This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Lewis
Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland
County in Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Lewis as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
They should have a deep respect for the things of God to the
point where they show godliness or demonstrate godliness in
their own life. And these are men who should be
men of honor in the community. Men should respect them.
And I remember even the neighborhood I grew up in, there
were people who went to church. And even if you didn't go to
church, you respected these people because you watched their
life. You heard how they talked to
you. You saw how they treated their
wives and how they treated their children and how they conducted
themselves. These days, we're so quick to
look up to people whom we have little to no knowledge of what
their lives are really like. We idolize celebrities and
social media influencers based on an image of themselves that
they've catered to us. Today.
In Pastor Lewis's message, he tells you that men of God should
have a reputation for fearing God and it should show in their
everyday lives. Can that be said of you?
Do those around you recognize you as someone who cares deeply
about your personal godly character?
Now here's Pastor Lewis in Titus Chapter 2 with today's edition
of Living Waters of Grace. His closing remarks here in
Chapter 1 are tough, he said. You're abominable.
You're disobedient and disqualified for every good
work. I mean worthless and unfit for
good work. And, and, and when you look at
that, what he's basically saying is that even the things that you
do that appear to be good works, even that is defiled because of
what's in your heart, because your motives are impure.
You're unfit to do good works. You can't do a good work.
And I'll be honest with you, there was a point in my life
when that was me because the things that I there was some
things that I used to do that even though it looked like it
was for the good of somebody else, ultimately it was for my
own good. I mean, that started when we
were young with all of us, right?
You ever get up? I mean, I used to get up early
in the morning and mop the bathroom clean, you know, clean
the bathroom, go run the vacuum sweeper before my mom would get
up out of bed, you know, because she worked late night before.
And I would do all these things to make it look like that.
I'm being obedient. I'm doing, I'm doing you a
favor, mom. You know, I'm, I'm clean helping
to clean the house. But the reason why I was doing
is not because I was trying to be in obedience to her.
The reason why I was doing it because I knew I was going to
ask her for something later. I wanted to go out with my
friends later. And I knew that if I would do
all these things to have a show of goodness, to have a show of
obedience that maybe that she would give.
Oh, well, you did do this this morning.
So here, here's some money and go have fun with your friends.
It was all of it was a racket. It was a racket.
And that's just being honest about it now and then.
You know, unfortunately, when we get older, that doesn't stop.
That doesn't stop. It gets more mature.
You know what I mean? It gets more dignified, but it
doesn't stop, unfortunately, And this is what Paul is saying
here. Worthless, unfit for good works
because of their heart. So as Paul usually does, he he,
he begins by doing a contrast. I'm going to talk about what you
shouldn't be and what you shouldn't do.
I'm going to talk about the false teachers and the things
that they do that you don't want to do if you're setting things
in order. So now we're getting into
Chapter 2. We're going to crack.
You're going to crack the seal on Chapter 2 here.
And now you're going to see the first word is but and that first
word says, and that lets you know that we're changing course.
We're getting ready to change course.
And you know, we all love the butts in the Bible, right,
Because the butts in the Bible always let us know that we're
about to change course. So we're going to go from these
false prophets and these false teachers, and we're now going to
go into the qualities of what makes a sound church or a good
church. And he said, but As for you, but
As for you. And he begins to talk about this
contrast, this behavior of things that we shouldn't do.
He already talked about that what we shouldn't do.
And now we're going to talk about some things that Paul is
going to instruct Titus on what the church should look like and
what we should do. And in doing this, he's going to
look at 4:00 or I'm sorry, five different groups of people that
are in the church. He's going to look at the, he's
going to look at the older men first and the things that they
should do. And he's going to look at the
older, you know, the, the older women.
And then he's going to describe the things or, you know, the,
the good works of a younger man and a younger woman.
And he's going to eventually talk about even the things that
a servant or slave, because back in those times, a lot of people
were willing slaves. A lot of those people were
working and worshipping with their masters.
So he says, what should they do? What should their behavior be
like? So here in verse 1 of chapter 2,
he says, but As for you, speak the things which are proper for
sound doctrine. Speak the things that are
appropriate or fitting for sound doctrine, for healthy doctrine.
Healthy doctrine is supposed to produce healthy life.
It's healthy life. When you feed in the healthy
things, then you're going to produce things that are healthy.
And it's supposed to produce a healthy life.
