Healthy Generational Mentorship

Dear friends, if you have a Bible, would you please open with me to the book of Titus?
The book of Titus.
Titus is one of Paul's pastoral epistles.
So, if you flip back to the toward the end of the New Testament, first and second Timothy and Titus, if you get to Philumen, you have gone too far.
Go back to Titus.
Titus We don't know a whole lot about Titus.
You can read the entirety of the book of Acts.
You don't learn anything about him there.
Titus was a colleague.
He was a fellow coworker of the gospel with the Apostle Paul and today we began to study and look at the book of Titus.
Titus was uh one who had a bold personality.
Scholars think he had a stronger personality than Timothy.
When Paul was in Jerusalem, we read about this in Galatians Titus, who was a Gentile convert to Christianity.
That is, he was a non-Jew who became a believer in God's promises.
And Titus became the test case for Paul in Galatia as to whether or not Gentiles needed to be circumcised when they became Christians.
And indeed, they did not need to be circumcised.
Paul says, and later when Paul is trying to deal with the the crisis in Corinth, who does he send?
He sends Titus.
Titus probably had administrative gifts.
That's why Paul sent him to various churches to sort things out.
He spent time in Corinth.
He was the one who delivered the second letter of the Corinthians to Corinth.
And later I just said that Paul Titus goes to Dalmatia toward the end of Paul's life.
Titus was probably written in the mid-60s.
Not those 60s, like the first 60s.
Uh sorry, as an early creature joke too early for us.
Around 60, 62, the mid-60s of the first century between Paul's first imprisonment and Paul's second imprisonment.
The book of Acts ends with his first imprisonment and then undoubtedly Paul writes to Titus.
So with that background, I would invite you to stand with me as we read the first four verses of the book in of Titus.
Titus teaches us that the gospel of grace creates order churches, qualified leaders, sound doctrine, and godly lives full of good works.
Let's see how in this series the Holy Spirit works in you to accomplish that.
Titus chapter 1:1-4.
Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their not knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life, which God who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our savior.
To Titus, my true child in a common faith.
Grace and peace from God the Father.
in Christ Jesus our savior.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but God's word stands forever.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
You may be seated.
Please.
Here in the book of Titus, we see how the gospel moves from one generation to another, from Paul to Titus.
Men from different generations who are bound together as the text says by a common faith, Paul is the spiritual father and Titus is the spiritual son.
They are relationally connected.
And Titus is interested to carry the gospel forward in an island called Crete.
Now, Crete is the largest of the five Greek islands.
I know some of you have been to Crete.
It's as though if you were to drive from here to Branson, Missouri, that's about how long the island of Crete is.
It's about 50 miles wide.
It's not large relative to Oklahoma standards but indeed to Greek standards, it was the biggest of the five islands, still is.
And Crete was known for the mercenaries that lived on the island of Crete.
They just took over the island of Crete.
And when Rome came and made it in 67 BC, a Roman province, they had to fight against these mercenaries that had just dominated like pirates this entire island of Greece.
Crete was known for its violence and for its sexual immorality and sexual abuse.
It was not the kind of place you wanted to send your kids off to college.
And knowing that the churches that Paul had planted there needed help, Paul sends Titus to help them understand it.
And one of the things that you learn and study in Titus is that beneath the whole of the book is this kind of intergenerational mentorship between Paul and Titus.
And that's what I want to commend to us today to think about.
This is a vision that we need at Trinity and an intergenerational church where the gospel is not only taught and preached but embodied relationally where older generations are mentoring the younger ones and younger ones are learning from the wisdom and the mistakes of the older ones.
We are a common church together.
We must therefore share a common life.
It is far too easy in Tulsa, Oklahoma and all the suburbs that surround her to simply call church, church and then leave and leave your lives as though you normally would, just claim Jesus as your savior, but the whole of your life looks exactly like it would if you never claimed Christ.
There's a lot of older men in this church that actually need need to do mentorship to younger believers.
