Conduct Befitting The Gospel (Part 1)

[0:00] The second chapter here of Paul's letter to Titus is bookended by two distinct commands. In the very first verse, he tells Titus, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

[0:15] And if you move your eye all the way down to the last verse, in verse 15, he closes with another command, declare these things with all authority, he says.

[0:26] And if that's not enough, right in the middle of the passage, right in the middle of this particular chapter, he gives him another helpful command in verse 7, show yourself in all respects to be a model of good work.

[0:43] So, Titus is to teach, he is to declare, he is to model. And the synopsis of what it is to teach and model and declare involves counter-cultural living, counter-cultural conduct that emerges from faith in the gospel of Jesus, as well as an anticipation that Jesus will soon return.

[1:16] I know that was a mouthful. What is it that in chapter 2, Paul is telling Titus to teach and to model and to declare? Godliness, that comes as a result of knowing Christ and looking, anticipating his return.

[1:33] And it's all rooted in verses 11 through 14. Just draw your eye there for just a moment. He says, I want you to live in this way because the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation, training us to renounce ungodliness, verse 13, and that we are waiting for our blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[1:57] In other words, Titus, teach these things, teach them how to live in godliness, because godliness will be the natural fruit that comes from faith in the gospel of Jesus.

[2:08] And as long as they're keeping their eyes in anticipation on the soon coming return of Jesus Christ, this also will motivate them this way. Teach these things, Titus.

[2:20] Model these things for them. And that's the essence of what this chapter is really about. In other words, our behavior should match our profession as followers of Jesus.

[2:31] If we say we know Christ, that should be displayed in the way that we live. Our lives should conform to the teaching of the Bible rather than to the whims of our ever-changing culture.

[2:49] Our conduct should befit the gospel. And it should befit the gospel so that we may bring honor to God as well as display His glory, His salvation to the world.

[3:07] Now, why would God be so concerned for us to do this? Well, one, because it is the very sinfulness that we are prone to that Jesus came to redeem us from.

[3:17] So it would follow that those of us who have been redeemed will pursue righteousness in our lives. But there's a second layer to that. Why is He concerned for us to live this way, to live in godliness?

[3:31] Because in living in godliness, we demonstrate to the world the transformative power of Christ in the gospel. That Christ can offer the world around us what no other religion, no other philosophy, no other manner of life can actually provide.

[3:50] True freedom. Freedom from the bondage of sin. Freedom from the bondage of death. Freedom from the bondage of death.

[4:29] elders, pastors who would care for the churches by teaching God's truth and refuting anything that contradicted the gospel. But then as we come to chapter 2, we find a second structure beginning to take shape.

[4:45] A second structure that Titus is not only to model as an apostolic delegate from Paul, but something he is to emphasize to these elders to do.

[4:57] And the second structure is intentional gospel-based discipling. Intentional gospel-based discipling.

[5:10] Of course, you know, to be a disciple simply means to be a follower of Jesus. Discipling, the verb form, is the commitment to help other people follow Jesus.

[5:25] And the way that we help other people follow Jesus is by personally teaching truth and modeling Christian behavior.

[5:35] And Paul's point to Titus in this little letter, this little practical helpful letter, is you need faithful elders who will care for the church, and you need a culture of discipling where the church will care for itself and emphasize these things that are true to the gospel, true to sound doctrine.

[5:55] And both of these things are essential for maintaining spiritual fitness in the church. And of course, the first thing we learn here as we get into verse 1 is that fruitful discipleship begins with faithful eldership.

[6:13] Begins with faithful eldership. Look again at verse 1. The springboard here for this discussion of godly living and discipling, intergenerational discipling that's unfolding here, the springboard for it is faithful elders who will begin the work and who will continue the work and who will guide the work of discipling in the church.

[6:40] The opening but connects this instruction to what Paul had just written regarding the false teachers at the end of chapter 1. Whereas the false teachers were denying God by their works, teaching doctrines that made them unfit for any good work, Titus and the Cretan elders, in contrast to that, were to model and teach what accords with sound doctrine.

[7:11] And what models and teaches sound doctrine will produce spiritual fitness. We've talked about several times already this sound doctrine, we can translate this as healthy doctrine.

[7:24] It is a medical term. It's meant to emphasize health, fitness. So Titus and the elders are to teach and to model things that produce spiritual fitness in the lives of the people that they've been called to care for.

[7:41] Now accords here means something that is in harmony with the truth of the gospel. And what accords with sound doctrine is not merely the doctrine itself, but it is the behaviors that should accompany the trustworthy word.

[8:03] Do you see this taking shape now? If you kind of step back and the best that you can, think of the big picture of the book now. What is it that Paul's emphasizing? Faithfulness to the word, faithfulness to the gospel, so that that will produce godliness in our lives.

[8:20] Because we cannot separate doctrine from conduct. We cannot ultimately separate belief from behavior. So Paul tells Titus and the elders, teach what is right and teach what is good and right in the way that we behave and conduct our lives.

[8:41] The point is that true faith in Christ brings practical change. It brings practical change in our lives.

[8:54] Indeed, one of the glories of the gospel is the transformative power of God at work in the life of a sinner who comes to Jesus for salvation.

[9:06] And we talked about this last week. Jesus doesn't demand that we clean ourselves up so that we can then be accepted by him. No, he says, come.

[9:17] And as we trust in him, he cleans us up. He gives us a new heart. He transforms our lives. And then we need to be encouraged by faithful elders and by other Christians in our lives to continue to pursue the righteousness that Christ begins to work in our hearts through salvation.

[9:36] That's one of the glories of the gospel. That when we come to Christ, he does this amazing work in us. And this work of the gospel, this genuine faith in Christ produces practical change that cannot be denied.

[9:54] It cannot be denied by the Christian community and it cannot be denied by the secular community either. And yet there seems to be so many churches, so many Christians who make a profession that does not match the life that they live.

[10:10] They say the right things. They confess the right doctrines. But then they don't actually live a life that practically matches the things that they say that they believe.

[10:23] Paul is concerned that Titus teach the people differently than that. And that there is a pattern and a structure set up in the church so that that continues on. Faithful pastors will continually teach Christians to pursue behaviors that accord with God's word.

[10:42] And it creates a ripple effect through the congregation so that as these faithful elders are appointed and they're leading the church, there's a ripple effect to where as they are discipling people, the people that they are discipling begin to disciple others.

[10:59] Do you see the effect here? It's the plan of God. It's the plan of God in the local church. It's the plan of God for building up His people. And it's one that we need not neglect.

[11:13] Paul knew that the Cretans needed a culture of discipling. Something emphasized throughout his writings in the New Testament. He told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

[11:34] It's a simple pattern. Timothy, teach faithful men so that the faithful men can teach other men to produce more faithful men that will teach other men. And so on and so forth as the church is built.

[11:46] We quote Ephesians 4 often in regard to this topic. Christ gave the apostles and the prophets and the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, that's the pastors and elders, so that they might equip the saints, the Christians, for the work of ministry.

[12:04] And what is the work of ministry? The building up of the body of Christ. And we see it coming to the surface again very clearly here in Titus chapter 2.

[12:14] Now as Paul gets into this discussion, we find here that he distinguished people in the church by age or life stage. He doesn't always do that.

[12:24] He does it here for some reason. He doesn't cover every life stage that probably was present in Crete, but he at least limits himself to the four most common demographics.

[12:37] He has a word to older men in the congregation, a word to older women in the congregation, a word to younger women, and then a word to younger men. Eventually, in a couple of weeks, we'll get to where he covers everyone in the nature of their work.

[12:53] And I think this division here, the distinguishing of these age groups, alerts us to three things that we need to consider as we work through this text. The first one is this, that the scope of influence for elders is extended to every demographic of the church.

[13:10] The scope of influence for pastors is not limited to one demographic or just to the people to whom they best relate. The actual responsibility of pastors that we would call to serve our church is a responsibility that includes the entire congregation, the entire flock of God.

[13:33] No matter their age or their experience, elders are to faithfully disciple the entire church, especially and primarily as it relates to the regular preaching and teaching of the Bible.

[13:49] Now, Paul tells Timothy how these pastors are to relate to the people in the church. In fact, just flip over a couple of pages to 1 Timothy chapter 5. 1 Timothy chapter 5.

[14:03] And in the first two verses here, Paul makes it clear how Timothy is to relate to the people. He says in verse 1, Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

[14:26] I think that's a pattern Paul intends to see perpetuated in every church and among all the elders. that they have a responsibility for the whole congregation, but there's also a helpful way that they need to see themselves relating to the whole congregation.

[14:43] That with the ones that are older than them, mature in years, they need to treat them as fathers and mothers. You talk and rebuke and encourage your father in a very different way than you do your brother.

