In our day of “gender-disorder-ia” one of the most important areas of consideration for the believer is a biblical, self-examination of worldly influence. In this message, Trent Moody will encourage men and women to guard against the ways of the world and to fruitfully live out God’s design for how He made them.

We had an agreement, Justice and I, that we would be very kind to one another since he was going to introduce me and I would be coming up after him and have a good 40 minutes that I could fix whatever he said. Anyway, it is a delight to be here. Go ahead and turn your Bibles to Titus and we're going to begin in chapter 1. Can everyone hear me okay? Is that good?

All right. Titus chapter 1 and what I want to do, I'm going to read verse 5 and then I'm going to read verse 9 and then we'll pick up with verse 10. I just want to, well, I guess five to nine. So that we'll start there and get right into the text. Glad y'all are here this morning and I just pray that today would be, this morning would be a time in which we would all grow in Christ's likeness and faithfulness to our Lord.

Let us go to the word. Paul writes in Titus 1.5, he says, for this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. And then down to verse nine, he tells the responsibility of an elder here, he says, holding fast the fateful word as he has been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convict those who contradict for there are many insubordinate both idle talkers and deceivers especially those of the circumcision whose mouths must be stopped who subvert whole households teaching things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain. One of them, a prophet of their own, has said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. This testimony is true.

Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure. But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But even their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine, that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience. The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, Homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded in all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing integrity, excuse me, integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we want to thank you Lord for your word that sets our hearts right.

Father, we are attacked and pressed in so many different ways from the influences of the world around us. This culture is unrelenting, never giving up the pressure that they place upon every individual that lives in it. And so Father, I pray today that you would grant that your Spirit would teach us and give us strength and boldness to live godly lives in an ungodly generation. Lord, that our lives and the culture that we create as Christians, according to your word, would be that countercultural effect, Lord, to show the glory of Jesus Christ. And Father, we ask these things in Christ's name.

Amen. All right. So the title of this session is the countercultural fruit of biblical manhood and womanhood and what I wanted to help us to see is that what God is doing in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is calling us not to be influenced by the culture but to live in such a way that the culture has nothing evil to say of us but also that we would then impress upon the culture the glory of Jesus Christ. I want to begin by just quoting something that happened in the news recently. Yvette Flounder, a lesbian leader of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ in Oakland, California, suggested that the Bible needs a third testament.

She says, I'm of the opinion that we need a third testament because the Bible has become problematic. Let the women keep silent in the churches and if they have any questions let them ask their husbands at home. Quoting from 1st Corinthians 14, she says, now I am a believer my whole heart I trust God with my whole heart. I wake up in the morning talking to God and God talking to me but I am completely frustrated with the ways in which the text speaks to the kind of God that says those kinds of things. And people will say, well, it is in the book.

And I said then, we need to pull out that page. And they said, well, you can't do it. It's the Word of God. I said no, it's words about God. Come on now, that is, but it is the Word of God they say.

And she responded, no it is not the Word of God. Why did I bring this to our attention this morning? Why would I quote such a vile and utterly false statement? This is obviously an extreme example of what the world believes in someone who has been greatly influenced by the world and what they believe about the Word of God. This Word of God that she acknowledged, this is what the Bible actually says, but it is a problem to her because it contradicts what she herself believes and feels.

So, but what I want us to understand is that this woman has been so influenced by the world and of course she says she's a believer, she believes in God and talks to God. She is not a believer and she does not talk to God. She is talking to a demon. She is talking to her own counsels and the voices that are inside of her head. But she's been so influenced by this and about the feelings that she has regarding manhood and womanhood.

And in her mind and in her understanding, it is so distorted that she is ready to pull out the pages of scripture if they contradict what she feels to be true. Now this obviously again is a very extreme case. I firmly believe that there is not a person in this conference who would agree with this woman. I didn't quote it because I think anyone here agrees with it. I quoted it because I want to build a case of showing you that the influence of the world is not only coming against those who are in the world, but then those who are professing to know God, but denying him by their words and works, but also that we as the children of God not be negligent in understanding the influence that the world has upon us.

