From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Are you moving in the right direction? Are you growing closer to the Lord, or have you turned around and started to go the other way? Have you started to drift? Have you started to miss your time with the Lord? You start missing time with the Lord and you start to go backward.

God has a plan to have a healthy church, and it involves you and it involves me, from the youngest to the oldest. His plan is for you to grow and disciple others until he comes to take you home.

Larry Nobles: God always has a master plan for leading his people. But God has a plan for leading his church too. And the way he does it is through a thing called discipleship. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today for the broadcast where we're going to discover the characteristics of good discipleship that will definitely allow us to be more like Christ every day.

The message is part of Pastor Jeff's eight-lesson series, Setting the House in Order. It's a specially practical teaching about issues churches face and what God wants us to do about them. And you can find out more when you go to fromhisheart.org. Right now, though, open your Bible to the second chapter of the book of Titus. Here's Pastor Jeff Schreve with a lesson entitled "The Master's Plan for Discipleship, Part 2."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: The healthy church. What does a healthy church look like in terms of discipleship? Let's look at four facets of the healthy church in terms of raising up disciples. First of all, number one, there's a steady stream of sound doctrine. In a healthy church, you have a steady stream of sound doctrine.

"But as for you," verse 1 says, "speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine." He just talked about in verses 10 through 16 the false teachers that needed to be rebuked, that needed to be refuted because they were contradicting, they were upsetting whole families, they were rebels and they were rabble-rousers. And so, he tells Titus, "Go after those guys because they're messing people up spiritually."

And then he says, "But as for you, you speak the words that are fitting for sound doctrine." Sound doctrine means healthy, wholesome, uncorrupted teaching, uncorrupted instruction. Now, in a healthy church, you have Bible studies going on where there's sound biblical doctrine being taught, and from the pulpit, sound biblical doctrine is being taught. That's a healthy church. And the Bible says in 1st Timothy chapter 4, verse 6, that we're to be constantly nourished on the words of the faith.

When you come to church, it's not all the time that you hear something you've never heard before. Lots of times at church, what you need is to hear what you already know, but to hear it again, to have it reinforced. You need to hear it anew and afresh so that you can be nourished on sound teaching and sound doctrine.

For all our Bible study teachers, scripture that is important to remember: James chapter 3, verse 1, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such, you shall incur a stricter judgment." It's serious business to teach the Word of God because you want to be sound in your teaching, and it's good, and it's wholesome, and it's true, and it's "thus says the Lord." So, you always stick to the Word.

That's the first thing about a solid church, a healthy church: there's a steady stream of sound doctrine so that people can be constantly nourished on the words of the faith. Facet number two: there are older people in the church who are wise and godly. A healthy church is going to have older people in it. And those older people are going to be people who have been walking with the Lord for a while, and they're going to have wisdom, and they're going to have godliness about their lives.

You can be old and not have any wisdom and not have any godliness. But at a healthy church, you're going to find older, gray-headed people that do have a walk with God, and they've been walking with God for a while. So, he says in verse 2, "Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, and perseverance. Older women likewise."

And he says some different things about the older women, but the likewise means they're supposed to be like that too. And so, the older people are to have a walk with God and the older people are to be an example to the church as to this is what it looks like if you've walked with God for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years.

And what are they going to be like? They're going to be temperate, which means sober and vigilant. They're alert. And they're alert to what's going on around them spiritually. The Bible says, "Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour." So, the older people are aware. They're vigilant. They're on the lookout, and they're not falling asleep on the job.

And they're dignified, which means they're honorable and they're living a life of honor. They're sensible, which means sound in mind and self-controlled. And then he says sound in faith, in agape love, and then in perseverance, in their ability to have patience and to patiently endure the difficulties of life. And then he says something. He says in verse 3, "Older women likewise."

So, whatever I said about the older men, you can just say ditto for the older women. But then he adds some things. They're to be reverent in their behavior. They're to have a godliness and a reverence and a holiness about their lives. Not malicious gossips. So, older women have to watch their tongues. Very important for them to watch their tongues. Why? Because Proverbs chapter 18, verse 21 tells us that death and life are in the power of the tongue.

So, they have to make sure that they're not becoming gossips, malicious gossips, slandering people, saying things and jumping to conclusions and then spreading that out. The Lord hates it when we spread strife among brothers. The scripture makes it clear: don't do that because death and life are in the power of the tongue and it can cause so much hurt.

It says, "Nor enslaved to much wine." They're not going to be—you don't want to be a doulos. That's the word that's used there, which is the lowest slave—to wine or any substance like that. You want to be a doulos to the Lord. And then, teaching what is good. So, the older people: wise and godly.

Facet number three: in the healthy church, there are older people teaching younger people. And I think this is the thing that older people need to remember. You get old and you think, "Well, maybe I can't do like I used to do, and people don't call on me to do things in the church like they used to do, and maybe I'm just kind of—need to hang it up and just kind of be on the sidelines." Uh-uh.

Older people are to teach younger people. And he says specifically older women are to train and disciple the younger women. Look in verse 4: "That they may encourage the young women." That word encourage means to train, to discipline, to correct. "To encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be dishonored."

So, an older woman who has probably more free time because she doesn't have the things like she had when she had little kids, she's—the house is free, she's an empty nester, and the Lord is saying, "Now you take that time and invest in younger women." Younger women who need to know how to love their husbands, how to love their children.

Larry Nobles: You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve and today's message, "The Master's Plan for Discipleship." It's from the series Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus. And he'll return in just a moment to complete this message. Before we can set our church's house in order, we need to understand and seek God's master plan for the church and also for us specifically.

Have you looked into your spiritual mirror to see if you are obedient to the Word of God and faithful in all that he's asked us to do and be? Today's lesson is from Pastor Jeff's series Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus. And the first thing we need to do is to get our church straight and our hearts right with God, to have a fresh anointing that will make us diligently search out the heart of God each and every day.

In other words, we need to be revived. Revival is the holy sovereign God breathing fresh life into our weary hearts. It is a love restored. Pastor Jeff's five-lesson series that we aired the first two weeks of this month was called "Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival," and that should be our quest. The series is our gift of thanks to you for your support From His Heart this month of any amount.

And as you know, Pastor Jeff takes no income from this ministry. Every dollar you give goes to reaching more people with the good news of Jesus. So, request the five-lesson series "Soul on Fire" when you make a gift From His Heart this month of any amount. You can do that by calling 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org. And again, request the series "Soul on Fire." Now let's conclude the lesson, "The Master's Plan for Discipleship."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: I met with my discipleship group today and I was talking to some of the guys and we were talking about how we did a study on Proverbs chapter 7. Proverbs chapter 7 is the story of the immoral woman and how she's cunning of heart. And the immoral woman goes out to meet this simpleton who took the way to her house to see just what might happen. He ends up getting waylaid there because he's playing around with sin and it pounces on him.

But she says to him, "I have sought your presence earnestly and I have come out to meet you. I want you." There's something about that for a guy, when a woman is pursuing him and wanting him and she's dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. The harlot, they know what buttons to push to get a man. Well, a wife needs to know too that a man responds and has a soft spot when his wife is wanting him.

And so, teach them how to love their husbands. To let your husband know, "I need you and I want you and I find you desirable." That's a good thing. That's a good thing because the husband finds the wife desirable. And there was a song years ago by a group, Cheap Trick, and the song says, "I want you to want me. I need you to need me. I love for you to love me." And a guy is like that.

Teach the young women how to be like that to their husbands too, to let them know that they're needed and they're wanted. Teach them how to love their children. To love their children enough to discipline them because the Bible says, "He who loves his son disciplines him diligently." Some people say, "Well, I love my kids too much to spank them." Well, no you don't.

You're showing that you don't love them at all because they need correction. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will remove it far from him. So, the older women are to teach, and they've been there, done that, and so they can help and teach the younger women to be sensible, to make sound decisions, especially financially; to be pure and chaste and modest.

