Conduct Befitting The Gospel (Part 2)

[0:00] In 1976, Elizabeth Elliott was invited to be one of the keynote speakers at Urbana, which was and still is to this day an international missions conference for young adults that are interested in and learning about and potentially pursuing missions. It's a missions conference for young adults, essentially. And in 1976, Elizabeth Elliott spoke, and I listened to her address the other day, and she opened with an illustration that I thought was fascinating and helpful.

[0:34] She recalled an experience she had in visiting with her husband the north of Wells. And when they were in the north Wells, they stayed in the home of a shepherd and his family. And one morning during their stay, she stood outside with the wife of the shepherd and gazed out on the pasture and watched the shepherd and his Scottish collie named Mack attempt to herd about a hundred rams and ewes.

[1:07] They were pushing the rams to a pool of antiseptic where they were dipping the heads in the antiseptic to clean out their eyes and their ears and their noses. And of course, there's a fight that goes along with that. The rams don't understand. But that's the work that they're doing. And then eventually, they take the herd and they begin to push them to a different place for pasture.

[1:33] And Elizabeth Elliott said that as she was watching all of this begin to unfold, she was especially struck by the dog, the Scottish collie, as he tirelessly circled the sheep and drove them as the shepherd directed him. It was clear, she said, that this is what the black and white collie was made to do. Sheep was in his blood, she said. She described watching the dog fiercely fulfill his duties, listening intently to the shepherd's whistle. And upon hearing the whistle, immediately responding to the direction that was given. The shepherd could see and understand things that the sheep and the dog could not understand. He could see danger that was ahead. He could recognize a sheep that has fallen behind the herd and needs to be recovered. He could see the ram that's caught in a thicket. He could see all that's happening. The sheep don't necessarily understand. The dog doesn't necessarily understand. And yet, the dog fiercely, intently listens to the beckoning call and direction of the shepherd. And Elliott says that she stood at the house gazing on all of this unfolding. She asked the wife of the shepherd, do the sheep understand what's happening? And she replied, not a clue.

[3:04] And Elliott said, well, what about the dog? And she said, the wife said something that she's never forgotten. The dog doesn't understand the pattern. He only knows obedience.

[3:19] In this address to 17,000 young Christians, she said the dog's trust in the shepherd was absolute.

[3:30] His obedience, instant and unconditional. And his very meat and drink was to do the will of the of his master. It was what he was made to do. He was glorifying his purpose as she watched on in the pasture on that day. You do realize that you were created for a purpose. You have a purpose.

[3:59] Despite what secular theory will tell you, you are not here by chance. You are not here by accident. You are not a purposeless being doing your best to survive. You have a creator who has created you for a purpose. And the Bible tells us that that purpose is to glorify God. And as the Westminster Catechism tells us, it is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And the Bible tells us that the way that we glorify God is by loving him. Deuteronomy chapter 6, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Jesus, you'll remember, echoed that same verse in the New Testament when someone said, what is the greatest commandment? And he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. How do we glorify God? What is the purpose for which we were created? Why am I here? And part of that answer is to love God, to see who he is, to understand his being, to understand his ways, and to, in response to that, show your love for him in everything that you do and in everything that you think.

[5:18] We glorify him by loving him. We glorify him by obeying him. 1 John 5, 3. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. You say, well, there's a few commands that I actually find quite burdensome. Well, it's not that they're always easy. It's that when we understand who God is, and we understand our purpose in glorifying him, and we begin to love him, it's not a burden to even go through the most difficult things of life in obedience to him. We glorify the Lord by loving him, by obeying him, by worshiping him. Psalm 86, I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, the psalmist says. I will glorify your name forever. What does he mean? I will worship you forever. I will give thanks to you forever, with my whole heart, with my whole being, with everything that is in me. That is the purpose for which we were created. And we weren't created to do these things out of compulsion, but out of love for our creator and master.

[6:44] See, in creation, God has revealed his glory to man. And the only appropriate response to that revelation is to recognize that God is worthy of our greatest affection.

[7:00] creation. So God creates the world, and then he creates the man, and he shows the man this world. Not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end of seeing God. He reveals himself in the man.

[7:19] He reveals himself in creation. He reveals himself to the man directly in fellowship and in relationship. He reveals himself so that the man will turn and love him and obey him and worship him.

[7:37] But the fact is that though that is our purpose, that's why we've been created. Each one of us have fallen short of the glory for which we were created.

[7:51] Romans 3 tells us that plainly. All have sinned and fall short of the glory. God. Instead of loving God, we have despised him.

[8:03] Maybe not in an attitude directly toward him that we're just thinking of, oh, I hate you, God. It's not always like that. We have despised him by making gods of our own.

[8:15] We put other things before him. Rather than obeying him, we have rebelled not only in action, we have rebelled in spirit, rebelling against his law, rebelling against his desires for us.

[8:29] When we should worship him, we glorify ourselves in his place. The Bible says this makes us sinners. It makes us transgressors of God's law.

[8:42] It makes us eternal enemies of God himself. And our rebellion is so pervasive, the Bible says, that we are blind.

[8:53] We're blind to the reality of God's wrath. We're blind to the reality of our own sinful condition. And the fact that we are at enmity with God, we are blind and we are without the slightest desire to be reconciled to him.

[9:09] Again, Romans tells us there's, not only is there none righteous, but there's no one who even understands that. There's no one who seeks God. No one.

[9:22] That's how pervasive our sin is. It's how pervasive the condition of our hearts is in rebellion to God. And so we begin to think about the gospel from those terms.

[9:35] Martin Lloyd-Jones used to say that in order to really understand the gospel, you have to understand the magnitude of your debt and the measure of the payment that was made to satisfy that debt.

[9:52] And he would illustrate it this way. He would say, suppose you come to my house, and before I've got a chance to open the door, you find a letter on my doorstep left by the postman. And it's some type of bill.

[10:02] It's some type of payment that needs to be made. And on my behalf, you make the payment. And I open the door, and I welcome you to my home. And you say, hey, I just want you to know I found this letter on the doorstep.

[10:13] And it was a little bill, and we took care of it, and I paid it for you. And Martin Lloyd-Jones said, the only way that I can really understand the magnitude of that is if I understand what the debt is, what is the reality of that debt, and what is the measure of the payment that was then made.

[10:32] And it is only at that point that I can understand whether to cordially say, well, thank you very much, that was very kind, or fall at your feet and kiss your feet in worship and in love.

[10:45] And the only way we can really know that is to understand the true depths of our sin. The Bible says that the greatness of our debt is so much that the only way it can be satisfied by us is to spend an eternity separated from God in hell.

[11:07] That's the magnitude of the debt. And the measure of the payment is that the full wrath of God was poured out on His own Son.

[11:23] That was the payment. Ephesians 2 says, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead, even when we were dead in trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ.

[11:46] By grace you have been saved, He says. And you say, well, I don't really feel that bad. I know I've not always done things the right way.

[11:56] I know I've not always probably obeyed God the way that I'm always supposed to obey God, but really, eternity in hell? I haven't been that bad. You know, it's interesting.

[12:07] The Bible never commands us to understand, to feel how sinful we actually are. It never commands us to actually fully comprehend the depths of our depravity.

[12:20] It calls us actually to look at Christ. That's what gives us the answer. Do you want to know how great your debt is? Well, you may not understand it just by evaluating your own life. You need to look at the payment that was made for it.

[12:32] That will tell you the answer. And what was the payment? From God's perspective, your debt was so great that the only way He could satisfy it was by sending His own Son, His sinless Son, to suffer in your place.

[12:50] And even if you don't realize or feel in yourself the greatness of that debt, look to Christ. Look to see the great extent that He went to to redeem your soul.

[13:04] And at least from that perspective, say, I don't really understand it. I don't feel it in that way, but there must be something real to the depths of my depravity because look at what God has done to rescue me from it.

