Wise LEADERS

The Book of Titus | Making Leaders | Titus 2:1-10 | Pastor Duane Smets

This an exegetical sermon of Titus 2:1-10 which addresses the older and younger relationships, the roles of husband and wives and the mission field of the workplace. Particular attention is also given to the important role of community in the development of leaders as well as the priority of God’s word in how we see ourselves and make decisions. This sermon was originally preached on July 3rd, 2011 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
July 3rd, 2011

The Book of Titus: Making Leaders
Wise LEADERS | Titus 2:1-10

I. The Important Place of Community
II. Older and Younger Relationships
A. Older Men & Younger Men (v.2,6-8)
B. Older Women & Younger Women (v.3-5)
III. Employer and Employee Relationships
A. The Slaves Role (v.9-10)
B. The Master Goal (v.10)
IV. The Important Priority of God’s Word (v.5)

Introduction

This summer we’re working through the book of Titus in a series we’re calling, “Making Leaders.” Last week Josh Feil, one of our up and coming leaders here at The Resolved, gave me a week off and preached a great sermon from the first verse of chapter 2, which say we need to know and teach sound doctrine.

Today I’m going to pick up from that verse and work up through verse 10, which are really interesting verses because basically instead of giving us what we would expect to be a definition or summary of “sound doctrine” we get bunch of practical advice on how various groups of Christians are supposed to act. It’s for that reason I titled my sermon “Wise LEADERS.” Wisdom is the practical application of truth and today’s text simply gives us a bunch of straight forward advice on how to be and become leaders depending on what stage of life and role we are in.

We’ve got some ground to cover today so I’m gonna jump right in, read the text and pray over it and we’ll go to work. (read text and pray).

Alright. The first thing I want to look at briefly this morning is “The Important Place of Community.”

I. The Important Place of Community

If you just scan through these verses and ask who are the characters, you notice there are a lot of them. There are older men, older women, younger women, wives, husbands, children, younger men, slave and masters. A whole lot of different people.

And not only are just a bunch of types people named but every one of them are viewed as being in relationships with each other. Older men and younger men. Older women and younger women. Wives and husbands. Parents and children. Slaves and masters. We’ll talk specifically about each of these grouping but first just notice that what we’re seeing in the big picture is community.

We’ve seen and learned in the book up to this point that it’s purpose and goal is to raise up and develop leaders in the church and in the city. I said it before at the beginning of the book that all Christians are meant to be leaders in some way and here in these 10 verses we get a real clear picture of that. Everyone is covered here.

Now here is why I wanted to point this out to you. Community is important. Community is the place where leaders are formed. There was a time in Christian history when the idea was if you want to become a leader, especially in the church, you get shipped off somewhere, like a monastery to go live with a bunch of monks. Or even today, there is the idea that if someone is going to lead then you should send him off to seminary and they’ll get ‘em all prepped up to come back and lead.

The thing is, it doesn’t work like that. Leaders are formed in community. In real life situations and scenarios. I can tell you from first hand experience. I’ve got two seminary degrees and there is a ton of stuff I encounter on almost a weekly basis that seminary just can’t prepare you for. Community is the best seminary of all, to be living real life and working through real situations in relationship and support with one another.

I mean one of the leader roles we’ll talk about today is that of a wife and a mom. We don’t send women off to some other place to learn how to be a wife and a mom and wait for them to come back and do it. No, they are to learn it here among us, in community. Community is so important.

It’s been said before that maturity as a Christian is both vertical and horizontal. You’ve got to grow into maturity with God vertically and in maturity in how you relate and live with people horizontally. I just wanted to note it briefly because I believe it is so important for everyone of us to be in community.

Some of you really, when it comes down to it you’re still kind of always doing your own thing and you’ve never really plugged into community. Maybe you go to a community group every once in awhile but you’re inconsistent, haven’t really committed, have yet to really open yourself up there, and when you’re not there your community-cation, communication doesn’t happen.

What I’m getting at is that being in community is bigger than just going to a group, it’s living life in relationship with one another. Others of you haven’t hooked up with a community group at all…it’s a good place to start. But what we’re seeing here in our text today is it’s way bigger than that. It’s doing life together. There is stuff you need to learn and grow in and mature in that you cannot learn, grow and mature in off on your own apart from community.

