Keep distractions to a minimum,
and we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen, the title of my sermon tonight
is A Life to Match the Doctrine.
A life to match the doctrine.
In Titus chapter two verse one there, the Bible reads,
but speak thou the things which become sound doctrine.
Now the word become there means that they go well with it.
Like if I said that, for example,
a certain dress was very becoming,
I would say it's suitable, it's appropriate,
it looks good, it fits well, whatever.
And so when the Bible says speak thou the things
which become sound doctrine,
he's saying the things that go well with sound doctrine
or are appropriate to go along with somebody
who has the right doctrine,
they should also have the right life to go with it,
the right works to go with the things that they teach,
to practice what they preach is basically what he's saying.
Now this is actually kind of a theme
of the whole book of Titus.
Because if you look at Titus chapter number one,
we have the qualifications for the pastor.
And in those qualifications for the pastor,
it says in verse six of chapter one,
if any be blameless, the husband of one wife,
having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly,
for a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God,
not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine.
And we can go on and on through those,
but they're talking about things in his personal life,
that even as he teaches the right doctrine
and speaks the word of God,
he's not supposed to be drinking or brawling
or failing to lead his family or any of these other things.
And then later in chapter one,
he talks about these false prophets,
false teachers that he wants Titus to go up against.
And here's what he says about these false prophets.
It says in verse 16,
they profess that they know God,
but in works they deny him,
being abominable and disobedient
and under every good work, reprobate.
So he's saying, look,
these false teachers have a really bad life.
In addition to the wrong things that they're teaching,
they also are abominable and disobedient
and they deny God by the works that they do
because they're doing wicked works.
Then if we go to chapter three,
the same idea is brought up again
because it says in verse number one,
put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers,
to obey magistrates.
And then it says to be ready to every good work, okay?
Then he says in verse five,
not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to his mercy,
he saved us by the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
So in verse one,
he said that we should be ready to every good work,
but then he makes sure to remind us in verse five
that it's not works that save us.
The works have nothing to do with our salvation.
We're not saved by the works that we've done.
But then if you jump down to verse number 14,
and this is almost the very end of the book,
he says, let ours also learn to maintain good works
for necessary uses, not so that they'll be saved,
but it says that they may be not unfruitful, right?
If we're gonna live a fruitful Christian life,
we wanna have the works to go along with the doctrine, right?
We wanna have the right beliefs, the right faith,
but we also wanna have the right practice, the right works.
And so as you can see, chapter one is emphasizing this,
chapter two is emphasizing this,
and chapter three keeps coming back to this thing
of having works in our life.
And again, we're not saved by works.
The Bible says, to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness.
And so it's not by works that we're saved,
but after we're saved, of course,
God wants us to do works, we should do works.
Now, when we think about chapter one
being about the qualifications for the pastor
and talking about things in his personal life,
his home life, his family life,
that he shouldn't be drinking,
he shouldn't have a bad temper, right?
Not soon angry, it says in verse seven,
not given to wine, no striker,
not given to filthy lucre, chapter one, verse eight,
but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men,
sober, just, holy, temperate.
Now, we've all heard the qualifications for the pastor
many times, both from 1 Timothy and also from Titus,
but what's interesting is that it's not just the pastor
who needs to practice what he preaches
according to this epistle to Titus,
because chapter two takes a lot of these same principles
that he's telling Titus about the pastor
and just applying them to every man, woman, boy, and girl.
Because look at chapter two, verse one,
this is what I want to emphasize.
But speak thou of the things which become sound doctrine,
that the aged men be sober, grave.
Look, just those first three words right there
are already what he said the pastors need to be.
Now he's just saying that old guys in general
need to be sober, grave, temperate,
sound in faith and charity and patience.
Then he goes on to the aged women in verse three.
Then he says, this is what the young women should do.
Here's what the young men should do.
See, everybody, according to the Bible here,
needs to have the life to go with the doctrine
that they preach or even just that they profess to believe
and that they come to church and worship the Lord
and believe the Bible.
Well, you know, we need to be living by the Bible then.
That needs to carry over into our practice in our lives.
And what does that look like?
Well, the Bible gives it in detail here in chapter two.
The aged men need to be sober, grave, temperate.
Now what does that mean to be sober,
to be grave and to be temperate?
Well, sober and grave are two very similar words.
They both have the idea of being serious
and thinking clearly, right?
So if somebody's sober,
obviously they're not under the influence of alcohol.
They're not smoking pot.
They're not taking any other kind of drugs or anything
that would kind of loosen up their mind.
No, they have their mind sharp, they're sober.
They're grave.
Grave means serious.
If I said this is a really grave matter,
I'd be saying, look, this is serious.
It's not a joke.
It's not something to make light of.
And so we as Christians need to take our lives seriously.
We are not just kind of go through life apathetic,
not caring, just kind of just doing whatever.
No, we need to approach life in a serious way,
attack situations in our life
and actually live our lives on purpose for Christ,
be serious about the Christian life,
not just kind of dabbling in it,
but actually have a plan and work at it.
And so God wants us to be sober, to be grave,
to be temperate.
Temperance is basically self-control.
Sometimes temperance is used as a synonym
for not drinking alcohol,
but that's probably not what it directly means
in this context.
But obviously God doesn't want us to drink alcohol either
if he wants us to be sober,
but being temperate has to do with controlling yourself,
controlling your anger,
not just flying off the handle at the littlest thing,
and obviously controlling yourself
when it comes to not indulging in alcohol
or other things that are harmful for you.
Being sound in faith
has to do with actually believing the right doctrine
and having sound doctrine.
In charity, in patience.
So we need to abound in all of these areas in our life.
Charity means that we love other people.
Patience means that we are not just in it
for what we can get right now today,
but that we understand that we need to live our lives
for the long run, right?
And be patient and understand
that the way things work in the Christian life
is that we reap what we sow,
but we don't just get rewarded immediately
for doing the right thing.
We've got to patiently and diligently do the right thing,
and in the long run, the rewards come, the blessings come.
We have to have the faith to believe that, okay?
So that's the old man.
Then he says, the aged women, likewise,
that they be in behavior as becometh holiness.
And again, that means something that fits
or is appropriate or suitable to holiness.
So the aged women should not be false accusers,
not given to much wine, teachers of good things.
Now, if you just had a few pieces of advice
to give to old ladies,
let me just give you some advice, old ladies of the church,
and you just only have a few things.
Isn't it interesting that these are the things
that are chosen?
But if these are the things that are chosen,
these must be things that old ladies tend to get into.
You know what I mean?
Because why would he sit there and say,
oh, you young guys, be sure you don't do X, Y, and Z,
unless young guys were prone to do X, Y, and Z, right?
He's obviously gonna be telling them not to do stuff
that they're likely to do,
or that he's probably seen in his travels.
The apostle Paul's been going around preaching
and starting churches, and he sees the stuff
that the old men have issues with,
the young men, the women, and he knows what the issues are.
And so he's training Titus as a younger preacher,
you know, what do you need to teach?
Well, you know, make sure that grandma
is not a false accuser, and not given to much wine,
and a teacher of good things.
Now, you say, I don't know,
is that stuff that old ladies do?
Well, here's the thing.
This tells me that there could be a tendency
for old women to get into gossip.
Now, that's our, yeah, yeah, it's like,
wow, what a revelation, what a shock, right?
But this is kind of a cliche, even,
that people would think of an old lady
maybe just living her life at this point,
just kind of through other people,
and just kind of just talking about other people,
and whatever, and the problem with talking
about other people, and gossiping, and so forth,
is that it often leads to being a false accuser.
You know, when you just start talking about people,
pretty soon you just start repeating everything you hear,
and pretty soon things get blown out of proportion,
and you end up spreading things that aren't true.
So it's just a warning, just saying,
look, you know, old ladies,
when you're talking at your coffee clats
with all your other old ladies,
and you're going out to brunch,
and whatever, you know, you do,
make sure that whatever comes out of your mouth is truth.
Make sure it's edifying, make sure that it's godly,
and hey, I'm all for old ladies getting together,
and talking, and hanging out, and having a good time.
You know, I'm not even an old lady,
and I like to get together, and talk,
and hang out with my friends,
but you need to make sure that you don't just get
into gossip, and just, you know, repeating things
that are not substantiated,
or talking bad about other people that aren't there.
You know, just talk about nice things,
talk about things that are edifying,
keep it all true, and right, and honest,
and godly, and pure.
This is obviously something that is an issue.
And then he says, not giving to much wine.
Now, sometimes old ladies hit that bottle hard.
This is true.
And if you go to a store,
because I used to do fire alarm inspections
at a lot of different businesses,
if you go to a store called Total Wine and More,
it's filled with elderly people, okay?
You know, you think of maybe young people
going out and getting drunk,
and they're probably the ones that are out publicly
doing a lot of the binge drinking,
but let me tell you something,
if you go down to Total Wine and More,
it's filled with elderly people,
it's filled with senior citizens,
just loading up their cart with much wine, okay?
And so that's why he tells, in verse two,
the aged men, be sober.
Okay, the first thing, grandpa, be sober.
Number one, that tells me that there could be a tendency
for older men to get into alcohol and not be sober.
There could be a tendency for older men
to not take their life seriously anymore,
not be grave, not be sober,
because maybe they just think,
well, I'm old now, so it doesn't really matter what I do.
Let me tell you something, I don't care how old you are,
if you're still breathing air on this earth,
if you're still here, God has you here for a reason,
or else you wouldn't be here.
If you're saved and you're still alive,
it means that your mission is not complete.
So don't just decide, well, I'm retired, I'm done.
Hey, if you wanna retire from your job, fine,
but don't retire from serving the Lord,
because there's always something you can do,
you can always win one more soul.
Be a godly influence on your children, your grandchildren,
maybe even your great grandchildren.
Do something with your life,
do something serious with your life,
and achieve something, be serious about it.
And don't just spend your life just saying,
well, you know, I'm old now,
so who cares if I just sit around drinking and watching TV,
and you know, I'm just kinda just waiting,
waiting out my last few years on this earth,
and just kinda biting my time until I just bite the dust.
That's not a way to live your life, okay?
You know, great men of God in the Bible,
they did some of their greatest works
when they were 70, 80, 90 years old.
And so, you know, I personally hope
that I can keep serving God and doing things
that matter all the way till the bitter end of my life.
You know, I wanna make it all the way to the finish line,
and not just quit early.
And so, he says, be sober to the old men,
and to the old women, he says,
don't be given too much wine.
So just because you're old,
that doesn't give you a license to drink.
And to just think, well, I'm not a young person
who's gonna go out and do stupid things,
so I'm old enough to where I'm mature enough
to where I can just kinda hit the bottle
in the retirement home, and you know, it's all good.
No, you need to be sober, not given too much wine.
And then at the end of verse three,
it says, teachers of good things.
You know, why are elderly people an asset to the church?
Well, one of the reasons is because
they have a lot of life experience.
They lived through all kinds of phases
of the history of our country
that were before we were even born,
and if they grew up in church,
they might even have all kinds of insight
about what the church was like in the 60s and 70s and 80s,
and so they have knowledge about life,
they have wisdom, they've made mistakes,
they've done things right, they've seen things,
they have all this experience,
and so they should be teachers of good things,
meaning that they should be taking their godly experience
and passing it on to the next generation.
Instead of just living for self,
invest in the youth and teach the younger women,
teach the younger men the things that you've learned.