Healthy works. And then he goes on to talk
about the first group he talks about is going to be the older
men. Now, these older men for Paul,
older men or back at this particular time, older men were
men that were over 50, OK. Because men who were like 50 and
under, they were actually considered young men.
They're actually considered young man.
Timothy was about 30 years old or so when he went on his
missionary trip with Paul, and Paul wrote him.
When Paul wrote the letter and sent him back to Ephesus, he's
about 30 years old. So he was young, a very young
man in a very aggressive church. Titus, on the other hand, is
about 40 years old at this time and he is the pastor of Crete
and he's actually helping to set things in order.
And not just the one church in Crete, but there are many
churches in Crete. And just as a side note, it's
not it's not necessarily clear that Paul actually started all
the churches in Crete because at Pentecost there were men that
was there, OK, in the upper room that were from other places.
And Crete was one of those places that these men were at.
So they were men who witnessed the Holy Spirit.
I'm sure some of these men became believers, went back to
Crete and possibly started churches even before Paul got
there. So Paul probably didn't start
all these churches, but while he was there, he was able enough to
see that not only church that he started, but also the other
churches were in need of setting things in order.
So he was there to. So he sent Titus there to clean
it up. So he said, let's look at the
behavior of the older men. Now, these are the men who
should be mature in the faith because they're older.
And he said they should be sober or in other words, clear minded.
They should be clear minded men, men who were able to think
clearly and have good judgment. They should be reverent.
They should have a deep respect for the things of God to the
point where they show godliness or demonstrate godliness in
their own life. And these are men who should be
men of honor in the community. Men should respect them.
And I remember even the neighborhood I grew up in, there
were people who went to church. And even if you didn't go to
church, you respected these people because you watched their
life. You heard how they talked to
you. You saw how they treated their
wives and how they treated their children and how they conducted
themselves. And these men were men of honor.
They were revered in our neighborhood.
If we needed counsel, if we really needed direction, we will
go to these men. We will go to these men.
It was customary in our in our neighborhood that there were
certain men that you would go to if you really needed good
counsel because these men were respected.
Temperate. That means having a life of
being under control, a life of self-control.
Sound in faith and the sound in faith is impossible.
I've always learned when I was learning about being sound in
faith or learning about being in the faith, I was always taught
that you should know who you believe, know what you believe
and know why you believe it so that you'll be able to give an
answer for the reason for the hope that is in you.
But you first need to know who you believe.
You need to know why you believe it.
And you and you definitely need to know what you believe.
Because if you come upon someone who wants to try to trick you
up, you need to know what you believe.
You need to know exactly what it is you believe.
And this is what these men are supposed to be.
Men who are sound in faith. They should be sound in love.
They should be sound in patience.
So these are men who should be able to understand what it's
like to go through affliction and not waver in their faith,
but to have patience even in their affliction, even in their
their trials, even in their persecutions.
They should have faith and have patience in it.
And then he said the older women, he said older women
likewise, that they be reverent in, in behavior, not slanders.
And it's not slanders mean not devils because the word slanders
actually mean devils, because it's devils who actually say
lies about people and damage their reputations and damage
their reputation. So it's like being little devils
out there, being in the the congregation of believers.
And it causes obviously it, it sows seeds of discord and it
causes division. So he said, you know, older
women, you should not be slanderers, should not be
slanderers, but you should also be reverent in your behavior.
And then he says, you know, obviously you shouldn't be
gossips and not giving too much wine.
It wasn't proper for women to be intoxicated.
You know, women shouldn't be intoxicated.
They shouldn't be under the influence of much wine.
You know, sometimes when women get under the, you know, these
women who were back in Crete, you know, some of these women
were probably drinkers, you know, at one time before they
came into the faith, they were probably a pretty heavy drinkers
and, you know, louder inhibitions to be lowered.
And they probably said a lot of things that they, you know,
probably wanted to say, but probably wouldn't say under or
unordinated circumstances or do things that they probably
wouldn't do under ordinary circumstances.
So they said that the women should not be given too much
wine, should be under control of that, and that and they should
be teachers of good things. And this really caught my
attention, teachers of good things.
And I had to think about teachers of good things.
Now, first of all, we all understand that good things
begin with what it is that God says we should do.
That's where good things began. If I want to teach my kids good
things, I'm going to start with the word of God.
I'm going to start there. And then everything else builds
from that. So I was just thinking about,
they should be teachers of good things.
And I, I, I made some phone calls because I really wanted to
get some perspective. I grew up as a teenager in the
70s. I have a sister.