[14:58] Right? And these pastors were to remember that. Timothy wasn't supposed to come into Ephesus guns ablaze and firing at anybody and everybody that he could.

[15:09] No, he used to be wise and discerning in the way that he related, but he still had a responsibility for everyone to care for their souls and so do the elders. Second thing is that each life stage has unique temptations and responsibilities that we really need to acknowledge.

[15:30] Again, we're talking about why Paul has distinguished these age groups. It's because at each season of your life, the weaknesses that you may sense and the temptations that you may feel are going to shift and they're going to change as you mature and as you age.

[15:46] That's exactly what happens. And of course, the items included here, this is a very short passage, the items included here, they don't cover everything, but they are representative, I think, of what is generally true of these life stages.

[16:00] We need to keep that in mind. The third thing is this, intergenerational, gender-specific discipling should be the normative in local churches.

[16:16] It should be normal that churches are multi-generational. It should be normal that the discipling that takes place in a local church happens between generations.

[16:30] We don't just group up all the young adults here and all of the senior adults here and all the teenagers here and all the children here and we let them kind of figure it out on their own.

[16:40] It doesn't make sense. No. Intergenerational, gender-specific, matters. It matters in this text and it matters practically as we just think about how we're going to help one another.

[16:53] I can't help you focus and think through postpartum depression if you have a baby. I have never had a baby and I've never had postpartum depression from a baby. I can't help you with that.

[17:04] You know what you need if you're going through something like that? You need another woman. You see what I mean? Intergenerational, gender-specific, Paul gets into all of those things here. So, eventually, we're going to look at all four groups.

[17:17] Today, we're just going to look at two of them. And our goal is to understand what it means to obey the Lord out of the fruitfulness of the gospel and then what it means to disciple others in what accords with sound doctrine.

[17:33] Okay? Older men, you're up first. Look at verse two. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

[17:51] Now, I'm going to let everybody decide for themselves which group you belong to. I'm not going to choose that for you. But he begins with older men in the congregation here, and it's no coincidence that he does.

[18:06] Because the older men in the congregation, those mature in years, are the natural leaders of any community. Whether they want to be or not, the ones who have gone before us in terms of life and experience will always be the ones that the most people instinctively look to for personal counsel and a helpful pattern of life.

[18:30] And it makes sense that Paul begins here and he addresses those who will most naturally in the community of these congregations assume some type of leadership, whether it's formalized in the church or whether it's just by the fact that they've been around a few times and they've experienced a few things and they can be helpful to others who are trying to figure out how to go about life.

[18:54] Makes sense that he would start there, doesn't it? It's because of this instinct that it is crucial that the older men of a church set the standard for godliness, that they passionately pursue the things of God.

[19:11] Why? Because generally speaking, as goes the men, so goes the church. If a church is filled with men who clearly love the Lord, who are passionate about pursuing the things of the Lord, who are not perfect, but desire to be righteous and upright in the things that they do, it will inevitably produce the fruitfulness of a church congregation that does the same things.

[19:48] But if a church is filled with men who are casual in their faith, lazy in their study, lack control in the way that they live their life, it will produce a church that mimics it.

[20:03] It's just the way it works. Paul knows that, so he starts here. It's this dynamic of natural leadership. It's not to be rebuffed.

[20:15] We're not to resent that. It's the way God created life to work. And we need to recognize it, and older men need to own it. Own it for the good of God's people.

[20:28] When it comes to the issues Paul addressed, I think it's helpful to look here at actions and attitudes. actions and attitudes. Let's look first at the actions here for older men. Three necessary characteristics are given.

[20:41] Sober-minded, dignified, and self-controlled. Sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled. Sober-minded means temperate in thought.

[20:53] It's clear-headed. It's the ability to keep your head rather than lose your mind. relates to our anger, our control over our spirit and our attitudes.

[21:09] It's to think clearly rather than to be controlled by our emotions. And older men are to set the tone for this. It's the discipline of drawing on your years of experience to act with wisdom in any given situation.

[21:25] And we need older men who will display sober-mindedness because typically younger men are not going to display sober-mindedness. He says dignified, which is a word I tried to spend a lot of time on this week.

[21:42] I wanted to really try to grasp what this means. Dignified means to carry yourself in a way that elicits respect and honor from others.

[21:53] It's not to be confused with humorless. It's not to be confused with pretension.

