God's Plan for Younger Men
Titus 2:6‑8
Open your Bible, if you will, to Titus chapter 2. We are continuing in our series in this chapter on the character of a healthy church...the character of a healthy church. We, the church of Jesus Christ as I'm sure you know if you've been a part of our fellowship for any time, are here on earth for the purpose of being human agents to bring salvation to the lost. That's really what we're here for. We're here for the purpose of evangelism. We also engage in edification. We engage in ministry. We engage in prayers, worship, fellowship. But all of that will be perfected in heaven. Evangelism won't have any place there at all because the Bible is clear at the end of Revelation that no one who is a sinner unsaved will ever enter heaven.
And so, the Lord has put on hold the fullness of our fellowship and the fullness of our praise and worship, the fullness of our bliss and blessing and left us here for the express purpose of being human agents of salvation for the lost. And I really think that for the most part the evangelical church understands that. For the most part, they agree on that purpose. However, they do not necessarily agree on the means for carrying it out. I suppose that isn't anything new. The church has always struggled with what technique or what methodology or what style it should use, what approach to reach the lost. The church has in the past and I think is today as much as at anytime in my life been confused about how we are to evangelize, how we are to reach the unsaved.
It can even reach somewhat bizarre proportions. I doubt there has ever been anyone like Sister Paula. You may have read about her in "People Magazine." She describes herself as an open transsexual Christian, preaching the gospel, Tammy Faye with a five‑o'clock shadow. Sister Paul was born Larry Neilson(?) and supposedly became a Christian in 1950 as a twelve year old innately effeminate boy. After Larry became Paula in a sex change operation a few years ago, some female Pentecostal televangelist friend urged Larry/Paula to start a television ministry. "People Magazine" describe Sister Paula as 53 years old, six feet one and a half inches tall and built like a linebacker.
Now obviously this is ultimately unthinkable, inconceivable, absolutely bizarre. And yet it does illustrate the fact that people think you can go to extreme lengths to become like the world and have a better chance of reaching the world. Can you imagine anything more incongruous or more profane than a transsexual evangelist? Yet Sister Paula believes that she can have a more effective ministry to people in our generation, she says, than the quote "typical straight Christian." Sister Paula's philosophy is fundamentally the same philosophy as much of the church marketing that goes on today, although certainly none of them would want to see it taken to such an extreme. But the philosophy is if we're going to win the world we've got to get alongside them, become enough like them so they're not threatened by us. The notion that the church is to become like the world to win the world has frankly taken evangelicalism by storm today. That's why I'm writing a book on that very subject called Ashamed of the Gospel which should be out in the summer.
We've really done everything we could to sidle up along with the world and sort of become a Christian counterpart to every worldly attraction. We have Christian motorcycle gangs, Christian body building teams, Christian dance clubs, Christian amusement parks and I even read about a Christian nudist colony. Now wherever Christians got the idea that we would win the world by imitating the world, they didn't get it out of the Bible. There's not a shred of biblical justification for that kind of thinking. In fact, James made it very clear when he said friendship with the world is enmity with God. And John put it this way, "If any man loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life." Those things are all in the process of perishing and have nothing to do with eternal issues.
If the marketing strategists are wrong and if we don't have to become and shouldn't become like the world to win the world, then what do we do? What is to be our strategy? And not so much in terms of actually speaking the gospel, but what is the underlying issue that gives us a platform on which to speak? How do we win the attention of the world of sinners so they will at least listen to the truth? What should be our strategy? What should be our methodology, our technique, our marketing posture?
I think the principle is utterly foundational and it is stated for us in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus put it as simply and directly as He could and it cannot be improved upon. He said this, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Jesus basically said the ultimate evangelistic platform is created by the virtue of your lives. When Carey was singing "We are called to holiness," he was expressing that very truth. Our credibility in the world is our testimony. The platform from which we speak is virtue, godliness, righteousness, transformation. The greatest and the most powerful element of evangelism is not technique, it is not some marketing strategy, it is not cultural relevance, it is the power of a transformed life...collectively, the power of transformed lives in the church.
When the world looks and sees a person or people who are holy, righteous, virtuous, who are at peace, experiencing joy, blessed, happy, satisfied, fulfilled and have hope in their hearts for eternity, they see the evidence of God's transforming power. That's the proof. That's the test. That's how you market the product by letting people see what it is.