I have two sisters that are older than me who grew up as
teenagers in the 60s. And I wanted to find out what
are the things that my grandmother and my mother taught
my sisters about being women, about being godly women, about
being women worthy of respect? What did they teach you?
What did she teach you? What did she say to you?
What kind of things did she make a standard in your life?
And then I called some other friends who were not as old, and
I wanted to find out from them. And these are, you know, people
who actually came out of godly homes as well.
What did your parents say to you?
And it was very interesting because when I look at the kind
of things that the older parents talked about, they talked about
dress, they talked about, you know, you know, how to carry
yourself, how to conduct yourself around men in mixed
company, how to conduct yourself, you with your
girlfriends. But you know how that's a
difference and how to, you know, how to clean your homes, how to
clean your house, you know, how to cook meals, learn how to cook
and all those kind of things. And then as the as the ages got
closer to where we are now, those kind of things are not
happening. Those kind of things are not
necessarily being taught in that way.
So when we look at the women, women are to be teachers of good
things here in the church. Women are important in this
church. You women are important because
you are the one that God is calling to teach other women
good things. And the good things that he's
saying that you teach them are the things that follow he said,
admonish them or advise them how to love their husbands.
And this is not just a romantic love.
Yes, you should love your husband romantically.
But this is it's not just talking about how they
romantically love your husband. This is also talking about how
to be committed to his welfare and well-being.
How do I commit? How do I build up?
How do I support this man of God that I'm married to?
How do I bless his ministry? How do I support him in his
ministry? And I have to brag about my wife
when it comes to that. If you would give me just a
second, Clark and I rotate teaching.
He teaches 3 weeks. I teach three weeks.
When it's my turn to teach, my wife takes things off my plate
that I don't have to worry about.
When it's time for me to put time into preparing to teach,
there's things I don't have to worry about.
She prepares the house in a way that my office becomes like my
sanctuary, and she does that not only in that, but in other
areas. Even where my business is
concerned, she comes alongside of me and helps me in a quiet
way, helps me in areas where I need help.
You women are the ones who build up your husband's if he's
successful in anything. Part of that is because of how
God used you. You younger women who are
growing up kids in a godly household with a godly husband.
You husbands don't have to worry about how your kids are being
taught if your wife is at home teaching your kids.
They are building the founder the fundamental building blocks
for what they believe that begins with mom and dad at home.
But while dad's out hunting, right, hunting and bringing in
the food, you know, paying the bills, he's out doing what a
father should do, right. Mom who chooses to stay at home,
who chooses to stay at home and take care of the kids, take care
of the home. What an important job.
And I just don't want, I just, I mean, because I know we live in
a time in society where it's popular for a woman to go out
and create their own way and to be professional when to, you
know, be in corporate America. And if women who like to do
that, that's fine. But I just don't want the women
who have made a decision to stay at home and take care of the
home. I don't want you to feel like
you're any less valuable because you are not.
You are very valuable. Very so teach them how to be
chased, how to be discreet homemakers, good obedient to
their own husbands and that's important that women need to
know that you are you know you you are to come under the
authority or come into the oath under the authority of your own
husband. That's not men in general, it's
your own husband and that the word that the word of God may
not be blasphemed. When you see a godly woman who
understands how to undergird her husband, how to be a help meet
to her husband. Just like we dwell with them
with understanding, they dwell with us with understanding also.
In fact, they probably understand us more than most.
And then verse 6, he talks to the young men and he says,
likewise exhort the young men to be sober minded in all things.
Exhort the exhort them to be sober minded.
That means then it's interesting that he had the shortest amount
of things for the young men to adhere to.
And the reason why is because the young men are really
supposed to pursue the traits of the older men.
They're supposed to pursue those things.
So they should be men who are watching the godly older men to
become godly. How to be reverent, how to be
sober minded and how, you know, how to do the things that are
mentioned here. You know, what was the other
thing here? How to be temperate and sound in
faith and sound in love, those things they're supposed to
pursue, you know, as they minister and as they watch the
older men. I wish that when I was younger I
had those kind of role models, someone who helped me to go
through things like this, to understand these kind of
scriptures. And This is why I love the word
of God, particularly in these particular epistles, because
there's so much instruction, direct instruction.
And this is what we really want when we come together.
We want to hear the heart of God and these and this is what this
is giving us, this true instruction.
So he said, likewise exhort the young men to be sober minded.
That means self-control because what really stumbles a young man
and basically wipes all those other things the way that he
should be is his lack of control.
