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Trinity Community Church
Trinity Community Church
The God Of Generations
What does it look like to build a faith that outlasts you? In The God of Generations, Tyler Lynde opens Titus 2:1-8 and shows how God’s plan for cultural transformation is forged not in grand gestures but in ordinary lives that look like Jesus at home, at work, and in the neighborhood. Drawing from Paul’s instructions to Titus—sent into a Crete as broken as any modern city—Tyler urges older men and women to live with dignity, reverence, and self-control, creating a living pattern that younger believers can imitate. Integrity, he says, is the unwavering determination in the heart to do the right thing for the right reasons, and self-control is a Spirit-given fruit the next generation desperately needs to see.
Tyler roots this call in God’s very nature. God reveals Himself across generations—from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to His name as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham reflects the Father as progenitor of many nations; Isaac prefigures Christ in his “almost” sacrifice, where the Lord provides the ram in Genesis 22; and Jacob’s wrestling and limp picture the Spirit’s transforming work that breaks us to make us whole. This is more than history; it’s a map for discipleship, reminding us that Jesus not only removes sin but also teaches us how to live holy, Spirit-led lives.
The message lands tenderly for parents and grandparents wondering how to shepherd children in confusing times. God has not left you to do this alone. Sometimes the most powerful parenting move is a sincere apology that models humility and grace. And if you don’t have biological children, you still have a crucial part in God’s generational plan by investing in spiritual sons and daughters through mentoring and discipleship. Later years are not a retreat from impact; they can be the most fruitful season to pour wisdom into hungry hearts.
Tyler invites the whole church to embrace Psalm 145:4—let each generation tell its children about God’s mighty acts—and to see spiritual generations as every bit as vital as natural ones. Imagine a community where older believers embody holiness and younger believers imitate that life with joy. That’s how regions change. Will you build a faith that outlasts you? Watch or listen and be equipped to live like Jesus for the sake of generations to come.
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Let's turn to Titus, chapter 2, verses 1 through 8. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands. That the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works and in your teaching, show integrity, dignity and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opportunity sorry, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Let's pray, father. We thank you for this day, we thank you for all the things that have already occurred and we thank you for what is to come. But, lord, we ask that you'd help us to tune in to the words of scripture that teach us that you are the God of generations. Father, we pray that you would help us to catch your heart for generations, that we would not be content to just see the Lord move in our lives and in our times, but that we would be convinced that this good news is worth sharing and spreading to future generations. And, lord, we ask that you would help us, father, to see you in this, in the middle of all of this, and to heed your word and to not only be hearers but to be doers. In Jesus name, amen, amen. So Paul is sending one of his trusted sons in the faith. We're used to hearing about Timothy, his son in the faith, but this time he's sending Titus. Titus. And where is Titus going to be sent? To Crete. Just to give you an example, crete would have been like Vegas is to us. Crete was not a pleasant place to go. If you were a believer, it was a very difficult place. Whatever happened in Crete stayed in Crete. Right, that's kind of that's where concrete came from. No, I'm just kidding, but I just made that up. That was sort of funny, almost it was on the border of being funny. So, anyway, he was sent to Crete.
Tyler Lynde:He is tasked with helping the churches in that region to understand the power that they have to address the cultural problems. And guess how they were going to do it? Guess how this church or these churches in the region of Crete they were going to do it. Guess how this church or these churches in the region of Crete were going to make a difference in a culture that was so filled with debauchery. Were they going to stand in the public square and cry something out? Maybe so. Were they going to, you know, just have good church services and ask people to attend church services. That was part of it. But what were they actually called to do? What was God saying to Titus? Was the answer to the cultural problems that they were facing? It was for them to live like Jesus.
Tyler Lynde:Can you imagine how different a culture could be if churches within a region would determine today not just to preach good sermons or have good performance or have excellent worship or, you know, have an amazing meal, but if churches within this culture, within this region of Tennessee, would rise up together and say we are going to, by the grace of God, live like Jesus. What a difference would be made and experienced in everyday life. And that's what God knows, obviously, as the master planner, and that's what Paul knew, because he was experiencing it himself. And now he's passing this on to Titus and encouraging him to go and speak to the believers about these very important things. What does it look like to represent Christ in the way that we live our everyday lives, our workday lives, our home lives, our lives at school or at Walmart or wherever it is that we find ourselves. How about when we're driving? We won't land there, but there are lots of ways and lots of places. Everywhere that we go in our everyday lives, we should have a heart's desire to live like Jesus, and this is especially true when it comes to our understanding of generational life.
Tyler Lynde:Generational life. I'm so thankful that some of our children and young people are in this room this morning, because it's important for you to understand that what I'm talking about up here this morning is not just for your parents, it's not just for your grandparents. In fact, we will have failed miserably if you don't understand this fully and embrace it for yourself. Because of the work of the Holy Spirit in your lives. We are called to be generational people because God is a generational God. Notice the focus here two things teaching and training. Teaching and training. Teaching principles to others is important, but training is showing people how to do something, showing people how to live. Showing people how to live like Jesus, how to walk like Jesus and talk like Jesus and act like Jesus and be motivated like Jesus. We have the privilege of doing this. We are the light of the world. We are the salt of the earth. We have a chance to be revolutionary in the way that we experience life ourselves and in the way that we help other people to see that there's a difference in those who believe in Jesus.
Tyler Lynde:And he encourages two groups of people. First, older men. Are there any older men in the room? Okay, are there any men in the room over 50? Oh, my gosh, thank you. Thank you, I hear that whistle. I'll take that If it helps you.
Tyler Lynde:Let me just say this Older men is not always an age thing. It's about spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity. You can be 30 years old and have been saved since you were five years old and be pretty spiritually mature and be able to help other people to generationally understand what it means to live like Jesus, to walk like Jesus, to act like Jesus right. But he's talking specifically to men of stature, men of wisdom, men who have spiritual maturity, and he tells them to build their lives on solid ground. Scott did a great job last week of reminding us the scriptures that the foundation that we build our lives on matter. They absolutely matter so much. And so God is instructing Titus, through Paul, to tell the people that it's important to build their foundation on the right rock, on the right stone, right, and we can inspire those in the younger generation to pay attention and to learn from them. I'm so grateful for this section right over here. All of you, I really appreciate you so much, seriously, so grateful. I was able to be at youth group a couple of weeks ago and just to see your hunger for God and your desire for truth and the fact that you're making this your own is inspiring to me. It really is, and so we love you very much. Can we give them a hand? Thank God, for our young people.
Tyler Lynde:So the older men were to be sober minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love and in steadfastness. Does that sound like you? Here's what we could do. We could have you ask your wife, but we won't do that right now. But ask the Lord. You know what I. You know what I want to say about myself. I want, I. In some ways, I'm living in this way, and yet Lord helped me to live even more right. Help us, lord.
Tyler Lynde:Notice that one of the biggest lessons that the younger men need is how to live self-controlled lives. Guys, we who have some gray hairs or maybe no hairs. We who have lived some life and have walked with Jesus for many years, we need to live as self-controlled people. It is a fruit of the spirit, it is something that is transplanted in our lives. It is something that grows because of the work of the spirit in our lives. We have the ability to say no to the things that God says no to and to say yes to the thing that God says yes to. And what a difference it would make with younger men if we would live self-controlled lives.
Tyler Lynde:Moving on, the older women are to live godly lives so that they can teach and train younger women how to fulfill their God-given roles in such a way that represents Christ and his word to the fullest. The older women were to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers. What is a slanderer? Somebody who uses their mouth to cut somebody else down, to speak lies, to gossip, not slanderers or slaves to much wine, not to be drunkards. Through their teaching and training, the younger women would know how to love their husbands and children well, how to be self-controlled. Again, this is something that's shared between both the older men and the older women how to be self-controlled, how to be pure and how to be kind.
Tyler Lynde:Just because your kids are out of the house, it does not mean that God's finished with you, do you hear me? God is still at work and he still needs you. He still needs you in the economy of the kingdom. Older men and older women, spiritually mature men and spiritually mature women the next generations are counting on you to get it right, as right as you can, so that you can share it with them in a way that encourages them to know that they can do it too.
