How do I serve the church if I am a senior citizen? What about if I am a young child—do I have a role to play? Is there a place for women to serve within the church? In this talk, Jeff Johnson will address these important questions by unpacking God’s instructions in Titus 2 to older men, older women, younger women, and younger men.
Have you ever wondered what your role is in the local church? What's your place? How do you fit in? What can you do? How can you serve it?
How can you be a vital part of the membership, be an active, faithful member that's a participant, where your presence is felt and needed, where if you didn't show up, a left, there would be a whole. How can you be plugged in and serve the church in a way that is most impactful, beneficial? And as you think about that, you may wonder, well, what can I do? I don't know how to play a musical instrument. I don't know anything about the sound booth, I don't have much talents, maybe I'm a young girl or a young boy and you think well I'm just not expected to do much because of my age, because I'm just a child, or I really don't feel like I plug in very well.
And you find yourself kind of just attending church, setting in, taking it in, and leaving, not really knowing your place. Well, this text in Titus chapter 2 gives us our principal place, no matter if we're a male or a female, if we're old or young, wherever we are, whatever category we fit in, this gives us our directive. Titus is built upon living out sound teaching, sound doctrine, adorning the Word of God. The theme of Titus is basically that Theology, sound doctrine leads to holy, godly living. It teaches us in this book, this epistle, that we're not saved by works, but we are saved unto good works, for it's the grace of God, chapter two tells us, that has appeared to us, teaching us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lust, and that Christ has purified himself a people for good works, for holy living.
And as we think about the Christian life and being, living out the faith, living out our theology, practicing what we believe, It comes into place, most importantly, in the church and in the family. And if you ever wanted a passage that connects your role as a young person or an old person or a male or female to place you into the church and your role in the family, this text, chapter 2 of Titus, connects the family and the church together. In other words, we can look at this as God's plan for gender roles and age groups in the church and family. Let's read Titus 2, verses 1 through 6. But as for you, teach that which accords with sound doctrine.
That is, sound doctrine is going to lead to this practical Christian living. Verse two, older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and instead fastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderous 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. So here is God's map, his layout for the different genders and the different age categories. In particular, what God expects from you as an old man. If you're an old man here, God expects certain things from you. If you're an older lady, what God expects from you.
If you're a young man or a young woman, this is what God's expecting of you. And even if you're a child, this is what God's expecting you to grow into. So all of us have instructions here today. If we wanna fulfill our role in the family and fulfill our role in the church, then let's take key to how God addresses us as individuals. First of all, what does God expect from old men?
We see the exhortation that Paul gives to Titus in verses one and two. But as for you, talking to Titus, teach what accords with sound doctrine, that is, you as the pastor teach the old men how to behave. And verse two is the exhortation to old men. Old men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, instead fastness. These are five traits that Paul identifies that older men need to exhibit and have mastered in their life.
Five particular traits. And I don't think these are just random things that he just cherry picked and ones that he thought were interesting. No, these are five things it takes to be a spiritual leader. If you want to be a leader in your home, a leader in the church, a leader for the young men and others to follow after you, these are the five things you need to have. Five things older men that you need to demonstrate, exemplify for others to follow after you.
Five things you have to have mastered by the time you're an older man. The first one begins with I think the heart of the other four that follow. If you want to have these traits for leadership to be a man that women, your wife could follow you and your children can follow you and church members can get behind your example and seek to aspire to live like you. If you want to be that exemplary man for others to follow, it begins with sober-mindedness, a seriousness of thinking. A sober-mindedness is the opposite of being drunk.
It's the opposite of being asleep at the wheel. It means to be alert, awake, attentive, clear-headed, thinking, concentrating, to be focused, to not have your mind flittering about, distracted with ever care and concern. You have some form of laser direction. You have leadership skills because you know where you're going and you're not just fluttering around like so many young men do today. Young men have no purpose and no direction because they're just going from one particular fleshly desire and sensation to the next.