So get in community. Really get in. Older and younger, single and married, kids, workers and bosses…be in community together. Don’t try and figure out and handle stuff on your own. Do it in community.

Alright what I want to do is pair things off and talk about “Older and Younger Relationships” and then we’ll talk about “Employer and Employee Relationships.”

II. Older and Younger Relationships

We’ve got older men and younger men and older women and younger women both addressed here with specific instructions and we’ll talk about those in a second but first I think we need to recognize the importance of these two age groups being in relationship with each other.

I looked it up and the general consensus is that an older man or woman when this was written would probably have been considered being between 40-60 years old and a younger man or woman being 20-40 years old. Now the principle would stand true I think for young men less than twenty and elderly men older than sixty, but the principle is that the younger need the older and the older need to invest in the younger.

But what the most common attitude has been throughout history from both groups? You know it. Younger people often don’t think the older people know anything and that they can do it better and the older people think the younger are too crazy and different that they are just un-helpable.

One day there were a group of men working on a construction site. There was a young man who was bragging about how many sheets of plywood he could carry. One of the older men on the crew decided to teach the young man a lesson and offered to make him a bet. He said, “I bet you a week’s worth of wages that I can haul something in that wheelbarrow over to that other building that you won’t be able to wheel back.” The young man jumped at the opportunity to prove the old man wrong and show how strong he was, so he said, “you’re on!” Then the old man looked at him and said, “alright, get in.” It took a moment for it to click. And once the young man realized he’d be stuck at the other building unable to wheel himself, the group of old men all burst out laughing.

I’ll never forget that day and those old dudes laughing at me. It’s an important principle. Older dudes are smart. They know some things.

Hebrews 13:7 says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”

Here’s the thing. I used to think I knew everything and I looked at the older generation as simply being outdated but I saw them as sort of being the ones who held the keys and I just wished they’d let go and let us younger guys run the show because we could do it better. But as I’ve got out on my own and experienced how hard life and ministry is and that I don’t have all the answers…all I want to do is be around old dudes and ask them questions and learn from them.

When we get together for our pastoral meetings, like last week, I frequently just ask Ron, whose one of our other older men pastors here if you don’t know him…I just ask tons of questions and listen. One of my favorite things to do is head down to my father in-laws house in East Lake just to hang out. Often we’ll go down there for dinner and afterward he and I will head up to their hot tub and just sit in there and talk. I ask questions and listen and try and learn. You see, we younger men, we need the older men guys. So be humble. Be teachable. Ask questions. Learn. And it’s the same thing with the older and younger women.

I’ll say this too for our older folk. We love you and appreciate you. We need you. I know sometimes we have rough edges. Thank you for putting up with us and being patient with us. We need you and we need more of you. I’m always looking for the older, wiser, mature Christians who have lived some life to come in and help disciple us all…because we’ve got a lot of 20-40 here.

I talked to an older couple just a couple weeks ago and took them aside and specifically asked them to pray about being here because we need older wise haired men and women. Maybe you know some. Talk to them. Invite them in. We need them to come and invest in us their life, experience and wisdom.

Okay, let’s look at the specific things that are said about older and younger men here in our passage.

A. Older Men & Younger Men (v.2,6-8)

There’s six things here for each of them. The older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in the faith, sound in love and sound in steadfastness. The younger men are to be self-controlled, to model good works, to teach and show integrity, teach and show dignity, teach soundly and teach winsomely.

I’ll say a few things about each of these. For the older men. Sober-minded can either literally be not drunk or it can also simply mean serious. Normally older men don’t have a problem with drunkenness unless they’re a lifelong alcoholic…so it’s probably simply serious. What I think this gets at is the tendency to just sort of start to drift and have a whatever attitude. That’s not good. We need our older men to be intentional and be serious about how they spend their latter years.

To be dignified is to be worthy of respect. What this gets at is white hair does not always mean respectable. Some old men can tend to be foul and mean which is not respectable and dignified.

To be self-controlled is what enables one to be respectable…exercising the ability to reign in the feeling that you now deserve to do whatever you want since you’ve lived a long life and played by the rules so long.

After self-controlled we get this triad of being sound in faith, love and steadfastness. To be sound here is the same word Josh talked about last week in verse 1 in reference to sound doctrine. It’s a medical term meaning healthy or whole. So literally the call here is not to be sick in or have a diseased faith, love or steadfastness.

Old men ought to be spiritual pillars of the faith. Hebrews 13:7 like men who we can look to and look at their life and faith and it be something we want to imitate. They ought to be loving, meaning instead of becoming less gracious and harder in old age, they need to become softer and more forgiving because of love.

Then there is this steadfastness. This one is my favorite. It just sounds like steel. Weathered and toughened by time. Steadfast. Consistent. Immovable, strong and reliable. A man who is like this is a mighty man and a treasure among us to be cherished and honored.

These are the things younger men are to aspire to, to become a godly old man. You see, we got to look long term boys. But we’re also given some specific instructions which are needed due to the unique challenges of a more youthful age. Verse 6 begins, “Likewise, urge the younger men…” and it lists six things.

First, to be self-controlled. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, so it’s something God is working in us in all seasons of our lives. When you’re young, the things you need control over are often different than what the older man needs to reign in. One author said, “in youth the blood runs hotter and the passions speak more commandingly” especially in the area of the appetites of personal quest and sexual prowess.

Then young men are “to be a model good works.” Youth are more prone to peer pressure, to conform to the patterns of others, thus the call is to stand out and set forth a good model.

Next the young men are to teach and show “integrity and dignity.” Integrity is being honest. Being the same person when no one is looking. Dignity, is following the model of the older men and becoming someone who is worthy of respect. Young men here are called to become the kind of person others look up to.

Lastly there are two instructions on how young men are supposed to use their tongues. Verse 8 says it is supposed to be in “sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.” So what I wrote is teach soundly and teach winsomely.

To have sound speech is to actually know what you’re talking about and if you don’t know what you’re talking about to simply keep your mouth shut. Why? Well, if you know what you’re talking about you will be able to silence your opponents because truth wins. But if you don’t know what you’re talking about and you’re just talking to talk, it just makes you look stupid and then you’re making the whole Christian community look bad. Notice verse 8 says so there will be “nothing evil to say about US.” The tongue is probably the biggest thing that gets young dudes in trouble. Well, that and their lustful eyes.

These lists here…both for the older men and the younger men. They’re not complicated. Really they’re just Christian common sense. But we need to hear them. God’s word functions like a rudder here to steer the course of our lives and to keep us on track.

Maybe there’s one of these things you really needed to hear today. I’ll just ask a few questions. If you’re older are you investing in the younger? If you’re younger are you looking to and for the older? Older men, are you being sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in the faith, sound in love and sound in steadfastness? Young men, are you being self-controlled, modeling good works, teaching and showing integrity and dignity and teaching soundly and winsomely? What do you need to grow in?yi[ii

Let each one of these directives hit you and check yourself. Okay, let’s move on and talk about the women, “Older Women & Younger Women.”

B. Older Women & Younger Women (v.3-5)

Let me just re-read the section to get it fresh in our heads. Verses 3-5 of chapter 2, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 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.”

Both the older women and the younger women here are given five clear instructions. So let’s do the older women first. The first three things have a negative connotation. Reverent behavior most likely is addressing sexual promiscuity. Slander is basically gossip, talking bad about other people. And slaves to too much wine is pretty self-explanatory.

I was looking at this list…”reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine” and what automatically came to mind is The View! The View is this ladies daytime talk show. It’s a show where five women…Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd and Barbara Walters…they get together on TV to make jokes about sexual escapades, drink wine (or maybe that’s the Kathy Lee & Hoda show…getting my ladies talk shows mixed up!)…so they talk about sex, drink and gossip about other celebrities. I swear I don’t just sit around and watch women TV all day!

Titus 2 here is saying, “hey old ladies…don’t do that!” Instead, teach what is good and train the young women. William Mounce says this about this verse, “It pictures older women, experienced in life, marriage and child rearing taking the younger under their care and helping them adjust to their responsibilities. It is a blessed and needed ministry which cannot be accomplished by men.”

One of the things I love hearing about is how some of you moms in the church will have some of the other girls in the church who don’t have kids yet just over just to hang out with you to talk life while you’re making meals and taking care of the kids. It might not seem like anything special or fancy but it’s just as serious and important and valuable as any ministry of our church. You’re teaching and training. It’s awesome.

Now the text here gives these 5 specific things the older women are to teach the younger women…so younger women, these are the things you are supposed to learn. Five things, and they pretty much all go together…you could almost summarize them as being home focused.

