Godly Character

Lord God, our heavenly Father, please teach us from your Word, so that we might grow up more and more, and in every way, into him who is the head of the church, into Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. In His name we pray, Amen.

Last Sunday we thought about godly and ungodly leadership. In Titus 1 the apostle Paul painted pictures of those two kinds of leadership. He ended with a really rather frightening summing-up of the twisted character of ungodly leaders. It’s there in a nutshell in Titus 1.16:

They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

What we do reveals who we are; deeds reveal character. Last week we thought about the criteria that the apostle gave to his team-mate Titus for choosing men to be elders in the new churches of Crete. They related to the three ‘Cs’: Character, Convictions, and Competence - who we are, what we believe, and what we can do. All matter. But it’s noteworthy that most of Titus 1.5-9 (where Paul spells all this out) is about character. We can change our convictions quite quickly as we grow in our understanding of the truth. We can be trained and so grow in competence. The toughest aspect of us to shift is our character.

In the life of the church, across multiple denominations, over the last few years, we’ve seen a string of character failures among Christian leaders that have rocked the churches and done much damage to the cause of the gospel in our wider culture. But it’s not anything new. I remember as a young man being deeply shaken and disillusioned. I had benefitted greatly from books by a then well-known Christian author – there’s no need to name him, and you probably haven’t heard of him now. Much of his writing was about developing godly Christian character. Then it came out that he’d been unfaithful to his wife, and had had an affair with a younger woman. It taught me a lesson about making sure that my faith was in Jesus, and not in any apparently impressive Christian leader. But why is such failure of character such a shock? Because it is in fact so contrary to what we (and indeed the wider world) expect. We expect Christians to be of good character. And so we should because sound Christian doctrine grows godly Christian character. And in the light of that, here’s my first point from these verses:

1. The teaching of godly living must be at the heart of the life of our church

Titus 2.1:

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

Bad character is destructive and potentially deadly. Christ-like character is life-giving. So developing godly character should be a top priority for us – as Christians, and not just as leaders. Character matters for all of us, and that’s what Paul moves on to in this part of Titus 2. The root of the tree of character is the truth of the gospel. The fruit is goodness. So look at Titus 1.16 and Titus 2.1 together:

They [that is, ungodly leaders] profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

Notice that close connection between life and doctrine – what we know to be true, and what we’re like as men and women. Because developing good character is not something we can do just by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. The worst aspects of our character are far too stubborn for that. We need Jesus to change us. We need to have a real, direct encounter with him. And that’s what we have through the gospel. By grace, through faith in Jesus, by the power of his Holy Spirit living in us, we can be changed from the inside out. That’s why we can only really take on board the commands of Titus 2.1-10 by also previewing Titus 2.11-14. Take a look at those verses just after our passage:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

As disciples of Jesus, we are called to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives. And it is the grace of God in Jesus that trains us to do that; he redeemed us, he purifies us, he makes us zealous for good works. More on that next week, but we need to know where the power comes from for us to get to work on our character, so we can grow in Christ-likeness. We can only become more Christ-like through our relationship with Christ. Then once we’re clear about that, we have to make sure that the teaching of godly living is at the heart of the life of the church. Not just doctrine. Not just what we believe. But life and doctrine together. That’s the typical pattern of Paul’s letters: “this is the gospel – so this is how we must live”. That must be the pattern of our teaching and learning too. So, for instance, in our small groups, when we learn from the Bible together, we must work at how the truth that we learn affects the life that we live. And that’s why our new EQUIP framework for teaching and training has four streams: Bible; Doctrine; Discipleship; and Culture – which includes ethics. Not doctrine alone. Doctrine and life. The teaching of godly living must be at the heart of the life of our church. Let’s not ever lose sight of that. As James says (James 2.19):

Even the demons believe – and shudder!

James 2.26:

…faith apart from works is dead.

2. We are to live godly lives in every age, stage and occupation

In Titus 2.2-10, Paul now gives to Titus six examples of what to teach (and what to teach elders to teach) to believers in different life contexts. So he writes about older men, older women, younger married women with young children, younger men, Titus himself, and slaves. Self-evidently, this is a wide spread of examples, but not comprehensive coverage of everybody’s circumstances. And it’s clear too that the fundamentals of the character that we should work hard at cultivating by the grace of God is essentially the same for all of us, whatever our age, stage of life, or occupation. That character is the character of Christ. But then Paul applies that in different ways according to his different examples of age, stage and occupation. So let’s take a look at them.

i. Older men (Titus 2.1-2)

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

This is a word to me – and to you, fellow old man! After the wearing and wearying decades we’ve lived through, are we letting things slide? Is our steadfastness threadbare? Let’s pray for a fresh injection of spiritual energy, and get back on track.

ii. Older women (Titus 2.3-4)

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women…

Do you count yourself an older woman?! Whether that touches on any weakness in your own character is for you to decide – and act on if it does. But don’t miss that older women are to be teachers of the faith to the next generation of women – both in relation to life and doctrine, because there can be no teaching what is good apart from the gospel and the word of God. So biblical and theological study is important – and maybe you’ll have a bit more time for that as the years go by.

iii. Younger married women with young children. (Titus 2.3-6)

Older women…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…

If you’re a younger married woman with young children, you don’t need my advice on how to get through the day in a godly way. But do listen to Christ’s apostle. And do seek out older women who have been through that relentless stage, and who have some understanding of what you’re dealing with. And if your hackles rise at the mention of being submissive to your husband, then remember to put that in the context of the beautiful biblical pattern for marriage of the self-sacrificial headship of the husband who is to be ready to lay down his life for his wife, following the pattern of the self-sacrificial headship of Christ; and the self-sacrificial submission of the wife following the pattern of the self-sacrificial submission of Christ.

iv. Younger men (Titus 2.6)

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

That’s it. Short and to the point. What’s the characteristic character failure of young men? Lack of self-control. Young man, in what area or areas of your life is lack of self-control rearing its ugly head? Be honest with yourself and with Jesus. Keep crying to him to forgive you and help you. And with him by your side, work hard at getting your life under control.

Mary Harrington in her book Feminism Against Progress, published last year, asks a painful question for those of us of the male sex. She says:

Where have all the good men gone?

And she later says:

If I’m right about the end of progress, we will need one another if we want to thrive. That obviously includes men. A world of growing instability, fragmenting peace and order, resource competition and faltering subsistence is not one in which the welfare (or even physical safety) of women and children can be taken for granted. Against that backdrop, a world where every baby can be welcomed without a loss to women’s personhood is self-evidently impossible unless it’s also filled with good husbands and fathers...Capable, confident men.

The world needs good men. Young man – do you hear that? The world needs you to learn the self-control of a good man.

v. Titus himself (Titus 2.7-8)

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned…

That is a high bar for church leaders, and it should drive us to our knees, and teach us humility, because I for one fall so far short. I find encouragement in 1 Timothy 4.15, where Paul urges another of his church-planting team, Timothy, to set an example:

…so that all may see your progress.

Paul does not expect perfection from us this side of heaven, but he does expect progress. That is both comfort and challenge.

vi. Slaves (Titus 2.9-10)

Slaves 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…

Slavery was fundamental to the society of the Roman Empire. Slavery was and is evil. The apostle Paul was not a political revolutionary. He was a spiritual revolutionary. If you want to see him subverting and undermining the institution of slavery in a way that would in the end destroy it, read his Letter to Philemon. For now, he was clear that living in unjust conditions did not excuse even slaves from living godly lives, even towards their masters. How much more is that then true for us, however difficult the circumstances of our own occupation or employment. Being a slave was no excuse for dishonesty or doing a bad job. So the teaching of godly living must be at the heart of the life of our church. And we are to live godly lives in every age, stage and occupation – with no exceptions. Then:

3. Godly living makes the gospel attractive, to the glory of god

Three times, as Paul works through his examples, he gives a reason to help motivate this godly living:

i. Godly living gives biblical truth a hearing.

Titus 2.5. The older women are to train the younger women:

…that the word of God may not be reviled.

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans, causing $80 billion of damage to property and killing over 1800 people. The old Labour politician Roy Hattersley wrote a column in the Guardian in its aftermath. It was titled: Faith Does Breed Charity, with the sub-heading: We atheists have to accept that most believers are better human beings. He wrote:

The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character.Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.

Christian believers, he argues:

are the men and women most willing to change the fetid bandages, [and] replace the sodden sleeping bags…Good works, John Wesley insisted, are no guarantee of a place in heaven. But they are most likely to be performed by people who believe that heaven exists. The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand.

Godly living gives biblical truth a hearing.

ii. Godly living silences the critics of Christian faith.

Titus 2.8. Titus himself was to do good:

…so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

Godly living gives the biblical truth a hearing. It also silences the critics of Christian faith. In a recent article provocatively entitled - Is Richard Dawkins a Christian? Theo Hobson writes:

When the New Atheism thing was new, I wrote a piece saying that the people who supported it were pretentious and cowardly. They pretended to know what religion is, and said that it caused great harm… they wanted to say that religion in general was to blame [for the 9/11 attacks], that mild-mannered liberal Christians were implicated in violence.Now Richard Dawkins is trying to sound more nuanced about Christianity. A recent radio interview with LBC is the latest example.Dawkins now says that he is not, of course, a believing Christian, but a cultural one. He’s glad that the old faith is still around. ‘I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos.’ He notes that Christian belief is declining in Britain, ‘and I’m happy with that. But I would not be happy if we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So I count myself a cultural Christian.’…Dawkins says Christianity is ‘a fundamentally decent religion’.

So even Richard Dawkins, who has spent many years trying to destroy Christian faith, is realising that Christian faith is a force for good in our culture, and that has blunted his attacks, if not silenced them altogether. Then, Paul says that:

iii. Godly living makes the gospel attractive.

Titus 2.10. Slaves are to serve their masters well:

…so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour.

John Stott has a helpful illustration here. He says:

Christian doctrine is salvation doctrine, a jewel called ‘the teaching about God our Saviour’. So either we give no evidence of salvation, in which case the gospel-jewel is tarnished, or we give good evidence of salvation by living a manifestly saved life, in which case the gospel-jewel shines with extra lustre. Our lives can bring either adornment or discredit to the gospel.

Godly living makes the gospel attractive, to the glory of God. What could be a stronger motivation than that? Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, each one of us comes to you this evening from our own unique set of life circumstances. Thank you that in whatever state we find ourselves, your grace in Christ is sufficient for us. Help us, we pray, to learn more and more to live lives that shine with the character of Jesus, that the world might see you more clearly, and that your holy name might be glorified. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.