To convince a man God can save I need to show him a man He saved. To convince a man that God can give hope I need to show him a man with hope. To convince a man that God can give peace, joy, love, I need to show him a man with peace, joy and love. To convince a man that God can give complete and total and utter satisfaction, I need to show him a satisfied man. You see, the way we...the way we lay down the platform is by living the life. I'll say it again, the greatest and most powerful element of evangelism is not technique, it is not marketing strategy, it not cultural relevance, it is the power of transformed lives.
We are so to live, said Jesus, so to live to the glory of God that men can see the beauty of what God has done in us. It's what we've already looked at and we shall see again in Titus 2:10, we adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect. What does that mean? We demonstrate the beauty of a saving God by showing saved lives. Sinners have to see the transforming power of Christ's presence not in some clever technique but in someone's life.
That is exactly what Paul is calling for here in Titus. He knows what the evangelistic strategy is to reach the remainder of the island of Crete and wherever else the Cretan Christians might journey. He knows what the issues at hand are. He knows what has to be done to make the Word of God to be honored, as he says in verse 5, to silence the opposers, as he says in verse 8, and to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect as he said in verse 10. He knows exactly what to do and that's what he calls for in chapter 2...godly living.
We must proclaim the saving message, yes. We must give a clear word about sin and judgment and repentance and faith. But it has to be made believable by our lives. It does no good to speak about a God who can save when you show a life that doesn't evidence it.
Down in verse 11 of our chapter, look at it for a moment, "It is affirmed to us that the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men." That ties in with verse 10 where God has called our Savior, God is a saving God, that's Paul's point. He's all about the business of saving people. And because He is a saving God and His grace has appeared to bring salvation to all men, He has therefore, verse 12, instructed us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live sensibly, righteously, godly in the present age because that is the way we will make the gospel credible. He saves us, empowers us unto godliness so that that godliness becomes the platform for the gospel. Where you have godly lives you have people who can by the impact of their transformed lives reach the lost. That's why Peter says in 1 Peter 1:16, "Be ye holy for I am holy," quoting God. That's why Peter says that God has called us to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God's own possession, in order that we might so live to silence the ignorance of foolish men who would think to criticize God.
But what the contemporary church is into is not holy living, it is worldliness. They think that rather than being separate from the world and thereby laying a foundation of credibility on which to witness, you need to be like the world. They don't call it worldliness, they have a new word for it, it's called contextualization, which is a fancy word for worldliness. The contextualization of the gospel today has infected the church with the spirit of the age. It has opened the church's doors wide for worldliness and shallowness and in some cases a crass party atmosphere. The world now sets the agenda for the church.
This has been demonstrated clearly in a book by James Davidson Hunter who is a sociology professor at the University of Virginia. And Hunter surveyed students in evangelical colleges and seminaries and concluded that evangelical Christianity has changed dramatically in the past three decades so we've lived right through the heart of the change. He found that young evangelicals have become significantly more tolerant of activities once viewed as worldly or immoral, such as smoking, using marijuana, attending R rated movies and premarital sex. Hunter writes, quote: "The symbolic boundaries which previously defined moral propriety for conservative Protestantism have lost a measure of clarity. Many of the distinctions separating Christian conduct from worldly conduct have been challenged if not all together undermined. Even the words `worldly' and `worldliness' have within a generation lost most of their traditional meaning. The traditional meaning of worldliness has indeed lost its relevance for the coming generation of evangelicals," end quote.
Here is an outside observer simply saying the church has become worldly. How is it that they know that and we don't? What Hunter noted among evangelical students is a reflection of what has happened in large measure to the evangelical church as a whole. The average church, I'm afraid, may care far more about the world's opinion than they do about God's. They're so engrossed in trying to please non‑Christians they may have little thought for pleasing God Himself. And you might conclude that the church has been so over contextualized as to become worldly.
Now if we're going to accomplish the goal of evangelism, the God‑given task of reaching the lost, it all starts with the kind of people we are...not the technique. Ephesians 2:10 says that the Lord saved us unto good works which God before ordained that we should walk in them. And Philippians chapter 2, that very dramatic and powerful text, verse 15, "We are to be blameless, innocent children of God, above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world." It is our blamelessness, it is our innocence, it is our godliness in the midst of crooked perverse people that lay the platform on which we hold fast the Word of life.