When you come to the Word of God, how is it that you view the things that may contradict what you think or what you feel? So how is it that you're going to understand the Word of God? So every time I want you to understand this that every time we come to the Word of God and it challenges you, I know that you would not say the things that this woman says, but I want you to understand and I want you to see this that perhaps your actions, your words would never say, but perhaps your actions would speak a different story. Every time you make light of what God says or ignore what God says, I want you to understand that in some degree, you may be professing with your actions the same thing that this woman has said with her mouth, willing to disregard the word of the living God. One of my desires this morning is to encourage and to exhort each of you regarding one of the most significant areas that is under assault today.

This is obviously what the whole conference is about this week and that's the biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood. I'm very delighted here that we're full, this room is full of men and women because that's all there is. We have men and women here this morning and not only that but the book of Titus as I just read we're gonna talk to old men, we're gonna talk to older women, we're gonna talk to younger women, and we're gonna talk to young men. So guess what? None of you are left out of this topic this morning.

If you're wondering if it applies to you, guess what? It does. It's all about each one of you that are here this morning and how the Word of God is to affect and influence our lives. You know, it's interesting that this is one of the major battles. Fifteen years ago, I would never would have imagined that we would be living in a culture and a society that would deny the very basic fundamentals of what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman.

I thought when I first heard this, I remember back in 2015 I believe I was listening to someone and they brought this up and I thought That is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Who could possibly deny what a man is? Who could possibly not understand what a woman is? This is ridiculous. These people obviously don't know what's coming down the pike.

But in fact, they actually had a better understanding of what was coming than I did in 2015. But nevertheless, living in a world today, Tom Askell mentioned this yesterday, we are living in a world today where a Supreme Court justice apparently does not know what a woman is, even though she is one. Now first off, I don't believe for one second that she doesn't know what a woman is. She knows exactly what a woman is. She knows what it is, but it is simply this.

She is virtue signaling to win approval of her constituents and those people who are on the progressive left, who want to deny what it is. But you know, that's not the most troubling part for me, is that she would be that she would say that. What's the most troubling part for me, And really the concerning thing for me is that we live in a culture that can place enough pressure on another person that they would be willing to deny what they themselves are. That they would be willing to deny what the whole world knows to be true. Before a watching world, this woman said this, I don't know how to define what a woman is.

You see, most, 10 or 15 years ago, we would have said that this woman should have been in the crazy house. But what we have done is put her in the courthouse. She's now sitting upon the bench of one of the most powerful and influential branches of our government. And she is the one who is supposed to be interpreting law for us when she cannot even interpret what she herself is. So this concerning part does not just end there with what a Supreme Court justice believes a woman or a man is, but a more concerning part.

So I'm hoping I'm building the case. I'm getting closer to us with each thing that I say. I want you to know that. I'm getting closer. We started with a reprobate woman, lesbian woman, who thought that she spoke with God.

We're going to a Supreme Court Justice who should have some ability to reason and logic, but then we come to those pastors and professed Christian leaders who are willing to silently go along with the insanity of denying the clear teaching and authority of the Scriptures regarding what a man and what a woman is, and exalting in its place the ever-changing emotional demands of an individual's heart. And I want you to understand we are all in danger of this, of sacrificing in our understanding the clear biblical teaching of manhood and womanhood and placing upon this part of the authority that we draw our understanding from and we're willing to place there in that place of authority and understanding the very fickle nature of our feelings and emotions. And when a person's authority is what they feel and when that person thinks that they have self-determination to determine for themselves that they can make themselves whatever they think they are, they are on a crash course with their Creator. It is like a person jumping off of a cliff and believing that they are flying because they feel the wind blowing in their hair. But what they don't realize is that they are about to meet up with the reality of gravity and the reality that there is a hard stop at the end of this.

You see, God is able to take the foolish and bring them to a very hard stop. It's like a foolish person building their house not only on the sand but on quicksand and when they wake up in the morning they wonder why their house is sinking a little lower day by day. When you base your reality upon what you feel and upon your emotions to determine what is true, you're going to find out that your entire life and your entire house is sinking into the very pit of hell and you're going to be a slave to your foolish emotions. So this foolish belief and self-determination, it does not simply end in the confusion and mutilation of God's design for men and women, but it actually has eternal consequences. And one of the things that God has convicted me about recently is that as I look and even as some of the people in our church have stood up in our local mayor's room as we come to the town council meetings and we're wanting to stand against these foolishness of the pride parades and the LGBTQ nonsense and we're standing there declaring the truth of God's Word.

One of the things that we've had to check in our own spirits is this, God wants us not just to look at them as fools and write them off but actually look at them as people created in the image of God who have believed the lie of the devil and we should have compassion upon them and desire to see them rescued in the name of Jesus Christ. That's the way that we should actually look at these people. But this is one of the most dramatic and ostentatious attacks against the one true God who created us, male and female. Think about this. This culture, if you have not yet realized, is a culture of rebellion against God.

The rebellion goes to the extent that they are willing to shake their fist in the face of God even when it comes to the disfigurement and mutilation of their very own bodies. Can you imagine hating God enough that you're willing to do self-harm just to try to prove that God does not exist and He has not created you. It's insanity. They have believed the lie. And as Romans tells us, He has turned them over to their own thoughts, turned them over to their own desires, and They hate God to the extent and they believe that they are the ones who are going to get the the last laugh upon God.

But I hate to tell them, I do tell them, but they need to hear that it is not them who will have the last laugh, but it is God. God says in Psalm 2, why do the nations rage? Why do the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. These things that bind us to reality, they say, we want to break those bonds.

We want to cast them far from us. But the psalmist goes on, he who sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision, then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure." what I'm hoping to oppress upon each of you and us and myself today is that it is not simply the world and the worldly systems that are being shaped by these demonic influences in the culture that we see all around us. It would be easy to sit here for us this morning and just point out all the problems of the world. And we could leave here this morning and we could go away, sit back and think that we have been immune to the virus of cultural influence.

And we can think of ourselves in such a self-righteous way and think, I thank you God that I'm not like those sinners over there. But to ignore the reality of cultural influence as a believer and As a Christ-loving believer, I want you to understand something. It is akin to ignoring the signs of a tsunami as you're strolling down the beach. The tide is rushing out from you all around you, and all that you're worried about is if your selfie that you just posted upon Instagram makes you look fat. And the tide is rushing out because it is soon to rush in and sweep you away.

The culture is going to come in upon you if you're not aware of what is taking place and you and the next generation are getting ready to be washed out to sea. I want you to have your eyes wide open. I want you to understand first and foremost what it looks like for a believer to have cultural influence. Whenever you come to the Word of God and it confronts you in what you think, in what you say, and in what you do, you need to realize that is doing that because you have been influenced by the culture around you. You don't even realize it.

You don't even understand how much it is having an effect upon your thinking and upon your living. So my hope and prayer for each of you is that you would be willing to be grounded in healthy doctrine and in faithful living out of what you profess to believe. And what the Word of God tells us is true. You young people especially must be on guard and be ready to do battle with the culture, not to be swept away in it. The social media influence is obviously, it's not just something that old people like to rail about.

It's actually something that we used to live without, it wasn't even in existence. And we are seeing the powerful tool being used against the minds of the youth and even the minds of older people as well that every time you click and scroll you are slowly and methodically deadening your own mind to what's going on. Your mind and your conscience. Do you remember what I read here in the scriptures in Titus 1 15? He says to the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.

But even their mind and their conscience are defiled. Your mind is defiled, but that's a it's another level to say that your conscience is defiled. Your conscience is that which God has given every human being to know and to have some sense of conviction and knowing of right and wrong. But when you've gone so far into the cultural influence of this world that even your mind and your conscience is defiled, you no longer feel the prick and the sting of sin. And you've been hardened, your heart has become calloused to the reality of the influence in your life.

And I want you to examine that. Studies are coming out now that show that that the constant connection to your phone literally is making you dumber, even when it's turned off. I read a study recently, these high schoolers, they had them take tests. Some of the students took a test with their phone sitting on the desk beside them and the phone was not turned on. The other group had the phone in their backpacks and the other group had their phone in another room.

Continuously the results were the same. Those who had the phone on the desk scored the worst, even though it was turned off. Those who had their phones in their backpack scored in the middle and those who had their phone out of the room scored the highest. There is an influence that you're not even aware of because you have delegated that part of your brain. I don't even need to remember this.

It's one of the reasons why I encourage people to read the Word of God in the book, the Word of God. There is no mistaking when I hold this up what it is, Right? You can see me sitting in a lounge somewhere reading this and you're not wondering what I'm reading. However, if you walk by and you see me doing this, there could be any number of things that I'm doing that could be righteous, could be unrighteous, could be totally benign and you don't know. And so I want you to I want you to set a pattern for your life to just one little simple thing.

I'm not making it a law but I'm just using it as an encouragement to read the Word of God in the book, the Word of God, so that there will not be the distractions. And how many times when you're reading the Bible on an app do you get a notification of something else that distracts you from what's going on? I know I do. I've had three or four pop up even on my iPad right now trying to distract me from what's going on. But you need to know that when AI comes on the scene, it is going to know you better than you know yourself.

It is going to feed you all of those things that you love and it's going to know what you love more than you know what you love. And it is actually going to make this this battle for your mind and for your conscience that much more difficult. You need to set the guard now. You need to remember now. You need to know and have your eyes wide open now that the world is pressing in upon you its influence.

It is not satisfied with you living outside the system. It won't you. Remember what Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 10. He says, for though we walk in the flesh we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ.

Every thought, wow, that's the battle that you're in. Every thought is a battleground. Every thought. That is the battleground that you must win for the sake of your own soul and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the dangerous part of all this is that some in the church have bought into the lie and begin to empathize with those who are of this rebellious nature and want to sin against God and they want to deny their own nature and the design that God has designed them with.

They've been so influenced in the church that they do not recognize it. But you need to understand that when the church fails to uncompromisingly stand upon the truth of God's Word, at this point, at this very point of manhood and womanhood, then we are losing our influence in the world. It was said this weekend that the world is having more influence upon us than we are upon it. God did not put us here to be influenced by the world. He actually called you out of darkness and set your feet upon a solid rock and he says that you are to be the light of the world.

You are to be influencing the darkness. But how do you influence darkness when it comes to this? They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him. Being abominable, which means detestable, being disobedient, and disqualified for every good work. But let's look at the cultural context.

That's a long introduction but I promise the message won't be quite as long. But I want us to see the cultural context of the book of Titus and what's going on. We think we live in a day and age when it's the only time that the world has been pressing us. Not hardly. What was it like for Titus when Paul wrote to Titus and told him, for this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city, as I commanded you.

What is the best way as Christians that we can fight and produce the countercultural fruit of biblical manhood and womanhood? It actually begins with God setting up ordered churches. I want you to set in order the things that were lacking. Paul had come through the Isle of Creed, he had established churches, he had preached the gospel, people were being saved, but he had such a huge job to do that he now sent Titus there to complete the work that was needed to be done. These churches didn't even have elders.

You can't appoint an elder that's a day old Christian. It needed time. They needed maturity. They needed to be tested. And so he appoints elders here And he tells them that they need to be holding fast the faithful word as that has been taught to them, that they may be able by sound doctrine to exhort and convict those who contradict.

These elders, the church is a great bulwark against cultural influence. But boy, you need solid pastors. You need men who are willing to stand up and to listen to what he says a little bit later. He says to rebuke them sharply. You don't play patty cake with those who are trying to destroy your soul.

You actually rebuke them sharply. That's the task of an elder. But not only that, we need to understand that these things that we're seeing here regarding this cultural context, We see that the cultural influences in verses 10 through 16, he says here regarding these people who are coming against us, these influencers, if you will, they were insubordinate. They were not those who were subject to the authority of God. They were those who were independent thinkers and are you a part of a church?

No, I just, I don't go to a church because it's full of hypocrites. I'm just, I make the truth up as I go and I'm an independent thinker. No, they're insubordinate. They're unwilling to submit themselves to the authority of the local church. You know, it's sad, I've met many street preachers in my day, men who are actually standing proclaiming the truth of God, and I go up and I speak to them, and if you're a street preacher, I'm gonna challenge you in this.

So often those men are those which have no church. They're out there to proclaim the gospel and what I heard was right but they are unwilling, they're insubordinate when it comes to placing themselves under the authority of a local church and they're just they're on their own. I think some of it is that they feel themselves too righteous and they can't find a church that meets their standards. But let us be people who are humble and being willing to be taught and to sit under sound teaching ourselves. Not only were they insubordinate but they were idle talkers.

One commentator says in the congregation of Christians they were idle talkers but in reality refusing all obedience acting for themselves and factious in insubordinate tithes would at last discover many such. These often would be found to be possessed of gift of the gift of fluent and deceptive speech and would deceive many. He says Reynolds characterizes such restless uneasy spirits as restless talkers who must say something and who have broken the peace of many a home and shattered the prosperity of many a church." He says, the multitude of teachers who have nothing true to say is the curse of the kingdom of God. Beware of who your teachers are. Deceivers, they hear things and yet they want to manipulate things.

It's clear enough they delude the minds of others. Remember that even their minds and consciences were defiled because of these deceivers. They were going out to deceive those all around them. But notice their own testimony about what it was. He says, one of them, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

Wow. It was America in the early part of the church, right? Always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. Well guess what? Epimenides is the one who said this in 600 BC.

600 years before Paul was writing to Titus. This cultural influence, this cultural nature and this worldview of being always liars, evil beasts, and lazy glutton had been going on for six, at least 600 years. And Paul says, Titus, we're gonna plant a church right in the middle of that. Oh yeah, and I want you to be a faithful pastor, and I want you to preach the things that are according to sound doctrine, and I want you to rebuke those sharply who do such things, and I actually want you to establish a church there, and then I want you to work from the setting of that church and being a faithful elder, and then I want to speak into your church to the men and to the women and the old and young, and I want you to realize that this is how by faithful living and by sound doctrine that you will not be influenced by the world but that you will influence the world by being faithful to the Word of God. I love what Paul says.

He says this statement is true. No one denied it. Even one of their own said it was true. Paul says, hey he was right. Even a broken clock's right twice a day.

Even Epidimendies was right. He said these are, was he lying? He said, all of them are liars. They always lie. No, he wasn't lying.

Paul said, no, this is actually true. This man who grew up in a culture of always lying is actually speaking the truth. This cultural behavior had apparently influenced not only those on the Isle of Crete, But it also influenced, because remember he's speaking to those in the church, it had influenced those in the church. That's where we are. We are in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because I believe one, there were no elders there who were giving continual sound doctrine. This is one of the things lacking that need to be set in order. But also two, because there were false teachers among them who were coming in who were insubordinate idle talkers and deceptive. The influence was terrible. None of us would have ever attended this church.

We would have left. You know the work of a church and establishing a sound church is not a work done in a day. It's not done in a week, it's not done in a month or a year. It's actually a work that takes years, decades, and generations, generational faithfulness and a willingness to notice the influence that is coming in from the world. It was a terrible influence.

But notice Paul's answer to their problem and I mentioned this before he said open rebuke therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. Paul says to the pure all things are pure but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing's pure. He says, even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work. So I want us to be honest with ourselves.

I want us to understand that what I've been describing to you is the extreme picture of what was taking place. And again, I want us to understand that it would be easy for us to sit here in self-righteousness and say, I'm glad I'm not like that. I'm glad I'm not like the tax collector over here. I go to church. I listen to the preacher.

I pray. Hey, I don't have certain types of social media. I'm not influenced by the world. I try to dress modestly. I try to do, and we could name the list.

But I want you to realize that I do not want to just be 25% more godly than the culture around me. There's this thing called the Overton Window, You may know what it is. But I want you to realize it's this idea here that it is this sliding scale of the influence of the culture and other things as well. And if you're, let's just say just for a moment, let's see, I'm thinking this backwards. This will be your right side, this will be my left side now.

If you're on the right and you say I want to be 25% better than this person that's way off over here and that's my goal 25% better. What happens in five years? What happens in ten years? How about that you're just you're now where they are or were 10 years ago. That's the Overton Window idea.

The goal is not to be just a little bit more godly than the culture. A little bit more modest than the culture, a little bit more whatever than the culture. That's not the goal. The goal is to conform your life to the Word of God. The goal is to submit yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ and say, Lord, I want to believe what you said when you said come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.

And I don't mean that we are to be separate in an area. It doesn't mean that we're to leave the world and have no influence in the world and go live in a cave somewhere. But we are to be separate from the worldly influences. We are to be separate from the way they think and from the way they process things and from the way they look at the Word of God and the way they interpret the Word of God. We need to be a people who are a separate people who have come out from the world around us.

