Lives Fit for the Gospel III (27 September 2026)

Amen. Amen. Well, it's great to be together. Let's turn our Bibles to Titus chapter two and as you're doing that, just want to pay just a little bit. Put more attention on this family Falls festival next week.

Would love to see you there. Staying after for church. This, these invitations have the times of lunch and games activity. But let me encourage you to not just invite someone to our fall fest, but that this would be an invitation saying hey, would you come to come with me to church and then hang out for lunch and some fellowship afterwards? That way they not only get to fellowship with the church, but they also get to hear the Gospel.

Amen. So I want to encourage you to pray. Lord, who would I have invite? Because obviously this is a great chance for us to gather and have fun. We also want to make much of Jesus when people who don't have a home, church, or maybe potentially not following Jesus right now to be able to have the opportunity.

So thank you so much for your partnership and just praying and inviting someone see what God can do as as we gather again, we're going to be in Titus chapter two. We've been in a series called Lives Fit for the Gospel. And in through Titus we've been looking and asking Lord, what is it that you want to say to us as your people about how we can begin to align our lives and so that they it currently I mean it truly is fit Lord, fitted to your gospel. So we're going to be reading in Titus chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, all the way to verse 10. So let's read this together.

Titus 2:1 through 10. This is what it says. You however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self controlled and sound in faith and love and endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanders or addicted to too much wine, but to teach what is good.

Then they can urge 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. Similarly, encourage the young men to be self controlled in everything, set them an example by doing what is good and your teachings show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. Teach slaves to be subject to their masters and everything to try to please them, not to talk back to them and 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 Savior attractive. The word of the Lord.

Let's pray. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we thank you for this word this morning that is read aloud and that we ask, Lord, that we would have ears to hear by your spirit, what it is that you'd like to say to your church this morning. Lord. We pray that, Lord, my words would truly be a vehicle for your spirit that as feeble as they are, Lord, we thank you for the mighty power of the Spirit that can begin to touch lives and hearts as we open ourselves to to you. So, Lord, lead us in all truth by your spirit this morning.

Help us hear, Lord, what it is you have to say to each one of us. And also today, corporately, to your church. We submit ourselves to it in the name of Jesus. Amen. You know, today, sometimes it can be lost on us how much we have the luxury of deciding who we are in all kinds of ways.

I want us to think about it. We decide who we date, who we marry, or whether we stay single. We decide where we want to live. We decide whether we go to college or move right into the workforce. We decide what kind of work we want to do.

And if we don't like that work, at least theoretically, we can go find something else. Most of us grow up assuming that we would learn to read or write. We probably never wondered whether we would go to school. The question was where we would go, how long we would stay, and what we would do when we finished up. Now, with all this in mind this morning, I want us to step back in time for a moment, imagining we live in 1st century Crete, a tiny island in the Mediterranean where Titus was asked to minister.

And in the ancient world, if we begin to imagine a lot of these choices that we just talked about simply were not available. You're born to a family, and that tells everything about every part of who you are, your social standing. It shapes the kind of work that you do. It shapes the people you know, the opportunities open to you and what people expect from you. If your father's a farmer, for example, you also most likely will be a farmer with little choice otherwise.

If he is an artisan, a potter, or a carpenter, you probably begin learning the work at a very young age. While you're still young, start working on your own to do the very thing that you once saw your father do. So you don't necessarily get to 18 and start asking what do I want to do with my life? That's already been decided way before you get there. A lot of your future has already been decided for you, shaped by the household you were born into.

And that is if you're male. If you're born female into an ordinary family, first century cre, your world becomes even tighter. Chances are you will never learn to read or write. If you happen to be in the small minority who are born into a wealthy family, you may receive an education. But for an ordinary woman, that's just simply not the case.

Instead, from the time that you are young, you are learning the life and work of your household. You can be making clothing, preparing food, helping with the family business, tending to animals, working in the fields, or doing whatever kind of work keeps the household going. And that's because in the ancient world, home and work are not two separate worlds. In other words, husbands and wives are not loading the kids into the minivan and dropping them off at school and, and then heading in their different directions to work. But neither should we picture.

