Trinity Evangel Church

It's all fun and games to adorn the doctrine until someone hates you. Titus 2 had a lot about embodied virtues, especially for our relationships in the church. The world watches us, and we can undo our witness by certain failures. Titus 3 takes a second swing at Christian conduct, especially for our relationships out in public, with our unbelieving neighbors.

The first section of Titus 3 covers what we have numbered as verses 1-11 (at least that’s the paragraph as printed in the ESV). Verse 1 and verse 8 could be seen as soft bookends, both talking about good works. Good works is a favorite theme in Titus and a favorite purpose of God's grace. Our salvation is not a result of works, but our salvation results in works that God prepared for us to walk in (see Ephesians 2:8-10). Christ appeared that grace would train and purify a people who are zealous for good works (Titus 2:11-14). We do good works for fellow believers and in society. We do good works to those who don't deserve good, just like we didn't.

The "faithful saying,” as verse 8 calls verses 4-7, is good gospel, clear Calvinism, hope packed with protein. And yet the celebration of our salvation is so close to what we just read in 2:11-14, we might ask, why go over it again? The second rehearsal of redeeming doctrine is a motivation for us to humbly and sacrificially give ourselves to doing goods.

There are a few hinge verses, including verse 3. It gives the second motivation for the imperatives in verses 1-2, the first being that they are commands. But verse 3 has a “but” coming in verse 4, which is a contrast, about the mercy we got. Verse 8 summarizes that mercy into the bookend, but verse 8 has a “but” coming in verse 9, that takes us through verse 11. These are all good reminders.

That Paul urges Titus to remind the Cretan Christians indicates that this wasn’t new to them. This public lifestyle accords with the apostles’ doctrine and belonged with making disciples and planting churches. That said, we often need reminders because we are apt to forget, especially when people are hard.

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. (Titus 3:1–2 ESV)

An interesting place to start. In general, Christians are not anarchists. We are not anti-authoritarians. We are not political egalitarians. We recognize ruling offices and hierarchy, the benefits of just lawmakers and law enforcers.

We are also not political absolutists. Christians, by definition, cannot recognize any emperor or king or president or police, or system of man, as the ultimate authority. They too, will give account, and have responsibility before God and His Word and His Christ. It’s likely that Titus was written a year or so before the Great Fire in Rome and Nero’s subsequent persecution of Christians, so it would get more gnarly. So yes, there are qualifications, but they aren’t written here. The reminder here is to be submissive.

This is a second part, and without an indirect object, makes us ask to whom this obedience is directed? The rest of these reminders relate on the human level (rather than vertically, directly to God), but doesn’t seem to add much to the previous reminder to be submissive to rulers. Maybe it connects with slaves (think 2:10). Maybe it simply emphasizes that Christians aren’t first loophole lookers.

Ready, means prepared, means on the lookout, means waiting with eagerness to act not waiting with reluctance.

For every good work, without sphere or limitation, fits with the broad and public scope of the verses.

It is not limited to those in the household of faith (see Galatians 6:10, which finishes up a motivation for sowing in the Spirit and not growing weary of doing good). What civic good can you do?

This and the next are particularly verbal. μηδένα βλασφημεῖν - to blaspheme no one, pagans and pagan authorities included.

This does not prohibit calling out evil. Jesus did not sin when he called the Pharisees a brood of vipers, prophets did not sin, parents and pastors do not sin, when they identify wrongdoing. Paul quoted a poet who characterized the Cretans and lazy, evil beasts. That wasn’t “nice.”

But we do not get to say whatever worst thing we want, for effect. Here is a day for better self-control of our mouths, and social media blasting.

Speaking of self-control in our speaking, we don’t always have to argue. In other words, be “peaceable” (NASB). This does not mean that the neighbor is always right, or even the customer. It does mean that we can aim to get along. Don’t turn everything into a fight.

It's not just not arguing, it's ready not to be harsh. Along with peaceable we are appropriately tolerant, “not insisting on every right of letter of law or custom” (BAGD). Don’t make everything a federal case.

This could actually be better taken as gentle, with the previous word more as forbearing, patient. It’s “the quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance” (BAGD). Show all of it to all people. Don’t light every room on fire by being rude.

These are seven good reminders about doing good in public as a people possessed by God.

Why should we live such public lives? And where does this behavior belong? We should live in a way that shows we got mercy among a people who need the same mercy. We are apt not only to forget our responsibilities but also to forget our previous condition.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. (Titus 3:3 ESV)

Emphasis: we ourselves. And past tense, we were once. Verse 4 explains the transition, but remembering what we were like is a critical for our humanity and humility helping reality check.

We can't put things together. We're in the dark, we're lost. There is no fear of God so there is no understanding, no thoughtfulness.

Of course the failure to know what is true can't help but include a failure to do what is right.

When you don't stand for something, you fall for anything. We're easily deceived.

There is no self-control. Even if there’s an appearance of self-control, it may just be another fleshly desire, and the pleasure of others stroking our vanity/pride. But most of the time the sinfulness is ugly. The flood of debauchery (see 1 Peter 4:4) is on parade all around us.

The last three go together in a trifecta of misery. Malice is ill-will because of who others are, envy is ill-will because of what good others have.

Passing our days, these are the days of our lives, this is how we spend our time. This is all anti-social machination, and in some places the malice and envy have been codified into Communism/Socialism, and so destruction on societal scale.

Hatred is the way of the world, not love, not peace, no matter what they say.

There doesn't really need to be a good reason why others hate us, but that is the experience.

Transgression speaks to the wicked

We hate right back; what an antagonism pairing. The feeling is mutual.

Verse 3 is part of our motivation for verses 1-2. Verses 4-7 are God’s good work for us and in us, but it wasn’t because we were better.

"They who have a true zeal for God, are, indeed, severe against those who sin; but, because they begin with themselves, their severity is always attended by compassion." —John Calvin

These are good reminders for embodied doctrine in a world of hate. The people of the world are depraved and difficult. They are sinners. Such were ALL of us.

So, beloved, overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

As William Langland (a 14th century poet) wrote, "all the wickedness in this world that man might work or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal in the sea."

It is the way of the world to love those who love you, and to hate those who hate you. We ourselves once lived with no alternative repertoire of responses, with no supernatural perspective or strength. But, by God’s grace, be ready for every good work for such a time as this.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

A good house starts with a good foundation. Often with a house, once it's finished, we give little attention to the foundation unless there's a clear problem. The household of God also has a good foundation: the faith once for all delivered to the saints, built on the Cornerstone Himself, Jesus Christ. Our conduct--the part most visible and frankly most considered, is built on truth, teaching, doctrine, the gospel.

We're familiar with the flow of many epistles with indicative followed by imperative. Believe this, and based on that believing, behave like this. And yet in Titus 2, not only is there attention again on the foundation, the foundation comes after the virtues.

We've worked group by group through the first ten verses in Titus 2. There hasn't been doctrine per se but what accords with sound doctrine, and even a final urging to adorn the doctrine. We've considered the fitting gravity for older men, how older women are generation makers and younger women are house builders, that younger men should be choice men, that is, self-controlled, and then how slaves make the doctrine of salvation look good.

It's said that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So for Paul, any time God as Savior came up he had to hit it with some rejoicing. How much papyrus did Paul waste just praising God again for the gospel we presumably all know?! Well, of course, it was a lot of ink but none of it a mere spill.

Titus 2:11-14 is one sentence in Greek and as translated by most English versions. Even in the sentence, Paul gets a running start, referring to our conduct before getting to the cross. One immediate application I get from this is, when it comes to the doctrine of God our Savior, all are yours. You only hurt yourself if you can only talk about one part of it, the finished part or the current part or the future part. Such limitations on doctrinal focus can lead to less beauty in doctrinal fruitfulness, meaning, stuck in a rut of wearing your adornment hairstyle since the 80s, or something like that.

When it comes to saving doctrine, live it up. When it comes to saving doctrine, love it all. It’s all about grace, and the God of all grace making a possessed people. Grace trains us to live.

For points us toward the foundation. Here's the basis of the behaviors, here's the doctrine we get to adorn. For the grace of God has appeared, and this has to refer to the incarnation and up to ascension of God in Christ. It was an epiphany (epephanay).

Grace appeared...bringing salvation for all people means for old men and old women and young women and young men and even slaves. It means salvation is even for Cretans, lazy and lying evil beasts (Titus 1:12). Grace comes for all kinds of people, for people like you.

Grace appeared...training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. All by grace, not by works, but all by grace, changing all the works.

You've heard once saved always saved, we could say, once graced always graced. Grace forgives, and it's good to say grace also gives us good that we don't deserve. But grace is a teacher with a telos. Grace has lesson plans for us, and discipline when we aren't prepared for temptation class.

The word training is a verbal form of pedagogy. One dictionary has it as “to provide instruction for informed and responsible living; to assist in the development of a persons ability to make appropriate choices” (BAGD). Educate, yes, and enculturate.

The grammar emphasizes that the goal of training is to live, and the prerequisite is what we deny.

To renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, which two parts could be understood as root and fruit. A disposition of disregard for God leads inevitably to desires for whatever offers to fill the God-hole. We can't get away from desires; even the Stoic desire to subdue desire is...a controlling desire. The want-engine will run, and grace keeps the car out of the ditch. Turn away, deny on purpose.

And to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. Our old friend self-control visits again for the fourth time in the chapter, and note that grace and self-control are buds, not competitors. So many Christians want grace to cover their lack of self-control rather than grace that makes them choice men. Upright is just, in transactions of all kinds. Godly has all the smell of reverence. As one commentator observed, these could be three relational spheres: individual (inward), community (outward), divine (upward).

Give up epithumia for eusebia, lust for likeness to God.

All this is in the now, in the present age; this is the stage. Grace keeps us put in the present, for such a time as this.

That said, we do look forward. Waiting for another appearing (epiphaneian). Grace appeared, in Christ, and Christ will appear again. He is our blessed hope, personalized. We wait for the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is eschatological, this is future, this is end times. I do have some shape in my mind about what things will be like before the Second Coming, but what is the gist of this passage? Our grace-waiting for the blessed hope includes the expectation that He Himself will put things right when He comes, not that we will finish putting all things right and then He comes.

His coming will be the King's kiss (think Psalm 2). Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.

There are arguments about whether it's two persons of the godhead appearing or one. The context argues that Jesus is God. The grammar doesn't just allow it, it expects it (especially with one article governing the two nouns matching all the particulars of Granville Sharp’s rule). While "God our Savior" in verse 10 allows for all the Trinitarian ingredients, this sentence highlights that Jesus is God.

His work finishes in verse 14. Jesus gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.

He bought us, He paid the price of Himself. He is cleansing (see similar giving for sake of sanctifying in Ephesians 5:25-27).

So we are a people of zealots, enthusiasts, loyalists. We are a people possessed by God in order to be possessed with zeal for God.

Verse 15 bookends chapter 2 with a repetition of “speak” (λάλει).

Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Paul told Titus to Speak, and keep on speaking. The these things are at least what accords with sound doctrine throughout the chapter. When others are reluctant and sleepy, exhort. When they are wrong, rebuke. When they won’t listen, keep speaking.

Grace trains to live. Grace educates us with eschatological earthiness. Grace has made us a possessed people.

Remember what was (grace in salvation), what is (grace in self-control), and what is to come, or Who is to come, our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Grace trains us to live. Which, working backward means, living takes training which takes grace. You who are His possession, live all by grace. By the grace of God be self-controlled, upright, and godly in the present week, for the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

I said at the start of our series through Titus that the burden of the letter is adorning the doctrine of God our Savior. That may sound poetic, some see it as problematic.

In our podcast circle--by which I mean, the kind of teachers we read and listen to and watch their content—some men argue against the idea that we should live the gospel, even calling it “foolishness.” There are reasons for resistance to that language. Perhaps some have hidden behind that language, avoiding hard truths in the name of good works. It is possible to miss the message—which of course the gospel is—by a wrong focus on mission.

The gospel is the truth that God's Son, Jesus Christ, took on flesh and the form of a servant who never sinned and then died on the cross as a substitute sacrifice for sinners. He was so dead, they buried Him. But after three days in the grave He rose again from the dead, defeating sin and death and demonstrating that God is both just and the justifier for all who believe in Jesus. There is a deep magic woven into creation that when a righteous person gives himself in love for another, life and blessings will abound. Jesus taught and embodied this glory.

What are we supposed to do with the gospel? We are supposed to believe it, receive it, and learn more about it, and obey the One who is at the center of it, and tell others about it. The gospel is the good news of forgiveness and cleansing of conscience and reconciliation unto fellowship with God through the Son by the Spirit. We are saved! In light of the good news, we should also give thanks and give praise and give glory, naming His name.

There is content to our faith. This content/teaching is called doctrine. So sometimes we talk about the faith, the body of teaching. It's truth, which is sentence-able. You can say it, you can write it out.

AND this truth “accords with godliness” (Titus 1:1). The content fits with a certain kind of conduct. From the start of Titus 2, Paul told Titus to “teach what accords with sound doctrine" and all the things in verses 2-10 are about truth, not just in word but in deed. Verse 10 is the surprising climax of the descriptions, a way for slaves to adorn the doctrine.

Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. (Titus 2:9–10 ESV)

A man can’t wear news, and yet he absolutely can. The difference between a lot of Reformed bros/truth-tubes/serious-doctrine/theology-people and us: we make teaching look good.

We've considered virtues for old and young, men and women, along with application for younger men who are church leaders. These are virtues for groups in the church, virtues to take home, but again, less household codes (as such lists are sometimes called) and more church codes.

This sixth group would also be in the church, but they are not singled-out by age or gender. It is a class: bondservants. That's sort of a made up word in English, intended to be a little easier on modern ears. But Paul is telling Titus what to teach slaves. This group must have had enough liberty to meet with some other believers sometime, but while some would have been more like family, and some more like employees, others would be more like property. They had a boss, they had a master, and our English word despots is derived from the word used here (δεσπότης).

The first virtue for them was to be submissive to their own masters in everything. Be subject to, yield to the will of another.

Like a wife with her own husband (not every man), so a slave with his own master. It’s a recognition of dignity that a slave was not every-and-anyone else’s tool.

In our context, employees are not slaves, but they have something to learn. We can see application for those under authority. The point is, in certain relationships, the way to embody sound doctrine is to follow instructions/orders (and see Titus 3:1 for more).

They were to live as those under authority, and there are four particulars of that, two do nots in the middle of two dos.

To be well-pleasing is everywhere else in the NT directed toward God. If one pleases God, the greater Lord, it seems one would in most cases be pleasing the lesser, human lord by extension. This seems in context, however, to be concerned with caring about the joy of the earthly master. Don’t be reluctant because it might make the boss happy.

To be not argumentative is to resist anti-speech, or what parents of my generation called being a back-talker. These are AFRs: Arguing First-Responders. What a testimony "Yes, sir" can be. What exhaustion it is, for everyone involved, for smart-aleck questioning. They must be told and convinced, and how often does the talking about what is to be done take more time than doing it? You weren’t saved to be a smart-mouth.

To be not pilfering acknowledges that many slaves were given responsibility for assets, and perhaps not given many extra resources as slaves, so skimming off the top or dealing under the table were regular temptations. Ananias and Sapphira “kept back” in Acts 5:2-3. The Cretans were known as liars anyway (Titus 1:12), so stealing from the boss was probably the expected behavior. Don’t misappropriate.

To beshowing all good faith is an interesting phrase, one not found anywhere else in Scripture. Good is found alongside of faith, yes, but "good faith" stands out. When we act in good faith we demonstrate that we are honest and fair.

Then we get to the purpose statement: so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

Adorn is doing the good work here. It translates the Greek word cosmeo (κοσμέω), and the noun form is cosmos. Our word cosmetics derives from this, to arrange and highlight highlight for beauty. It’s order rather than disorder, formed and filled instead of tohu va bohu—without form and void. Not just organizing or fixing, make it look good. Show off how attractive it is. And again, in everything.

Two surprises: First, we would not think the doctrine of God our Savior needs adorning. And, while it does not need to be made good, it can and has been made to look not good by many who profess to believe it. Christians act as if believing the good news increases our knowledge of how much we need the good news, not our rejoicing in what the good news accomplishes. Go ahead, live doctrine up.

Second, we would not think slaves would be adorners. Strange, isn't it? And as an argument from the lesser to the greater, if even the lowest can adorn the greatest, then how much more should all of us?

Interesting parallel instruction for slaves in 1 Timothy 6:1-2, “so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled,” with follow up about especially not being disrespectful to believing masters just because they are brothers.

Adorn the doctrine, make it look good. Our habits of life matter, including how we respond when we are under authority, for our jealousability in light of God our Savior.

It is one thing to obey totally, happily, immediately, and quickly. Is your obedience attractive? You know, and have so much, good teaching, so, Christian, make it look good. Adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24–25 ESV)

This short section of Titus 2 is not for everyone, unlike the virtue of self-control which is for everyone. In fact, verses 7-8 depend on, in practice and in grammar, the urging to self-control for young men in verse 6. This is the most personal part of Paul’s address to Titus, though it does have application for any younger minister/youthful pastor.

There are two primary, while overlapping, spheres in which Titus' self-control should be visible, including a significant reason for both, or at least for the latter.

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. (Titus 2:7–8 ESV)

Unlike the new sentence as read in the ESV, grammatically verse 7 hangs on verse 6 (“showing” would be a more technical translation as the original text has a participle not a main verb). This fits because Titus himself was a young man. But Titus wasn't just a Christian, he was left in Crete by the apostle to put things in order and appoint elders in every town (Titus 1:5). He isn’t called an elder/bishop, but he was appointing them. He was working for the churches as a young leader.

For those of us with access to all the pastoral epistles it's hard not to think about the similar instructions Paul wrote to Timothy, especially in 1 Timothy 4:12-16. He likewise exhorts Titus to be conscious of his example and his teaching, his life and rhetoric.

Showing yourself in all things a model of good works. Showing means making visible, demonstrating, not hiding and not hypocrisy-ing. In all things opens verse 7 (in the Greek text), and it could be argued that the prepositional phrase belongs better understood to finish verse 6 (“self-controlled in all things”). But there is another prepositional phrase that starts a second "showing” in the second part of verse 7, so a parallel construction makes better sense. The emphasis for Titus is that he doesn't have a Pastoral Life and a Private Life. He can't compartmentalize. Let there be no cloistered virtues.

The idea of imitating/copying an example, a model, is frequent in the NT (including 1 Timothy 4:12). We are imitative creatures. We are also emboldened by a certain sort of bold surrogate. We don't only do what others do, we are encouraged by what they do. It's more than being fans. We see what's possible, what kinds of things are good.

And Titus, in all things, is to show off good works. Good works are more frequently mentioned in this letter than in any other. Paul tells Titus to go ahead; someone has to take the first step. Want to know whether or not you're self-controlled? It's not just what you avoid, but what GOODS you do.

The ESV makes it sound like the imperative "show" is repeated, but not only is it assumed, it's still hanging on the self-control. It reveals a second area, in the teaching. It could be orthodoxy after orthopraxy, as in, now make sure your doctrine is straight. But these things to be shown and the thing to be prevented make it clear that this is a how more than a what, more “to the action than to the content” (Mounce). The content of teaching should be correct, but the way the teaching is communicated should have gravity.

Three parts to show in teaching.

First, show integrity, without corruption, a word only found here in the NT. His self-controlled teaching should be without division, as by ulterior motives. It comes from a whole heart, not partly for praise from men and partly for profit and partly for feeding the flock.

Second, show “gravity” (KJV). The ESV has dignity, that's fine. The Latin translation does have gravitate. The Greek word means to a different than average that attracts not just attention but appreciation. That's a gravity, a pull, a weighty rhetoric that draws in.

Third (and this is 3a and 3b), speech that is both sound and un-condemned. The ESV smooths it out, but the showing includes speech, and that speech is modified by the two adjectives. Sound is healthy or “wholesome” (Tyndale), and un-condemned is not blameworthy. It relates to the reason that finishes verse 8.

** so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.**

There is such a thing as an opponent, an enemy; the substantive singular phrase refers to this as a class of people characterized by being contrary, set in opposition, critics. Maybe this could be someone connected to the church like those referred to in Titus 1:10-16, maybe it’s coming from outside. This is the second time such a line of reasoning comes up, first for the young women (verse 5) and now for younger ministers.

What is particularly interesting is who takes the brunt of the criticism if Titus fails: bad...about us. So Titus is to be a reflection for others and he is a reflection of others. He was to be an example that others could follow, and he is a representation of those others to others in the world.

This does not mean that others won't say negative things. They called Jesus names, and He taught us to rejoice when others revile us and “utter all kinds of evil against (us) falsely” (Matthew 5:11). That's the key: they must say false things.

It's like this. One time some of us came back to a school campus and over the weekend someone had thrown a bunch of rocks through the windows of our school bus. That wasn't okay, but there was also a pile of rocks that had been dumped in the parking lot beside the bus for sake of dispersing across campus later. It's one thing for others to throw stones, it's another thing to provide the stones. Make them makeup their own ammunition.

Does this mean no smiles, no laughs? Charles Spurgeon, responding to criticism about a joke during a sermon:

“Well, madam, you may very well be right; but if you knew the number of jokes I do not tell you, and the number of things that I refrain from saying, you would give me more credit than you are giving me.”

I don’t tell as many funny things that come to mind all the time, but I do think some wit can fit with gravity. Humor and flippancy are not the same thing, and a well snapped quip may sting more than a whip.

Also, this show of dignity required for younger ministers

Since Titus is to be an example in all things, there is application for everyone, especially for young men and their self-control. That includes verbal self-control. You also, be a reflection, and you also are a reflection regardless; your lack of conscious effort about it is part of the reflection. You thinking that some of your decisions are private is a public statement.

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:16 ESV)

May God give our fathers a gravity-by-grace that causes their wives and children and grandchildren to want to be near. May God give our shepherds, younger and older, a godly-gravity and sheep who know their voice and follow. May God give us all not just a mind to work, but zeal for good works.

Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. (Ephesians 6:24 ESV)

There is no little enjoyment in observing the lists of virtues for every other group in Titus 2 and noticing that younger men are limited to one. It's not even a unique one; it's already been included for older men and younger women, with the assumption that older women are teaching it by example themselves. Is it so obvious that younger men are so lacking it? Is it that we need to lower our expectations for younger men; guys, we're just asking for this one thing. Is it an attention issue; like we’ve only got one bullet, so make it count?

True, young men are notorious for their huhs, for their limited affections span, for their lack of directed diligence. I don't doubt that Paul urges this virtue because it is often a weakness, but I also think that Paul urges this virtue because it is powerful. With a little bit of self-control a man can rule a nation.

It is only one short verse, addressing only one virtue. But there are enough implications here for a lifetime, let alone for everyone who needs self-control (which, turns out, is everyone).

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. (Titus 2:6 ESV)

Often verses 7-8 are taken with verse 6. There is spillover, because Titus was a younger man. But Titus himself is the object after verse 6, and that has application for those who would be leaders in the church more particularly than the broader group of younger men. Titus, like all of us, needed self-control, and there are a few specifics for how his self-control should demonstrate itself.

But otherwise, verse 6 is the whole lesson for younger men.

It is a new sentence, with a new verb, and the imperative is a bit stronger than in verse 1. More than “speak” (NASB) or even “teach” (ESV), this is urge. Get up next to them and call for the behavior.

Younger men are all those who are not older men. While I suppose two-year-old sons are not yet younger men technically, they are future younger men, so get your boys started on this path.

And then the virtue: self-control. There's not really much need for a definition, is there? Control = be the boss, self = the one in the mirror. The Greek dictionary (BAGD) I use most frequently defines it as “to be able to think in a sound or sane manner; to keep one’s head.” I defined it in verse 2 as both 1) minimal reactivity to others and 2) maximum responsibility for self. It's making good choices compared to making bad choices, and it's making good choices compared to someone making choices for you.

The commentaries I'm reading this time through Titus didn't have much to add. Fine, I get spending your word count on meatier matters. And yet, as I tried to show when addressing younger women, that the household relations and household work is part of her unmatched value, so with younger men, self-control has less to do with giving things up and more for how to get the right sort of glory.

This is how to be a choice man.

Self-control is not passively sitting in the chair—unless it’s the right time to keep your rear there. It is not risk-avoidant, it can imagine victory through danger. Self-control is necessary for (successfully) walking tight-ropes and climbing mountains. Self-control is what keeps a relational match from becoming a family or community wildfire. Self-control is what keeps a man from self-destruction, and what enables him to protect, and bless, a city.

What sphere of life is not bettered by self-control? Great dancing is not spastic, it’s great self-control made to look effortless. Finances, food and fitness, school assignments, home/bedroom maintenance, marriage and marriage bed and generational fruitfulness, getting and keeping a job, all are better when you’re not out of your mind.

You've probably heard little mantras like these:

And those are good, and true. But why?

Because control is an inescapable concept, not whether but which. It's not whether there will be control, but who or what will control. So the opposite of self-control is not really being out of control. The opposite of self-control is something-else control. And when someone/thing else is in control, that makes you a slave. It is either self-control/freedom or bondage.

The credit card maxer is slave to the banker and his high interest. The fat man is slave to his stomach. The porn watcher is a slave to his loneliness and lust and laziness. The angry man is a slave to his pride; he's so defensive because he's bound to some false idea (about his own importance) that he can't accept when others don't agree.

A man without self-control leaves the gate open, and then no wonder so many people keep getting his goat.

A man without self-control has a sorry arsenal of responses. Reactivity is the ultimate getting pushed around; your buttons are big and visible, your handles sticking out. Mad or sad, this is still being controlled by others. You are letting them decide how your day will go, they are pulling your strings. Without self-control a man is not a man, he’s merely a puppet.

A man with self-control is a choice man, making his own choices.

It's why Solomon wrote:

A man without self-control

There's no defense. Remember King David's lack of self-control, and what it cost.

A lack of self-control includes the inability to transfer/tether energy to some bigger purpose. It's the ultimate vanity and chasing after the wind like a dog chases after a ball...he can't help it, but the only thing it gets him is tired.

We are not urging younger men to self-control because they are idiots, but because they are made for strength. And strength directed toward building, and even toward necessary fighting, is glory.

Good sense makes one slow to anger,

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,

So John Milton wrote, "He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king." (Paradise Regained, Book II, lines 463-472)

Self-control is the gateway to all sorts of blessings, fruitfulness, harvest, wisdom, platform, power, and freedom. Self control is not being isolated or infectious, it means you know how to be a partner not a parasite or a poison.

Voices that urge self-control for young men from the secular/pragmatic podcasts and YouTube channels do resonate among Christian young men better than many silent voices from church elders. Somehow, we’ve made self-control seem weak, or like a punishment. This ought not to be so.

Dads can help their younger sons, by modeling, of course, and by giving jobs and chores and tests and then debriefs. Look for sprouts of self-control to water, to praise and encourage and promote. Look for weeds of laziness and excuse making and auto-reactivity to pull up and put on the burn pile.

What you allow for yourself is the house rule, no matter what you say.

Are some people more naturally self-controlled? Even if they were, does that change your need, and opportunity, for choice?

Are there difficult people in your life? Is that made better by your immediate irritation? Are bad situations made better by your unwillingness to work on your attitude? When you can't control what others do and decide for you, do you also let them determine your attitude about it?

Self-control has application for any habit, to develop or quit. Every dollar, spent with purpose or squandered. All the minutes, bedtime and screen time and snooze button. For diet and exercise. Sex-drive (and your eyes). Mouth (jokes, edification). Response to loneliness, response to loss. Resisting self-pity like the devil, getting enough perspective to consider your self as the problem. Taking feedback or fighting it in defensiveness. Be predictable even when the situation isn’t.

Start, or start by stopping, something. Write it out, follow the plan, set a reminder, tell a friend, pray.

Be a choice man in a culture of men “led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures” (Titus 3:3).

Whether or not we have young men with self-control determines whether or not we live in community/civilization or Crazytown.

We want choice men leading our institutions, heading up houses, running to the front lines and sitting in the commander's chair. Take charge, stay the course. Choose, by God’s grace, to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12).

Self-control, in body and mind and soul, has promise in godliness for this life and the life to come. Christian Self-control is the way to true liberty and real glory. It belongs with the fruit of God’s Spirit, and so keep in step with the Spirit. Don't underestimate the fruit God will grow in your life through faithful self-control.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV)

Because God is our Creator and Jesus is Lord women should not be forced to fight and women should have the courage to kill if necessary. Men should be comfortable with swords and shovels, women should be comfortable with skillets and AR-15s, and tent pegs.

The story of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, is “fun” because it's far away, instructive because of its context, and uncomfortable because it's true.

At the start of Judges 4 Israel was again doing “what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (verse 1). So the Lord “sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan” (verse 2) who “oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years” (verse 3). After two decades in the downward part of the cycle they cried out for help.

The commander of the Canaanite army was Sisera. Deborah (yes, a woman) was judging Israel at the time (verse 4), and she summoned Barak to muster his troops to fight against Sisera (verses 6-7). Barak replied that he would only go to battle if Deborah came with him (verse 8). Barak did engage, and "the LORD routed Sisera" and Sisera “fled away on foot” (verse 15).

In his escape he came to the house of Heber the Kenite, Jael's husband, because Jabin and Heber had peace (verse 17). Jael invited Sisera in (verse 18), gave him warm milk to drink—an upgrade from the water he requested (verse 19), and Sisera fell asleep. As has been told now for around three-thousand years:

“Jael, the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the tent peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died." (verse 21)

Courageous, crafty, and swift; understated but unmistakable: “So he died.” Jael is praised in Deborah's song in Judges 5.

“Most blessed of women be Jael,

Again, this is part of Deborah’s song celebrating the Lord’s deliverance of His people that includes honor for Jael for driving a stake through Sisera’s skull into the ground.

But this narrative does not argue for women being called to combat. Actually, in context, it argues for the very opposite.

When Deborah called Barak to fight, he resisted, almost as if he was hiding behind her skirt. So Deborah told Barak, "the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman" (4:9). The assumption is that fighting, even the glory of the fighting, belonged with a man. Deborah shamed Barak for being a sissy. She didn’t say, “If you were a real man you would have more women represented on your leadership team.”

Note also that the primary reason Sisera fell is because he also assumed that a woman wouldn't kill him. Jael wasn't a threat. She wasn't a combatant. It worked because it was surprising.

Jael is a great example of courage. And, she's also a rare example. There are way more Joab-types in Scripture than Jaels.

The only other woman who killed someone (though a few wicked women ordered others to kill for them) is an unnamed woman in the city of Thebea, “a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull” (Judges 9:53). But even here,

he called quickly to the young man his armor-bearer and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me, ‘A woman killed him.’” And his young man thrust him through, and he died. (Judges 9:54 ESV)

Among David's “mighty men” there were no women. Samuel said kings would take daughters to be “perfumers and cooks and bakers” (1 Samuel 8:13), but not to be soldiers; kings might be ruthless, and many were evil, but they weren’t stupid.

It is an earthly axiom that fighting and war and killing are not a woman's place. So it was typical smack-talk to say men fought like women, or were scared like women. Just a couple examples:

In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the LORD of hosts shakes over them. (Isaiah 19:16 ESV)

Behold, your troops

The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting;

(See also Isaiah 13:8; Jeremiah 48:41; 50:37. And see Isaiah 3:12 for an example of the embarrassment of having women rulers.)

I'm not bringing this up to pile on the failure of the female Secret Service director who just resigned, or the fumbling of multiple female Secret Service agents who couldn't seem to get their guns holstered on the day former President Trump was shot.

In June the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services proposed their plan for 2025 which includes requiring women to register for the draft. Under Section 3, the third bullet point:

Amends the Military Selective Service Act to require the registration of women for Selective Service.

Now we haven't had a draft since 1972. And, this isn't the first time politicians have floated the idea. And, we already have women not just in the U.S. Armed Forces but in combat training and units, a restriction that was lifted in 2015.

This message is not about the merits of a national draft system (even for men), let alone the possibility of just war. It is not about whether it is allowable for women to take non-combative positions in the military (or police), such as clerical or medical jobs, however near or far away from fighting front lines they may be.

It is to get on record the elders’ position on the religious exemptions that fathers (and mothers) and daughters should have in conscience against required military registration for women. It is to be clear for conscience and courage.

Who knows what will happen; the government is exceptionally inept at doing what they propose. And, there are denominations that already have made statements (such as the CREC), along with some religious legal groups that I believe would fight this. It is unlikely that TEC would have to be the tip of the spear. But we will fight for your consciences and your protection. Just as we did when companies required letters for religious exemptions against forced vaccinations, we will do what we can. And we do want you to be informed and to inform your family.

The elders agreed, and even thought that a supplement to the instructions to younger women in Titus 2:4-5 would be an appropriate place to drive a stake in the ground.

We do not make up our gender identity or even the options. Male and female are God-given categories (Genesis 1:27), equal in image-bearing value and also distinct in roles and relationships. In general, men and women have different physical and emotional strengths, as well as different temporal callings.

The normal roles of women are life-nurturing and oriented around household responsibilities. This is explicitly stated for younger women in Titus 2:4-5. Women have unique, and therefore valuable, capacity for pregnancy and nursing and child-raising. Their bodies are designed to carry babies on their hips, not guns.

There are no examples of warrior women in the Old Testament. As mentioned before, Jael’s killing of Sisera is an exception, not the norm.

Men are to provide for and protect those who are weaker. Men are built by God differently than women, for different work, and, when necessary in this fallen world, for war.

Are we allowed to equip women with weapons’ training? Should we? Yes, and depending on the environment, with greater urgency. Self-defense is moral, let alone (currently) legal. Defense of one's children, even one’s animals/property, is right. We are not saying that a woman can never leave her house, or even that a woman never can kill. We want our daughters to have great courage. We want our daughters to be the right sort of threat.

Perhaps a woman's husband is gone (on deployment even), maybe he’s deceased. This puts her in a difficult position. But the fact that this is a hardship supports the fact that it ought not be required.

We certainly have women at TEC who handle their gun better than what we saw from the “professional” Secret Service at the Trump rally. That doesn’t mean we should buy them plane tickets to take over presidential security detail.

The purpose of Selective Service registration is, according to their documentation, to provide a fair and efficient draft system for rapidly mobilizing additional military personnel in times of national emergency or crisis. Because the draft is supposed to be used in the midst of an existing conflict, there is no reason to think a woman could control where she is assigned, and .

So we will resist the government if it requires women to register to be called into the military. We are considering how best to refine this statement (already borrowing some language from the CREC memorial), and the best place to put it (by-laws, What We Believe, other), as a stake in the ground.

God requires men to protect women and children, whereas God made it normal for women to nurture life, not to take it. Christian fathers must protect their daughters from being seduced or coerced into combat service, and church elders must protect families whose consciences require resistance to required Selective Service registration for women.

We are willing to fight over who should fight.

We worship the true God, so we cannot suppress the truth of male and female like many in our current positions of military leadership, dressing as women, wearing dog masks, pushing for DEI among the troops. One reason for the smaller number of men volunteering for the military is because the government keeps shooting itself in the foot with foolish and ungodly policies.

It is not oppressive of men to keep women off the battlefield. If male privilege includes risk of death, and that "privilege" is demanded equally, then we really ought to recheck our definitions. We’re trying to keep women from becoming victims, not sending them to war because they currently are. We do not honor weaker vessels (1 Peter 3:7) by putting them in harms way.

There are so many ways for a woman to be fruitful with her hands, and that does not include killing (in abortion or) in combat. It’s a real marvel how many seem to think that the female warriors in the movies are real wonder women. Those may be entertaining stories, but they are false stories.

Winston Churchill remarked once on what allowed WWII: "the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous." May God continue to raise up men who stand as men with women who stand up under their protection.

Men cannot do some crucial things that women can do. Women can do some of what men can do, even if sometimes poorly. What women can do that men can't do belongs with their glory and is part of their uniquely female image-bearing value.

Peter told husbands to show honor to their wives as weaker vessels (1 Peter 3:7). While this weakness has application to opening jars and moving furniture without condescension, a man should consider his wife to be like fine china rather than daily dishes which are sturdy, but disposable.

Reproductively (which is no small concern for a family and for the future), women have both more scarcity and vulnerability than men. A woman has a limited window of pregnancy opportunities, and her life changes significantly more than a man's with each successful pregnancy and birth. Her weaker/softer/more delicate nature is a feature for this life nurturing not a failure, and so she should be honored for not being like a man.

Sometimes we read the instructions for women/wives like they are inferior, when what we should see is that they are not replaceable or interchangeable with men, and that’s good.

That said, women have their own temptations to sin. Not only was Eve deceived, which Paul generalized as a reason for why women shouldn't teach men in 1 Timothy 2:12-15, God disciplined Eve in Genesis 3:16 with the new reality that she would be ruled by her husband. For that matter, if she behaves wrongly, the reputation of her God is affected as we see at the end of Titus 2:5.

Though a foolish woman tears down her house, the wise woman is a house-builder (Proverbs 14:1). This is how she embodies sound doctrine.

and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:4–5 ESV)

Older women had four characteristics, which younger women should also pursue: being reverent, not slanderers, not winos, and good-teachers. The younger women are the target of that teaching with seven virtues. Paul assumes the younger women were married, or at least that marriage was normal and good for young women.

And so train (ESV) or "encourage" (NASB) or "urge" (NIV) are all fine, though the original word is a verbal form of self-control. So Tyndale translated the beginning of verse 4, "and so make sobre mynded,” or one dictionary defines the action as to “bring to one’s senses” (BAGD). This emphasizes that such virtues can be learned and developed, and should be taught by the older women. Develop an appreciation for the glory of what she builds and how her building glorifies God's Word.

More than the men are (at least in this paragraph), a young woman is to be known by her relations, and the first relations are those in her house. She is to be a house builder.

In Paul's other letters he commands husbands to love their wives and wives to submit/respect their husbands. Peter says something similar, at least for wives. In general, it seems right to acknowledge that most men desire admiration and most women desire affection. But that doesn’t mean your man hates being loved, let alone that Jesus said that the world knows we are Christians by our love.

This isn't strictly a grammatical command, but a young woman should be characterized as a husband-lover. It's one word, a compound adjective in Greek (philandrous used only here in the NT). Other helpful phrases are: she's "in to" her husband, she's affectionately turned toward her husband, she’s “attached to” him.

Love for one's own spouse is natural (or should be), it is supernatural, and love — actually felt and shown and spoken — is the foundation of the house.

This second virtue for younger women is also one word, another compound adjective in Greek (philoteknous used only here in the NT), another relationship. She should love her (own) offspring. A young woman should be characterized as a children-lover.

How do you talk about someone you love? Can you love a son without disciplining him? Are you loving a daughter by letting her be a boy-lover before the boy has made the covenant, you know, because it’s cute?

A woman/mother should love her actual sons and daughters, and this includes a general mindset that is pro-life.

This is the most referenced virtue in Titus 2, explicitly mentioned for older men, younger women, and the one-and-only attribute insisted on for young men. I will spend more time defining the virtue of being self-controlled when we get to verse 6.

But temptations abound to fly off the broom handle when kids backtalk, or to give your husband/kids the death stare, or to fight when other ladies try to boss or badmouth your kids (the mama bear is bad news, see Proverbs 17:12). And self-control starts with oneself, obviously, which includes your thoughts and your feelings; your reactions are yours.

Older women are to be reverent in behavior, known as those who clearly have worshiped. Older women aren't always as desirable in body, whereas younger women with time on their hands might find excuses to be unfaithful. A younger woman should be chaste, she should be one-man woman if she’s got a man, or waiting for him.

Rarely does anyone wake up one morning in the bed of adultery, Surprise! Sexual impurity always starts in the heart, and what you dwell on, what you choose as entertainment distractions, will direct you or drag you around.

Yet another compound adjective, a mash-up of the word for worker and for house (oikourgous only found here in the NT), working at home. Being busy-at-home is a virtue, an attribute, an orientation.

It's also considered by many in our current culture as sexist, misogynistic, old-fashioned, oppressive, and ignorant.

It's a building question. Whose bottom line do you want to promote? Which relationships and responsibilities deserve your best attention and affection?

"The devoted wife and mother finds her absorbing interest in the innumerable duties of the home." —D. Edmond Hiebert

This adjective is not a geofence; she doesn’t need a necklace/collar that shocks her if she gets too far away from the kitchen. It is an offensive effort against being a busy-body, going house to house gathering up gossip dust-bunnies and spreading them around (1 Timothy 5:13). Sweep your own floor, wash your own dirty laundry.

In terms of receiving, kindness has a welcoming warmth, a readiness for questions, an invitation to be interrupted for good reason. In terms of giving, kindness has an eye to meet needs and fill bellies, hands that provide, words that build up.

Being kind is a lot of the how and some of the what. It is possible to think she’s building her house, when what she's building is a wall between herself and the others. The pillows on the couch are always in order, and that's because she's criticized everyone so many times no one wants to touch them. She wonders why they stay in their room so much.

This is actually not a compound adjective, it's a compound participle, a verb, an ongoing action. She's to be being submissive to [her] own husband. The reason I say “ruled" is from Genesis 3:16 when God told the women that her husband would rule over her.

She's to put herself under. The breakdown of the verb submissive is “arrange under," put oneself in a position to yield.

As a Christian and member of the church, a woman is under the authority of the elders, who should be men. As a Christian and member of society, a woman is under the authority of governors, who also should be men. And yet, while those offices should be held by men, their authority isn't because their gender. So a younger woman does not submit to a man just because he is a man. (Fathers and mothers, teach your daughters who she must submit to, and who she can freely ignore.)

She must submit to her own man, to her husband (and to her father before that). The virtues for a young woman are bookended by her relationship to her husband.

One purpose Paul gives: that the word of God may not be reviled.

Her failure brings blaspheming (blasphemetai), it's being critical of God's Word, and of God Himself as the source. While it could be her husband’s complaint, the island was watching (including “opponents” see verse 8). Alternatively, when she builds her house, God and His Word are honored; Christianity is good for the house, for the world. She shines and her people shine and sound doctrine shines. She will be talked about.

Sure, teach the girls to play house, invite them to help you build the house. What virtue of female glory can you strengthen today? What temptation against female glory can you resist today?

Here is a fatherly desire:

“May our sons in their youth

Among the applications this includes wanting our Titus 2:4-5 young women to be strong for building households on. We build them up to be house builders (think again of Proverbs 14:1).

None of the Titus 2 virtues require more money, they do require more grace. God is able to make all grace abound to you. All the Titus 2 virtues require strength, even sacrifices, more than you think you have ready. That’s good, because you want God’s surpassing power to shine.

[May God] make you worthy of his calling and fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12 ESV)

There aren't many things better in this life than warm bread, soft butter, and sweet honey. Bread, butter, and honey are one of my fondest childhood memories when going to my grandparents house for dinner every Sunday. My mom's parents had 11 kids, and so with all the spouses and grandkids, the table was always full. It was all normal, expected, and most definitely taken for granted. There was never a shortage of people, talking, singing, and of bread, butter, and honey. There was other food, and table was always spread with treats. But bread, butter, and honey was never absent. It was a staple at that table.

When it comes to bread, butter, and honey, one can do it the wrong way, or one can do it the right way. Sure, you can cut yourself a thin, scratchy morsel of bread, spread a sliver of butter that disappears into the bread as soon as you lay it on, and then drizzle a few droplets of honey. If this is how you approach bread, butter, and honey, what are you even doing?

When it comes to partaking in such a delicacy, the bread is to be thick and soft. A thin, dry slice of stale bread finds it's purpose only in croutons. Put those into a salad. The bread should be able to handle the considerable weight of what it's carrying.

That's because the butter is to be soft, needing only the lightest touch of the knife before agreeing to share it's richness with you. And when deciding how much butter to use, the rule of thumb ought to be enough so that when biting into the slice, you'd feel the layer of butter on the top of your teeth before reaching the bread. The butter should be spread on thick. Thick bread. Thick butter.

When it comes to the honey, the word drizzle is not appropriate. On your thick bread and thick butter, you do not drizzle honey. You pour it. Honey is naturally a thicker liquid. Thick enough to avoid drizzling, and let it pour on. Let it overflow, running off the sides of the bread, where you can wipe off the left-over honey on your plate either with your finger, or, better yet, with another piece of bread.

Thick bread. Thick butter. Thick honey.

Now, in one sense, I'm having some light-hearted fun with this. But in another sense, I do think it's a matter worth considering how thick we lay things on. Holding out on God's blessings - in our acceptance and our distribution of them - points to a deeper matter of the heart.

God does not lay it on thin. This earth is finite, and everything on it is as well. And even so, our finite minds are incapable to grasp the abundance of even the finite, temporal blessings that God bestows on His creation. God's blessings are both infinitely vast, and vast in finitude. Even God's finite blessings are overflowing.

But before I go on, I need to clarify one other thing. You might think that I'm using bread, butter, and honey as an allegory to set up the sermon. The bread, butter, and honey are all relevant as bread, butter, and honey to the point I'll be making. They're no allegory. My simple, single-layered point today is the opposite of symbolizing our blessings. It may be single-layered, but it isn't thin.

Bread, butter, and honey are thick blessings that our Maker gifts to us in abundance, for us to partake in with overflowing enjoyment, and share with others in overflowing generosity. God's blessings on our life, are in fact, tangible and tasty and thick and teeming. He gives us real things, that we can smell, hear, see, touch, and taste. He gives us life, and gives it abundantly.

This presentation of God as a generous giver is abundant in Scripture. A passage that has been formative for me is 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verses 6-11. Verse 8 specifically is one of those life-purpose verses that has molded the way I approach my work.

Paul here is encouraging the Corinthians towards good works, specifically in the matter of financial generosity. He brings up examples of the churches of Macedonia, whose "abundance of joy" and "extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For," Paul says, "they gave according to their means...and beyond their means, of their own accord."

This idea of abundant generosity overflows throughout this passage. Paul encourages, exhorts, and exemplifies this abundant lifestyle. And then brings it to a point in verse 6.

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:6-7)

In verse 6, the word that the ESV translates as "bountifully" is "eulogia." Which can be translated, even in this context, as "blessing." The idea here is that what we're sowing, and will be reaping as a result, is blessing. We will be bestowed with blessing in accordance with how much blessing we've bestowed. If we bless abundantly, we will receive an abundance of blessing.

We reap what we sow, and with the amount that we sow. That's because blessing other people is not consumption. Yes, we are spending our strength, time, and money. But when blessing others, we are not doing so as consumers. We are doing so as producers.

Jesus brings up this point in his parable of the talents. In Matthew chapter 25, in his dialogue on the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says that it will be like a man who entrusted his property to his servants to steward. The ones that were productive with their talents were rewarded, but the one that hid it, was punished.

The master said,

So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. (Matthew 25:28-29)

The one who has blessings to bestow, and bestows them abundantly, will receive an abundance of blessing. But the one who sees the blessing he has as a consumption to hoard, will lose even the little he's trying to protect.

This brings us to the "how" of the matter in 2 Corinthians 9:8.

Why bless abundantly? Because you will be blessed abundantly. Bless with the amount you want to be blessed with. If you want abundant blessing, you will bless abundantly.

But how do we do that? How do we sow bountifully? How do we bless abundantly?

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

3 main points coming out of verse 8.

Redpill merch is going around that says, "No one is coming to save you."

I understand the idea behind this message. If you rely on the system, you will be let down. A certain kind of independence from Big Brother, or any other institution, is of a sound mind. You want to learn a certain kind of sufficiency that sets you up to be antifragile.

Antifragile is a term coined by Nassim Taleb. The opposite of breaking under tension is not remaining unbroken. It's getting stronger with tension. Taleb presents the opposite of fragility is not robustness, but rather, antifragility. Both ancient and modern stoics argue for a sense of self-sufficiency that is robust, or even anti-fragile. "No one is coming to save you." The word that the ESV translates as "sufficiency" in verse 8, autarkeia (ow-tar'-ki-ah), means self-sufficient, or independent. It's used in some of the Stoic writings in that exact sense.

But at the start of this verse, before mentioning "autarkeia," Paul makes sure to present us with the Source of our Abundance: All Grace.

God is able to make all grace abound to you.

We know, and confess every Lord's Day, that "our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth." We know that God is able, and does, make all grace abound to us.

Our Source of Abundance is not our own self-sufficiency. All of God's Grace is the Source of Abundance.

There are 2 ideas that are introduced in this part of verse 8, that are then repeated in this 1 verse. The first is "pas," which means "all, every, each part, of totality, complete." "God is able to make ALL grace abound to you.

This is the same word - pas - that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 3:21 and 22 when he says "All are yours," a phrase we've all heard many times. Of the 21 words in verse 8 in the Greek, 5 of them is a variation of this word "pas."

All grace, All sufficiency, All things, All Times, Every good work.

Nothing is left out. Grace encompasses both spiritual and material blessings. God bestows the completeness of His grace onto us, so that we lack nothing. All God. All Grace.

The second idea that is repeated in this verse is perisseuo (per-is-syoo-o), which means "to be over and above, to overflow, to abound."

The image here is one of overflowing the sides of the barrel. You turn on the water to fill up the 50 gallon tank, and don't stop until the tank is standing on the bottom of a lake. God is not stingy in distributing his grace. His gives an abundance, an overflow, of all of it. God does not hold back.

Psalm 65:9-13.

Everywhere we look, it's God's grace in abundance. I said earlier that God's blessings are both infinitely vast, and vast in finitude. That even God's finite blessings are overflowing.

When we think about doing something good that is short-lived - a short-lived blessing - we are tempted to match it with a short amount of blessing. "Our kids aren't going to remember this desert. They're going to gobble down the pie, and forget all about it. Why bother putting in the effort? They won't tell the difference."

But that is not the way of our God. When we approach the glory of marionberry pie we must approach it with the weight of eternal proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. The slice of marionberry pie that we serve to our 5-year-old - a temporal dessert that will be consumed and turned into excrement in less than a day, never to be seen again - carries with it evidence of God’s steadfast love to humanity - evidence of his abounding grace. Its temporal nature does not detract from God’s love, but only adds to it all the more.

The amount of care and intention that God places into our temporal pleasure should bring us to our knees. It's a detailed and delicate oversight that our Maker has in order to enable our temporal pleasure.

The Substance of the abundance of God's grace is All Sufficiency. Everything we need, to the brim, all the time. God is able to provide us all the way with everything all the time.

How am I going to take care of all my responsibilities? I want to sow and reap bountifully, but it’s too much. The work is too hard. Look to God's abundant grace. All sufficiency in all things at all times.

The Substance of Abundance is All Sufficiency.

I'm referring to setup like that of a ball-game, when a player sets up his teammate to score. The scoring player takes the glory. But he would not have been able to do it without a proper setup, giving him the opportunity to score.

God performs the setup with his abundance of grace. And what he sets up is each and every one of our good works.

The Setup of Abundance is All Good Works.

That's the objective we're after. In order for us to reap an abundance of blessing in glory, we are to sow an abundance of blessing in our good works.

All grace abounds to you, so that you may abound in every good work.

Which good works are we enabled for? All of them. God gives us all grace for us to have an opportunity to score in every good work.

And how much of all the good works are we to expect to perform? A 50 gallon drum at the bottom of the lake. An overflowing amount. Abounding in every good work.

Yes, the point that Paul makes in verse 6 is that we reap what we sow. Thin work brings thin blessings. Thick work brings thick blessings. But here in verse 8, he lays a foundation underneath our work. And that foundation is also God's blessings. Both the source and the end of our work is blessing.

An abundance of work to do is not in spite of God's blessings in my life, it's because of them. First, we're blessed, and then we work, and then we're blessed some more. And since the abundance of work follows the abundance of blessings, thick blessings don't ever come with thin work. The thicker the blessing, the thicker the work.

We roll up our sleeves for the abundance of every good work out of the abundance of all of God's gracious blessings. If we think our blessings are thin, we will expect our work to be as well, and get frustrated when it's not. It's when we open our mouths and eyes to taste and see the goodness of the Lord in our thick blessings, that we will open our hands to fulfill our thick work with joy.

Thin blessings, thin work. Thick blessings, thick work.

This is why it only makes sense to have thick bread, thick butter, and thick honey. The blessings are thick. So lay them on. Just as God does not hold back in his outpouring, his overflowing, his abundance of all the grace, so we too ought not hold back in our outpouring, our overflowing, our abundance of every good work.

As Paul follows up in verse 9,

As it is written,

We distribute our blessings freely, with an open hand. We don't measure and tally up the sides of the tablet. God abounds. And we abound.

So,

Take note of the beginning of verse 8. Paul does not say that God's abundance of grace in this context is assured. What he says is something a little different.

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you"

It's not an affirmative. The abundance of all of God's grace in this verse depends, is conditioned on, how much blessing we want to reap. Do you want to reap an abundance of blessing? Then sow an abundance of blessing. God loves a cheerful giver, and is able to make all grace abound to you. Do you want that abundance? Reach for it. Like Jacob, wrestle with God for his abundance of blessing.

Think of the grace of God, the Maker of all things, in heaven and on earth. The Reconciler of all things, on earth and in heaven. This God whom we worship every Lord's day, of whom we confess our help is in, is able to make ALL grace abound to you, depending on how much of it we want.

Jesus says,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

What will God withhold from his children? He wants to give you All grace. You want to reap an abundance of God's blessing, and to be able to sow accordingly? You want to have the strength, energy, and zeal to be the kind of cheerful giver whom God loves? Ask him. He is able to make ALL grace abound to you, Scripture says, enabling you to sow bountifully, so that you may reap bountifully.

Charles Spurgeon once preached about petitioning God with prayers of faith. He said,

Mark you, my friends, this is the true mode of prayer. Rest not content with past answers, but double your request and go again. Look upon your past petitions as the small end of the wedge opening the way for larger ones. The best way to repay God, and the way he loves best, is to take and ask him ten times as much each time. Nothing pleases God so much as when a sinner comes again very soon with twice as large a petition - "Lord thou didst hear me last time, and now I am come again." Faith is a mighty grace, and always grows upon that which it feeds. When God has heard prayer for one thing, faith comes and asks for two things, and when God has given those two things, faith asks for six. Faith can scale the walls of heaven. She is a giant grace... We are most of us too slow to go to God.

How much do we want to reap? How much are we willing to sow?

In Til We Have Faces there is repeated reference to the aura and aroma of the priest and his work in the temple. It was awful, unavoidable, and provoked one to deal with something other. His scent and sense were of sacrifices, of blood. Orual said:

“I think that what frightened me (in those early days) was the holiness of the smell that hung about him—a temple-smell of blood (mostly pigeons’ blood, but he had sacrificed men, too) and burnt fat and singed hair and wine and stale incense. It is the Ungit smell.”

Older Christian women should make a similar impact, not frightening but comforting, not stale but fruitful, not singed but sweet.

I did not grow up giving much thought about what a woman would want to be when she got older, at least not until stopping here in Titus 2. A few introductory remarks will help set the context before considering the four virtues.

First, remember the bookends of the whole section. This is teaching that accords with sound doctrine (verse 1), this is what the grace of God trains us for (verse 11).

Second, Titus, and the elders he appointed after him, had the responsibility to preach and promote these things, with authority (verse 15). It's one thing when men teach other men, but Titus 2 includes women teaching women under the oversight and direction of the church’s pastors.

Third, these virtues for older women are not exhaustive, but they are explicitly inspired in this epistle. Other NT letters provide more; Paul and Peter write especially for wives and mothers. And who should ignore the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31? For that matter, the likewise in verse 3 connects with the virtues for older men; verse 2 spills into verse 3. Plus, the training of seven virtues for younger women in verses 4-5 reasonably assumes that the older women had familiarity with those, adding up to eleven for older ladies altogether.

But perhaps we could think of these four virtues in verse 3 as the Mount Rushmore of female glory. Paul wrote so that Titus would target these. There is nothing about cooking or cleaning directly, all of them are about character. These are the virtues that go with generation makers.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, (Titus 2:3 ESV)

Older women translates the word presbutidas (only used here in the NT). Paul talked about caring for widows over sixty (1 Timothy 5:9), but like older men, older women here is a broader, more fluid category. The likewise not only strings the list together, it builds on the health in faith, in love, and in steadfastness to be embodied by older men. Then there are three adjectives and a participial phrase, two positives and two negatives.

Behavior (only here in the NT) stands out because it is comprehensive. It's not quite the same as "works," and we might connect it more with demeanor. This isn't just a woman's conduct, this is how she carries herself. It’s her orientation, her bearing, her manner.

She's to carry herself with the air of the temple. Reverent or "venerable" are good translations, but the word itself has "temple" built into it (a word only used here in the NT, heiroprepes with heiros meaning “a sacred thing, a temple.”). It's the kind of way you'd act in a holy place, except she’s living in all the places as a temple of the Spirit. She's got the smell of holiness on her (part of the reason I opened with the description of the priest).

Older men were to be dignified, and of course that touches everything. So older women likewise should behave themselves like they've been touched by God-worship. This is a how more than a what, meaning she's not a walking-worship-service, but she runs errands on Monday like she worshiped on Sunday.

This isn't listed as if it's a way to be reverent, but slander and reverence are mutually exclusive; the same goes for the next negative. Older women must be not slanderers.

The Greek word for “slander” is diabolos, a word that in some contexts is the name for the devil. This is one of his characteristics: he accuses, he slanders. Even throughout the Pastoral Epistles this word group refers to the enemy, except for a few places, like Titus 2:3, where it describes devilish-behavior.

The NASB has "malicious gossips," and that gets the point across.

Women in general seem to be more curious, they are also more chatty. Both of those are good things, but both of them can be perverted to bad ends. It feels important to be "in the know." There’s a spectrum from Overhearing to Info-mongering to Secrets-spreading all the way up to the level of Blackmail. "Oh be careful little mouth, what you say."

Younger women should rather marry and be busy rather than busybodies who slander (1 Timothy 5:13-14).

This doesn't mean that men can’t/don’t slander, but there seems to be something specifically tempting to ladies. Use your mouth to edify, to build up, not to tear down. This has generational consequences.

There are a number of ways to say "not drunk" in Scripture. This is one of the most negative, and picturesque. The older men are to be temperate, the participle in verse 3 is "enslaved." We call it “addicted” (NIV). That's more pointed than promoting moderation. Older women are not to be slaves to much wine.

There is a personal failure here, but it seems that it messes with her "others” work. She's not thinking about the younger women, or her own husband and children (and grandchildren) if she's always just thinking about the next drink.

The smell and stickiness of wine will keep her from having the smell of virtue. And, wine loosens the tongue; it breaks down the verbal barriers built by good sense.

The list of virtues for older women have some similarity to the list of virtues for older men, with the last being split into more. So older women have four, with the last one covering more.

This is a word Paul apparently made up - kalodidaskoalos; it's not only not used anywhere else in the NT, it't not found in any of the Greek literature that's been found so far. It's an adjective, a compound word, combining "good" and "teacher.” The context is less formal and more personal.

The emphasis of good is on the content, and a lot of the lesson plans come in verses 4-5. It's good to be reverent, not gossips or wine-gluttons, and it's good to be husband-lovers, children-lovers, workers at home, pure and kind, and even submissive to one's own husband. One generation of women should be thinking of passing on the good of godly duties to the next generations.

What about older women teaching younger women how to study the Bible? Sure. That's not listed, for various reasons, though Timothy’s grandmother and mother must have helped acquaint him with the sacred writings from his childhood for sake of his faith (see both 1 Timothy 1:5 and 2 Timothy 3:15). But, when you understand sound doctrine you embody it. You live like you've studied the Bible more than you live for Bible study.

Older women are not finished because they've "raised their family." They are to have a clear mind and a mind for others. Of course how they spend their minutes won’t look the same for every woman, but every Christian woman will be thinking about her minutes for sake of the generations.

If you are an older woman, you are not just making lunch, you are making generations. Will your aroma be that of embodied worship, or embodied worldliness, or an attempt to out-spiritualize your body? Let it be what is fitting for godliness—with good works—for generations’ sake.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV)

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, talking about extravaganzas and weddings reminds us of heavenly realities that await us in the future. And it's a great segue into our time of worship this morning. And as we do, we remember that our help is in the name of the Lord. And our call to worship this morning comes from Psalm chapter 2, the entire chapter.

Why do the nation's rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord holds them in derision, then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying, as for me I have set my keen on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree, the Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest he be angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. And Father to those who are called of you,

this psalm fuels eager anticipation of that great and glorious day when every knee shall bow before the sun. But to those who reject you, it serves as a warning to humble themselves while there's still time. Oh, how we long for the day given this present evil age that we live in. And yet we do not grow weary and lose heart for your spirit ministers to our spirits, granting us new mercies every morning and abiding hope that in due season we shall be set free from our earthly chains and see you face to face. As we turn our attention to our time of corporate worship this morning, we pray that your spirit would grip our hearts and minds and draw us in that our worship would be pleasing and acceptable in your sight.

Amen. What is the standard for a Christian's obedience? What level of righteousness ought we to have? What expectation should we have for our holiness? How much integrity is sufficient? In other words, how much sin may I let myself slide on? Get away with. Tolerate. Excuse. Excuse how much sin is okay for you and for me to hold on to. The talk of faith is prevalent here amongst us, and it's rightly so. Faith is held in its proper place of importance here at Trinity Evangel Church. The power of the doctrine of justification by faith alone ignited the flame in Martin Luther's heart, and like a wildfire blazed through Europe forever changing the landscape of not just the history of the church, but the composition of every human sphere under the lordship of Christ, thus the power of by faith alone.

And in a similar fashion, it is the reverberations of sola fide in its application to all of life that sparked the founding and is sustaining the growth of our church here at TEC. We hold onto and vehemently promote not just the doctrine of justification by faith alone, but a full-fledged embodied life of faith. The Christian life is a life of faith. Now we often contrast faith with works, and in one sense putting those categories as opposing to one another is correct because the Bible does so. Romans chapter 4 which was what ignited that flame in Martin Luther contrasts faith and works in this way, verses 4 through 6.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works." So yes, faith and works can and should be contrasted. not just in terms of justification. Our sanctification is also accomplished by faith. Paul brings up this point in Galatians chapter 3. He says, let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit?

Are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. All of faith, justification and sanctification, the supply of God's spirit and of God's power, a life full of faith. And Jesus had this to say to those who seek to attain holiness by their works. Matthew chapter 23, he says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, of the outside also may be clean. Now, I know that some of us here purposefully don't wash the inside of their coffee cups. I've even heard it called, I think by Mr. Weinberg, a seasoned mug. I mean, I'm not saying that Jesus doesn't have anything to say about it. You Pharisee. Clean the inside of the cup. I'm only reading the Bible literally, as I'm sure you'll hear from Dave. But yes, the Christian life is a life of faith, and being full of faith is what we're after. However, if you note, the reason that Jesus says, for cleaning the inside of the cup is so that the outside may also be clean.

You blind Pharisee, he says, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside may also be clean. The problem with washing your cup only on the outside is that the inside remains dirty. The outside being clean is not a problem. Jesus' point is not that it's a problem to have that clean outside. The problem is that dirty inside. We start with cleaning the inside, having it cleaned, so that then we may be completely clean inside and out. Many Christians who correctly advocate for faith as the root and source of our imputed righteousness and the grounds for our standing before God compromise on their demonstrated righteousness as visible in their works.

But some might say that's legalism. The gospel brings liberty. It's all about Jesus. Yes, we stand by faith, but standing by faith is standing. It's not lying down and taking it easy because of faith. Living by faith is living. It's not dying. So what expectation should a Christian have for his holiness? Jesus tells us in Matthew 5 48, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Our expectation for ourselves, for our holiness is perfection. What level of righteousness ought a Christian have? God's level. God is the standard, surpassing the Pharisees. How much sin may a Christian let himself slide on, get away with, tolerate, excuse, play games with?

