We Need Godly Old Men

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:00
Amen, and if you would, open your Bibles with me.
00:05
We are going to go to the second chapter of Titus, and we're going to look at verse 2.
00:14
So open your Bible to Titus, chapter 2, verse 2.
00:23
Today is Father's Day, and a few weeks ago we celebrated Mother's Day, and in that message I preached from Titus 2, verses 3 through 5, and we talked about in that message the value of older women training younger women in godliness.
00:46
And I said in that message that we would return to Titus 2 on Father's Day to complete the lesson.
00:56
So that is where we are today.
00:59
The title of today's message is very simple and straightforward, and it sort of is the title and thesis of the entire message.
01:13
We need godly old men.
01:20
That's the title of the message, and that's the thesis of the text, and I hope that you understand the love in my heart when I call you all who are older than me, old.
01:37
It is not a derogatory thing, and you'll see as we go that it is not.
01:45
It's an amazing thing just how true that thesis is.
01:51
We need godly old men.
01:55
When we look upon the Christian landscape, especially in our nation, we see a very serious issue which has arisen within the church.
02:13
Churches generally, and by and large, are divided generationally.
02:20
We often think of churches that are divided by social strata, and there are, and there are churches that are divided by racial strata, and there are, but more and more what we are seeing is churches that are divided generationally.
02:42
You have the churches that have the very old, and the churches that have the very young, but seldom do you see integration between the old and the young together, and this is often the result of both sides being unyielding and unwilling to reach out to the other.
03:10
Oftentimes, music is a dividing thing, but I got to tell you, it's not just the music.
03:20
Yes, there are things about the music that can cause churches to divide.
03:24
The older church tends to like more traditional music, the younger church tends to like more contemporary music, but that is really a very, very small part of what is dividing the church.
03:37
What is dividing the church is this, the younger generation looks toward the older generation as being stuck in traditional institutionalism.
03:48
When it comes to church, they see older people treating the church like a country club, and membership in the church is done like a social club, and there's not a lot of inherent expectation of holiness, it's just you come and you do your country club attitude, and you treat the church that way, and that's what the younger people are looking up to the older people and seeing that, and they don't like that.
04:10
And the older people look at the younger people with lack of reverence.
04:14
They say, you guys don't care anything about reverencing the church or reverencing this time in your week, and so there's this divide between the generations, so rather than seeking to learn from one another, rather than seeking to come together and grow with one another, the result has been a divide in the church, and the result has been disastrous.
04:39
We now have entire churches that are only a few years from death because they are not discipling any young people.
04:49
They are not bringing up the next generation in Christ, and because of that, they are literally less than a decade from simply going out of existence.
05:00
And we have other churches, mega churches, which are being run by men who are younger than some of the shoes that I have in my closet.
05:10
Maybe some of you have some clothes and shoes that are older.
05:13
We've got churches that have men that are running them that have no significant level of mental maturity at all, and it shows.
05:24
And so there's a problem.
05:26
There's a divide.
05:28
The expectation, this is a little thing you might want to write down, the expectation of Scripture is a multi-generational church.
05:39
The expectation of Scripture is a multi-generational church where we have the very old and the very young worshiping together, worshiping at the same time, worshiping in the same place, worshiping in the same way.
05:58
And you see, that's so foreign to what's happening today that if you were to say that in some people's churches, they would say it's impossible.
06:10
But it's not.
06:13
It's the expectation of Scripture.
06:16
The multi-generational church, the old and the young worshiping together, is the expectation of Scripture.
06:23
And if you look around the church and you see no children, that's a problem.
06:29
If you look around the church and you see no wrinkles, also a problem.
06:36
Maybe I should say gray hair, but I shouldn't say that.
06:38
If you look around the church, we won't talk about wrinkles, we'll just say if you look around the church and you don't see any babies, if you don't see any children, if you don't see any teenagers, you've got a problem.
06:48
But if you look around the church and you don't see anybody who's in the retirement age, you've got a problem there too.
06:59
So today, what we're going to talk about is the fact that the Apostle Paul gives a very specific standard for old men in the church.
07:11
Today's Father's Day.
07:12
I wanted to address men.
07:14
I wanted to address men from this text.
07:15
And we're not really going to deal with the issue of fatherhood.
07:18
We've dealt with that so many times.
07:19
I sent out an email this morning with an article that we wrote on the duties of fatherhood.
07:23
If you're interested, I encourage you to read that.
07:26
But instead of focusing just solely on fatherhood today, we're going to focus on the expectation of manhood, specifically older manhood.
07:35
Because here's the thing.
07:36
Some of you guys might, well, I'm a young man.
07:38
Well, here's the reality.
07:39
We're all heading one direction.
07:41
None of you are getting younger.
07:44
You're going to be older when this sermon's over.
07:46
Possibly a lot older.
07:47
But we're all going in one direction, and it should be toward maturity.
07:54
It should be toward more spiritual maturity.
07:57
And that's what Paul calls us to.
07:59
So let's open the Scripture.
08:01
Let's stand to read.
08:03
I want you to read one verse.
08:06
The context of the verse is very simple.
08:08
Paul is outlining to Titus what is the expectation within the church.
08:13
He tells him in verse 1 to teach what accords with sound doctrine.
08:16
And then in verse 2, he goes right into the older men, and he says in verse 2, Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
08:36
Let us pray.
08:36
Father, I thank You for Your Word.
08:40
I thank You for the truth of the Word.
08:42
I pray that as I preach Your Word today, that You would keep me from error.
08:47
I pray that You would keep me focused on the truth.
08:50
And I pray that You would open up the hearts of Your people to the truth.
08:54
That they might be sanctified by it, as Your Word tells us.
08:57
Sanctify us by Your truth.
08:58
Your Word is truth.
09:01
We pray, O Lord, for godly old men in the church, and we pray that all young men would be looking toward, as we age, to be growing in our maturity and our understanding of Scripture and our conformity to the person of Jesus Christ.
09:18
And it's in His name we pray, Amen.
09:34
Age is a powerful thing.
09:40
When we're children, all we want to do is grow up.
09:45
I don't know how many of you remember being children.
09:48
And some of you are children.
09:51
But like my son, they always get nervous when I mention them.
09:56
He wants nothing more than to be able to drive.
09:59
He's almost 15.
10:01
So he's looking forward to that day when he steps over the invisible threshold of 14 years old to 15 years old, and he's allowed to get a restricted driver's license, and he's allowed to drive whenever his mother and I are in the car, just looking for that.
10:15
So age, especially in our younger years, is a very powerful thing.
10:19
We look forward to getting older.
10:22
However, there's a certain point in adulthood, once we've reached a certain age, where we start sort of dreading getting older.
10:32
We reach adulthood, we begin to get older, and things start to go the other direction, whereas from our younger years, things were getting stronger, our muscles were getting more firm, and everything was getting bigger and stronger, and we were getting older and tougher, and now it's the other direction.
10:49
Things are beginning to be less strong.
10:51
Our bones are more brittle than they used to be.
10:54
Our muscles are less strong than they used to be, and our bodies begin to wear out.
10:59
And at that point, we often begin to fantasize about the abilities of our youth.
11:06
In fact, sometimes we even exaggerate.
11:07
Well, when I was a kid, I could walk two miles up the hill both ways in snow and carrying a sack of rocks and everything.
11:14
You know, we kind of fantasize about, you know, my abilities.
11:17
I used to be able to lift two cars, you know, one in each hand.
11:19
You know, whatever.
11:20
We kind of imagine what it was like when we were younger.
11:26
And aging is something people sometimes fear or even hide.
11:33
We've learned, don't ask certain people their age.
11:35
They don't want to tell you how old they are.
11:38
That's offensive.
11:39
So we don't ask people what their age is.
11:42
Recently I was in the doctor's office, and the doctor walked in, and he had a student with him.
11:48
And he came in with a student, so he was introducing me to the student doctor.
11:53
And he said, this is Mr.
11:55
Foskey.
11:56
He is a middle-aged man.
12:00
He has a, and I had an issue with my arm, so he said, this is Mr.
12:04
Foskey.
12:04
He's a middle-aged man.
12:05
He's got this problem with his arm.
12:08
And I said, well, slow down.
12:12
What am I again? Because I was 16 yesterday.
12:17
I just remember, don't you? It's amazing how, you know, I began preaching at this church at 25 years old.
12:25
I'm now 35 years old.
12:26
This is my tenth year.
12:29
And I was always considered the young pastor.
12:31
Even the pastors in the neighborhood, we'd get together and talk, and I was the young guy.
12:35
Well now, you know, the hair's getting gray, old, body's getting wore, tired, you know.
12:42
Age comes whether we want it to or not, whether we're ready for it or not.
12:47
And with age, and the reason I'm bringing this up, with age comes the expectation of responsibility and maturity.
12:57
The older a man is, the more maturely he is expected to behave.
13:04
Society rightly places expectations on us as we get older.
13:09
If you see a 20-year-old man out, cutting the fold, doing dumb things, you say, well, you know, he's a young man.
13:15
Hopefully he'll grow out of that.
13:16
You see a 50-year-old man out doing those same things, you would condemn his actions.
13:21
You say, well, he should know better.
13:23
He's 50 years old.
13:24
He's 60 years old, or whatever.
13:26
You know, and society places that expectation on us, and the more gray hair we have, the more settled we're expected to be, or maybe the less hair we have.
13:41
I don't know, that'd be kind of, you know, the more gray hair as it begins to go away.
13:47
The Bible talks about the value of gray hair.
13:49
Did y'all know that? I just want to show you this, as I was kind of looking at age this week, and we're going to talk about why this is important, because Paul's going to talk about older men.
13:58
And he uses the phrase for older men.
14:00
In fact, in the Greek language of the day, he uses the phrase that referenced men over 50.
14:06
If you look back at the historical use of the term, it was specific to older men.
14:13
Look at Proverbs 20 and 29.
14:16
This will make some of you feel real good.
14:19
I know it made me feel good, because I'm headed in this direction.
14:23
Proverbs chapter 20 and verse 29.
14:36
It says, the glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.
14:53
So the glory of a young man is his strength, but the splendor of the old man is his gray hair.
15:00
And you say, now, what does that mean? What is the Scripture trying to tell us? Well, it's very simple.
15:07
Young people, glory in their strength and in their beauty, their bodies are strong and agile, and they have the physical strength and stamina to accomplish many great tasks.
15:17
But the older a person gets, even though he gets physically weaker, and he loses that strength of physicality that he once had, he has the benefit of wisdom that is growing in his mind and in his maturity, and he's earning that through experience, and thus his hair becomes a testimony of his longevity of life and of his wisdom.
15:41
So while a young man may say, look what I can do with my arms, the older man should be able to say, look what I'm able to do with my mind.
15:51
My maturity has increased.
15:55
Aging is a blessing because it is a demonstration of God's sustaining grace.
16:01
You realize any one of us could have died already, right? And I'm not talking now to just the older folks.
16:07
Any one of us could have died.
16:11
The fact that we are still alive is a testimony to God's loving kindness and His sustaining grace.
16:19
We're all here because of the grace of God.
16:21
His grace keeps my heart beating.
16:24
His grace keeps my lungs filled with air.
16:26
His grace keeps me alive.
16:28
So every new gray hair that spouts from my head or my face is a reminder that God's kept me here for a reason.
16:37
And that I still have purpose, and I still have a place in His kingdom here.
16:44
Because as soon as my purpose and place in the kingdom here is done, I'm gone.
16:49
So as long as I'm here, no matter how many gray hairs I have on my head, it's just a reminder of God sustaining me for a purpose.
16:58
So we should not hate aging, but rather we should be thankful that God is sustaining us because He remains to have a purpose for us.
17:09
So let's now look at our text.
17:11
We'll go back to Titus 2.
17:16
And looking here at verse 2...
17:21
How about we don't do that? Are we okay? All right.
17:28
Titus 2, it says, Older men are to be...
17:40
And it goes on to give the qualifications which we're going to go over in a minute, but I want to stop at that word older men.
17:46
The word older men there in the Greek is the word...
17:51
I'm just turning it off.
17:54
It's just the mic.
17:55
I apologize.
17:57
I don't need it.
17:59
I've got that preacher's voice.
18:02
I'll make it happen.
18:06
The Greek word here is presbytos.
18:09
Now, if you've done any study in the subject of eldership and pastorate, and we all have at this church, we've studied this over the years, what the eldership is and the pastorate and all that, you'll know that there are certain words that are used for the preacher or the pastor or the elders of the church.
18:27
One of the words, episkopos is one of the words, but one of the words is presbyteros.
18:33
Presbyteros is where we get the word which we translate as elder.
18:39
And an elder in the church is one who has been called and affirmed by the church to the position of leadership in the church.
18:48
They are elders, they're leaders, they're pastors, they're shepherds of the church.
18:53
The elders are called to shepherd the church.
18:55
But the word presbyteros, which references the office of elder, also references simply the idea of an older man.
19:07
And that's where this word, presbytos, has the exact same root.
19:14
Presbytos means older men.
19:18
So it's not limited.
19:19
When you read this text which says older men are to be, know that this is not just talking about the elders of the church.
19:25
Even though the qualifications that are here could easily be applied to the elders, it's not just talking about the elders, it's talking about all men in the church.
19:37
Specifically, older men who have the expectation of having matured in their faith.
19:45
And we know that from the context because it goes on to talk about older men, I'm sorry, it goes on to talk about older women, younger women, and younger men.
19:53
So the context here is old men, old women, young women, young men.
19:58
It's everybody in the church.
20:01
And that's what Titus 2 is addressing.
20:02
It's addressing everybody at every generational strata.
20:09
And some of the ancient sources of Philo and Hippocrates tell us that this term, presbytos, was used of men over 50, as I mentioned earlier.
20:17
So it's speaking of what would be expected of a Christian man as he gets older.
20:26
And there are four expectations here.
20:28
There's four expectations for Christian men in this passage.
20:32
And I want to look at those four expectations now.
20:36
The first one is simple.
20:39
It says, older men are to be sober-minded.
20:46
Some of the translations say temperate.
20:50
This word is sometimes used in conjunction with drinking.
20:55
Most of you know that if a person gets drunk, we say that's drunkenness.
21:01
And then the opposite of drunkenness is soberness.
21:05
So you're used to hearing the term sober as related to drinking.
21:11
However, in this particular context, it's not just talking about drinking alcohol.
21:17
In this particular context, it's talking about a person who is capable of restraining himself.
21:28
He has a restrained mind.
21:32
Laonita, which is a lexicon, says this.
21:34
It's idiomatically rendered as one who holds himself in or one who has a halter on himself.
21:46
It is expected, and listen to me men, it is expected that a Christian man exercise restraint in his behavior.
22:00
He is not to act as the foolish men of the world.
22:05
Neither is he to lose control of himself among God's people.
22:10
He is to be one who willingly restrains his own flesh.
22:17
And this expectation is especially so in those who bear the blessing of physical maturity.
22:23
The older man should not be given to outbursts and expressions of foolishness.
22:30
He is to stand as an example of self-restraint among the people of God.
22:37
He is to be the man who is temperate in his behavior.
22:44
Someone not given over to explosions of ill behavior.
22:51
So that is what it means to be sober-minded or to be temperate.
22:58
I've thought of, you know, as I was preparing this message, over the years I've dealt with so many different types of people.
23:05
Over the years I've had so many different people of different ages.
23:08
And I've spent many, many years with men who are much older than me.
23:13
And I counted a blessing to having sat in their homes and drank coffee with them or learned to do woodworking and things like that.
23:21
I learned to do things with older men.
23:24
And one of the things that is expected, even in families, even in families that aren't necessarily believing families, is that the older man would give the words of wisdom.
23:37
And isn't it a shame when that's not the case? Because there are some older men who do not fit this qualification of sober-mindedness.
23:46
But they are ones who are always acting the fool.
23:50
And they cannot be trusted.
23:52
I remember once having an issue with a particular individual.
23:56
I remember saying something about it.
23:59
I said, you know, this person is acting this way.
24:02
And someone said, well, that's just the way he is.
24:05
And I remember thinking, well, that's not right.
24:09
Why do we say that's just the way it is? And the reason why I bring that up is because you should never say that, men, about yourself.
24:17
If somebody comes to you and says, you know what? As an older man, you're not behaving with much maturity.
24:22
It was just the way I am.
24:25
That's not an excuse.
24:27
Being a jerk is not an excuse.
24:32
It's not.
24:34
And that's what people do.
24:35
Well, that's just the way I am.
24:37
You don't have that right.
24:39
You don't have the right to act immaturely, especially in the household of God.
24:45
If you're an older man, you have an expectation.
24:49
Don't come to me and say that's just the way I am.
24:51
Repent.
24:52
That's what you need to do.
24:53
If that's the way you are, repent.
24:55
If people can't come to you and talk to you without you just blowing off at the handle, if people can't come to you and expect of you any type of wisdom or maturity or value in what you say, if they can't talk to you at all because you have no restraint in your speech or your mind or your behavior, repent! Because you're not sober-minded.
25:17
That's what we're called to be as men.
25:20
And it's only supposed to get better.
25:24
Older men are to be this way.
25:26
Younger men are to be going that way.
25:29
Now, nobody's perfect, guys.
25:31
And I want to make sure I back and say, we all make mistakes, and I'm here to say, but a mistake is a sin, and sin needs repentance.
25:39
Don't just go around and say, well, I just make this constantly over and over.
25:42
Repent.
25:43
Recognize and repent.
25:46
Okay? So that's one.
25:48
Sober-mindedness is number one.
25:49
Number two, that they be dignified.
25:54
The King James Version says grave.
25:58
And I think that that's kind of a negative.
26:01
The King James Translation of grave.
26:04
Because what do you think of when you think grave? Unhappy is oftentimes what you think of a person who looks grave in their demeanor.
26:12
I mean, I do funerals quite a bit, and I see people who are grave in their demeanor, but they're grave because of what? Well, they're putting a loved one in the ground, or, you know, they're watching someone who's just passed.
26:25
They're grave in their demeanor.
26:26
That's not what this means.
26:27
Because I think some people have read Titus 2, and they've looked at it and said that all men are supposed to be unhappy.
26:35
That all men are supposed to constantly look like they're just melancholy, just, ugh, just tired of living.
26:40
No! It's not that you're supposed to be unhappy.
26:44
It's not that you're supposed to be miserable.
26:46
The idea behind the word dignified, and you might want to write this in, and I wouldn't necessarily write it in your Bible, but maybe write it in your notes, is the word reverent.
26:57
The older men are to be an example in reverence in the household of God.
27:05
To be a respectful man.
27:09
The church today has lost its sense of reverence.
27:17
Church has become, for many people, an amusement park.
27:22
The only intention of the church is to entertain and to distract.
27:27
In fact, now the church has become a rock concert where all the lights have to go dim, and the big red, blue, and yellow lights have to come on on the stage because that's what it's become.
27:37
You'll never hear me call it a stage because it's not a stage.
27:39
A stage is a place where performances are made, but that's another conversation.
27:42
But they'll have their stage with their lights, and the dim lights, and everything, and it's all about this performance because it's all about amusement and distraction.
27:52
It's not about reverence and worship.
27:58
There was a church, we're on football, or football Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, I don't know much about sports, but it was on Super Bowl Sunday.
28:10
The church is ready to start.
28:14
Everything's kind of quietening down.
28:16
And they hear a whistle.
28:21
And the pastor runs in from the back with a jersey on, blowing the whistle as he runs forward.
28:30
And he jumps on to the chancel, and some young man in the back throws him the football, and he catches it and spikes it on the chancel.
28:42
Woo! Super Bowl Sunday.
28:45
How dumb.
28:48
And how irreverent.
28:52
Such a thing.
28:55
I remember a guy bragged to me one time because he drove a motorcycle in onto the chancel of the church.
29:00
He was bragging to me like he was impressing me.
29:03
You don't impress me with your strange fires, sir.
29:09
We are called to be examples of reverential behavior among God's people, older men.
29:15
That doesn't mean we have to be unhappy all the time.
29:18
Far be it.
29:19
I'm a very jovial guy.
29:21
And I love to laugh and to see people laugh.
29:26
But that does not mean that we cut off our sense of gravity.
29:33
And that's where the word grave really is the intent.
29:38
It's gravity.
29:40
The gravity of what this is.
29:42
We are worshiping the God of the universe who created all things simply by speaking them into existence.
29:47
We are worshiping the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
29:53
We are doing a serious thing, a reverential thing, an important, powerful thing.
30:01
It's not silliness.
30:04
And it's not a place for strange fire.
30:06
The church needs men who will lead as examples of reverence in their behavior, especially in the gathered assembly.
30:12
Number three.
30:14
That they be self-controlled.
30:17
Another translation of this word is sensible.
30:20
Now, this word is very similar to the first.
30:24
We said sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled.
30:27
Remember when I said that sober-minded means to be a halter on yourself, a restraint? Well, self-controlled or sensible is similar to that.
30:37
It speaks of the ability to curb one's desires and impulses and carries the idea of being discreet.
30:46
The mature, older Christian man is one who should exemplify discretion.
30:52
He should be a man trusted among the people not to be given to foolishness.
30:58
The root of this word means that he has right thoughts about what one should do.
31:05
He has right thinking.
31:07
And that's why I think the word sensible here is a very appropriate translation.
31:13
He is to have right thinking.
31:16
He speaks with wisdom when dealing with others.
31:20
Younger people come to him because they're dealing with issues and they know that he is an older man in the church.
31:28
A godly man in the church is a man to whom they can come and can bring their issues.
31:33
And one, he's not going to spread their dirty laundry all over the church.
31:37
And two, he's going to respond to them not with anger, but with wisdom and with love and with sensibility.
31:44
He's not going to whitewash their sins.
31:47
He's going to rebuke them, but he's going to do so with love.
31:50
And he's one that has a mind that again, is under control.
32:00
This is an important calling for all men that younger people be willing to come to us and say, how did your faith get you through it when your child died? How did your faith get you through it when you were diagnosed with cancer? How did your faith get you through it when you went bankrupt? Or how can my faith get me through it? Even though you've never been through that, you've been through other things similar.
32:33
Can I come to you as an older man and bring to your feet these things and ask you? And you give me biblical counsel and be sensible in your mind.
32:48
And not all of us are called to that particular ministry of giving counsel, but we are all called to be sensible in our mind that people would trust us with such things.
33:00
Finally, they are to be healthy in three areas.
33:06
And by the way, you'll look at the text.
33:07
It says they are to be sober minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound.
33:14
And then it goes faith, love, and steadfastness.
33:16
So really what we're seeing is there's four things and then the fourth one is an expression of three things.
33:23
If you look at your notes, you'll see how I've got it outlined for you.
33:26
There are four major things and then the fourth one outlines three things.
33:31
Because the fourth one says we're to be sound.
33:33
That word sound means healthy.
33:37
Older men are to be healthy in three ways.
33:40
One, they're to be healthy in their faith.
33:46
The older men of the church the men who have been Christians for 10, 15, 20, 30 years ought to know what he believes.
34:00
Ought to know why he believes it.
34:03
Ought to be able to articulate it.
34:06
He should be actively discipling and seeking to win others to Christ.
34:12
I ask you this old man, can you articulate your faith? Can you tell me what it means to be a Christian? Can you tell me why you believe the Bible? Are you actively sharing that belief with other people? Do you carry gospel tracts with you? Are you signed up to help with a fishing hole? Are you one of those men who care about the older or the younger people coming to know Christ? Are you willing to do this? You know, if you worked on cars for decades and at the end of those decades didn't know nothing about cars, somebody would say you really weren't a person who worked on cars.
34:52
But if you've been in the church for 20 years and you still don't know nothing about your faith enough to share it with other people, what have you been doing for 20 years? 30 years? People say to me sometimes, Keith, you're so young, how do you know so much stuff? I ain't special.
35:15
I am not special.
35:17
I am no smarter than anybody in this room.
35:29
This is important.
35:31
To be healthy in faith is an expectation of growing in our spiritual maturity.
35:38
I know men who've never been to seminary know much more than I do.
35:42
I know men who have never, ever been to college can read and preach better than I can because they care about the Word of God.
35:58
We're to be sound in our faith.
35:59
That's number one.
36:02
And actually, the definite articles in the Greek, it's the faith.
36:06
To be sound in the faith, the love, and the steadfastness.
36:10
The definite article is in front of all three of these.
36:13
So the reference here is you're supposed to be sound in the faith.
36:15
The faith that once for all delivered to the saints.
36:18
That's what you're supposed to know as an older, mature Christian man, is the faith.
36:23
Number two, love.
36:24
The Bible gives us an outline of what love is.
36:27
If you want to write it down, it's 1 Corinthians 13.
36:30
It tells us what love is.
36:32
It tells us love is patient and kind.
36:34
It's not boastful.
36:35
It's not rude.
36:36
It's not easily angered.
36:37
It keeps no record of wrongs.
36:38
It's willing to hope for and believe for the best in those we love.
36:45
Men, if I were to ask your wives today, do your husbands love you like that, what would they say? If I were to ask your friends, is that the demonstration of love that they see from you, what would they say? We're supposed to be healthy in love.
37:05
Healthy in faith.
37:06
Healthy in love.
37:08
And finally, healthy in steadfastness.
37:14
Steadfastness is perseverance.
37:18
Thayer's Lexicon says this, it says, steadfastness is the characteristic of a man who is unswerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings.
37:31
This essentially means that we're healthy in our commitment to Christ.
37:35
We have a love for Christ that can and does endure all of the battles that we face.
37:42
That's the calling of the older man, is that he be perseverant in his faith.
37:49
How can you know that you're perseverant in your faith? How can you know your faith will persevere? Because it has before.
38:03
And again, that's why this comes with age.
38:06
As we age, we're more able to look back and see the places in our life that God has sustained us through, and it helps us to sustain us through the next time.
38:15
I can tell you, in ten years of ministry, it may seem like a relatively short time, but in ten years of ministry, we went from Forest Christian Church to Sovereign Grace Family Church, and we've been through a lot in this church, and a lot of heartache in a very short amount of time.
38:29
And I tell you what, my wife and I, every time we look at a new problem that's coming, every time we do, we look at each other and we say, God got us through that.
38:36
He's going to get us through this.
38:39
And as we get older, that's how we learn to persevere as we look back at God's faithfulness in the past, and it helps us to move forward.
38:46
And that's why I think this is part of the maturity of the Christian, because we begin to see each new trial as something we've been through before, or at least a part of something we've seen before.
38:57
The older man has dealt with trials.
39:01
He's likely lost his parents.
39:03
He has seen the negative diagnosis.
39:05
He stood at the bedside of a dying friend.
39:08
He's seen his children go astray.
39:10
He's watched his friends abandon him.
39:12
He's experienced hatred for the gospel, yet in the midst of all that, he has stood firm, and now he's an example of perseverance, and when someone else comes up and says, you know what, my diagnosis was bad.
39:24
He can say, look, God's going to get you through it.
39:26
He got me through it.
39:27
He's going to get you through it.
39:28
And I'm here to walk with you.
39:33
That's the perseverance that comes only with experience.
39:42
What is most interesting, and I want to start to draw to a close, what is most interesting about these qualifications is that they fit closely into what is expected of the elder of the church, and I think the reason for that is simple, and hear this, men, hear this closely, because not all of you are called to be elders, because there's two things that come with being an elder that are particular to the office.
40:06
One is the desire to do it.
40:08
It says, any man who desires to be an elder desires a noble thing.
40:11
So not everybody has that desire.
40:13
And two, the giftedness of teaching, and not every man is gifted to teach, and that's okay.
40:17
But I'm saying, outside of those two qualifications, all of the other moral qualifications are simply the qualifications of biblical manhood.
40:29
And that's why, if you look at this list, what older men are expected to be in the church, it's pretty much the same thing elders are expected to be.
40:41
All Christian men should seek to meet the character requirements of an elder, even if you're not given a desire for the office, nor the gift of teaching, because the requirements for eldership are really just an extension of requirements of being a godly man.
40:57
And the church needs godly men, not just among the elders, but throughout the body.
41:04
Younger men need older men to look up to.
41:09
Women need godly men to be married to.
41:15
Daughters need godly men to be guarded by.
41:19
And sons need godly men to raise them in the faith.
41:23
Godly men are needed in the church.
41:28
And godly old men are a blessing to God's people.
41:35
God, listen to me men, God has not called us to mediocrity.
41:41
And this is especially so in our manhood, and this is especially so as we age.
41:49
Just because you get older doesn't mean your responsibility lessens.
41:55
In fact, it's the opposite.
41:56
You may retire from your profession, and some of you have, but you never retire from being a Christian man.
42:05
You're going to be a Christian man if you're a Christian man today, you're going to be a Christian man until you die.
42:11
And between now and then you have the responsibility of maintaining, maintaining that position of Christian man among God's people.
42:21
As we get older, the church needs us to be exercising the duties as men in the church of God.
42:29
So I call you to that.
42:31
I call you men, to biblical manhood and our older men.
42:37
I thank you.
42:40
Those of you who are good examples, I thank you.
42:44
And I praise you for what you are doing in the church as examples of godliness to our younger men.
42:50
And I pray that we would all man and woman, seek to be conformed ever closer to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ.
43:03
Let us pray.
43:04
Father, I thank you for the word.
43:07
I thank you for the truth.
43:09
I thank you for the call of older men, the call of faithfulness, the call of love, the call of steadfastness, self-control, dignity, sober-mindedness.
43:22
Father, give us these things.
43:24
Give us older men that are examples in these things.
43:28
Give us younger men who hunger for these things that we might exemplify this type of godliness among God's people.
43:40
All for your glory and honor, Father.
43:44
We pray this in Jesus' name and for His sake.
43:48
Amen.