And then it says in verse 5 to be workers at home. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't have a job outside the home, but it means literally that workers at home means domestically inclined. Now, I think this is true in a general sense, not true 100% of the time, but in a general sense. I think that most women, if they are given the choice in a marriage, you can either work or you can stay home and take care of the home front and take care of the kids.

Most of the time—not all of the time, some are wired differently—but most of the time they would want to stay home. Because within most women is they just like home. And they like to decorate and they like to create beauty. Now, remember, this isn't 100% across the board. Some women aren't like that. But a lot of them are, and most of them would like to do that. And even if you're not like that, it's important that you're a keeper of the home.

Because the husband is not going to be good at that. You've heard the old expression, "The home is a man's castle." Baloney. That's the woman's domain. She likes the home. Debbie and I signed off on a house and we're closing just in a few weeks and she's already got all the decorations going in her head. She doesn't ask me about that because I don't know what to do.

That's why I married you. You're good at that stuff. And she loves to do that. And so she's already—she'll wake up in the middle of the night thinking, "I can do this in this room and I can do this and then we can put this on this wall." And I'm like, "Well, that's wonderful." So, teach them how to be domestically inclined.

And then he says this: that you teach them how to be subject to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be dishonored. And that word for dishonored is blasphemed. That the Word of God may not be blasphemed. What is a younger woman to learn? To learn how to submit to her husband. That can be a hard thing to do. Definitely hard if her husband is not doing a very good job loving her.

If he's not doing a very good job leading her. If he's not being very respectable and she is commanded by God to respect him. Well, some women say, "Well, how can I do that?" It's like, well, how can he—he's commanded to love you and maybe you're not being very lovable, but that doesn't let him off the hook. He's got to love you even when you're unlovable. You have to respect him even when he's not very respectable.

But here is the point: the main point is that God set up in a home for the husband to be the leader. Doesn't mean he's better. It just means God designated him. He's the designated driver. And if you don't have a home where the husband is the leader, where the man is the leader, where you have a home where the woman is calling the shots and she's in the driver's seat, the Word of God is dishonored.

And it's a dysfunctional home and it will affect the kids. I talked to a friend of mine today and he was telling me about his son, and his wife runs the house. It's caused lots of problems in their marriage and lots of problems in their family because the wife won't submit to her husband. Hey, teach the young women that they're supposed to do that. God wants them to do that.

And then, just by default, if the older women are to teach the younger women, then it stands to reason and it's obvious—although it's not spelled out like it is for the older women and younger women—but the older men are to teach the younger men. God wants us to do that. Guys that are further along in the faith are to teach guys that are younger in the faith.

And that is so critical for discipleship to work and to grow. Paul told Timothy in 2nd Timothy 2:2, he said, "The things that you've learned from me, these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." That's discipleship: life on life. Whether you're meeting with one person, whether you're meeting with four or five people, but it's an older guy who's further along in the Lord and further along in life experience meeting with younger guys to say, "Hey, I have—I've been down a road that you haven't been down yet."

"I can tell you about all the detours. I can tell you about the pitfalls. I can tell you about problems. I can help you to stay on the straight and narrow so that you can walk with God, so that you can really experience that which is life indeed." Now, let me challenge you older guys: find a younger guy or two that you can really pour your life into, that you can share some of the wisdom that you've learned with.

You say, "Well, I don't think I'm qualified. I don't think I know enough." Just find a guy that seems to be running into the wall. Find a guy less smart than you are. Put it that way. You've been down a road. If you're 65 years old and you've been a Christian a while and you've said, "I've grown a little bit in my relationship with the Lord," you have something to offer.

So, you older guys, find some younger guys that you can really befriend, that you can really mentor, that you can really help in life and in the Christian life. And you younger guys, you say, "Man, I wish I had somebody that would take me under his wing." Find a guy like that. Ask the Lord to show you a guy like that who could really help you. And just say, "You know what? Could I get together with you maybe once every week or two?"

