Sunday Sermon: Younger Women and Men in the Church (Titus 2:6-10)

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You're listening to the Preaching Ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an

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Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series.

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Here is Pastor Gabe. This is Titus 2, verses 1 -10.

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I'm reading from the English Standard Version. Hear the word of the Lord. But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

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Older men are to be sober -minded, dignified, self -controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

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Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.

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They are to teach what is good. And so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self -controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

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Likewise, urge the younger men to be self -controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching, show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

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Bond -servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well -pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our

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Savior. You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come into this passage again today,

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I pray that we would be receptive to this instruction, or receptive to correction as the need may be.

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How is it that we are to walk as men and as women? As you have created us, either male or female, so there are instructions that are specific to us as men and women.

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How do we consider ourselves as the older men in the church? How should the younger men consider themselves?

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And likewise to the older women and the younger women. May we look after one another.

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May we consider how we are to build each other up in love. For you have shown us the greatest display of love, the greatest sacrifice that we could ever receive an example of in Christ our

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Savior, who even left his throne in heaven and took on the likeness of sinful flesh, becoming obedient even to the point of death on a cross, so that God has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord, to the glory of God the Father. In light of this wonderful sacrifice, for those who have believed on him, how now should we live in this world?

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Guide us in your truth, we pray in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen. In 2

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Kings chapter 20, Hezekiah, king of Judah, became deathly ill.

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And we read a miraculous story about how he sought the

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Lord with tears. Through the prophet Isaiah, God said that he would add 15 years of Hezekiah's life, and he would also deliver

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Jerusalem from the invading Assyrians. When the prince of Babylon had heard that Hezekiah was sick, he sent emissaries to Hezekiah to encourage him.

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But Hezekiah, in his vanity, took the emissaries and he showed them all of his treasure house, all of the rich and the silver and the gold and the rich spices.

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He showed them his armory. He showed them everything that was in his home.

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Verse 13 says, there was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them, not testifying of the goodness of God and the charity that God had shown him in his life, but really boasting in himself.

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Isaiah visited Hezekiah again and said, hear the word of the Lord. Behold the days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have treasured up this day will be carried off to Babylon.

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Nothing will be left. And some of your own sons will be taken away and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.

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Now, Hezekiah was surprisingly unmoved by Isaiah's prophecy. Previously, when Isaiah came to him and said, you're sick and you're going to die,

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Hezekiah sought the Lord with tears. But in this instance, after Isaiah said this,

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Hezekiah responded, the word of the Lord is good. And why not? As long as there will be peace and truth in my days.

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My friends, is that how you think about your days? Does it not matter to you how things may turn out for some future generation as long as your days go well?

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I think you can see that kind of apathy existing in the United States of America now.

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We cannot be accumulating the trillions and trillions of dollars of debt that the United States is accumulating.

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We can't be continuing in the sins that the United States of America is known for and not reap the fruit of this.

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And so do we have this attitude that, you know, hey, as long as it's good in my day, who cares what happens to the next?

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Do you recognize the responsibility that one generation has to another? To the older to teach and to the younger to learn.

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Psalm 78 4 says, recount to the generation to come the praises of our

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God and His strength and His wondrous deeds that He has done.

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We are to teach the next generation about the goodness of God that they may walk in the ways of the

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Lord. In this study here in the book of Titus, we have heard the charge to be sound in doctrine and now we are reading about how the power of the gospel works through a spiritual community.

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We've been looking at Titus 2 and this model of discipleship that is given to us here. Two weeks ago, we considered the instructions for older men and the instructions for older women and how the older women are to instruct the younger women in verses 4 -5.

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I want to come back to the younger women today as we're also going to look at the instructions for younger men in verses 6 -8 as the instructions for Titus will somewhat apply to younger men as well.

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And then the instructions for slaves in verses 9 -10. And it's there in verse 10 that you will notice we read, in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our

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Savior. Adorn it as if we could put on the gospel and wear it.

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Would other people look at us and see that we live and conduct ourselves in a way that is quite different from the rest of the world?

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And through this, we learn about what it means for the Church of Jesus Christ to put on and live out this teaching.

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Now, we're going to make some application here as we go because this really is a section of application that we're reading here.

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But I want to take a time at the end and give some further application to this as well.

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So, let's go back to verse 3. It says that older women are to teach what is good.

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And then verses 4 -5 say what that good teaching is. And so, train the young women to love their husbands and children to be self -controlled.

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Okay? Now, remember that the older men were also told to be self -controlled.

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So are the women to be. And in addition to being self -controlled, they are to be what else?

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Pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands so that the word of God may not be reviled.

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Now, my friends, I may not look like I belong there, but I have had many occasions in which

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I have attended a women's conference. I look somewhat out of place, but I have attended these conferences.

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My wife has been to several of these conferences. And we can both tell you from experience that what we're reading here in Titus 2 is seldom taught at these women's conferences.

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Went to a women's conference a few years ago, in fact, where I don't even remember the gospel being mentioned there.

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A lot of what you take away from those women's conferences are how you can pursue your own hopes and dreams despite being a wife and a mother.

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But I cannot even remember the last time I heard a woman teacher at one of these conferences stand up and say, ladies, be a loving mom, be subject to your husband, be holy, be kind, and be workers at home so that the word of God may not be reviled.

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I don't know that I've ever heard that. Now, that's not to say that there aren't good women's conferences out there, but they are few and far between.

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In 2018 and 19, the best -selling Christian book for two consecutive years was

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Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. She started that book by saying this book is about a bunch of hurtful lies and one important truth.

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Now, I had heard of a lot of women in my community that were reading this book. I don't know that there were so many at my church, but I would encounter other women in other churches that were reading this particular book.

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And so since it was so widespread, and I heard it talked about, like, eavesdropping on conversations, there would be women talking about this book.

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And so I thought, well, I should probably familiarize myself with it so that I know what to respond to.

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And when I read that first statement, this book is about a bunch of hurtful lies and one important truth,

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I thought to myself, well, that one important truth must be Jesus, right?

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No. She said you and you only are ultimately responsible for how happy you are.

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That was the one important truth. The book is framed around 20 lies that women often believe about themselves, and Rachel said she used to believe about herself.

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A good life, she said, means being happy, and happiness means overcoming lies.

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Now, if you've been attending my teaching through Ecclesiastes on Sunday night, you'll know that that doesn't sound too much different than what most philosophers have been teaching down through the centuries.

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She's not revealing anything new. She's repeating the same things that philosophers have been saying for well over a millennia.

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So do we need God to help us be happy and overcome lies?

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No, not according to Rachel Hollis. As she wrote on her Instagram, it doesn't matter what your religion is or who you worship.

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What you recognize is that today is a gift. I have to wonder, how in the world did this gal end up in a

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Christian book list? So Rachel followed up that book with another bestseller,

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Girls Stop Apologizing. And she said, women, all that really matters is how bad you want your dreams and what you're willing to do to make them happen.

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Love yourself, then reach for more. But what did

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Jesus say? He said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

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For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

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What does it profit a man or woman if she were to gain the whole world and lose her soul? Now, that's a paraphrase of Luke 9, 23 to 25.

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And by the way, that's at the heart of all these instructions that we have here in Titus 2. In honor of Christ who gave himself for you, be willing to give up yourself for the sake of his body, the church.

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If you love Jesus, love his bride. Rachel Hollis and her husband

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Dave made a fortune selling her books, building a self -improvement empire, putting on conferences, huge conferences even around the world.

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They did this for two years until 2020 when they got divorced. And in February of last year,

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Dave was found dead in his home in Austin of a drug overdose. My friends, do

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I really need to make any more light of this story and tell you where this godless advice will take you?

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The world says love yourself. That didn't save this couple.

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And it won't save you. Deny yourself and take up a cross and follow

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Christ. The godly woman is not the one telling you to believe yourself.

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She's a priestess of Satan. The godly woman is the one telling you to believe in Jesus.

