SPEAKER_00: I invite you to open your Bibles to the passage we just read, Titus chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: There should be a Bible in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: I do encourage you to open the Bible because I want you to see that what I am saying is found in the Word of God, and we're going to go uh we're going through this chapter verse by verse.
SPEAKER_00: So as you're turning there, let me pray one more time.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we pray that if there's anyone here who does not know Christ as their Lord and Savior, who might know the truth intellectually, but has never actually rested in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Lord, that you would open their eyes to the truth and that you would bring them into the kingdom this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We pray, Lord, that you would sanctify all of us as we study your word.
SPEAKER_00: Pray, Lord, for a special power and anointing this morning as I preach your word.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I said last week that we had the Father's Day message come early.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Mother's Day message come late, because we are we are studying how godly women are to be in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And this is part of a series that we're looking at in Titus chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Titus, Paul is giving Titus instructions on how he is to teach and build up the churches.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is saying to Titus is that in all these churches on this island of Crete, there is to be a distinct culture within the church, that the church is to look different from the world, because the church is a reflection of the kingdom of God here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And I might say that I really think one of the problems with the American church is how worldly it is.
SPEAKER_00: That in so many ways the church looks just like the world and even plays secular music at times and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And I think what has happened in our society as America has become more secularized.
SPEAKER_00: And that word secular means godless.
SPEAKER_00: As our society has become more secularized, the churches have become more secularized.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the churches have moved away from this ideal.
SPEAKER_00: But what Paul is telling Titus is that in the church there is to be a reflection of the kingdom of God here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: The church is to be an embassy of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the ways that's reflected is in the character of the people within the church.
SPEAKER_00: So last week we looked at older men.
SPEAKER_00: This week we're going to look at older women and younger women.
SPEAKER_00: But what Paul says generally, these are some general presuppositions, and we we looked at these last week, but if you weren't here, I'm going to cover them very briefly because they're important.
SPEAKER_00: But what Paul says is that the character of the believers, those in the church, demonstrates that they are citizens of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Your character should demonstrate that you are a citizen of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: So if you look at verse 12 of Titus 2, look at verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: You renounce the passions of the world to live self-controlled.
SPEAKER_00: That word is used especially regarding sexual purity, self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age.
SPEAKER_00: I read earlier this week in 1 Thessalonians 2.12, Paul says, We exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls us into his own kingdom and glory.
SPEAKER_00: So there it is, Paul saying that the grace of God teaches you to live different from the world.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the purpose of Christ's death was to redeem a distinct people.
SPEAKER_00: We talk about justification, and justification is the reality that in Christ, all those who come to Christ in faith are forgiven of their sins and declared righteous because of the imputed righteousness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the doctrine of justification, that God declares you forgiven, God declares you righteous in Christ by faith.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus not only purchased your justification at the cross, he also purchased your sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: And the moment you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit begins to do this work of making you more like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that is called sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: So if you look at verse 14, notice that Paul attributes your sanctification to the work of Christ on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gave himself for us to redeem us.
SPEAKER_00: Look at this, from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice all that?
SPEAKER_00: We get this backwards all the time.
SPEAKER_00: People think that becoming a Christian means that you clean up your life to come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: You come to Christ and then he cleans up your life.
SPEAKER_00: So that is the transforming power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel sanctifies you.
SPEAKER_00: And if you get this wrong, what you're going to do is you're just going to do a lot of behavioral modification to try to become a Christian without realizing that Jesus Christ and the power of the gospel, when we say the gospel, we're talking about Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, his righteous life.
SPEAKER_00: That power that's in the gospel is a transforming power.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone is in Christ, new creation, the old has passed away and the new has come.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you come to Christ in faith, in repentance, the Holy Spirit transforms your life.
SPEAKER_00: And that power was purchased by Christ at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And I emphasize this because sometimes I think people say, Yeah, yeah, I believe the gospel, but then I need this counseling program to clean up my life, or I need this to clean up my life.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: You need the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You need to trust in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then that power begins this process of transformation, which leads to the third presupposition we have to understand is that God, the Holy Spirit, works this transformation in your life experientially, not just theoretically.
SPEAKER_00: That you really do become a new person.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at Ezekiel 36 last week, that you have a new heart, that you have a desire to please God, you have new affections.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, you have the mind of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to think differently.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, your mind needs to be renewed by the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: You have Ephesians 1.13, the sealing of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You've been sealed by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit comes and takes residence in your life, and then you begin to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, fourth presupposition we looked at.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at all the imperatives in Titus about a kingdom culture in terms of the character qualities, it's not just something to do, it's people to become.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: He uses being verbs.
SPEAKER_00: Being verbs.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all remember this?
SPEAKER_00: The difference between action verbs and being verbs in your grammar class?
SPEAKER_00: Action verbs, this is what you do.
SPEAKER_00: Being verbs, this is who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the being verbs.
SPEAKER_00: Older men are.
SPEAKER_00: Older women likewise are.
SPEAKER_00: He keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: Younger men are.
SPEAKER_00: You get the picture.
SPEAKER_00: It's being verbs.
SPEAKER_00: Point being, he's talking about further transformation, not just behavioral modification.
SPEAKER_00: And this transformation happens by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Do you transform yourself or does the Holy Spirit transform you?
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit transforms you through the work of the Word, through the work of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we have to be diligent to put ourselves underneath the word, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: But the Holy Spirit does this work of transformation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're all here for.
SPEAKER_00: None of us have arrived.
SPEAKER_00: None of us have completed that perfection where we're completely like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're all in this process of continual repentance to become more like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And this process happens as we encounter God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And we say, Yep, I need to repent of that.
SPEAKER_00: I need to do more of that.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we're looking at as men and women.
SPEAKER_00: And then the fifth presupposition that we looked at last week is that depending on who God made you to be, your sanctification is going to flush out differently.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to look a little bit different depending on your biological sex.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to look different depending on your station.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul gives distinct instructions regarding what this sanctification process looks like.
SPEAKER_00: And last week we looked at the older men.
SPEAKER_00: And we said that word older men.
SPEAKER_00: I got more feedback on this than perhaps anything else.
SPEAKER_00: That word older men applied to men 50 to 56 in Paul's day.
SPEAKER_00: And so I had so many men come up to me this past week and they say, I'm not an old man, I'm a historic man.
SPEAKER_00: I'm an ancient man.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you ladies are not off the hook either, because now he turns to you and he says, Older women, in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I looked up this word.
SPEAKER_00: It was a this an older woman was a woman about 60.
SPEAKER_00: So there you have it.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the the uh the uh the the span of life was much shorter then.
SPEAKER_00: But ladies, some of you are older women, some of you are ancient women, right?
SPEAKER_00: But he says, look, this is what the character of an older woman is to be, and he gives three qualities, and then he tells them something to do.
SPEAKER_00: So the first quality is a general quality.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I think this is overarching.
SPEAKER_00: This is a quality that encompasses everything else.
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, he could have just said this first quality and then left it at that, but he doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 3, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior.
SPEAKER_00: This is the general quality.
SPEAKER_00: That word reverent, it's an interesting word.
SPEAKER_00: It's only used here in the entire New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So it's very difficult to discern exactly what it means, but the origin of the word means priest-like.
SPEAKER_00: So if you think about a priest, what does a priestess do in the ancient Greek world?
SPEAKER_00: Well, a priestess was someone who served the gods.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is saying that the older women are to be priest-like, they are to be servants of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: They are to be virtuous, they are to be pure, they are to be godly in all of their behavior, they are to fear God more than they fear men.
SPEAKER_00: And you think about examples throughout the scriptures, you think about Abigail, for example, David's wife, who was the wife of the fool, Nabal.
SPEAKER_00: And Nabal acted treacherously towards David.
SPEAKER_00: And Abigail intervened and brought David and his mighty men, supplies, and food and all these things, and prevented David from sinning.
SPEAKER_00: And she did this ultimately because she feared the Lord more than she feared her husband, more than she feared David.
SPEAKER_00: You think about Mary.