[22:05] It simply means that you carry yourself in such a way that is respectable and it's easily respectable. It's not that you take yourself too seriously.

[22:17] It's that you take your worship and your godliness with such earnestness that others consider you worthy of respect. You know what it's like.

[22:28] We have men like this in our lives, right? Where maybe it's a patriarch of your family, if I'm allowed to use that word, that when your family gets together and they come in, what you and your brother and your sister may be cutting up doing, you kind of stop that because there is a certain dignity that comes along when dad walks in the room.

[22:46] You know what that's like. It's almost intangible in some ways. Paul says, these older men, you need to carry yourselves with dignity. Carry yourself in a way that elicits respect because you're going to need the respect of the people in the congregation to lead them and to counsel them and to help them.

[23:03] Self-control is the third thing. It stands in stark contrast to both Cretan and American cultures where satisfying self seems to be a cardinal virtue.

[23:16] Self-control instead is the ability to curb your impulses. It's to surrender them to the lordship of Jesus Christ. And all three of these actions are displayed in spiritual disciplines.

[23:29] It's in the discipline of prayer and the discipline of study. It's in the discipline of discipleship and the discipline of worship and the discipline of song. Of all the things that we would say mark someone who loves the Lord and has been gripped by the love of Christ.

[23:46] It needs to be evident in the older men. Well that's the actions. Let's look now at the attitudes. Paul said the spiritual attitudes of older men should be marked by soundness in faith, love, steadfastness.

[24:02] Faith, love, steadfastness. Attributes that are not routinely associated with masculinity in our world. These things actually seem, except for perhaps maybe steadfastness, seem to be weakness from a cultural standard.

[24:22] But in God's economy this is not weakness at all. This is the pinnacle of strength. Sound in faith means that these men need to be students of the word.

[24:34] Setting a pattern of faith and faithfulness for the rest of the church. Sound in love reflects not only a love for the Lord but for other people.

[24:45] people. This is the opposite of the guy standing on his porch yelling to get off my lawn. It's the opposite of that. It's a love. It's a concern. It's a generosity and a charity toward others, even others who really get on your nerves, which I'm learning from my dad as you get older.

[25:05] More people get on your nerves than what did when you were younger. So maybe it's right on target that Paul would say, remember guys, you need to be sound in love.

[25:21] Remember to be charitable toward these other guys coming behind you. Sound in steadfastness reflects perseverance and hardship. Because the younger ones in the church that have yet to face severe hardship are going to be looking to see the way that you handle it.

[25:39] And when you go through hardship in your life, trials and suffering in your life, do you do so full of faith? Not that you ignore the reality of the difficulty, but you trust the Lord.

[25:54] Does the hardships that you face cause you to be less faithful to the Lord and His church? Or can other people look at your life and see, okay, I know what's going on in that guy's life.

[26:08] I know things are hard for him right now, but he's still there, and I know it's got to be hard for him, but he's there, and he's faithful, and he's praying, and he's doing the things. All of these attitudes flow from one who has been transformed by the gospel.

[26:22] This is the result of a life that is faithfully walking in fellowship with God. Listen, the world around us cannot live this way. They can't. It's not possible.

[26:33] people. These are fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, temperance, all of these things are produced by the Spirit of God as we walk faithfully with God.

[26:46] And if you fit this distinguished category, I really think that you'll probably be tempted in one of two ways as you mature. more. You'll be tempted to either retire from passionate engagement with the church.

[27:04] See this happen all the time. There's people, they finally hit the retirement from their career and they retire from everything else as well. That will be one temptation to kind of say, I've paid my dues and take a step back.

[27:19] That's the time of life that we need you probably the most. The other temptation will be to become the proverbial curmudgeon that bemoans what you don't like rather than investing in the next generation that's coming behind you.

[27:37] Men, the rest of us are looking to you. Whether you realize it or not, our eyes are on you. We need you to set a pattern for us. We can't afford for you to punch out.

[27:53] We can't afford for you to spend the rest of your life on a spiritual vacation or an ecclesiastical vacation. The church won't survive that way. Neither can we bear you becoming like Waldorf and Statler from the Muppets sitting in the balcony chirping at everything Kermit and Fozzie Bear does.

[28:17] We need you to display the gospel and teach us how to do it. That's older men. Next is older women. We find that in verses 3 and the beginning of verse 4.

[28:30] Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine, or to teach what is good and so train the young women.

