Sermon on Titus 2:1–11: How the gospel transforms every member of the church
A sermon from Latimer church on how the grace of Jesus produces godly lives across every demographic of the congregation.
Summary
This is a solo sermon delivered at Latimer church, preaching through Titus 2:1–11. James de Costobadie (Costa) opens with an anecdote about a traveller in India who was told "your Christ is beautiful, but your church is despicable," framing the central concern of the passage: that the lives of Christians should match the beauty of the gospel they profess. He works through Paul's instructions to five groups — older men, older women, younger women, younger men, and slaves — arguing that each set of commands flows from the transforming power of the gospel rather than from mere moralism. The sermon closes with a personal story about a church elder named Eric, who was killed in a workplace accident, whose quiet hospitality to a newcomer illustrated that gospel witness requires no title or gift — only a life lived in accordance with the grace of Jesus.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: "Your Christ is beautiful, but your church is despicable"
Some years ago, I heard of a young Christian man who was travelling through India. He was something of a new Christian himself, and he was looking for opportunities to share his faith. He found himself on one occasion falling into conversation with a local man.
"Your Christ is beautiful," said the man. And the Christian sensed a moment of opportunity. But then the man carried on: "Your Christ is beautiful, but your church is despicable."
What a tragedy that the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ should be marred by the ugliness of his followers. And even non-Christians know it should not be so. They know that those who profess faith in Jesus should live different lives. And they are very quick to pick up, of course, on churches or individuals when that is not the case.
Leaping straight into chapter 2, that's where this chapter comes in. We saw last week that there were many in the churches on the island of Crete who, as it says in chapter 1, verse 16, claimed to know God, but by their actions denied him. And chapter 2 helps us to see what real gospel transformation should look like — what the beauty of Jesus should look like in the lives of his followers.
The gospel leads to godliness, not just moralism
Right at the beginning of this letter, the Apostle Paul reminded his co-worker Titus that the truth of the gospel leads to godliness. Titus himself was leading churches on the island of Crete, which had an unfortunate international reputation for its crime-ridden towns and its untrustworthy inhabitants. But the gospel of Jesus would bring real change. Today we're going to see the change that message brings, and then next week, the reason why it changes people.
In some ways we really should not split up the two weeks, but there's just too much material to cover. It is important, though, to hold the two together, because Christianity is not just a list of do's and don'ts, of morals. It's not just that we need more instructions about how to live life. Christianity is not just about taking more responsibility, or making better choices, or tidying up our act, or pulling up our socks, or those sorts of things. You don't need to be a Christian to do any of those, and there are plenty of books on the self-help section of any good bookseller to assist you in it. The trouble is that those books will never transform either our hearts or our eternities. And the gospel of Jesus does both.
It helps us not just to turn over a new leaf, but to live a new life. It gives us a new life. In other words, it both saves us and then, empowered by that salvation — as we see next week — it transforms us. It doesn't just help us to change our behaviour from the outside in, following a set of rules, but from the inside out. His grace works on our hearts. We actually want to live differently. And so he changes our dreams and our desires, our aims and our ambitions, what we think is important and what we choose to overlook. He affects how we relate to people and how we want to relate to people — both those closest to us in our own biological family, but also those in the church family and anyone else we meet in the world. And perhaps most remarkably, he actually changes how we view ourselves, how we view the world and the challenges that we face in life.
That's why it's true to say that for a Christian, both in a way nothing changes and everything changes. Nothing changes in the sense that we still have to eat and sleep and do the normal things of life. God doesn't give us a personality transplant, and we still have the same limitations we did before. And yet at the same time we are completely changed in the way we view life — what's important, our priorities, our desires, and actually what we want for ourselves and, if we have children, for our children and grandchildren as well.
And so here Paul commands Titus: you must teach people what is fitting for them as Christians. You've got to teach people the outflow of the gospel. When you become a Christian, that's not the end of things. As we sometimes say, it's not bus-stop Christianity, where you then sit and wait for sixty years until Jesus comes and picks you up on the way to heaven. No, there's a life to be lived as you live out your faith. This is a very positive view of life — that we are now reconstructed from the inside out. First of all, God brings us crashing down as we put our faith in Jesus. Everything we lived for, we realise, falls apart because we were living for the wrong things. And then he puts us back together and gives us a new commission to live forever.