SPEAKER_00: What a remarkable woman.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, we we don't honor Mary as some sort of mediator between us and God, like some do, but we honor her nonetheless as the mother of our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an amazing her response when the angel appeared to her and told her that she would be pregnant as a virgin of the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Her response was this is in Luke 1:38 Behold, I am a servant of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a doulos of the Lord, a slave of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: That's the picture, is that you are a slave of the Lord, and that you're willing to serve Him and let your life be according to the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: How countercultural is that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that is otherworldly, literally.
SPEAKER_00: And so, similar to how the men we talked about being dignified last week, being serious, the only way to become reverent like this is to spend time with God.
SPEAKER_00: The only way.
SPEAKER_00: The only way is to put away your phone, put away the distractions, put away what the voices of the culture are saying, and to spend time with Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: To go to the Lord in prayer, to go to the Lord in the word, to serve him.
SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth Elliott said, and I quote, I have one desire now to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think sometimes we're we don't want to be seen as too extreme.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be that type of Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be it, I want to be a Christian with decorum, and I want to be a Christian that's respected by the world, and and I and I have cogent arguments, and of course we want to have cogent arguments, but we must not be afraid to be shamed by the world for Christ, and to be truly a reverent, godly person.
SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the general picture.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul gives two negatives, two negatives.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 3, look back at verse 3 not slanderers or slaves too much wine.
SPEAKER_00: Now this these are important qualities, important negatives, not slanderers.
SPEAKER_00: The word is diablos.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that's a title for Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Satan is called the Diablos, the slanderer, and this term is used 34 times in the New Testament to describe Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Slander, people think it's when you tell lies about someone else.
SPEAKER_00: And that's true, that's what slander is, telling lies about someone else.
SPEAKER_00: But slander can also be telling the truth about someone else.
SPEAKER_00: Slander is when you speak a word with the intention of hurting someone else, not building them up.
SPEAKER_00: What does Satan love to do?
SPEAKER_00: He loves to whisper things in your ear.
SPEAKER_00: He loves to come to God and say, think about this, what this person has done.
SPEAKER_00: What is he doing when he does that?
SPEAKER_00: He's slandering.
SPEAKER_00: So slandering, by definition, is a word that is spoken against someone with the intention of hurting or harming that person.
SPEAKER_00: James warns us, all of us.
SPEAKER_00: This is James 3, 5.
SPEAKER_00: He says, How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire.
SPEAKER_00: And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to that language, it stains the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell.
SPEAKER_00: For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you found that to be true?
SPEAKER_00: Man, I wish I would not have said that.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that does not get back to him or her.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_00: Language.
SPEAKER_00: That it's full of poison.
SPEAKER_00: That your words can cause emotional bitterness in someone's life.
SPEAKER_00: And that's often what slander does.
SPEAKER_00: That's the danger of slander is that you can speak a word against someone, and then they bring it into their soul, and it causes them to be now embittered against someone else.
SPEAKER_00: For example, this is Proverbs 18, 8.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon says, the words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels.
SPEAKER_00: They go down into the inner parts of a of the body, not in a good way.
SPEAKER_00: So it's always intriguing when somebody starts gossiping about somebody else, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Your ears prick up.
SPEAKER_00: What are you saying?
SPEAKER_00: And you lean in.
SPEAKER_00: And then you listen and you take in what's said, and you say, Wow, I had never thought that before about that person.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's true.
SPEAKER_00: And there begins to be a root of poison towards that person as a result of that gossip.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why do you think Paul is addressing this towards women?
SPEAKER_00: Don't both men and women gossip?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is not just a neutral sin, right?
SPEAKER_00: Men and women gossip.
SPEAKER_00: But who talks more?
SPEAKER_00: Men or women?
SPEAKER_00: Who objectively, honestly, who talks more?
SPEAKER_00: Women do.
SPEAKER_00: And so women are more inclined to do this than men for the sheer fact that they talk more.
SPEAKER_00: And so I talked to a number of pastors.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes the story that the problems that pastors experience I found is interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if you're in a small church or a big church, medium-sized church, they're the same.
SPEAKER_00: The problems tend to be the same.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the problems that is universal is slander in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes it's the women.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes.