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Be pure as he is pure. And older women, we need you to speak into the lives of these young women.

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And young women, we need you to be willing to go to the older women and receive the wisdom that you don't yet have.

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You hear me saying that? An older woman in here just said amen. Younger women, and to the younger men as well, we're going to get to you, so hang on.

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Be willing to learn. Be willing to seek counsel. Receive guidance. A question came up in our small groups a couple of weeks ago about who is older and who is younger.

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As we've been talking about older men and younger men and instructions that are being passed on to the next generation, where is the line?

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Well, let me tell you, I'm 43. There are still older men in this church for me to learn from, amen?

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And there are still men younger than me that I can pass wisdom on to, correct? And so likewise, there is a line that you might be on where there are people older than you and there are those younger than you be willing to pass on that knowledge and be willing to receive instruction.

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Even though I'm over the hill, so to speak, I am not beyond correction myself. And I need and rely upon the guidance of older men.

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I'm very grateful that in every church in which I have served where there has been a plurality of elders, there has always been an elder older than me so that I can receive the instruction and even the correction at times, amen,

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Brother Allen, from an older man. And we need to be willing to go to those who are older.

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That is something this generation just simply doesn't know very well. There are pastors who are younger than me that I have seen say online how disappointed they are in the older generation.

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They failed us and on and on it goes. And I'm like, boy, what is the matter with you? I want to smack those guys.

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There is wisdom that they have. Even if you look at a man in his failures, guess what he has to teach you?

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Don't do it like I did it. There is still wisdom that we can glean from those who are older.

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We need that. And this instruction that we have here in Titus 2 is an instruction for us to be multi -generational, to have these kinds of things in our very congregations that we may learn from one another and build each other up in love.

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I remember very early on in my pastorate, so I'm still a pretty young guy at this time, in my younger 30s, and my wife and I, or my wife is just about 30 at this particular time, and it was after the sermon was over and I went to the back door to shake hands, as I often did, this time

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Becky came and joined me. So we're both standing at the back door as people are being dismissed, coming by and shaking hands.

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And there was a young mom in our congregation. She was only about 20 years old, had just had her first baby.

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And so she's holding her baby in her arms and she's walking toward us. And she has a look in her face that I know she's going to ask a question.

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As a pastor who's been at many back doors, you kind of get used to that look, right? Somebody's coming to you and they're going to ask you a question about the sermon.

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So as she's walking toward us, I'm expecting she's going to ask a question, maybe about something that I preached or something like that.

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But she walks right by me and goes over to Becky. And she says, Becky, I've got a question.

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And I'm kind of overhearing this. I'm like, okay, she's got a question for Becky. And she says, can you teach me how to breastfeed my baby?

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And I thought to myself, I'm so glad she didn't ask me that question. But what a perfect example of how an older woman can help teach a younger woman how to love her husband and children, exactly what is being said here, that the older women pass on to the younger.

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Ladies, how do you love that rascal? Maybe somebody else in the church can teach you about how to love your husband.

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I'll tell you us guys, we're not that difficult to figure out. But maybe you need a seasoned older woman who has loved a man for much longer to pass on her wisdom to you on what you can do as a loving wife to care for husband and children.

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As we had read previously in 1 Timothy chapter 3, it is not appointed for a woman to be a pastor.

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That is a role that a man is supposed to fill. And it won't be every man in the church. As we had read in those qualifications there in chapter 3 and even here in Titus chapter 1, there are certain qualifications that he has to meet in order to fulfill that position.

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And not every man is going to fulfill that role. But even though a woman doesn't have a position as a pastor in a church, nonetheless, what sort of imperative is she given exactly right here in Titus 2?

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Teach. She is being told here to teach. It may not be an office that you hold in the church, but you do have wisdom to pass on to those who are younger than you.

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And a church needs that. We actually need teaching women in our church that can pass on the goodness of the gospel of Christ and how that works out in our lives to women who are younger than they.

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Young women, good works for you looks like this.

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Being self -controlled, being kind, and being pure.

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Another way of saying, be holy. For those of you who are married, submit to your husband.

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Loving your children and working at home. And once again, the close of verse 5, so that the word of God may not be slandered or may not be put to shame.

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Pastor Kent Hughes says the following, As opponents in the church and potential faith seekers in the culture examine what accords with sound doctrine, through the behavior of the young women in the church, the word of God gains credibility.

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The wonderful message implicit here is that what happens in the home as a result of a woman's care is a powerful tool for the progress of the gospel.

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Women, I want to tell you, changing diapers can be a gospel work.

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Amen, there we go. You are caring for these children who have eternal souls that you are preparing for eternal life.

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What bigger role in your life could there be than that? This culture scoffs and mocks at motherhood.

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Don't listen to them. Very unfortunately, as I've already illustrated for you, there are even

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Christian conferences that will mock at this very thing. But what a treasured and precious calling it is to be a wife and to be a mother.

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And what a precious calling it is to be an older woman in the church that you can pass that kind of wisdom on to the younger.

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Relish those opportunities and thank God for them and forget whatever opinions the culture may have of it.

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These are the instructions for the older women and the younger women in the church. Now on to the younger men.

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Very simple instruction for you, young men. Look at verse 6. Likewise urge the younger men to be self -controlled.

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That's it. You have the shortest list of all of these things that are given here, but nonetheless a big task.

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I was kind of pondering that this week. Why is it that, and of course the things that are going to be said to Titus here in the next verses, these are qualities that could apply to the younger men as well.

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But why just specifically to the younger men is it just one thing? And what it looks like here is that, younger men, it's not your time yet.

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Control this aspect of yourself, and then when the opportunity comes for you as an older man to fulfill larger roles, you will be disciplined and ready for that.

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But in the meantime, you need to learn how to control your own vessel, as Paul says it elsewhere.

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So the older men are to be self -controlled, the older women are to teach the younger women to be self -controlled, and the younger men are to be self -controlled.

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What seems to be the common instruction among the generations? Be self -controlled. And as I said two weeks ago, this means that a young man must be of sound mind and sensible.

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Young men, I cannot impress upon you enough the importance of learning self -control.

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And this is coming from someone who's not that far from being removed from being a young man.

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A lot of you older men probably see me as being young. I appreciate that. Some of you younger men are probably looking at me going,

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My oldest is 16, but I could, if God had given it to me to be married earlier than that,

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I could have a son that's older than 20, you know, if that had been the way that it went. So, yeah, even those among you who might be in your young 20s, okay,

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I could be your father. I didn't have children that young, but I could have. But let me impress upon you three ways to be self -controlled.

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You might be able to come up with more than three, but I think that this will be sufficient for us given the amount of time that we have.

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So here's three ways that you can be self -controlled, and to the young men in particular. Number one, control your fleshly appetites.

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Number two, control your anger and aggression.

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And number three, control a self -ingrained desire to be lazy.

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So first of all, control your fleshly appetites, especially when it comes to addictive substances and sexual desire.

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Now, I am still of that generation that grew up with the Internet, and I remember how easy it was for me to find scandalous images and feed the appetites of my flesh even in the 90s, and it's gotten way worse than that ever since.

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I mean, if you're not careful with this thing, you're walking around with a porn device in your pocket.

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That's how easy it is to find this stuff. You don't even have to pay for it. It'll be right there in front of your face.

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Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, none of these things existed for me when

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I was in high school. When 9 -11 happened, when terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers, I had to see it on cable news.

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There was no such thing as YouTube during that time. Sexual sin is a very easy appetite to feed and keep hidden.

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You have got to be personally disciplined by the Holy Spirit and learn self -control.

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I read to you a couple of weeks ago from 1 Thessalonians 4, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel, referring to your body, in sanctification and in honor.

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So learn how to control your fleshly appetites. It is an instruction for all people, but especially to you young men.

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Secondly, you must learn to control your anger. Men, and especially younger men, have a tendency to be more aggressive than even older men, definitely more so than women.

