Titus 2:1-10
Date: October 1st, 2023
Speaker: Samuel Crites
Scripture: Titus 2:1-10
Main Idea of Text: Paul gives Titus instructions for how to teach and train the members to live well with each other inside the Church.
2:1 – Paul tells Titus to teach sound doctrine.
2:2-10 – Paul gives Titus instructions on how to train the members to live well with each other inside the Church.
2:2 – Instructions to older men to have godly and sound character.
2:3-5 – Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior and train younger women.
2:6-8 – Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled and follow the example of the elders, namely Titus.
2:9-10 – Bondservants are to submit to their master and serve in good faith.
Main Idea of Sermon: Teaching sound doctrine trains unified and active church members.
Teaching sound doctrine unifies church members.
Sound doctrine clarifies the essentials.
Sound doctrine facilitates charity.
Teaching sound doctrine produces active church members.
Trains older men to be:
Example of Godly character [Sober minded, dignified, self-controlled]
Source of Godly wisdom [Sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness]
Trains older women to be:
Reverent in behavior
Those that train the younger women:
Love their families.
Reflect well on the word of God.
Trains younger men to be self-controlled.
Trains all to have the godly character of a bondservant to Christ.
Introduction:
What holds the church together? Everyone has heard the stories of member’s meetings that are knockdown, drag out fights or angry members leaving First Baptist Such-and-Such to found Second Baptist right down the street.
I once knew an older church in another town down the highway from where I grew up that split their church over the church organ. They had a new younger pastor that took over the elderly church about eighteen months prior to the split The pastor was an accountant, and immediately realized that the church was spending a material portion of their annual budget maintaining an organ and paying one of their members to play it. The church was facing insolvency, so the logical thing was for the church to move away from using the organ in worship until they had the finances necessary to care for it. After over a year of trying to get the people to understand the loadstone that the organ was on the finances of the church, they fired the pastor and the church split.
How do things become so disordered and the Gospel so out of focus that God’s people treat each other like this? If you shake your head and think, that could never happen at my church, you underestimate the general sinfulness of all people, including the pastor. Things can become disordered and get out of hand very quickly in any church, because every church is made up of people that still struggle with a sin nature.
In Titus 2:1-10 we are going to see how Paul commands Timothy to put a disordered church back into order. Let’s read Titus 2:1-10 together:
Titus 2:1-10
2 But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. 6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. 9 Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
The church in Crete was in chaos. False teachers and a lack of biblical leadership had left God’s house in disarray. Titus was walking into a firestorm caused by the false teachers and the lack of biblical leadership in Crete. So, Paul gives him the kind of advice that is simple to understand but difficult to execute. He told Titus to put the church back in order by teaching sound doctrine and training the members to care for each other. The main idea of our sermon this week is this: teaching sound doctrine produces unified and active church members.
Our sermon will have two main points. First, teaching sound doctrine unifies the church. Last week we saw that Titus was sent by Paul to deal with false teachers. He was tasked with appointing elders so that the elders could silence the false teaching and rebuke the false teachers in hope that they would return to the truth of the Gospel. Not only was Titus to appoint elders, but Paul also wanted Titus to set things in order. The way you silence what is false is by teaching the people to love what is true. Teaching sound doctrine brings God’s people together because it trains them in truth, redirecting people’s attention away from the unimportant things that divide us toward those essential things that are the foundation of our unity.
The second point of our sermon is that teaching sound doctrine produces active church members. The pulpit is the rudder of the church. If the word is clearly proclaimed in the preaching it will resonate and echo in the lives of the people; it will lead to members that have been genuinely convicted of their duty to love and care for one another, that go and do the hard work of ministry. So, Paul gives specific instruction to different groups in the church: the older generation, the younger generation, and bondservants, on how they are to live well with each other. It is not natural for us to cross generational divisions. It is not easy to live in covenant community with people that you think are not like you. When God’s word is taught clearly and soundly from the front, it waterfalls through the mature believers into the lives of the less mature so that the whole body is built up together to grow in holiness and maturity.