And so I hope these verses, which are so practical, will give us a great hunger to hear them as we think about how to live for Jesus. Paul has something to say to five different groupings or demographics within the church, which Titus needs to hear, and all of us here will fit into at least one of them.
Older men (verse 2)
First of all, older men. Verse 2:
"Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance."
Unlike the word "elder," which is used in chapter 1 and primarily refers to spiritual maturity, this is talking more, I think, about those who are of a certain age. Far be it from me, James de Costobadie (Costa), to publicise who in this congregation fits within this category — I'll let you work it out — but simply to say that if you are over the age of forty, statistically you're into the second half of life as a New Zealand male. So there you are; you work out what you think "older man" refers to.
Paul says to Titus, teach the older men to be temperate — literally meaning they are clear-headed, clear on what they're about, clear on priorities, clear on what's important and what's more or less important. And alongside that, he says, worthy of respect. The picture here is of the kind of person that a younger person could ask questions of and learn something from. What's kept you going as a Christian over the years? What have you found difficult? How did you keep going during the difficult times? How did you lead your family during the difficult times? Those sorts of things. Of course, to ask questions is a great way of learning. Older men should be those who are worthy of respect — the kind you would want not only to ask, but also to listen to the answers of.
Then alongside that, he says, self-controlled. Not prone to flashes of anger on the one hand, or just a general sort of grumpiness on the other, but rather self-controlled. Don't become stubborn — the kind of stubbornness that drags everyone else along with it when everyone else knows it's a bad idea. No, just be self-controlled.
And sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Those three words hang together to paint a picture of an older man who is solid in his faith but not hardened. It's not necessarily a good thing to become more conservative — that comes with the years, and non-Christians do that too. He's talking about being sound in faith, that is, becoming more shaped by the Bible, changing in line with the Bible. In love — developing, as you grow older, a love for people as well as for Jesus. I don't think that comes naturally with the territory; it needs God to work within us to give us an increasing love for people, an eye for younger people, to encourage them. And also in endurance, because God in his wisdom brings fresh challenges throughout life, and you have to keep running until the very end.
When you're younger, I think it always seems easier to be a Christian when you're older. But those who are older tell us it really isn't. There are new challenges at every stage of the race. So we have to be on our game and, in the strength of Christ, keep persevering.
So that's the older men. And if you'd be so bold as to put yourself in that category, there are some things here for us to pray through for ourselves as well as for others in the congregation.
Older women (verse 3)
Then, older women. Verse 3:
"Likewise — that is, also in accordance with sound doctrine, also fitting with the gospel — teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good."
For older women, as those who have been saved by the grace of God, teach them to live out that grace. How wonderful to be a gracious older woman.
The headline statement comes in verse 3: to be reverent in the way they live. In other words, to revere God, to live life as someone who fears God, who knows that God looks upon us at every stage of life, that his eyes are on us, that his face is turned towards us. As an older woman, you should have the maturity to realise that. I think it's a word against blowing hot and cold. No culture, no individual naturally thinks like that. They may fear plenty of other things — the state of the world, the state of their bank account, being out of control in life, what will happen to the children or grandchildren. But the mature Christian woman is not to be like that. She is to fear God, to be directed towards him in her mind and in her mind's eye. Imagine how that would change the way you live today. It might change what we look at, what we say, how we speak, how we react or respond in different situations.
There are two negatives he mentions. Don't be slanderers. To slander means to say something false about someone, to lower their reputation, to paint a picture of someone that's not accurate. And often we do that unwittingly to promote ourselves — to make us look better even as we make someone else look worse. Don't do it. You don't have to say something negative about someone else.
And secondly, don't be addicted to much wine. That can happen gradually. It can happen easily. It can happen out of boredom. It can happen without realising. Costa's wife Theresa, who works in the gastro department in the hospital and deals with alcoholics, says that one of the things about that is that it cuts through all demographics of society. It's not just one type of person. And all of us need to be on our guard in that way, including older women.