Back in Leviticus it says the same thing. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God, according to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwell you shall not do. And according to the doings of the land of Canaan where I am bringing you, you shall not do, nor shall you walk in their ordinances. You shall observe my judgments and keep my ordinances. To walk in them, I am the Lord your God.

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which is if a man does them he shall live by them. I am the Lord." That's what we are supposed to do. I don't care how far the world goes. I don't want to move from where I am. I want the percentage not to be 25 percent but the next year let it be 50, let it be 100, let it be a thousand percent different from where I am.

I don't want to move from having my feet set upon the solid rock of the Word of God. That's where we need to stand. And so now getting to what I really wanted to get to was the fruit of this countercultural manhood and womanhood. What does it look like? So this is where we get our exhortation for the countercultural living that we want to do.

Paul instructs Titus to exhort the believers regarding God's design and nature of the roles of both men and women. Because remember, he's establishing what elders should be. He's establishing what the elders' tasks should be. And then what the elders should be teaching the people to be. That's what he's doing.

Because of the cultural influence, he's bringing them to show them what does it look like to be a biblical man and a biblical woman. Is that not why we're here this weekend? I want to know what it's like. What does it look like? Well, let's start with the older men.

I'm just going to walk down through what he says. You've read this a thousand times, I'm sure, but look at what he says. Older men are the examples of sound doctrine. Verse 2, that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith and love and patience. Mr.

Brown spoke about this just at the singles conference I believe it was. It means to be self-controlled. It means not to come under the influence of anything that is defiling. In fact, the Bible tells us, do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit in a respectful way. We are to be drunk on the Holy Spirit of God.

I don't mean that in the Charismatic sense. I mean that in the sense, under the influence of the Holy Spirit of God is what we're to be. Kevin Swanson last night defined it as this, the right estimation of the fear of God. Living under the right estimation of the fear of God. This is what older men are doing.

Guess what? Apparently you can teach old dogs new tricks. Old men are actually instructed to change their behavior and be sober. Be reverent old men. Why does he start with the old men?

Because we are to be the example. We are to be the men that demonstrate not only with our words but with our lives of how the young men should live and in fact even the women because with the women he says likewise. We'll get to that. Sober, reverent, worthy of respect, dignified. We need a life that is lived that is worthy of respect.

That somebody says, you know what, that's a godly man. Brothers, if you are living in such a way that would bring reproach upon the name of Jesus Christ or would bring shame upon your church or upon your family. I'm calling you this morning to repent of that sin of being a bad example of unworthy of respect. We need to live in such a way. Again, none of us are perfect when we sin, But guess what you do when you sin?

You repent! You repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. We can turn from our sins and be forgiven by God's grace. And then we can continue to live a reverent life before the world.

We're to be temperate or sound in mind. He goes on, sound in faith, sound in love, sound in patience. What does it mean to be sound? It means to be healthy. We're to proclaim healthy doctrine.

We are to be healthy in our faith. We are to be healthy in our faith. We are to be healthy in our love. We are to be healthy in our patience. In our patience.

Matthew Henry said, the aged person are apt to be peevish, fretful, passionate, and therefore need to be on their guard against such infirmities and temptations. Have you ever known an old person to be peevish? What a word, I love that. They're a little grumpy and grouchy because of their age. There may be a little cynical because they've seen so many things in their life.

Old men repent of that if that's you. Be sound in patience. Be healthy in regard to your patience. Let's move on to the older women. Time goes way too fast.

Anyway, older women are likewise to be examples and also to teach sound doctrine. Their scope though is this. Their scope is as the role of women. Women are not to go around teaching all the deep doctrinal theologies of the Scriptures. He makes it very plain here.

Older women that you teach, what? Likewise, they are first to be reverent also in behavior, not slanderers. That's one of the sins of women that is a temptation to you. Do you realize the word slanderer is the same word used for the devil and the accuser of our souls? Women, when you slander, when you're given over to the temptation of slander, you're acting as if the devil is your father, not God as your father.

Be careful not to be a slanderer or an accuser. That's what the devil is not what the daughters of God are. Not only that not given to much wine that's pretty self-explanatory you're to be teachers of good things. Older women this is not only an instruction for you, but this is a warning to you. You are actually to be a teacher of good things.

You can be a teacher of bad things. You can be a teacher of bad things by what you teach, but you can also be a teacher of bad things by what you do. The way in which you carry yourself can be it make you a teacher of bad things but be a teacher of good things. Good things so that the younger women can look to the older women say that's how I want to live. There goes a woman who is who has the fear of God and sober-minded has the right estimation of the fear of God and does good things according to godliness.

And then she is to admonish. This word admonish is somewhat of a strong word. It means to to recall a person to their senses. Wow. Mr.

Brown preached on this not long ago and he said that is it has the idea of slapping someone in the face to waken them to what they're actually doing. Hey, wake up! Realize what you're doing. Young women, they are to admonish young women and perhaps even chasing them. They are to do this because it is to spur them on in their duties before God.

Ladies, I want you to realize that you have a responsibility to admonish. You know, there's a temptation there to say, man, I wish we had some Titus II women. All he says here, he doesn't say look for older women who are tightest to women so that they can teach the younger women. He says older women, are you an older woman here today? He's talking to you.

Listen to what he says, older women likewise, so like the men you need to be sober, reverent, temperate, sound of faith, love and patience. Older women likewise that they, you older women be reverent in behavior, not slanders, not giving too much wine, teachers of good things, that you admonish the younger women. You have the responsibility and guess what you may say, but I'm not that great of an example. Well guess what? Repent and become that good example so that you can admonish the younger women.

It's not like you get a write-off and say, well, I've only been a Christian for a year. I'm older, but I've only been a Christian for a year, so I can't be that. No, you're called by God to be that. That's what you're called. This is how God has designed you.

He has created you to be this and to do this and to teach this and then here's what they are to teach the younger women. And it's interesting here by teaching the younger women these things they're actually calling older women to do these things. How can you teach a young woman to love their husbands if you're just a cranky old woman and complaining about your husband all the time. So he's actually teaching both sets, old women and young women in both of these things is what he's doing. To love your husband.

Now believe me, I understand the difficulty of that. Men can be hard to love. Listen, the challenges of being a wife to love their husband, the hardest part about that is because he's a man. Guess what? Being a man means and the hardest thing I guess about this is that because men are men, they're not women.

Men don't think like you. They don't act like you. They don't reason like you. They don't solve problems like you, they don't look like you, I'm very thankful for that. The whole way in which God designed a man to function, God designed a man to function is contrary to the way you were designed to function.

It's different. Not contrary in a bad way, but it's totally different than the way you are. God made you and he has to command you to love your husband because there's times in which he's going to act in such a way you say, what is he doing? This man has no idea where we're going. And the temptation there is to not love him.

But the love here that is spoken of is not just this emotional affection that are just this emotionalism that oh I feel so romantic towards my husband. He's actually telling you that you are commanded to love him in an affectionate way. It's not just the feelings that you have about him, but love, biblical love, this is the fruit remember of counter-cultural womanhood okay, is to biblically love your husband in such a way that you do it for His good and for God's glory. And I'm not talking about for His fleshly good always, I'm talking about for His godly good. You need to love Him in such a way that it helps Him to be the man that God created him to be.

You remember what Carlton said last night, I'm not going to repeat, re-preach what he said. Think about all those things he said that are the sins of women. Well, be done with those things and love your husbands. Love is not only those affections but it is a decision of your will to do what is good for him. To do what you know the Bible tells you to do.

Remember it's not based upon your feelings it's based upon the Word of God and then for some reason they're told to love their children. What woman ever didn't love their children? Well guess what We live in a day and age and so did Paul and Titus in which women did not love their children. They would cast them to the side. I have so much here but I want to move on down through some of these.

They are to be discreet. This is the fruit of countercultural biblical womanhood. Having control over your sensual desires, being temperate and self-control, moderate, chaste, and sober. Being self-control. This is a temptation for women, a temptation for younger women to be worked up with their emotions and with the other difficulties that they face of a man not acting the way she thinks or thinking the way she thinks and then it's becoming difficult to not be self-controlled, to lose your temper and to allow your emotions and your tongue to lose control.

