The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Reliance - The Titus Checklist 2025.04.23

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

God bless the Menking Family 

Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior. To Titus, my true child, in a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If

anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers, and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination, for an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant, or quick-tempered, or a drunkard, or violent, or greedy for game, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

Lord thank you for your word. Thank you for the mercy and the grace and the faithfulness and the holiness that you have shown us. Lord let your will be established in our lives. Direct our paths according to your plans, according to your preferences, Lord, according to your will. Holy Spirit, fill us now Lord to overflowing so that we would be the right kind of examples for others. God, we can't obey you or follow you in our own strength. We have to lay our own strength down and take

up your burden, which is light. We have to bring ourselves, Lord, to you at the cross and lay all of our burdens down. So help us, Lord, to follow you, to love you, to expect great things from you. Lord, forgive us for our disappointment and our lack of hope and expectation and faith. Lord let your will be done truly in our lives. Our families need help, our churches need help, our nation needs help, our world needs help. Lord, let your kingdom be established. Let it be established in our minds, in our hearts, in our spirits, and let it grow forth. Lord, bring about the harvest that you are due, the moment of clarity.

Bring about a new awakening God. Thank you Jesus for the cross. Thank you for the hope that is in us. Thank you for sending the Comforter, the Holy Spirit to us. Bless us Holy Spirit, redeem this time, quicken us, show us what we need to see. Redeem these minutes, and help this be a profitable and fruitful time of fellowship, and in your word, in Jesus' name, amen. One of the many things I appreciate about the book of Titus is just how direct Paul's teaching is here. In other places throughout the

New Testament when he is dealing with theological topics and weighty matters of doctrine, specifically thinking here about Romans and Corinthians and all of these other epistles that go into incredibly deep and majestic themes of the nature of God, the nature of man, and all sorts of other facets of doctrine. I just love the change in style for Titus, where Paul, being pragmatic and an excellent author, inspired by the Holy Spirit here, he is

giving direct and authoritative instructions to a younger man. Not making any assumptions, but saying here are the list of things that you should look for, here are the list of things that you should do. And there are several of these lists and that kind of feature showing up throughout the chapters of this brief epistle. And it's helpful because whenever we have these lists, whether it's the extraordinarily famous ones like the fruit of the spirit,

or elsewhere in the New Testament, just checkpoints and stages and steps and characteristics. It's helpful because it's concrete and we can use it as a measuring stick. And so here, my motivation is to say that the standards that Paul is establishing in terms of the qualifications for elders, shouldn't those also be aspirations for every father who is called to be a king and a priest over his home. Are we not called a nation of kings and priests? Are we not given that kind of responsibility? The way that God hands out

responsibility and honor is to say congratulations. Now you have the responsibility to love and to share and to serve in a wider and a deeper capacity. You now have greater responsibility for the spiritual well-being of others in increasing number. And we recall that if anyone wants to be high and lifted up or exalted or established or put at the head, they need to make themselves the tail. They need to become the servant of all. If we want to be called upward, we should abase ourselves and humble ourselves and take the lowest spot, voluntarily taking on the

responsibility of leadership and service. That is what it really means. It's not the picture that we often get in our minds of the king who is sequestered away in a castle, simply feasting sumptuously on all manner of carnal and earthly delights, while paying no heed and doing no work and spending all time in leisure. For what it's worth, that is not the way that most kings throughout history have conducted their affairs, although there is certainly more indulgence in that side of things than amongst any of the other classes in society. But when you are called to a position of responsibility

in the kingdom of God, it means that the responsibility must be fulfilled in proper loving service. And so we should readily acknowledge that in that position, which we are all called to, those of us who are fathers and husbands, but I think this is more universally applicable as well. If we get to a situation where we have any kind of spiritual authority, and make no mistake, in the covenant of family, being a parent in and of itself carries spiritual authority.

It is part of the structure that God has established. The family is a sacred institution. Marriage as covenant before God carries with it an oath, a promise, a sacred duty to serve the other. And when we see the lists of these criteria and what needs to be established, it should be an occasion for us to search our own hearts.