Instead, older women have a very important role. They are to be productive, because at the end of verse 3, they are to teach what is good. What can be time better spent than helping the next generation devote themselves to Christ? And you see in verse 4 that he has in mind that they will teach the younger women.
So older women who perhaps feel, "I don't know what I've got to contribute — maybe an empty nest, maybe living alone, maybe I feel I haven't got much to offer" — Paul says far from it. You have an absolutely critical role to contribute.
Younger women (verses 4–5)
It comes in verses 4 and 5, in helping younger women. Verse 4:
"Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."
There's a bit going on in that verse, and there's a lot for older women to pass on, no doubt, over a period of time.
Interestingly, there is a category given here that Titus himself is not to teach — the younger women. In passing, I would point out that it's not just women who have restrictions on teaching, but so do the men. It's not up to Titus to teach, at least in any personal sense, the younger women. Rather, the older women should do that. Maybe that's to avoid impropriety, but maybe also because older women are simply best placed to teach younger women how to negotiate the different stages of life in a Christ-like way.
I don't want to get myself in hot water here, but I think it's fair to say that for women — at least for women who do marry and have children — the seasons of life are much more varied than they are for many men. Fellas sort of start working at a certain point in life and keep chugging for a few decades and then hopefully one day retire. Things might change, but they sort of keep on going. Whereas for women, the stages of life can be much more pronounced. And who better to help us negotiate those new stages of life than someone who has themselves gone through them and experienced them? That seems to be the emphasis in these verses.
Verse 4 is a fascinating verse. In a church where certain people were, we're told, ruining whole households — as we saw in chapter 1 — Paul takes steps to address the Christian living of the household, and in so doing speaks of the need to love husbands and children. In a Greek culture, love was not known as being the first characteristic of domestic relationships.
He's obviously speaking here to women who are married, and he doesn't seem to address so much women who are not married. But I would point out that by derivation, older women who themselves have been single can be a great blessing both to those who are married and also to single women, to show them a way by which to live productive lives. And in verses 4 and 5, there's definitely an emphasis on productivity which is not unique to those who are married — it should be true for those who are single as well.
For those who are married, there does seem to be a priority order. Verse 4: they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children. I think it should be reassuring for younger women that loving husbands and children doesn't seem here to always come naturally. And we may know that to be true in theory. Even on someone's wedding day, they may think, well, there could be tougher days ahead. But when we eventually reach those days, life can be a real struggle. And when marriage is a struggle, and loving a husband is hard, or loving children is hard, and when we feel that we ourselves are not receiving much positively, we are still being called to give — with kindness and gentleness and without bitterness. It's very hard. When children are grateful and they listen to us and they do everything we suggest, absolutely fantastic. But the other times can be difficult. And who better to help us at such times than an older Christian woman who has had to walk this path ahead of us and who understands some of the pressures?
I think it's significant here that the first duty of a young woman who is married is to love her husband and children. The verse doesn't say anything about paid work and the place of that — obviously it's a different culture to our own — but whether a younger woman does do paid work outside the home or doesn't, there's still a priority given here towards the caring for and the loving of the husband and the children. And other passages, of course, would point to the need for him to love his wife as well.
Alongside this, the younger woman is to be self-controlled and pure. In other words, to have a household which honours the Lord, younger women need to have a degree of personal constraint in matters of sexual practice. And if that was true back then, how much more true is it today? You think of the phone and the temptations it causes — pornography, yes, but also the possibility of unwise contact with people, and sometimes through boredom or through temptation, striking up too close a relationship with someone and the sending of too many messages. That requires self-control. Where is this heading? No, I need to pull back from this. Self-control and purity — if that's our weak spot, let's watch out for that.
And rather, verse 5, to be positively productive — to be busy at home. I don't think the emphasis there is so much on being at home; you'd be busy wherever you are. Be productive. Don't live fruitless lives. Don't live indolent lives. Be fruitful and productive. You may laugh at that if you're in this sort of category of person — it may be that you're not able to spend your days having coffees with friends all day, every day. But the point is, nor should we aspire to do that. It's good to see people, of course, but we should be aspiring to live productive lives, first of all in the home.
And as we do so, verse 5, to be kind. This is not about setting up an idol. This is not about trying to run the perfect home. This is not about purging our souls by making the home absolutely spotless. It's about creating an environment where others can thrive — a kindness towards people. Don't forget the people we're living with. There's a relational emphasis here.
