Titus 2:1-8

“As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching. 2 Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely. They must have sound faith and be filled with love and patience. 3 Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers. Instead, they should teach others what is good. 4 These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, 5 to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God. 6 In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely. 7 And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good works of every kind. Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.8 Teach the truth so that your teaching can’t be criticized. Then those who oppose us will be ashamed and have nothing bad to say about us.”

As we continue with Mentoring Matters in our series “Firm Foundations” in the book of Titus we are going to see what the Word of God has to say to women. Now while much of what Paul has to say is not very popular in our present culture, it desperately needs to be preached today. Because many women are modeling their lives after worldly wisdom instead of the Words. As we study this passage the question that we need to ask is, when it comes to being a woman are you going to listen to God’s Word or the world? Ladies you are being constantly bombarded by what the world tells you a women should be, but it’s here that the Bible provides a breath of fresh air. Because it’s here that we discover the difference between the Worlds expectations and the Words exhortation. Now there are people who look at this set of verses and think Paul is just picking on women. But nothing could be further from the truth, Paul is actually elevating women to a place of high honor. You see just like in ancient Crete we live in a world where women are evaluated based on looks.

•                how “pretty they are”

•                how sexy they are

•                how thin they are

•                how popular they are

•                (pause) or by how much skin you can show

While the world focuses on your looks the Word focuses on your life. It’s here that we see the clash between the call of the culture and the call of Christ. While the world wants to try and convince you that it’s all about your looks, ladies the Word of God reminds you that it’s actually about your life. Unfortunately many of you are trying to live up to the Worlds expectations instead of living out the Words exhortation. Trying to live up to the world’s ideals is exhausting but living out the Words is energizing. Paul lived in a pagan world and so do we, a world that looks at life though a paganistic point of view, including viewing women as objects to be used and abused, instead of to be valued and treasured. But the first thing I want you to see here is that God’s word doesn’t just value women it gives them worth and challenges the culture to do the same. Ladies where are you trying to find your worth is it in what the world says or what the word says? Are you trying to find it in your looks or in the Lord? The first counter cultural challenge that we see is that the Word puts the focus first on older women, while the world puts the value on youth God’s Word puts value on wisdom. As we learned last time the term older is relative because it means being older than others. At its heart it speaks to maturity and reminds us that we need mature women who are modeling maturity and mentoring younger women toward maturity.

Titus 2:1-8

“As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching. 2 Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely. They must have sound faith and be filled with love and patience. 3 Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers.[a] Instead, they should teach others what is good. 4 These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, 5 to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God. 6 In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely. 7 And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good works of every kind. Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.8 Teach the truth so that your teaching can’t be criticized. Then those who oppose us will be ashamed and have nothing bad to say about us.”

B.        Worth of Respect

This gets to the core of a man’s character, because the desire for respect is the heartbeat of every man. Our problem is we have bought into what the world says brings respect, riches and having the right stuff. But respect is not attained through riches but through living right. Most men are trying to earn respect instead of learning to be respectful. Stop demanding respect and start doing what’s right. Respect is the result of running after a righteous life. We are afraid to do that because most of us have equated righteousness with rigor mortis. But you can have fun without being a fool. After talking about character Paul calls us to focus on our:

• Constitution – Results

Where Character determines your compass, Constitution determines your conduct.

1. Live Wisely

This has to do with living a disciplined life not a dangerous life. You are either living a wise life or you are wasting your life. So what about you are you living a faithful life or a foolish life?

2. Filled with Faith

Sound or solid in the Faith. We already saw that the work “sound” forms the basis of the word “hygiene” and was used to describe sick people becoming healthy. If we want to be spiritually healthy, and desire to help others become healthy then we must talk about truth and dialog about doctrine in practical ways that can be fleshed out in daily life. Some of us spend too much time on theological theories and not enough time fleshing out our faith. Is your just doctrine just truths you talk about or truths you walk out? Because the Pharisees had the right lingo but they never lived it out for the Lord.

3. Loaded with Love

Real men lead with love, Christ did. Men are you modeling love in your marriage? Because your marriage is your greatest ministry tools. Many of us have reduced our Marriages to the ministry of me, made it about our happiness instead of our wife’s holiness. We have lost our love because we are looking through the lens of lust. Love gives lust grabs, love seeks to serve, lust seeks self. Love makes it about sacrifice, lust makes it about sex. Yes God has made us masculine and filled us with testosterone but that is so that we can protect not pillage. If men would be the men that Christ calls them to be there would be no more sexual slavery, the plague of pornography would be no more. So what about you is your marriage a ministry or is it a mess? Parents stop lecturing about love and live it out, men show your son what it looks like to serve and sacrifice and build up your bride. 

4. Practice Patience

This means trusting in the trials, men if we want endurance then you are going to have to endure. Our problem is that we want the good life more than we want a godly life. Look hardships are going to come your way and how you handle them won’t just define you it will draw people to you or drive people from you. How do you navigate the negative and nasty times, you cling to the one who conquered the cross. There are going to be storms and seasons of suffering that will serve not to build your character but to reveal it. Pouring out Real men don’t just preach about patience they practice it until it pours from their pours.