness. Now holiness That term
is used by many in a lot of different ways. A lot of people have an
idea. They say, well, this is holiness,
and this is something else. And a lot of people have an idea
of what holiness is. In fact, there are certain denominations
and stuff that they even think that holiness has something to
do with the way you got, what kind of a hairdo you got, and
that sort of thing. But holiness that he's speaking
about here, he says, as becometh holiness. He doesn't say that
you're gonna have a holy way. He said, act in a fashion that
becometh holiness. That is, that is becoming to
that holiness which the Lord Jesus has called you to. What
is holiness? It's being set apart. See, to
be holy is to be set apart. When Isaiah had his vision and
he saw those creatures that surrounded the throne, what did they say
of the Lord? Holy, holy, holy. Now, what were
they saying? Were they speaking about the
fact that the Lord didn't commit sin? Well, of course he didn't
commit sin. I mean, it's impossible for such
a thing to even be considered. What was the holiness? The holiness
was the fact that he was set apart. He was inapproachable. I mean, those creatures, they
covered their eyes. They covered their feet. They
covered, you know, they were covered from head to foot because
he couldn't be uncovered in the presence of him who was holy.
Paul said he dwells in the light to which no man can approach.
He's immoral, he's invisible, the only wise God. So what if
he's set apart? And you see he would have his
people to be set apart. And so he says here to the women
that they be in behavior as becometh this position. See holiness is
a position, it's not an activity. Holiness is the place God has
put us. He's made us his sons and his
daughters. And he says act. like it, as
becometh holiness, not false accusers. I guess we often look at, we
often try to judge the motives of other people. Now you can look at what somebody
does and you can kind of know what it is. But you don't really
know what it is that motivates them in these things. And sometimes
you can become, you might criticize somebody only to find out that
they had a more noble motive in what they were doing than
what you did. Do not be a false accuser. Not given to much wine. Don't need to say too much about
that. I mean, the scripture's full of that. We're not to be
wine-bibbers. We're not to be those that go
about with such a consideration. I mean, what do we need with
all that? If the Lord said, my peace give I unto you, what are
we seeking if we should seek after that? I think that just
as much as I think there's nothing more influential than a godly
woman, I think there's nothing that is more detestable than
a woman given to drink. That's bad enough in a man. I
mean, it's bad in a man. Don't get me wrong, it's not
good. But it's even worse. in a woman because we don't expect
that. A woman is a more refined creature
than a man. A woman is in some measure placed
on a pedestal and that's a good thing because you see the Lord
Jesus Christ would have his bride placed on a pedestal. He loves
his bride and he doesn't see any fault in her. Oh, what a
glorious thing. And dear brethren, the Lord has
given to women to be typical of the bride of Christ. Teachers
of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober,
not given to whine, to be serious. See, that's the same recurring
theme, is it not? For God's people to be serious
minded, to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their
children. Now most times you don't have
to teach women to love their children. Most women love their
children. And you better not mess with them. Because most
women are like the, as the illustration's often given, of the mama bear.
You've messed with the child and you're gonna be in trouble.
because women, that's natural, but it's not natural in the sense
that what Paul is saying here because he said to teach the
women to love their children, to teach the young women to love
their children, not just natural love, you don't have to teach
a woman that, but love your children by teaching them the word of
God. See, if you love your children,
you want them to know the things of God. Now, you can't make them
believe it. You can't make them embrace it,
but you can put it upon them. You can put it before them. You
can be an example to them. And that's what he means. If
you love your children, you're going to set an example with
them. And you know, the example that
you set with your children by what you believe is far more
important than what you think you might teach them. See, if
they see that you believe it, they might never believe it themselves,
but they'll always know that you believed it. And it's a testimony
unto the glory of God and the faith that the Lord gives to
men in Christ to love their children, to be discreet, chaste keepers
at home. I mean, we don't need to say
a whole lot about that, but it goes without saying that the
Lord has given a grave responsibility to women
to be keepers of the home. Now that doesn't mean that she's
the only one that ever vacuums the floor, she's the only one
that ever washes the dishes, that's not what I'm talking about.
But the wife is to be the concern with her home. And I don't mean
the physical aspect of it, but I mean her home life. That's
what the scripture says here. Teach them to be discreet. Chase
keepers at home. Good. Obedient to their own husbands. Now that is, in our day and time,
you'd be careful where you go and say that. But yet, if women
have been given the privilege of being typical of the bride
of Christ, is it not a proper thing then
for us to teach women to be obedient to their own husbands? Now what
does that mean? Why is a woman, when we say a
woman obedient to her husband, does it mean she's a doormat?