They're just distracted by every little felt pleasure. And so old men need to be exemplary in this single-mindedness and sober-mindedness. First Thessalonians 5, 6 says, let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. Let us be tentative. Let us know where we're going and what we're doing.
A leader knows what he's thinking. He knows where he wants to go and has direction and purpose. It's the opposite of being led by your emotions and being fickled and being up and down. It speaks of being steady and having direction. First Peter 1 puts it this way in verse 13, therefore preparing your minds for action and being sober minded.
Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That is, you have the coming of Christ on your mind and the coming of Christ is your vision that keeps you focused and centered and that is the direction of your life that you're doing everything for the great day. You're doing everything not for some temporary thing. The best the world can do is have it a retirement plan. They can think a little bit beyond the weekend to maybe retirement, but the Christian man, the Christian leader looks beyond this life and is looking for the life to come and he's living for eternity.
He's sober-minded. He recognizes the severity of life and the importance of life and the life to come. And this has got his attention, it has awakened him. It's gripped his mind and his thought, and he stays focused on that. So old men, lead us.
And I know you're saying, Jeff, you're an old man. Scott, I'm not quite your age yet, though. The second characteristic that old men need to have mastered is they need to be dignified. You see that in the text. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified.
This comes with sobriety, a sense of dignity and respectfulness and honor. A man who has carried himself well will carry himself with respect and dignity and honor to the point that others would want to emulate him and follow behind him. The best way to honor an older man is to seek to be like an older man. The third characteristic that it takes to be a spiritual leader is to have dignity and honor and self-control in your mind and your thinking. You have to have this third thing, which is I think the heart of leadership skills, the heart of what it means to be a man is self-control.
We see that in verse two, dignified, self-controlled. You know, the greatest need that children have, and if you're a child, you're the greatest thing you need because you're not born with it. You're not equipped with this. You're not born with self-control. That has to be installed.
It's like buying a toy, and you're all excited about it, and you rip it open, and it didn't come with the batteries, and you can't play with it. You go, oh my goodness, there's no batteries. And you got a toy that's useless until you go back and get batteries. Well, you get this little baby and bring them home from the hospital and go, I got a baby. Well, okay, you got a baby, but what you don't have is anything that has its own self-control.
There's no self-control installed in that baby. It's your job as a mom and a father, mother and father, to install, equip, push into that child through your own self-control and discipline the ability for the child to control itself. You know, one of the goals of parenting is not just to get your child to be obedient to your commands. And once they're out of the home, they do what they wanna do. If your goal is just to get obedient child so everybody can respect you and think you're a good Christian mother and father and that you know that you got your act together, then you're doing it for selfish reasons.
Your goal is for your own honor and your kids become, when they misbehave, you're like, oh, they're ruining my name. No, this is not about you. This is about them. And your goal is not just to get them to be obedient. They're not your little project.
They're little souls to be developed. And your goal in disciplining them and training them and raising them is to install their own self-control so when they're out of the house they don't need you they have the mechanism within them to have good judgment good discernment good wisdom in order that they can make wise decisions based upon the Word of God and they followed your example and you've taught them convictions and it becomes not your conviction it becomes their conviction and you don't mandate their conscience you develop their own conscience and their conscience is not controlled by your conscience, their conscience is controlled by God. That's our goal. And you have to instill that in them. And you've got to work that in them.
And you've got to discipline them. And so children don't have self-control. We were born, I was born, you were born. We were born with completely selfishness. And selfishness is the opposite of self control selfishness is me myself I I want this I want that I got a have give it give it give it now you ask a kid you want one candy bar today you want five tomorrow most kids will say give me mine today I'll take it now I want my pleasure now I want my inheritance now I had a friend in in high school who passed away because of his reckless life, life of drugs and alcohol, but even in high school his direction of life was set and he could not be controlled by the coach.
