Sermon Tone Analysis

March 14, 2012

By John Barnett

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Women energized by grace love their children.

That is what Titus 2:4 says.

We are going to see how to love children with love they can feel this evening.

But before we do that we need to ask why are we even here tonight?

Why do we even sacrifice another hour-plus to gather in this building and study God's Word?

The answer is that we desire to be a faithful part of Christ's church!

You see, this evening you and I are part of something big, something grand, something that dwarfs all our broken down cars, lost jobs, bad health, work pressures, social problems, or even personal loneliness…this evening through Jesus Christ, you and I are a part of what God has chosen as His priority in the Universe.

We are in partnership with GOD.

Think of that.

You and I are equity holders in something that will never end, never fail, never decay--we are a vital part of Christ's church!

God’s plan to work in the world is through His church.

Why not remind yourself of that by looking at three passages of Scripture with me tonight.

In fact you may even want to pencil in three words on the pages of your Bibles.

The first word is MISSION.

• Each of us in Christ's church has *a mission* that Paul summarized as “Pleasing God” (I Thessalonians 4:1) “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God” (NKJV).

• Our mission is accomplished by the proclamation of *a message* Paul summarized as “the Gospel of Grace” (Acts 20:24) “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God (NKJV).

This message of grace—that God did everything possible to be done and anyone can come to Him merely by faith seems impossible.

• But the most amazing part is that God’s plan to do all this through us is by* a method* spelled out in Titus 2. Paul summarized this plan as men and women energized by God’s grace to live in a way that is otherwise impossible.

Let’s read Titus 2 backwards this evening.

Stand with me, follow along, or just listen as I start in v. 15 and go to v. 1.

Titus 2:15-1 (NKJV)

15 Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority.

Let no one despise you.

14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,

10 not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.

9 Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back,

8 sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.

7 in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility,

6 Likewise exhort the young men to be sober-minded,

5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,

3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—

2 that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience;

1 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine:

If you want a summary of our lives as believers it would be: We were saved by God’s grace; we are kept by God’s grace; and we live in a way that pleases God and earns His rewards—*energized by His grace.*

God’s plan to work in the world is His church .

Christ's church may be described as a group of people, energized by grace, doing the impossible for the glory of God.

A key insight into God’s plan to reach the world through Christ's church is in Titus chapter 2.

The verses of this chapter contain a call to First Century men and women energized by grace to live an extraordinary spiritual life in a very unspiritual culture.

When grace energizes us we want to deny ungodliness in any form we find it cropping up in our lives.

When God’s grace energizes us we want to mortify lust in any form in our lives.

The Cretan church was saved, bought from the slave market of sin (redeemed), but still had clinging to their lives the garbage of their culture.

They had generations of bad habits, false thinking, and warped lives.

What was the plan God had in mind to transform these very un-saintly people?

The same plan He has for all of us today.

Save them by His grace and sanctify them by His Word.

As long as the power was on in their lives, as long as they operated energized by grace the old ways, the lusts of the flesh, and all the manifestations of pride were held back.

But whenever the power was interrupted and they did not walk in the Spirit—the old corrupt ways of the flesh would spring to life.

As I worked over this passage for the past two weeks I kept thinking about what the church in Crete must have looked like.

Can you imagine congregation after congregation around that island of Crete that Titus had to visit?

Each one probably had at least one person not walking in the Spirit, not energized by grace to deny ungodliness, and so the unpleasant odors of un-disposed remnants of fleshly garbage would be present.

Just like someone who smokes that can’t smell the stale odor of smoke that reeked from all their clothing, car or home—so these former pagans couldn’t smell all their fleshly habits that needed change.

Like garbage left to rot smells until it is disposed of and cleansed away, so Titus was to start a spiritual search and dispose mission into the lives of the Cretans.

God wanted to shine the spotlight of His Word into their lives corporately, and then individually.

As any garbage was exposed it was to be denied, and the area exposed to that garbage cleansed and freshened by the power of the sanctifying Spirit of God through His Word.

The mission Paul sent Titus out to do was to take the new believers and have them scrape off their lives anything that clung to them of the old life, mortify, sanctify, and purify away anything that was not pleasing to God.

The Cretans as new believers needed long-term sanctification.

They were just children-in-the-faith in need of a long bath in God's Word, administered by mothers and fathers-in-the-faith!

This need for removing remnants of garbage that stinks confronted me on Thursday night.

I walked into our house for the first time in ten days and it smelled like a dumpster.

I prowled around looking for where that horrible smell was coming from.

Trash cans were checked, pantry potato bags, fruit bowl, and all came up clear.

Then I saw a dark circle on the floor in front of the fridge.

When I pulled open the door of that trusted 12 year old appliance there was the finest collection of colorful molds and layers of decay available anywhere in the city.

Most of the refrigerant compressor had died, thus the temperature had risen, and all the microbes always lurking around food had sprung to life.

Normally they are abated by the low temperatures and can’t grow or reproduce.

But the moment that the coldness was limited, decay set in at warp speed; and the result was a stinking mess.

But because I value that appliance I had only one choice—to get rid of the garbage.

For the next six hours I bagged, hauled, washed, scraped, bleached and scrubbed that trusty white fridge in the kitchen until it was pure white again, and mold and stink free.

Refrigerators have no smell of their own; they just hold objects that begin to smell if allowed to.

All it needed was to be washed and renewed and it would be back as good as new.

When Titus came to Crete to pastor Christ's church, it was sometime in the early 60’s AD.

As he arrived the churches were filled with spiritual lives that smelled like a dumpster.

The old rotted flesh of their former ways stood in the way of their progress in Christ.

They were bought and paid for but needed the washing of sanctification through God's Word.

There were stinking lives, stinking marriages, and stinking families.

Paul proposed to Titus a two-part plan: regular systematic teaching in the church gatherings and private one-on-one discipling sessions for focused applications of the sanctifying Word.

As believers this morning we are on the journey of new beginnings through Christ—energized each step of the way by grace.

Titus 2 is a roadmap for all who want their life to count.

It is God’s pathway of disciplines to choose each day in the power of the Spirit of grace.

*Christ's Church Used Grace Energized Coaches in Godly Living*

The Titus Two woman is an imperfect person, saved by God, and energized by His grace to live an exemplary life as described in Titus 2:3-4.

So we could easily say that:

• Women energized by grace—are reverent in their behavior,

• Women energized by grace—are not slanderers,

• Women energized by grace—are not given to much wine,

• Women energized by grace—are teachers of good things, and

• Women energized by grace—are discipling younger women.

Those new believers, fresh out of paganism needed coaching, training, modeling, and encouraging in a one-on-one relationship.

Godly behavior is a series of choices; and those men and women had to be nurtured in daily skills that would lead to loving marriages and families.

*v.

4b “the young women to love their husbands” (6)* Wives energized by grace love their husbands.

Wives energized by grace are first of all “lovers of their husbands”.

Titus 2 woman understand that there are three specific life long priorities that make a wonderful start: