Beautiful Resilience

Okay, good morning, church.

Is it on?

Is this can you hear me?

All right.

Um, the scripture reading for today is Titus chapter 2, verses 1 through 10.

Titus 2:1–10

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.

They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, for that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.

They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

This is God's word.

Please be seated.

And then there was a and so I was like, Matthew, could you fill in real quick?

But it was already taken care of.

So I send I sent up Matthew to do that.

Anyway, thanks for joining us this morning.

You weren't the lessons, though.

No.

That's called a callback if you were here last week.

That's one of our inside jokes.

So thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

Uh, so thankful to gather with you this morning as we continue here at the end of the summer working through uh Titus.

And uh today we arrive at one of the most common parts of Paul's letters where he applies the teaching that he has been giving to households and to the places in which the people who are in the churches that he's writing to will spend most of their time and just the ordinary uh uh day-to-day operations of their life, and he shows how the gospel informs those very ordinary places.

But before we get into uh today's text and and uh pray, uh I wanted to make a quick announcement for something that we're going to be offering this fall.

This fall, we're going to be offering a Bible study through Ephesians.

And we were discussing how to uh make this accessible and really meaningful for most folks in the church.

And so here's kind of our aim.

Our aim is to be supplying the content that you'll be studying and uh some guidance through how to study the scriptures and then allow small groups in our church.

We're thinking like the type of small that could be gathered around a dinner table.

Uh so that, and it at a a myriad of different times that we'll meet every other week and we'll be able to work through in these small groups the scriptures together.

One of the wonders of the revival that took place in the 1500s in in Europe, that is the Reformation, was this uh access to the Word that was given to just the members of the church.

And so much of that revival was sparked by people getting the word into their own hands and gathering in small groups and reading and understanding it together.

And this built a this built a type of resilience into the church.

And that's what we're gonna be talking about this morning, is is this resilience that we're uh that Paul is looking to build into the church in Crete.

But this built a resilience into the church and into the hearts of the people in the church because when they would then move throughout the world in an extremely volatile time in world history, they were able to uh say, I know what it says, I've seen it for myself.

And when you see it for yourself in the scriptures, there is a uh there's a grounding and a an effectiveness that comes from that in the word.

And so our hope is to be able to create that.

And, you know, uh Redemption Church Denver, with all your uh young kids and busy lives, I gotta be honest, you guys are tough people to kind of pin down.

And so we wanted to create a process where we were like, what if we had a lot of groups meeting at a lot of different times and folks could commit to a group for a season?

And every other week they'd be able to find a time that worked for them.

So we don't have times yet.

We're gathering at leaders for these groups now.

Um and uh if you're interested in being a part of that, you can uh reach out to me directly after the service or email me.

But we are uh the idea is that you could get like here's these five folks, and we're gonna meet at 7 a.m.

on uh Tuesday mornings, and that's the time that works for us, and so we're gonna work through this together over these next several weeks.

And so uh uh that's the that's the plan, and I just want to sort of put that on your radar of something to look forward to uh this fall, and I think it'll be really meaningful for our church.

Um I at the men's conference we were at last weekend, I was talking uh that church that it was at was planted while I was in college, and I was talking to a friend there who still attends that church, and uh we were talking about this Romans Bible study that we did together, our freshman year of college, and how that Bible study transformed our lives because we saw the gospel so clearly, right in the word, and it became undeniable.

And uh I would love for that type of resilience, uh that type of steadfastness to be built into our church where where instead of being so easily taken advantage of or steered by the uh the world, uh you'd be able to say, Hey, I've seen it.

And so we want to be a part of equipping you to do that.

So that's just a thing to look forward to uh and start praying about how could we do that or how could we be a part of something like that.

All right, now let's move into today's text and we'll pray.

Holy Father, we praise you for your loving kindness, your word.

Lord, that you have not left us to flail about, but all that you require of us, you have laid down clearly for us in your scriptures.

And Father, I pray that it is when we come to your scriptures, that we don't come to something that's so alien and foreign or uh something that's so erudite or impossible to grasp, but that speaks directly to us in the lives that we're in and in the seasons of life that we are in, Lord, as you'll instruct older men and older women, younger men and younger women, and even slaves to the context that you're speaking to in Titus.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to understand what these instructions mean for us and our place now, and that you would build us into our church this same sort of beautiful resilience that you sought to build into the church in Crete, and that by that you would preserve your church, you would make our witness meaningful and effective, and that we would preserve sound doctrine and the truth of who you've revealed yourself to be as a body.

Lift that up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I want to uh begin by looking at our uh the last verse that we looked at last week in Titus, and he's describing the type of people that Titus is going to be facing at the churches in Crete.