So he says they should not be false accusers,
not sitting around talking trash about other people,
not giving too much wine, teachers of good things,
that they may teach the young women,
first and foremost, what?
To be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children.
Isn't it interesting that the one common denominator,
whether we're talking about young men, old men,
young women, old women,
the one common denominator is be sober, be sober,
be sober, be sober.
You know, that tells me there are a lot of people
that are not sober in this world,
and obviously part of that is alcohol,
part of it's marijuana, but also I think sobriety
goes beyond just abstaining from alcohol and drugs,
but I think alcohol and drugs is a minimum.
That's a start.
Don't tell me you're sober when you're smoking pot.
Don't tell me you're sober when you're drinking alcohol,
but even beyond just abstaining from those things,
you know, we need to be sober,
meaning we need to be clear-headed
and think seriously about our life
and pay attention to what we're doing
and be alert in our lives.
I think another word for being sober
is being alert as well, right?
And just being sharp, paying attention to what we do,
and not just sloppily going through our lives
and just kind of doing whatever comes naturally.
Be sober, be sharp, be vigilant, pay attention.
And so he says that they may teach the young women
to be sober, and you know, I keep bringing up marijuana
because I see a marijuana billboard
like every two minutes when I'm driving now,
and it's all over the city now.
We drive around Phoenix,
and it's just billboard after billboard for marijuana.
It's everywhere, you know,
and for there to be that many billboards,
that tells me that there are a lot of people
smoking pot today because somebody's paying a lot of money
to put up all those billboards,
and so somebody must be giving
a lot of money to those businesses.
That must be a huge industry, and you know,
I fear that a lot of Christians are gonna think,
well, now that it's legal to smoke marijuana,
now it's not a big deal if I smoke marijuana,
but guess what?
I'm not gonna let the government tell me
what's right and wrong.
I'm gonna let the Bible tell me what's right and wrong.
And so to me, legalizing marijuana
has changed nothing for me.
It doesn't make me think like,
well, at least now you're not breaking the law when you do.
No, it is something that a Christian
has no business ever doing.
And you know what?
When I was a teenager,
I was starting to casually date this girl.
I found out that she tried marijuana one time at a party.
And you know what?
I just totally lost interest in that girl
and wanted nothing to do with her again.
You say, well, ah, you're so judgmental.
But you know what?
Hey, I don't wanna marry a girl who's smoking pot.
Okay?
And this was a girl who knew better.
She'd been born and raised in a Christian home,
and I hear about how she's at this party smoking pot,
and I'm just like, I'm done here.
And you know why I say that?
Is that that goes to show
whether you think I'm right or wrong.
You could look at that and say,
well, you're wrong, Pastor Anderson.
You shouldn't have done that.
You shouldn't have had that attitude.
Okay, but guess what?
I did.
And you know what?
I bet other people are doing the same thing.
And when you go out and smoke that doobie, guess what?
Maybe that guy that was the right guy,
a Christian guy, a godly guy,
maybe he's not interested anymore
when he sees you smoking pot.
Or maybe that Christian young lady
that would have been interested in you when she sees you
taking drugs and doing that kind of stuff,
she's just like, you know what?
I'm done here.
That's the world that we live in.
What am I saying?
You've ruined your testimony with people.
When you're smoking pot,
you're gonna offend people when you do that.
I mean, this is just one of the many reasons
why you shouldn't smoke pot
is that you're going to offend people.
I wonder how seriously people are gonna take the gospel
when you witness to them if they know that you smoke pot.
And you're like, well, I just don't think it's anything.
Okay, but you know what though?
I think a lot of people out there would disagree with you.
I think the vast majority of people in this world
would agree that Christians don't smoke pot.
I mean, let me ask you this.
If I said I'm a Baptist pastor,
and then five minutes later, I lit up a marijuana cigarette,
do you really think that people would think
that was normal even out there?
Or do you think people would be taken aback?
Like, whoa, what are you doing?
I mean, sure, we're smoking pot, but you're a Christian.
You're a Baptist pastor.
What kind of a Baptist are you?
You must be one of those reformed guys, okay?
You know, with all the drinking and the tattoos
and the vaping and, you know,
I don't know if they've graduated to pot yet,
but I'm sure they're, you know, I'm sure they're close.
But the point is, you know, when you look at Christians,
you know, you'd say, hey, these people are a peculiar people
they're supposed to live differently and have a testimony.
You're ruining your testimony
when you drink and smoke pot, period.
Okay, because people are gonna look at that
and they're gonna say, here's a guy
who's not taking his Christianity seriously.
Here's a guy who's not sober and grave and temperate.
And so that's one major reason not to smoke pot
because it blows your testimony
and people aren't gonna take you seriously
because even unsafe people out there,
they don't have more respect for you
when they find out that you smoke pot.
They have less respect for you
when they find out that you smoke pot.
Nobody's like, oh, you smoke pot?
Well, I mean, this just shows me
a whole nother side of your personality
and I have so much more respect for you.
In fact, tell me all about what you believe about the Bible.
You think I want a pot head telling me
what he believes about the Bible?
Because I don't.
And so pot ruins your testimony.
Pot is a direct violation of the command to be sober,
to be temperate.
It's, you are not sober when you're smoking pot, period.
Not only that, it's harmful to your health.
Anytime you're breathing smoke into your lungs,
I don't care if it's tobacco smoke or marijuana smoke
or just if you're sitting too close to the campfire
and just sucking all the smoke in,
that's not what our lungs are intended to process.
And just breathing a bunch of fiery smoke into your lungs
is always gonna be bad for your health.
Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
We're supposed to take care of our bodies.
We're supposed to be sober.
We're supposed to be thinking clearly.
We don't wanna blow our testimony.
We don't want to smoke pot, period.
Okay, it's wrong.
Don't do it.
And you'd say, well, I'm just doing it for my health.
I'm just doing it for medicinal reasons.
