God is concerned for the behaviour of all of His children. The world is a mess. Those who are saved need to demonstrate the power of God to fix the mess in their lives. He can and He does do that. Thus the apostle Paul continued to instruct Titus of what he needed to insist upon in fixing the problems in Crete.
The young men needed to be under God’s control as well. The young men needed to be exhorted to be sober minded. The word “exhort” means: “to invite or implore”. Titus was not to speak in generalities. He was to make it known to the young men that he was addressing them. They needed to be sober minded. They needed to be of sound mind. Life in our world has many distractions. Many people like to live in a cloud. They do not want to face life in the seriousness which it is. They do not concern themselves with their spiritual need. They deliberately overrule the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Christians cannot do that. They must look at life from God’s perspective. God does not waste time on empty talk. The entire Bible is a very sober book. That is the book we need to study and know. That is the book from which we get our instructions. The Bible does not offer options. It is not a smorgasbord. It is given under God’s authority and must be heeded.
Young men needed to learn the truth and they needed to build good doctrine into their thinking while they were young.
In today’s world, young men often do not want sound doctrine in their minds and hearts. The emergent church movement is strong. It is built upon the philosophies of men like Paul Chappell and Frank Garland and Ron Hamilton, and others like them. Two of those men are dead already, but their philosophy of music lives on. That philosophy influences doctrine. They use subtilty to carefully but intentionally “modernize” churches. They slip the contemporary music in, in a manner that most do not even pay attention to. Most churches are changing and taking further steps to become worldly places of religion. The older men are tired and just tolerate the changes and eventually become quite comfortable with them. They do not believe the Bible is the Word of God and is thus absolute. They slip and slide all over the doctrinal field.
In verse 7 Paul reminded Titus that he needed to show himself a pattern of good works. The pastor must lead by words, but also by example. He cannot be a dictator who demands things but does not do them himself.
We saw the rise of many dictators in our country over the past three years. Men and women who were given places of authority who used the heavy arm of the law to inflict pain upon society, but they themselves did not live by the same standard they demanded of others. They got away with it and the media helped them to cover up their crimes.
Pastors cannot do that. Pastors need to know the Word of God and they need to lead according to God’s Word. Paul showed what good works look like. They include “uncorruptness”, which is purity and soundness. They also include “gravity”, which includes honesty. “Sincerity” refers to being genuine. The people of Crete needed to be able to watch Titus and see a man who was trustworthy and one they could learn from in a positive way.
Pastors are a complete contrast to politicians. Politicians learn the art of double-speak and evasion of truth. They cannot be trusted. They have to sear their consciences in order to function as they do. They learn the art of giving non-answers. They try to read the listeners and give them the answers they want to hear, but they lack soundness in their own hearts and minds. In our country, they have lost any respect they ever had.
Sadly, many pastors are in the same place. They read the crowd and are careful not to get into anything that might offend people. They dress like the world in the pulpit and they love the world’s music and they learn how to flatter people from the pulpit as well as in their personal correspondence with people. Very few people get offended by what they hear from most pulpits. They can sit and listen to the “talk” and go away feeling good about themselves because they found similarities with what they want to believe.
In verse 8 we see the young men need sound speech that cannot be condemned. The young men need to live holy lives so that the ungodly would be ashamed by their ungodly actions and words. The young men need to live in such a way that others have no evil thing to say about them.
God is giving these instructions/commands. Young men are in the prime of their lives. They mix and mingle with others. Godly men need to be godly men. God defines the godly man. His definition is much different than what our world accepts. Godly people must be different. We need to get our direction from God’s Word. We need to ignore much of what the world has to say. We may stick out like a sore thumb in the eyes of the world but we need to understand that John the Baptist was commanded to be different from the world of his day. Jesus was different from the people of His day. The apostles were different than the people of their day. Peter was directed to write:

I Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: