Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to the New Testament to one of Paul's pastoral pistols, his letter to Titus, letter in which Paul is talking about this community of Christ known as the Church, and it's great importance and influence in the world, not just for believers, but for other people. We've been looking at the thesis, the premise that in order to worship God authentically we have to be a genuine community of believers, a genuine church, as designed by the Lord Jesus Christ, his body, that which he has purchased with his own blood and that which he said he would build so that even hell could not prevail against it. And we've been looking at different facets of this, this unique calling as a church. Two weeks ago we talked about how we needed to be a church that was a church not so trendy and that was rooted in a church lepiety with elders guiding us, sober minded men, and last week we looked at what it meant to be a counterbalance to culture, to infect, and in a good sort of way, and to influence the church with the leaven of Jesus Christ. Paul is saying in this little letter that we are people who have a common faith, although we live in a modern world this ancient faith is our mainstay. We are people who are spiritual by being religious. There's a church lepiety about us. We are people who share a vision for transforming the culture, not by being opposed to it, but by being a counterbalance, a measure of stability and influence that counters the evil leaven of sin. And now we look today at the people who believe God not only saves individuals, but he always saves them into community. One at a time he brings them into a covenant community called a local church. These are not just the ideas by the way of an old apostle or of an aging pastor who's 63. These are ideas that are shared by some of our younger ministers in the PCA and around the country. Tullion Chavigeon is 39 years old. He's the grandson of Billy Graham. He's the senior pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is described by the Christian post as spiky hair, sometimes scruffy beard and tan skin, who wears open necked, unbuttoned shirts, sell them a code and tie and has the looks of a movie star. That's probably true. He's written a book called Unfashionable Church and he makes the case for the fact that he says the main problem, this is a quote. The main problem the church faces is not that it is culturally out of touch, but it is theologically out of tune. We need to remember that God has established a church as an alternative society not to compete with or to copy this world, but to offer a fresh alternative to it. When we forget this, we have inadvertently communicated to our culture that we have nothing unique to offer them, nothing deeply spiritual or profoundly transforming. Tragically, this leaves many in our world looking elsewhere for the spiritual difference that they crave. They're looking for something deeper than what's currently in fashion. He goes on to make the case for Christians being different in the world. He says it is truthfulness, not trendiness, that is what a new generation is thirsting for. They want to know that we are a people with our sights set on a different world, a people determined to be different from the world.
You know, the church is making some fundamental mistakes in America, in its effort to reach a new generation. Seven of them, I think. They're doing away with anything old and traditional, including old hymns and old hymns and liturgy. They're making everything contemporary, saying to the young people, you're welcome to the old people, you're not. They're demanding that church be driven by youth. Old people can attend but they are invited to sit and back and put their earplugs in, or they're hearing aids, whichever stage of life they're in. They're making church easier to attend, so there's church later in the afternoon so you can stay out all night on Saturday night and there's no Sunday school that's too early and no Sunday evening that's too late and multiple sites that you'd have to drive very far and it's aimed at you and your friends. The structuring services like coffee shops or rock groups, lock concerts come as you are, drink and hand and don't worry about reference or trying to look or act differently in the presence of God. They're what I call techno-urban churches, technologically savvy, so now you can have internet communion, you can even listen to a sermon by a pastor who's beamed in Alistair's track in some hologram. They're down playing commitment, few in future churches have membership, take vows, ask people to do hard things, and there are more and more anti-clergy. It seems that anyone can baptize anyone else. It's not that they're anti-theological, they're just a theological, no theology because theology they say divides, so they're eliminating things that people don't want to hear, things about hell and about marriage, the sanctity of life, or gender that's simply refusing to talk about those things, particularly the doctrine of sanctification. You want to know what's happening, folks? They're failing. The percentage of 20-somethings reached by the church by this new emergent church is less the day than it was 10 years ago. In fact, they're not really reaching young people, they're simply shuffling them away from traditional churches into their own sort of emergent theology. And Tullian chavision says, their fundamental failure is to understand the heart of the gospel, that the gospel is meant to bring races and genders and people groups and age groups together. He says there's something around generational distinctives that is inherently unbiblical. Many churches offer traditional services for the tribe who for froze old music and contemporary service for the young people who preferred new music. I understand the good intentions behind some of these efforts, but something is seemingly harmless as this is a fundamental failure to comprehend the heart of the gospel. When we offer, for instance, a contemporary worship for the younger people, we are not only feeding them tribalism, which is a toxic form of racism, but we are saying that the gospel cannot successfully bridge these different groups together and bring the ages into one community. It is a declaration of our doubt in the reconciling power of God's gospel and generational appeal to the church is as unbiblical as a racial or gender or ethnic appeal. It is contrary to the belief that God can take all kinds of people and bring them together in one community of Christ. You know, what's interesting? Back in 2007, the Barna Group took a survey of young people, 30 years and younger and said, what is it that you want in church? And here are the five things they said they wanted in order of importance. 45% said they wanted to worship God and make a connection to him personally. 