Titus 2, Keeping Up Appearances, Dr. John B. Carpenter

Titus 2 and the Call to Sound Doctrine

Titus chapter 2, be reading the entire chapter, hear the word of the Lord. But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith and love and in steadfastness.

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

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.

Slaves 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 Savior.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. But did you check your appearance before you came?

Cultural Obsession With Appearances and the Church's Witness

Make sure your hair was in place, your buttons buttoned, your shirt tucked in? Or if you're younger than 40, your shirt not tucked in? Appearances are important, you know. A lot of people will judge you just on your appearance.

Clothes make the man, they say. We have an obsession with appearances in our culture. The pressure is so great to appear slim that we've even created some psychological illnesses. Young women are especially vulnerable to anorexia and bulimia as they strive to attain this ideal of the ultra-thin model.

They'll starve themselves just to keep up their appearance. Even churches can have an edifice complex. They're more interested in keeping up an attractive building or a well-groomed landscape than about changing the heart.

And some think the church is a place where we're most interested in appearances. You know, they talk about wear your Sunday best, your clothes that you wear to church where you look the best, that here we especially are to try to look good, not only in how we dress but in how we act.

Like one kid a while back told another at Jim Junior, don't lie in church because if you do, God's going to get you, as though it's okay to lie when you step out the building. But when you're in here, you can't do that.

You've got to look good. People are so naturally conscious of their appearance in every area of life that they assume that when it comes to God, to the church, that what matters most is how they appear.

And today we made sciences and businesses out of improving our appearance. For physical beauty, it's cosmetology. Improving the appearance of your hair or nails is big business. For the outside of our property, it's landscaping.

If a company wants to improve its image, it can contract an advertising firm or PR specialist, PR public relations. We all have some interest in our own appearance, but there are some people who specialize in helping other people look good.

An ad agency, our PR agent is dedicated to improving the appearance of others, that is their clients. Helping build up the image of someone or something else is their job, it's their vocation, it's what they're seeking to do.

In that sense, every Christian is called to do PR work. Every church is an ad agency. Making God and His message appear good to the world is what we're at least partly about. Here in Titus chapter 2, the Apostle Paul tells us how we as Christians should keep up our appearances.

The reason we keep up our appearances is not just for ourselves, because we're just interested in our own reputation, not just to fulfill our vanity, to soothe our ego. We keep up our appearance and that of our family and the church so as to make the gospel look attractive.

We advertise, not just our own beauty, but how beautiful the Lord is. Here in Titus 2, Paul speaks to four groups of Christians, at least, actually more, but at least four, giving essentially beauty tips.

Older Men, Older Women, Younger Women, and Younger Men

First to the older men, then to the older women, then to the younger women, and then finally to the younger men. The older men, he says in verse 2, are to be sober, that is to be temperate and moderate.

They are not given to self-indulgence. They can control themselves and all their appetites, don't get carried away. They are also to be, he says, grave, that is they're serious, serious people. They can be, they can have fun, they can be enjoyable too, but they have a seriousness of purpose.

They're not wasting the last few years of their life on just nothing, going to some resort and living their retirement in just frivolous ways, producing absolutely nothing. They are especially serious about the things of God.

And then comes an unusual word in the Bible. It only occurs, this word only occurs about a half dozen times in the whole Bible, but four of those occurrences are in this one chapter. So about six times in the Bible, four of them are right here.

We've read them today. It is often translated as self-controlled. Some versions translate it as sensible. It means to be wise. It's based on the word wisdom, the word Sophia in Greek, have a wisdom that leads to self-discipline.

You can see the long-term consequences of your behavior, and so because you see that, it gives you the capacity to control yourself. So you don't get those bad consequences, you get the good consequences.

You can see that if you eat a pint of Haagen-Dazs every time you feel like it, you're going to get out of control fat. You can see that if you say everything you think, you're going to ruin your relationships.

The older men here, he says in verse two, are called to have that wisdom that leads to self-control, be sensible. In verse five, the older women are called to teach the younger women to have it, which means the older women are all to have it, and they're to teach the younger women to have it.

And then in verse six, the only thing that younger men are urged to have, everyone else gets a list. The young men only get one thing they're told to do, and it's this, wisdom that produces self-control.

And then finally in verse 12, one of the practical results of the gospel message that is for all of us should be this. It's in verse 12. Self-discipline is a fruit of wisdom. If we have that, our appearance will be attractive.

The older men, back in verse two, are called to be sound, that's healthy, in faith and love and what would you think would come next, hope? No, it's steadfastness or endurance. These are the three great virtues, right?

Faith, hope, and love. Here it's faith, love, and steadfastness. Now Paul is not replacing hope with steadfastness, he is simply emphasizing one expression of hope. Hope shows itself in steadfastness.

If you hope for something, you keep working for it. You keep believing in it. And older men are especially called to have that, a hope that produces steadfastness, perseverance in them, so they can endure.

And they have an endurance that is based on, comes from hope. Because they can see the reality of God's promises that they have hoped in, they're unmoved. Steadfast, right? That's what steadfast means, unmovable, unshakable.

They're enduring in their faith, even through hardships that come with age, the death of people close to them, disappointments they get. They don't quit. They don't give up. They don't become cynical and jaded, you know, drop out of church, they're all corrupt, they're all hypocritical.

They are still eager and expected because their hope in Christ gives them endurance. Think what that does to their appearance. Then the Apostle Paul turns to the older women in verse 3, they are to be reverent, as living in the fear of God.

That actually begins first for the older women, likewise, I mean, same way, like everything for the older men, likewise the younger, the older women are to have, they're also especially to be reverent.

They're not, allow themselves to become callous and sensitive to the sacred, the holiness of God and His Word. They are the type described by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 66, verse 2, they tremble at God's Word.

And so Paul says they should not be slanderers, literally the word there is accusers. You can probably even recognize the Greek word there, the original Greek word is diabolos, or not to be diabolical, where we get our word diabolical, or of the devil, not to be the accuser.

So the older ladies are particularly warned not to be like the devil that is accusing people, spreading malicious gossip, encouraging complaints about people. That's what the devil does. And Paul is saying, older women don't be like the devil.

They may have the time, the older ladies may have the time to visit and to talk, right? The children are out of the house, they have the free time now, and they can visit and talk but don't use that talk to talk down others.

They are not to be slaves, that is not addicted to much wine, which again, if they can moderately control their wine, that's fine, but not addicted to just unable to stop themselves from drinking too much.

They are not to be bitter, miserable widows, alternately trying to drown their sorrows with alcohol, or spreading their bitterness to others through accusations. They are to appear beautiful because of their satisfaction in God.

So they are to be busy, especially busy training the younger ladies. Notice that they are to teach, in verse 3, big controversy, should women teach at the church? Well here, clearly, Titus chapter 2 verse 3, women teach in the church.

Notice here, two things about the church. First, not all ministry is done at one time and at one place, and the sermon that is to everyone, some of it is specialized, some of it is focused on different groups within the church, and not always just to whole families, to these demographics, older men, older women, younger women, younger men, and so forth, but not always just to everyone at the same time, and families, like the family integrated church, faultfully claims, we talked about them some last week.

So we deal with members of the church as members of the body of the family of God, and sometimes it's special narrow groups. So not all ministry is done by Titus, by the pastor, who I think is, Titus is the pastor.

The church is not a one-man show, but members are to be training other members. And second, women are commanded to teach and to train. They have a key role to play in discipling other women. Notice that here in verse 4, the younger women are the only group the Apostle Paul does not tell Titus to deal with directly.

Understand what I'm saying? He does not tell Titus to, Titus, teach the younger women to do thus and so. No, Paul tells Titus, tell the older women to teach the younger women to do thus and so. In other words, much of the ministry to women is delegated by the leadership of the church, here Titus, to capable, wise women.

That is, women should be discipling women. Women make the church beautiful, not just by decorating the building, which is nice, but by making over lives. Those of the children, especially at home, and that of other ladies, promoting a sense of unity and trust, because they're not going around accusing people, because they are reverent and godly women.

And these older women are to train the younger women, he says in verse 4, to love their husbands, which tells you sometimes it takes a lot of training to love some husbands. It just takes some, it's a really hard thing to do.

Sometimes it takes training to do it, then just come naturally and love their children. Younger ladies are to serve God by nurturing their families. Remember that in chapter 1, verse 11, read last week, he's talked about false teachers who overturn whole households with their teaching.

Teaching comes in, it disrupts whole households, maybe it tells people don't get married or whatever, teaches all kinds of crazy things, and households are disrupted. A teaching today that overturns whole households, it's very prominent going around, feminism, sometimes called in the church egalitarianism, the idea that the roles of men and women are the same, and you just kind of measure what somebody does by their skill at doing it.

If she's a good speaker, let her be the preacher, let her be the pastor, something like that. Paul here says, these kind of doctrines can overturn whole households, and you are to rebuke them. Teach the older women to teach the younger women that that is not so, that not all roles are the same.

Here, the godly Christian woman helps anchor a house, remember the false teacher trying to overturn households. So what households need is an anchor that holds them down, and a godly Christian woman can do that so that the household cannot be overturned.

And this is a great and noble calling. The younger women have a special call to make the family loving and hospitable, and they do that not only by loving their family, but also, as he says in verse 5, by being self-controlled, pure.

Self-controlled, there's that word again, same word as before, that wisdom that produces self-control. Pure. They aren't desperate housewives, they're diligent in their work, they're kind. That is, they're easy to live with, and they're submissive to their husbands.

One of these teachings that goes around, these sayings that goes around, the Bible never tells a husband to make her wife submit, that's absolutely true. The Bible never tells a husband to make his wife submit, but you saw just right here in Titus 2, it does tell older women to teach younger women to submit to their husbands.

Here they're to uphold the headship of the husband and the father and the family, and they do this, as it says at the end of verse 5, not only because it is good and right in itself, but also to make the gospel appear good to their husbands, who may not yet be Christians.

The goal, Paul says, the goal that the Word of God, the gospel in particular, the Word of God may not be reviled. Christian wives of non-Christian husbands shouldn't be using their faith, their relationship with God to put their husbands down, instead show that being a Christian makes you a more loving wife, easier to live with.

In other words, Paul is telling wives, think of your appearance. Think of how you're making Christ appear, especially those in your own family. There are people who would scorn all our doctrine, they think our worship is boring or stupid, but if they can love and respect, and they see love and respect and self-control, that will make the gospel appear beautiful to them.

Self-Control and Good Works in the Life of Younger Men and Workers

Fourth, the younger men, I already kind of mentioned them, for them the apostle Paul only has one word, right? Everyone else gets a list, a checklist of things they have to remind themselves to do. Young men, only one thing, because if they can get this one thing down, everything else takes care of itself.

They'll get everything else right if they can only get this one thing right. That word we mentioned earlier, rare everyone else, everywhere else, but repeated here, have the wisdom that produces self-control, have the wisdom that tells you if I do this, it's going to have these effects down the line, either good or bad.

Have the wisdom that sees that investing your life now in education and training, maybe denying yourself something now will give you a better life later on. Have the wisdom that sees that restraining sex for marriage will give you a better marriage later on or keep you from having to pay for child support with some woman you're not married to and you shouldn't have been with.

Have the wisdom that produces self-control. That's for the younger men. In verse 9, Paul turns toward another group of people who would have been common in Paul's day, that's the slaves. Now we have to be careful that we don't think we know what he means by the word slave.

When I say slave, the first image that probably pops into your mind is of a person of African descent working on a plantation in the South with absolutely no rights and no prospects for a future, either for himself or for his descendants.

But slavery in Paul's day was very different from that. First, it had nothing to do with race. There were slaves and there were slave owners of all races. It was also not as oppressive and as hopeless as was American slavery up until the Civil War.

