0723 EVERY YOUNG MAN’S HURDLE

JULY 23 = TITUS 2

EVERY YOUNG MAN’S HURDLE

In chapter two of Titus, Paul tells the young evangelist to teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Then he goes on to list what to teach each group of people, from older men, older women, younger women and young men. 

All of the lists are worthy of careful consideration, of course. Titus is to tell the older men to focus on six things to help their lives honor the Lord. Titus is to teach the older women four things. Then the older women can teach the younger women—notice that it is not the young man Titus who should be ministering with personal advice for young women. For the sake of his purity and their growth, it is the older women who can best teach the younger women an impressive list of seven important items.

Then Paul tells Titus what to teach the young men.

“Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled.”

Seriously? Just one thing for young men, after all the matters on everyone else’s lists? 

Yes. Indeed. For young men, the gateway to maturity is self-control. If they only focus on one thing, that is the single most important part of their lives for them to really master.

In fairness, self-control is also on the list for older men and for younger women. But it is the only thing for young men.

You might say that the clearest mark of a young man is that he wants to explore “grown up” things and prove himself overnight to be a real man. So this ambitious and competitive young guy runs at life tackling everything he thinks is the mark of an adult. 

The problem is, he usually gets it wrong. He sees the marks of maturity to be running fast and being strong and driving fast and taking risks. He finds himself with all kinds of hormonal desires, and so he is sexually active, and he gets into fights, he uses grown-up language and stands toe-to-toe with anyone who challenges him. In short, he glories in his manhood and imagines that he has made it as a man because he understands the ways of the world.

Of course, the problem is that a typical young man’s world is upside down. The mark of maturity is NOT in saying YES to all those things that were forbidden to him when he was younger. The mark of maturity for him is to learn to say NO to those temptations that have flooded his young brain.

Self-control is a fascinating topic, and an intriguing word in the New Testament. The word is sophroneo, which is a form of the word wisdom. It is found when the Gadarene demoniac has been delivered and they find him fully clothed and “in his right mind.” He is in control of himself, rather than the demons dictating his behavior after all these years.

Self-control is what it takes to move from limits of law and of parents to setting your own limits. When a horse has been raised in a pen, and for the first time he is released from the gate and given total freedom as to where to go and what to do, he has two choices: he can assume that he is still fenced in and stay within a small circle of space, or he can run into the wild and explore the world, reveling in his new freedom. 

But for humans with a conscience and the Holy Spirit, we have a third option. We can live under childhood limitations or go crazy, or we can learn to live under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who gently guides us through the freedom of the vast world with self-control as our first tool.

Young men, may the Spirit of Christ teach you to be self-controlled and alert, that the enemy might gain no ground in your lives. Amen.