42% said they wanted to better understand what they believed in the Bible. 34% said they wanted to spend time with their close friends. 34% said they wanted to become inspired and get encouragement to live a consistent life in the world. And 30% said they wanted to volunteer in helping others in need. Fascinating correlation. Back in 1977, another survey was taken. A people who were then what we call baby boomers and the same five things occurred in a slightly different order. What's even more amazing is that these are the things that Paul lists in Titus that meet the needs of the ancient church. That they be a people with a common faith they better understand what they believe. That they are a people of a church lepide, they are connected personally and corporately to God. That they are a counterbalancing culture that they get encouragement and inspiration and instruction on how to live in the world consistently for Christ. That they become a covenant community that they spend time with close friends. That they have a comprehensive view salvation that inspires them and a Christ centered conversion that brings them to know God through knowing Christ and a passionate commission that helps them volunteer in helping other people. Isn't it amazing? In 2000 years, the surveys have yielded no other information than what's in this little ancient epistle written to a pastor named Titus. We're not so different from the people of the old times. And our generations are not so different than their spiritual needs. And most of all listen to me. Jesus Christ who designed the church knew what we needed. And that's the way he designed it the way it is. He was not stabbing into the darker, lurching into the future or taking a great divine calculated guess. He has made us and made us for himself. And he knew what we needed and deep down what we wanted.
What we really want to do, if we really want to do something radical, is to become a community. Not just a place where my friends go. Having a group of friends is not community. But a place where there are multi-generations. People who are older men and older women and younger men and younger women and all of their children together as a genuine spiritual family. And Paul in the pastoral epistles addresses those things. And here in Titus chapter two, he does it with the most explicit and extended instruction. He tells Titus how to talk to the different groups in the church. Now it's a challenge. It's always a challenge for a younger pastor. Titus was probably in his late 30s, maybe early 40s, when he received this letter. How does he appeal to older men? How does he talk to older women? To young men and young women his own age. To the teenagers and the children of the church. Well, he does so with two things. With credibility and with respect. If you turn over just a few pages, turn back to first Timothy, another pastoral epistle and look at chapter five. Paul kind of gives Timothy the same coaching that he gives Titus. First Timothy chapter five versus one and two, do not rebuke an older man. But encourage him as he would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters and all purity. He uses familial family terms. To talk about the relationship of the pastor and the people and the people to one another. And here he uses those same terms and addressing four groups of people in our community and what they bring to the community, what we need from them in order to grow in the grace and knowledge and the life that is in Jesus Christ. He begins with older men. And here are his instructions to older men. Titus chapter two versus one and two. But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be so reminded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love and instead fastness. In other words, older men are to be fatherly or might we even say grand fatherly. Why? Well, that's what young people need. They need a grandfather. And what makes a grandfather so different from anybody else? The life of a grandfather is a life of grace. A grandfather is someone who is sensitive to little people, so reminded, solid, steady, stately, dignified, and self-controlled. And those are the six traits that Titus introduces for old men to grab hold of. William Hendrickson says the gray beard should have the same more characteristics as the elders and deacons of the church. And one of those characteristics, they're six of them. They should be sober, not drunk, but clear-headed and mature in their perspective. They shouldn't be reactionary people. They should be stately. The word here is semras. And it means dignified or reverent. A respectfulness that goes along with a certain age. They should be sensible. That is thoughtful and well-reasoned and modest in virtue. Not cool, but sensible. Clear-headed we might say in English. They should be solid in faith. There should be a proven character and sting power to their relationship and their belief in Jesus Christ, sensitive. What he calls sound and love. Agape. There should be a sacrificial nature to their life. An older man should be through living for himself. And his life should find the joy of living for other people. And steadfast, who pomone is the Greek word? It means damn sting power to suffer long, to persevere through difficulty and godliness and goodness and graciousness. Why? Because younger people want a spiritual grandfather to go to. Someone they can say, you know, I need to talk. I need some help. I'm not doing well here. I've failed and know that they'll be received and responded to with grace. I have six little grandchildren, ages seven and younger. And they love me to death. They talk things over with me when they sit in my lap, when I read books, when we play toys, when I goof off with them, when I take them out for time alone, when we do buck-eye stuff together, you know what? I never scold them, scoldings for parents, not for grandparents. But I do speak soberly to them. I never shame them. I'm sensitive and it's amazing how the little things they struggled with. I remember struggling with those things myself as a child so long ago. I never make fun of their ideas or questions. I never say to them, that's the most ridiculous childy's thing I've ever heard. No, I treat every single question and issue is profoundly serious. I never spank them. That's the best thing about being a grandparent. I'm tender to them. You know what? I never try to be one of them. But I always try to be with them. And I never ignore them. I am a staying power in a steady presence in their lives and in the young souls. I do love my grandchildren more than I love my own life. And they know that I'm not their father. I'm beyond that. I am their grand father. And they respect me and their affection for me and their love is their repayment for being their number one fan and their undying loyal friend.