Paul is writing to Titus, and he's instructing him on how to care for the church in Crete.

And uh there Crete is uh a like backwards culture on the island, and the church in Crete has been influenced and impacted by, especially by uh these Jewish converts to Christianity who are saying that in order to be in Christ, you have to uphold the whole of the law.

And they're ignoring the reality that Christ has fulfilled the law.

And so they're seeking to impose their own moral structures and their own uh cultic practices onto the people in uh the churches in Crete so that they might gain a particular power over them.

In Titus 1:16, Paul describes these type of people.

Titus 1:16

He says, They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.

They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

These are the people that Titus is facing.

And this is not just a threat from outside the church, this is a threat from within the church.

This is taking place within the church in Crete.

So then understanding that helps you understand where Paul's instruction begins this morning, where he turns he sort of turns to Titus in the letter and he says, but as for you, in Titus 2.1, but as for you, you're you're not detestable, you're not unfit for any good work, disobedient.

As for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

And in teaching what accords with sound doctrine, what Paul is going to go on to describe is characteristics, actual things that we can do and embody in the ordinary places in our lives which accord with sound doctrine.

That means they uphold or they're attuned to sound doctrine.

Now, this is important because it's not that he says, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

And then he says they must be able to speak Greek, because then lest they won't be able to understand what it is, or they must be, you must teach all these Greek-speaking people Hebrew, lest they not be able to understand the true doctrines that have been laid down for it for us in the Old Testament.

He does not give them instruction on uh good Bible study practices.

Those those may come later and they may be a part of it.

Uh he doesn't say they must be able to ask what is the therefore, therefore, which is the Bible study trick of all tricks, in case you're wondering.

Instead, he teaches them that that which accords with sound doctrine is their lifestyle.

It is their mode of being, so that they are acting in righteousness.

So, sound doctrine, you hear that, and you probably think of like getting the right books on your shelf.

And if you get the right books on your shelf and you read those and you think what those right books think, then you'll have sound doctrine.

But that's not actually the way it goes.

You can have all of the right books on your shelf and you can think after those books, the things that those books think.

But if in your life you're harboring sin, and if in the ordinary path of your life you're living as the Cretans are living, in laziness and gluttonous, in thievery, in sexual sin, then it will become unsound doctrine.

And the sound doctrine that would that is meant to come into a church like that, it will not survive.

It will be bad soil.

But he's saying, in order for sound doctrine to take in the church, and in order for it to work, we must actually embody the doctrines that we are called to.

We must be able to live these things out, and then we will truly know them.

And this makes sense for the way that even Jesus speaks of knowing God.

He says, if anyone loves me, he will keep my commandments, and if he keeps my commandments, my father will love him, and I will love him, and will disclose myself to him.

So in obedience, there is this promise of Jesus disclosing himself to us.

This is the promise of Christian obedience.

And so, just as for the Cretans, their sinful lifestyles and their ways of living in unrighteousness, that is what leads to and promotes unsound doctrine.

So he is saying in order for the church to be able to stand against this and rebuke the unsound teaching, then you must live in accord with sound doctrine.

It must be embodied.

This must be a living faith.

And so Paul then moves into a section that is typical in his letters to the churches, which is a household code.

He goes through the different uh uh aspects of a household, and and you're meant to understand where it is that you fit into that story.

And then he's saying, now you live like this.

There are similar things that he calls each of these different uh groups of people to, but they are nuanced for their role in the world.

And in living that out and in these ordinary places, then the church is made beautiful, and the word of God is adorned, and it becomes a place that is resilient against the temptations of the world.

So Paul instructs five categories of people within the church in our text today.

He speaks to older men, older women, younger men, Titus, Titus, and also kind of the younger men, and slaves.

So these are the categories of folks that we're looking at.

So when you hear this, you you're going to need to do some imaginative work.

You'll think, okay, for some of these, you'll fit right into that category, and the instruction will apply directly to you.

For for others, it will not be a direct application, but you'll need to have some imagination and think, okay, this still applies to me in some way.

So let's begin with his instruction to older men as we see how Paul is seeking to build this resilience into the church.

His instruction is older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

Now you can understand this list in sort of two groups of three.

There's that first group, which is sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled.

And the second group is they're sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

Soundness is is true.

So that first group, sober-minded, dignified, and self-controlled.

These older men are meant to be like the ballast stones in a ship.

But he sells uh uh like countertops.

He sells rocks like granite and that sort of stuff.

And when we first moved in, I was like, oh man, it was right during COVID and or after.

And I was like, shipping has been crazy, right?

Hasn't shipping been in uh that's like what we heard all the time.

That's why everything got got so expensive, we were told.

Do you believe it?

And he was like, actually, shipping for I was like, shipping these giant stones all over the world.

That's gotta be so expensive.

I can't imagine.

He said, actually, you know what?

For us, it's not.

They it these giant shipping containers, they have to have us on board.

Because what they do is they load these tons of granite in the very bottom of the ship.

And so when they have giant shipments of our granite in the bottom of the ship, they can stack two more containers on top.

They can go two containers higher on the ship than they would be if we weren't in the ship because the ship is so stable.

So they basically we ship for almost nothing because they're able to profit so much more on each shipment by just having us in the boat.

And I thought that's a great sermon illustration.

So these older men are like those ballast stones in the ship, where when things are tossing and there's this expectation of we're gonna hit rough weather, they act as this steadiness that takes place in the ship.

So they they are sober-minded.

That means that they're not driven by their passions.

They're not easily taken advantage of or manipulated.

When things are freaking out and the waters are raging, they're in the bottom of the ship and they are holding balance.

They're dignified, which means they're they're not easily looked down upon, but they carry themselves in such a way that their words are able to be heard.

And so their steadiness is not just something that it that they contain within themselves, like they are, you know, lone monks uh who, when the world is swirling around them, that at least they're steady, but it is actually a steadiness that can be shared and received.

And they are self-controlled, which means that they aren't easily batted around.

Um, when this church was just getting started, Ryan, I'm gonna talk about you, but Ryan really served this role in a lot of ways because I did a lot of freaking out, and there's a lot of phone calls of like, everything's going crazy, the church is over, I don't have a job.

And um Ryan would use this analogy, he would say, Okay, I don't really understand this analogy, I gotta be honest, but I get the point of it.

He was like, say we're flying in a plane, right?

And when you're sitting in the cockpit of a plane, there's the you don't know how to land it, but there's all these different controls, and we're gonna land the plane.

There's all these different controls, you don't know exactly how they work, but there's tons of things we haven't tried yet to land the plane.

So we've got time.

We'll be able to figure these things out.

We'll try some other levers.

If those don't work, we'll try other levers.

And don't worry, we'll land the plane.

And I remember thinking, I I don't know anything about those levers.

It seems like if I pushed the wrong button, it'd be really bad.

But that's but but I also remember thinking, okay, Ryan says we'll land the plane.

He seems like he's able to be calm in this crazy circumstance, and that calmness became mine.

I got to participate in that.

That's what older men do for the church.

They are sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

So this means that their faith is true.

They really believe the Lord, that their love is tangible and real, and you can trust that they will hold on to the end.

They will be steadfast.

My wife's grandpa, his name was Bill, and uh, he was one of my favorite men to talk to.

And Megan and I used to would love going over to their house with like, you know, this season of young kids and life feels insane and so busy, and one of them's freaking out.

And um and they were they they had this capacity to just sort of be fine with it.

And to just offer advice, like, yeah, isn't this a wild season?

And that's not even really advice, it's just like, oh yeah, this is just a season, and they've made it through this, and they would pray for us, and I when when Bill would pray, I would just be like, it's done.

It's as good as done.

Like his prayers were as good as it happening.

Well, I've shared the story before, but I'll share it again.

Well, one time I grabbed lunch with him, and we were looking for a building for our church to meet in.

And this building was a long shot, and I really, really wanted it for our church to meet in.

And uh, I grabbed lunch with Bill at Parisi, just up the street, and as we were driving back, I was like, let me show you this church building that we really want.

And we pulled up under the uh port cocher, which is a word I learned from Krista.

And we um uh I was like, this is the building that I'm really hoping our church can move into.

And he goes, sounds great.

Why don't I just go ahead and hey bud, I know.

He said, Sounds great.

Why don't I just go ahead and claim this building for you in Jesus' name right now?

And you know, I'm reformed.

But he prayed and he claimed this building in the name of Jesus right now, and I drove away from here and I was like, we got it.

It's done.

Like we're where you've got the building now.

And and you know, hey.

Everyone, look around.

This is what older men add to the church.

Now, how important for a church that's being attacked by a wicked culture and where people are being taken advantage of, entire families are being upset by the false teaching of the Judaizers, which is attacking the freedom of the gospel.

And they're saying, in order for you to be saved, you must be circumcised, you must uphold the fullness of the law, you can't eat with those types of people, you must uh uh be under this yoke that that they know and that even they cannot bear.

And entire families are living crushed by this, thinking that they're pursuing the Lord.

And these old men would be able to say, Don't listen to that guy.

And it's like, well, but gosh, he seems really smart.

He seems to really know what's going on.

Yeah, he doesn't know what's going on.

I've seen folks like this before.

Look, what did Jesus say?

Jesus says he paid it all.

Paul, remember, he taught us there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Rest in Christ.