We all kind of tend to think things get better over time. Absolutely not true. Slavery got worse right here in America. Now people would sometimes, in Paul's day, in Roman times, sell themselves into slavery to pay off a debt or even to be associated with a noble family.

Right? They're getting a room and board or they're getting food and they're part of this notable household. You could save money as a slave and eventually you could buy your own freedom. In our day, what Paul calls a slave is probably closer, a little bit closer, to what we think of as an employee.

I'm sure several of you already feel like you're slaves at work, so that's no surprise to you. Now this passage tells you how you can make the gospel appear better in the eyes of the world by your work.

First, it says in verse 9, be a reliable, submissive employee. Do, you do the job, given you as best you can. You give your employer satisfaction. Don't be needlessly arguing with your boss. In verse 10, don't steal, don't pilfer from your company, don't take office supplies home for personal use.

By working like this, he says, you're reliable, you're honest, you're easy to get along with. He says, you adorn, there's our key word for today, you adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. In verse 10, the Greek word there is cosmeo, sound familiar?

Like where we get cosmetics, cosmetology from? Means to order, the cosmos is ordered, arranged to decorate, to adorn. You make the gospel appear beautiful to those around you. In everything, he says, adorn.

Adorn, make appear attractive, the teaching about God saving his people. Make that look good. So he's addressed the older men and the women and the younger women and men and then the employees and that's the church and their families and their workplaces in the world out there advertising the gospel.

Titus's Pattern of Ministry and Sound Speech

Then to Titus, the pastor in the church, verse 7, he tells them, you show yourself, talking to Titus, talking to you, show yourself. Have an image, be a model, show, a pattern of good works. Show with your life that you do what you ask others to do.

In teaching, be uncorrupt, either by the world or by the pressures of certain people, compromise the word of God, they don't want to hear that or they just only want to hear this. What he teaches is to be purely biblical, not mixed with what is popular or even with what is just traditional.

Pastor's teaching is also to be grave, that is serious. The famous Puritan pastor, Richard Baxter, wrote, whatever you do, let your people see that you are in good earnest. You cannot break men's hearts by jesting with them.

I like that quote. Richard Baxter's not always the greatest source, but there's a great quote. It shows you what they were about. Many people in the ministry and in the church today don't even think it's about breaking men's hearts, but they did.

You cannot break men's hearts by jesting, that's joking, speaking lightly, frivolously with them. The apostle Paul repeats in verse 8 how he began this chapter, the pastor to be sound, is to have health-giving speech, and Paul tells Titus in verse 1, it begins with you.

You are to teach what brings health. You give them not the junk food they might want, but the healthy food they need. That way the church will appear beautiful, so that even an opponent will not be able to find something to criticize.

Grace, the Appearing of Christ, and the Blessed Hope

At the end of the chapter, verse 15, Paul concludes, the final word for Titus, okay, you understand that last verse is for Titus. He tells Titus, some people read the Bible like it's always just addressed just to them.

As you were reading, you understand who is this addressed to, especially when it's commanding something. Here is, particularly to Titus, who I think here is representative of the pastor, and he tells Titus to exhort and reprove with all authority, that is we need to be, church members need to be rebuked and corrected some, exhorted, kind of positively encouraged to keep on doing the good things they're doing.

Reprove is to correct and do it with all authority. Here, to be corrected in order to appear attractive, not to God, as though He doesn't know already what we're made of, but to appear attractive to the world so that they can see in us what Psalm 29 and Psalm 96 call the beauty or the splendor, depending on how you translate it, of holiness.

Holiness has a beauty to it, a splendor to it. We should want to have our spiritual blemishes pointed out so that we can change and appear better, so we can adorn the gospel, in verse 10, adorn the gospel so that people will know that it makes us better.

Now, if I tell you that, you know, if it came around and you came in and your hair's messed up, you probably know I'm not trying to humiliate you, in other words, oh, thank you, I can go to the mirror in the bathroom and straighten it out, because I want to appear better.

You'll probably thank me, because you want to appear as best you can. You want to look good. Then why is it that when our spiritual appearance is needing correction, this part of your life is messed up, that you're not grateful?

Well, when that is pointed out, are we less concerned of how we appear spiritually, before God, before the world, than we are about our physical appearance? Then Titus is given one of the most interesting commands, in my opinion, in all of Scripture, at the end of verse 15, do not let anyone disregard or could be despise you.

Don't let them do it. Think about that. How do you not let someone disregard you? Well, there are actual ways you can do it. Titus goes, hmm, if you were Titus, how would you go about obeying that command?

Don't let, don't allow anyone to disregard me. Since it appears to apply to the pastor today, how is he, how am I to obey that? But more to our point, ask yourself, why is this instruction necessary? Why is Paul saying this to Titus?

Don't let anyone disregard you. In other words, don't be a punching bag. Just kind of take all the criticism, even if it's unfair, it's unjust, it's just wrong, it's dishonest sometimes, just take it with a smile, something Christians think that's what pastors, Christian leaders are supposed to do.

Just take all the abuse with a smile. Some people comment about how churches get abusive, are toxic, and in my opinion, it begins with just this, and pastors let themselves be disregarded and abused, and then once you can get past that, you can abuse everyone else, and the whole place becomes toxic.

Here Paul is telling the pastor, don't let it start, nip it in the bud. He's directly ordered not to even allow that kind of thing in the church. Now why does Paul think that it is necessary to tell Paul that, that he needs to do it to tell him?

Likely, there are people in the church who will disregard Titus. In fact, I've encountered such people. They still do today, but they know how odd that is. They get up on Sunday morning, now they could be doing other things, they could be sleeping late, they could be doing chores around the house, they could be watching sports, that's what I'd be doing, they could be working, they could be playing golf, they could be making a little more money, whatever they want to do, but instead they choose to come to church, okay, where they know this man will be speaking, he'll be standing up there like for 45 minutes or so, he'll be talking, and then they disregard him.

Why would you do that? That's crazy. That makes no sense. If you're going to disregard somebody, why don't you go sit there and listen to him for 45 minutes? Because for them, they think religion is all about keeping up appearances, appearances in the worst sense of the word, about looking pious, looking respectable, looking like a Christian even if your heart's not changed, but it's just superficial, appearing to put up a good front of being a Christian.

God says it's all about how you, your heart appears to Him. When grace has appeared, speaking of appearances, appeared to you, the Lord appears so beautiful, that splendor of holiness, that you want Him to appear attractive to other people.

That's why Paul says in verse 14, we are to be zealous, you know, zealous means just have a fiery passion for something. You just love that, whatever it is you're zealous for, that's the thing you live for.

Be zealous for good works. Let's have a fiery commitment to do good things, helping the poor, spreading the gospel, drive a van for the kids, fix sandwiches for them. We are zealous for good works, now appearing attractive to the world because of our love and our warmth and generosity, because God has appeared that way to us.

Paul says in verse 11, verse 11's important, the grace of God has, notice past tense, it's in the past, has appeared, verse 11 begins with four, that is because you do all these things, you have the wisdom to produce self-control and all that other stuff, because we keep up our appearances because the grace of God has appeared, and so we adore in the doctrine of God our Savior, we buy and refurbish a gym, we drive kids here, we get snacks, we teach the gospel to them, we reach out in other ways, we win this to our own families at home.

Not to earn something from God, but because the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to us, because He appeared, we can have a good appearance. That grace appeared in Christ Himself, and by appeared here in verse 11, he doesn't mean what that word sometimes means, you know, for today, a vision appeared, I had a dream that something appeared to me, an image on a movie or TV screen appearing, there's people and things that look like they're there on the screen, but they're not really there, or an illusion appearing, something that's subjective, just appears, it appears that way to me, but maybe not to you, I understand if it does appear that way to you, but to me it appears like this and that.

No, Paul means quite the opposite. Christ appeared, people could see Him, Jesus our Savior, precisely because He was real, He was really there in the body, He could be seen because He was and is in there, in the flesh.

If they had cameras back then, they could have taken pictures of Him. That's what the incarnation means, Jesus appeared. Now we often say, we're talking about a person, maybe ourselves, that He was born, I think Jesus was born too, but His body was formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary and then He was born, just as we all are, but the Lord Jesus is different in a very important way.

Before He was conceived and born, He already existed. You know, He said Himself to the Pharisees, before Abraham was, I am. He was with the Father in the beginning. He is the eternally existing second person of the Trinity, who came in the flesh, and then He appeared.

And notice in verse 13, Jesus is called our great God. Paul just kind of, in passing, that's the kind of thing you write when you, this is something, we all kind of believe it, as they did, as Paul did.

We all believe, Paul is showing here, that Jesus is God. He just calls Him Jesus, He's our great God. Our great God appeared in the past, giving us grace, in verse 11. We are now waiting, in verse 13, for the coming, verse 11 is in the past, verse 13 for the future, we're waiting for the coming, appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is our great God. He's also our Savior. He rose from the grave, He's alive in this present age, so that those of us He is saving from this insubordinate world, this present evil age, can have the hope and the power to renounce godlessness, to be trained to renounce worldly passions, because we know that there is a reality to His appearance, His appearances.

His past one trains us to renounce ungodliness now, because we hope in His future appearance we can see past the allure of sin. We can see the end result of sin, the end result of His appearances, and know that the Lord has much better things for us.

We have a hope of something so much better than the world has to offer, that we can say no to the temporary pleasures of sin. That hope should inspire in us the wisdom that produces self-control. So we're fired with a zeal for good works, because He appeared.

And verse 13 tells us His appearances are not over right now. We are between appearances, that's where we are right now. We're between the appearances. He has already appeared, graciously appeared to bring salvation.

He will appear yet again. His next appearance will be to bring judgment and deliverance. And as we wait for that appearance, we wait, hopefully, that Paul calls here our blessed hope. It's sort of an old-fashioned, famous term.

You don't hear it so much anymore, but here it comes with this passage. Our blessed hope. Blessed means it makes you happy. And it's a hope that makes you, that gives you happiness. We shouldn't be consumed with anxiety as we wonder how exactly the end times will unfold.

The prospect of Christ returning again is the hope that makes us blessed, makes us happy. That hope empowers us. So we have self-control. We have a hope for the future that gives us self-control in the present, because He appeared in the past.

We have hope for the future that gives us self-control in the present, because He appeared in the past. As C .H. Spurgeon said, there was a day before all days, when there was no day, but the ancient of days.

And then God began time, like we might start a clock, and the Creator formed this round blue world, placed us in it, and saw that it was very good. And then sin came. We rebelled. We were insubordinate.

And God owed us nothing. God made all things perfect around Himself. But we tried to make the world around us, caring more about our appearance than the glory of God. Then into this world He appeared.

Think then of His appearance. A baby lay in a Bethlehem manger, the Son of God as an infant, resting in an animal's feeding trough. That's how He appeared. See Him now. For 30 years, He lived as a model.

He showed Himself with integrity and dignity and sound speech, self-control, eager for what was good, doing good works. What's He doing for those 30 years? Well, God's law needed to be fulfilled. Someone needed to obey all the commandments.

He appeared and fulfilled His own law. Then we marred His appearance. Our lawlessness demanded pain, and He bared His back and took the pain, and we forced Him down that dreadful procession through the streets of Jerusalem.

They drive spikes through His hands and feet. They hoist Him into the air. There He hangs, a despised spectacle, derided by passersby. Can you see the red, red blood streaming out of His hands and feet from the gashes in His head?

It's for that that He appeared. And oh, what a dreadful appearance. Oh, sacred head, now wounded with grief and shame weighed down, now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown. How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn.

How does that visage, that appearance, languish which once was bright as morn? We sinned. Grace appeared. He took our sins, appearing for that time to His Father on the cross, appearing to be the rebels that we really are so that we could appear to our Father to be the saints we really aren't.

How we appear to that Father is the appearance we must now care most about. Do you?