Men listen to me. Older men my age. If you're 50 and older, you're an older man. I don't care how you leave your shirt open and how you tear up your jeans and how many dimes you go to the gym, you really look old. It just happens. It's called sin. I've listened to how we speak to young men to our sons and daughters, our sons and laws and daughters and laws. And sometimes we speak to them with scorn, we scold, we shame. We let them know all too easily and frequently how they're not measuring up. And then we wonder why the young men of the church don't really come to us and say, would you mentor me? Who wants to be mentored by a policeman? Mentoring is for grandpa's. Mentoring is for older men whose dignity is their age. Listen to Solomon. Grey hair is a crown of glory. It is gained in a righteous life. The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of an old man is his gray head. Men listen to me. If you're 50 and older, listen to me. Youth is gone. You're never going to get it back. And the more you try to be cool and young, the more you look stupid young people who don't want you to be foxy. They want you to be a grandpa. They want to come up and say, hey, Pastor Roz, how are you doing? Can we talk? And I exhort you to give up your lust to hang on to your youth and grow graciously old in God so people have a gracious man to go talk to when they need to. Likewise, notice that's the next word. Likewise for older women. Here's the instructions for the ladies 50 and older. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slander as a slave is to much wine. They are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled and so forth. But if Paul says six things to the older man, he says five to the older women. And notice the word likewise. If the older man or press butro, older man, then a press butro is an older woman, a grand mother in the faith. He is to be reverent in behavior. That's what he says here. The word he uses is a word that was used to describe a priestess of Rome, a woman held in high esteem in the community for her religious and spiritual power. This is what Peter writes when he says, do not let your adorning be external, the braining of hair and the putting on of gold and jewelry or the clothes you wear. But let your adornment be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God's sight is very precious. When you get to be an older woman, dear sisters, you should be less concerned about how good you look and how Godly you are, less about how good you look and more about how Godly you are. You are not to be malicious gossip. You know the word that's actually used here is the word diabolos which is the Greek word for devil or slanderer. It's a qualification for the lives of elders. Their lives likewise must be dignified not malicious concepts or slanderers. That's a woman who is safe to come and open up to because she's a good listener, oh slow talker and a tight lip. You can go and talk to this woman and you know she won't talk to anybody else about you. My dear sisters, many of you are from the south and in the south there's a myth that old ladies carry with them that they've reached the age where they can say whatever they feel and you know what, that's not true. You never reach the age where you can say whatever you think but you should read the age the way you should say whatever you should. She should be self-controlled thirdly in her appetites. He says not addicted to much wine. Why? Because it was a common problem in the Greco-Roman world, alcoholism and old women went hand in hand because old women were often discarded, divorced because they were no longer attractive. They can know of their children and so their husbands found a younger wife or a mistress, a concubine, they were not given any social security, any divorce settlements, and oftentimes they made their living in less than honorable ways and turned to alcohol for the relief of the pain of rejection. I have been in Rome and I have been in the Museum of the Capitoline Hill that has all these famous sculptures of the Caesars and all of these great Roman artistic expressions of their life and there's about six or seven statues there all with the same title, a drunken old woman showing a sad woman head on the hand, bottle in front of her, inebriated. Godly women should be women who have a purpose in life beyond their husband and children. The purpose of doing good to other people, especially younger women. They should teach what is good, what is colossus, good moral attractive useful to society. They have a power of moral influence greater than perhaps older men. It's that motherly DNA that's in them, the way they can, you know, Jane can say things to people. I can say things to people and they get mad. Jane says things to people and they say, why did you marry that man? It's amazing. One of women can say, you know, when Sam Walton wanted to have people have a good feeling about his store, what did he do? He got older women, grandmother types, to greet you with the front door and say, hello, sugar. Welcome to Walmart. And you went in there and spent all your paycheck just to make grandma happy. Walton had an idea here. I'm told that the people who are the best greeters at the front doors of any church are elderly women. They're non-threatening people. They have an ability to speak into someone's life, good things, especially things about home life. They should train the younger women, life on life discipleship. What we call in this church, Titus II ministry or Mariah ministry, which means close companion, older women and Titus II coaching young women about spiritual things and Mariah ministry talking to women about life things, how to bake, how to decorate, how to get stains out of the carpet, life issues that young women need. My elderly sisters, young men and lost boys are not the only gender