That's where life is.

Seek the Lord, that's where life is.

And then all of a sudden, this clarity is brought into the church.

This is the role of older men in the church.

And Paul goes on and he instructs older women.

In Titus 2, 3, he says, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.

So the older women, as Paul speaks of them, if I'm gonna, there's gonna be a bunch of metaphors.

Older women are like the immune system of the church, where they they uh defend against division and they multiply the health of the church.

They have this if there's a steadiness that's brought on by the uh ballast stones, then uh the what the women can offer is the multiplication of the more containers on top, is what the older women are able to offer.

And so they do this by being reverent in behavior.

Now, what is what it means to be reverent is you honor that which is honorable.

When things are good, you act in such a way that demonstrates their goodness.

You know, we can't tell what's good.

We we get really off and we get steered in all kinds of way, in all kinds of ways by the world into where our intuitions get wrong about what is truly good.

But older women, when they honor that which is honorable by being reverent in behavior, then they multiply the goodness that is here.

Then he offers some uh prohibitions as well.

They're not slanderers.

You see, in this capacity to multiply love within the church and to multiply our participation in goodness within the church by blessing things that ought to be blessed, that same capacity can become a capacity of division.

Because instead of honoring what ought to be honored, they could be slandering and slandering a goodness.

And all of a sudden, this thing, this power that women have that is meant to be a multiplicate multipli well, you know the word, multiplicative.

Thank you.

Power can become a divisive power.

And they're not to be slaves to much wine.

Now that at least means they in their uh older age, in their not having young kids at home or this household to manage in the same way, this is not a season to be checked out.

This is not a season to just be pursuing your your own pleasure, but it is it is a season to be multiplying love within the church.

And you can see how being slaves to much wine would be coupled with slanderousness because there's there's a looseness of tongue that comes with drunkenness.

And uh all all of a sudden, this opportunity to uh be like an immune system which heals over slanderous lies, which which moves through the church, or is able to heal over the petty divisions that we would make among ourselves, especially the the younger within the church.

Now in their reverence and behavior, they are able to multiply that goodness.

They'll they'll heal over those divisions.

Because here's with um uh young folks in the church, like when you're close friends, whenever you have a friend who's living even a little bit differently than you, it's like, oh man, I hate the way those people do it.

Or you feel you feel threatened by it or you feel condemned by it, uh, and you see that the structure of of their lives, and all and all of a sudden you're really um uh you uh it's like young folks are are just like, we're the ones that are doing it right.

If anybody's doing it differently than us, then they're the worst.

Or or just feel really suddenly condemned by the way that other people's lives are structured.

I think what older women are able to offer is like, yeah, I've seen things done that way, I've seen things done this way, and you know what, they can both be pretty fine.

Or, hey, this division among yourselves, this is like uh I love Freud's term.

I don't love a lot of Freud's terms.

Here's a Freudian term I like.

Uh, the narcissism of minor differences.

Um, it's why uh it's what what he uses to describe like the the more minor the difference, the more hostile the uh um at adversity.

Um that's it that's really common, especially like it in uh in a church setting where we are uh we're already very different from like you being here right now means you're already very different from most of your friends in Denver.

And you're you're already more like these folks in this room, but you can feel more distant from them because the distances are minor.

It's like men's clothing is all like little tiny little differences, and that's why uh Berkeley Supply can be like that button-down shirt is$479.

And it's like, well, it's the only one with Japanese denim or something, you know.

I don't know.

If any of you guys are looking to get me gift cards.

And these older women are to have a teaching capacity for the younger women.

In uh uh verses three and four it says they are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children.

You see that at these very points, which can become places of division and exhaustion, there's such an opportunity for bonding over a sort of resentment for your husbands or a resentment towards your children.

This is like the easiest way to immediately bond.

And I think that it is particularly easy for young women to bond this way.

Over like, let's get let's get together and we'll complain about our husbands because aren't they so annoying?

And like, can you believe that like he even asked to go on a bike ride this Saturday?

You know, something, which is something that husbands would do, and it's like you probably should have waited, dude.

But that can be like that was a that was a real life example from not my life.

Definitely my life.

Um but that can create such an opportunity where it's like we can we can create closeness in this relationship by triangulating out uh our husbands and our children.

And this is and there's like whole aesthetics around this.

Like you can, like, I hope like the wine mom uh sort of like trope is coming to mind when you hear this.

Like, turns out that's not just like a like a funny millennial Instagram thing of like the wine mom who is resentful of her husband and children.

This is also like a first century island of Crete thing, which makes you think perhaps this is just kind of what it's like out here.

Like, oh, this is what it's like to be a human.

And and so uh the the older women then in training the younger women to love their husbands and their children.