To love husbands and children is call to cherish being a wife and to have babies and care for them. To be self-controlled and pure is a direct address of what was known as “the New Roman Woman” when this was written. The New Roman Woman was a philosophy and movement where women were turning away from traditional commitments to marriage and household and instead were endorsing freedoms from male dependancy, active sexual promiscuity, and self financial provision.

The call for self-control and purity coupled with the next two instructions to be working at home and kind and submissive to their husbands is essentially amounts to saying let being a wife and a mom be your job and let your husband do his God-given duty to protect and provide for you.

Now I know this may be making some of you uncomfortable. So let me just give a little bit more historical background and then we’ll just talk about it openly.

The problem of women not wanting to get married or getting married and not wanting to have children and getting their own career got so bad that the Roman Emperor Augustus directly addressed it in 9 AD. He passed a law for the entire empire called “The Right of 3” which said if you had three or more kids then they could be free born citizens. There was some outrage and backlash. So the story is told that he had the crowd that had gathered separate with those who were married with children on one side and those without children on the other, displaying the vast discrepancy and then he made this speech. Here is part of it, “there is nothing better than a wife who is chaste, domestic, a good house-keeper, a rearer of children, one to gladden you in health, tend to you sickness, be your partner in good fortune, and console you in misfortune.”

Now, sometimes people have read the verses here in Titus about women working at home and have said it is outdated culturally and really doesn’t stand true for us today. That idea has a host of problems we can’t get into for how you treat the Bible in general…but the reason I bring up the historical background of the first century when this was written is because it seems we are facing the same problem today in our culture that Scripture here is attempting to directly address.

An article in the Wall Street Journal written just in February of this year came out titled, “Where Have All The Good Men Gone?” The article bemoans that quality men today are difficult to find and cites a recent book titled, “I Don’t Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters and Other Guys I’ve Dated.” The article goes on to says that “guys” are “males who are not boys or men but something in between. Guys talk about ‘Star Wars’ like it’s not a movie made for people half their age; a guy’s idea of a perfect night is a hang around the PlayStation with his bandmates, or a trip to Vegas with his college friends…. They are more like the kids we babysat than the dads who drove us home.” Kind of funny and interesting. But here is where it gets really interesting. Listen

“What also makes pre-adulthood something new is its radical reversal of the sexual hierarchy. Among pre-adults, women are the first sex. They graduate from college in greater numbers, more women than men now have a bachelor’s degree, and they have higher GPAs. As most professors tell it, they also have more confidence and drive. They are more likely than men to be in grad school and making strides in the workplace. In a number of cities, they are even out-earning their brothers and boyfriends.”

So basically what this article is saying, and guys this doesn’t get you off the hook, but what it is saying is part of the reason there are not many quality guys around is because women have stepped into the man’s role of working and providing so the men are just sitting down on the couch and playing video games. This isn’t even a Christian writing this.

Not too long ago we had a guest post a blog on our website on this topic titled, “Career Wife.” It was written by a lady named Molly Reitsema. She and her husband are both medical doctors. After getting involved in a sister Acts 29 church and hearing some of the things you are hearing today, she and her husband entered into a year long season of prayer about her career as a doctor and at the end of it made the decision to quit her job as a doctor. In her blog she talks about the backlash she received from many of her friends, colleagues and family. She answers seven main questions. I’ll just read part of her response to you from one of the questions.

The question is, “Aren’t you too smart to be a homemaker? Won’t you be wasting the gifts God has bestowed upon you?” Here’s what she said.

“Just over a year ago, I thought the answer to these questions was a resounding yes. But I now that the answer is a confident no! My judgment was formerly clouded by my pride as a physician. I was too good to be “just” a homemaker. Medicine had become an idol for me; my identity was more in medicine than it was in Christ.

Finally I asked myself, ‘what is more important to me: what I get to do for God, or God himself?’ He is infinitely more important! As long as I have a saving relationship with him, who cares what career he tells me to pursue? And who am I to tell Him what I should do with the life and gifts he’s given me? In assessing the gifts that make me so well-suited toward medicine, I also realized that they are broadly applicable and will translate well into the role of homemaker — interacting with children, multitasking, teaching, sharp memory, quick learner, organization.

