In Scott Brown's sermon titled 'Sober Minded Young People in the Church,' the focus is on the biblical call for young people to be sober-minded, as outlined in Titus 2:6-8. Brown emphasizes the importance of sober-mindedness as a reflection of Jesus Christ and a critical component of Christian living. He explains that Paul instructed Titus to foster a culture of truth and discipline in the church, particularly among the youth, to counter the prevailing cultural norms. Brown highlights the historical significance of young people in church revivals and the pivotal role they play in shaping the church community. The sermon outlines five marks of sober-mindedness: control over thoughts, time, emotions, tongue, and affections. Brown warns against modern distractions, particularly social media, which can hinder the development of a sober mind. He stresses the responsibility of parents to guide their children toward godly behavior and the importance of renewing the mind to align with God's will. Ultimately, the sermon calls for young people to dedicate themselves to God, leveraging their youth as a 'force multiplier' for lifelong faithfulness and effectiveness in their Christian walk.

Please open your Bibles to Titus chapter 2 and find verse 6. Titus 2 verse 6. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. 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, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned. That one who as an opponent may be ashamed having nothing evil to say of you.

The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord we thank you that you have made made us new creations in our Lord Jesus Christ to do good works that you prepared in advance. And so Lord help us, help us to see our Lord Jesus Christ in all of his glory through all of his commands and help us Lord to find our greatest help in your word today. Amen.

Please be seated. Well we just sang this song, Show Us Christ, and our text really focuses in on sober mindedness and sober mindedness is another way of showing us Jesus Christ. Every page of the Bible shows us something about Jesus Christ. Every word of the Bible, the Old and the New Testament, is a word of Christ. Jesus said, my words are spirit and they are life So whenever you read the Bible you are reading the words of Jesus Christ In the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God and this word is given to us in written form.

This is the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture and of course the sufficiency of Scripture is one thing It is the sufficiency of Jesus Christ himself and everything that he said about himself and about everything else in the 66 books of the Word of God. And one way that you see Christ is by obeying the Word of God, such as this command in Titus chapter 2. All of these things are for a particular purpose that Jesus Christ might have the preeminence in all things as we're told in Colossians 1 19 and that that this mind might be in you that was in Jesus Christ as the Apostle Paul told the Philippian Church in Philippians 2 5 So we get to Titus 2 verse 6 and Paul is instructing young men to be sober-minded by both the instruction that's verse 6 and then the example in verses 7 and 8. We'll talk about the example next time that we're in Titus, but today we focus on these words in verse six. Sober-mindedness is a manifestation of Jesus Christ, and I want us to understand that very very clearly and we encounter this singular command to be sober minded it's actually one word in the original language and While the explicit focus here is on young men, this same admonition is given to every person all over the New Testament.

So it's not just focused on young men, young women, old men, old women, and all of that. So Paul sent Titus to the island of Crete to create a completely different culture through the local church and he defines how you create that culture. It really begins with the truth, cleaving to the truth, and stop dead reckoning your way through life, inventing your life on your own way, you know, that you follow the Word of God. And then he talks about setting things in order in terms of church leadership for elders, and he speaks to the old men and he speaks to the older women and what they're supposed to be doing. He speaks to the younger women and then he turns here to young men.

And you get the idea that in local churches you have an intergenerational community and they all work together. The older is teaching the younger, the younger are looking up to where wisdom resides. Now He's focusing on young people in the church and as is true for everything that he said so far, there should be a very different culture among youth in a faithful local church than the rest of the culture in the same way different for older women different for older men the whole thing so we cannot ignore the importance of young people in the church and I hope every young person is listening to me about this right now. In church history I hope you understand this every revival I've ever read about in history was actually fomented and fueled by young people young people and I don't know I don't know why God chooses a younger generation to revive an entire generation. He did that in the Great Awakening.

He did that in the Welsh Revivals. He actually, he's done it in the Great Awakenings. You have a pivotal role. You need to understand how important you are in a local church to really foment and inspire an entire generation, not just inspiring one another, but inspiring the older people in the church as well. This is how God actually has designed the culture of young people in a biblically ordered church to operate.