confused people in our culture. There are a lot of wonderful young women in America. Who don't know how to bring together their feminine gender and their calling in Christ and they need a spiritual grandmother to come alongside them, life on life and instruct them. And so Paul turns to his instructions to younger women. You know what's interesting, young ladies? Paul has the most to say to them. Seven things he says to them. Why? Because they have such a profound influence upon their young husbands, young single men and children that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. There's some wisdom in that old proverb. There are seven things that they are to do. They are to love their husbands, to be a godly affectionate, encouraging compliment to their husband. It's not a complicated thing to do. If you turn to Ephesians 5, there's only two things women have to do to control a man's heart and to have him love for forever. They're called submission or cooperation and respect. If you just work with a young man and you respect him, he'll love you. Love your children. Don't spoil them or idolize them or ignore them. It is the pain of all young women everywhere that they love to have children, but they want other people to raise them and no one to discipline them. It creates an art culture as it did in Paul's day, difficulty in dealing with young people. Young women need to tell their husbands that being with and shepherding his children is more important than daily workouts at the gym so that keep the tight body that he so idolizes. It is important that young women help shape the expectations of their young men. And the expectation is that loving children and governing, guarding and guiding them is more important than looking pretty. Read the book of Proverbs for instructions. They are to be self-controlled and here is a reference to those youthful, lustful passions that women use for such power, good or ill. Their chasteness, their modesty, their dignified demeanor. Paul is warning against being foul and flirtatious and flimpet. Today's young women pride themselves on being aggressive enough to hold their own with the men. But let me tell you something. There is no honor in being able to cuss like a man, drink like a sailor, and laugh at all the filthy locker room jokes. There's no honor in that. For women, that is shameful as it is for men. They are to be pure. In Greek, to be of upright moral character. They are to-nine men in moral pleasures from them. They are to-nine men easy access to their feminine sexual powers. They are to protect their good name, they are to protect their bodies, their souls and their minds. They are to preserve themselves for a good family, posterity, and they are to demand that young men treat them with honor. The key to sexual morality is always the young woman, always. She always has the power to say, no, not again, don't look at me or touch me or say that to me again. It's amazing how young men learn how to obey that command quickly. They are to focus on the family life, working at home. Before you get riled up, this does not mean that they're not to work in the workplace. Proverbs 31 teaches something different. What it does mean for men as well as for women, that careers in homes, cars, and standards of living come second to young women's marriage and her children. We're to build our career around our family and not the reverse. And husbands must help with the realistic expectations of what they want from their life as a helpmate and a co-winner of the bread. Godly women will define themselves by biblical expectations and not the expectations of the working woman. Sometimes in the church, wives and mothers who must work outside the home kind of feel like second-class citizens, like we're always talking over them, around them, and under them. I want to tell you that they're doing no wrong. They may be needed as a helper out in the workplace to earn an income and support the family's lifestyle, but there seems to be some imbalance in the way it's being done. And Paul is asking husbands, older women, older men to come alongside these younger women and put family first and career second. They are to be kind, not an in-your-face little wench. They are to be submissive to other husbands that does not mean being a doormat. It just means a good partner and influence your lieutenant, a gracious team player. I've preached a lot of sermons on the subject of submission. I'm not going to belabor the point. You can go online at the website and pull down four or five sermons on Ephesians five and other places. It makes perfectly good sense. But these are some expectations we give to young women. Women are to prepare themselves to bless society by blessing their families first. Work is secondary to their home. Women should not neglect domestic life because it seems less exciting than social life. Women must ensure that their career choices enhance their service to Christ and not hinder it. Women should always seek to compliment men, not to compete with them or for that matter, to compete with other women. What is making our approach so ugly is that we are all into competition and not into cooperation. Women should set the moral tone and the sexual morays of society. Women should honor acceptable social conventions so as not to scandalize the church or to lead young men astray. And women should learn how to die to self. Christ first, husband and family second, church third, self last. And with very little variation, the same demands are placed on young men. Notice again the word likewise as he turns to instructing young men. Likewise urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself an all-respect to be a model of good works. And in your teaching show integrity, dignity and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say about us. Young men listen to me.