The solution to a Church that is in disorder is to start with clear and ordered teaching from God’s word. When God’s word is taught clearly, the church will become unified, and the members will become more active in each other’s lives.
Teaching sound doctrine unifies church members.
As we consider our first point, that teaching sound doctrine unifies the church members, let me remind you of what we have seen in the book of Titus to this point. In verse 5, Paul tells us why Titus is in Crete. He says:
Titus 1:5
5 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you…
Paul left Titus in Crete to do two things: appoint elders and put what remained in order. These two primary duties can be a helpful framework for consider all of the content of the book.
Chapter 1:6-16 can be seen as instruction to Titus on how to accomplish the first task. He first reminds Titus of the qualifications of an elder in verses 6-9 and then explains to Titus the reason elders are so essential to the health of the Church in verses 10-16, namely, that false teachers have inserted themselves in the Church and verse 11 says that they are upsetting whole families and teaching for shameful, personal gain. This cannot be allowed in God’s church, and the absence of elders up to this point has allowed this false teaching to flourish in the Church. So Paul tells Titus to appoint elders, so that together, he and the elders can silence the false teaching and rebuke the false teachers in hope that the false teachers will return to the soundness of the one, true faith. So Chapter 1 can be seen as the qualifications for and reason why Titus must appoint elders in the church.
Chapter 2 and 3 address Paul’s other point: put things in order. Once the cause of chaos has been removed, Titus is free to help the church become orderly. In Chapter 2, he is going to explain how the Church is to be ordered internally, meaning, he is going to explain the duties that Titus and the members have to each other under the authority of the Gospel. In the first part of Chapter 3, he is going to explain the duty the members have to authority structures outside the Church, to rulers and governing authorities that are not dependent on the Gospel.
So, how is Titus supposed to help these members of the church that are only used to the chaos that is the product of false teaching become more ordered and fulfill their duty to one another within the Church? How is he to help the church become more unified? In verse 1 of Chapter 2, Paul gives a simple, but difficult answer. He says:
Titus 2:1
But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
That phrase, “But as for you…,” is a direct contrast to the false teachers that have been causing disunity. Unlike these teachers that selfishly teach things that are not true for their own personal benefit, you, Titus, are to teach sound doctrine for the purpose of bringing order to the Church.
Now, Paul just states this as a command. He does not expound upon how teaching sound doctrine leads to unity in the Church. He merely asserts that it does. It is up to us to consider, to meditate together on God’s word and reflect on how teaching sound doctrine leads to unity in the Church. I have two ways that I want you to consider for how sound doctrine produces unity within the Church.
First, sound doctrine clarifies the essential teachings of the Christian faith. That’s really all we mean by a doctrine. A doctrine is a theological teaching of the Church. Teaching sound doctrine identifies the essential doctrines we must understand and essential doctrines we must defend.
Meaning, there are absolutely times when members or pastors should be willing to divide the Church. Unity at any and all costs only leads to heresy and the corruption of the Gospel. There is a very famous pastor at this very moment that is operating upon the thesis that in order to save the Church and make it relevant to the present generation we must unhitch ourselves from those inconvenient passages of Scripture that offend modern sensibilities. We cannot compromise the essence of Christian teaching in order to avoid giving offense.
But not all doctrine rises to the level of being a hill to die on. In fact a very small percentage of the teachings of the church are so essential that we would consider dividing over them. Sound doctrinal teaching clarifies those doctrines that are worth dying to defend and those that are not. We know what is core to the Christian faith by considering the teachings that are vital to the message of the Gospel. Clarity on these doctrines galvanizes God’s people into a singular fighting force, ready to defend these doctrines until their last breath.
But if clarity on the essence of the faith identifies what we should be living and dying to protect, it also makes us unified in a second way. It clarifies what we can agree to disagree on with charity. We can not only be unified on what we must defend, but we can be unified on what does not need defending. There are moments within the Church when doctrinal disagreement will rise to the point of needing to put a member out of the Church as a false teacher, but that is a rare occurrence. Far more often, theological disagreement is not on these essential matters to the Christian faith, they are disagreements on minor doctrines that should be left to the realm of Christian charity.