It's so important. And it's important for so many reasons. Seeds of seed sown in youth, they either become fruit bearing orchards or they become thorns. They either create beautiful landscapes and lives lived out for the glory of God or they actually create land mines. What you do in your youth is really really critical and the wisest young people do this one thing they concentrate they concentrate they consecrate themselves to God and they seize the moment of their youth, and they refuse to waste their youth.

They really discover that youth is really a once in a lifetime force multiplier, like good habits. They build momentum. They not only lay foundations, but they actually make you successful, sometimes on autopilot, because these are the patterns that you established in your youth. And you have a young man or a young woman who dedicates himself to sober mindedness in his youth. It's a powerful force for the rest of his life.

This is how important this is. What is a force multiplier? Well, I want to say that a force multiplier is something that increases the strength of something else. And a young person's sober mindedness is like a turbocharger in an engine. It forces more usable power out of the same machine.

It's like a rocket booster. It's like race fuel in a race car. It's such a powerful thing and the admonition is so clear here. It's a little bit like a reinforced chassis in a truck that allows it to hold greater loads and haul bigger things. It makes men and women tougher under stress.

It makes you able to accept greater responsibility without collapsing, without being the kind of person who's always running around saying, I'm so stressed out. This is when a person learns to govern their impulses. It's when a person learns to avoid self-inflicted setbacks that derail not only themselves, but also other people, and create poor relationships along down the line. It keeps them from reckless habits. It keeps them from financial mistakes.

It keeps them from addiction. It keeps them from wasting their lives and their time. You know, The energy that might have been spent recovering from preventable errors can instead be invested in growth and work and family and purpose and actually fueling revival in a local church and in a community. This is such a critical thing. Think of it, think of young life like a lever.

Think of it as leverage, you know. Think of it like a bar with a long handle to take off a large nut on a bolt, like we have to do on our farm every once in a while, you got to have a long lever to get that bolt off the tractor wheel. It's like when you move a heavy rock, you get a board and you put a full crumb under it, and you can lift that heavy rock that you can never lift on your own because of that leverage. So two people can have the same intellect and the same talent, and one be more effective because that one is sober minded and the other is foolish. So sober mindedness in youth is is is it's the booster rocket of manhood and womanhood and it accelerates every strength and it stabilizes every talent and it magnifies every opportunity.

So let's look at the language in verse 6. Look at the word likewise in our text, likewise. In other words, in the same manner. He's already been speaking about these other things for older men and older women and younger men and women. He talked about this with elders in the same manner so he has not broken up his thought process he's talking about setting things in order in the island of Crete this culture that was so messed up where all Cretans are liars evil beasts and lazy gluttons These culture-changing things likewise in the same manner.

Now these are marks of a true church in genuine Christianity and So you find this word likewise to really call forth all the things that have come before. So what was used in the previous verses should also be used here. And as I said before, this language is something that's used for all the different age groups. So if you're a young woman, this is for you. And if you're a young man, this is for you.

So he says likewise, and then he uses the word exhort. So with this exhort, we find a sense of urgency. I hope you sense the sense of urgency in my opening comments about this passage of Scripture, it means to urge and he uses a word, it's a very beautiful word, parakaleo, and it's the word that's used of the Holy spirit, one called alongside to help. In other words, this exhortation has multiple factors to it. It has urgency to it, it has correction to it, and it has comfort in it.

It's a very loaded term that's kind of complex. In John chapter 14, it is used of the helper who comes alongside to help. I like the way that Jay Adams talks about this word in his commentary on Titus. He says, this means to encourage a young man to learn self-restraint. Encouragement is not the same thing as demanding.

It involves a reasoned approach that is careful at all times not to err in the direction of scolding or sensorialness. It is the approach not of the school marm who demands compliance to her every whim but rather the approach of a football coach who with his arm around his player says okay let's get there and do the job. I know you can. And he says this means that we ought to take the role of an encourager and to say, okay, let's take another step forward. You took a couple steps back, let's take another step forward again.

That's the word. And then we come really to the key terminology in our text and that is likewise exhort the young men to be sober minded. And this is the turbocharger of life and it's a it's a very important word this word sober minded was translated discrete in the section on younger women and the same word is used for church officers. It originally meant to restore someone to their senses who are raving. One commentator says that it is a sobering slap in the face to bring someone back to their senses.

The slang expression could be used, wise up. So that's the the idea and it really focuses on a sense of self-control and restraint and of modesty. It's actually the same word that's used in Mark chapter 5 verse 15 in the story of the Gadarene demoniac remember he was he was he was terrorizing the city he was he was running around you know breaking bonds and breaking out of everything breaking chains and Jesus comes to him and At he is found clothed and in his right mind. That's this word clothed and in his right mind. He was made sober in the same way.

Now this is this sobriety we have need to understand what he's saying. This is not this is not that lack of ability to have fun. This is not the person who refuses to laugh and smile. It's not the person without a sense of humor. A sober-minded person can be funny.

We have known several of them. My dad was like that. Tickling your kids on the floor, I think can be done soberly. You can be sober and still play hide and seek with your kids. It's okay for your children to play cowboys and Indians, okay?

I don't think he's talking about that type of thing here. Sober-mindedness in Romans chapter 12 has to do with not taking yourself too seriously. And here in Titus 2, he really explains this single-minded focus, the whole backdrop of it. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. These are actually fruits of the grace of God.

When a person experiences the grace of God, they don't want to live the way that they used to live, and they keep on making progress along the trend line of their sanctification. It can feel very slow, our sanctification can, and it does for me, but the truth is there is progress in the grace of God. He's saying here in Titus 2.11 that this sober mindedness is connected with living with eternity in view like this life is not the only moment that you will have you have an eternity ahead of you so it's easy to get sidetracked and not understand where this life is going. This life is so short, it's the blink of an eye compared to where you will spend eternity. And at the same time, you know, it's very easy to be manipulated by outside influences.

This is not just a problem with young people. There is someone asked me does this have to do with getting drunk? Does this have to do with alcohol? Well perhaps but only obliquely you know inebriation is real and you know it makes you un-sober But when you look at the uses of this word, alcohol is not in the picture. It really has to do with particular character kind of qualities.

And it's more commonly used of mental and spiritual everyday life conditions nothing to do with alcohol but but you could call a person spiritually inebriated some young people are spiritually inebriated Some old people are spiritually inebriated and this hampers your readiness. It dulls your discernment. It impairs you and your mind, you're sort of spiritually drunk. Your character is drunk. It's not sober.

Maybe it's drunk on comfort or drunk on money, or drunk on being famous, or drunk on whatever, maybe it's pornography. These are spiritual toxins that captivate and they they captivate youth and these things really begin in the mind. That's why the Apostle Paul told the Corinthian Church that what a Christian is always doing is he's casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought captive into the obedience of Christ. This is a picture of sober mindedness. Richard Baxter says it like this, do not allow yourself to slip into seasons of foolishness.

This is speaking directly to young people, as if it was normal. It's not normal. Understand the long-term generational blessing that your youth can be. It's time for a new generation to skip over adolescence and move into early manhood. We have an obligation to call young men to holiness and productivity.

We dare not let them waste their youth. Don't miss the opportunity that youth provides. When opportunity knocks, open the door. Don't waste your youth. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 12.1, remember your creator in the days of your youth.

Whatever you're remembering, remember that one thing, and that will catapult you. Now, of course, parents have responsibility in this as well. It's not helpful to allow your children to do whatever they want to do. Often children have desires to do things that are not profitable and you are parents and it's your duty to stand in the way of foolishness and say no, let's do something that's not foolish. Let's do something that's productive.

Let's spend our time in ways that actually are God glorifying. We just have to recognize that, you know, Solomon said it very clearly, you know, foolishness is in the heart of the child and the parents have a duty to help their children to actually help them train their affections and to focus them on things that are that are profitable. The more that they do the profitable things the more that they will like them. But sometimes that means you have to say no son we're not doing that, you're not doing that, or no honey no that isn't that's not the very best choice. Let's do something else.

There's a very interesting passage of scripture in Numbers chapter 30 that speaks of this conflict when you have a young person who wants to do something different than the father wants them to do. Read Numbers 30. It'll show you how this whole thing works and how authority in a home works. Notice that he says that it is sober-minded. That's a critical term here.

It's mindedness. What God wants to make of young men and young women, where does it begin? It begins in their minds, what they are filling their minds with. And it's very interesting, when we get to the next section of the example for young men and young women, you can see that this kind of life is it's a spectacle that God creates in the world and it actually causes foolish young people to be ashamed because they see somebody that's living sober mindedly. Now there are many things that will destroy or hinder your sober-mindedness.

I think you should make a list. How about that? Make a list now. You're sitting there, make a mental list. What is it in your life that's hindering your sober-mindedness?

There is something, There's always something in every person's life in this room They're doing things that are hindering sober mindedness. I have my own list That I'm convicted of as well just as a result of walking through these whole things There are such powerful influences against sober-mindedness and these attacks against sober-mindedness are satanic. We often think of spiritual warfare wrongly. We think of these dramatic radical possessions. We think of these, we think of spiritual warfare as just something so unusual and gripping, but actually spiritual warfare is much more normal.

It's every day. It's every minute. Spiritual warfare happens not just when the demons are showing up. There are all these other things that are flying around in our heads that lead us astray and these are lures that draw our minds away from sober mindedness and that's why that's why the Apostle Paul speaks of the renewing of your mind. We just a while back exited our studies in the book of Romans in Romans chapter 12, verse 1, that he says, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God which is your reasonable service and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by what?

By the renewing of your mind. There's a mind renewal that needs to take place in all of us. The renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The renewal of the mind takes away the numbing of the mind, the drunkenness of the mind. It makes the mind sharp and focused on the things that are really really important and this is just central to manhood and and womanhood and he's he's referring here to the young person's mind you think about mind share What is it that's taking up your mind share?

It's just such a pivotal thing. Isaiah said in Isaiah 26 verse 3, he said, you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. In Matthew 22 verse 37 Jesus said love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. In Philippians 4 8 the apostle says whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely set your mind on these things Paul told the Colossian Church this must have been important for every local church because the Apostle Paul deals with it, he said set your mind on the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God for your life is hidden with Christ in God. Paul told the Thessalonian church in Thessalonians 521, test everything.

That's what I encourage you to do, test everything. Test everything you've been spending your time on, everything you've been spending your mind share on. Is it dumbing you down? Is it making you spiritually inebriated or is it making you more effective for the glory of God in the world? He said test everything, hold fast to what is good.

Now there's a contrast that the Apostle Paul speaks of in Romans chapter 1 regarding the mind. He describes the unbelievers mind, says, and they did not like to retain God in their knowledge. In other words, they did not want every part of their life to be calibrated by the knowledge of God. And then God gave them over to a debased mind to do the things that are not fitting. That's a terrifying verse for the unbeliever who is setting their mind on the things of the world and not being constantly calibrated by God in their lives.

And you know all of this has to do with the harming of a younger generation. The juvenileization of youth is marked by their mindshare. And the juvenileization of youth in a church is marked by what those young people think about and what they're focused on. And I'm really thankful for so many of the young people, but I'm here as a voice of God using the word of God to just charge you, be sober minded. You're in the time of life where it's so so pivotal and there there's so many attacks on the mind social media is a tremendous attack on the mind it makes you forget things that are important as you're living your life in cyberspace.

And we're living in the weirdest world where our thoughts are fragmented by constant interruption, where our thoughts are broken into bits. Researchers are actually shocked at what's happening actually to brain scans of people who are spending their time on social media. Images flashing by you, alluring images in milliseconds and then they're gone. Short reels, and all they do is dull your soul. And you have people that are, it's hard for them to concentrate.

It's hard for them to read. All they can do is listen because they no longer have the ability to even read because their concentration powers have been dulled. You know I grew up in the 1960s and the 1970s and I remember what that time was like. I saw something, I read something about life in the 70s and I thought wow that's exactly what it was like. The typical man, He hears the alarm clock and he gets up in the morning and he's not met by a text, he's not met by an email, he's not met by anything And he gets up and he makes a cup of coffee and he's there.

He's present. He's present in the moment. He's not being taken off into his phone or in there are no messages on the machine, you know, where it's beeping, you know, those, that was the old days. Do you remember, does anybody know what an answering machine is? They were actually physical things, you know.

When Dev and I got married, I loved this. You know, when we got married, the phone was bolted to the wall. And like when we walked out of that house we were free we were free indeed and you know what that was a blessing and that that man he gets up in the morning and he goes down and he has a cup of coffee. If he's a godly man, he opens up his Bible. And he doesn't have a phone to distract him while he's reading his Bible.

Has that ever happened to you? And then he might want to catch up on the news, so he walks out to the doorstep where the paper boy threw a paper, I used to be a paper boy, And he would read the news in a newspaper. And that's about all the news he would get. Or he was disconnected from the news unless he turned on the radio and he would hear a little bit on, you know, on the radio. He might watch the evening news that came out of like four outlets.

That's it. Not five million news outlets on Twitter and everything else. That was a long time ago. There are things about that life that need to be recovered. There really are.

It was more personal. It was less transported into places that have nothing to do with you. People who don't know you, who are your friends, they don't really like you. You understand that? They don't really like you.

They just click the button and they did it for self serving purposes most of the time. So there's so many distractions that all of us are facing in this technological society. And they're very dangerous to sober mindedness. Very dangerous to sober mindedness. And it's dangerous to everything because sober mindedness, it really is like a booster rocket for manhood and womanhood.

And it accelerates your strength, it stabilizes every talent, and it magnifies every opportunity for the rest of your life because it's the shaping of your mind, the most important thing that God gave you. Now there are so many trap doors to sober mindedness I've just mentioned them. These influencers are trying to tell you how to have a more successful life and teach you how to live and These events around the world That you hear about in a millisecond from the time they happened that have nothing to do with you And you can't do anything about Algorithms the algorithms are going after you and they're luring you to click on diversions. They're going after your soul. They're chasing you down.

Why? Money. When you click, they make money. That's how it works. The diversions that we get focused in on, young people particularly, fixation on the paranormal, enamored with conspiracy theories that they can't do anything about that happened 60 years ago, 40 years ago, one year ago.

But everything is an opportunity cost for all of us. You spend your mind on one thing, you're not spending it on something else. Missing the most important thing is the most unwise thing. The most important things are the people around you in your life. It's interesting in Titus, he's been talking about really the people that are closest to you.

Your husband, your children, the people in your local church, the people you know, the people you look in the eyeball with. That's what's really most important. Not the people that you don't know. The most important things are the people that God put in your life. The most important things are working.

The most important things are strengthening your family, building up your local church, having dinner around the table, Setting your mind on the things above. I'm going to give you five marks of sober mindedness. Five marks of sober mindedness. All of this is really under the heading of self-control. God calls his people to self-mastery.

And this is what parents have, perhaps it's the greatest duty of parents is to teach their children self-mastery, to have control over these particular things. And they have to work really hard at it because children are children and they need help. They need parents to help them dedicate themselves to the things that are good. Self-control has to do with dedicating yourself to the very best things. First, control over your thoughts.

Control over your thoughts. That's the first mark of sober mindedness. It begins in your mind. I already quoted Colossians 3.1. Seek the things which are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Seek, and He means keep seeking. It's not something you do one time. It's something you do all the time. Keep seeking the things that are above. The second mark of sober mindedness, control over time.

Control over time. Paul told the Ephesian Church to redeem the time for the days are evil redeem in other words buy it all back buy up all the time don't don't let any of it be wasted it's easy if you look at the out your waking hours how how much time needs to be redeemed what what kind of time that you're spending every week needs to be redeemed redeemed for a better purpose I hope you're thinking of specific things, particularly young people, what time needs to be redeemed, bought back, bought off the slave market of the devil. That's what God has done when he redeemed us. And you redeem time by doing the very same thing. Idleness, negligence, these are just the mistresses pretending to be pleasures and they call your name and they compel you to spend your time and your possessions.

You know redeeming the time. You know what scripture plan do you have? What books will you read? What kind, what mentors will you gravitate toward? Are you just hanging around your peers?

Are you mainly listening to your peers? Like that stupid young man in the Bible by the name of Ray Obohm. I just read about him this morning. Ray Obohm. He wouldn't listen to the older people in his life.

He and his peers were so smart and they wrecked the nation because they weren't as smart as they thought they were. It's a tremendous liability. What tangible things will you build? What good places will you go? What will you refuse to do?

How will you handle your spending habits? All these kinds of things are really critical when it comes to controlling your time. The third mark of sober mindedness, control of emotions, control of emotions, oh my, we live in such an emotionally baptized culture And it's so easy to legitimize your harmful emotions, your sinful emotions, and your responses. There are actually emotions that are sinful. Like, by the way, anxiety is a sinful emotion.

If you're anxious, you need to repent because it's something that God commands you not to be. There are many emotions. Anger is a sinful emotion and your emotions are often delusional. They make you delusional about life and you end up with you end up with powders you know who people who are always pouting because they got their feelings hurt and they withdraw instead of actually obeying the commands of God to love one another You've got blame shifters who make excuses. You've got you have thin-skinned men and women who are just so easily offended they're just driven by their emotions.

Now another thing I don't want to miss this Don't confuse the Holy Spirit with your feelings, or don't confuse your feelings with the Holy Spirit. The word of God interprets your feelings. Don't let your feelings interpret God. The Bible is the library of the Holy Spirit, not your emotions. And so many in our day are encouraged to live out of their emotions.

It's one of the most tragic things that's going on in our culture. And you have so many weak people in this culture because they're living out of their emotions instead of out of the things that God has said are good. The Bible is infallible intelligence and it stands far above your artificial intelligence of your emotions. I'm not here to say that all emotions are wrong. I'm just saying that you should evaluate your emotions by the Word of God.

The fourth mark of sober mindedness, control of the tongue, control of the tongue. I remember, it's probably 50 years ago I heard Ray Steadman say, young men shoot from the lip. They shoot from the lip. Every young person knows, understands that, and I am still convicted by that. You know, I'm still kind of young, you know, don't you think?

The sins of the tongue, rash speech, impulsive speech, profane speech, bearing false witness, lying, backbiting, boasting, gossip, flattery, reviling, unwholesome speech, quarreling, complaining, blaspheming, mocking, These are the sins of the tongue. They all have Bible references hooked to them. Paul told the Ephesian church in Ephesians 429, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. You know this is such an era of profanity. People say things that they never said even 30 years ago in public places.

And now all society is impolite society. And we are now, we are numbed to the F word because we hear it all the time. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. The fifth mark of sober-mindedness, control over affections. Affections are the things that you desire and we all should take a second look at the things that we desire are they godly desires are they helpful desires wrong Wrong affections have a tremendous impact in your life.

Wrong affections make you unreliable. They make you the kind of person who starts jobs but doesn't finish them. It makes you a procrastinator. You putter away at things that don't really make yourself successful or godly. These have to do with affections.

You know the writer of Hebrews says let us press on to maturity let us go on to perfection these are some these are things that we need constant constant work on and All of this is to raise mature young men and young women immature young men and young women they hurt themselves they hurt their parents they hurt their churches and they hurt their marriages youth is the time when when when you shed foolishness so that you don't live the rest of your life like a fool. It keeps you from reckless temptations and let Let this be a warning about reckless temptations. Sober mindedness keeps you from doing things in your youth that will set you back in life. And they will set you back. Ecclesiastes speaks of this.

Solomon talks about the person who did some foolish things. He says, they're like dead flies that make perfume stink. What he's saying is that foolish choice has damaged a person's reputation. Solomon in Proverbs chapter six talks about sexual sin. You young people you should run, you should flee immorality.

The wreckage that will happen if you let yourself go is incalculable and everyone around you will pay for it. But you will pay the most dearly for it. That's what Solomon says in Proverbs. He will get wounds and dishonor, he destroys himself, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. That's terrifying.

You young people manage your sexual appetites so that they don't burn your house down. Solomon says at the end of your life you will groan. Proverbs 5 verse 11. Now, There are many, many in their youth who have engaged in wrong sexual activity. And I want to just make a comment about that very clearly.

Don't forget Rahab the harlot who repented of her sin and was listed in the line of Jesus Christ. Don't forget Moses who is a murderer. Don't forget Paul who is a murderer. Don't forget John Newton who is a vile man and a slave trader. Don't forget Mary Magdalene.

Don't forget all those people in history who lived a riotous life like George Whitefield in his youth and they turned. I think of, you know, we're getting ready to have our conference at Church and Family Life up in Ridgecrest And I think we have like 20 preachers that are coming to this conference. We have been recording their life stories over the years. You should listen to some of them. Here's what you'll find.

Some of these men, many of these men, were on the brink of ruin, and God saved them. And now they're preaching the Word of God, and they're leading their flocks to the springs of righteousness. That can happen with you. That can happen with you. But don't underestimate the damage that can happen along the way.

It's something that will set you back. But God is a Redeemer. God saves, God forgives, and he brings his people into a forgiving community. This is a forgiving community. A person can sin here and be forgiven.

Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, go and sin no more. You know, it was interesting this morning, I was reading in Luke 24 about the crucifixion and you remember the thieves on the cross they are their chastity they know they're just slandering Jesus and then one of them says Lord remember you remember me in your kingdom his heart had changed he acknowledged that he and the rest of his you know fellow you know criminals on the cross He was acknowledging that they all committed crimes and then Jesus says to him because his heart had changed he said Today you'll be with me in paradise Don't ever forget the grace of God. I think one theme in Titus is the grace of God. It's the grace of God that produces these things. No matter where you are, no matter where you were, he picks you up right where you are and he takes you on.

Praise God for that. And he does forgive your sins and cleanse you from all of your unrighteousness. You cannot forget that. You know God's commands are protective. They're so protective.

Deb and I were driving down Capitol Boulevard yesterday. Man, it was packed. The cars were really close to each other. There's a car five feet over here, another car five feet over there. I said, Deb, aren't you glad for lines painted in the middle of the road to keep people straight you know look at that track if that traffic light wasn't here there would be there would be so many wrecks in five minutes if you didn't have traffic light well the lines they're like guardrails the the commands of God are like that.

The stoplights those are those are protective they keep you from running red lights and killing yourself and other people. This is what sober mindedness is really is really all about And Paul tells us that this is the fruit of grace. It's the fruit of setting all things in order. It's the fruit of what he talks about in chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 that that you you set yourself on the truth which accords with godliness and in hope of eternal life that you're holding fast to the faithful word you're gripping it so hard and that's what keeps you sober-minded that you might adorn the doctrine of God. In other words that you wear it.

You adorn the doctrine. And all of this really it's a it's a call to be born again you must be born again to join the elect to have your sins washed away and to begin to live a sober-minded life. I've seen it repeated so many times in my life. It happened to me when I was really young. A young person turns to Christ And he consecrates himself to God and everything changes.

And that person looks back on that moment and gives thanks to God for rescuing him early. It's better to be saved early than late for all the reasons we've just talked about. Every day is different for that person. They become an inspiration. They become a source of truth.

They become an encouragement to their parents, their siblings, and to their churches. So, a young person's sober-mindedness is like a turbocharger in an engine. And it takes that Usable power out of the same machine and magnifies it It's like a rocket booster It's like rocket fuel And it strengthens you for the rest of your life. Set aside the things that hinder. Would you pray with me?

Father I pray that you would you would raise up a mighty generation of young people to inspire this local church like it's never been inspired, as they consecrate themselves, as they give themselves, as they set their mind on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, where they purify themselves from all wickedness, where they seek you with all of their hearts and they walk with you all the days of their lives. Amen.