Like some of us are familiar with the 1950s, where husbands leave for work and the wife stays home as a homemaker. The household itself in the ancient world is a place of work. If your family farms, the entire household is involved in that work of the farm. If your family has a trade or business, that work will happen in or around the home as well. And so children grow up around that work and learn to contribute to it.

Marriage is very different too. Your family is deeply involved. Marriage connects households. It can involve property, reputation, economic interests, and social standing. So the person you marry is probably not someone you fell in love with.

It's someone your family chose for you or helped you choose. And you may marry much younger than you would today. Now, finally together, let's imagine being born enslaved. Now the difference becomes even greater. Someone else may decide where you live, what work you do.

You can be bought or sold legally. You can belong to somebody else. So just imagine the differences in the world that we are called to inhabit when reading scripture. For a moment now, imagine spinning yourself in that world. But then into that world comes this strange announcement that Jesus Christ is Lord.

And suddenly there's these little communities starting to pop up and form across the island. We call them churches, and many of them are meeting in homes. And some of those same people that we just talked about are gathering together in the same room. You have people with money and social standing along with those who were enslaved. And somehow all of them have been brought together by the same gospel.

And they begin discovering a new way of relating to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul puts it this way in another letter, he says, in your community there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor, nor free, nor there is male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Paul says this in Galatians 3:28. And this gospel begins to unsettle some of the world that they have lived in. They find this new common life together.

And yet enslaved Christians are still enslaved. When the gathering ends, the woman still walks back and into a patriarchal society. The person with very little status will still live in a world that gives enormous status to someone else. Except now people around them know that they follow Jesus. Their families know, their neighbors know, the people they work with know.

And these people around them are not only going to listen to what these Christians say about Jesus, they're going to watch what. What happens in those people's lives. So here's the question this morning. I want us to carry into this passage. What would make anyone looking at this little Christian community believe that their gospel was actually true?

Back in 1982, Johnson Johnson faced a crisis that would have destroyed one of the most trusted products in America. It started in the Chicago area. Several people suddenly died after taking extra strength Tylenol. And when investigators began looking into it, they discovered that someone had taken bottles of Tylenol, opened them and put cyanide in some of the capsules and then returned it into the store shelves. And as a result, seven people died.

And almost overnight, people became afraid of taking this medicine. Now, years before, Johnson had put in something written within their their company called their credo. Basically, it was a statement about what kind of company they wanted to be and what they believed their responsibilities were. And right at the beginning of the credo, it said their first responsibility was to the doctors, to the nurses, to the pat mothers and fathers and everyone who used their products. Now remember, Johnson Johnson had not put the cyanide in those capsules.

The tampering happened after the bottles had left the company. But people were still dying from their product. And so the company had decide what they were going to do, right? This whole credo they had. It sounds like a great marketing strategy, right?

You could put it on a wall, you could put it in a handbook. But suddenly Johnson and Johnson was in a situation where, where those words were going to cost them something because people began asking, do you believe what you say that you actually believe? And as a result, the company eventually made the decision to pull Tylenol capsules from store shelves across the country, something like 31 million bottles. It was enormously expensive decision. The recall and everything connected to it cost the company more than $100 million.

But when Tylenol eventually returned to stores, Johnson Johnson introduced new packaging with multiple safety seals so customers could tell whether a bottle had been opened. And what I find so interesting about that Johnson Johnson story is that their credo did not suddenly become true in 1982. For years, they had been saying that their company valued the people who used their products right. But the crisis simply gave everyone a chance to see whether those words actually meant something. And I think something similar is actually happening here.

In Titus 2, the Christians in Crete have a credo as well, that Jesus Christ is Lord. But Paul seems to believe that those beliefs, that confession needs to become visible in the kind of people that they are becoming. He tells Titus to give specific instructions to these Christians on how to live in light of what they say they believe. Older men, younger women, older women, younger men, even enslaved Christians. And what he tells these Christians in How we Live is deeply connected in his mind to how the Gospel is seen and believed by others outside of the faith.

Let me show you what I mean on your screen. And for those who are perhaps difficult with seeing, such as myself, this may be a little difficult. But if we can have this on the screen, I want to show you what Titus is actually doing and shepherding us through. Because if you notice on the screen, there's three times he gives the reason of why he is giving these instructions. Those are in red.