And finally, the older woman should be teaching the younger to be subject to their husbands. This is one of five New Testament passages teaching that a wife should live under the leadership, the headship of her husband. I should say that it doesn't mean putting up with an abusive relationship — it never means that. And within church, if that were you, I would always encourage you to share that with someone. Come and see myself or someone else that you trust, and let's talk through how to help you, or even get you out of that situation. He's not talking here about abuse.
He's talking about a general principle — to be subject to their husbands. In other words, the older woman is to be teaching the younger woman how to live in such a way that she promotes her husband, to help him become a better leader of the family. And a smart wife will not want to win the battle on every front, only to lose the war of making her husband someone who dares not raise his head above the parapet. In other words, if you criticise your husband for asking a question because you feel he should have known the answer — maybe you're right — but if you're not careful, he'll learn pretty quickly not to ask any more questions, and you'll be the worse for it. So just humour him. Give him an answer. The younger woman here would be wanting to promote her husband's leadership.
And the point is that if a woman leads a godly life such as this, it will have a powerful effect on gospel credibility. People will see that the gospel makes a difference, so that no one will malign the word of God. And the person best placed to teach younger women in this is the older women. So I'll shut up and leave that to them.
Costa notes in passing that it's a great benefit being part of a church family where you have many older women who've been through all sorts of situations in church life and are a massive fountain of wisdom for those who come afterwards. To be in a growth group that has mixed ages — I know sometimes people want to be with their friends, and there's a benefit to that as well, but there's a benefit to being with people who are different to us so we can learn from them. We are really blessed at Latimer to have many godly older women who are able to be of great benefit to those who are coming on afterwards at a younger stage of life, including Renee Santich, who is a wonderful women's trainer, and Sarah Lynham, who works alongside her, and others as well.
Younger men (verse 6)
So — older men, older women, younger women, and then, wait for it, younger men. Verse 6:
"Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled."
What? Is that it? That doesn't seem fair. Only one command. It's a bit easy. Well, maybe. Or maybe they can only cope with one command.
Verse 6: encourage the young men to be self-controlled. Here is such a test for young men. Interestingly, self-control is the only quality actually applied to every grouping. It's so important because self-control speaks of our hearts. Will we have a life controlled by the gospel, or a life controlled by ourselves?
So for young men, you are encouraged to be self-controlled in use of time. Don't just spend hours and hours and days and weeks doing the same game over and over and over again. Do something more useful. Be self-controlled with your time. Be self-controlled in manner — you don't have to be rash or hot-headed about things just because someone's asked you to pick up some clothes or do something else. Be self-controlled in regard to sexual practice. Ask God for help to be self-controlled there.
And the fact is that Titus is to have a special input here, a bit like the older women with the younger women. You see in verse 6, encourage the young men to be self-controlled, and then there's a word for Titus: in everything, set them an example by doing what is good. Titus, don't just lecture them — you know, the attention span and all of that. You can't just keep bleating on at them. Set them an example at the same time of how to live a life that is productive, useful, kind, and loving. Set them an example by doing what is good.
And there's a word there for those of us who are a bit more in the middle-aged category. Set an example for the younger guys showing how they can do good. Just on a minor note, there is nothing more painful than seeing a group of fellas chatting together while a poor woman walks past with two tables and six chairs, shifting some of the furniture. So if you're in Titus' bracket, have your eyes open. What can I do that's good, that helps?
It was wonderful, actually, a week or two ago — we had the Sunday school teachers here, and there were one or two men teaching in kids' church. I do think, going back a generation or so, we actually had more men teaching in the kids' groups. It's a great example of doing what is good. And we are fortunate to have many fellows who apply themselves to this.
So in everything, set them an example by doing what's good. Don't just pontificate and keep preaching at them. But in your teaching, do show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned. Titus, teach what is true from the Scriptures. Keep on teaching. Teach in such a way that people realise it's important, it's life-changing, and they should conform to this. And again, for gospel credibility, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. It's all about living a consistent life, because grace brings godliness.
