Sermon: The Aged Men (Titus 2:1-2)

The Aged Men Sunday, September 14th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 2:1-2

Prayer

Father, we thank for your Son and our Savior the Lord Jesus, true God and true man, who in his humanity adorned his teaching with perfect living, and has taught us by word and deed how to please You. And so help us O Father by the same Holy Spirit in which Your Son walked. For we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

This morning, we begin a new section in Paul’s letter to Titus. And while chapter 1 was primarily about church government, and what a pastor must be and do to silence heretics, chapter 2 contains what a pastor must teach and exhort within the church.

• Now within the church Paul identifies multiple classes of people who need distinct moral instructions. Different people need different things said to them.
  • In verse 2 he starts with the older men, then the older women, then the younger women, then the younger men, in verses 9-10 he addresses servants, and then in chapter 3 we will see he exhorts the whole church.
  • Now someone might read all these lists of qualities and actions and instructions and then wonder:Why all this moralizing and telling Christians how to behave, when Christianity is (I thought) all about belief?
  • To this we must answer that right belief and good behavior are not enemies but rather best friends. God commands that faith and works go together, both are gifts of grace.
  • Recall from an earlier sermon that we said the theme of this letter is The Marriage Between Sound Doctrine and Sound Living. And so to quote the Lord Jesus, “What God has joined together, let not man separate (Mark 10:9, Matt 19:6). We must not separate faith from works, belief from behavior.
  • Paul tells us in Titus 1:16 that there were people in Crete who were doing this very thing, He says, they profess that they know God; but in works they deny him.
  • And so contrary to these mere professors of Christianity, Titus is to instruct the church in how to (as he says in verse 10) adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
    • Or as Jesus puts it in Matthew 5:16, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
• And so what Titus 2 is all about is adorning, beautifying, glorifying the grace of God with a gracious life.
  • For as Paul will say in verses 11-14 of this chapter, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 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.
  • And so if you want to become and stay a pure person to whom all things are pure, first Christ must wash you in baptism and give you the gift of faith. And then having been purified by the Holy Spirit, you are to keep in step with the Spirit, bear the fruit of the Spirit, and it is that new life in the Spirit that Paul is speaking of here.
    • What Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:22 applies to all of us: do no be a partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.
  • And so this morning we will consider what a pure life in the spirit should look like for an older man, and then in future sermons we’ll do the same for older women, younger women, and so forth.
  • And so our focus this morning is just on verses 1-2, so let us hear these verses again.

Verses 1-2

1But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: 2That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.

Outline of the Sermon

Observe there are six qualities or virtues that God wants older men to possess and pursue. The first three are moral virtues, sobriety, gravity, and temperance. And the latter three are theological virtues, faith, charity, and the patience of hope. So let us consider these six virtues one by one.

#1 – An older man must be Sober (νηφάλιος)

• In 1 Timothy 3:2 this same Greek word (νηφάλιος) is translated as vigilant. And the idea here is that an older man must b