So he says in verse five, so that no one will malign the word of God. In verse 8, he gives instruction and says, so that those who oppose you will be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. Verse 10, he gives another reason so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. I want us to notice what Paul is doing here. Three times he tells these Christians not only how they should live, but why it matters.

In verse 5, the younger women are to live faithfully so that no one will malign the word of God. In verse 8, Titus is to live and teach with integrity so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about you. And verse 10 even tells enslaved Christians to be trustworthy so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. So do you hear what Paul is concerned about? He's concerned about Christian witness because he knows the people outside those little churches are watching.

What kind of Christians, Christianity is producing. So he tells these believers, your lives can either help people see the beauty of God or make that beauty harder to see. And I think that helps us understand why he cares about all these ordinary things. Self control, speech, marriage, work, integrity. Because this is where people actually see Christianity lived out.

Has anybody heard of the Waffle House Index?

If you've never heard of it, the former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate became known for paying attention to whether Waffle House restaurants were operating after major storms. True story. Here we go. See, Waffle House has a reputation of staying, opening of open, right. And reopening quickly even under difficult circumstances.

You ever noticed that before? Like what's open? Well, Waffle House is open, right? Everything else is closed. Walmart's closed.

But Waffle House is open. So there was a simple informal scale for fema. This is how they use the Waffle House Index. If a Waffle House that had been affected by a recent storm was open with the full menu that was green, if it was operating with a limited menu, code yellow. If it was actually closed, code red.

This is really true, guys. The FEMA director Fugate once put it this way, quote, if you get there and the Waffle House is closed, you know you're in a bad situation. That's where you go to work. Which is never a sentence I'd expect to hear from the head of fema. Right?

But think about why that works. Right? The Waffle House doesn't create the condition of the community. What it does is it reveals something about the condition of the community. You can look at what's happening there and learn something about what has happened all around it.

And Paul knows that Christians lives are in very similar condition. People may not see what we believe, but they can see what our beliefs are producing in us. Right? Do our lives make the gospel visible? Now when it comes to some of the instructions that Paul is giving to these first century Christians, we need to be good interpreters of scripture because Paul is applying this truth of Christian witness in inside the first century world that we described earlier.

And so we have to distinguish between first, what is the essential gospel principle that Paul is lifting up and second, what is the contextual application of that gospel principle? Let me put it another way. We have to discern the difference between what Paul is commanding for all Christians at all times and what Paul is modeling for Christians in his own time due to their unique context. This was actually brought up in our last Q and A. We did.

It was a great question about when we read scripture and we begin to read kind of foreign contextual questions. What is always for today and yet what is for their context only? It's, it's a, it's a discernment. So we're going to model how to actually do this here this morning. Because the principles underneath these instructions, faithfulness, self control, love, kindness, integrity, a life that makes the gospel beautiful, are always applicable, of course, for all times.

But this is important. That does not mean that every social structure that Paul is speaking into is always meant to be carried forward on change. For example, let's talk about Roman slavery, a great clearest example to see why this matters. Paul actually really does tell enslaved Christians to be subject to their masters. But what does that mean?

Well, first, it's important to understand that slavery in the first century was a bit different than the chattel slavery here in the U.S. for one thing, it was not never based on race. People entered slavery for a variety of reasons, including debt, poverty, military conquest. In other words, some people come in and conquer your village and now you're suddenly a slave because everybody's now taking you. Sometimes even voluntary servitude became a form of slavery in search of economic security. Well, I can't make it on my own, but at least I'm being fed.

But that doesn't mean that it was good or humane, right? Slavery in the ancient world still involved exploitation, still harsh treatment and, and a profound loss of freedom. Even if it did not function, even if it did function in a very different social and economic system than the race based slavery familiar to American history. But still that slavery isn't good at all. And Paul isn't saying that.

In fact, Paul undermines the principles of slavery elsewhere, which we'll get to. But here in Titus, he's telling these enslaved Christians within the situation they are already in, what faithfulness to Jesus can look like even there in Paul's words, live faithfully in your context so that every way you will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. And we have to put also another little letter from Paul into this mix that helps us see this more clearly. It's the letter Typhy Lehman. It's a little letter in the New Testament that Paul wrote, he wrote Titus as well.