Of all the instructions Paul gives the least amount of instructions to young men. You only tell them three things. But young men listen to me. The whole ball of wax rests on these three things. First, be self-controlled. For a man's worst enemies are always these things, his testosterone, the fact that his mother thinks he's cute, and that girls were given whatever he wants in the hope of gaining love and affection and marriage. Young men are sexual immorality, are carousing and brawling, are drunkenness and porn-filled lives, are neither macho nor cruel. Their infantile and embarrassing is time for us to grow up. And the first evidence of a grown-up person is that we control our urges and our physical powers. Men should always use their manliness to bless, to give life, to protect, and not ever, ever, just to satisfy lust. Second, young men are approved to be a model of good works. Good men do godly things and good deeds. There is a selfless service in a mature man, a nobility of aspiration about life. It is insipid young brats who live for self and friends, porn and video games, and for whatever they can get out of a pretty girl. Paul says the best thing you can do, young men is to find a job, blessed society. Take up a ministry and bless the church. Thirdly, young men should learn the Bible enough so that they can carry on and carry forth the faith with authenticity. They should be able with integrity to honestly represent what is the scripture with dignity, to lead a holy pious and godly life and with sound speech well-developed in theology and in ethics so that the world has nothing bad to say about us. Why? Because it is the young men who become the leaders of the church. The young men who are their pastors most of the time. It is the young men who are their deacons, their young elders. It is the young men who teach and go on the mission field and speak in the media. It is the young men who have the energy and the calling to lead the family which qualifies them to lead the church. If a young man loses the common faith, listen to the young men. If you young men lose this common faith, then it is lost for a generation. It is lost to the young women who are going to go and do whatever you want. It is lost to your children who will always look to dad to see what is really important, especially the little boys. It is lost to society because if the young men don't take it seriously, then nobody else should. After all, they are cool. If the young men who carry the whole ball of wax and all rest on their young shoulders, undergirded by their godly young women, their spiritual mothers, and their mentoring grandfathers.
It takes a covenant community, a multi-generational spiritual family to carry forth and flesh out this common faith. If I were the devil, this is what I do to undermine Jesus Christ's great plan. I would convince old men to try to recapture their youth and focus on being cool because I know that would make them look ridiculous and nobody would take him seriously. I tell the older women to search their rights and stand up to those old folkies, those chauvinistic pigs. I tell the young women to give the boys whatever they wanted so that they could secretly trap them into kids, nice, home, and an easy life. I tell the young men, it's all about you. It's all about your pleasure, all about your fun, all about your happiness. Why the last thing you need to do is worry about somebody else. Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow, you get old. But if I were God, I'd place all my children in a multi-generational family and I'd say, be a family. And if they did, I'd win the world and I'd change every culture where that family went. I'd give them something so powerful and beautiful that even those who were godless would say, there's something amazingly attractive about those.
We cannot do this without Jesus Christ. We don't have it in ourselves and our own strength and our own experience. So we come to this table this morning as God's family. Because in Jesus Christ is all the power of the divine community called the the spiritual family of father, son, and spirit. His life brings this potential into our life and our existence. This table is for his family, his older men and older women, young men and young women and their little children to come and feast on him. It's given to those who believe in Jesus Christ, who've been born again by the Spirit, who've been converted, who've been baptized, willing to affiliate and be a member of his community called the church, who are not under any discipline by the family for un-Christ-like living. And who are in good relationships with others, they love their brothers and sisters as they love themselves. For those people to come here will strengthen them in their community life. And for those people who don't meet those qualifications they're invited to stay and think about what I've said this morning to meditate on this beautiful symbol of a family at a meal time and to trust in Christ to come forward for baptism, to join the church and be part of God's forever family. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the way you've designed the church. It is absolutely marvelous, profoundly significant and powerful to accomplish the very things that you set out for us to do. We thank you for who we are, the stage of life we're in, for our age and experience, for what Jesus Christ has been doing in us over the short or long period of our life. However, that may be at this point. We thank you for one another, for the gifts and graces, for the callings and the experiences we've had that we can share with one another. Most of all, we thank you for our older brother Jesus Christ, that you are our Father, and that the Spirit is here through this supper to nurture us and undergrud us and care for us as a tender mother. We thank you for your sacred family, that makes us the kind to people we are today and the church for what it will be tomorrow, for the benefit of the whole world. And we come now in faith in Jesus Christ to this table, that you might meet us there and might die in with us, your family, and we pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.