I also undervalued the role of homemaker. Of course, I should not be surprised that I held this belief — our society severely demeans the roles of wife and mother. Most would believe that being a homemaker is something only for those that don’t have “better options” and certainly doesn’t require much intellect. But the Bible instructs us otherwise: the roles of wife and mother are a high calling, something to yearn and pray for, an honor! There are several examples of godly women being specially blessed with marriage and children, and called ‘holy’ for pursuing such roles eagerly – Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Ruth… and look at how God describes the wife of noble character in Proverbs 31:10-31: she is strong, intelligent, generous – and homeward in her focus.

In Titus 2:3-5 women are to instruct one another to “love their husbands and children” and be “working at home” so that “no one will malign the word of God”, and 1Timothy 2:15 states that “women will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, hope and holiness with propriety”. It is undeniable that the roles of wife and mother play a specific and special role in women’s ability to “work out their salvation with faith and trembling (Phil 2:12-13).”

The duties of a homemaker are important in ensuring the health of one’s family — a house does not become a home if we simply hire out the role of homemaker: paying others to raise our children, clean our home, and cook our food. My husband and I now see me being a homemaker as integral to us revealing the kingdom of God to and through our family and having a positive impact for Christ in this generation and generations to come.”

I know that was a lot to read for you but I also know that for some of you girls it’s hard hearing what you’re hearing from a man, so I thought I’d let a woman have an extended voice in today’s sermon by reading that.

Look, I’ll just say this and then we’ll move on. I think our culture has got so backward on this issue that we don’t know what way is up or down and for the most part we’ve all bought into a lie that there are no differences between men and women. But there are. We have different body parts. There’s things women can do that men can’t and things men can do that women can’t. God designed and means for us to have different roles and the sooner we start working at embracing and living in them the happier and more satisfied we will be.

We’ve worked through this a lot in our home. Because we bought into the lie and no one told us any different and it has taken us years to try and get out of it and get to a place where my wife Amy doesn’t have to work. And we’re almost fully there…two days a month. But she’ll tell you, ask her, she loves being at home and being with kids far more than she ever loved being a successful hairstylist.

I asked Amy if there was anything in particular she wanted me to say on her behalf in today’s sermon. She said to tell you this…”A lot of girls seem to be searching for their identity in a career outside the home, but God has already given you an identity and his plan for is always better and makes us much happier. When you’re in your God given husband and wife roles thing naturally flow better and there is more room for grace because you’re working with each other and not against each other.”

Girls this is really what you want, it’s how God made you and guess what…it really is the kind of girl guys want to.

Alright, we’ve got two short main points left to hit up. First, “Employer and Employee Relationships.”

III. Employer and Employee Relationships

A. The Slaves Role (v.9-10)
B. The Master Goal (v.10)

I’ll take both the sub points together, “The Slaves Role” and “The Master Goal” in verses 9-10, “Slaves are to be 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.”

I’m calling this point “Employer and Employee Relationships” because that in general is a more accurate understanding of slavery in the first century than what comes to most our minds when we hear the word slave and think of American Slavery and the Civil War.

Some slaves in the first century had miserable conditions, but most where either apprentices, workers of a domestic job and some even held government offices. The word slave meant, “to be subject to another.”

Apparently here, there were slaves who were members of the churches on Crete at the time and in this section which is addressing the need to rise up and be a good Christian leader, slaves represent an important part of the community who have unique opportunity for the gospel. Five things are said for slaves and how they are to use their employee role, they are to “be submissive, well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering and show their faith.”

These are simple. To be submissive is to do what your told. To be well-pleasing is to work joyfully. To not argue is to not question or talk back. Not pilfering is not stealing. And showing the faith means doing things in such a way that is going to baffle the employer and make him ask what you believe.

The instructions here are extremely relevant. Masters were not easy people to work for. Few bosses are. In fact a recent study says that more American hate their jobs now than they have in the past 22 years and most the time it has to do with the boss. It’s rare in any workplace if you don’t hear the employees complaining about the boss.

But the workplace is a prime opportunity for the gospel. Especially when the employer is hard to work for. The underlying principle here, the goal for the masters is that they would receive grace. Slaves are addressed here in our text because the hope is that the master will come to see how great the doctrine of God our savior is.