And Philemon is actually a Christian who owns an enslaved man named Onesimus. And somehow Onesimus has ended up with Paul and become a Christian. But when Paul sends Onesimus back to where he came from, to Philemon, listen to what he tells Philemon. He says to receive him no longer as a slave, but better than a Slave as a dear brother. And then he says in Philemon 1:17, he goes, Father, if you consider me your partner, welcome him the way you would welcome me.

So what is Paul doing here? Well, it's clear he's not writing a political program for dismantling the Roman institution of slavery. He's not doing that. But what he is doing is introducing something into that institution that eventually makes the whole thing impossible to sustain. Here's what I mean.

How do you continue treating somebody as your property when you're told to receive them as your brother? How do you maintain the absolute hierarchy when Paul says, treat him the way that you would treat me. And in that sense, the gospel is putting a time bomb, if you will, underneath the institution itself. But here's the point. Paul is telling enslaved Christian how to live faithfully in the situation he is in without blessing the institution that put him there.

And the same is true about the statements here about women, at least some of them. Paul really does tell young younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, to be subject to their husbands and all that's great, but we should recognize that subject to their husbands and is the same phrase, exact same Greek word used for slaves to be subject to their masters. The Greek verbiage is exactly the same in both. And so we need to remember that he is speaking into a society that has slavery and he's also speaking into a society that is deeply patriarchal. And so the existence of those structures is not itself the timeless Christian principle.

And that's important because Paul stated concern is is not to preserve the social order for its own sake, because remember he gives the reasoning for this. Verses 4 and 5 urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. He wanted them to live within the environment they lived in without making a ruckus of it and showing forth how a Christian inhabits it. See, that's the thread running through this whole passage. Paul is asking what is faithfulness to Jesus look like in the life you actually already have?

And whatever their place in society, every one of them has a life that can make the goodness of Jesus easier to see. All right, so we've been living in 1st century Crete for a bit. Let's kind of walk out of that little house church in Crete and let's come back to 21st century Fishersville. Ah, we got running water. Amen.

See, we don't live in first century Crete, right? We don't inhabit their social structures and we're not called to recreate their world, but we do worship the same Jesus. And this question underneath this passage has not changed. What does faithfulness to Jesus look like in the life that we actually have been given? To ask it a different way.

What would it look like for the gospel of Jesus to become visible here, not simply in what we say we believe, but in the kind of people that we are becoming and how we move out into the world. Yet let's use the timeless principles Paul has packed into this passage. Here's what Paul is holding up for all Christians at all times. He's verse, let's get this on the screen here that he says that they were temperate and worthy of respect, self controlled and sound in faith, love and endurance. Teach what is good?

Self control, kind, pure, loving, faithful, fully trustworthy. Let's imagine together this morning what it would look like in our church to have older Christians who don't just grow older, but in Paul's words, increasingly become temperate and worthy of respect, self controlled, sound and faith, love and endurance. We know that as we grow older, we become less soft, we can easily become more hard. We get up and oh, my back hurts a little bit. We get more cranky.

But Paul says, what if we actually became more like Jesus as we got older? Imagine older Christians whose lives are increasingly reverence, whose words give life, who have enough wisdom in the way of Christ to, as verse three says, teach what is good. Imagine younger Christians here looking at them and thinking, you know, that's the kind of person I want to become. Imagine generations here not just coming and filling this room together and sharing it, but actually beginning to share their lives with one another. Wouldn't be amazing if younger Christians began practicing one of Paul's most repeated words in this passage.

I don't know about you, but when I think about a younger person, self control is probably not the main thing I'm thinking about. But what if. What if the body of Christ could produce young people who people looked on and said, there's something different about those people. Imagine men and women becoming kind and pure, loving and faithful, as verses 4 and 5 say, in the ordinary relationships we have of home and marriage, friendship and family. And then consider what would happen throughout the week when through our lives, we make our way into grocery stores and offices and classrooms and hospitals and construction sites and restaurants and homes wherever you go, becoming the kind of people Paul calls fully trustworthy Friends.