How much sin is it okay for you and me to hold onto? None. Through faith alone does not mean I may keep on sinning. But we all know that. And how much of the time do we possess the correct knowledge, but still allow ourselves to get away with sin, excusing and tolerating our own disobedience? I feel frustrated with the situation, so I will be impatient and angry and have a sulking attitude. It's too hard to resist sin. I'm going to give in to the temptation and just ask for forgiveness afterwards. What if our words could sound more like that of David in Psalm 7 when he says, Oh Lord, my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust.

Selah. The Lord judges the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. That's hard. The Psalms are given to us as a script to sing and pray, but it's scary to pray like that. David was a man fully reliant on God's grace, God's mercy, and God's forgiveness, and he needed all of those things. And being a man after God's own heart, the Bible shows David to be vigorously hating and killing his sin, caring with all his might about his holiness in his walk before God. It's much easier to care about other people's holiness. It's not difficult to give others no excuse and show no tolerance of their sin.

When we are sinned against, our expectations are unwavering. But when we are tempted to sin, how difficult it is to fight, to resist, the evil one. I'm rooted in my ways, we say. Sure, I know it's wrong to think what I'm thinking or to feel what I'm feeling and do what I'm doing, but I'm only human. This is unreasonable. Life is hard. I have faith. God's grace covers my sin. Yes, all of that is true. And it's that knowledge that we are to be equipped with as we fight to stand upright by faith. By faith, we are justified. And by faith, we live upright and godly lives. So if this brings to light sin that needs confessing, Or perhaps there are other sins that need to be dealt with.

Now is a good time to confess, though. So you're invited, if you're willing and able, to kneel in humble confession before the Lord, and then I'll pray for us corporately afterwards. Let's pray. Father, we confess that we are a people too easily swayed into excusing our own sin and letting ourselves off the hook. We don't sin because of our environment, or because of other people, or even because of being tempted. Jesus, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, and yet he is without sin. We ought to be holy as you are holy, perfect as you are perfect, and we are far from that. Forgive us for tolerating our sin, confessing but refusing to repent.

This points not to the weakness of our works, but to the fickleness of our faith. So we pray, strengthen our faith. May our faith run deep and may we live godly lives so that our life of faith would be characterized by obedience and uprightness. Lord, we are surrounded by a proud people who hate what you love and love what you hate. The evil are not just unconcerned with holiness, but are promoting and cheering abominations. Grant repentance and revival to the people in our city and in our state.

your spirit to give new life that leads to righteousness. May our streets be full of that which honors you as Lord and King. You are God Almighty and may we always submit to you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. You're invited to stand for the reminder of the assurance of your forgiveness. Our text is from 1 John chapter 5 18 through 21. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true and we are in Him who is true in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children keep yourselves from idols. We all sin, me and you, every day. We fall short again and again but our standing before God does not depend on our daily sinless life, but rather on the new life that we have in Christ. And he who has

that life does not keep on sinning, but Christ protects him. We know that we are from God. We know that Jesus has given us understanding. We know that we are in Him who is true. We know, we are, we have, we have been, and He protects. He has come.

He has given. So by faith we hold on to this knowledge and by faith we deploy this knowledge as we trust God for our obedience and that's a reason for us to worship. So let's worship. The reading this morning is from Hebrews chapter 10 verses 1 through 4. I'll be using the ESV. So Hebrews chapter 10 verse 1, For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins. But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." Father we thank you for this time together, help through your spirit be able to keep clear these things. Those things that maybe are said wrong you would cause to be forgotten, but those

things that are true help to build our faith and our knowledge and what you have coming to us. We thank you for all of these things and in Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. Alright, this is a lot of stuff and Philip gave the sermon already, so I'm... Alright, a year ago I preached two sermons on eight covenants in the Bible. I did this to show that we here at Trinity Evangel Church believe in these covenants and what the Bible has to say about. In the covenants that the covenant theologians have created, as Lincoln Duncan has said in the article for the Gospel Coalition, for these reasons and more covenant theologians find ample exegetical and biblical theological and systematic theological grounds for asserting the theological covenants. The covenants of redemption and the covenant of works and grace. All All I want to do is look and see what the Bible says in its covenants and the promises that God gives to people and the condition of them.

And that then brings about the subject of, or the big subject that I'm talking about today, the Millennial Temple of Ezekiel 40 through 48. Those of you that listen to your Bible or read through it, when you get to these chapters and you read them, you find out they're incredibly detailed about the construction, the measurements, all the stuff that goes on for eight chapters of detailed stuff. Models have been made, you can look them up in Bible dictionaries and stuff showing the size of it and all the rest of it. I am not going to preach line by line through 48. It's basically a descriptive text of what this temple is.

The issue is, is it allegorical or is it literally going to be a temple? So you'll notice that we had an interesting collection of a lot of words today on the front of our bulletin. I did that on purpose. Those verses that we read and talked about, Psalm 2 talk about a future reign of Jesus Christ and Jim read through the whole thing and he says, ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession speaking to Jesus. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them into pieces like a potter's vessel and then ends it that people will take refuge in him. Has this happened yet?

The answer is no. In 1 John 5, 18 through 21, which was the verse that I wanted read about the confession of sin, it mentions in there, we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. If the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, Is Christ King? A question. Then on to Hebrews 10, 1 through 4. And it goes through the sacrifices and the shadow that the Mosaic law provided. If you remember when we went through the Mosaic law, the Mosaic law is dead and over. It was a conditional covenant. It has been done away with Christ's death. The New Testament testifies it. This is one of the great testimonies of it.

There are others, but the Mosaic law is dead. And the final verse there in Hebrews 10.1 through 4, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins, just a kind of a sidetrack rabbit trail. In Isaiah 53, even if you were a believing Jew, you would see that and you might wonder what is going on there and even if you were able to determine that God himself would be the sacrifice, you know that the Mosaic law would forbid human sacrifice, only animal sacrifice. So you would be confused in the way that that was constructed if you thought that those were the things that were paying for your sin.

The Mosaic Law was only intended to cover your sin, not to pay for it. The pay for it didn't happen until Christ died. Second Corinthians 4.1 through five is the final thing that the commission is gonna have, and the verse in there, and it'll be read at the end of the service, the verse there is Second Corinthians 4.4. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Again demonstrating Satan is in charge of that situation. So God is not resting on his throne is the case that I'm making. Then we move on to the Millennial Temple, and Ezekiel is commanded to make known the temple, starting in 40 and then he moves on through 40 all the way through 48.

In Ezekiel 43, 11 through 12 it says, and if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple, its arrangement, its exits, its entrances, That is its whole design, and make known to them as well as all its statues and its whole design and all its laws. Write it down in their sight so they may observe all its laws and all its statues and carry them out. This is the law of the temple. The whole territory on the top of the mountain all around shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the temple. Other prophets talk about the temple in the Old Testament also. Notice too in verse 12 there of Ezekiel that the temple, the whole territory on the top of the mountain shall be most holy.

When you add up all the dimensions, there is no way that that temple could be built on Mount Moriah. So there will be a new mountain built that it will be built on. We'll talk about that in a little bit as we go through these. Isaiah 2, 1-4 talks about it. The word of Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the later days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it should be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it. And many people shall come and say, come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.

For out of Zion shall go the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and shall decide disputes for many peoples. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. The nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." Also speaking to a future situation. Isaiah 60, 12 through 13, "'For the nation and the kingdom "'that will not serve you shall perish. "'Those nations shall be utterly laid waste. "'The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, "'the cypress, the plain and the pine, "'to be beautifully the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious, talking about the decoration of the temple.

Daniel 9, 24, this 70 weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression and to put an end to sin and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and profit, and to anoint a most holy place, again talking about the temple. Joel 3 18 and in the day that the mountains shall drip sweet wine and the hills shall flow with milk and all the steam beds stream beds of Judah shall flow with water and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the valley of Shittim describing a future situation that has not happened. Haggai 2 7 through 9 and I will shake all nations so that the treasure of all nations shall come in. And I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts.

The silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the Lord of Hosts. The latter glory of this house should be greater than the former, says the Lord of Hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of Hosts." Another description of what's going to happen in the future. There are objections to these things. First objection would be that the measurements given by Ezekiel will not fit the Temple Mount and therefore this cannot be literal. The answer to this objection, that is true. The current mountain does not fit this dimension. But it is a misconception that Ezekiel's temple was intended to be built on that mount. The detail of Ezekiel gives that there will be major geographic changes will occur resulting from the second coming of Christ. And some of these changes will create a new temple mount all together. That's Zechariah 4-4. On that day, this is the end when Christ comes back, on that day, his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from

east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the mountain, Mount, shall move northward and the other half southward." These are big things that are happening when he shows up. And reading Revelation and these situations, you understand that the whole world is going through big changes. So not necessary to have the mountain right now, but it is necessary for that mountain to have the dimensions to contain the temple. Sacrifices will be made in the temple. What? You read Ezekiel and you find very detailed descriptions of how many bulls, how many goats, who's got to do it, and all of this kind of stuff. You'll find that their Gentiles will be priests with the Levites.

I'll give you that verse as we go through this. So the whole temple system is going to be made. It is not a temple system to satisfy your sin problem. It is a temple system to purify the temple, okay? Isaiah 56, six through seven, and the foreigners who joined themselves to the Lord to minister him, to love the name of the Lord and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath does not profane it and holds fast my covenant. These I will bring to my holy mountain and I will make the joyful in the house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Isaiah 67, all the flocks of Kedars should be gathered to you. The rams of Nabioath shall minister to you. They shall come up with acceptance on my altar and I will beautify my beautiful house." So he's even saying where the flocks and the rams and stuff will be raised to be sacrificed. Isaiah 66, 18 through 23, for I know their works and their thoughts and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues and they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them and from them I will send survivors to the nations detarches, pull, let, and draw the bow to Tubal and Jevan, to the coastlands far away, and that have not heard my fame or seen my glory.

And they shall declare my glory among the nations, and they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord." Notice it's all the nations are coming and worshipping. On horses, chariots, and litters, on mules, on tromedaries to my holy mountain in Jerusalem, says the Lord. Just as the Israelites bring their grain offering and a clean vessel to the house of the Lord, and some of them also I will take priests, and for Levite I will take four priests. Some of them also I will take for priests. And for Levite, says the Lord. They're out of Gentile nations he's bringing, these people are gonna run this.

For as the new heavens and the new earth, I shall remain before me, says the Lord. So shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon and from the Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord. Jeremiah 33, 17 through 18. For thus says the Lord, David should never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. And for the Levitical priest, shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to make sacrifices forever.

Malachi 3 through 4, he will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will greatly purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. And they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old as in the former years. These are all future things that are being talked about here. They are not past things. They are future things. Zechariah 14, 16 through 21. Then everyone who survives all the nations that have come against Jerusalem should go up a year after year. This is after they've beaten down the great rebellion that starts the millennium.

They come to the king and the Lord of hosts and to keep the feast of Booths. And if any of the families of Earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King of the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves. Then on them there shall be no rain. There shall be the plague which the lords afflict the nations and do not go up to keep the feasts of Booths. This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment of all nations that do not go up to keep the feast of boost. And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bills of the horses, holy to the Lord, and the pots in the house of the Lord shall be as bowls before the altar.

And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the Lord of hosts, so that all whose sacrifice may come and take them, and boil meat of the sacrifice in them, and they shall no longer be a traitor in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day. The objection to this is that to believe in the reinstitution of blood sacrifices is heresy. In summary, we can say that the discrepancies between Ezekiel's temple and any other temple described in the scriptures would evaporate if those who interpret the Bible would concede that there is a new law in operation during the Messianic Kingdom. on a kingdom. Instead of insisting the doctrine that the Mosaic law is eternal, it is not.

It has been done away with. Or trying to harmonize the different passages by wildly allegorizing the text. One has to simply accept the fact that Ezekiel's temple is a literal building constructed by a repentant and restored nation of Israel and in which they will worship the Lord by sacrifices during the time when the Messiah himself will reign over the earth.

Jesus on his throne is the next portion of this. This is done in the Davidic covenant, 2 Samuel 7, 8 through 16. Now therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be the prince over my people Israel and I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies before you and I will make you a great name like the name of the great ones on the earth and I will appoint a place for my people Israel and I will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. A violent man shall afflict them no more as formally. From the time that I've pointed judges over my people Israel I will give you rest from all your enemies. More ever the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your own body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a

house for my name. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." That's not Solomon. His kingdom wasn't forever. This is talking about the offspring of the Lord. I will be to him my father and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity I will discipline him with the rod of men, with stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul whom I put away before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be sure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever." Luke 32 or 132 and 33, the angel Gabriel speaking to Mary, he her son will be great and will be called the son of the Most High and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom there will be no end. Psalm 110 verses 1 and 2, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies."

Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3, he is the radiance and the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. After making the purification, the cross, he has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. This is also referenced in Peter's sermon in Acts chapter 2. Is Jesus sitting on David's throne right now as many claim? At what point did God install Jesus as king on my holy hill of Zion, Psalm 2.6. Has he broken the nations with the rod of iron? Psalm 2.9. Is he ruling in the midst of his enemies from Zion?

Psalm 1.10.2. No, to all those. If this is true, the nations have been given to Jesus as his inheritance and as his possession. Psalm 2.8. How could John say that the whole world lies currently, present indicative verb, that the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one, 1 John 1.19, if he had taken his throne? What else but demonic and blasphemous could we call Paul's assertion that Satan is the god of this age, 2 Corinthians 4.4. if Jesus is the reigning king. Why would Paul say that if Jesus is the reigning king? He wouldn't. The answer is simply that the church is not the kingdom. Jesus has not yet returned to sit on David's throne.

He is in heaven where he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, Hebrews 1.3, pretty basic. The new covenant also speaks to these issues. Jeremiah 31 through 31, 34. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not with the whole world. He's making a covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah in Jeremiah 31. Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant that they broke though, what I was their husband declares the Lord. For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days declared the Lord. I will put my long within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brothers saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

First notice that there are three times God states that this covenant is with the house of Israel and Judah. I took them out of the land of Egypt, the house of Israel. He could not have been clearer that he was talking to the house of Israel. Those who apply the New Covenant to the Church must have already combined the Church and the Kingdom before approaching this text. And they also have combining the Church with Israel to say this applies to us. It's clear that God made the Covenant through the Prophet Jeremiah with Israel. There is no way to read this passage literally and find reference to the Church. God will make the new covenant with the ethnic nation of Israel, the nation of the descendants promised to Abraham.

Second, this covenant will not take place until God restores Israel back into her land. This is the whole context of Jeremiah 31. Some historical background is necessary. Assyria had taken captive the ten northern tribes of Israel in 722 BC. When Jeremiah wrote this, Nebuchadnezzar had already executed the first three captives of Judah to Babylon in 605 BC. That's Jeremiah 29.1 and possibly the second in 598 BC as well. Even after the various Jewish returns to Israel in the 400s BC, few would call that a complete restoration. The oppression of the Romans for centuries and the scattering of the Jewish apostles in Acts 8-1 and the Jewish dispersion referred to in James 1 and Peter 1 all indicate that restoration has not yet happened by the first decades of the church, yet because of Jesus' claim that his blood is the blood of the new covenant, Matthew 26-28, covenant scholars like Grudem, that this blessing finds fulfillment in the Church, which is the people of God.

We do not buy that. It's an interesting change that he's made in his new edition of his theology. Though God's promises to David to restore the Jewish people to their land, where they will no longer be oppressed, has not yet happened. Third, the basis of this covenant is the new relationship with God. Jesus promised that Israel would not see him again until they say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Matthew 23, 39. At that time, they will call on my name and I will answer them. I will say, this is my people and each one will say, the Lord is my God, Zachariah 13, nine. Contrary to what some teach, this has nothing to do with individuals believing in the Messiah, so Messiah for salvation to the church age.

It has everything to do with the final declaration to the Jewish nation. When the Jewish people return to their Messiah, God will rescue them, restore them to the land, and put his law on their minds and write it on their hearts. The result will be that he will be their God and they shall be his people, Jeremiah 31, 33. Paul explained why this has not happened yet. Blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, Romans 11, 25. The coming kingdom will not be just a monarchy as Abraham and David expected, but a theocracy where Jesus, the God-man, will rule supreme both as David's earthly heir and as God's holy servant.

God will once again be the resident God, not hidden behind the curtains of the dent of meaning or the temple, but among the people, Emmanuel God is with us. Everyone from the smallest to the greatest will know Him personally, and He will offer forgiveness for the sin nationally and individually. Thus, Israel will be finally renamed from Lo Ami, not my people to ami my people as God promised in Isaiah 1, 10 through 11. Now, there's important for you to remember that in the millennium believers of this age will be in their glorified bodies and he's only talking about those people that are raised up in the millennium, real people that are born into that era.

And in other places in Isaiah it says they have a hundred years to repent or that's the end of them but those real people are who needs the salvation. We as glorified people do not need that we will be helping administer that kingdom. So to in the end we have this conclusion we have seen that a literal normal understanding of numerous passages written about the kingdom does not reveal an intricate complex imaginative system that presents an interpretation that would surely never have been thought of except in the defense of a theory. Nor do we find a nebulous concept that must be rationalized and applied spiritually today. Instead we see a series of promises given in plain language repeated over thousands of years to different people with no contradiction resulting in one conclusion, a physical kingdom in a physical territory promised to a specific physical nation. God revealed each one of these four covenants before the existence of the church and through though individual salvation is made available in the church age through Jesus's blood even the new

covenant will be made solely with Israel. Had God given Abraham all the details immediately he would not have been surprised to find out the nation promised to him would have specific land, a dynastic monarchy, and a religion she could call her own. That's it. It is amazing to me just saying on the whole, as I've discussed this for years with people. You've heard my story, I got saved at 37 and was only by the guy that gave me the gospel allowed to listen to people on the radio. We would tape them and I'd listen to them tapes in the car and all that kind of stuff. But as I went through it, it was amazing to me when you just read what it says and expect that to happen, how all these things happen. And the classic line is that the anti-biblical history is beaten on the anvil of God's Word into pulp every time. If you wait long enough, all the people that are showing you why the Bible isn't true, all of that stuff turns to dust. In the 1880s, the liberal Germans all were saying the proof that

the Bible is not literal is that there is no Hittite civilization. Well guess what?

They discovered the Hittite civilization and it was huge all throughout Central Asia. And all of that information and those little steels, those little tablets that they impressed in the wet clay were all stored in East Germany in the communist museums there. And then museums there and then finally when the wall fell people now have been able to look at those tablets and see how big the Hittite Empire was and on and on go all these stories you know well this didn't happen because we haven't found that yet okay keep digging so anyway the literal thing is we've got eight chapters talking about this temple the more you study it it's pretty incredible and I think pretty obvious. So there we go. Let's pray and we can move on. Father, I thank you that through your nation Israel who you favored have given us your word and given us the Messiah. He is a Jew come out to be that ultimate sacrifice and that then graciously through his shed blood and your gospel you have brought us Gentiles into the mix and for the last 2,000 years we have

run your church and sometimes ignored your favored nation and your favored people. Help us not to do that. Help us to understand that the bedrock of our faith is this Bible that you have given revelation to those faithful Jewish people and you will continue that and do that even in the future. We pray that you come soon as it says in the end of Revelation. It's a crazy world we live in. Help us to make the right decisions and be those people that will make you proud and make us and give us the strength through your spirit to do those things in our society. So we thank you for all of those things in Jesus' name, amen.

I was a little worried that some of my stuff might be a little long but it looks like I still have a lot of time. So we'll do a second sermon. No, we'll let you guys, let you guys get to your rest. But we have not yet entered God's rest. So we're gonna enter our own here soon, but the book of Hebrews does tell us that we have not yet entered God's rest. And so we also experience every day in our lives here under the sun. And along with nature, we groan waiting for the redemption of our bodies. We are waiting for our battle with sin to be over. It is exhausting being rigorous fighting your sin. It's exhausting laying aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.

It's exhausting running with endurance the race that is set before us. We are to strive to enter that rest, Scripture tells us. And when the author of Hebrews is exhorting his audience to do so, to strive to enter God's rest, it is in the context of presenting the example of when the generation of Israelites failed to enter the Promised Land. God swore to that generation that they would not enter, Hebrews 3, 18 and 19, and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient. So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

the disobedient were unable to enter God's rest, it says, because of unbelief. Yes, their works were wicked and sinful. These Israelites were full of disobedience, and they were such because of their unbelief. But we know that we are of faith, and God has promised that we will enter his rest. We come to the throne of grace boldly and with confidence. Yes, we are to strive and it is our faith that enables us to do so. The fact that we can fight means that we are alive. In giving us new life, a life that is dead to sin, God has enabled us to put our sin to death. Because Christ has paid the penalty for our sin, the penalty that we could not pay, we don't strive in order to obtain life. We don't strive because we're unsure of victory. Christ has already secured that victory. That is why we can strive. We strive to enter God's rest because we are alive. And Lord's Day after Lord's Day we get a a glimpse, a little taste of that rest which God has prepared for those who believe.

May we be able to pray like David prayed, judge me according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. Stand by faith. Do not lie down because of it. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would command ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. Amen.

May we be able to pray like David prayed, judge me according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. Stand by faith. Do not lie down because of it. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would command ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.