And this preamble is just, hopefully, to motivate us from scripture not to look at Titus 1 and say, oh, this is for elders, this is not for me. If you aspire to be in spiritual authority or rather if you aspire to walk out and recognize the spiritual authority that God has entrusted you with, chances are you have more authority than you think. But chances are we're not used to handling authority properly, certainly not in our own strength. Pride comes in very quickly, arrogance comes in very quickly,

foolhardiness comes in very quickly, a thirst for power and control comes in very quickly. But that's not what God calls us to. He calls us to serve, to prioritize others over ourselves, to pour ourselves out for the sake of others, to be more concerned for others' wellbeing. Not to the exclusion of taking care of ourselves, of course, but the point is one of attitude, one of mindset. It's an external focus, an external priority first. And as spiritual leaders in our households, we absolutely must aspire to these things, even if we never serve in a church institutionally, even if we haven't stepped foot in a church

in a while, if we are endeavoring to follow the commandments of God, especially the commandments surrounding raising our children in the way that they should go, of delighting in the law of the Lord, of passing along the tradition and doctrine of the Bible to the next generation, then we should aspire to these things. Well, let's see what those things are again. Above reproach. I'd have to stop right there. Am I really above reproach? I dare say not. Should I aspire to be more so? Let's ask God to help us make progress in that regard.

The husband of one wife, so far so good for me and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination Depends on the doctrine. My kids are very little but they love God they love Jesus and I don't think they would be accused of any of the charges that we want to avoid here Although their obedience is not perfect, so I guess it depends on where you draw the line within subordination.

If we're gonna be above reproach, does that include people lying about us and slandering us? I don't think it can. Because if so, then Jesus wasn't above reproach then. Because people lied about Jesus and slandered him. But Jesus was certainly in his conduct above reproach. I think here we should interpret that to mean not devoid of people criticizing

or completely devoid of anyone being upset with you for any reason at any point ever. I think being above reproach should be taken as upright conduct, even if that upright conduct, just as in Jesus's case, did not always inspire truthful and faithful reactions to it. So, I dare say that even as we understand

that the standard is not, oh, everyone likes us. The standard is we actually haven't done anything where a legitimate accusation or a legitimate reproach could be taken. But that's a high enough standard in and of itself. The former standard is plausibly impossible. Again, that's not the standard. If we're taking Jesus' ministry as the exemplar,

he said, if they hated me, they'll sure hate you. the exemplar. He said, if they hated me, they'll sure hate you. We're not supposed to be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain. We should all sit with that one for a while. That part of the list, speaking directly to men in our thoughts, in our words, in our deeds. We could try and cut and parse all these things as much as we want, but we know that we've fallen short here in terms of this standard, this set of standards. Well, if we shouldn't be those things, and to a certain extent we are, then what's to be done about it? Let's pray, let's ask the Holy Spirit for help.

Let's ask God to guide us. Let's ask the Lord to search our hearts and to show us where we have fallen short on these things. As he brings those matters to light, let's pray. Let's ask for forgiveness. If it seems like there's a stronghold there, maybe we ask the Holy Spirit to direct us into potentially a necessary fast to break those bonds and to bring down that stronghold. Bring others into the picture to pray for us. It's difficult. It's difficult to do that but that is arrogance in and of itself. And brothers and sisters, especially to my brothers, if you don't have people who you know

that you could text, call, email, WhatsApp, that you could send them a message right now and they would actually pray for you and that whatever you told them, they would hold in confidence if need be and pray for you and really intercede for you. If you do not have that in your life, then it is something that you should prioritize. It should be sought out.

It should be something that you aim to plug into. If you have people who know you, who will come alongside you, who are willing and able to pray for you, who will lift you up and not just celebrate the good things that happened, but lift you up in the bad things. Pray for God's mercy towards you. If you do not have prayer support from brothers who understand your situation, then you are creating a vulnerability

in your spiritual life that is going to prevent you from going where you need to go and where God is calling you to. It is just simply the case. Brothers, we need prayer. We need God, we need prayer. We need people alongside of us. That's how we're built.

And those bonds are forged not on the mountaintops in the same way. Those bonds are forged in the heat of battle, in spiritual warfare, in locking arms and standing side by side. That is a priceless gift from God. If you have people in your life who will pray for you in that way,

who will come alongside you, who will not betray your trust, who will stick with you, who do understand, who will press in for you on your behalf and will join you in your fight. Thank God for them. Show that gratitude and appreciation.

It is a rare blessing these days to have that kind of connection. So seek it out. Tell the Lord, God, this is something that I know that I need. I don't know where to find it. I know that I need it. It is something that you desire for me. You said, don't forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Lord, give me fellowship. You said it is not good for a man to be alone. Give me fellowship. Give me connection. Give me prayer partners. Give me people who are

seeking you who will stand by me. May the Lord establish those people in your life. those people in your life. I pray that he will, I pray that he will, because having people alongside you in the journey is absolutely indispensable. So what should we be as leaders, as elders in our home, or in our ministerial responsibilities. We should be hospitable. Now it's interesting to me all of these are good things to be but

do we think that the order is significant? Maybe not to the extent that we should prioritize one over the other necessarily but isn't it interesting that hospitable comes first? Hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. We shouldn't be picking and choosing like a buffet. We want the whole thing. We want the smorgasbord.