Tyler Lynde:And Paul doesn't stop there. He encourages Titus himself to live a life of integrity and dignity and to use proper speech. When he instructs these groups of people how to pass on the essence of the God kind of life to future generations, he calls him to be a man of integrity. What is integrity? At its base form, integrity is the unwavering determination in the heart to do the right thing for the right reasons. Friends, parents, dads, it does not work for you to tell your parents what to do while you're living the opposite way. Hello, we are required to live what we believe, to act out what we believe and, in so doing, to teach and train those around us how to do life the right way for the right reasons. Ultimately, Paul is encouraging Titus to implore those who are mature in their faith to live lives of integrity, just like Jesus.
Tyler Lynde:How many of you know that everything that Jesus did, he did perfectly. Everything that he did, he did based on the fact that he had the right heart and the right reason and the right action. Right, that's a lot of rights he did. That was who he was and, my friends, jesus died on the cross. He took, took our sins upon himself, not only to set us free from sin, but to teach us how to live.
Tyler Lynde:So many times, I think that we focus on what he takes away, that we forget about what he gives to us. He gives to us his spirit so that we can understand. On the inside, we have that green, yellow, red red light going on where, when we start approaching something that's dangerous or something that we shouldn't do our motivation's wrong, the yellow light starts going off on the inside of us and we recognize God's saying something. The Holy Spirit is trying to warn me, and all of us have come up against the red light and pushed the gas pedal right through it, haven't we? And aren't you thankful that the grace of God and the mercy of God is available to us and new every morning. So are we preaching perfectionism? No, we're not preaching perfectionism, but we're preaching holiness. Be holy, for I am holy. God has called us to live like Jesus.
Tyler Lynde:In order to more fully understand this, let's go back in time a little bit and give you just a quick snippet. God is the God of generations. This statement means that God's actions and promises in the Bible often extend across multiple generations, emphasizing continuity and legacy. That's foundation is built on the grace of our God and father. How many of you realize that the Godhead itself reflects the value of generations? God could have represented himself in any way that he chose, and yet he chose what. Father and son and spirit, father and son, generations themselves are so much in the heart.
Tyler Lynde:And not only is the Trinity itself representative of generations, but also in the Old Testament, god represented himself to Israel through generations. You know, a lot of times as you're reading through and we're still in the Old Testament in our Bible reading plan sometimes it's like rinse and repeat. The Israelites did this. They messed up. God rebuked them. They fell. They were disciplined. They repented. God built them back up. They were successful again for about five minutes and then they do it again. But don't miss, in the pages of the Old Testament, so many signs and symbols that point us to a new way, a new covenant, a new life that was going to be provided because of Jesus Christ and what he did for us. So let's remember that as we're reading the Old Testament and none can be truer, in my opinion, of God representing himself generationally as Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
Tyler Lynde:Many times throughout scripture, god, the Father, chooses to represent himself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. We know that Abraham's son was Isaac and Isaac's son was Jacob, and so we have three generations built into this family. And Abraham represented father God as the father of many nations he was. He was called to be the father of many nations. When he was old, when Sarah was old, god promised him that they were going to have a child. We know the story of Hagar and Ishmael, and if you want to know the problems in the Middle East, you don't have to go any further than right there. That's where it started and that's what we're dealing with even now. But Abraham was called to be the father of many nations, and how many of you know that is representative of our heavenly father? Aren't you thankful that when we get to heaven, there's not going to just be white people, there's not just going to be black people or brown people? The Bible says about Jesus worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God, from every tribe and language and people and nation. God is a God of nations. He's the father of many nations.
Tyler Lynde:So how did how did Isaac represent Jesus? He represented Jesus through his I'm going to call it his almost sacrifice. In the same way, or in similar ways, abraham laid the wood for the sacrifice on Isaac, his son, and God laid the cross on Jesus. Abraham was willing to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to obey God and God was willing to sacrifice Jesus to save us. In Genesis 22, it says and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife.
Tyler Lynde:So they went both of them together and Isaac said to his father Abraham, my father. And he said here I am, my son. He said behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Isaac was starting to figure it out. Abraham said God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went both of them together.
Tyler Lynde:When they came to the place of which God had told him, abraham built the altar there, laid the wood in order, bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him and said Abraham, abraham, never in his life would he have appreciated being called by his name more than he did. Right then he said here I am, tears flowing. I'm sure the angel said do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide, as it is said to this day, on the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided it was.