Now because that is so essential and basic, Paul instructs Titus here in chapter 2 to bring the churches at Crete up to a standard of virtue. That's what chapter 2 is all about. God is a saving God and God has saved people in order that they might live godly lives, in order that others might also be saved. So in the second chapter Paul is writing to his young son in the faith, Titus, and he is telling him how to get the church in every city throughout Crete, and you remember there were many of them, up to the place they need to be in terms of virtue to make the gospel believable.
First of all, in verse 1 he gave him a general command when he told him to speak the things fitting for sound doctrine. He knows that godly living is dependent upon a proper understanding of God's Word. You can't live a good theology unless you've got one. And so he starts out by saying you've got to speak the things fitting for sound doctrine, you lay the foundation of divine truth.
Then he says you've got to approach every group in the church...the older men, verse 2, are to be taught to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith in love and perseverance. The older women, in verse 3, are to be taught to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good. And then the younger women are to be taught to love their husbands, love their children, be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands that the Word of God may not be dishonored.
In other words, as a shepherd and a pastor, you've got to do for old men what is most needful for them to maintain their testimony. And for old women what is needful for them, and for young women what is needful for them. And this morning we come to the fourth category, young men. Verse 6, "Likewise, urge the young men to be sensible in all things. Show yourself to be an example of good deeds with purity and doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach in order that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us."
Having discussed the old men, the old women, the young women and now he comes to the young men. This is most important to Titus because he is one of them. Very likely a little bit younger than Timothy who was probably in his upper thirties, we find Titus maybe in his early thirties. Much younger than Paul who now describes himself as the aged, he has gone past the 60 mark, somewhere in his middle sixties. But Titus is specifically a young man himself and so he has a unique contribution to make to young men that he couldn't make to old men, nor could he make it to old women or young women since he does not understand personally the role that they uniquely play. So this is really his group. Therefore though verse 6 is directed at the young men, verses 7 and 8 are directed at Titus.
You say, "Is this a change? Is there only one verse, verse 6, very briefly addressed to young men and then he goes on to talk to Titus?" No, I think the whole thing relates to young men and what he says to young men in general in verse 6 he says to Titus in specific in verses 7 and 8 because Titus is to be the example to all young men. This is setting a pace of spiritual character and spiritual devotion that he couldn't set for older men, not having reached that point in life and he couldn't set for older women or younger women because he does not know fully and personally the role of women. This is his group and so he is called on not only to exhort them in verse 6, but to set the example for them in verses 7 and 8. All of it then relates through him to the young men.
Three aspects of responsibility become obvious here, exhortation, example and effect. Let's start with exhortation, verse 6, "Likewise, urge the young men to be sensible in all things." Likewise is just a word transition that introduces a new category like the prior three categories. In the same way as other groups have been called to live a godly standard and the unique things of their particular role are addressed, so in the case of young men. Here Titus is encouraged to take up personal leadership and personal care over young men of which he is one. And this would be, no doubt, the greatest emphasis of his life and ministry. Older men would need to be taught by other older men, older women would need to be encouraged and instructed by other older men or older women, younger men were to be instructed by...I should say younger women were to be instructed by older women, and now the young men are instructed by one of them who is godly, though young, namely Titus.
Now what about young men? How young is young? Well, men, you're going to rejoice as the ladies did a few weeks ago to know that this relates to anyone under 60. You would consider yourself to be young, enjoy it while you can. It refers, generally speaking, to men under 60 since 60 seems to be not only the cultural break point in that time but even the one which Paul identifies in 1 Timothy when he talks about widows who are over the age of 60. Young men fill up a large category then somewhere from say 20 to 60 or there abouts. And young men have their own set of special problems and dangers. They are maybe more intense in some ways in the earlier part of that vast period called young. But they seem to stretch through the whole period. There the time when men are still basically virile and strong and aggressive to one degree or another and healthy and somewhat ambitious. And those are dangerous years for all of us men.