Yeah, just like everybody else
is doing it for medicinal reasons, right?
It's a bunch of baloney because what's your reasoning?
PTSD, you know, or you just need it to kind of mellow out
from, you know, we've all gone through
traumatic things in our life.
And some smoke pot and some of us don't, okay?
And so I have other ways of dealing with stress
that don't involve taking drugs
and damaging my lungs and killing brain cells, okay?
And you know what?
This world is already filled with people
who are a little lacking intellectually.
And so pot isn't gonna help that situation any at all, okay?
The last thing you need to be doing
is killing more brain cells, buddy.
So it says that they may teach the young women to be sober,
to love their husbands, to love their children,
to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home,
good, obedient to their own husbands,
that the word of God be not blasphemed.
And again, this comes back to our testimony, doesn't it?
That the word of God be not blasphemed.
Here's what the Bible is saying is gonna happen.
If you don't have the life to go with the doctrine,
that's the title of the sermon, right?
A life to go with the doctrine.
If you don't have a life to go with the doctrine,
if you're living just like the world is living
and you smoke the same pot and you drink
and you're gossiping and falsely accusing people
and you're not loving toward your husband,
you're not loving toward your children,
you're indiscreet, you're not chaste,
you're not doing these things, you know what?
If you live that way, you're gonna ruin your testimony
and then the word of God's gonna be blasphemed.
People are gonna say, well, if this is Christianity,
I'm not impressed.
And we want people to look at our Christian life
and see something different.
The Bible says, let your light so shine before men
that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
You know, they can't see your faith.
They can't see Christ in you, the hope of glory.
They can't see the Holy Spirit of God,
but what they can see is your works.
And we want our light to shine
and the way that our light shines is through our works
because no one can see inside our mind or our heart
to know how much we love God on the inside.
They need to see it through our lifestyle
and we need to have a good testimony
and instead of the word of God being blasphemed,
we want them to see our good works
and glorify our Father which is in heaven.
That's what'll happen.
You know, when they see you living a good life
and being the best worker on the job
and loving your wife and loving your children,
loving your husband and doing these things,
you know, they're gonna see that
and they're gonna glorify Christianity.
They're gonna glorify your Father which is in heaven.
They're not going to look at it and say,
well, I'm not really interested
because I'm not trying to live that kind of lifestyle.
You know, it's pretty sad when there are non-believers,
non-Christians, unsaved people
living a cleaner, more appropriate life than Christians.
Isn't that a shame?
You know, we should be the ones,
since we're saved, that are following God's word
and it shouldn't be that the heathen
are actually nicer people or better workers
or better family people than we are, right?
We need to make sure that we have the life
to match the doctrine.
I'm glad you have the right doctrine
but you need to have the life
to go along with the right doctrine.
Now, we would all expect out of the pastor,
we all say, hey, we have qualifications for the pastor
and the pastor needs to practice what he preaches
and if we see him out smoking pot
or if we see him out getting drunk or something,
you know, he's fired, right?
But hold on a second.
All of us Christians, man, woman, boy and girl,
we all need to have a life to go with the doctrine.
Starting with the pastor but everybody else as well
needs to also have a life that matches the doctrine.
And then he says in verse six,
young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded.
In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works,
in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity.
He said, look, be a pattern of good works
and have the right doctrine.
Have the life and the doctrine.
He says, sound speech that cannot be condemned
that he that is of the contrary partner may be ashamed
having no evil thing to say of you.
Exhort servants to be obedient under their own masters.
So we talked about the older men, the older women,
the younger men, the younger women.
Now he's talking about servants or employees.
Servants to be obedient under their own masters
and to please them well in all things,
not answering again, meaning like not talking back, right?
Obey, please the boss and don't mouth off, don't talk back.
Not purloining, now that's a really rare word
that most people probably don't know,
but purloin has to do with stealing.
Like basically let's say you're working at a job
and you're taking money out of the cash register,
that would be called purloining.
So it's an archaic word that we wouldn't use anymore.
But if you're stealing stuff from your job
or cheating on your job in some way financially,
that's called purloining.
But showing all good fidelity.
Now what is fidelity?
Fidelity has to do with loyalty or faithfulness.
You should be loyal to the company that you work for.
Now I just preached a whole sermon
about this a couple of days ago.
I was out in Georgia preaching at Pastor Burzan's church.
Actually, we were on like a church camp.
And I preached a sermon on Friday night.
It's online somewhere, I'm sure.
But the title of the sermon was called Customer Service.
And I was preaching about how we need
to do our best at our job no matter what that job is.
And we need to give everything our best.
And anything that's worth doing is worth doing right.
And so those are the lines along which I was preaching.
And I talked about in that sermon as well the fact
that the company that you work for,
if you're going to work for that company,
you need to be loyal to that company.
And what I mean by that is it always
makes me so angry when people work at a job
and then they tell me like, oh, I would never shop here.
Like I work here, but I would never shop there.
I would go over here to this place instead.
Well, I would never eat at the restaurant
that I work at, this other restaurant's better
or something like that.
You know, that's wickedness.
Because when we go to our job, we
are supposed to show all good fidelity.
How is it fidelity for you to work for a place,
take a paycheck, and then go around telling people,
hey, my company has no integrity,
and basically just talking bad about your company?
You know, if you don't believe in the company
that you work for, then you need to get a different job.
But if you're going to work there and take a paycheck
from them, the least you can do is at least just
keep your mouth shut if there's something
that you don't like about it.
But you know, I think that you should even
go beyond that in your fidelity and loyalty.
And you should never talk bad about your place of employment
publicly or to other people and criticizing where you work.
It's just ungodly.
But it's the generation we live in.
I've said that before.
And whenever I've posted anything like that online,
saying, hey, look, you know, I don't think it's right
when people criticize the business that they work for
and they publicly talk bad about the business
that they work for, it seems unethical to me.
You know, all of the commies and liberals
just kind of just come out of the woodwork
and just kind of bit my head off.
And they're just, it kind of just blows my mind.
Because I didn't really think that would be controversial
to say that.
I mean, is what I'm teaching right now
some radical new idea here that we should, as servants,
please our masters in all things with all good fidelity
and being faithful to them and being loyal to them?
Because they're our boss, and we're their servant,
and we're supposed to work for them and benefit them.
And you know, this attitude that says, well, you know,
I don't care if this customer ever comes back.
So what?
I only work here.
I get paid the same.
I'm getting paid by the hour.
You know, because a customer, you know, you give a customer
bad service, and then they're just like, well,
I'm never coming back.
And you're just like, I don't care.
Well, you know what?
You're a jerk, and I never want you to work for me
if that's your attitude.
Because you know what?
You should care about that.
Because if you don't care about the success of your company,
you're not showing all good fidelity.
Whatever company you work for, you
should want that company to succeed
and not just be OK with that company failing or doing poorly
as long as I get my paycheck.
Folks, that's a non-Christian attitude.
You know, if you keep the fig tree,
you'll eat the fruit thereof.
And we as Christians, the Bible says,
should serve our masters with all obedience.
And the Bible says that we should do it as unto the Lord
and not unto men.
So if the Bible tells me that I'm
supposed to go to my job and do my work
as I'm doing it unto Christ, OK, well,
is that the attitude I would have if Christ were the owner?
I would just say, well, I don't care if this company succeeds
or fails.
I don't care if these customers come back.
I get paid the same.
I don't care.
In fact, I tell all my friends not to shop here.
I tell all my friends not to buy this kind of car.
No, the Bible is teaching that we
are supposed to be as servants obedient to our masters,
show all good fidelity and loyalty,
and that we should please them well in all things.
What does that mean, please them well in all things?
I'll tell you what it means.
It means that the boss should be happy with you.
I mean, isn't that what it means if it says please them?
Make them happy.
It means that the boss should say,
I'm happy to have you as an employee.
That's what we need to do to have a good testimony
as Christians.
And the Bible says that if we don't, what's going to happen?
The name of God and his doctrine will be blasphemed.
And this isn't just taught in Titus 2.
It's over in Ephesians chapter number 6.
It's in Colossians chapter 3.
It's in multiple places where the Apostle Paul is preaching
that you need to go to your job and do a good job,
be loyal to the company, care about whether the company
succeeds or does not succeed.
Not just like, well, what's in it for me?
I mean, if there's no profit sharing,
if I'm not getting a commission, what do I
care if the company makes money?
Hey, we ought to care if the company makes money.
Because if we work for that company,
then we are supposed to be loyal to that company
and please them and think about them and care about them.
We work for them.
And if you say, well, humanly speaking,
I don't like the company I work for.
But the Bible says, do it as unto the Lord.
Do it as unto Christ.
And again, if you can't work at that company in good conscience
because it's just such a bad company,
then go somewhere else and get another job.
But if you have to work there or if you like working there,
then you have to at least keep your mouth shut and do
your best and make them happy and make them love you
and please them well in all things.
I mean, I can't stress that phrase enough.
Please them.
Please them well in all things.
If you're a Christian and your job just
thinks you're the worst employee and they're constantly
looking for reasons to get rid of you, folks,
you're doing something wrong and you're not
being a good testimony.
Because God is commanding you to please them.
God is commanding you to make them happy.
And it's so funny how people can think
that they're such a great Christian because of maybe
a lot of involvement at church, which, hey, I'm
glad you're involved at church.
I want you to be involved at church.
But if you have all this great involvement at church
and you're just a pain in the neck at your job,
you don't have the full package of the Christian life here.
Because part of the Christian life
is to please your employer.
That's what the Bible says.
And so when we get up on Monday morning and go to our job,
we're doing the work of the Lord right there,
if we're doing it right.
And we shouldn't have this separation in our mind
that says, well, church is over here.
Bible reading's over here.
Prayer's over here.
And then my job's over here.
It just kind of doesn't matter.
I just kind of clock in.
I phone it in.
I do the minimum.
I clock out.
It's just kind of something I have to do.
And then here's the stuff that really matters over here,
the stuff I do at church.
You know what?
When you go to your secular job on Monday morning,
why don't you turn that into a spiritual activity?
Why don't you serve Christ on Monday morning, serve Christ
on Tuesday morning, serve Christ on Wednesday morning
by giving it your best at your job
and pleasing them well in all things,
taking care of the customer to the best of your ability,
doing what the boss wants you to do, working hard.
And again, yeah, I know people don't
like this kind of preaching sometimes
because they're a bunch of communists and liberals
and hippies, right?
But if you're actually an upstanding, God-fearing
American, this kind of preaching should be right up your alley,
right?
Not just this anti-business, anti-work attitude.
That's garbage.
And I don't want to be influenced by it.
I'm going by what the word of God says.
Servants, be obedient under your masters,
please them well in all things, not answering again,
not purloining but showing all good fidelity.
That's what the Bible says, OK?
And so I'm done, all right?
I don't care what people say about some new enlightened
work philosophy, OK?
And obviously, some bosses are better than others.
But the Bible says that we should do well at our job
when our bosses are godly.
And also, even if our bosses are froward and wicked,
we should still do our best.
If we work there, do our best.
That's what the Bible says in 1 Timothy chapter 6,
not just to the good ones, but to all of them.
You say, are wives supposed to just be
obedient to their good husband?
The Bible says in chapter 2, verse 5 here,
to be discreet, chaste, keep his own good,
obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God
be not blasphemed.
Does the Bible say there the husbands
that are living up to their end of the bargain?
No, it just says that they're supposed to do it, OK?
And the Bible doesn't say, I'm supposed to love my wife
if she does everything right.
