Family Shepherding | Titus 1:5-9 | Voddie Baucham | A.D. March 26, 2023

foreign [Music] take a Bible please one that you brought or if you need one there should be one in the chair in front of you and invite you to turn with me to today's text Drbakum will be speaking on Titus Chapter 1 verses 5 through 9. if you use the Bible in the chairs it's page 998 page 998 Titus Chapter 1 verses 5 through 9. let's Stand Together as we read the word of God hear the word of the Lord then this morning Paul writes this is why I left you in Crete so that you might put what remained into order and to point Elders in every town as I directed you if anyone is above reproach the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination for an overseer as God's Steward must be above reproach he must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain but hospitable a lover of good self-controlled upright holy and disciplined he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound Doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it this is the word of the Lord you may be seated well good morning is indeed a delight to be with you on this morning and to address my assigned topic which is family shepherding and you might think it odd to address the issue of family shepherding in a pastor scripture that is one of the seminal texts on the qualifications for elders but I assure you this is the perfect place for us to be perfect place for a number of reasons um first when we look at the book of Titus if you go with me to that first paragraph there in in the book Paul gives us really the theme of the book beginning verse one Paul a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth which Accords with godliness in Hope of eternal life with God who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in the world or in manifested in the word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our savior that phrase there at the beginning of verse 1.

their knowledge of the truth which Accords with godliness that's the theme of the book of Titus the knowledge of the truth that Accords with godliness and throughout the letter he is pointing to and making a distinction between those who know the truth and are therefore Godly and those who do not know the truth and are therefore ungodly by the way this knowledge of the truth is not just informational he makes that clear later on in the letter that that this knowledge of the truth to which he refers is the knowledge of the message of the Gospel in fact let's look there now go go to the chapter two the end of chapter two chapter two beginning verse 11. the university 10 he talks about adorning the doctrine of God our savior wearing the doctrine of God I love that phrase Adorn the doctrine of God our savior put it on wear it what does sound Doctrine look like when you wear it when you live it 211 he says for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who 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 so there is that truth that we are to know it's the truth that Christ gave himself Christ died a vicarious substitutionary atoning death on the cross in order to redeem a people for himself but to redeem a people for himself who who don't just Escape hell but to redeem of people for himself who are by virtue of their Redemption zealous for good works and he gets very particular in relation to the good works that he's addressing here and he he goes to where the rubber meets the road and he talks about the home the household the family which is incredibly important and he does it in a number um of his letters he gives the the household codes and the reason that he does this is because there is no place better to see and determine what you truly believe amen I mean you can fool Folks at church you can fool Folks at your job but your spouse and your children they know and people talk about the difficulty of of raising teenagers there are a number of reasons that make it difficult to raise teenagers right I mean you know one thing that makes it difficult to raise teenagers is is feeding them amen somebody right um but another thing that makes it difficult to raise teenagers is that they are walking hypocrisy detectors except their own but outside of themselves they see all hypocrisy in here there's something that blocks the detector from from working on the on the inside but on the outside they are walking hypocrisy detectors and that that's a death nail for a man or a woman who is outwardly professing Christ but not living it inwardly because you can't hide there you can hide outside some of you some of you did it today somebody did it this morning right you got into a big knock down drag out fight this morning before church you know you were arguing about you know somebody not getting up on time or whatever just at each other right you know maybe somebody didn't like how somebody was driving you know and then you add each other over how he was driving and then you get in to the parking lot and you just passed a parking space and why you got you know all this is going on right and they're gritting the teeth and the Jaws are tight and all that and then you park and get out of the car and they say hey brother how are you how you doing grabbing each other's hands right that's why when people's marriages fall apart usually the response in the church is wait what them because you can hide it out there cannot hide it at home that's where we are who we really are you can't keep your mask on at home not for long and so there in chapter two and it's interesting I want to make an argument for the fact that this is the list that we need to be looking at for Godly Shepherds not just for elders and there are people who may have a problem with that but I I want to show you a number of reasons that I believe that is the case and one is when you go to chapter two look at chapter two and look at beginning verse 3. we'll look at we'll see two things here right number one we see this whole idea of knowledge of the truth that Accords with godliness being manifested in the home look older women likewise ought to be reverent in Behavior not Slanders or slaves so much wine they ought to teach what is good that's knowledge of the truth and so here to teach what is good and so what's the result of their teaching and so train the young women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled pure working at home kind submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled so there is the direct link right there right to to knowledge of the truth this sound teaching of the gospel and the implications thereof and the fruit being born within the context of that place where we all live and have our most significant relationships and see the clearest manifestation of our godliness or lack thereof which is the home we have that list of things that older women are teaching younger men women right and and then what's interesting is verse six likewise urge the younger men to be self-control that's it that's it there's three reasons I believe that the list for younger men is that list in chapter one my first Reason Not My strongest the fact that there's no list in chapter two amen I didn't say it was the strong reason I just said it's a reason there's no list in chapter two it makes no sense why isn't there a list in chapter two there's a list right for older women and younger women there's no list for older men and younger men okay there's a second reason look at verse seven 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 against us show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works riddle me this why would Elders need to model something that is only required of them that makes no sense you model something for people to follow right I mean if if nobody's going to follow you're not you're not modeling you're performing right but he says show yourself to be a model and then there's a third reason that I'm arguing that the list for all Godly men is this list we find in chapter one remember number one there's no listen chapter two number two the elders are supposed to be modeling something and here's number three there's nothing on this list that you're willing to say nah I'll pass on that one for my son nothing in this list everything in this list anyone who's Raising a Son any Christian who wants to raise a Godly son you are going to hold on to everything in this list and not pass over any Stitch of it this is the list which means young men hear me if you want to see what it looks like and what you need to prepare for in order to be a godly man and a Godly husband and a Godly father who Shepherds his family this is what you pay attention to this is what you pursue if you're raising a young man this is the standard to which we call him and it's incredibly important because if we don't the world has a standard and the world standard is the billfold the ball field in the bedroom that's the world standard that's how they Define manhood right again it doesn't take long to figure this out we're not even we're not like women if women want to know you if a woman wants to know you she wants to know who you're connected to right so you get women together who've never met each other within a few seconds of the conversation they're going to be talking about their families I want to know you don't know who you're connected to who's your wife who's your husband who's your children men want to know each other within seconds it's what's your job which is code for how much money you make the billfold we're measuring we're measuring ourselves against one another right how successful are you then it's the ball field right are you an athlete were you an athlete how far did you go how good were you right because that's how that's how we Define manhood you know I played so and so for such and such oh really well I played for right okay and in the bedroom conquests with women that's how the world defines manhood so so our our sons are out there in that world and they're hearing that over and over and over again this is how you're a man this is how you measure yourself against other men and if we don't have anything else to offer what they're going to have is the billfold the ball field and the bedroom with the Bible on top of it and that dog won't hunt so so we have to have this standard we have to have this picture we have to have this goal in mind but by the way this is how we Shepherd future Shepherds amen this is how we Shepherd future Shepherds young ladies if you're here and you have any interest whatsoever and being married being a wife and a mother and serving the lord as a wife and a mother pay attention because this right here is what you want amen and if it's not what you want then repent and teach yourself to want this rather than whatever else it was that you thought you wanted [Applause] now with that in mind let's look they're going to be fish three movements here in this text first the shepherd and his family second the shepherd and his character third the Shepherd in his teaching and we're going to see that this moves in reverse order look at verse five this is why I left you in Crete so that you might put what remains into order and appoint Elders in every town as I directed you if anyone is above reproach we're going to see that word a number of times above reproach that being above reproach is the idea of being exemplary not perfect Christ is perfect amen being above approaches about being exemplary it means that there's no charge that you can bring in these areas that's going to stick is exemplary in these areas if anyone's above approach the husband of one wife literally means a one-woman man some some you speculate that you know Paul must be talking here about cultures where you know people practice polygamy and and he's just saying here that you can't be a polygamist you only have to have one wife no the phrase here is a one-woman man polygamy was not much of an issue um in in these circles and there's another phrase that he could have used if he was talking about polygamy you could use a phrase that basically said can't be a polygamist amen but the phrase here and again we're talking about character we're talking about character as it manifests itself in the home the idea is being a one-woman man having the character of a one-woman man if I'm gonna put it in the vernacular for the Young Folks he's not a player he doesn't treat every woman as though she's the object of his affections he doesn't have a Wandering eye he is a committed one woman man he's a covenant keeper that's number one that's what we want to raise that's what we want to model and as a shepherd this is what the most important thing that I can do for my children is Model A Love for their mother and a commitment to her starts there the greatest and most significant manifestation of my godliness as a man is there husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her there in Ephesians chapter 5 at the end of it we see that Paul says this mystery is great but I'm speaking about Christ and the church it's a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church so this gospel that we preached to our children is pictured and exemplified in the marriage relationship between a husband and the wife that's significant foreign secondly his children are believers that's an unfortunate translation the Greek word that's being translated there is is the word pistis for Faith which is also for belief to have faith or to believe um the better translations of this verse say he has faithful children that's the bitter translation for a number of reasons um first of all it's a better translation because we're talking about the character of the man and and my character can be exemplary but my character doesn't save my children amen doesn't we're talking about the character of the man secondly it would be incredibly awkward because if this meant again for an elder who is our model for this if this meant for an elder that his children had to be converted then every time a new child was born into his home he'd be disqualified you see you see that because because we're not born Believers amen so that would be hugely problematic the third reason that that's a better translation is because the explanation comes immediately after if his his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination now this has to do with how they're raised you don't have to be converted for this to not be open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination so when we put this in his context and we're talking about character here we're talking about the character of a man as a husband and the character of a man as a father that he's exemplary he's an exemplary husband and an exemplary father this doesn't mean that there are no problems it is marriage or no problems with his kids can you imagine somebody's coming to you for for counseling and they're like you know Pastor you know my my wife and I are are struggling with this and we're wondering if you could help us and you're like struggle what is that what what is what is this thing you call struggle we've never had one of those babe have we ever had a struggle I no exemplary doesn't mean that there's no difficulty you're exemplary in the way that you walk through it exemplary doesn't mean that your children don't make you want to I'm not even gonna go finish that right because I don't want to give anybody any ideas okay but it means that you're exemplary in the way that you walk through that and the way that we train in the way that we discipline in the way that we correct and the way that we disciple and the way that we mentor in the way that we restore so so this is what this is what we're modeling for young men this is what we're living out as shepherds in the home and and this is what as young men were aiming towards to be a Godly faithful one woman man to a wife it's easy to have a lot of women people do it all the time was difficult is having the character to be faithful to one and being the kind of man that one would want to stay with long term amen okay in the words of that great Theologian Forrest Gump that's all I have to say about that right um and young women young women hear me on this this is what this is what you look for this is what you look for a man who's looking for a wife not a play thing a man who wants to be married a man who wants to be a father someday if he says he doesn't like kids he doesn't want kids run leave now God's First Command was be fruitful and multiply it's part of why we're here and I know in this culture in which we live and this age in which we live we we despise children but it's a lie it's a lie you know how I know it's a lie because we don't act like that on the back end I used to tell my wife this all the time but when ours were you know we lord hammers we got nine kids we got nine kids we got nine kids we we got seven kids still at home and so we walked through the airport and people do that [Laughter] and then with their eyes it's amazing how people with their eyes can speak whole sentences because with their eyes they go all yours and then with our eyes we go yep my favorite is when we're going to the airport with our our seven who are still at home and they go are these all your children I go nope we got two more and people just look like but not on the back end if the Lord should Tarry and give me and my wife another 40 50 years and we're surrounded at the end of our days by 50 grandchildren and a hundred great-grandchildren nobody then nobody then is going to go are they all yours do you guys not have a television do you not know what no on the back end they will say you blessed [Applause] that that that that should be our attitude that children are a blessing that they're that their inheritance from the Lord and the other thing while we're here don't don't don't don't don't don't take this for granted I I can't tell you how many young people have this attitude foisted on them by the culture and it's you know well we don't want kids we you know maybe maybe maybe and then later on in their life they decide later in life that now they want kids and then they learn for the first time that you don't just snap your fingers and have one and now they go from ah we don't know to God please God please don't buy the LIE don't bother lie secondly the character issue verse 7.