Now some of you might hear me say Christian charity and think about some sort of service to the poor like food pantries or benevolence ministry. That is not what I mean by charity. Charity is the great Christian virtue to love. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:13:
1 Corinthians 13:13
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Christian charity is the greatest of all Christian virtues, and should characterize all of our theological discussions, especially those where we agree to disagree.
When we have great clarity on what is essential doctrine, when it is clearly taught from the pulpit, it will draw a bright white line between what those teachings are that require us to fight for and defend the Gospel and those doctrines that we can love each other in spite of our differences.
So, very practically, theological conversations happen in the Church all the time. When we disagree with a brother or sister in the Church, we need to carefully consider, “Is this a theological issue worth dividing over?” If it is not a core teaching to the Gospel, this an opportunity to demonstrate my love for my brother or sister by gently and kindly agreeing to disagree. Understanding the difference between the two and rightly discerning how to respond in both cases will lead to unity in the Church.
In cases where theological disagreement is over an essential doctrine, choosing to defend the truth will either correct your brother or protect the Church from false teaching. So the net gain is unity in both cases: a brother that has turned back from error or a church that has protected itself from what is false.
In the cases of theological disagreement over non-Gospel issues, choosing to agree to disagree preserves the unity you have already found on the essential matters. The reason that most people hate discussing the deeper things of the faith is because they have been a part of conversations that lack charity. If your conversation really is characterized by love, then your discussion partner will feel that. What a beautiful picture of the power of the Gospel, when brothers and sisters can disagree with love, when they discuss hard things and still hug each other around the neck in the end.
All of our conversations in the Church should be characterized by love: either a genuine love for your brother that he does not stray from the faith once delivered to the saints or a charitable love that sacrifices the fleeting pleasure of winning an argument for the eternal pleasure of brotherly fellowship in the Church.
This first point has considered how sound doctrine produces unity in the Church. It clarifies when we should divide and when we should agree to disagree with charity. Faithful preaching of sound doctrine has that clarity as its aim, but that is merely the starting point for sound doctrine in the Church. When God’s word is proclaimed from the pulpit, it will echo in the hearts of the people. It never returns void, but always accomplishes its task.
Teaching sound doctrine produces active church members.
Which is the second point of our sermon: teaching sound doctrine produces active church members. Paul’s solution to the chaos that defines the Cretan church is to take back the pulpit. The false teachers must be silenced and rebuked, and the pulpit needs to be reclaimed for the proclamation of the truth, because preaching is disciple-making.
Making disciples is the task set before all Christians. The last command that Christ gave to his followers in the Gospel of Matthew comes at the end of Chapter 28. This is what he says in Matthew 28:18-20:
Matthew 28:18-20
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Now, most of the time, this passage is used as the rallying cry for global missions and taking the Gospel to the nations, and it should be. Christ has commissioned us to go to every tribe tongue and nation because he has sheep that have not yet heard his voice. But I want to consider the passage from a different perspective by asking the question, “Who is Christ speaking to?” Some might say the Apostles, others might say all of his disciples, and to a certain extent, both of those answers would be true. But I think a more robust answer would be the local Church.
Think of the series of events that Christ commands. The best scholars of Greek agree that there is only one command in Matthew 28:18-20 and it comes to us in verse 19: make disciples. In English it seems there are multiple commands: go, make disciples, baptize, and teach, but in the Greek there is actually only one command. The rest inform and characterize how we make disciples. While going, make disciples, by baptizing them and teaching them.
So, stay with me, baptizing and teaching are essential to disciplemaking. So we should ask, “Baptize into what?” “How do we teach them all that Christ has commanded?” They are baptized into the Church where Paul says in Titus 2 that they are taught all teachings of Christ. Membership is discipleship, which means preaching sound doctrine is disciplemaking. Said differently, you cannot be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ if you are not connect to his body in Church membership and, while you may not always have a life on life Disciplemaker, you always have an elder feeding you God’s word through the preaching during Sunday worship.
Which hopefully gives you a new perspective on fulfilling the Great Commission. Many of us will never go to an unreached people group to proclaim the Gospel to those that have never heard, but by being the best member of a local Church, that is, by being the best disciple of Christ you can be, you will help raise up those that can and will carry the Gospel to all nations.
So how do we do that practically? Paul gives Titus instruction for how to train five different groups within the Church: older men, older women, younger men, younger women, and bondservants. Let’s look at them one at a time.
Let’s reread what Paul says to older men, beginning in verse 2 of Chapter 2:
Titus 2:2
Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
The first and really only directive that Paul tells Titus to teach the older men is that they are to be examples for God’s people: examples of godly character and wisdom.
I would group the first three things Paul says to the older men under the command to be examples of godly character, namely, that the older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, and self-controlled. All three of these commands are summed up in the idea that an older man is to be an example of godly character. He is to act with self-control in all aspects of his life.
The irony is that the only way to be a public example of godly character is to cultivate the private life of godly character. The moment that an older man attempts to live as a public example for the sake of getting a following, they have lost the godly character that they are attempting to model. You have to want God for the right reasons in order to inspire others to want god for the right reasons.
Every one of these three commands are internally focused, though they present a public example. To be sober-minded, one must think rightly in the privacy of one’s own head. They must bridle their emotions and think the right thoughts in order to demonstrate to others how to think the right thoughts. To be dignified is to conduct oneself correctly because you personally care what is proper. Dignity requires a personal honor that governs one’s actions. No one admires a busy body that tries to keep everyone else in line, but clearly does not keep themselves in line. To be self-controlled is to care about my personal reactions, not the reactions of others. If a man is going to be a public example of godly character, he must be privately godly.
But the next three things Paul says to the older men speak to his desire that they also be examples of godly wisdom. They are to be sound in three areas of their lives: in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. We have already seen what it means to be sound in faith. What is interesting to note here is that the older men in the Church carry a particular duty to be sound in their faith so that they can be fountains of wisdom to all in the Church. To be a leader in Godly wisdom, they need to be a leader in consuming godly content. They need to be the most active listeners and sensitive hearers in the Church because they have a duty to lead by example.
But they are also to be sound in their love and steadfastness. They are to love the right things and hold the line on the right things. These three things work together to produce men in the Church that actively lead the other members by cultivating their private godliness and securely holding to the right things.
However, if we merely stopped at Paul wants the older men to live by example, we run the risk of ignoring Paul’s own example to the Church. Paul did not passively live as a paragon of godly virtue that never got his hands dirty. In fact, we would not be hearing this sermon today if this older, more mature saint did not get his hands dirty with a young pastor that was shepherding the Church through a difficult time.
Older men must do all that Paull command, but they also must do all that Paul models and engage with the other members of the Church. They must lead by discipling the younger generation. Now many times, the older generation feels that the younger generation does not want their wisdom and leadership. Many more mature members have felt frustrated when they make the effort to engage the younger generation in discipleship only to be rejected or to have a strong start ends with the younger generation giving up.
I have three things to say to the more mature men in the Church to encourage you in your duty to pursue the younger generation. First, be self-reflective. When you are frustrated with the younger generation and struggling to find the compassion necessary to meet them where they are, ask yourself, where was I when I was their age? Not to beat up on my younger folks, but they need your wisdom and guidance for a reason. They are young! They are not mature. You think to yourself, “why don’t they care or appreciate what I am trying to offer them?” Because they are too immature to see it’s value, and the reality of the situation is that at one point you were just like them. You didn’t want some old codger getting involved in your life when you were twenty years old. You wanted to be out from under that authority in your life. If you struggle to be compassionate with the younger generation, reflect on the fact that you too used to be young.
The second encouragement I have for older men in pursuing the younger generation is to seek friendship before you seek discipleship. Very few formal discipleship relationships are formed when there is not an underlying friendship already present. Discipleship takes trust. You are trying to help this young person work on the most intimate and painful things in their life as they seek to kill sin and follow Christ. Too often, we assume that we should be trusted because of our age before we do the hard work of earning that trust. Every time we make a correction in someone’s life, we debit a withdrawal of personal capital that we hold with that individual. If you want to effectively make personal withdrawals in a relationship, you have to first credit some deposits in that account. Too many older saints attempt to disciple on borrowed credit. This is what Paul means in 1 Thessalonians 2:8 when he says:
1 Thessalonians 2:8
So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.
Our end is to share the Gospel, but we must first share ourselves.
Finally, if older men are going to have effective ministries of discipleship in the local church, they cannot give up. We are a small church. If you have cycled through every young person in this church, seeking a discipleship relationship, then rinse and repeat. Go back through the list again, because you know what has happened in that person’s life since the last time you pursued them? Anything! It could literally be anything that has happened in their life where they might finally need the care of a more mature saint in their life. Older men are to be examples of godly character and wisdom as they lead out in the hard work of pursuing less mature members in the church.
Now, as we transition to the next group Paul addresses, the older women, notice the cascading effect of the term, “likewise.” All that he has said to the older men applies to the older women, so hopefully none of you ladies fell asleep during the last point. Let’s reread verses 3-5:
Titus 2:3-5
3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
Paul gives Titus instruction regarding both the older women and the younger women at the same time. He tells Titus to address the older women directly, but he works through the older women to train the younger women.
So before we wrestle with the commands he gives to either the older women or the younger women, let me first address the residents and any man who aspires to the office of elder.
Men, we need to be very careful with how we shepherd women close to us in age. Not because of their sinfulness, but because of our own. I once had a pastor say to me that the only way that he could build a defense against cheating on his wife was being honest that it was possible. Elders, by their vert position have authority over and the admiration of their people. Do not put yourself in a position where you will be tempted by your own evil desires to abuse the good thing that God has entrusted to you.
We should approach older women as mothers and younger women as sisters. Paul gives Titus very sage advice here. It is more effective and loving to use the gift of older women in the Church to help shepherd the younger women in the Church. That does not mean that we abandon our duty to shepherd younger women by delegating them wholesale to the older women. Rather, we should work through the older women and engage them in the process of shepherding the younger women for the protection of everyone and the benefit of our sisters.
So, what does he say to the older women. First, be reverent in behavior. What does it mean to be reverent? It means to be respectful. The older women should lead out in the Church by being respectful of the all the authorities in their lives. Paul seems to be particularly concerned with that reverence manifesting itself in their speech, because her contrasts reverence with slander and addiction to alcohol. Slander is the sin of speaking falsely behind someone’s back and alcohol is typically the lubricant that loosens the tongue. Older women on to lead on in doing all the things that the older men are to do and especially disciplining their speech in reverence.
The second thing he says to the older women is to teach what is good. I originally broke today’s sermon text into four separate sermons, mainly because I wanted to do an entire sermon on this point. Women that teach what is good.
I am a hard complementarian, meaning, I believe men and women are equal in value, but complementary in roles. God has given men and women certain roles in life that are distinct from each other but complement each other in the way that God has prescribed that they perform them. One example of this distinction between men and women is the teaching ministry of the Church. A hard complementarian believes that God has been clear that only men can be elders and exercise the formal teaching ministry of the Church.
So, as a hard complementarian, hear me say, I long for, I ache in my soul for godly women in the Church that can teach what is good. The first bible teachers in my life were women. I cannot tell you the hours and hours I have spent with my own mother discussing God’s word and learning from her prodigious understanding of the entirety of Scripture. She not only taught me the content of God’s word, but she model a hunger for God’s word that was infectious from the time I was a little boy. One of the images that is burned into my memory is going to bed late at night and looking down into the living room and seeing my mom, alone, next to her lamp, on the couch working on her Precept Bible Study. I want women in the Church that understand and teach God’s word. Paul says that it is essential for the health and wellbeing of every local church.
So how do older women teach what is good? According to Paul in Titus 2, they teach the younger women. They model reverence and respect to all authority figures in their own lives and they instruct the younger women how to love their families and reflect well on the word of God.
Let’s take those one at a time. Paul says that it is the older women’s responsibility to teach the younger women to love their families: both their husbands and their children. Again self-control is a primary theme in what Paul instructs Titus to teach the church. These young women are to learn from the older women the kind of self-control that demonstrates to their husbands and their children that they love them.
For the children, that looks like a mother that does not fly off the handle, that is not ruled by her emotions or the frustrating behavior of the children, but a mother that is in control of herself. That wisely sets the rules, holds the line on the rules, and corrects with grace and peace. I say all these things knowing how hard it is to not be a reactionary parent. It is so easy to allow the children to set the emotional tone of the moment, to allow your frustration to match a mirror their frustrations. Self-control demonstrates love for your children, because when emotions rule children receive what they do not deserve: our anger, our harsh words, and our harsh hands. But, when we are self-controlled and do not allow ourselves to be swept along in the heat of the moment, we are able to show our children the same gracious love our heavenly Father show us as he disciplines us.
For their husband, a young wife’s self-control demonstrates her love for him, because it allows him to flourish through leadership. Let’s be honest, there are many times that Molly is a better parent than me, a more faithful discipler of our children, and an overall better leader of our household. She daily demonstrates a strength and perseverance that puts me to shame. But my duty to lead our family is not invalidated by the fact that she is more capable than me at some things. In fact, one of the ways that a wife loves her husband is by exercising that kind of self-control that allows him to lead when they both know that she is the more capable leader at a given task. It communicates to him that she trusts him and wants him to grow as a leader. It affirms his God given authority in her life and she helps train him with the experience to lead by giving him the opportunity to lead.
And when a young woman learns from the older women to live this way in her home, she gives no reason that anyone should have any cause to say something negative about God’s word. In fact, all they will be able to say is that God’s word has taken root in the young woman’s life and in the older woman’s life, because they seek to obediently follow God’s word in all aspects of their life, even when it is difficult.
This next group is quick, but I think the implications for our Church especially are profound. Paul tells Titus to urge the young men to be self-controlled. Which might seem like he was running out of things to say, but that is actually the consistent theme we have been seeing throughout all of his pastoral advice. All groups in the Church are to be self-controlled. So in a very real sense, when Paul says, “Likewise” in verse 6, he expects the young men to pay attention to all that has been said before and apply it to their own lives.
The interesting part of Paul’s instructions comes in verses 7-8. We can infer that Titus is a young pastor, because it seems that Paul includes him with the young men. As a young pastor, Titus is in a particularly difficult situation. He is tasked with preaching and training all of the saints what it means to live well with each other, and he is likely younger than the majority of his congregation. He does not have the honor that automatically comes with age.
So Paul emphasizes the need Titus has for two things: to be a model of good works and to teach with integrity. Let’s reread verses 7-8:
Titus 2:7-8
Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
Paul assumes Titus will be opposed. Even once the false teachers are removed from influence in the Church, it takes time for wrong thinking to work itself out of the Church. It takes faithful consistent leadership and teaching to settle the chaos caused by false teaching.
There are two reasons for this. First, it takes time for people to understand the truth. When they have been taught the wrong things, it takes a church some time to unlearn what was false and relearn what is true. But the second reason that moving towards soundness in the faith takes time is because the people have been hurt by false teaching. False teaching injures God’s people because it takes advantage of them. False teachers are not these dastardly characters from cartoons that where black fedoras and full-length trench coats, meaning they are not obviously the bad guys. They are actually friends in the Church. The people trusted them. They performed marriages among your people and were present at births and funerals. They might have coached a member’s soccer team or cared for the Church through difficult times. So when false teaching is revealed, the member’s ability to trust their leaders is damaged. They are going to be far less likely to trust the next leader, because authority has not been wielded for their wellbeing but has been used to do them harm.