[13:16] Despite your rebellion, God Himself provided a way for you to be at peace with Him again. You were an enemy, and now you're at peace.

[13:29] He gave us His only Son who bore the punishment for our sins and rose from the dead to give us eternal life. And then Christ calls us to receive this peace that He has won by turning from self, by turning from sin, and trusting Him alone, trusting Him as Savior and Lord.

[13:54] And then He promised that every person who will do that, all that the Father gives to me, and by extension, by gives to me, means all that will come to me in faith and repentance, all that the Father gives to me, I will never cast out.

[14:06] I'll never turn you away. By His grace, He will save you. Despite your sin and rebellion, He will redeem you.

[14:20] Apart from your own works, He will restore you to God. That's the gospel. But though Jesus saves us in our sins, He is not content to leave us in our sins.

[14:39] To follow Christ as Lord is to surrender your will to His. It's to abandon your desires in favor of His desires. It's to turn away from your rebellion, to humbly follow His Lordship.

[14:57] He saves us then to restore us to our original purpose and glory. glory. Genuine love, obedience, and worship of God.

[15:11] Do you see that? God created you for the purpose of His glory. You have fallen short of it. You would have never pursued Him, but in His grace, He sends His own Son to pursue you.

[15:24] He lived the life that you should have lived, and He died the death that you should have died, and He rose from the dead to give you new life. And He says, if you will come to Me in faith, I will forgive you, and I will restore you to the Father.

[15:38] And by restoration, He means, I will transform you so that you will fulfill your original purpose that you fell from.

[15:50] This is His work in us. Ephesians 2.10, We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

[16:07] That's purpose and glory. You see, the gospel is the foundation of Paul's instruction to Titus and the churches of Crete here in chapter 2. True faith produces practical change, not because we get ourselves together and we clean ourselves up and we do all the things that people say we're supposed to do, but because Christ Himself transforms us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

[16:36] And when a person is born again of the Holy Spirit, God changes His affections. He gives them a new heart. Rather than living to please and glorify self, the believer's affections are transformed to please and to glorify God instead.

[16:57] And what this inevitably produces is a counter-cultural way of life, a counter-cultural community of God's people who are in the world and yet they are not of the world, who are engaged in the culture in which they live, yet they stand in stark contrast to the culture in which they live.

[17:22] And one of the means of this transformative work of the Holy Spirit, which is a progressive work as we understand it in the New Testament, one of the means of that is where elders are teaching what accords with sound doctrine.

[17:38] That's verse 1. Titus, teach what accords with sound doctrine. And then what follows is all of these behaviors that should be reflected in the lives of those who have come to faith in Christ.

[17:52] Through faithful leadership and intentional discipleship, churches will preserve the gospel in their belief and display the gospel in their behavior.

[18:06] And that's really what we're dealing with here in chapter 2. In this text, Paul distinguishes the Christians by age or life stage. Last Sunday, we looked primarily at his word to older men and older women in the church.

[18:19] This morning, we'll focus on his word to younger men and younger women, all with the understanding that the gospel life is a different life. And it's one that must be pursued by those who believe it.

[18:34] Let's first look at younger women in verses 4 and 5. Paul says that the older women are to 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.

[19:00] Now it's curious that Paul says young women must be trained to love their husbands and children. That seems odd, doesn't it? It seems odd to me.

[19:11] Julie and I spent the weekend at a marriage conference at the beach and the whole time I'm thinking, how could she not love me? How could she not want me?

[19:24] And yet Paul says here to Titus, you are not only to train these behaviors, the older women in the congregation, you need to be teaching them and training them to train the younger women to love their husband.

[19:35] And you say, okay, well I get why he would say that they need some help loving their husbands because husbands aren't easy to love. But then he doesn't leave it at just the husbands, does he?

[19:45] He says, no, they need to be trained how to love their children. Well now that one's a little harder to deal with, isn't it? One of the marks of love that we would use metaphorically throughout our lives is the love of a mother.