Do you see how they're acting like this immune system of this opportunity for division or to create bonding over division is now mended.

And it becomes a people where we are, we now these families are are there's not adversity within these families, but there's peace and love within these families because of the influence of the older women on the younger women.

I I've heard Krista say so many times that just about our church, heard her bless that the I'm not calling you an older woman, Krista.

I am than I am.

Uh man, the husbands and fathers in this church are so impressive.

I've just seen such an it just impressed me so much the care that I see them giving to their children, and and I heard I hear her say that to other mothers, and I and I thought, that's good.

That should, that should, that's a good blessing.

You know, that shouldn't be a uh that should be an ordinary pattern of of communication within the church.

And it is so strange as compared to the ordinary patterns of communication in the world.

So and loving children and husbands is not that's something that takes training.

Uh it is it is often the hardest places to love that require the most patience.

Um so that is the fruitfulness of the older women's lives.

And and then what the instruction goes on for the older women to continue instructing younger women to know these things.

So we'll pivot a bit to what the younger women in particular are being instructed in.

These things are to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

So it begins for the younger women, and these are younger women are called, just like the older men are called, to be self-controlled.

And so that means you're not being tossed around by the uh all the information that you have from the world of what it is that you are supposed to be doing.

I like I bet if I were to uh sit down with many of the young moms in the room and like we would scroll through your Instagram together, I bet it would be like like six posts before you saw something that in some way made you feel like condemned.

Am I right?

Nope.

I I'm right.

I'm right.

I'll take this moment to say it while we're in this argument.

Because it'll be somebody who's like, okay, listen, mamas.

We've here's something that I've noticed that I just feel like I need to call out.

And it's uh, you know, and it'll be like, I don't know, some honestly like ho horrible advice.

Like probably like horrible advice of like, don't, you don't need to discipline your kid.

You need to like like recognize their emotions, then have like a therapy session with your three-year-old.

While your three-year-old's like, I have no idea what's going on, like I don't have the capacity to do this.

Um and then you'll be like, gosh, I shouldn't have, you know, I need to learn how to do that.

And then when you sit down with your three-year-old and like try and like explore their emotions with them and see like that, like the idol that they were pursuing is guiding their lives, and that they and it's and it doesn't work, you're like, I'm the worst mom.

It's like, no, you're not.

It's just you've been given like an impossible task.

So it there's the I'm talking about self-control right now.

So the self-control is that you can you you I think this capacity is so hard for like young moms in particular.

You are going to hear so much.

You're going to be given so much advice, just an absurd amount of advice, an impossible amount of advice, and much of it contradictory.

You're going to need to be settled in your soul to say, the Bible will guide me.

That which accords with the truth of Scripture, I will be able to pursue.

And I am not missing out or being some terrible mother because of the ways that uh I need to be doing this, some other thing that I just learned about, but everybody is, of course, already supposed to know 100%.

You're just going to have to have like a spirit-empowered, uncommon steadiness uh to be able to hear things and say, that here's like one of the best marks of Christian maturity.

That sounds great.

I hope it works for them.

That's not the way I'm gonna do it.

That's a great mark of Christian maturity.

That sounds great.

I think that would be that would be great for them.

Uh I think that the Lord is calling me, and I I see that obedience to the Lord in in my house it can be expressed in in this way, in true obedience.

That and then that's it.

And it's not like it now every time you see that person or that they act in this particular way or something.

So it's like uh uh you're just like doing these like insecurity lash outs at each other.

So it's self-controlled, pure, which is like chaste.

So uh Paul describes throughout this that what the the the types of uh folks that are that are coming into the church that are invading the church with unsound doctrine are often coming through weak women that they are manipulating by by pulling them into lives of sin, particularly sexual sin.

And then they are using that manipulation to bring sound doctrine throughout the whole church.

And so what Paul is calling them to here is he is he's trying to make the church a bulwark against sound doctrine.

And so he is calling for this.

So there is a chastity and a purity that is to mark the young women of the church, which means that these are not young women who are who are seeking to just elicit the passions of the men around them, but they are acting in a chaste way, which honors themselves and honors their husbands and families before the Lord.

Working at home.

Would you step outside the Overton window with me for a second?

This is a word which Paul develops.

It's uh uh oikougos, it's a the combination of home and work.

And this is a call for women in particular, these these young women that Paul is speaking to, to see their homes as real places of fruitfulness.

So that they would understand that though the work that they are doing at home, this sort of this like very thankless work that is taking place at home and tending to young children and these things which can feel like, I think is especially in our culture, and they must have here too, like they're in the way of the true fruitfulness that you could be called to, that those are real areas of fruitfulness.