Does it mean no? Because her husband, as the scripture
would indicate that he is to be sound in faith, charity, and
patience. that he is to be considered of
his wife. And him being considered of his
wife as the head of the house, to live in such manner that the
wife is glad to follow his lead. Obedient to their own husbands.
He says that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men, likewise, exhort to
be sober-minded. See, this is not just for the
old. Same thing applies to the younger
men. Exhort them to be sober-minded.
Why? Because they're not given to
being sober-minded, just like the older men. In all things,
showing thyself a pattern of good works in doctrine, showing
uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned,
that he that is of a contrary part may be ashamed, having no
evil thing to say of you. Now he's primarily speaking here
to Titus as one who was called to be the leader of the church
there in Crete, but this applies to all of God's people. that
we are to be those that look at the things that we believe,
in all things showing thyself a pattern of good works. What
kind of good works? I mean, what are good works? They're those things that adorn
the gospel of Christ. Those things that are becoming
of the people of God. To go about in such fashion as
to magnify the name of Christ in all that we do. A pattern
of good works in doctrine. Now there again, all men are
not called to be expounders of doctrine. But all of God's people
are called to be receivers of doctrine. That is, believers
of sound doctrine, lovers of sound doctrine. And how can we
know what sound doctrine is if we don't apply ourselves to knowing
what it is? I would venture to say most people
spend more time watching TV than they do looking at the Word of
God. Now, I'm not here to tell you
what you need to do with your time, but you know, it's not
becoming of a man who desires to be sound in the faith if he
does not spend time looking at what the faith is. I mean, how
can that be? You know, I grew up in a religious
tradition where everybody carried a Bible. but few people read it. Evidently,
I mean, you know, it was just kind of a natural thing. Everybody
would walk into the church building with their Bible in their hand,
and the preacher would say, turn to so-and-so, and everybody would
turn in the Bible and look at it. And then they'd put it up,
and then they wouldn't even know where it was till next week when
they went back to church. Well, brethren, you know, whether
you carry the Bible with you where you go or not, May the
Word of God be precious to you. And I believe it will be if you
are adorning the Gospel of Christ. Sound speech that cannot be condemned. Setting forth the Word of God. In our everyday lives, Paul says,
that our conversation is to be holy before the Lord, before
one another. No corrupt communication proceeding
out of our mouth. Now conversation in the scripture
generally speaking about more than just what we're saying,
but it has to do with our life. But there is a part of conversation,
sound speech, that is not corrupt, Words, you know, words are just
words, but there's corrupt words, and we all know what they are,
because they stem from corrupt thoughts. And God's people, if
they adorn the doctrine, sound doctrine, eschew these things. Walk away from them. Don't practice
them. I'm around a cross-section of
the public every day, and so I can assure you that the majority
of people in there have little concern with what they say. And
some of the things really are detestable to me. And I hate
having to hear some of the stuff. But I hate it even worse. Men who have no profession of
faith are gonna talk like men with no profession of faith,
but it troubles me greatly when I know of men that have a profession
of faith and their speech is not much different than those
others. That ought not to be. And that's
what Paul's exhorting here. He said, don't do those things
that are not becoming of the gospel that you believe. I mean,
if we believe these things to be true, ought we not to walk
in them? I mean, are we just happy to
You know, meet down here once a week or whatever. Are these
things, do these things permeate our lives? The things that we
believe, are they those things that weigh upon our mind and
heart? I believe as the Spirit of God
works in the people of God, they do. Oh, that he might work in
us, that he might cause us to be a people that are examples,
that manifest the fact that we're set apart in Christ. See, nothing
that one of those whom the Lord has set apart, nothing can make
them any other way. They're set apart in Christ.
Oh, that he might work in us to will and to do of his good
pleasure in such fashion that we might be becoming of the gospel
that we believe. The family is the basis of society. And it's not just so that society
can benefit, but that Christ would be magnified, because Christ
is magnified in the family, because we are, as the family of God,
we are typical of the relationship that takes place with the Lord
loving his people and bringing us together and giving us love
one for the other. And the family is the first basic
unit of that. I mean, you can't, it's hard
to teach your children to love one another or to love the brethren
if they don't not talk to love one another in the home. I mean,
if love is not, paramount in the home, it's hard to see where
it's gonna go in society. And we see that in society, the
breakdown of the home has brought about the destruction of our
society, really. I mean, we're in deep trouble. Of course, that's all natural
stuff there, but may the Lord help us. Somebody else.