Tyler Lynde:Abraham was tested, but how many of you know, father God followed through on his commitment and promise and laid his own son on an old, rugged cross. So Isaac was an example of Jesus. Jacob also is an example of the work of the Holy Spirit. Jacob wrestled with God and it says of Jacob this is really interesting that he would have won unless God reached out and touched his hip and put it out of socket. This wasn't a cruelty to Jacob, but it was a sign to him that we are not God and that we need the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to change us. How many of you are thankful for the work of the Holy Spirit in your life? Many of you are thankful for the work of the Holy Spirit in your life moving and operating and shaking you and transforming you and helping you, giving you all that you need to walk with him. So, in conclusion, god's plan is generational. God's plan is generational as we've seen in this passage in the backstory of the Bible. Generations really matter to God and in turn, they should matter to us. His plan is generational and each one of us has a part to play in it.
Tyler Lynde:There's a great verse in the book of Psalms, in verse chapter 145, verse four let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts. Let them proclaim your power. Parents, I want to encourage you. God didn't call you to himself to leave you. God didn't ask you to raise these children to make you do it alone. He is with you and if he's with you, you can do this. You can be to them the gospel you can live to them in front of them and for them, the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can help them to understand what a transformed life looks like. You can help them see that God is a generational God and that that you know that this doesn't end with us.
Tyler Lynde:It's been the greatest privilege of Amy and I's lives to walk, to watch our children not take their first steps as important as that was or, you know, say their first words, which was always no, wasn't it? I think none of those things. Our greatest privilege was to see them believe in Jesus. My mom was miraculously saved after my brother died at an early age, many, many years ago, and through her example and through her faith I was saved, and then my dad got saved, and my brother got saved, and and I became my dad became a pastor and I became a pastor's kid, and now I have four children and they're all saved and they're all serving God, and now I've got a future generation. We have five grandkids that are here now, and I'm so excited about the day when each and every one of them comes to know Jesus as their savior.
Tyler Lynde:We are living Abraham, isaac and Jacob in this life, and I want to encourage you and tell you it's worth it. And if it's not happening for you right now, do not give up. Do not lose hope. One of the things that I want to encourage you with is that, as you help bless other children, other people's kids, other people's prodigals, as you reach out to them and minister to them, god is faithful to send somebody across the path of your children and your grandchildren. They are not going to be able to outrun God. There's nowhere that they can go that he can't be found, and how many of you know, when he chooses to find them, they will be found.
Tyler Lynde:So I want to encourage you don't lose heart or lose hope, and one of the greatest tools in the tool bag of any Christian parent is an apology when we mess up. Be real about it, be honest about it, be open about it. Tell your kids, tell your grandkids pop shouldn't have done that, I was wrong. Can you imagine in this church if every single family decided that, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord? Grandparents, you're not off the hook either. We're not finished yet. God's still got work for each and every one of us, your kids.
Tyler Lynde:Sometimes your grandkids stop listening to your kids. Do you remember when that happened to you, when your kids stopped listening to you? Sometimes your grandkids stop listening to your kids and you have a chance to come alongside your kids and to encourage your grandkids to follow Jesus, to obey mommy and daddy right and also spoil them and send them home. But that's just. That's something different. That's another message. But especially, we have the opportunity to model what it looks like to be a follower of Christ.
Tyler Lynde:You could serve in TCC kids ministry. If you don't have family, that's here. Maybe you don't have children yet. Serve in our kids ministry, serve in the Forge youth group Many different ways. You can serve with Rob and Chris and YWAM Knoxville. We specialize in ministering to kids and to families. You can minister to generations in many different ways, in and through this church.
Tyler Lynde:I want us to get a vision today of what it would look like if every single one of us decided that this was going to be the way that we were going to live our lives, that we were going to represent a God of generations, the God of generations in our day and our time, in a New Testament version of Abraham, isaac and Jacob. We have the ability, by God's grace, to carry this beyond the generation that we are from. And my final point is spiritual generations are just as important as natural ones. I'm going to have my wife come for just a minute and close this portion of things out, and she is. This woman is amazing. I'm blessed to be married to her for 32 years 32 and a half years and she is personality wise, is introverted, and yet she has seen the heart of God when it comes to discipling other people, and especially younger women, and so she has really taken that on, and I wanted her to just share for a minute as an encouragement to us and then see you may, and then we eat, all right.
Amy Lynde:Good morning. In Luke, chapter one, there's a lot of angels speaking and they're speaking to Elizabeth about John the Baptist and Jesus is coming and Mary finds out that she's going to have a baby and after the angel speaks to her, she makes haste and goes to her older relative, elizabeth, who is six months pregnant. At that time this young, betrothed young woman finds out she's pregnant and the first thing she does is she makes haste and runs to the older, wiser, seasoned woman. That is a relative that she knows is a safe place and lives with her for three months and they're both pregnant together and she gains wisdom. And I just think that's a beautiful example in the Bible of God's love for women, his love for children and his love for generations that he put Elizabeth there for Mary to handle that. And it is a privilege for us and I always say older women but I think if you're younger and you're sitting on the side and you're 15, you're 16, and you're helping in youth group or you're helping, you know, serve the nursery you are an example to somebody else. If you're a believer and you're three years in the Lord and you get your friend saved at school, you are an older woman in wisdom to them and so really to all the women.
Amy Lynde:We have a calling and it's a privilege in our lives to give back to the kingdom we have been given. Much and much is required and expected of us. The gifts we have through the Holy Spirit are not just for us, they are for the generations, they're for our children and when I say children I mean young children, not just biological right. They are for our children, they are for the grandchildren in this body. And we have to make an intentional decision. I'm going to do this, I'm going to reach out, I'm going to make a difference in somebody's life. I'm going to give of myself and my time and if you don't know how to get started, pray and ask the Lord to put somebody on your heart. Text somebody hey, can we meet for coffee? But choose one or two people that you can serve and pour into them. And, like Tyler said, it's not based on personality whether you just like to have coffee with one person or you like to have a party Right. Personality, whether you're just like to have coffee with one person or you like to have a party right. Make the effort, because it's so much the Father's heart and it's rewarding it's really. It is so beneficial to yourself. It keeps you on your toes spiritually, and it's such a privilege to be entrusted by God to advance his kingdom.
Amy Lynde:God uses our personal stories, whether we our testimony of how we got saved, the sin we struggled with before we got saved, or after we got saved, his victories of breaking the bondage in our lives, the wisdom he's given us through training our own children, or things that we've learned at work, how we've learned to communicate with our family members all those things God has put in each one of us and every one of our experiences are different and he will use those experiences to serve the women that he brings to you. They need your stories that he brings to you. They need your stories. So you know, raising four children that was always my dream. I just want to be a wife and a mom. My youngest now is a senior in high school, but as I started, a few of mine got married and I started becoming a Instagram is what they said, grandma, right away.
Amy Lynde:That's really when my shift changed and I realized there is more to life than just focusing on just me and mine. There is more and we have to say I'm going to do it because the world wants to take right. They want to indoctrinate everything that is contrary to God and his word. But we have the privilege to advance the kingdom through the word of God, through the word of our testimony, the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony. And I believe that the later years of our lives, the older we get, don't have to be lonely, they don't have to be unfruitful. It's a choice of ours to say I'm going to pour out, and it can be the most fruitful time in our lives, because maybe then you have more time and instead of meeting with two women, you can meet with 12 women. Let's do this, ladies Choose to advance him, to praise him, to shout his glory and to teach these women to not just be so. All I can handle is this. No, let's handle loosely and teach our children as our grandchildren see us pouring out to others, pouring into them. Let them receive it and win this race.
Amy Lynde:Father, we just thank you so much that you are God of the nations, you are God of generations. And, father, I thank you that your Holy Spirit is with us to empower us to do what you've called us to do, and you've called us to share our faith and not only share it but, on a personal level, have them in our homes, be part of life. That's messy and so, father, I just pray for each person here, for men and women, lord, that we would hear your call, that we would choose to invest in your kingdom. We would sow seed, we would plow the ground and we would have families that are just on fire for you and being fruitful and multiplying the kingdom. And we give you praise. Jesus' name, lord, we thank you for the lunch and we pray that you bless the food and all those that are serving as well. Jesus' name, amen, amen.