That phrase which addresses the master goal is beautiful one. See where it says “in everything they may ADORN the doctrine of God our savior.” See that? That word “adorn” means to arrange a jewel in such a way that it displays it’s full beauty. It’s like the jewelers who cut diamonds in way that they will sparkle the most and then put them in ring settings that will show them off and then put them in a glass display case with carefully placed light to show off the ring.

The analogy here is that the gospel is a beautiful jewel and we need to do everything we can to show off it’s brilliant light!

Some of you simply don’t make Jesus look very good to your boss and to your co-workers because of the attitude you have at work or how you work and that needs to change. Your workplace is a mission field for the gospel. It is the place God has given you to go put the jewel of the gospel on display by how you work.

Christians ought to be the most desirable employees because they are submissive, well-pleasing, not argumentative and don’t pilfer. And the result of that is your faith gets showed off and Jesus ends up looking really good. So do that.

Okay, one last point to hit up. “The Important Priority of God’s Word.”

IV. The Important Priority of God’s Word (v.5)

I intentionally skipped over the end of verse 5 which says wives which do not have the home as their focus revile the word of God. I left it to the end here because the same principle applies to our entire text today since all of verses 1-10 belong to the word of God. So all older men, younger men, older women, younger women and employees who do not listen and obey to the instructions here all revile the word of God.

The word for “revile” here is actually “blaspheme” in the Greek. It means to speak evil of, rail against or say it really isn’t from God. That’s a heavy heavy charge. The reason why I wanted to leave it to the end is because of the weight that phrase carries…”so that the word of God may not be reviled.”

What it underscores is that they way we are to formulate our thinking and the way we are to make decisions in this life is according to the word of God. It is to hold a higher place of authority than all else. Over all other opinions, arguments and feelings we may have.

So what are you to do when you fall into one of the traps our passage today addresses? Here’s my answer. What you can change you change immediately. Some things you can’t change immediately. Like the wives working at home thing. If you’ve become dependent in your budget on your wife’s income that can take some time to wean off of. And here’s what I want to say…there’s grace for that. It’s probably gonna be a season where you are working to bring your life more in line with God’s word. Especially in San Diego where it costs so much to live.

And that’s on you dudes. Go make some more money and stop building your home on the back of your wife. And wives you’ve got to let him and push him to do that.

What this phrase condemns is the open defiance against God’s Word in saying no, that not true, that’s wrong. You don’t want to end up there. It’s better to say, “I accept that. I know it’s true. And I’m gonna work on that, God help me.” What happens too often of the time, especially with a tough passage like this one is we don’t like it so we try to reason or explain it away and we end up essentially cutting it out of our Bibles. That’s reviling the Word of God. No. Don’t do that. Instead let it be true and set a goal to get there.

Conclusion

Alright, let’s conclude. Hear the good news of the gospel. Every single older man, older woman, young man, young woman and every single person who has ever worked a job in their life…everyone, everyone has blown it…in all of these areas.

We’ve had clouded judgment, been undignified, out of control, had a defective faith, love and been inconsistent. We’ve been irreverent, drunk, taught wrong things, not cared about teaching others, we’ve been impure, not cared about our spouses, children or our homes. Our character has been corrupt, without integrity or dignity. Our tongues have got us into so much trouble. As employees we’ve been rebellious, difficult to work with, argumentative, and haven’t made God our creator look very good. And we have all reviled the word of God. That’s the truth.

Here’s the goodness of the gospel. Jesus has been all of these things perfectly for us. Where we have failed, even repeatedly, he did it all and more than that he died for all our failings. We’re sick and sinful and deserve death and judgment but he took the judgment upon himself for us in our place on the cross and he rose again and freely gives us all of his perfect righteousness.

You see the gospel is good because we’re bad but Jesus is good and gives us his goodness. It’s a beautiful and gracious exchange. That’s why the gospel is a magnificent jewel. We could never be and do the things the Word of God calls us to be and do here. But Jesus is and did and in and through him our lives can be transformed and we can become the kind of people we need to be.

If you walk away today hearing the high bar the Bible calls us to here and feel burdened and crushed by it…you missed the jewel of the gospel. Come back and see the ring. The sound doctrine of our savior is he saves us from our failings and changes us and he makes us like him. We simply trust and believe in him and in his time he adds all these things to us. The gospel is the good news that Jesus did it and gives himself to us. So let’s pray and have him work in our hearts.