Now, our I have to spend some time on this because we're because uh our our culture is so distorted that even to honor uh women working at home and women having this particular domain of the domestic sphere, is it feels like oh no, we aren't allowed to say that.

But there is a particular giftedness that women have towards the home space in making it a place of real fruitfulness.

Now, this is of course true in childbearing and in bringing up children.

You know, there's uh my uh brother-in-law and sister-in-law just had a baby, and the baby's like less than a week old.

And uh my wife's been talking to them, and my brother-in-law is saying, like, man, like, do you not sleep much?

Is it true that you really like he's not sleeping through the night?

Is that okay?

And it's like, yeah, this is kind of what it's gonna, this is kind of what it's gonna be like.

But he his he the truth is like he can't do much.

Uh he can just be there to help his wife as she's breastfeeding and she's recovering, and she like the baby is still dependent on her body right now.

Now, we should not ignore this reality, that there's a this particular fruitfulness that women offer to the home.

Now, this of course does not mean that there's no such thing as women working outside of the home.

I know I I need to say that, but consider the the Proverbs 31 woman is is active in the marketplace.

Like she is making and selling things.

She sees fields and she buys them.

That's the compliment I love to give to my wife.

Babe, you see fields and you buy them.

But with it, with that in place and with our understanding of that in place, like he says he like we should not act like Paul is saying nothing here.

He's saying something real.

Now I also want to speak to this at a at a different angle because there is a I think that our church, especially that just the way that we're we've formed, the way that we are right now, this is a this is not a fun church to be single in.

Uh there's like it, there's so many young families.

And young families, we live in like this very narrow, banded schedule.

And so we're hard to get time with, and we're uh uh there's you know, the single people are like, you don't need to go on.

Like, I know, I know.

This is for the other folks.

But I know I haven't, I have, I have, um, I've been told, and I believe them.

This is a tough place to be single.

And I think it our culture is uh there there's there used to be this supportiveness for getting married.

Like you used to be able to just trip and fall, and you would end up in a marriage because the culture was just sort of like guiding you towards this.

Well, since we've lost the value of marriage, and since since the concept of marriage has literally disintegrated in our culture, and and it's in since the Obergfeld decision in 2015, I would say it's technically meaningless in our culture, then we have we have lost this category of marriage.

And so because so I think there are so many Christians in particular who are single now.

I heard one guy describe it, it's like if you're in a happy marriage now, you you got the last chopper out of nom.

Because it is so hard to meet someone who you would want to marry, and then and then a Christian as well, who you would want to marry right now, this is so challenging.

And so we have to I want to just I want to just acknowledge that.

And uh well, I want our church to be supportive of that, like that there's not this, like that the cultural divide between young families and single folks, I don't want to exist in our church.

I want there to be a much more overlap.

And that the uh uh the threat of like the the intramural sports of like the uh you know single working women or the stay at home moms, that this that that would not be a war, but that there would be a ground.

In the Lord, because we honor marriage.

Like in the church, we're one of the last places in the world that honors marriage as marriage, the fruitfulness and the goodness that come from marriage.

And this same guy wrote that if you're single, I didn't stay single.

So that's weird.

So we've got to be able to do both.

Now, part of what we need to get from Paul is that the state here's what's important.

The station you are in right now is the station in which you can serve the Lord.

The station you're in right now is the station in which you can serve the Lord.

So if you are uh single, don't wait until you're married to start serving the Lord.

But your life should be spent there.

And if you're a sink if you're a woman, it should be spent there femininely.

And if you are a man, it should be spent there masculinely.

And this means that this there is this there's this gift of flourishing, which is particularly domestic that women ought to be operating in.

Here's another example of just someone that I got to know.

Um her name was Ken Yin, and I spent a summer in Malaysia in in Kuala Lumpur, and she uh was Chinese Malay, and she Mark, you met Kengyin.

I had the biggest crush on her.

No, I didn't.

Um, she was uh in her mid-60s, I was 20, and um uh but I would uh Megan and I were dating at the time, and I would always I would tell her that, and she didn't like that joke either.

Um and uh she was not married, um and she was an electrical engineer for for uh offshore drilling platforms um in the South China Sea, as you do.

And her home, she was she was wealthy because of that job.

She was a she was a wealthy woman because of that job.

Her home was not like uh uh this uh you know glorious house of luxury, uh, but it was uh off-campus dorms right outside of the University of Malaya, and it was filled with young women who were attending the University of Malaya, who she gave housing and she covered their college expenses.

And she was a mother to these young women, and the house was full of life.

Now that is a per that that is fruitfulness.

That is fruitfulness in this in a means in a way where she had been gifted by God as a woman to be able to operate in this particular type of fruitfulness.

It was just it was amazing to see.

I just thought she was such such a fruitful person.

Okay.

