Sermon Tone Analysis

March 16, 2012

By John Barnett

Read, print, and listen to this resource on our website www.DiscoverTheBook.org

Jesus loves absolutes.

He always used them in His teachings, through contrasts: Light vs. Darkness, Heaven vs. Hell, Life vs. Death, Broad way vs. Narrow Gate, and so on.

Those absolutes continue into the church that bears Christ's Name.

We have to choose go His way or ignore His way.

The clearest choice of all before us this morning involves our minds.

Either we choose to have a God-controlled mind or a World-controlled mind.

Either we give in to a Media-saturated mind or pursue a Word-saturated mind.

That was the challenge that the Lord directed Paul to lay before the church at Crete and to all of us since.

*God-controlled Minds*

“To be discreet” in Titus 2:5 in my Bible is a translation of one Greek word sophron, but actually this word is virtually untranslatable by any one English word.

It is variously translated of sound mind, discreet, prudent, self-controlled, chaste, having complete control over sensual desires.

The Greeks derived it from two words which mean to keep one’s mind safe and sound.

In Titus 2:5 This word describes a woman with a mind surrendered to God’s control.

Her mind is surrendered to God’s gracious sanctifying power; and she learns to govern every instinct and passion until each has its proper place and no more.

As we delve into this verse, God's Word makes one thing perfectly clear: God wants your mind under His control.

More than anything else God wants to saturate, influence, fill, direct, dominate and control your mind.

*If God has your mind* - He has your body,

*If God has your mind* - He has your emotions,

*If God has your mind* - He has your appetites,

*If God has your mind* - He has your time,

*If God has your mind* - He has your money . . .

Do you see the point?

The one who gets your mind gets it all.

Your mind is the prize!

Everything else is just the scraps.

The battle is for our minds.

Satan is seeking to steal the minds of God's children.

Your mind is the key to knowing God.

Only a mind stayed on the Lord can have perfect peace.

A mind devoted to Christ is the road to God's plan for your life!

God wants your mind given to the pursuit of His Kingdom, His Word, and His Christ!

The grace-energized life of Titus 2 is a roadmap for all who want their life to count.

It is God’s pathway of disciplines to choose each day in the power of the Spirit of grace.

This morning we come to the eighth element of a godly woman’s life—as described and prescribed by God—and that is a God-controlled mind, a Word-saturated mind, a Christ-seeking mind.

*Grace-energized Women Have God-controlled Minds*

The Holy Spirit of the Infinite and Unchanging God of the Universe breathed out through Paul a list of life-choices, godly character traits, grace-energized actions that please God and are useful to Him.

God’s plan to work in the world is His church .

Christ's church may be described as a group of people, energized by grace, doing the impossible for the glory of God.

In this next grace-energized trait we see Paul point to the godly woman’s mind.

This word is our entry into one of the most vital areas of our life as believers—the realm of our minds.

This is the only universal character quality of this list.

In the space of just six verses in Titus Paul declares this quality God desires is stated as part of the life of godly older women (2:4), godly younger women (2:5), godly older men (2:2), godly younger men (2:5), Biblical elders (1:8), and—to every Spirit-filled and Spirit-led believer (Titus 2:12; c.f. Romans 12:3).

So as we look at this word from God it is first of all in context to be the personal life-choice for younger women; and secondly, it is to be the curriculum on the mind of godly older women as they spend time nurturing younger women; and thirdly it is for every man in the church whether in a leadership role or not—because it is universally applied to every believer in Christ's church.

*Twelve Characteristics of Grace-energized Women and Mothers*

This morning we are studying the eighth of 12 characteristics for grace-energized women, found at the start of verse 5.

As a review please follow along as we look at the entire scope of what God wants trained, and then examine this eighth characteristic.

v. 4 that they admonish the [grace-energized] *young women *

1. to love their husbands,

2. to love their children, v. 5

3. to be discreet *sophron* (KJV/NKJV); “self-controlled” (NIV); “sensible” (NAS),

4. chaste,

5. homemakers,

6. good,

7. obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

(NKJV)

The Greek word God inspires Paul to write is *sophron* translated in the New Testament as “discreet, sensible, or self-controlled”.

The meaning of this word is vital to our spiritual lives.

God is asking for believers to desire and seek by His grace to be:

“…serious about spiritual things; not being known as a clown; living a disciplined life: self-controlled and not addicted to anything; in control of your choices, knowing your priorities; serious about life; temperate and avoiding excesses; a clarity of thought that leads to an orderly life.”

A further application of this word would be: to be seen as thinking about life through God’s filter, the Philippians 4:8 grid.

Sadly it seems that Satan has caught many believers off guard.

While they carefully avoid many obvious doctrinal dangers, perhaps the most powerful mind-robber has been overlooked.

Satan is neutralizing the power of so many godly minds, little-by-little every day through the onslaught of the media that overflows us like a raging flooded river.

*Beware of Mind-Neutralizers*

*Your godly mind can get neutralized by modern media that has reset the Moral Acceptability Threshold.

*

Here is the test: “Do the things that once offended you now entertain you?

Are you able to enjoy the company of television programs, videos, and movies that have values diametrically opposed to yours?

This moral drift is important to understand, for it continues unabated.

Extrapolate ten or twenty years into the future and it is frightening to imagine what media content awaits us.”

*Your godly mind can get neutralized by modern media that has reset the Shock Threshold.*

In the past, if we saw blood, killing, or tragedies on the evening news, it would disturb us for weeks.

Today, however, the rule of the newsroom is, “If it bleeds it leads.”

Movies are worse.

Beginning about thirty years ago, succeeding waves of movies relied on more and more violence to attract crowds.

Audiences became numbed to the repulsiveness of each level of violence, so directors had to enhance the horror to maintain interest.

Such common fare no longer elicits anguish from society, and more troubling is that believers who regularly watch these images seem to have no shock over the sin.

*Is your godly mind troubled that* God defines spiritual adultery in Ezekiel as the sin when His people followed the advice, customs, and practices of the pagans instead of Him?

The idols Israel followed had to do with pagan practices about their health, their business, their safety, their future security, and so on.

They had abandoned God as their source of truth for life, and they spent and invested more time getting help, counsel, direction, and advice from everyone but Him.

Ezekiel 20:31 “For when you offer your gifts and make your sons pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols, even to this day.

So shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel?

As I live,” says the Lord God, “I will not be inquired of by you.

NKJV

Our world spends most of their time seeing the world through the world’s eyes which is our media world.

Today more and more believers are finding their world view, values, and guidance for life from TV, secular books, unsaved professionals, magazines, commercials, and the internet.

Sadly, they follow that secular and ungodly direction more than God and His Word.

*Is your godly mind troubled yet that* today's teens (the 31 million 12-19 year olds, some of them may be living in your house) have a world that has been defined for them more by computer games, TV, social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook, movies, advertisements for Apple, Nike, Sony, Gap, Old Navy and the web -- *than by God's Word*?

Half of all teens are from a broken home, and 63% have both parents working.

All of them, down deep, need adult guidance.

In* A Tribe Apart*, author Patricia Hersch said, "Every kid wished they had more adults in their life, especially that their parents would invade their lives".

*Is your godly mind troubled yet that *video’s, movie’s and television’s effects are so well known to be disastrous to the life of any child or adult?

Statistics by secular research has concluded what undisciplined media saturation causes.

• A shortened attention span: that means a media saturated person can’t think about God very well.

• Reduced linguistic powers: that means a media saturated person can’t talk about God very well.

*Is your godly mind troubled yet that* to attract and hold its audience, the entertainment industry feels it has to parade the taboos of culture: adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, incest, violence, and sadism?

As a result the lowest of activities become commonplace, and even morally cachet.

Ephesians 5:12 /"For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret."/