Sermon: Young Men & Servants (Titus 2:6-10)

Young Men & Servants Sunday, October 19th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 2:6-10

Prayer

O Father, we hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do we love. Before You afflicted us we went astray, but now being corrected by Your discipline, we do keep Your word with a whole heart. So teach us now Thy statutes, Thy testimonies, which are our delight. Through Christ Jesus our Lord who reigns together with the Holy Spirit, One God, world without end, Amen.

Introduction

In our Lord’s famous Sermon on the Mount, he warns in Matthew 7 about the danger of judging the sins of others. He says in Matthew 7:1-2, Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And then he goes on to tell us that the only way to judge your brother rightly, is by first seeing yourself rightly, and that requires looking into the mirror of God’s law, judging yourself strictly and honestly by that law, and then repenting of whatever sins you have committed against that law.

• Jesus puts it this way in Matthew 7:3-5, And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
• So according to Jesus, there is a right order in which judgments should be rendered. First, we must judge ourselves and remove the sins that obscure our vision (the planks), and only then can we see clearly to help someone else with their lesser sins (the specks).
• Now what Paul has been doing here in Titus chapter 2, is telling all the different classes of people in the church, where they ought to look first to find and remove the planks in their eye.
  • Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has been listing the common virtues we ought to pursue, the common vices we ought to avoid, and pointing out the unique tendencies and temptations of older men, older women, younger women, and now this morning younger men and servants.
  • And so we can consider this chapter as a kind of checklist for our own self-examination, and a pointer to help us do what that great sentence in the Westminster Confession of Faith declares, “Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins particularly” (WCF 15.5).
  • What Titus 2 is all about is giving us a starting point to find our particular sins, not to condemn us, but so that we can be set free from our favorite shackles and chains and prison cells, so that we can confess our sins to God, and then be able to see God and our neighbor more clearly.
    • Remember how Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount. He starts by telling us what a life of beatitude in a fallen world consists of. He says, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. (Matt 5:3-8).
    • The person who wants to see God, has to start by seeing the real ugliness of their own sin. For only then can we begin to appreciate that God came down in Christ to die for our sins, to save us from our sins. And only then can we move from pursuing what is right, not as slaves from the fear of punishment, but as sons of God and from love for our savior.
    • This is what Paul means when he says in Titus 2:10 that the whole underlying rational for our repentance, and our good works, and our pursuit of virtue is so: that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. So does your life bring glory and honor to Christ, or does it give the world cause to blaspheme and reproach Him?
• Through this letter, Paul has been flagging and tagging different parts, groups, and members of the body, and this morning he continues his diagnostic with an exhortation to young men and to servants.

Outline of the Text

Our text divides into four basic sections, but only three of them will we treat this morning.