[20:02] And yet Paul says, no, the older women are going to have to train the younger women to love their children too. And you would think that this love would come naturally to a wife and mother and there is a sense in which it indeed does.

[20:20] But the training that takes place in the context of the church is based on the principles of God's word and the gospel of Jesus. That's the significant difference in Paul's teaching here.

[20:34] It's one thing to have a natural affection for one's husband and child. It's another thing to demonstrate that love in a way that is consistent with God's design.

[20:48] Because one person may say, I really love my kids. I love them more than anything else in the world. And the way that I'm going to show them that I love is by giving them anything that they ask me for. I never want to have to tell them though.

[21:02] That's not a picture of someone who doesn't really love their kids. It's a picture of someone who is not loving their kids according to God's design. Do you see the difference? There's a difference between a natural affection and an affection that is based on the gospel and consistent with the Bible.

[21:18] And perhaps it's the cultural dynamic of arranged marriages that made this teaching so necessary in Crete. Can you imagine that? All of us married, quote, for love.

[21:31] I hope you did. For the women that would have read this letter or heard this letter read in the churches in Crete, that probably was not their experience. Indeed, for most of history, that is not the experience of most people.

[21:48] In this particular culture, marriage was, it was a status, it promoted a man's business, it promoted his status among the community. They didn't marry for love and the wife wasn't treated as if she was one that was to be adored and protected in love.

[22:02] She was there as something to make the husband look a little better to everybody else. And you say, okay, that makes sense. How is a woman supposed to love her husband?

[22:13] Should she even love her husband in that case? Paul says, yes. But she's going to have to be trained on how to do it right. Love is generally something that is believed in our culture that can be fallen into and out of.

[22:31] A person's commitment to another is based on their feelings of affection and fulfillment. So long as I feel affection for this person, so long as this person is fulfilling me according to the way that I want to be fulfilled, then I will remain committed to them in this relationship.

[22:48] But at the moment that this affection wanes or the moment that they are not fulfilling me in the way that I would desire to be fulfilled or the way I feel like I deserve to be fulfilled is the moment that I'll abandon the whole thing altogether.

[23:01] I read an article in the New York Times. This is probably two weeks ago. It was a psychologist based in Dallas who married for love and never had any real problems or real fights with her husband according to her own admission.

[23:17] But as she was learning psychology in the university and graduating and beginning her practice and seeing things, she began to see that she deserved far more than what her husband could actually give her.

[23:28] So she filed for divorce. Not because he was a bad guy, but because he didn't fulfill her in the way that she deserves to be fulfilled. That's a modern view of love.

[23:40] That's not a biblical view of love. The problem is that that is so foreign to God. Love is not primarily an emotion that comes and goes.

[23:54] It's a commitment to another person that transcends the ebb and flow of our feelings. Love involves the sacrifice of self.

[24:04] It's a sacrifice of self for the one on whom you've set your affection. And that does not come naturally to any person. Not one of us.

[24:16] Which is why from that perspective, true love must be taught from God's word and it must be modeled by God's people. So Paul says, Titus, make sure the older ladies are teaching the younger women how to do this.

[24:31] How can they love their husbands? How can they love their children? I think the best way for us to understand verse five is as a list of ways, general, representative ways, that a young woman will display her love for her husband and her children.

[24:51] So if we have to be trained to love our husbands and children, what does that actually look like in the training process? And that's where this list in verse five comes into play. It's not completely separated from the previous discussion.

[25:03] He's really dealing with this one dynamic of the home and God's design for it. And what I think I wanted to do here is maybe just kind of briefly work through each thing and then we'll draw some broader conclusions at the end of it.

[25:19] And as we go through this verse, we need to be careful here. We can't make it say more than it says. Neither can we make it say less than it says.

[25:32] And while we need to be careful not to read modern debates and modern arguments into the text, we can't easily dismiss what the text says either.

[25:44] So let's work through these things. What does he say? He says, first, they need to be taught how to love their husbands and children and to be self-controlled. And in this context, self-control likely refers to restraining the impulses that would prevent a young woman from faithfully discharging all of her responsibilities to her family.