SPEAKER_00: Hear it from so many pastors.
SPEAKER_00: I was reading in cat in John Calvin this week, and he said that the problem with slander was a definitive problem with women in the 16th century.
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's this is universal.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens when you have slander in the church is using James language, what does it do?
SPEAKER_00: Starts a fire.
SPEAKER_00: Starts a fire in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's not a coincidence that Satan is called the Diablos, and then Paul uses that word here because this is how Satan gets a foothold in churches all over the world.
SPEAKER_00: Satan gets a foothold through slander, and as sometimes it's translated, malicious gossip.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 10 14 says, the mouth of the fool brings ruin near.
SPEAKER_00: How often have you seen that in the church?
SPEAKER_00: The mouth of the fool brings ruin near.
SPEAKER_00: How many churches have followed?
SPEAKER_00: And been split and divided because of slander.
SPEAKER_00: And this is, I think, why Paul says that the deacon wives, this is 1 Timothy 3, he says they are not to be slanderous.
SPEAKER_00: They are to set the example, just like the older women here are to set the example in not doing this.
SPEAKER_00: That you refuse to listen to the slander.
SPEAKER_00: You refuse to take part in it.
SPEAKER_00: You refuse to listen to it.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what happens if the slander stops speaking?
SPEAKER_00: Guess what happens?
SPEAKER_00: It goes away.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 26, 20.
SPEAKER_00: For lack of wood, the fire goes out, and where there is no whisper, quarreling ceases.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we need to do if there's slander taking place.
SPEAKER_00: One, you refuse to listen.
SPEAKER_00: If you walk away, the person stops talking.
SPEAKER_00: Or you can even ask the person, look, listen, stop speaking.
SPEAKER_00: Stop speaking.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I've often found it to be true.
SPEAKER_00: This is definitively true.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 18, 17, the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes, even what the slanderer is saying is not true.
SPEAKER_00: And you hear the other side of the story, and it turns out to be false.
SPEAKER_00: But then secondly, Paul says, this is Ephesians 4.29.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, turn here.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to Ephesians 4.29, it's so important.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to the left to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up.
SPEAKER_00: Now stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: That word corrupting talk is not referring to the cuss words that you heard on the playground.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I used you know you used to hear these words.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, they shouldn't have said that.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what he's talking about, although we shouldn't be using those words either.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about words that tear down.
SPEAKER_00: Let no words that tear down come out of your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: But then the positive, look what he says, but only as such that is good for building up, as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.
SPEAKER_00: So what Paul is really saying here, when he says, not a slander, he's talking about a woman who allows no corrupting talk to come out of her mouth towards other people, but rather she builds up people.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the type of church we want to be.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine a type of church where you came and everybody was building one another up?
SPEAKER_00: That people are coming to you and speaking the words of grace to your life, building you up.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you did that, that was that was so encouraging to me.
SPEAKER_00: When you served in that way, that was that was an amazing thing.
SPEAKER_00: When you welcomed that person and greeted them, that was that was a kindness that was to them.
SPEAKER_00: That's a wonderful church.
SPEAKER_00: And then how are we instructed to handle sin?
SPEAKER_00: If your brother sins against you, go to him and between you and him alone, and if he repents, you have gained a brother.
SPEAKER_00: We we handle sin not by going to other people in the church and gossiping about them and saying, Do you know what Susie did?
SPEAKER_00: We need to pray for her.
SPEAKER_00: We don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: We go to Susie and you say, Hey, Susie, this this happened, this is how it made me feel, and all, and then, Lord willing, there will be uh repentance, confession, and reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: So that's how that should be handled.
SPEAKER_00: Third quality not enslaved to much wine.
SPEAKER_00: So reverent, she's not a slanderer, she's not enslaved to much wine.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the ancient world, the the oinos, the wine, was normally diluted.
SPEAKER_00: It was not normally just the if you go to a restaurant now and you order a bottle of wine, that's straight wine.
SPEAKER_00: Uh their wine, because the water was was so bad, they often uh wine was the normal liquid to drink.
SPEAKER_00: And so people would have lots of wine in storage in their houses, and it was diluted.
