Application and Plastering

How much of what we are taught do we apply?

• How does what we are learning affect our lives?
• Titus 2 v 1-15
• Here are some simple stats, which show how we can best do this. They show how much information we retain when learning in different ways...
• 10% of what we READ
• 20% of what we HEAR (lecture, church service...)
• 30% of what we SEE (visual)
• 50% of what we SEE and HEAR at the same time (video...)
• 70% of what we SAY
• 90% of what we DO (writing down, creating, doing, implementing...)
• 95% of what we TEACH - "to teach is to learn twice"
• Paul is urging Titus to teach different groups all these different things, but what makes the difference is if they put it into place/action.
• We get taught things in church or by other Christian's but how effectively do we put these things into practice.
• The bible is full of great teachings but they only work if we put them into practice.
• The key characteristics older men should be are - temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, sound faith built on love and endurance.
• The key characteristics older women should be are - reverent lives, not slanderous, not an alcoholic, to teach what is good and train the younger women to love their husbands and children. To be busy at home, kind, self-controlled and submit to their husbands.
• Ephesians 5 v 21-28 - "²¹ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. ²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."
• With the characteristics in Titus and what is written in Ephesians the kind of people in the church will serve well and have great attitudes.
• This stuff only works if we put it in place.
• I can understand Paul's motives and part of Titus's struggle with the issues they might have had in the church. But together they are building a culture of great attitudes to learning and leadership.
• They probably felt like my friend the other week, he is a builder who specialises in plastering and we were talking about work that needed doing in the church and re-plasterings some parts. I said that I was taught how to do plastering when on work experience (I did it for a few days and this guy has been doing it for at least 10 years). I thought I could remember the technique but I wasn't really sure. 
• Titus must have felt like my friend who had someone who thought they knew how to do the job and yet couldn't put it into practice.
• How does the teaching we get go in us?
• How are we putting it into practice?
• I think the best way to get it deep and do it is to be discipled by someone else who can help implement these things and keep us accountable.
• Let’s not tell people about plastering and never do it ourselves.