He couldn't stay on the basketball team because he could not have any self-control. He couldn't have any control. And one day we were at the basketball game and he wanted some nachos and he went to his mother. I was with him. I was embarrassed on his behalf.
He goes to his mother, he says, Mother, can I have $5? I wanna buy some nachos. She said no. He looked at her and says, you don't want me to make a scene, Do you? And she opens her purse and gives him $5.
Now there was no father in the picture. The mother definitely had no control over him and he had no control over himself. And he didn't last very much longer until he dies in a car accident. You see men, if we're going to be leaders, we don't need to be children when we're adults. Old men, of all people who need to show us what it looks like to be disciplined in your thoughts and your actions and your behavior, it's you.
You see, the fruits of the spirit is self-control. Titus 2.12, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. You see, self-control comes with practice and discipline, self-regulations, And that comes back to this dignity and this sober-mindedness and having your mind set on the right things to guide you. Fourth, old men need to be sound in faith and love. We see that in verse two.
The object of our direction. You know, you can't have self-control and be a leader unless you know where you're going. You can't expect others to follow you if you're just walking around aimlessly. You have to know where you're going. You have to have direction.
And you've got to be willing to go in that direction regardless if anybody follows you. You're not putting your finger in the wind and going, okay, if people follow me, I'll lead. No, you just lead because you know what you want. You know what you have to have. And for a Christian man, you have to have God.
You have to have the Lord. You have to have eternal things. You have to have Christ Jesus, and that has to be your life, and that has to be your direction. And so to have the sober-minded, the self-control, we see you need to be sound and faith. First Peter says in verse 13, chapter 1, therefore preparing your minds for action and be sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
That is, your faith has to be your compass. To have a sober mind, you have to have faith in the invisible realities. You have to see the things that are unseen and you gotta live for that. You have to live for eternity. You have to be willing to invest that which you're going to lose to gain that which you cannot ever lose.
And when you have that purpose where you're single-minded for the glory of God, where you're willing to forsake everything and follow the Lord Jesus Christ wherever he leads, then you're someone, old man, that the rest of us need to follow after you and emulate and be encouraged. I want to be like you when I'm older. I want to be like this old man in the church that has lived a life of sobriety, a life of faith, a life of this last point of sound faith and love. Not just sound in faith but sound in love. You see the way forward is love and I love how he brings this back.
It starts with sober mindedness and self control but it has this aspect of love because what kills children and leads to this impulsive behavior that children have I want this I want that and they they cry over little everything and they're emotionally erect all the time. They're so sensitive and they have no emotional control, no self control. And well, here's the problem with little children. They're selfish. The answer to selfishness is love.
You see, love is the opposite of self-seeking. It's not feeding the flesh, fleeting my desire. I want this, you know, I want that. And who wants to follow a selfish man? You'll go into ruin if you follow a selfish man.
He'll lead you into destruction. But here's someone you can follow. His name is Jesus Christ and he's full of love. And this love constrains him. This love is the thing that controls his decision making.
Everything's based upon what is good for the glory of God and what is good for my neighbor. I'll self-sacrifice for the good of God and for the love of my family and my children. Now that is a leader. That is an old man to follow. That's the old man to be.
You say, I don't want to grow old. Yes, Grow old, but grow old like this. Excel in these traits so the younger generation can have someone to look to and follow and emulate. The last trait we see, it gives us an encouragement. The fifth is be steadfast.
Be steadfast. We see there in verse 2. Be steadfast. I mean, It's a shame when you have older men who have been an example for us and we sought to emulate and then they shipwrecked the faith at the end. Oh, what an important thing for the older generation to stay faithful.
Maybe you're in the right course, you've been living a Christian life for generations, you've been a good example, you've been single-minded, sober-minded, self-control, people have been following you. What do you do now? What do you do in your last days? What do you do for the last five years of your life? What do you do for the last 10 years of your life?
How do you finish? You finish with steadfastness. Go down strong. Keep it up. Finish the race strong.
Do not look behind you but keep looking ahead and go blazing ahead towards the prize that is set before you. Keep your mind focused on the thing that attracted your heart at the beginning. That's knowing Jesus Christ and seeing him in the day of the Lord. So that you can hear the wonderful words, well done, my good and faithful servant. Now that's what God expects from old men.
Now what does God expect from older women? We see in verses 3 through 4. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior and not slanderous or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good And so train the young women to love their husbands and children and so forth. So we see there's four things that God requires of older ladies.
One, we see in verse three, the first thing that it's mentioning is God is expecting from the older ladies to be reverent. This word reverent in verse 3, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior. This word reverent is only used one time in the Greek New Testament, and it's right here in this verse. And it's hard to translate because there's no other usage of this in the New Testament, but the word that is most akin to is the word sanctuary. And this is where you get this idea of a holy place, a reverent environment, a reverent aroma, the sanctuary.
Women are to be, there, that dignity to them that is very holy and reverent. It's the opposite of the message of the world today. I'm assuming that the church and family life group, you guys, are so naive to the world. And I wish I wasn't so naive to the world. But in pop music culture today, in fact I'm ashamed to even try to allude to it, it's so foul and so irreverent, But it is training the young women to embolden their own shame with the way they talk, the way they move their bodies, the way they dress, the way they behave.
The culture is promoting irreverence and shame in the female behavior. It is foul and so disgraceful what young women are being trained to emulate today in our culture. In the church, the older ladies are to dignify themselves in a way so the young ladies can know how to behave, to know how to dress, to know how to walk, to know how to speak, to know how to set, to know how to interact with the other sex. There's a dignity to the female body that is sacred. And the women are to keep their bodies, their affections, their hearts, their behavior in a very reverent manner.
And the older ladies are to exemplify that, Demonstrate that in all their conduct and actions and dress. Two, older women are to be not slanderous. We see that in verse three. And I think Paul addresses this because I think women, not that men are not gossips, men slander, we're all guilty of every sin in the book, but I think women as a general rule have a greater temptation to gossip than men And I think that's why the older women are to teach you, the younger women, not to slander. And they're not to slander.
And why is that focused on women? And I've thought about this, and I might be wrong, but I think that women are more prone to be busy bodies and go from house to house and talk and gossip and slander people because women as a general rule, now don't throw stones at me, are paying close attention to the details. Men don't think about details of the story. I can go and have a meeting and my wife says, what was it about? I was like, well, I don't know.
Well, you were there for three hours. Well, I don't know. It was good. That's all you remember? I was like, yeah, pretty much.
I might hit a few highlights, but it's like the details are gone by the time I get home. I'm not trying to hide things from them, I just don't remember. But women, you know, you've got the color of dress and the color of the pants and all the little details memorized, and You like to talk about those things. And I think that is a part of your beauty and a part of your memories and a part of who you are. But that can also lead to this tendency to slander and to gossip.
And so there is this command for older women not to be slanderers in the church, to not be those who are causing division in the church by talking about sister and soul and soul or brother and soul and soul. So older women, let that not be in your mouth. Let that not be a part of your conversation. Let that not be in your speech. Let it be, will you be one of these older ladies in the church that when people think about you, it's like, I've never, now I think about it, I've never heard them speak a bad word against anyone.
What a testimony that would be about you. So older women should be an example in their speech. Three, older women are to be self-controlled. Just like men, they're also to have self-control. And in here, I think it's things that potentially could happen in the home, not slanders or slaves to much wine.
So in all your actions, be moderate and disciplined. Fourth, older women are to be responsible to the younger women in the church. We see they're there to teach what is good. And so train the younger women. Verse four.
So this is an obligation and an expectation that God has of you older women. And I know you may be going, I don't know how to do that. You know, I don't know how to invest in the younger women. They don't seem to want to be, to come to me. I think this exhortation is not asking for older women to get on a platform to teach women in group settings.
