This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Day 3 of Titus chapter 2. We're going to focus on verses 6 to 8
today. We began yesterday looking at how you make the truth attractive in your
life, or how the truth actually makes you attractive from the inside out.

We talked about the different ages and stages of life and the different
circumstances, ways that God has created us. Older men and women, younger women.
And now, what does God have to say to younger men?

It's very interesting. It's in verse 6, here's what God has to say. We had a
list for older men, we had a list for younger women, we had a list for older
women.

Verse 6, here's the list for younger men. "Similarly, encourage the young men to
be self-controlled. " That's it.

That's all of verse 6. There's no long list. It's just, "Encourage the young men
to be self-controlled.

" Now, I don't know, maybe God knows that sometimes young men have sort of like
this ADD, they're always on to the next thing, so it didn't give them a long
list. Or maybe it's that there's just one important thing when you're a young
man, and that is, be self-controlled. Knowing that young men often are rushing
off to the next big thing, knowing that the lusts of life for things, for
sexuality, for position, they can often overwhelm a young man as a young woman.

He said, "Be self-controlled to young women also. " He says, "Other men and
women," he said, "be self-controlled also to them. " Paul gives only one
direction, self-control.

Self-control of your temper and your tongue, of your mind and your body. You're
a young man, and a lot of us like to think of ourselves as young men, so if you
think of yourself that way, be self-controlled. But I love what Paul says to
Titus about how to make sure that happens.

Notice what he said? It's just one word, but it's a very important word. He
said, "Encourage the young men to be self-controlled.

" How do I exercise more self-control in my life? Rather than running after
anything and everything, rather than letting some temptation overwhelm my life,
how do I become more self-controlled? It needs to be encouraged.

You need people in your life, if you want to be more self-controlled, you need
people who are teaching in an encouraging way towards self-control. If you've
got people who are teaching in a way towards self-control that's discouraging,
if you've got them teaching in such a way that puts you down all the time, that
tells you what a horrible person you are, so you need to be self-controlled, the
truth of the matter is that will not work. That discouragement in the end is
going to cause you to be less self-controlled.

We tend to react against negativity, and if you get negative people coming into
your life saying, "Oh, you're horrible, you're awful, don't do that, don't do
this," or even if you say it to yourself, "You're horrible, you're awful, don't
do that, don't do this," eventually you're going to react against that, and
eventually you're going to find that instead of that helping you to become more
self-controlled, you're going to become less self-controlled. You're going to
revolt against those kinds of negative words in your life. Self-control needs to
be encouraged in your life.

So you find teaching that helps you to be self-controlled, that is encouraging.
You find people that help you to be self-controlled because they are
encouraging. Now, they don't encourage you to be uncontrolled, there's a lot of
those kind of people.

They don't encourage you towards sin or encourage you towards selfishness. No,
you find people in your life that encourage you to live out the kind of life
that God's given you to live. They don't put you down, they don't judge you,
they encourage you.

Now, by encouraging you, I mean, I don't mean that they ignore the wrong that's
in your life, I mean they encourage you at those points to see the right that
God could do. You got those kind of people in your life, that's who you need.
You need to encourage self-control.

You encourage it through finding the right kind of teaching, you encourage it
through finding the right kind of friends. As I indicated a minute ago, you also
encourage it by having the right kind of thoughts. I know so many people, they
struggle so much with their sin and habitual sins in their life and they wonder
how am I ever going to break free of this pattern.

Well first of all, you're not going to do it alone. You got to find other people
in your life that you can share with and trust and in that trusting relationship
you're going to find that God helps you to begin to break free. He's created us
to live in a relationship with others.

But secondly, you're not going to do it by telling yourself in your mind what a
terrible person you are again and again and again and again. Now what do you do?
The scripture says you set your mind not on your sins, you set your mind on what
is good, Philippians 4 verse 8, what is good and honorable and right and pure
and lovely.

Whatever is a good report, whatever is excellent, whatever is worthy of praise,
that's what you set your mind on. And when you do that, then you are encouraged
towards self-control. Just one word in verse 6, it's one of the most powerful
words in all scripture.

One of the most powerful words for life change, it comes by encouragement. Now
there's another powerful word in verse 7, it comes by encouragement and change
also comes by example. You need both.