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Now, I've never been that physically imposing. You probably don't look at me and say,

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I bet Gabe knows how to scrap. But I liked to fight when

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I was in middle school. I lost, but I liked to get into fights. And even when

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I got older, that tendency and that desire to want to fight and argue with people manifested itself in more verbal ways, and then

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I learned that I could get scholarship for it. It was called debate. So I learned to fight and get paid for it and argue with people, and people even congratulate you when you got over, and you put up a good fight.

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And so most of the time it wasn't physical fights that I got into, but I would even get combative with my parents.

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They would tell me something and argue back with my folks. You know, to this day, my parents will tell me how easy

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I was to raise. I don't remember that. I remember constantly arguing with my parents.

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I think it kind of speaks as to how much of a problem my siblings were, that they thought that I was actually easy.

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But that was me, and that was my attitude, and I was that way for a very long time.

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And it was men of God that really came around me, and I wasn't even looking for it. I was too full of myself.

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I was not going to older men and telling them, hey, teach me how to be godly. It was just older men that took notice of me and said,

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I bet we can shape that young man into something better, and coming alongside me and convicting me of my sin and teaching me to calm down and learn self -control and to channel those aggressive things into something more godly.

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The Apostle Paul had instructed Timothy to flee youthful passions. That is a natural tendency that all young men have.

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So learn to be self -controlled and do so in a way that doesn't lead you to fall into laziness.

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So that's the third one. So number one, control your fleshly appetites. Number two, control your anger and aggression, but don't let that control then turn into, well, why don't

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I just do nothing at all? And that is another tendency in young men is to be lazy. You must control that desire for laziness.

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This goes back to the first sin in the Garden of Eden. There was laziness there. If you read it in Genesis 3, when the serpent comes along and tempts

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Eve to eat the fruit that God told them not to eat from, she takes it, she looks at it, desirable to the eyes.

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It says in Genesis 3, she gives it to her husband. Where was he? With her.

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He was right there. What was that dude doing when a snake was talking to his wife?

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Oh, look at the birds. Oh, those horses. I named those.

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And lets his wife be deceived. Not fulfilling his role as a man, as the head of his household, to seize that serpent and crush its head.

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That should have been Adam, but he was lazy.

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Not taking care of himself or his wife.

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And creation has fallen into the curse ever since.

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And we're reaping the results of that. Today the internet and video games can really feed a man to become a lazy glutton.

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Remember the warning about the Cretans in Titus chapter 1? They're lazy gluttons.

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And there are all kinds of different things out there that will open a door to young men to behave in exactly that way.

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And you have got to fight against that temptation to become lazy. And this is even another way that we learn self -control.

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You might think if a person's being lazy that he's self -controlled. No, he's just as much given into his flesh as a person who feeds his appetites or feeds his aggressions.

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So beware of that tendency to become lazy. And you know these instructions as I give them to you, that would be enough for you.

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I could stand up here and say be self -controlled and I'm perfectly justified in giving you that instruction.

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The Bible says it. God has said it. So you must go and do it. Amen. Thus sayeth the

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Lord. But if I just left it at that, I would only be teaching you law.

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And none of us in and of ourselves are capable of keeping the law, especially when a young man's natural tendency is to be aggressive.

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So remember, all of this that we are reading about, this is in light of the gospel.

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Remember what we read right at the start of the chapter. As for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine, meaning that which is in fellowship with sound doctrine.

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That which flows out of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If a person believes the gospel, how will they live?

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What will their conduct be like? So you have come to know and believe.

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You are a sinner in need of a Savior. That Christ is that Savior. That He has died for you.

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That He rose again for your justification, Romans 3 .25. So that whoever believes in Him, our sins are forgiven.

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We stand before God justified. And it doesn't just end at our conversion, but we continue in sanctification, growing in the word of the

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Lord, being shaped to be more like Christ, growing in godliness. And this is not something that we do by ourselves.