Titus is doing a hard work, so his character must be above reproach and his teaching must be done with integrity and dignity. He must give these hurt people no reason to distrust him or Paul. And even if they wanted to say something against Titus, he is to live as such an example of godliness in front of them that they would have nothing to say.
Finally, Paul speaks to bondservants. Look what he says in verses 9-10:
Titus 2:9-10
Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
Now this is a tricky portion of Scripture to interpret because we do not have bondservants anymore. At this time, it is likely that Paul is speaking to the unique relationship a Christian bondservant has to their master who might be or might not be a Christian.
Sometimes it is common for bible teachers to apply this to the workplace, saying that being a bondservant is like being an employee. I do not think this is the best application of the passage, because it seems that all of Paul’s other instructions take place in the context of the local Church. So, we should ask ourselves the question, who is the bondservant in the local church and who is master?
Paul says in Romans 6:22:
Romans 6:22
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
We are all the bondservants of Christ. So if we are going to apply what Paul says to bondservants in the Church at Crete to our own lives, should we not consider what he says to our true master?
Paul tells Titus that bondservants should be submissive to their master, well-pleasing and not argumentative. When we do this, we adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. Isn’t that an amazing idea? You, living your little life here in this little town of College Station, have the ability to add beauty to the timeless and cosmic teaching of the Gospel. When you live to follow Christ as faithfully as you can, you show that the lordship he has in your life is actually valuable. It is good. It genuinely means something to you. And if it means something to you it should mean something to others. You beautify the Gospel with your obedience to your Savior.
When sound doctrine is preached from the pulpit, it ripples throughout the Church. The various demographic groups in the Church are going to be affected by the teaching in different ways, but it all works together to build the Church up in love. Order in the Church begins with orderly preaching, but it results in orderly members that are actively living in covenant community with each other.
Conclusion:
As we conclude, let me share with you a testimony of when this works well. Many of you may know that this Sunday is the one-year anniversary of our Church. There are two men that most of you do not know, that, if they had not done all that we have discussed in Titus 2 this week, I can confidently say, Mosaic Church would not exist. Their names are Rudy Watkins and Steve Tucker.
Rudy and Steve were the two elders from Harvest that discipled me while I was a resident at Harvest Church in Germantown, TN. They were very different men with very different gifts, but both played an essential role in encouraging and supporting me as my family and I worked our way toward planting Mosaic Church.
Rudy is calm and steady. His wisdom is not in books, but in life experience. He is the consummate encourager. When I would get sad or frustrated, Rudy was there to listen. I cannot count the hours that I have sat in his office discussing and praying about the dream of starting this Church. Rudy taught me how to love people by simply being there for them, listening to their concerns and patiently caring for their needs. He taught me that ministry is a people business. If the people do not feel your affection for them, they will never follow you. He demonstrated the quiet strength of a man that is sober-minded, dignified, and self-controlled.
Steve Tucker was bold and a dreamer. I say was, because Steve died in a tragic plane crash on January 17 of this year. The plan crash was tragic, not for him, but for me and all those he left behind. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t miss him. Steve was the greatest discipler that I have ever met. We will only know the extent of his discipleship ministry when we get to heaven, and he did it as a lay person with a small group on Friday mornings. Steve taught me to reach the masses through the man. He was actually the deciding factor on planting the Church in College Station because he saw the University as the way that the ministry of Mosaic Church would be able to reach around the world without ever leaving our living rooms. He was sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
It seems appropriate, on the first anniversary of our Church, to honor two men that have so faithfully lived out all that we have discussed tonight. I promise you that without them, I would have driven this thing in the ditch a long time ago. I pray that their ministry continues at Mosaic Church because we teach sound doctrine and raise up men that pass on the faith to faithful men.
Let’s pray.