[28:43] Likewise here shows a closeness of comparison to what has just been said about the older men. older women are to be reverent in behavior in the same way and in the same sense that older men are to be dignified, living their lives worthy of respect, of honor.

[29:05] It simply means to take seriously the fact that you belong to God and you want your profession of faith to be revealed in the way that you live.

[29:16] two things Titus was to teach the older women not to do. They were not to be enslaved to the impulses common to their culture, typified here with drunkenness.

[29:30] It's not limited to drunkenness here, it's just typified by it. Instead, they're to display a spirit-filled life that rises above temptation.

[29:43] He was also to teach them to avoid malicious gossip. That's what's meant by slander. Speech that destroys rather than edifies.

[29:55] And given the context here as we look at the nature and the godliness of an older woman's life with her responsibility to train the younger women, Paul seems to rebuke the kind of woman who kind of stands back at the wine bar and is just criticizing the young wives and mothers rather than coming alongside of them to teach and to train them in what is natural to their station of life.

[30:22] But that's a temptation for all of us, isn't it? It's the temptation to judge the failures and weaknesses of another instead of making a personal investment to help them grow and mature in godliness.

[30:38] That's not limited to just older women. That's a temptation temptation for every single one of us. Maybe you've seen the Geico commercial that keeps airing here recently.

[30:51] It's got the young couple sitting in their living room and they've just recently bought their house and they're talking about how much they love their house but then they say the only problem is we have ants. Have you seen that commercial?

[31:02] They don't mean ants A-N-T-S. They mean ants A-U-N-T-S. And then it shows several clips of older women in their home and what they're doing is these different scenarios just pointing out every possible thing that is wrong with this home that this young couple.

[31:20] Have you ever been around somebody like that? Like you just can't do anything right? Like they just point everything out that you're doing wrong and they're relentless in it. Constantly criticizing but never actually helping.

[31:35] So if the older men have a tendency to be like Waldorf and Statler it may be that the older women might contend to be like the ants from Geico. It's not always that their criticisms are false.

[31:49] It's just that they're relentless and unhelpful. Paul shows a better way here. The biblical alternative here in these verses is that older women teach what is good.

[32:03] That's the end of verse 3. And so train the young women. That's the beginning of verse 4. So not only are they to live in a way that matches their Christian profession but they are to help other women do the same thing.

[32:17] So what is good here refers to righteousness that is based on God's worth. The truth of the gospel. Older women are to take responsibility for teaching young women the gospel.

[32:30] people to constantly bring their eyes back to the love of Christ. To the forgiveness of Christ. And the grace of Christ. Training refers to practical discipling that's rooted in personal experience.

[32:47] So option number one here as far as what Paul is writing. Option number one is to say something to the effect of your kids are a holy terror and you need to do something about it.

[33:00] Option number two is you're going to make it. I've been there. Let me tell you some things that helped me.

[33:11] Or maybe here's some things you could try. Do you see the difference? See the difference? This is the picture Paul's painting. This is what should be the dynamic of the church. Rather than judging younger ones for all they're doing wrong, the older women should lovingly teach them how to honor and glorify God as a wife and mother.

[33:34] That's the specific emphasis here. Donald Guthrie said Christian matrons are to assist the younger women in the discipline of family love. love. Not of course as interfering busy bodies, but as humble advisors on problems of married life.

[33:56] Who's going to be the most beneficial to a young mother that comes in on a Sunday morning looking like she's one tantrum away from throwing in the towel altogether?

[34:07] mother. Sure, I can offer biblical counsel that is intellectually credible and theologically sound, and it's my responsibility to do that.

[34:24] Still, it's the mature mother who's walked that road who will be able to give counsel that is existentially satisfying. I can't relate to motherhood, but you can.

[34:40] Come alongside and help. Who will be there to help that young wife whose head's in the clouds right now, but you know that it's not going to be very long before things come crashing back down to earth when she realizes that her husband isn't as dreamy as she thought he was.

[35:01] It's going to happen soon. Who's going to be there to help? Well, I can sit down with them and I can talk about all the things that the Bible says about marriage, and I must do that. That's my responsibility to do that.

[35:15] But God can use a caring, mature wife to offer biblical truth from a perspective of personal experience. For the glory of God, older women must care to help.

[35:29] And for the glory of God, younger women must be humble enough to receive the help that God has provided. You see, sometimes we're looking for help, but we want to tell God who we're willing to help us.