And submissive to their own husbands.

So this is that they are honoring the structure of marriage that God has put in place.

And this type of submission to a husband, this is easy to do, easier to do for with a believing husband, with a husband who is pursuing after the Lord, so that your pursuit after the Lord is you're just able to more greatly enjoy this under your husband's pursuit after the Lord.

But if you have an unbelieving husband, this is particularly difficult.

That's why this is always a submission unto the Lord.

That the submission to the husband is finally a submission unto the Lord, so that it is a life that is laid down for the sake of the Lord.

And this uh makes that burden bearable.

And we should see a joy in this submission, that there is a joyfulness in receiving the leadership that husbands offer in marriage, that the word of God may not be reviled.

In this type of culture of church, in families that are held together in this strength of the pattern that's being shown, and in the fruitfulness of femininity and masculinity being expressed into the church, the church is not, the word of God is actually protected and honored.

And you can see that when these characteristics are taken out of the church, the word of God is not protected and it is not honored.

When there is no, when the encroachment of modernism means that there is no distinction between men and women, then you will see it is shortly thereafter, usually less than a generation, that all of the word of God is neglected within those churches.

So this is a preservative force for the Word of God.

Younger men in Titus.

So Titus 2, 6, likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

That's the only direct instruction to the younger men.

Get control of yourselves.

And it is a it is a powerful instruction, and I think speaks directly to this what makes young men dangerous.

Young men are sort of like the rudder of the ship.

And if they aren't able to control themselves, then the ship is just going to be going all over the place.

Being self-controlled means that they are not easily led astray by their passions, that they are not so keyed up about events that they're always flying off the handle in anger, or that they are not so uh pacified that they're unable to rouse themselves, to, to uh move into the fight that they're called to, to move into the real participation in life that they're called to.

You know, I think that there's this has always been a difficulty for young men, but but I think particularly now young men can have all of all of those good desires satisfied in a in one room.

Like they don't need to leave the room.

You know how you can tell a lot about your neighbors by the delivery trucks?

Do you do you guys know that?

Well, we we have we have neighbors, and you know the drizzly?

Drizzly?

Like the alcohol delivery?

I don't know it either.

I just well, there's just a lot of drizzly it showing up.

And and the the point is that like like you don't even need to leave your house to get a beer anymore.

Like, at least like you could like go to a bar and then you'd have to at like talk to a bartender and then you might sit next to someone who would talk at you.

Then at least to enjoy your beer, you'd have to be talked at.

It's a minor inconvenience.

But uh there the self-control is so needed for young men in our world because we just get devoured by our passions.

The temptation of pornography that just robs the moral character of a gener of a that has robbed the moral character of a generation of young men, that this needs to be stood up against and that you you need young men need to know you can take control of yourself.

Not that I not that this is, remember, this is not just general instruction to young men generally.

This is to Christian young men.

You have the Holy Spirit.

Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.

So I can say you can take control of yourself and mean it.

You can take control of yourself and not fall into sin by the power of the Holy Spirit, because you you have it.

That is so necessary for the church.

Otherwise, young men can be guided by lives that are just patterned after whatever I happen to want right now.

And that's the worst type of slavery.

Our culture describes freedom as being able to have whatever you want.

Though the Bible describes that as slavery, where it says, you can it now all you can have is whatever you want.

And you're enslaved to those passions.

Young men are to be set free from that.

Now he gives direction specifically to Titus, and he says, Titus, show yourself in all respects 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.

So you're supposed to show your Titus is meant to show himself and his teaching and presence in the church as a model of good works, that the doctrine that he is proclaiming would be manifest in his life.

And in his teaching, he is meant to show not charisma or not uh like you're able to, not salesmanship, but he is meant to show integrity.

So that means that when he speaks, the church would be able to say, I heard the word of God accurately conveyed to me.

And it was told to me in truth.

It was not given to me in such a way that I couldn't understand it or not be able to attain it, and it was not given to me in such a way where I actually have this anemic version of it where aspects of it were glossed over, and so I can't really trust it.

But it is taught with integrity.

It is taught with dignity, which means that the word of God is handled in such a way where it is not trampled on or it is not uh mocked or made fun of or held held with too light of a touch.

And sound speech that cannot be condemned.

This means it must be true.

It must not be uh it must not be the type of thing where it's like, you know, this can actually be broken down in a pretty simple way, or where you say something, but then it's like, yeah, but it's like you didn't really say that thing, you know, so you can't be held accountable for it.

We can become masters of saying things in ways where our words do something, they they accomplish the task that we're sending them out for, but then if the words themselves were pressed, we would be able to say, I didn't really say that.

It's like, yeah, but you knew what you were doing.