I thought about the dangers that come to young men and I thought I might share some of them with you. First of all, there is the danger of laziness...laziness. You might call it indulgence. This is usually programmed. But it's also innate in fallenness. Man generally speaking is lazy. He needs some compunctions and some controls and some strong motivations to work. But generally laziness can be exacerbated in the home when men are young. Lazy men are usually produced that lack discipline where they're never really taught to pull in the loose ends of their life and be constructive. Lazy men are also produced in homes where there is partiality where for whatever reason the parents have selected this particular individual for particular benefit and partiality. And so he does not see himself as one among many but one above many and therefore looks not at what he can do to serve others but what others can do to serve him and that creates laziness.
Lazy men are usually produced also in homes where they were never taught hard work, homes where they were indulged and had plenty of money and plenty of goods. Lazy men are produced in homes where parents are absent, where there is no father. Lazy men are produced in homes where there is no particular concern about watching over them and they are left to themselves without caring, without discipline, without work. And left to do what they please young men will choose to do nothing beneficial. They become victims of their own program, lethargy. It's a dangerous time to be young if you don't learn discipline, if you don't learn work, if you don't learn diligence.
Secondly, another danger of youth is freedom...freedom. Turning young people loose from the family confines, the family accountability, the family scrutiny, too soon, too fast, too far, they get a car and they have total freedom. They're out from under strong influence, they're out from under restraint. They're out from under consequences of their behavior. They're out from under instruction. They're out from under discipline. They're out from under fatherly control. And when they begin to do what they please in their freedom they usually please to do what is not honoring to God or productive.
The third danger is a decadent culture. Young men being raised in a decadent culture are accustomed to vice. Listen carefully. Familiarity with vice does not produce disgust, it produces attachment. Familiarity with vice does not produce disgust, it produces attachment. Moral perceptions are blurred, sensibilities to evil are dulled and when young people, young men become accustom to vice they are victimized by its allurements.
Fourthly, another danger that comes to young men is godless education. They are exposed in their education to attacks on God, attacks on Christ, both overt and covert. They are exposed to attacks on the Bible. Christianity is either ignored, laughed at, jeered at, or not considered at all as intellectual. They go through a process of education that basically leaves God out or defines Him in human terms and it's powerful stuff because mentors and teachers and professors carry authority with them. It's a dangerous time as the foundations of life and the belief in God which is so innate to the human heart and the reasonings as indicated in Romans 1 are attacked and devastated and shattered in the educational process and men lose their sense of reality about God.
And then in a general category, number five, I would say it's dangerous just because of overall immaturity. Immaturity has its own problems. Somebody said it's too bad youth has to be wasted on the young, but that's how it is. And youth because it is youth is immature...because it's immature it has its own set of problems. For example, temptation is strongest in youth. Lusts are most compelling at that time. Habits are formed that rarely can be killed even in old age. I have stood by the bed of dying men who have confessed to me with tears that they have never been able to overcome the habits of pornography that they began when they were youth. Youth is a time that presents more opportunity for sin, more frequent opportunity for sin. Youth is a time when ambition is strong, when pride is controlling. Youth is a time of unwarranted confidence, confidence you don't deserve because it's never been tested and you've never been proven. It's a time of imagined invincibility. It's a time of lacking of experience and experience mellows and softens and brings reality. It's a dangerous dangerous time. And the future of the church is yet dependent on young men growing up in such dangerous times.
So says Paul to Titus, urge the young men to be sensible, to get control of themselves, he means. The word "urge" parakaleo, come alongside and exhort or encourage, a familiar New Testament word. It means to instruct, to teach, to counsel, direct, to guide, to exhort, to admonish. It's a method of influencing through the spoken Word, is what it is, a method of influencing through the spoken Word...come along side and instruct them, to be sensible. Now that word simply means to control themselves. It's that same word sophroneo, we've looked at it a number of times. We saw it in chapter 1 verse 8, chapter 2 verse 2, 4, 5. We'll see it again down in verse 12. That common word that simply means to develop self‑mastery, self‑control, balance, to get their faculties and their appetites, their longings and the desires into harness, to develop discernment and judgment. Such exhortation, by the way, appears similarly to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:22. It appears in 1 Peter 5:5. Young men must have self‑control, self‑mastery, balance. They must exhibit power over their appetites and their faculties. These are essential if they are to be godly. They've got to control their lives. That means, parents, when you are raising your children you need to teach your children conformity to holy standards and that means you need to control them so that your control becomes their control in time.
