"how To Live Your Life Without Regrets" Series

In 1989, country music star, Alan Jackson was sitting in a hotel room in Pine Bluff, Arkansas watching in rain out the window and was reflecting on the last 10 years of his life with his wife Denise.

Their 10th anniversary was approaching and as he sat with his guitar and reflected on their first 10 years of marriage, he wanted to write a song.

As he thought about country music legends songs reflecting on their past and marriage, he remembered that Roy Clark (former He Haw Country Star) wrote a song called: “If I had to do it all over again” which basically said: “If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it with you.”

Watching the rain fall, began to write these lyrics: “If I had to do it all over, I’d still do it with you.”

I would have had him come here and sing the song today as the intro of my message, but I learned that booking him starts in the range of $1.5 million and $2 million dollars.

Over the years, Roy Clark and Alan Jackson were not the only ones to write songs about “Doing it with you all over again.” Around that same time Christian musician Dallas Holm also wrote a similar song that says: “If I had to do it all over again, I’d serve Jesus every day of my life, for ‘ve found He alone can really satisfy…”

Transition:

There are many times in life that we stop and reflect on our lives. As a matter of fact, Psychologists say it’s a healthy thing to do. The say we should reflect on our lives regularly. If not daily, at the very least annually with New Years resolutions.

The American Psychiatric Association tells us that 82% of Americans struggle with regrets as they grow older.

So why not today, let’s let God help us reflect and reanalyze our lives in a couple of areas that impact us the most: Our home life, our work life. These next 6 verses in Titus give us instruction to take a proper inventory of how we are currently living life.

To avoid regrets we must evaluate our life and choose to live within God’s designed purpose.

Let’s start our inventory first with two life changing questions:

I. What Is the Purpose of Your Home Life?

Vs. 3-5- “Older women are to likewise be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good so that they may 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, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.”

Explanation:

Studies show that we live 87% of our lives at home. This includes sleeping, eating, and enjoying family life in our homes.

Therefore, it should not be surprising that Paul pauses in his instruction the younger ladies in the churches in Crete and talks about “home life” and instructs the older women to teach the younger ladies about God’s design for it.

From this discussion, it’s clear that Paul wants the older ladies (who have established Christian homes with their husbands) to teach the younger ladies to do the same with their husbands. He wants to direct them so that they will not live with regrets.

Therefore, he tells the older women to be busy “teaching what is good.” (vs. 3) and to, “encourage the young women.” (vs. 4)

God is highlighting the high value of godly women and their impact in the home. I think most men will say that without a woman in the house, it never seems like a home.

When I moved here, my family stayed behind for the last couple of school semesters so that she could finish up her Senior year in High School. During that time, we sold our home in Auburn, and they lived in an apartment, and we purchased a home here in Kennesaw. But, until Jan was here, it was only a house to go home to. When she got here, I had a home to go home to because I had a wife to go home to.

Ladies, you are a primary ingredient to making a house a home; that’s why Paul talks to the young ladies about their influence on home life.

It is dutiful to note that marriage and the home was God’s idea. Did you know that before God created the church, He created the home. We don’t have to go far into the first few pages of the Bible to see the creation of a home.

In Genesis 2:22 we find God creating the woman from Adam’s rib. The Bible says that He “fashioned” her. The word to describe what He did was the Hebrew word “banah.” It is a word that means: “To build or construct.”