I don't think that's what this is encouraging the older women to do. I think this is a more organic command for the older women to be intentional in their relationship building with the younger women, the younger wives. And this is things that you can do. You can come alongside a young mother and say, how can I help you? Would you like to get coffee with me sometime?
How can I watch your children? How can I pray for you? And start building those relationships. Be intentional. Older ladies, you have wisdom, you have skill, You have so much to give these younger, struggling mothers.
And you have a special way to deliver that. Even the pastors cannot invest into the younger women in such a way. You have such a highway into this road, into the hearts of these young ladies. And so, avail yourself to this in ways that the Lord opens and ask for opportunities to do such a thing. Seek to encourage.
Be an example to them, build relationships with them, and I would give you a little bit of encouragement forever a little critical critique that you may have helping them raise their children or helping them love their husbands forever critical thing you say in the helpful constructive way try to have five or six positive things to build them up, encourage them, strengthen them. It's hard. Remember, it's hard to be a young mother. It's hard to be a new wife. It can be difficult.
They need encouragement, and come alongside them and help lift their hands up and encourage them along the way. Tell them you're praying for them and then give them good instructions, good teaching. This is what God expects from the older women in the church. Third, what does God expect from you younger women? Well, we see in verse four and five that the older women are to teach you these things.
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 their word of God might not be reviled. First thing God expects from you young mothers, young women, Give your heart and your time to your family. You see, this is not the message you're going to hear from the world. The message we've heard all week, this feministic message is if you're going to have purpose and meaning, you have to have a career. And you don't need a man to be happy.
You don't need a family to be satisfied. You don't need anybody but yourself. And you need to prove yourself in the workforce and you need to find your dignity and your happiness and your joy in pursuing your own interest. It's an encouragement to selfishness. It's an encouragement for self-seeking.
It's encouragement to promote your own glory, to put yourself first. This is the encouragement and the value system of the world today. But this is not God's plan for the family and it's not God's plan for you as a young woman. You see, the family is to be united under one purpose with a help need. I think meaning divorces today is built upon the fact that there are two purposes in the family, two directions.
You've got the husband who's pursuing this direction, you have a wife who's pursuing her own direction, and they just happen to live under the same roof. And they wonder why they're not ending up in the same place because they don't have the same purpose. They don't have the same mission statement. They're not going in the same direction because the husband's not leading. He's not, he doesn't have a purpose.
This is where we're headed and the wife is not in submission to that leadership and they're not going in the same direction to the Lord, but they're going their own ways. You say, well, it's hard to make it on one income. We need the money. I hear that. We've all heard that.
We need the money. Well, I just got back from El Salvador two weeks ago, and the pastor that was ministering there in San Salvador, I don't even think had electricity. And his couches seemed to be what Goodwill and the donation stores threw out to the dumpster and would even sell. The thought you just need more money to make it is not from the Lord. You say, I'm wasting my education and my giftings.
I'm gonna waste my life. Or you may be thinking, I don't enjoy working from home. Well, let me give you some encouragement. No one loves... Did you see those children behind the stage just 30 minutes ago?
Wasn't that the most beautiful and precious thing you could ever imagine? Besides the Lord Jesus Christ, what is more beautiful than children? What is more precious than those little souls? Did you see how cute they looked? How tender they are?
Did it not thrill your soul to hear their little squeaky voices, especially the little ones? It was precious. Who loves those little children? Those little precious souls, if you were God and you're arranging for those little precious souls to be developed and molded, who would you put in charge of those little souls? A daycare with teenagers?
Who would you put in those tender years, those little sensitive development time? Who should be over that time? Who loves those children the most? Mothers. Mothers.
They have an innate motherly affection for their children. And if I was God, in fact, if I was planning this, I'd have to have the mind of God, but how could it have been better to map out society in the future construction of culture and the church than to put the mother at home to raise these precious souls. And what is more valuable, to give your life to a business and once you retire or quit, they replace you and forget your name and they give you your last paycheck and they say, go on your way. You're out, new person's in, or you have a precious soul that you invested your whole life into and you raised them up from the childhood, invested, and they look at you as the most treasured person in their life. And I tell you there's nothing now, a guy, I'm a dad and I think I'm glad to be a dad, but I don't think there's nothing more precious to a child than the child's mother.
And what a privilege that you have. And some of you, maybe you're single, maybe you're a married woman, you can't have children, or maybe you're single and you haven't found a husband. It's like, I wanna be a mother, I wanna have children. Doesn't that show you? And if he's like, oh, I want that.
Doesn't it show you that, oh, if I could just have a child, would you want to take that child and just turn it over to the state? Turn it over to daycare. Turn it over so you can pursue some other thing that has no lasting meaning. Oh, older women teach the younger women to love their husbands, to love their children, to give their times and their energy, and that which will bring them, I believe, the most satisfaction in this life. And on your deathbed, when you become an older woman, when you become a grandmother and a great grandmother, this is one thing you're not going to regret.
You're not going to regret that you gave up the nursing career. You're not going to regret that you lost a little bit of money. One thing you're not going to regret is the time you spent with your own children. So don't waste these years, young women, young mothers, love your children, love your husband. Your children will be your greatest satisfaction in life outside of your salvation in Jesus Christ.
Two, young women need to have self-control. Look at verse five, and I gotta hurry. Be self-control, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands. So you have to have self-control just like old men and older women. We all need self-control.
You need to have purity. You need to emulate these older, dignified women that are walking in purity in their life, in their language, in their speech, in their conduct, in their dress. Seek to be pure, sexually pure, sexually pure in your eyes, in your thoughts, your conduct, and be submissive to your own husbands. Follow his leads. Come underneath his care and his protection.
What a privilege it is, mothers. What a privilege it is if you have a husband that says, I will provide, protect, and care for you so that you can give your life to raising our children. There's nothing greater than that. You know, when I was a Bible-ocational pastor and I had to have two jobs, I was split-minded. I had to work 40 hours and come and prepare sermons and work at night and do pastoral ministry on the weekends.
And all I wanted as a Bible-ocational pastor was not money. God be my witness, I never wanted the money. I craved full-time ministry, but not because I desired a greater income. What I wanted was time. And if you're a mother and your husband is saying, here, and husbands, give your wife the time.
You go get the extra job. You have the time so you can be dedicated to this precious job of keeping the home and loving me and raising our children. All right, let me come to the last exhortation. What God expects for you young children, young men, look at verse 6. This is what I think is kind of funny is that Paul only has one thing for young men.
And I think it's because that's enough to focus on. Look at verse 6. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Young men, especially if you're not married yet or even if you're just barely married or new in marriage or you're just a child, The thing that you need most, and I can speak to my own children that are here listening, as a parent, as your parent, and just as a preacher preaching to all you children, You get the self-control by loving Jesus with all your heart, mind, and soul. But what you need to make it in this life, to be a man, to be an older man one day that others can follow after you, You need to master this self-control.
Master your phone usage, your screen time. Master your television time. Master what you watch, what you look at, how you spend your time, your energy. Master this. Have self-control.
Have nothing control you, but be controlled by the Holy Spirit and then have that control all your thoughts, actions, behavior. This is what it means to be a man. In other words, I'll end with this. There's one thing that was a common denominator between all the ages and all of both sects, one common exhortation that filtered the thread through the text, and that is self-control. Self-control, and I really believe that self-control comes from having our minds set on things above and not on things of this earth.
Living for eternity, knowing what our life is for, and everything flows down from that. If you're going to live for God, you're going to be the best husband. If you live for God, you're going to be the best mother. If you're living for God, you're going to be the best child or the best male or female that you can be. Amen.