"I'd just like to have breakfast with you and just talk to you and just see what you think about this and that, and this problem with my marriage, or this problem with my parenting, or this problem with my job." That's an opportunity for older guys to minister to younger guys. It's an opportunity for younger guys to learn. Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

It's a time to encourage one another. Everybody needs encouragement, guys especially, because guys aren't as good as women at getting together and talking. And so we need to have some avenues where we can do that because we need it even though it doesn't come first nature to us. It does to women. Women get together and what do they do? They talk.

And every time I come home after I've been with some guys playing golf, Debbie will say, "What'd you talk about?" "I don't know, Matt's bad tee shot. We talked about missed a putt." It's just dumb stuff. And she's like, "Oh, you men." Because women get together and they talk about things. They talk, "Oh, we talked about this person's problem here and that there."

Yeah, we don't talk about that stuff. But we need that as guys. We need to be able to talk to somebody because most guys are dying out there and they don't have anybody to talk to and they don't know what to do. And so: the older people teaching the younger people. And then lastly, there's the pastor setting a godly example. He says in verse 6, "Likewise urge the young men to be sensible."

"In all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach, in order that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us." In all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds. The word example is the Greek word topos, T-O-P-O-S. We get our word topography from that word.

It means to be a map. It means to be a model. And the pastor is to be a model of good deeds and purity in what he says and what he teaches and how he lives. Now, that can be hard because, newsflash: there are not three classifications of beings. There are not men, women, and preachers. A preacher is a man. And so there's just men and women.

And men are flawed, and women are flawed, and preachers are flawed. And so preachers are supposed to be the example, but preachers aren't perfect. And so when you start looking, "Well, you got to be a model," well, you can't be the perfect model. Jesus is the perfect model and so we follow him. But Paul told the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians chapter 11, "Be imitators of me as I follow Christ, as I imitate him."

Paul knew, "Hey, I'm walking with God. Not perfect." Paul wasn't perfect. "But I'm walking with God, and if you will imitate what I'm doing—seeking the Lord, calling upon his name, walking with him, confessing sin—if you will imitate me, then you're going to be doing good because I'm following Jesus and I'm imitating him. And my heart's in the right place and my direction's in the right place."

Listen, no one in this room is perfect. I'm far from perfect. But we can be moving in the right direction and that's the key. That's the key. Are you moving in the right direction? Are you growing closer to the Lord, or have you turned around and started to go the other way? Have you started to drift? Have you started to miss your time with the Lord? You start missing time with the Lord and you start to go backward.

The Christian life is a fight against the current because the world is coming at us. And the moment that you say, "Well, I'm just going to rest a while," the current starts to push you back. You can't stay neutral in a Christian life. You have to constantly be moving forward with the Lord. God has a plan to have a healthy church and it involves you and it involves me, from the youngest to the oldest. And his plan is for you to grow and disciple others until he comes to take you home.

Larry Nobles: What a great reminder this message has been to us in terms of how a healthy church never rests in the area of developing disciples and not just making converts. Today on From His Heart, you heard part two of the message, "The Master's Plan for Discipleship." You can go back and listen to part one when you go to fromhisheart.org. Click the "Listen" link.

And it's part of Pastor Jeff's eight-lesson series Setting the House in Order, a study from the book of Titus. And that includes all the things that will allow your church to be filled with God's glory. It's available at fromhisheart.org. And when you do go online, we hope you'll take a moment to read some of the tremendous testimonies of people who've been touched by this ministry.

But those testimonies only scratch the surface. There are so many more people to reach and broadcast avenues to use to disciple the lost and the hurting people of the world. With your gift this month, we'd like to say thank you by sending you Pastor Jeff's "Soul on Fire" series. It's God's plan for revival and it's just a token of our thanks for your investment in kingdom work through From His Heart.

Call 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE or go online to fromhisheart.org. And again, request the series "Soul on Fire." Well, I'm Larry Nobles and a huge thanks for listening today. And thank you for praying for this ministry. We trust you'll be here next time for the next lesson in Pastor Jeff's series Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus. The lesson is called "Turning Your Job into a Joy." That's when we'll open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.