Reminds me of the if you know me, I'm a sucker for movies in the 80s and the 90s and there's a movie that came out in 1995 called Mr.
Holland's Opus.
Anybody ever seen this movie?
Yeah, it's a great movie, isn't it?
Mr.
Holland who's played by Richard Dreyfuss is a is a washed out uh composer who settles for teaching high school uh band teaching symphony um at high school and he just feels like it's a waste.
One day he's confronted by the principal, principal Jacobs who is played by Olympia Dukakis in the movie and she she comes to him and she says, "I've been watching you, Mr.
Holland.
I've never seen a teacher sprint from the parking lot after last period with more speed and enthusiasm than his students.
Perhaps you should be our track coach." Mr.
Holland says, "Mrs.
Jacob, I get here every morning, don't I?
I'm doing my job the best I can and principal Jacob Jacob says, "Mr.
Holland, a teacher has two jobs.
To fill young minds with knowledge, yes, but more important, to give those minds a compass so that knowledge doesn't go to waste." Now, I don't know what you're doing with knowledge, Mr.
Holland, but as a compass, you're stuck.
And as I look at the church, there are a lot of men in the church, and I'm going to particularly talk about men in this church because women do it for more naturally.
There's a lot of men in this room even who are Titus begins to shake the compass and help us again to get re-oriented toward God's purposes in our life.
When my son stood up in our celebration dinner last year or so and we were talking about in the way Trinity has helped us and he stood up and as his father I was I was proud and then he said to the church he said I just want to say to the church thank Thank you for raising me.
Remember that?
And he didn't need to say, "Thank you for raising me because my father couldn't do it on his own, which is true.
Thank you for raising me because my father is a sinner, which is true.
Thank you for raising me because my dad couldn't be all things, which is all true.
He needed the church.
And how many young men in this church need you?
I'm going to just be real direct.
Titus teaches us number one, first, if you're going to be the kind of church that develops intergenerational mentorship, first, you need to learn that when one generation serves the next, the gospel becomes a hope-filled life that we pass on.
And therefore, number one, you need to invest in the younger generation as a servant.
Invest in the younger generation as a servant.
When one generation serves the next, the gospel becomes the hopeful life that we pass on.
The salutation that that Paul gives to Titus is longer than first or second Timothy.
These are the pastoral epistles.
They're called the pastoral epistles because Paul doesn't write them to churches.
He writes them to people to his proteges with specific instruction for their own calling.
And Paul is trying to make a point for young Titus.
He could have emphasized his pedigree as he does elsewhere.
A Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law of faultless, Paul says.
But I consider all that rubbish for the sake of Christ.
Paul could have gone on about his pedigree, but he didn't.
Paul says, what does he say?
He says that I am a dolos theou.
I am a servant of God.
And what's interesting is that even before he names his authority as an apostle, he names his identity as a servant.
This is the disposition of intergenerational discipleship.
A dolos.
a bond servant in Greek.
Paul says to Titus, "Titus, this servanthood is the only thing." Servanthood to the gospel.
To let your life revolve around the gospel.
To see through the gospel all aspects of all aspects of life.
This is the only thing to give your life to Titus that won't ruin you every other idol will.
And older believers, you invest not because you're super saints or because you've arrived.
It's precisely because you haven't.
And you have so much to share with the younger saints in our midst.
Then those of you who are younger believers, receive the wisdom.
Not because you're inferior, inferior in any way, but because you too are bond servants of the gospel and you are open to their wisdom.
Leadership, discipleship, mentorship begins first with a kind of mutual humility one to another.
Older members of Trinity, you are stewards of wisdom and experience.
Please hear me.
If you consider yourself an older believer or a mature believer, you you are full of wisdom and experience.
And don't you know the Lord is giving you that wisdom not to hoard or store up in barns, but to spend it on the lives of younger believers.
And wouldn't it be interesting if we put you in a congregation that was hungry to learn?
Look at the young men around this room.
Programs can create pathways in a church, but they can't replace relationships.
And if we're going to be the kind of church that really really makes a difference in this city and that begins to become the hands and feet of Jesus in the way that this church is uniquely equipped and qualified.
Then it begins, older men, with you being willing to share your wisdom with younger men.
And we won't always get it right.
There will be awkward moments, of course.
In Mark chapter 10, do you remember when when James and John, they the sons of Zebedee, they come to Jesus and they say, "Grant to us, these are the younger believers, grant to us, Jesus, want to sit at your right hand and one at your left in your glory.
And Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you're asking." You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentile, Lord over them and their great ones exercise authority over them, but he says in Mark 10:43, "But it shouldn't be among you because whoever will be great among you must be your servant." And whoever would be the first among you must be slave of all for even the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give us life as a ransom for many.
Paul says to Titus, "Oh, you are my true child in the common faith." Paul was a Jew, Titus was a Gentile, they had nothing in common except the gospel, and that's all that matters.
This world needs this and you have it for offer, Trinity.
I wonder if you have the courage to take it.
Now, the end of every of one of the sections is a clipboard and in the old-fashioned way, I do wonder if there are people in this room who are hungry for mentorship.
And so if you're on the front row or you're close to the front row, grab the clipboard on the outside of your aisle and I'm passing down the aisle.
And I make no promises on what we're going to be able to do with this, but we're going to pray.
Lord, would you help us to begin to provide the pathways for more one-on-one discipleship, one-on-two discipleship.
Because the strength of our church exists as we continue to disciple older believers, disciple younger believers, just as Titus called tells us to do.
You see it in the example of the very letter it's given.
So, don't be afraid.
Take those clipboards.
If you would, right below you, grab them on the outside of the aisles and pass them down.
And if you're interested in one-on-one discipleship, one-on-two discipleship, could you just put your name down there and if you don't have your information, then share that as well.
First, invest into younger generations as a servant.
One more thing I'll say, the French philosopher for Jacques Ouloul wrote about what he envisioned life was going to be like in the year 2000.
And he wrote a book called The Technological Society that basically in the 60s, the 60s that we think of, the 1960s, and 1963, he wrote this book to say that technology is taking over every single part of modern life and it will ruin us if we don't check the way that we use technique as a substitute for relationships.
And it's the very final chapter if you've read the technological society.
It's a long book but the very end he says this is what it's going to be like in the year 2000.
Just listen to this.
The most remarkable predictions concern the transformation of educational methods.
Knowledge will be accumulated in electronic banks and transmitted directly to the human nervous system by means of coded electronic messages.
There will no longer be any need of reading or of learning.
Mountains of useless information will be gone.
Everything will be received and registered according to the needs of the moment.
There will be no need of attention or effort.
What is needed will pass directly from the machine into the brain without even going through the consciousness.
Sounds like something you have in your pocket.
And think about in the midst of this dynamic how true that is even today and how much therefore younger generations need to grow in the wisdom of the older to learn the old ways.
Our age is fragmented by generations, it is fragmented by taste and location and technology and politics and communication habits and assumptions about authority, competing visions for the good life, and we must be a mirror not of those divisions like the church in Crete was called to not be a mirror of the Cretan society.
The gospel creates a new social reality and in Christ we are given a common faith that is deeper even than generational identities.
And now to become shaped by Paul's servanthood and Titus's teachability, we will allow older saints to not become passive observers or younger saints to become isolated consumers, but we will learn to do life together.
First, invest into the young your generation as a servant.
Secondly, you learn from these verses, focus the purpose of your life.
Notice that Paul says he's a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.
What's his purpose?
For the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth.
Paul's purpose as an apostle wasn't just to be an apostle.
He had a purpose.
He had a therefore.
I am there for the sake of the faith of God's elect.
That is all those that God has called to be his.
Open their hearts to believe his church.
Paul was giving his life to that.
I wonder if you know the purpose of your life.