Slaves (verses 9–10)
Lastly, slaves — because no one is exempt from the gospel taking effect in their lives. So it should have an effect there as well. Verse 9:
"Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive."
When you read of slavery in the New Testament, it's not the same as, let's say, chattel slavery of the nineteenth century — the horrendous kidnapping of people from a continent and their being enforced as slaves in another continent on a plantation or whatever. This was a very different type of slavery. Slaves were often respected. Some did have the tough end of the stick, but some were in quite well-respected positions with considerable responsibility. Maybe to us, standard employment has some overlap here. That's what you do when you sign a contract, isn't it? You're now in a certain kind of way bound to your employer. So let's see if we can learn anything.
Try to please them and don't talk back to them. Don't be uppity. Be humble, befitting of your position. It's sometimes said now of younger workers that they want everything within two months of joining a firm. Well, just get your head down.
Verse 10: not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted. Don't steal from the employer. Don't walk out with stuff in your pockets. But also don't steal by being a bit grey in your timesheets. Be scrupulously honest — and for that matter with sick days as well. Be someone who can be trusted. In other words, whether the boss is at work or not at work, you put in a good shift, so that you are trustworthy. They know that you won't just be surfing the net for hours. Be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive.
Nothing creates cynicism for the message like someone who professes with their mouth to be a Christian but whose life tells a very different story. Don't be like that. Be a good worker that the master would speak highly of, and that makes the teaching about God our Saviour attractive. Are we doing that? Do our lives back up what our lips are saying?
So these are all things that flow out of the gospel of grace. And next week we'll look more fully at the connection between those two — how is it that the gospel of grace does change us? Here are the changes we're to see.
Three closing observations
I'd like to finish by making three very quick observations.
The first is that everyone should be transformed. Paul is speaking here to all different types of people in church life. We should all be transformed. In chapter 1, he had something to say about elders in particular. This is for everyone, including slaves. So let me ask you: how do you intend to be transformed in the year ahead? Is there one thing here that you would pick out — something you'd like to work on this year? Everyone should be transformed.
Secondly, everyone has responsibilities — meaning responsibilities to each other. This is the benefit of being part of a church where you learn from each other, where you learn how to pray for others. Many of the categories here will be different to your own. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have an impact by praying for people who are in those categories. None of them are easy or straightforward. Let's pray for each other, and some have responsibilities to help and model the Christian life to each other in particular, as we've seen. Everyone should be transformed. Everyone has responsibilities.
And then thirdly, everyone is a witness. That comes out so strongly — how we live has an effect on other people. And just to demonstrate that, I'd like to tell a brief story as I close.
A closing story: Eric's witness
Earlier on, we met Luke, who has begun an apprenticeship here. A number of you may know that in a very tragic accident, Luke lost his dad two weeks ago in a workplace accident when he was killed suddenly on a building site. Eric's funeral was this past week.
At the funeral, Costa stood at the back. A few minutes into the service, a young guy came through the door at the back and stood next to me. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and looked a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit out of place. In a break in the service, Costa said to him, "Did you know Eric yourself?" He said, "I did." He was a bit emotional. He said, "I started coming to this church" — he held a different church where Eric was — "I started coming to this church a few months ago. And I'd come from overseas, I think he said. And Eric took me under his wing and had me round for some meals and has really helped me to get settled in this church. And I'll really miss him."
Now, as it happened, Eric was an elder in the church. But what struck me was that this had nothing to do with his position, as far as I could tell. This had nothing to do with gifts. You don't need a role to be a witness. You don't need gifts to be a witness. You live the Christian life and you will be a witness, because you will make the teaching of the grace of Jesus Christ real to other people. Even on a Sunday, when you meet people and show an interest and a love, you will make the gospel real for them.
Our Christ is the most beautiful person of all. And we have this wonderful privilege and responsibility to show that to people by the beauty of our own lives.
Let's pray.
Dear God in heaven, we do thank you so much for your grace towards us. We know we don't deserve these things. We don't have anything to contribute, Lord, by ourselves. We simply ask that you would work within us individually and as a whole church together, Lord, to help one another grow, to become like Jesus. And as we do so, we pray that you'd be pleased to use us to adorn the message of the gospel for many, many other people as well. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.