[35:43] And we say, I want somebody to mentor me, I want somebody to disciple me, and I want somebody to help me, but Lord, I don't want any of the people that you've actually put in my life to do it. So if you'll actually just bring somebody else, that would be fantastic.

[35:57] Well, no, it doesn't work like that, does it? No. Covenantal discipleship is neither merely academic, says Susan Hunt, nor is it merely relational.

[36:11] It's a beautiful blend of sharing the gospel and our lives with one another, and that takes humility on the part of the younger men and younger women, and concern on the part of older men and older women.

[36:27] In the case of older men and women, they must set a pattern of godliness out of their love for the Lord and train others out of their love for His church.

[36:38] That's the point here. Live like a Christian and then help other people do the same thing. Let me close it this way. This kind of discipling, which indeed applies to every demographic in the church, this is not just about those who are mature in their years.

[36:58] All of us are responsible for this. It requires intentionality. It will never happen by accident. Nobody accidentally disciples someone else.

[37:09] We must deliberately set this pattern of godliness. We must deliberately go out of our way to sacrifice our time and energy for the good of others.

[37:20] We must deliberately necessarily break through the potential awkwardness that typically comes at the beginning of those kinds of relationships. And we must do it for the glory of God and the good of His church.

[37:33] A couple of times a year, Terry is brave enough to invite me to his home club in Denver to play golf. Terry has played the course many, many times and I've only played it a couple of times.

[37:48] And the benefit of that is that when we're playing together, Terry can pick up on what my tendencies are which is to swing really hard. I can't hit the ball straight, but every now and then I can hit it hard and it makes me feel better.

[38:01] He can be in the middle of the fairway, but if I'm a little further, even if it's in the weeds, I feel better about myself. Well, Terry can pick out that that's a tendency that I have to do that and he recognizes that he knows the course well.

[38:16] He's been all over the course and his times playing there and I don't know the danger spots like he does. We can start a hole and Terry can say, Jared, I know you're going to want to try to hit it hard, but if you hit it too hard here, you're going to go over the green and you don't want to be there.

[38:33] You're going to be in a mess. You're going to be in a real mess if you do that. Don't do it, Jared. And then inevitably, Jared's going to get out his club and he's going to swing it too hard because he just has to hit it further than everybody else and he's going to go over the green.

[38:51] Now, Terry can do two things in that situation. Terry can come alongside of me and he can say, Jared, I told you not to do that, you idiot. If you'd just listen, you'd save yourself a lot of trouble.

[39:04] Terry could also come alongside of me and he could say, Jared, I've been there. You're in a tough spot. This is why you're in that tough spot. Now, let me help you try to figure out how to get through it.

[39:16] Do you see the difference? I need somebody like Terry to help me get around the course well. If I don't have Terry to get me around the course, I'm not going to know what's dangerous and what's not and what's good.

[39:29] I'm not going to easily spot my own tendencies in my golf game. It's going to be harder for me to evaluate the things because I can't see myself the way that everybody outside of me can see me.

[39:41] I need somebody like Terry helping me through that course. I need somebody like Terry being patient with me when I blow it and I need to just try to figure out how to get through this hole.

[39:51] Now, let's put it in the context of our lives. There are danger spots everywhere and we're all going to find them from time to time. And what we need is someone who's been there before to come alongside of us and say, that's a tough place to be.

[40:10] I've been there myself. This is probably what got you here. Now, let's go to God's word and see what it says to help you get through it.

[40:24] That's what the church needs Christians doing. Christians that aren't concerned to sit in the balcony and just point out all of our flaws. We all have enough. We can say we're failures in a lot of ways.

[40:37] We need people who are going to get dirty with us. Come alongside of us and say, let me help you. And of course, we'll talk about it next week.

[40:50] There is a pride that exists in younger men and women that will resist that at first. But we need the older men and women in our lives to keep trying and keep loving and keep encouraging and keep modeling.

[41:03] And we need to remember that the goal of this text is to live a life that is fitting for one who knows Jesus. And what is it that Jesus did?

[41:17] Well, he modeled righteousness and then he taught other people how to do it. And he was patient with them. And he was kind and loving towards them. We need to remember that Christ has redeemed us from lawlessness in order that we might be pure and zealous for good works.

[41:37] And we need constant reminders of what it means to live in accordance with sound doctrine so that our lives will display the glories of the gospel to the watching world.

[41:49] We need to have conduct that befits the gospel. And we need to have people who will help us do that.