Young men are always battling with this inner self-control,
you know, how to bring those things under control, you know,
and the only way we can do that is through the power of the Holy
Spirit, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
And then he goes on in here and he says verse 7, it says in all
things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works.
Now this is his advice to Timothy, to I'm sorry, to Titus
directly. He said look Titus as pastor, as
a leader in this church. You have to show yourself to be
a pattern of good works, and that's to be a pattern of good
works. That is just not to just do good
works, but your life must be. It must show a pattern of good
works. That's who you are, man.
That's who you are. You're spending time with the
Lord. You're spending time in the word
of the Lord. Let this word get in you.
Let as much of this word get in you as you're getting in the
word and come unto come under the authority of it.
Be obedient to it so that it becomes your way of living.
So when people see that, they see an example.
Listen, whether me and Clark want to know, want to believe it
or not, or every leader here, not just me and Clark, but every
leader in this house, whether we want to or not, we are examples.
Our lives are to be examples. If we're standing up here
teaching it, we got to be far, you know, first partakers of it.
Our life are supposed to be examples.
And that's that's one of the reasons why James says that it's
the, you know, it's teachers that have the stricter judgment
because our lives must be an example as much as it is that we
understand and declare the word of God.
So he says, make your life a pattern of good works and
doctrine, showing integrity, reverence and incorruptibility.
Show yourself of not being able to compromise and not being
corruptible or corrupted in anything that you're teaching or
anything that you're doing anything that you're doing.
And then we're going to close with this last line here.
It says sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an
opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say about you.
So in other words, people are listening to what you say, and
if you're teaching the Word of God, then that can't be
resisted. They know that that can't be
resisted. You can take them to the Word of
God and show that this is truth of what you're saying.
But what's even more important is the opportunity that you have
to show through your life that you're above reproach as well.
And this is what we're asking the help of God for.
Let us show in our lives that we're above reproach so that the
world see us. They can't point this thing at
us or that thing at us and say how you teach that that doesn't
mean nothing because look how you live.
That's bringing a reproach against the job.
We don't want to bring. We don't want to be blasphemed.
And a good example of that is Daniel.
Daniel's a good example of that over back in Daniel chapter 4,
when Daniel had a conspiracy against him.
He was a governor and he was about to be over all governors
because of how excellent he moved in his work.
The Bible says that he had a spirit of excellence and it was
pointed out. So those who were jealous around
him, they decided, well, we got to do something to bring him
down. They looked at his life, they
looked at how consistent he was and doing righteous things.
They couldn't find anything. They look at how he did his job.
He didn't take bribes, he didn't do anything that would be a
reproach against what he was supposed to do job wise.
So they couldn't find anything. So what they did was took.
Now listen to this and tell me this doesn't sound like today.
They took the good that he does and made it bad.
They were actually able to take what he does that was good and
turn it into something bad. That's exactly what the church
is dealing with today. Couldn't find anything else
against us. So now they have taken what we
believe, what the Bible says and turns that around now to be bad.
And that's exactly what was happening there.
But the Bible says let them not be able to speak any evil
against you. This has been Living Waters of
Grace, a ministry of Pastor Lewis Harrell of Calvary Chapel,
Westmoreland. Today's message has been on the
book of Titus. This book is a master class in
how Christians should live in modern culture.
Titus was ministering to the people of Crete, an island off
the coast of Greece, but he was facing many challenges.
The Cretans who came to know Jesus seemed to assimilate Jesus
into their existing culture instead of allowing themselves
to be transformed by the Holy Spirit inside of them.
Others were fully devoting themselves to Jesus but shutting
themselves off from the world around them.
The apostle Paul encourages Titus to help his audience find
a middle ground where they can live in this world while still
following a different way of life in Jesus.
If you would like to learn more about what it means to
faithfully follow the teachings of Christ in a world full of
darkness, we'd love to get connected with you in person.
If you are in Greensburg, PA, we'd love to invite you to join
us at Calvary Chapel Westmoreland.
We meet every Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
Ste. 6B. Also, if you visit us at
calvarychapelonline.com, you'll find links to our mobile app,
our giving page, and our contact form where you can leave a
prayer request if you have one. Before we go off the air for
today, we ask you to invite someone to tune in next time
right here on Grace FM 91.7 or streaming online at Grace Radio
dot FM. Word of mouth is the best way to
spread the good news of the gospel with those who are hungry
to hear. Until next time, this has been
another edition of Living Waters of Grace.