I don't have to tell you how rare this is today. People of integrity who are filled with the spirit of Christ, overflowing with the fruit of spirit. Have you ever been around someone that's a Christian? And there's just something unique about like man, I just. They're so at peace, they're so full of life.

I want what they have. Imagine a church filled with those people that made our way into the world.

Paul says what he says here because he wants the gospel to me, a beautiful in and through you. Because there are no spiritually insignificant Christians, every single life in this room has the capability of making the gospel magnificent. In your realm of influence. You may never preach a sermon, you may stand on a stage. And that's okay because somebody sees your life, your children see it, your friends see it, your co workers see it, your neighbors see it.

And Paul seems to believe that an ordinary human life surrendered to Jesus, filled up by his spirit can become a kind of evidence for the gospel. And friends, by the grace of God, we can become that kind of people. People whose lives don't obscure the beauty of Christ, but who put a spotlight on it. Friends, that is Titus 2, the gospel becoming clear and visibly magnificent through the ordinary, boring day to day lives of God's people. And that's made possible because we are his and he is ours.

Amen and amen. Can we just bow this morning? Bow our heads, Just make some space for us and Jesus.

Together as a community. Let's ask the Lord this. Father, what are you wanting to form in me right now?

Father, what are you wanting to form in me right now as a disciple of Jesus?

Or where are you challenging me and calling me to grow as in some self control? It is just a patience, a kindness, a gentleness, a faithfulness and integrity and loving others. Endurance in the faith. What is it, God? How do you want to make the gospel beautiful?

Through my life.

Secondly, Jesus, what does faithfulness to you look like in the life I have actually and have it day to day?

Lord, is there someone that you've placed in front of me to love, to serve, to encourage, to forgive, to invest in? Lord, how is it that you want to move in and through me?

Is there an ordinary, ordinary act of faithfulness? Lord, you're asking from me this week in my home, in my work and my relationships, or somebody, someone else sees? Lord, Finally, Holy Spirit, what is my life showing people about Jesus?

Is there anything in the way that I live that makes the beauty of the gospel harder to See, Lord, would you change in me so that my life more clearly makes the teaching about God our Savior attractive?

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, would you form in us the kind of life that makes your beauty easier to see? Lord, would you make us as your people, people of self control, kindness, integrity, faithfulness, love, endurance? Lord, where our lives contradict what we say, believe what we believe? Lord, would you change us or give us the grace to become the kind of people whose ordinary lives bear witness to an extraordinary gospel?

May our homes, our friendships, our workplaces, all of our relationships, all of our words, no matter where we're at, Lord, maybe they tell the truth about who you are. And, Lord, through the power of your Holy Spirit, make us the kind of people whose lives don't obscure your beauty, but magnify it. Thank you for it, Jesus.

And now, God, as we move toward communion or we turn our attention to the splendor and beauty of Jesus Christ. Because in the bread and the cup, Lord, you meet us here with your mercy, your forgiveness, your grace and your empowering work. But Lord, as we come, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought and word and deed by what we have done and by also what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole hearts. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

So, Lord, have mercy on us and forgive us for the sake of Jesus Christ. Sanctify these gifts by your Holy Spirit, that they may be for us the body and blood of Christ, holy food and drink for a new and unending life in him. And Lord, would you knit us together in love as we share this meal. Hear the good news, my friends. By Christ's broken body and shed blood, we are forgiven and made one.

This is the body of Christ broken for you. Let us eat together.

This is the blood of Christ spilled for you. Let us drink together.

Thanks be to God. Can we stand together? Friends, I want to welcome our prayer teams forward. If you need prayer. Perhaps some of you want to know the beauty of Jesus and you just.

You don't know it yet. You don't know what it means to follow Christ. Really, you haven't fully given yourself over. I want to encourage you. As we sang earlier, this song called Salvation Song about it's about calling on the name of the Lord.

Come and come and let one of these people pray with you, bring you to Jesus, or come and just pray whatever's in your heart. There's many of us that have needs that we just need someone else, a brother or sister to agree with us. In. So come and allow these dear people pray with you. Let me speak this blessing of you from number six.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Let us walk with Jesus this week. See you next week, everyone.