I know that's not how you pronounce it, truly. But holy comes way down the list after hospitable. And I think maybe we wanna say that that was a particular issue that Paul wanted to address because of what he had seen in Crete. But I think we don't to read too much into it, but we do want to say that God cares about hospitality. God cares about us being hospitable. Maybe we haven't been

the most hospitable people. The Lord can make us hospitable. The Lord can change our hearts. Remember, we don't have because we don't ask. Should we seek him and find him? If we seek him, will we find him? I believe the answer is yes. By disposition, I was not a very hospitable person before I came to Christ and even after I had came to Christ I still wasn't that hospitable. Now hospitality is a priority. That's not because of

something I called for specifically. It's not because I grew up and matured. God changed my heart with respect to this. And now it is a great joy, even though it's a tremendous effort in many cases, to put together hospitality. We also have to understand that there are times when being encumbered by too much serving is also not helpful. Here I'm thinking specifically of when Jesus is in the room teaching, we should have our priorities

in order, that's for sure. So can God make us hospitable? Yes, he absolutely can. Do we need to be extravagantly wealthy in order to demonstrate hospitality? Not at all. We need to be welcoming. We need to be generous with what we have for the sake of others. Actively seeking out

opportunities to be hospitable, especially to those who can't repay and return the favor. This is something I need to do a better job of doing. I can say with full candor and honesty I have not truly fulfilled the instruction of when I hold a feast inviting the poor, the destitute, the maimed, the disabled. I have not gone out to the highways and byways and brought those people into my home. And perhaps if I did, the Lord would bless me for it, for that obedience. But yes, there's a difference between being friendly and being hospitable. But why don't we start with having the Lord help us to be more friendly and more welcoming?

A lover of good. Do we really love the things that are good? Are our affections properly ordered? If not, how can we demonstrate to our children and to those around us rightly ordered passions? We have to Express emotions humans are emotional creatures

We have to love we're commanded to do it But we can't whip ourselves up So we have to truly be earnestly passionate about the good, the goodness of God. The goodness is in people despite what happens in this world. Think on the good things and not just think on them. Love them. Do we really love the good?

Are we really self-controlled? Are we really upright, holy, and disciplined? Surely all of us would have to admit that we're a work in progress here. I can certainly say that. I am not as self-controlled as I would like. I'm certainly not as holy as I aspire to be, nor upright nor disciplined, nor hospitable, nor lover of good. We can find room for improvement everywhere. And so I

pray that the Holy Spirit would help us to move forward, would help us to just have a clearer sense of what he can do to transform our hearts. And then we must be able to hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that we can give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it. If we are going to be a nation of kings and priests, if we are going to have ministerial

responsibilities certainly, but even to be the spiritual leader of our home, we must hold firm to the trustworthy word. We must know the scriptures. We must understand sound doctrine so that if things go astray we don't let that get established. That is part of our service. It's part of our service to others. So when we see unfruitful compromise on core components of scripture, core Christian doctrines expressed even by leaders in the church, we have an appropriate responsibility to raise a question, say, hey, what is actually going on here? These words are true. God's Word will never return void.

So, let's be in the Word. Let's make an effort to understand sound doctrine so that we can be properly established. There are many things to work on here. Anytime there's a list, there's a lot to work on. But thank God for the Holy Spirit. Thank God for his word. Thank God for Jesus's intercession on our behalf. Thank God for the forgiveness that is offered to us.

Lord, we bless you, we praise you. Thank you for your grace and mercy on us us where we have fallen short time and time again of These standards that you set for us God help us Write these standards on our hearts that we would be Motivated to pursue you and to pursue them to pursue a lifestyle consistent with the Kingdom of God.

Lord, you have called us to wherever we are with whatever degree of spiritual authority that you have given us, and we need your help. We need your blessing. We need your transforming grace and your power to be active in our hearts, in our minds, in our entire being, Lord, that we would be established. Help us, God. Help us to be above reproach. Help us not to be arrogant or quick-tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain. Help us to to be arrogant, or quick-tempered, or drunkard, or violent, or greedy for gain.

Help us to be hospitable. Help us to be lovers of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. And help us to hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. Help us to be able to give instruction and sound doctrine. God you will establish us. We rest and stand on the foundation that has been laid by Christ, our chief cornerstone. Establish us, Lord.

Establish your kingdom and bring about opportunities for fellowship and allegiance and camaraderie between brothers and sisters of Christ. God bless us, bless our families, plant us firmly, establish us that we would be like trees beside flowing waters, that we would bear fruit for your glory in due season. In Jesus name, amen.