Verse 7 to 8, in everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your
teaching, show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be
condemned so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing
bad to say about us. Paul says set them an example by doing what is good.

Encouragement is empowered by example. In your teaching, he says, show integrity
and seriousness and soundness of speech. But that all begins with an example.

Titus is a young man. And so Paul writes as he's helping young men to grow in
the faith and he says give him a good example. Give him a good example by you
yourself doing what's good.

Do the right thing in your life. Do the good thing in your life by God's power
in your life. And let that example work in your life.

So my question in my own life, my question for your life, whether you're a young
man or you're a young woman or an older man or an older woman, we all need this.
Who do you have in your life that's encouraging you towards faith? Who do you
have in your life that's an example to you of faith?

Without that, you will not grow in faith. I will not grow in faith. As I look
back over my life, any growth that's happened in my life, I'm grateful that God
has worked to grow me patiently so many times.

It's so many times, three steps forward and two steps back, but at least you're
making progress. I can say without a shadow of a doubt, any growth that I've
seen in my life, it's been because I've been around other people who are
growing, who are an example to me of growth and an encouragement to me in
growth. You have to have it.

You have to have it in your life. And he says, Paul says to Titus, as you're
doing this, make sure that you're also teaching this. Teaching is also an
example.

So you teach with integrity as an example, with seriousness, with soundness of
speech. So you can't be condemned. Say the right things so that people can't
say, "Oh, the word of God means nothing because it means nothing to him.

It's just a joke to him. It's just a joke to her. " I'm not saying we can never
be humorous.

I think we should be. Jesus told jokes at times. He was humorous.

He knew how to laugh. But I'm saying we can never be flippant, never flippant
about God's word, about God's truth. You always see the seriousness of it.

You always see the serious joy of knowing him and what that's all about. That's
what it means to be an attractive young man. So we've talked about it all,
attractive young man, young women, older man, older woman.

As we walk through this, Paul has said again and again, I hope you've noticed
that there's a reason for this living an attractive life. And it's not just for
you. It's not just for you.

It's also for the people that are watching you. And if you don't think
somebody's watching you, you're dead wrong. There are people at your work.

There are people in your family. There are people in your neighborhood. They're
watching.

They know. They know that you're a follower of Jesus Christ. And Paul says in
verse 5, "Live in this kind of way so that no one can malign the word of God.

" If we just read in verse 8, he says, "Live in this way so that those who
oppose will be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about you. " And in
verse 10, we're going to get to, he's going to say, "Live in this way so that
you can make the teaching of our Savior attractive. " He's really talking about
living the kind of truth that only God can put into your life.

And you do it not just for you. Sometimes we can live the truth selfishly and we
think it's just about my growth. I found that in the end, that can be
self-defeating because if it's just about my growth, at some point, I think,
"Well, you know, I've made some progress, maybe enough progress.

Maybe I can rest now on the progress that I've made. " We have an amazing
capacity to be kind to ourselves in those moments. I talked a moment ago about
those who are unkind in their thoughts to themselves and a lot of us do that.

I found that more of us tend to be overly kind to ourselves and our thoughts.
And we rest on the past rather than looking toward the future. Paul says, "It's
not just about you.

It's also about those people that are around you. " So not out of a sense of
guilt, not out of a sense of shame, but out of a sense of opportunity, out of a
sense of love. You live this kind of life so they can have this kind of life as
well.

I want to be an example to them that draws them to faith, not draws them away
from faith. That's what he's talking about. So as we pray today, I want to pray
for two things.

First, this self-control that's been a part of everyone of the descriptions of
the way to live life, but also our example and living out that example in our
lives. Would you pray with me? Just pray, "Jesus, help me to be self-controlled,
not based on my power, but your power, and help me to find in my life or to
refresh in my life those people, those things, that teaching that encourages me
toward self-control and that's an example to me of self-control.

I need the encouragement. I need the examples. And then, Lord, help me to be an
encouragement.

Help me to be an example to someone else. " It's almost beyond belief sometimes
that you could do that through my life because I see so many of my faults, but I
know, Jesus, that you're in me, and I know that you want to shine out through me
to be a light to the world. So help me to be an encouragement and an example to
someone else.

Give me faith that you can do that in my life. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Tomorrow we're going to take a bit of a turn and we're going to look at the
truth about what the Bible says concerning slavery.