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It's something that we need each other to accomplish. As I remember another pastor saying,

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Sanctification is a community project. I've given it to you this way before, but when you read in Galatians 5, the fruit of the

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Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

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Last time I did that, my daughter came to me at the back of the church and she said, Daddy, you missed one. I got a correction from my nine -year -old that I missed one of the fruit of the

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Spirit. So I hope I got them all. But in case I didn't, you can go to Galatians 5 and check me on it.

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How do you fulfill and exercise the fruit of the Spirit? Can you love by yourself?

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No. You need people to love, and likewise to show kindness to, and likewise to learn self -control from.

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These are things we need each other for. And it is in light of what

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Christ has done for us. Jesus didn't just come to earth and do his own thing on his own and went and died and did not commune with anybody the whole time that he was here during his earthly ministry.

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He had disciples, and they were idiots, and Jesus put up with them. He did, in fact, fellowship with sinners, but he called them to himself to be like him.

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Remember his word in John 15, I am the vine, you are the branches, for apart from me you can do nothing.

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It is in light of the gospel that we accomplish, the instruction that God has given to us.

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Jesus didn't just die for us, he lived for us as well. And through what we call his active obedience, that which he did in his life in submission to the

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Father, he lived on this earth doing the will of the Father in heaven.

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Then we who believe in him have his righteousness. When you believe in Jesus, he has clothed you in his righteousness.

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And so hence we understand that instruction to adorn the doctrine of God our

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Savior. And how do you wear his righteousness? Well, for you young men, be self -controlled.

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Young men, if there's one thing that I wish that I did more in high school and in my young 20s,

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I wish that I had read the Bible more and prayed more. I wish

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I had done that more. There are times since then that I feel like I'm still catching up on years that I lost that I did not invest in Bible reading and prayer like I should have.

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I grew up in a Christian home, I grew up with my dad teaching the scriptures, and so I just kind of took it for granted and didn't give much discipline to it when

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I was then living on my own. And later on when I came to realize the importance of it, coming back to those good doctrines that my parents had taught me, and being raised and trained in these things by other men.

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Thankfully, the Lord corrected my course, and I'm telling you now that you make it a goal in your life to pursue self -control.

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You even need to be self -controlled when it comes to spiritual discipline such as this. Be filled with the

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Word of God and express your heart to the God you worship in prayer.

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Young men, let me give you these five passages. Psalm 119, How can a young man keep his way pure?

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By keeping it according to your word. Proverbs 20, verse 11,

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It is by his deeds that a young man makes himself known, if his conduct is pure and right.

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Ecclesiastes 12, 1, As Brother Allen had read from this morning,

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Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth before the evil days happen and the years draw near in which you will say,

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I have no delight in them. Young men, you have no idea how good you have it now.

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Relish these moments and seize every opportunity in them. 1 Timothy 4, 12,

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Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but show yourself as a model to those who believe in word, conduct, love, faith, and purity.

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You know, one of the things I love about that instruction, of course, Paul is giving it to Timothy, but one of the things I love about that is, young men, there are even things that you have to teach older men.

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Be humble about it. But there are ways in which you can even instruct and guide those who are older than you.

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And number five, 2 Timothy 2, 22, Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the

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Lord from a pure heart. Now, lest you think that the young men have one measly little exhortation here in this verse, remember that I said that in the beginning,

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Paul puts Titus in with the younger men. So Titus has an important role that most younger men won't have, as he is an instructor, he is a teacher, he fulfills the role of a pastor, and even more than that, an evangelist.

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So he comes to the island of Crete, he goes into all of these churches, he assigns elders to the various roles in these churches that have been established, but there's still a way that Titus is to conduct himself so that others may see a consistency in what he preaches and what he practices.

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So look at verses seven to eight. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

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So let's stop there for a moment. So young men, even you, being younger men, are to be a model of good works and pure in your doctrine.

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Again, as we have seen going through Titus, behavior and belief go together.

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What you believe is going to affect the way that you behave, and the way you behave is going to affect what it is that you believe.

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This instruction for the younger men is in contrast with the false teachers that we read about in chapter one.