That is the danger. This can be very difficult at different times in your life, but the difficulty, listen, the difficulty of the task does not negate the task. There to be chaste, there to be keepers of the home. You understand this does not mean a woman is homebound and in a prison. She's actually, she's a home builder if you will.

She's the woman who is there. She's not bound there, but it is the domain God has created you for is to be a keeper at home, to be a manager of her household. She's to be good, noble, gentle, obedient. Uh-uh, let's don't read that one, obedient to their own husbands, not to every man, to your own husband be obedient. That, he gives us a purpose statement here that's extremely important for you to...

Your ears should perk up whenever God says something like this, that the Word of God may not be blasphemed. That should shock you. What he's telling you is, is that when your relationship with your husband is in such a way that everything you profess to believe and to say and declare about God and about the gospel, you're saying, no, the gospel has no power to change me. You're blaspheming the Word of God when you are not doing these things. It is something, you're saying that the power of the Gospel is not powerful enough to save me from my, not only the penalty of my sin, but it's not able to save me from the power of sin and that is heresy.

Jesus came to save you from your sins. He came to enable you to do this most difficult task. Now lest we have some ridiculously high-minded arrogant husband in here, I want to go back and hit on you just for a moment that you may think that you are the ultimate authority in your home. Newsflash, you're not. You are a authority in your home, but you are not the ultimate authority in your home.

Let me set you straight. You are not the ultimate authority in your home, God is. Man, you do not have the authority to ever command your wife to do what God forbids, And you do not have the authority to forbid your wife to do what God, or to not do what God commands. He can't command you to do what God forbids. He can't forbid you to do what God commands.

He cannot do that. Your authority does not reach that far. How do you like it when the government tries to come into your home and tell you what to do with your children. That's an overreach of authority. Yes, it is.

But when you try to command your wife to do things God forbids, that is an overreach of your authority. Don't do that. It is God's home and you are to go back and maybe read what the older, what it said about the older men. Younger men, likewise, sorry young men, you're going to get the the ends of it but go back and just read this because you need to understand you need to be sober-minded. That's one of the big things he tells you.

The rest of this is the somewhat of a debate. Is he talking to Titus or is he still talking to young men? The debate is this, but he says sober mindedness is the the big hiccup for for young men. We fall into this trap of not being sober minded, being foolish. We need to be men, young men and old men, who have control of ourselves and we are thinking in such a way because listen the greatest battle over you is the battle of your minds, men.

Your lust does not begin with your eyes. It begins in your heart. You know, when Jesus uses that hyperbole of plucking out your right eye if it calls you to sin, your eyeball did not cause you to sin. He says all of those things come from your heart. That's what mind here means and sober mind and it says sober heartedness as well.

It is the battle worth fighting. You're to be a pattern of good works, integrity and doctrine, not using Scripture for your own personal gain. You're to be reverent in handling of the Word of God. You handled it in such a way. Here I want to give you an example of an old man who handled the Word of God.

All of these men did, but did you notice yesterday who handled the Word of God extremely reverently? Do you remember? I'm not going to name a name because I just want you to think about it. It stuck out to you, didn't it? All of these men did, but man, when that man stood up and read the Word, I felt like God was literally talking.

It was just like, wow. He spoke the word of God with reverence. And then in closing, I just want you to consider your life in comparison with this text. I want you to take this text and I literally want you to go through this and I want you to examine your life to see do I and am I bearing the fruit of countercultural manhood or womanhood? And I want you to stop at every one of these and I want you to examine your life according to that one.

Am I sober-minded? Am I chaste? Am I obedient to my own husband? Am I whatever? And I want you to examine yourselves because the great exercise that we have for us is does my life live up to the commands of God?

And close with this verse, John says this in 1 John 2 for, he who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him but whoever keeps his word truly the love of God is perfected in him and by this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for the Word of God.

We pray, O God, that this Word would rest heavy upon every heart and soul here so that we would conform our hearts and lives to the image of Jesus Christ our Savior. That we would live in such a way that the Word of God would not be blasphemed. That we would live in such a way that our profession would match our walk. And so that we would truly be the lights that you have created us to be in this dark world. Please guard every heart and mind here from the influence, the unbiblical influences of the world all around us and I pray it in Jesus name.

Amen.