You know, and so this is we we've uh become masters of using language like this, where it's like look, just say just if you can make what you're doing with your words and what you're saying with your words map as closely together as possible, that is very, very helpful.

This has been a hard thing for me to learn.

I I thought that like salesmanship and charisma were sufficient for church leadership.

That lasted about six to nine months, and then I realized that this makes everything way worse.

I need to just say what's here.

And that is a lesson I'm constantly learning, but is absolutely necessary for the church to be preserved.

And then what slander may come, and slander will come, it must just be that slander.

Uh that they would have nothing evil to say about us.

You know, they uh a lot of times we think like um if if the word of God is being slandered, then it's because uh people haven't understood it.

But I think uh more often it's like, no, no, they get it.

Like one of the dangers of our present moment, I think, is um Christians thinking, I'm not like those Christians.

Uh once you get to know me, you'll see what it's really like, and I'm not like those strange Christians.

And you're often thinking of uh your aunt who posts on Facebook.

And your aunt who posts on Facebook is silly, and the things that she can't tell if it's she thinks that like the AI picture that she posted is a real picture, and it says, like, I love God and I love my country.

And it you and then you're like, well, don't think of me like don't think of me like her.

Look, but you know what else she says?

She says, like, Jesus saved me.

I repent of my sin to Jesus, and you you need Jesus too.

And if Jesus says it, that's good enough for me.

You know what?

That fool is right.

And you, as a, as a Christian, you are more like her than you are like the world.

And so you're gonna be thought of as foolish and slandered.

But make sure that the foolishness that you're thought of under is true to the Bible and is grounded in the word.

Slaves.

Titus 2, 9 through 10.

Bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters and everything.

They are to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

So Paul is uh about one-third of Rome was uh slaves.

And this is the important theme that I want us to see from this is that Paul is not saying in order to get in the game of honoring the Lord or of full necessary participation within the church, you do not need to change your station in the world.

Now we praise the Lord, do not have slavery in our culture like it was then.

But what Paul creates is this ability for these slaves and the station that they are in to honor the Lord by honoring the place that God has put them.

So that they are to be submissive to their masters in everything which was right for their station.

And that can be done in a way which cultivates resentment in the heart, and in a sense, like dehumanizes the master.

Or it can be done in a way which is well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything, now look at what the slave is able to do, they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

This is where I got the word beautiful for our for the title of the sermon today.

The slaves in their station, by honoring God where they are, make the doctrine of God our Savior beautiful.

The slaves do that.

You are in situations, or many of you are in situations right now that you did not choose for yourself and you realized you can't get yourself out of.

You would not have desired to be in a situation like this.

Some there's a family member who's sick, and now you have to take care of them, so your plans are on hold.

Or there's a job that you would rather quit, but you uh have an honor such that you're gonna see it through this difficult phase.

Although you wouldn't have chosen that.

You can honor the Lord there.

Consider these first century slaves.

They had a station in life which they could have been just utterly resentful towards.

But consider that they made the doctrine of God beautiful.

Be encouraged by that.

Now, this is all must be done under the banner of the grace of God.

This next verse, which is for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

All of these things which you are called to, whichever one of those groups you fit in or understand yourself to be in, this is only possible because the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

You are only able to act within the station that you are in and treat others within the stations that they are in with the honor that is due when you understand that it is Christ alone who we bow our knee to.

It is Christ alone that gives honor to the place that he has put me in this life.

And it is by grace alone that I am able to lay this life down in honor of him.

So now let us turn to 1 Corinthians 11 23.

Sorry, I hit a thing and lost my space.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way he o in the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, he took the bread and he broke it, and he said, This is my body which is broken for you.

And he took the cup, he said, This is the new covenant in my blood.

All that is required of us to in this is to preserve this sound doctrine.

And this sound doctrine is that Christ saved us, and that our lives are lived by faith in him who accomplished the fullness of our salvation.

The wonder that God saved us in Jesus Christ is fickle and easily taken from our hands, and so that we turn all sorts of other things into means of control and manipulation to justify ourselves.

You can only live freely into the place that God has called you as the person he has made you to be when you receive the fullness of the grace that he offers you.

Then when we seek to do that, we become resilient and even able to protect the goodness of this grace in us.

So we invite all of you who are baptized and who confess the name of Jesus as Lord to come to the table this morning and partake of this feast of grace that he invites us to.

So let me pray for this meal.

Holy Father, I pray that you would bless this time.

Lord, I pray that as we come, we would be encouraged and exhorted to live out these qualities that you have called us to as a church, and that you would make Redemption Church Denver resilient and beautiful, that it might be able to withstand the attacks against sound doctrine, and that we might hold fast to the wonder that you saved us, and that it is in you alone that we find our hope.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.