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They deceive, verse 10. They lie, verse 12. And with impure motives, they turn others from the truth, verse 14.

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But Titus' teaching and a young man's way should be so consistent that it causes no one to stumble when they hear your words and they see your behavior.

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Now notice that a young man is to conduct himself in such a way with integrity and dignity and sound speech, verse 8, that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

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Remember that back in chapter one, Paul said that false teachers must be silenced, and here he actually points to one of the ways that you silence them, is that your doctrine and your life are consistent.

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You're not a hypocrite. You show by your life that you believe what you say.

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Now consider all of the ways that we read here that older men, older women, younger women, and younger men have been told to be sound in doctrine.

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So if you have a pen or a highlighter, you may want to underline these things. Verse 1, speak the things which are proper with sound doctrine.

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Number 2, be sound in faith. Sorry, that's verse 2. So verse 1, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine.

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Verse 2, be sound in faith. End of verse 3, older women are to teach what is good.

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Verse 5, to the young women, so the word of God may not be reviled. Verse 7, to the young men, have purity in doctrine.

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And verse 8, be sound in word. And we have one last instruction to get to here in this section as we close it out, and that's for the slaves in verses 9 to 10.

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Look at verses 9 to 10. Bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.

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They are to be well -pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our

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Savior. Now sometimes I will hear people take these verses and they will apply them in the sense of the way that you're supposed to be an employee to your employer.

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I highly doubt you're being enslaved by your employer. But I think nonetheless, we have good sound word here for the way that we would conduct ourselves among anyone.

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This is the way that a slave is to be to his master. And so isn't it the way that we should conduct ourselves in no matter what our context?

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We're to be submissive to those who are in authority over us. That instruction, by the way, will come back up again in chapter 3.

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So kind of like mark it, and we'll hit it later. We're to be well -pleasing.

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We're not to be argumentative. By the way, Philippians 2 .14 tells us that we are to do everything without grumbling or complaining.

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I hate that verse. But nonetheless, that is the way we are to conduct ourselves.

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And Paul even gives the reason why. So that you may become blameless and pure children of God in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine as lights in the world.

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My friends, it is second nature for Americans to complain about their circumstances. We have the greatest, cushiest nation on the planet, and yet we complain all the time.

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My situation and my condition is not as good as that guy's or that lady's. And we just complain that somebody else's opportunities were better than ours.

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And so it is actually a mark of a Christian that we are not argumentative.

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What does that demonstrate when we in our lives are not argumentative and complaining and bickering and arguing with others?

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What it demonstrates in our lives is that we trust that God is sovereign. He is in control.

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And I am even in this situation, face to face with you, because God has put me here.

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So why am I complaining about it? When you demonstrate with your life an agreeableness, compassion toward others, a sense of calmness, then it demonstrates your trust in God.

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My friends, there are people who are wringing their proverbial hands over what is going to happen in this country this

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November. And their entire day, practically every minute or hour of their day is consumed with what is going on politically.

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I was thinking about this last night as I was praying and I was preparing myself for the sermon this morning.

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I was thinking to myself, you know, if you don't know who you're voting for at this point, what is what

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I am going to say? How is that going to change anybody's mind? You've got to have it figured out by now for crying out loud.

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But whatever happens, whoever wins, I can promise you that whoever will be in the

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White House will be a wicked person. And no matter who wins, we still need to trust that God is sovereign.

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And He is the one, as said in Daniel 2 .23, who sets up kings and tears down kings.

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And we have nothing to dread or fear of our current circumstance when we know that God is in control.

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Do we have certain responsibilities as Americans to the things that are happening in the culture right now?

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Absolutely we do. As Christians, being salt and light in this world, definitely. But whatever happens is not outside of God's control.

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He has appointed it for such a time as this. And so we demonstrate by not being argumentative that we trust

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God. Now, the bond servants here, it goes on to say in verse 10, that they should not be pilfering, but in all good faith that in everything they show that they adorn the doctrine of God their

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Savior. So a bond servant, and maybe you are in this particular situation as well, a bond servant's not looking at his situation and going, this is not fair.

