Titus 2 and relevance

Wednesday nights at church are a special time. This week we had four different meetings going on, AWANA for our younger kids, a mens Bible study, a womens Bible study, teen church, and the main meeting in the sanctuary. So thats actually five. Wednesday's main meeting consists of about forty minutes of prayer and praise time, followed by a twenty minute message, currently from Titus.

On Wednesday we prayed for something like fifty five minutes, so when i stood up behind the pulpit to preach from Titus 2:2, i had about five minutes to squeeze in twenty minutes of material. I more or less just took a line from each paragraph and expanded it as much as i could. Not much!

There's a lot in Titus 2:2, about the aged man in the church that challenges me. The call on them is high, just as the call on elder is high in the previous chapter. I hope i have the verve for life, the energy and the faithful passion for the Lord that the older men in my church have at their age. I hope i understand the Gospel as much as they do.

And here's what struck me the most about the aged men that Titus talks about. Here's what grabbed me about the older generation of Christians while i was thinking about it last week. I love these men because they get something about the Gospel that so many people my age don't. What i mean is, when was the last time that you heard someone in their seventies or eighties talking about 'making the Gospel relevant'? I don't think i ever have. And you know why that is? Because they understand that the Gospel is the only message in the world that doesn't need to be made relevant...it is relevant, because it deals with everyone's greatest need. Ever. Every time, every culture, every tongue, every ethnicity. Everything, everyone, everywhere, everywhen. That doesn't need to be made relevant. How can it possibly not be?

What is relevant anyway? All it means is relevant to people in their twenties and thirties. What do older men hear when someone says relevant? They hear that they are no longer relevant. What a load of gash. These men are the rock of our church, Travis Sadler, Art Huchock, Marty Martin, and many many more. They are relevant.

Paul got that when he was writing to Titus. I hope i do, and i hope more and more people do.