[26:08] There's probably a hint of sexual fidelity and self-control here. There always is. It seems to be in the New Testament. But I think the primary thing that Paul's really driving at here is the dynamic that a young woman has a priority in the home.

[26:26] And the way she's going to love her husband and the way she's going to love her children is by controlling the impulses of her life, whatever they may be, which will tend to pull her away from her home and pull her away from her husband and away from her children.

[26:41] She needs to be self-controlled. Teach them to be self-controlled. He says they need to be taught to be pure. This is more explicitly moral chastity.

[26:54] It's sexual fidelity to one's husband. So in a culture where most marriages were arranged and the husband didn't love his wife, the husband didn't care for his wife, there's a greater temptation to find someone who will care for me, who will love me, and instead of being faithful to the husband that I have, running off with the one that I wish I had.

[27:15] And he says, no, if we're going to love the way that God intends for us to love, we can't look at it that way. We can't follow that way. We need to be pure. Thirdly, he says, teach them to work at home.

[27:28] Teach them to work at home. Now, before you get confused, Paul certainly doesn't have in mind the cultural dynamic of a career businesswoman that would have not ever even been a part of his mindset here because it wasn't something that would have taken place in Crete or in their culture of that day.

[27:48] So we need to be careful not to read our modern debates back into this text because it would be very easy for us to come to this and say, well, there, Paul said it, women shouldn't work.

[27:59] That's not what he's saying. In fact, there's plenty of other texts in the scripture that show examples of women faithfully working to support their homes. That's okay. We need to be careful here.

[28:11] But he doesn't indeed say that they need to be taught to work at home. Well, what does he mean? It's not a total prohibition against working outside the home. It's an acknowledgement that a wife and mother's primary responsibility before God is in the management of the home.

[28:33] It's the primary responsibility. He's not saying don't work outside the home. He's saying don't do anything that takes away from your primary responsibility to love your husband and love your children and manage your home well and care for your home and raise the kids and do the things.

[28:50] And if you can do that at the same time that you're working outside the home, fantastic. But if at any point these other things become a distraction to what God has designed for the home to be, then they need to be denied and rejected.

[29:04] He says they need to be kind. And this is almost certainly meant to be connected with working at home. It's a sensitivity of heart that views responsibility in the home as a way to love husband and child rather than a suppressive burden.

[29:23] that's why our modern society tells us. It says that any type of complementarity in the home, any kind of desire for the nuclear family is actually oppressive.

[29:36] It's oppressive. But Paul says, no, that's not actually it here. There's a sensitivity of heart that sees this. This is my way of being the woman that God has created to me to be.

[29:46] This is a way for me to love. This is a way for me to care. This is a way for me to glorify God. Again, Elizabeth Elliot has written about this before.

[29:57] She wrote a book that just said, let me be a woman where she talks about this in great detail. It's very helpful. Kind refuses to resent a husband and child for what their presence has hindered one from doing or accomplishing on her own.

[30:16] I have all these dreams and I have all these ambitions and my husband and my kids are just getting in the way of that. Well, kindness is to see your priority at home.

[30:30] Kindness is to see this is the way that I love. My husband and my children are the hindrance to what I need to do. They are what I need to do. He says they need to be submissive to their own husbands.

[30:44] Of course, when practiced biblically, submission doesn't devalue the place of a wife. It simply places the priority of responsibility on the shoulders of the husband.

[30:58] That's what submission does. It's not, maybe it's not even best to view it in terms of authority but in terms of responsibility. Submission frees a wife to help her husband lead because it's her husband that will stand before the Lord to answer for his home not his wife.

[31:23] Notice also here that this is not a matter of men dominating women generally. This is limited to the scope of the home. Did you catch that?

[31:35] Teach them to be submissive to their own husbands. This is not a dynamic where we say men are superior and women are inferior and the women have no place in the workplace.

[31:48] They have no place in leadership. They have no place in politics. That's not what he's saying. He says, be submissive to your husband. He's focused on the home. He's designed for the home.