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My master should be paying me more than this. And so to try to make up the difference, he steals for himself.

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I deserve this anyway. And that's the way that he rationalizes it. But Paul says, that is not a man who trusts

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God. And as we read in Colossians 3, you work first for the Lord before you work for men.

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So don't be pilfering, thinking you deserve more than this, and to take for yourself what does not belong to you.

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But show all good faith. Faith in whom? Faith in God.

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So that in everything, in everything we do, and whoever you may be, older man, younger man, older woman, younger woman, in all things you adorn, you put on, you wear, you demonstrate the doctrine of God our

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Savior. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10, 3 -6,

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For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds.

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As we tear down, speculations in every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and are ready to punish all disobedience whenever your obedience is fulfilled.

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And so to the bond servants in Titus 2 and even to the rest of us it is said, be subject and adorn the doctrine of God.

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Now as I said in the very beginning, we would be doing application as we go, but there were also some things that I wanted to share with you as we come to the very close.

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Something to mention to you at the very end as well. And here is what I want to say. So I can be kind of harsh in the way that I apply these certain instructions.

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Maybe you have felt convicted over some of the things that I have said, but I bring these things to you not because I'm trying to be harsh on you, but because I love you.

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I care about you. And there were older men and women in my life who loved me and gave me hard truths when

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I needed to hear them so that I would turn from my sin and walk in the way of righteousness that I had been taught through the gospel of Christ.

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And I want to say as we have read here about the way older men are to look out for those who are younger than them, and older women are to look out for younger women, and those who are younger are supposed to receive the instructions from those who are older.

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I want to say to you that I have seen that in this church. It is happening here, but I want to encourage you to do it more.

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I heard a story from somebody in this congregation, and I'm not going to mention names, but somebody in this church had said that they had just noticed someone else in the congregation and had thought,

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I wonder if anybody has reached out to that person yet. And so called up that person who was delighted to hear from somebody else in the church, and those two individuals are now fast friends.

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Don't just take it for granted that your elders and your deacons have called everybody in the church.

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I try, but somebody is probably falling through the cracks. It just happens. Whether I'm in a large church or a small church, sometimes that happens.

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And it would be most excellent for you to identify somebody else and reach out and just extend a hand of Christlike friendship to a brother or sister in the

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Lord. You have no idea the impact you will make on their lives, and you have no idea the kind of impact they will make on yours.

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And it's the way that we have been taught to be in the body of Christ. There are some ways where, in my position as a pastor,

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I've discovered some people may not be willing, as willing, to open up to me because I'm in the position of a pastor.

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Because it could be intimidation, it could be they're afraid, it could be they just feel like, I already know what you're going to say, and so why do

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I need to say it? But they might be willing to be more open with you. And this is the way that we as brothers and sisters in the

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Lord can help encourage one another and build each other up. It's not just up to the officers of the church to do it.

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It's for everybody to do. As Ephesians 4 .11 says, God gave the apostles and the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers, to do what?

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To prepare the saints for the work of ministry. Not to do all the ministry, but to prepare the saints for ministry.

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So may we be ministers to each other. Don't be as Hezekiah was and think, hey, as long as I just get peace in my days, then that's fine.

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Fight for the next generation. ♪ ♪

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Precious Lord, lead me on, help me stand.

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♪ I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.

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♪ Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light.

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♪ Take my head, precious Lord, lead me on.

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♪ Angels sing, precious

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Lord, lead me on.

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♪ Hear my cry, hear my cry.

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♪ Hold my hand, Lord, lead me on.

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♪ And the night draws near, and the day is past.

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♪ Guide my feet, hold my hand, take my hand.

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♪ Precious Lord, lead me on.

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You've been listening to the preaching of Pastor Gabriel Hughes, a presentation of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

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For more information about our church, visit our website at providencecasagrande .com. On behalf of our church family, my name is

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Becky, thanking you for listening. Join us again Monday for more Bible study. When we understand the text.