And then would you please notice the first three words of verse 7, they really belong at the end of verse 6. The verse numbers are not inspired, they were put in later by men and I think that there are a number of reasons why we would include that phrase at the end of verse 6 so that it reads, "Likewise urge the young men to be sensible in all things...in all things." First of all, that means that verse 7 begins with "Show yourself" and moves to the example model, "Show yourself to be an example," from the exhortation emphasis of verse 6. The word "yourself" then in verse 7 becomes properly emphatic and introduces a new thought.
So the phrase "in all things" fits better at the end of verse 6 and stretches this matter of mental balance and self‑ mastery and self‑control and balanced behavior in the Christian life to an almost infinite level...in all things. Young men, so potentially volatile, impulsive, passionate, arrogant, ambitious, inexperienced, need to become the masters of all the areas of their lives...everything needs to come under control. Paul said, "I beat my body to bring it in to submission." He reminded us to walk in the Spirit, Galatians 5, and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
So, Paul says you exhort young men to walk in the Spirit, to seek with all their might to harness themselves and live in spiritual balance and self‑control and not to become victimized by those dangers that are lurking all around them.
Having given that exhortation he then turns to the second point, example, and sets up Titus to be an example of how one lives a balanced life. You'll notice in verse 7 the word "example" and that's obviously the key to it. He is now going to say to Titus, "Look, for the sake of the young men, exhort them and that is to confront them verbally but also for the sake of the young men, set an example and that is to confront them with the pattern of your life so that they can copy what you are." Any exhortation lacks force and impact and power without an example. In fact, exhortation without example is that old word "hypocrisy." And hypocrisy never teaches people to do right, it always teaches people to do wrong.
Paul taught and lived. In Acts 20 he could have just quoted, "It is more blessed to give than receive," to instruct them that they should be generous givers. But he didn't just quote that saying of Jesus, he said, "You know how I was when I was with you, you know that for the space of three years I ceased not night and day with tears to give you what you needed by way of warning. You know that I never coveted any man's silver, any man's gold or any man's clothing, you know the sacrifices I made to earn my own living and the living of everybody around me and now I say to you, it is more blessed to give than receive and you know what I mean because you saw it in my life."
In Hebrews chapter 13 verse 7 we are told to follow the faith of those who are over us, not just to hear what they say but to follow their faith, to live the way they lived. In Philippians chapter 3 and verse 17 Paul says, "Join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us." In 1 Corinthians 4:16 Paul says, "Be imitators of me." In 1 Corinthians 11:1 he says, "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." There is the issue of example.
And no where is it more delineated than in 1 Timothy 4:12, you might want to look at that for a moment, a familiar verse. First Timothy 4:12, writing to another young man, Timothy, Paul says, "Don't let anybody look down on your youthfulness." Don't let anybody criticize you just because you're young. "But rather show yourself an example," the very same phrase he gave to Titus. But here he delineates five categories...speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. In all those areas of life you be a pattern that others can follow.
Speech...that's your conversation, what comes out of your mouth. Conduct...that's your life style, the things you do, the places you go, the possessions you accumulate, every aspect of life. Love...that's your self‑sacrificing service on behalf of others. Don't ask them to do it unless you're demonstrating your sacrificial life as well. Faith...that means faithfulness, or consistency, demonstrate that you're not a flash in the pan, you're not a shooting star, you're not a comet, you're there for the long haul. You're not a spiritual sprinter. You're consistent, you're trustworthy, you're faithful, you're unwavering, you're uncompromising, you're from start to finish. And then he adds purity, hagneia which has to do with moral sexual purity on the inside and the outside. Be an example in all those areas, what you say, what you do, how you treat other people, your consistency and your moral purity. Be an example.
It's absolutely crucial and I'll go so far as to say it is the single greatest aspect of leadership. It doesn't matter what you say if you don't live it, you're nothing but a hypocrite. People will cancel out what you say and descend to where you live. Now let's go back to Titus.
So, example is crucial in the teaching of Paul. It's crucial in the teaching of the New Testament. It's crucial in the life of the church. And young men have a responsibility to set an example, certainly Titus is one, an example that others can follow. This, of course, is a challenge to every young man in ministry as it is to me even now as one who is on the top hand of being a young man but once was on t