No, I'm supposed to love my wife, period.
If she does right or does wrong,
I'm supposed to love my wife.
If your husband does right or does wrong,
you're supposed to submit to your husband.
If your boss is a jerk or if your boss is a great guy,
you're supposed to please him well and do a good job
and serve Christ at your job and do the best that you
can for the Lord's sake.
This is what it means to have the life
to go with the doctrine.
Because you know what?
As men, at least 40 hours a week of our life
is our job, at least.
And I'm sure many of you men work many more than 40 hours
a week.
Many of you probably work 50 or 60 hours a week.
That's a big part of your life.
I mean, think about it.
If I'm going to spend eight hours a day doing something,
I'm going to give it my best.
I'm going to make that a spiritual activity.
I'm not just going to be like, well,
let me just grind through this eight hours
so I can do the stuff I really care about.
No, no, no, why don't I live every hour of every day
whatsoever I do, doing it unto the Lord?
And then I can actually find meaning in every area of life
and not just living for the weekend
or some bizarre philosophy like that.
You say, well, you don't know how bad my job is.
But it doesn't matter what your job is.
If you do it with excellence, it can become something beautiful.
I don't care if you're shoveling manure.
If you shovel manure with excellence,
if you do the best that you can, if you are the best manure
shoveler on the job, if you clean those toilets like
nobody's business, let me tell you something.
That is a beautiful thing.
And God's going to reward you with that.
And maybe God will reward you with a job
that doesn't smell so bad.
But you know what, some jobs just smell bad, folks.
Even when I worked at Round Table Pizza,
I came home smelling like pineapples and garlic.
Because those are the two smells that you just couldn't get rid of.
Other smells didn't really cling to you as much.
But if you put your hands in that,
because if you stick your hands down in that pineapple
to put the pineapple on the pizza,
or if you stick your hands in the garlic,
man, you'd wash them and wash them and soap.
And you just couldn't get those smells gone.
And that's working at Round Table Pizza.
Some people are actual trash collectors.
Some people are actual plumbers or something
where they have to deal with a lot of smells.
But you know what?
Guess what?
That's honest work.
Do it with your heart in it.
Do your best.
Work hard.
God's going to reward you for that.
And it doesn't matter how glamorous your job is.
And by the way, some of the most glamorous jobs are low paying.
It's true.
Everybody wants these little glamorous jobs
where they can dress all nice and kind of show up to work
in their fancy clothes with a Starbucks in their hand.
And they've got this.
And they're making like $40,000 a year, you know what I mean?
And then meanwhile, over here, the guy
who's got his hands covered in grease
and maybe he's been digging a ditch,
he's making $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 doing the job
that you might look down on.
But you know what?
I don't care what job you do.
Maybe you are getting paid some low amount of money
to wear a lavender shirt to some job somewhere.
Or maybe you're getting paid a bunch of money
to pick up trash or whatever.
Hey, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God
and do your best at it.
Maybe you're making minimum wage at a food place.
Hey, be the best worker in that fast food place.
Do it for the glory of God.
And you know what, I guarantee you,
you're going to have a better time witnessing
to your co-workers if you're always
that guy who jumps in and says, here, let me do that dirty job.
Let me do that nasty job.
Let me jump in and cover this shift.
Let me get here early and stay a little late.
I'll get that done.
Hey, let me take it.
Everybody's like, I don't want to do it.
Hey, I'll do it.
Getting in there, working hard, doing the best.
When you're the guy like, well, you know, so-and-so's closing,
you know it's going to get done right.
Or so-and-so's taking care of this.
We know it'll be done right.
I guarantee you, when you then, when
you have that kind of a testimony,
go to witness to somebody, they're
probably going to listen to you a lot more
and take you seriously as a person
because they're going to respect you.
The Bible says, not purloining, verse 10,
but showing all good fidelity that they
may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
Adorn the doctrine, the Bible's saying, right?
Decorate the doctrine.
So we've got the right faith.
We've got the right beliefs.
We've got the right doctrine.
The adornment of that, the advertisement
for the doctrine, is the life that we live, right?
That's how we adorn the doctrine,
by doing the good works and having that outward testimony.
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation
hath appeared to all men.
We're saved by grace.
It's a free gift that we're saved.
We're not saved by works, as he said in chapter 3, verse 5.
But he says that the grace of God that brings salvation also
teaches us that denying ungodliness, verse 12,
and worldliness, we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God
and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us
that he might redeem us from all iniquity.
And so he came to save us, right?
He wants to redeem us from all iniquity.
But he also wants to purify unto himself
a peculiar people zealous of good works.
These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority.
Let no man despise thee.
He said, look, Titus, don't let anybody give you
any guff about this, all right?
Don't let people whine to you and tell you
why they don't need to obey their husband
or why they don't need to please the boss at work,
why it's OK for them to do a bad job at their secular job
and to come to you and tell you why it's OK for them
to slack off in all these areas, why it's OK for them
to drink and do all these things.
Don't let them push you around when you preach this stuff.
He says, no, just get up and speak this stuff,
exhort, meaning like encourage and motivate people,
and rebuke with all authority.
Tell people, no, you need to get on this program here,
the Titus 2 program for your life, OK?
Don't let anybody despise you.
Don't let anybody scoff at this teaching.
Preach this with boldness.
Preach it with authority, because it's the truth.
Now, why does he say at the end of this chapter,
these things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority?
Let no man despise thee.
Again, if he says let no man despise thee,
that tells me that there's a tendency for people
to despise this particular topic.
Otherwise, why not stick that statement
in some other chapter, you know?
Why not put it at the end of the chapter on charity
and say, hey, rebuke this and don't let anybody despise you?
You know, he's putting this in this particular place,
because these are teachings that people
are going to struggle with and that people
are going to want to get upset about or resist
these teachings.
We need to be a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
We need to have a life to go with the doctrine.
Now, what does that word peculiar mean?
Well, peculiar isn't a word that we maybe use a lot.
If we were to use it today in our everyday speech,
we would probably talk about something
that's a little bit odd, like, well, that's peculiar.
We might think it's a little bit out of the ordinary,
a little odd or strange.
That's not what it means in this context, OK?
In the Bible, what the word peculiar means
is distinctive to a certain group of people
or distinctive to a certain person
or belonging to one person or one group exclusively.
If I said something is peculiar to a certain group of people,
it means like it's an attribute that they have
that other people don't have.
So God wants us to be a peculiar people.
What that's saying is he wants us
to be a distinctive group of people that are set apart
unto the Lord.
We're different.
We're different than the rest of the world out there.
Now, you see a lot of people out there in this world crashing
and burning in their lives.
You see a lot of people out there destroying
their physical health.
You see a lot of people out there destroying relationships,
destroying their family, destroying their careers.
You see a lot of people making shipwreck of their lives
in various ways.
And here's the thing about that.
In order for you to have a different outcome,
you're going to have to do something different.
If you just live your life the way everybody lives it,
you're going to end up the way everybody's ending up.
God wants us to be different than this world.
He wants us to be purified as a peculiar people,
zealous of good works.
What does it mean to be zealous?
Zealous means somebody who's actually excited.
They're on fire.
They're motivated.
They're passionate.
I think probably the word that we would use in 2022
is passionate.
If he says he wants to be zealous of good works,
I think the way we would say that in our modern vernacular
is he wants to be passionate about good works.
What are the good works we just talked about?
Doing well at your job, being passionate about being
a great worker, being passionate about being a great wife,
passionate about whatever roles we fill in this world,
not just on Sunday but seven days a week,
not just out soul winning, not just reading our Bible,
not just praying, because look, I
venture to guess that most people in this auditorium
don't spend the majority of their time reading their Bible
praying and soul winning.
I mean, just stop and do the math.
You go soul winning for an hour or two a week.
Let's say you read your Bible a half hour a day,
just kind of throwing out average numbers
for serious Christians in our church,
might read the Bible for 15 minutes, half hour, maybe even
a full hour every day if you're serious about reading
the Bible and you're really reading a lot of Bible.
But probably on average, most people
are reading the Bible like once a year, cover to cover.
So that's like 15, 20 minutes a day.
Let's just say a half hour.
That means you spent 3 and 1 half hours
reading your Bible a week.
How much time did you spend in church a week?
If you came to all three services,
you're spending like four hours in church a week.
You go out soul winning for a few hours in a week.
So if we added up your Bible reading,
however much time you spend praying per day,
your time soul winning, and your time going to church,
guess what?
That's actually not the majority of the time in your week.
And I'm not saying it should be.
I'm not telling you, hey, you need to spend 40 hours reading
your Bible or something.
I'm not suggesting that.
Obviously, reading your Bible for 30 minutes a day
is great.
Coming to church three times a week is great.
I'm not saying you need to find four or five services to go to.
Hey, three services a week is great.
Reading your Bible a half hour a day is great.
Going soul winning every week, even if it's for an hour,
that's great.
52 hours of soul winning a year, great.
You're going soul winning once a week for an hour.
You're reading your Bible for 20 minutes a day.
You're getting on your knees and praying for 15 minutes a day,
great.
Amen.
But now add all that up, add all that up,
and guess what you're going to find
is that that's not the majority of your life, is it?
Because if we add all that up, we're
looking at what, 10 hours a week?
OK, but how much time do you spend at your job?
40 hours a week, 50 hours a week.
So here's my point.
My point is, if you're just doing such an awesome job
for 10 hours of your week, what about the other 158
hours of your week, right?
So you're doing so great with Bible reading, prayer,
and soul winning in church, that's great.
But hold on.
What about this other 40 hours that you're at your job?
You see, that 40 hours at your job,
that's where you need to be a Christian, right?
And how do you be a Christian for that 40 hours at your job?
Is it just because you're preaching the whole time
and just shutting down the assembly line
so you can preach to everybody?
No, you're being a Christian at your job 40 hours a week
by showing up and doing your best.
And those of you that are homemakers,
you're cooking, and you're cleaning,
and you're homeschooling the children,
and you're diapering the children,
and you're taking care of the household,
hey, that's probably taking up way more of your time
than your Bible reading, prayer, church attendance,
and soul winning all combined.
Most of your time you spend homemaking.
So here's the thing.
If you are a lousy homemaker, but oh, man, you're
up on your Bible reading, you're up on prayer,
you're up on church, you're up on soul winning,
but hold on a second.
You know, what about the other rest of your day?
What about 90% of your life that you spent doing other things?
Does everybody see what I'm saying?
So we need to stop and think about this
and say, wait a minute, am I just a Christian for 10 hours
a week?
Am I a Christian for 10 hours a week
and then 158 hours just have nothing to do with the Lord,
nothing to do with Christ?
You say, well, pastor, what do you expect us to do?
Spend more than 10 hours on these things?
No.
What I expect you to do is that 40 hours
that you're on your job to do it as a spiritual activity
by doing your best, by working hard,
by obeying Titus 2, then you've got
40 hours of Christian awesomeness
to complement your 10 hours of dedicated spiritual activity
a week, or maybe you're spending six hours a week,
or seven hours a week, or 11 hours a week.
That's not the point.
The point is it's way less than what you're doing at your job.
And so if you're a lousy employee at your job,
that means more of your week is spent
being a bad Christian than a good Christian.
So I want to be a good Christian as many hours of the week
as I can.
And so that means I'm going to show up at my job
and give it my best.
Because that's how I can serve God on Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, not just on Sunday.
And you ladies, just because you don't have a job necessarily,
maybe you do have a job.
Do your best.
But those that don't have a job, those that are homemakers,
that's the greatest job of all for you to have.
That's great too.
So if you're a lady and you have a job,
do the best you can at your job.
If you're staying at home, then be the best homemaker
that you can be.
And you say, well, you know, staying at home
isn't really a glamorous job.
Well, newsflash, most women in the workforce,
they're not doing that glamorous of a job either.
I mean, what are most women doing out in the workforce?
Running companies?
That's probably a very small percentage, isn't it?
Most women out there in the workforce,
they're probably waiting tables at a restaurant.
Well, you know what?
You can do that at home too.
You can wait tables for your family and give it your best
and do a good job at home.
Most women out there in the workforce,
they're being a secretary.
They're making phone calls.
They're doing bookkeeping.
They're working on a computer.
Well, you know what?
Why don't you run the household that way?
Why don't you be an efficient secretary for your husband
and for your home?
I remember when I first married my wife,
you know, she didn't have a job.
And she said, what am I going to do all day?
And I said, well, you know, obviously,
you're going to be taking care of the house, cooking,
cleaning.
And I said, you're going to make the phone calls.
And she's like, what phone calls?
And I was like, you'll find out.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
You know, because here's the thing.
I remember growing up, I remember my mom
having to make a bunch of phone calls all the time.
And you're like, what phone calls?
Oh, there are phone calls.
Anybody who is actually an adult knows about the phone calls.
OK.
Some people are confused right now.
What is he talking about?
Because my wife is always having to call
because a bill is wrong or just trying to fix things.
You know what I mean?
Household thing, she's having to call these people.
And the phone bill's messed up.
Got to call the power company.
Got to call the water company because they're
charging us wrong.
And I got to call down here and set up this appointment
and set up that appointment and call
to get this repair done on the house.
There are phone calls, my friend.
My wife does.
My wife sometimes, I'll get home and she's like, man,
I spent two hours on the phone trying to deal with X, Y, and Z.
And I'll bring it up.
You know, we've been married for 21 years.
And I always tell her, well, you know,
we agreed that the phone calls were your job.
You know, we had this conversation 21 years ago.
You know, you didn't know what you were signing up for.
But, you know, I warned you about the calls.
Here we are.
And so there's a lot that people are doing out there
in the world that, guess what, when you're
doing the same stuff at home.
I mean, the homemaker is a cook.
She's taking care of children.
She's a teacher.
She's a secretary.
She's a project manager, project coordinator.
Would you prefer that title, the housewife?
Project coordinator, project manager.
What do you think project managers and project
coordinators do in the job?
They pretty much do what wives are doing with the home.
Whatever a project manager does at a construction company,
that's kind of what's going on with a wife at home.
She has to just kind of run things
and get all the supplies.
You know, I remember the project manager at a construction
company that I used to work at, you know,
it would always be like getting all the parts
and getting all the supplies and dropping stuff off
at the job site so that we had all the materials that we needed
and everything.
You know, that's what the wife's doing.
She's going to the store.
She's getting all the supplies, all the food, all the household
items, and so forth.
You know what?
Do that job of being a housewife.
Do it with all your might.
Be a mother with all your might.
You know, if I'm preaching to the men
that they need to go to their secular job
and do it to the fullest and please the boss,
well, how about you wives please your husband
and make the household run like a well-oiled machine
so that you can be a Christian not for eight hours a week
or nine hours a week, but for 50 hours a week, 60 hours a week,
70 hours a week, 100 hours a week.
Because every area of our life we should do with excellence.
Do it in the name of the Lord Jesus
and always be ready to represent Christ in the best way
possible by having the life to go with the doctrine.
And that's what the book of Titus is all about.
I think Titus chapter 2 specifically is about that.
And it's kind of the heart of the book.
But as I showed you at the beginning of the sermon,
chapter 1 had that same thought.
Chapter 3 continues that same thought.
And chapter 2 is really the heart
of this thing of being a peculiar people,
being zealous of good works, being
passionate about obeying the Lord in these areas,
even in our secular lives, even at the job.
And those of you that are children,
I'm talking about your schoolwork.
You know what?
When you're a child, your job is student.
Sometimes you'll even fill out a form
and it asks you your job when you're 13 or 14.
And guess what you write?
Student.
And so I know most are homeschooled here.
Hey, take that seriously.
Do a good job.
Be a Christian in your homeschooling.
Do your homeschooling as unto Christ.
Say, well, I don't really like this curriculum.
You know what?
You're going to grow up and you're not going
to like things about your life.
I hate to break this to you.
Your job is not going to be perfect.
Your coworkers aren't going to be perfect.
Your spouse is not going to be perfect.
Your children are not going to be perfect.
You're going to spend your life dealing
with stuff that is not ideal.
And so as a child, you're given that homeschool curriculum.
Man, you need to attack that homeschool curriculum
with zeal, with gusto, with passion.
And you say, come on.
Hey, you know what?
Scoop up the dog do's in the backyard with passion.
And you know what?
People who actually understand the sermon tonight,
that's not a strange statement to them.
Because they understand what I'm saying
to do everything in the name of the Lord,
to do whatsoever you do to do it heartily,
so that you can have a life that matches your doctrine.
And so you can be a great testimony.
And not that people would blaspheme the Lord,
but that they would glorify the Lord on our behalf.
Let's bow our heads in the word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord.
And I pray that every single one of us
would be a Christian in all areas of our life,
not just that seven to 12 hours a week of dedicated
spiritual activity, but rather that we
would be a solid Christian in everything that we do.
And in the big chunks of our life,
big 40-hour chunks of our life and greater, Lord,
I pray that we would also excel and be thoughtful of others
and have charity, even on our job at our workplace,
that we would love our co-workers
and that we would love the company
and just do everything with passion, Lord.
Please help us to have a life to match the wonderful doctrines
that you've given us in your word.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.