I know what you do for a living, but what is the purpose beneath your occupation?
What is your vocation?
What is your calling?
Each of you have a running vocation that goes deeper than what you do to earn money for your family.
You have a calling.
It It penetrates into the hobbies and the dispositions of your talents and your skills.
What is that?
Oh, I pray that as we get to know each other, mentorship may in fact be the way that you learn what it is.
We understand ourselves to be those who need to know what the purpose is of our life.
When Lord and I first moved to Oklahoma many years ago, we asked a lot of questions about how the church is working in Oklahoma and what the values are.
We thought we might know them, but we had moved away and come back and so what and people repeatedly said that they are exhausted.
That they are lonely and that they are distracted.
So we rest in worship, we grow in community.
The session says we want to rediscover our calling.
Why?
Because people are distracted.
They don't know the purpose in life.
And the general narrative is really quite hollow.
We want to live comfortable lives, live in a nice neighborhood, and have enough money to retire peacefully.
And is that it?
Like what if the Lord gave you a church?
to make you like so uncomfortable.
He put you on the edge of discovering your purpose of how to pour into other people.
And he actually began to help you understand a level of riches and beauty that you had never even begin to imagine because of our typical narrative of modern life.
He has given you each other as a resource.
Please don't view this church or each other as consumers.
Focus the purpose of your life and a study that came out this summer by the Institute for Family Studies called demoralized, but not defeated.
They surveyed 2,000 young men around the country, and they came up with seven results.
Let me just read a couple of them for you.
Result number two is that for many young men, friendships are in short supply.
And the best predictor of men who have friends is a connection to institutions like marriage or a church or a school, young men who participate in all male groups and sports teams or the Boy Scouts.
During their school years, are more likely to have report having three or more friends, 64% than those who did not, 48%.
Resulting Number three was that social, civic, and religious participation is low among young men, while 57% participate in at least one community activity, less than the third report working as a volunteer, and even fewer as members of a faith-based group.
It's not just true of churches, 29% of young men are even involved in the church, even fewer are involved in any kind of social club.
It's not just the church, by the way.
We get beat up for for it.
Easy to pick on the church, but it's not just the church.
Other social engagements as well.
Why is this the case?
Well, result number four is that the American dream feels out of reach for many young men.
The study says that for a significant share of young men, the meritocratic story is a myth to them.
About half of young men agree with this statement.
No matter how hard I work, people like me will never achieve the American dream.
Still they're not giving up on themselves.
84% say that they have ambitious plans for their future.
Oh, if we as older saints might help them see the ambitious future indeed that the Lord has for them.
Result six, and this is the last one I'll share, is that electronic media use is very high.
A fourth of the young men gamble every single day.
44% say they play video games multiple times a day.
Another This is 18 through 29, by the way, if you're wondering.
44% play multiple times a day, 42% play at least several times a week.
42% of young men watch pornography every day.
27 say they do it several times a day and additional 16% say they do it every week.
Amongst married men 21% and regular religious service attendants, it's actually more than that, 24%.
Now, spin that around in your brain for a second.
And brothers, I know that gambling is incredibly addictive because you can do it based upon anything with your phone in your pocket.
You probably some of you probably already done it already.
But do you recognize how incredibly addictive it and dehumanizing it is?
Do you recognize how p*** slowly begins to rewire your brain?
And you don't even know it like a frog in a And we're not beating up on you.
Listen, this is a conversation that we've got to have together and it's especially good for younger generations to have it older in community.
Are you as our beloved ruling elder emeritus, Paul De Lorie likes to say, are you picking up what I'm putting down?
Invest in the younger generation as servants.
Titus says of Paul, he is a servant of God.
Secondly, focus the purpose of your life.
Do not give your life to doom scrolling for hours on your phone.
It's not candy crush or Wordle that will satisfy you.
It is living up the gospel and it is the hard earned effort of doing so in community and it is hard.
And as we continue to grow and as we move into phase two, there'll be more opportunities for us to do life here together.