[32:00] You see, the husband's authority is only an extension of his responsibility ultimately. It's not an authority that is inerrant to his maleness.

[32:12] It is an extension of his responsibility as a husband and as a father. And Paul focused on this issue for young women because there will always be a tendency to rebel against God's design for the home.

[32:26] God didn't create Eve to be inferior to Adam but he did give her a function to help Adam faithfully fulfill his duty before God something Adam needed her for.

[32:43] He needed her for this. Genesis tells us that. Genesis chapter 2 I think I've got the verse on the screen for you. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 18 The Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone.

[32:56] He cannot function on his own. He cannot do the work that God has called him to do. Fulfill the responsibility that God has called him to fulfill on his own.

[33:10] I will make him a helper God says. Fit for him. Verse 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

[33:25] Do you see the interdependence in this? In God's design he creates man and he gives him a job and his job is to work the garden and it is to multiply and it's to fill the earth and it's to glorify God and he says but man can't do that on his own.

[33:40] I will give him a helper a compliment to him standing face to face it would be a literal translation of this face to face with him over and against him a helper that will push him forward in this responsibility because he needs it.

[33:57] Now notice what God said would be a consequence of Adam and Eve's sin if we fast forward to Genesis chapter 3 and verse 16 To the woman God said I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing and pain you shall bring for children your desire shall be contrary to your husband but he shall rule over you.

[34:19] In other words sin would lead to an ongoing relational brokenness between husbands and wives distorting God's good design from the very beginning.

[34:32] Husbands will always be tempted to dominate their wives wives will always be tempted to dominate their husbands the sinfulness from both men and women leads to war rather than to a healthy home but in Christ God desires believers to be faithful to his design his design of complementarity remember you were made for something more the issue of husband and wife and of responsibility and submission was instituted by God before sin this is a creation design and all throughout life ever since Adam and Eve you can read it all through the narratives of the scripture there is this relational brokenness this butting of heads between husbands and wives and men and women and yet God redeems these people and he begins to transform these people and he keeps them in a culture that rebels against God's good design but he says while you're here

[35:35] I want you to show my good design and so he tells Titus teach what accords with sound doctrine and then tell the older women they need to teach the younger women how to love their husbands how to love their children how to support their husbands how to live out God's design in their home we're bringing them back to creation back to purpose and glory that's why Paul emphasized that giving into cultural ideas of the home is to revile the word of God you see it there in verse 5 be submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled reviled believers in contrast to the world are to glorify God by living according to his word reviled here is the same word used to describe the attitudes of Jesus' enemies Matthew 27 it says so also the chief priest with the scribes and elders mocked him this is in the process of

[36:42] Jesus' crucifixion and it goes on to say and the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way Peter says when he was reviled he did not revile again this is the same word in the same way that the people who crucified Jesus were reviling him they were mocking him they were condemning him they were disparaging him that's the same way that many of us treat the word of God when we rebel against its authority and its direction to revile the word of God is to live in rejection condemnation of its teaching in the same way that Jesus his enemies displayed to him at his crucifixion no matter how you look at it Paul is elevating God's design for the home above cultural ideas of it our culture despises the biblical view of marriage in the home it hates it there's a lot of professing

[37:50] Christians who hate it too and there's a war among churches right now related to this very issue but God's desire for his people is that we live in obedience to his will rather than our own therefore it's necessary that we continue to encourage young women to glorify God in their marriages in their home the older women in the church they're responsible for this responsible for training young women in this way that's the young women let's get to the young men verse 6 likewise urge the younger men to be self-controlled likewise is the key word here it shows a closeness in comparison to what Paul has just said this is exactly what Paul did in an earlier verse relating to the older women of the church he said they are likewise comparing what they are to do connecting it with what the older men in the church were also to be and to do and he does it again here he gives all of these instructions for the young women and then he throws in this likewise here bringing in a closeness of comparison between the younger women and the younger men so in case young men were to think that their faithfulness to their wives and children was unimportant

[39:13] Paul groups the previous teaching with his final instruction and when we take into consideration the things that Paul mentions!