Not because you need a building to do it in but because you need fewer excuses to actually do it.
And so we're going to try to make it as easy for you as possible.
Invest, focus, number three, hope in God's truthfulness, his promise, and his faithfulness.
Paul's ministry, as I said, is for the sake of the faith of God's elect and in their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness.
Eusebius, the early church historian, was named after this Greek word.
It means godly.
It accords with godliness.
The truth of the gospel produces a life that is fit for the gospel.
It accords.
It kata in Greek.
It lines up.
What you say you profess with your mouth begins to line up with the way that you lead your life.
And the good news is you will never do it perfectly until Christ comes again.
But progress, not victory is the key.
This is one of the unique aspects of believing in covenant and reform theology.
It is progress.
Not victory ultimately, that is the key to your growth in the Christian life in sanctification, in growing in holiness.
So Stop beating yourself up.
Stop being weighed down by shame and run to worship to confess our sin again and hear Jesus say, "Hey, you are covered by my righteousness.
Let's go for it again.
Let's do it.
You can do it." You can run the race marked out with perseverance and you're going to need older brothers and sisters in the faith to help you do it.
We want theological depth at this church, but we also want biblical literacy.
We want professional clarity in this church.
And Titus reminds us that doctrine, sound doctrine is not complete until it becomes sound living that truth accords with godliness and intergenesis generation discipleship is one of the ordinary ways.
We see this happening.
And the aim of any relationship with an older brother or sister is not nostalgia for a former church culture, the aim is godliness to prepare the next generation.
Notice that Paul says, "What are the roots of his ministry?" He says, "In hope of eternal life which God who never lies promises before the ages began.
The place where Titus was going in Creep The Cretans were famous for being liars, evil beasts, Epaminondas said that's who he quotes here.
And gluttons.
The Cretans said that Zeus was born on Crete.
All the Greeks believe that Zeus was born on Crete.
He was born on the slopes of Mount Ida, tallest mountain on the island of Crete.
But the Cretans also said, "Oh yeah, but by the way, actually Zeus died here too.
He died here and he told us stories about how he would lie to woo women and how he would lie to manipulate and to get his way.
And so the Cretans became known as the people who lied about the God Zeus.
Greeks of course believe that Zeus was immortal.
And so they would say the Cretans are liars and Epaminondas who was a Cretan himself is being self-deprecating.
And he's saying, "Hey, it is true.
It is true.
They do tell a lot of lies.
They are evil pieces.
And they are gluttons." And Paul here says that this God never lies.
It was in direct conflict with the God of Crete.
If this God this God doesn't lie, he doesn't manipulate, he doesn't take advantage of.
This guy never lies.
That's why he uses that strange phrase it seems out of the blue but for Cretans it would make sense.
And he was promised before the ages began and at the proper time he manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted Paul had gone and preached.
He had planted churches in Crete through the ordinary means of the preached word by the command of God our Savior.
Paul's hope is anchored in the character of God, his God, our God, your God never lies.
His promise precedes all of our efforts and it lasts outlasts all of our failures.
And at Trinity, we want to be the means by which you have the opportunity to invest patiently into the lives of others.
Hope keeps discipleship from becoming a kind of technique.
Hope keeps Jakul Oluw's prophecy from coming true about the year 2000 because we begin to invest and lean into each other's life and it happens over setting an extra table setting at dinner to invite the single to join you.
It happens by your community group, multiplying or having enough seats for others to join you.
It happens by some of you who are called and equipped to lead to actually step up and lead and be willing to hear when the when the congregation nominate you to consider being an officer.
Maybe oh maybe that is indeed the Holy Spirit and in fact he uses the church to move in these days.
So invest into the younger generation.
Focus your purpose.
Hope in God's truthfulness, his promise, and his faithfulness.
And you will experience what is it that he says, grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me just mention a couple of things before I close.
How do we actually do this?
We need to cultivate an imagination in this church of shared parenthood.