[39:27] for elders we find that young men glorify God by loving caring for and being faithful to their wives in partnership with their wives they are responsible for the spiritual care of their children men giving account before God for how they love and lead their home and it would be a mistake to assume Paul's brevity here somehow gets young men off the hook because that's not at all what he's doing he's saying in all these things that I just said the women are supposed to be mindful of likewise so are the men they have a priority in the home and their priority in the home is not to be diminished because of an ambitious career or hobby or some other pursuit in their life it all applies one specific instruction given to young men is self controlled Brian

[40:28] Chappell said the issue of control over one's conduct has now arisen among all the groups of the church underscoring the contrast between those controlled by the gospel and those who are rebelling against it urge here is what Titus is to do emphasizing the need for constant moral reminders which tells us something about this perhaps more than any other demographic in the church young men struggle most with restraining their sinful impulses and desires and we know this is true earlier this week I spoke to a pastor who right now is counseling several men in his church who have severe addictions to pornography their wives are faithful they are merciful to their husbands they're also devastated that their husbands would rather obsess over a superficial random woman than love the wife that

[41:39] God has given them Paul says Titus teach them to have some self control to control their impulses to put the things on the computer and on the phone that needs to be put there to guard your eyes to love your wife in such a way that you would refuse to entertain yourself with another woman even thoughts of her self control he says my heart routinely breaks sometimes it rages to be honest to see on social media the insatiable appetite for alcohol and the party life that has gripped young men that have spent years teaching as a teenager it bothers me so much they need to be taught self control they might just need the gospel far more homes seem to be in shambles over a man with no self control than a woman who isn't submissive and we can look here at this passage and we may be tempted to think man

[42:59] Paul's really laying it on thick here for the young women and he says almost nothing to the young men but maybe the issue here is that they're so out of control and we got to deal with that before we can really get on to anything else and don't mean to excuse one sin for another but there is a dearth of faithful Christian men in our churches I think it was Becky that said to me last week after the Sunday morning message she said there's there's just not a lot of faithful Christian men out there she wasn't speaking of our church she's speaking generally and she's right there's not a lot of faithful men out there we need to be teaching and training these young men in our church to glorify the Lord that they claim to know and love as I close I want to be clear about something behaviors recorded in this text are incapable of providing salvation and we need to be clear on that

[44:04] Paul doesn't write these things to say if you will get these things in order you'll finally be a Christian these things cannot make you a Christian they can't living according to these rules doesn't make you a Christian but someone who has been saved by God's grace will inevitably produce the fruits of godliness that are represented here which means we got to ask ourselves two questions if my life is not producing the fruitfulness that Paul is indicating here in this letter is the natural course that flows from an understanding and a faith of in the gospel then I got a big question why is my life not producing that fruit maybe it's because I'm not actually truly trusting in Christ and his gospel maybe I'm counting on something else maybe I'm counting on there's no transformation in my life maybe the question you need to answer is do I actually know Christ or maybe the answer is

[45:06] I know Christ but man am I just slothful when it comes to a walk with Christ there's a reason Paul in so many of these New Testament letters and the other apostles as well have to emphasize so much here's the indicatives of the gospels and here's the imperatives that should flow they weren't correcting all those churches as if they were unbelievers they were saying no you're going to have to continually pursue the things of God walk in the spirit not the flesh walk in the spirit not the flesh he says over and over and over maybe the problem is you have no walk with God and you need to be in the word and you need to be in prayer and you need to be in worship as you are today and you need to be in discipleship with other people you need to be in discipleship with your wife you need to be in discipleship with your kids you need to have a genuine walk with God adopting the spiritual disciplines that are that is where all of this ultimately is rooted in chapter 2 if you look down at verse 14

[46:28] Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are zealous for good works that's what he's doing and if that's not the indication of your life either you don't belong to him or you are living in serious rejection of God's word reviling the word of God reviling the God who has created you and who loves you and has given himself for you