I've mentioned the word the Latin phrase in loco parentis before in the place of parents.
We stand in the place of parents as we together We need to create simple pathways for relationships across generations in our own community groups or in partner community groups.
If your community group is made up of all people your age, great.
Partner with one whose age is different and do fellowship together, learn from them.
We should dignify every season of life for the context of discipleship.
Children need the whole church.
That's why we love having them in worship.
Teenagers need adults who know their names.
Young adults need models of vocation and fidelity, and marriage, and stewardship, and commitment.
Parents need older parents and grandparents in the faith.
There are so many tired young families in this church and they need you.
Middle-aged adults need renewed purpose because we can wander when you get to be about my age.
Seniors need to know I know that physical weakness never injure fruitfulness in ministry, although I do know that many of you ache in ways that you didn't imagine.
We need to train mentors and mentees and the session needs your help in doing that.
And we need to always keep discipleship tied to Trinity's vision because Paul invested into Titus so that Titus could invest into others and plant more churches.
We want to plant more churches.
I'll say more about this indeed tonight, but let me just say We want to plant more churches, but there is a season in culture right now where we have far too few men who are equipped and qualified to go do it.
People are coming back to the church, to the larger institutional church to find safe haven, especially after the disruptions of COVID.
And we have the opportunity, oh friends, to begin to put the kind of discipleship ecosystem in place that will help us do it.
But we can't do it alone, we need you.
When Glenn Hall Holland um, came to his retirement party many, many years later in teaching.
One of his students was Gertrude Lang, she was played played by Joanna Gleeson.
She became the at the time the sitting governor of the state and she came back to his retirement party.
And she says at his retirement, she says, "Mr.
Hall and I, you had a profound influence on my life." And on a lot of lives Look around the room, Mr.
Holland.
I have a feeling that you consider a great part of your own life as missed spent and rumor had it that you were always working on a symphony and that this was going to make you famous and rich and probably both, but oh friends, Mr.
Holland isn't rich and he isn't famous, at least not outside of our little town.
So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure.
Oh but Mr.
Holland, you would be wrong because I think that you've achieved a success for far beyond riches and fame, look around you and see the lives that have become your symphony, your opus.
And oh dear saints, look around you, the Lord has put you in this place.
Students, he's called you to the University of Tulsa for a time such as this.
To be surrounded by people who love you, who want to know your names and your stories, their amazing stories, you want to know them.
And older adults in this room who have such wisdom to share, might we be that kind of church together?
Where we see the work of the whole Holy Spirit and the changed lives by the gospel as we patiently and with endurance pursue each other in relationship.
So invest into the next generation, focus the purpose of your life, hope in God's faithfulness, promise, truthfulness, and relying on Christ's promise who was the one who came to mentor us.
Not by mere example, but by laying down his life for us so that on the cross he might say this is actually how you grow.
You have faith in me, who was the perfect one who died for you.
So the end my death for you, my righteousness might be given to you so that you would have wings.
Run, John, run.
John Bunyan once wrote, "The law commands, but it gives you neither feet nor hands.
Far better news the gospel brings.
It bids you fly and gives you wings.
Put on the wings.
Rest in Jesus's righteousness.
Invest in the next generation focus the purpose of your life and hope in God's truthfulness, his faithfulness, and his promise.
Amen.
Let's pray together.
Father, would you help us as a church of many generations never drift apart but belong to each other.
Help older believers to know that you are not finished with them and younger believers to know with confidence that they are not alone.
And Did you help this church become a place where Paul seek out Titus and Titus welcome Paul's and where generations join in a joyful work of serving each other.
Thank you, Lord Christ, that you enabled this to be possible for your death and resurrection for us.
And we do this not for our own glory or in our own strength, but in yours.
And as we give up our tides and offerings in joyful response to the way that you have worked in us, help us to be good stewards even even with the resources you've given to us.
We pray these things in Jesus name.
Amen.

Sermon transcript is computer generated.