SPEAKER_00: And so the woman would be working there, she would have access to that wine all day.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, do not, and and the word he uses is do not be a slave to the wine.
SPEAKER_00: Do not become addicted to the wine to the point where you need it, where it begins to rule you and control you.
SPEAKER_00: Who are we to be ruled by?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Romans 6 that you are slaves of God.
SPEAKER_00: You are to be ruled by God.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast, jot, jot jot this verse down.
SPEAKER_00: Turn turn uh back to uh Titus, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I know I left you in Ephesians, but jot this verse down from Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: Um Ephesians 5, 18.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So we are to be controlled by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we talked about the beginning how the Holy Spirit, if you are a believer, the Holy Spirit comes in and takes residence in you.
SPEAKER_00: That is the baptism of the Spirit, the sealing of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That is a one-time deal that happens.
SPEAKER_00: The filling of the Spirit is an ongoing act.
SPEAKER_00: And you can be more or less filled by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The filling speaks to the degree that we are controlled by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: How do we become more controlled by the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: The parallel passage jot down Colossians 3.16, Paul says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: So the degree that the word of God is in you, that the Holy Spirit then uses to control you.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a simple yet amazing reality?
SPEAKER_00: You're filled with the Spirit, under control of the Spirit, by allowing the Word of Christ to dwell in you richly.
SPEAKER_00: What does that say, ladies?
SPEAKER_00: It means that you need to have a life that is permeated by the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Permeated.
SPEAKER_00: I think scripture memorization has become a lost art amongst evangelicals.
SPEAKER_00: The navigators used to do this all the time that a person become a believer, let's memorize scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: We're doing it with the children, but amongst adults, people aren't really memorizing scripture anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We're just so busy on social media and everything else.
SPEAKER_00: But the more that you begin to hide God's word in your heart, the less you sin against God.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're thinking about God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4.8, you're thinking whatever's true, noble, just pure, lovely, excellent, good repute.
SPEAKER_00: If there's anything praiseworthy or excellent, meditate on these things.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I shouldn't be thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00: If that's in your mind, now you're no longer thinking about what you were thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're thinking about what you should be thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture begins to be used by the Holy Spirit to sanctify you more and more.
SPEAKER_00: So the matter is about what is controlling you.
SPEAKER_00: Now he says, don't be slaves of much wine, but there's a lot of things that you can be slaves to.
SPEAKER_00: You be slaves to social media.
SPEAKER_00: You can be uh slaves to the uh the the sales at dealards or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's there's a number of things that we we that was my grandma's favorite store.
SPEAKER_00: So I tried to pick on a store that maybe nobody here shops at, but uh so we we can be slaves to a lot and number of things, but Paul is saying that the godly older woman is a slave of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the picture.
SPEAKER_00: She's reverent, she's careful with her word, she's self-controlled with her words, and she's under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So those are the qualities of the older woman.
SPEAKER_00: And now Paul is just is going to describe her role.
SPEAKER_00: Look back at verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He says, They are to teach what is good.
SPEAKER_00: They are to teach what is good.
SPEAKER_00: So the older women are to teach what is good.
SPEAKER_00: Is it the church is not just a place where you come and you hear a message from the pastor, and that's the ministry.
SPEAKER_00: You do the ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to be a church that makes disciples who are equipped to evangelize people and equipped to disciple the believers.
SPEAKER_00: And especially there's an important responsibility, he says, of older women.
SPEAKER_00: They are to teach what is good.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how do older women know to teach what is good?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is, of course, in Titus chapter 2, is because they're underneath the ministry of Titus.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the instructions to Titus bracket the whole chapter.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at this.
SPEAKER_00: Titus 2, 1, as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one disregard you.
SPEAKER_00: So, you older women, you're underneath the pulpit, so to speak, you're hearing the sound doctrine, and then you have the responsibility to apply this sound doctrine in the lives of younger women.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: And so train the young women.
SPEAKER_00: Titus was not given this instruction.
SPEAKER_00: Paul does not want the young pastor to be training the young women.
SPEAKER_00: The responsibility to teach and to train the young women falls to the older women.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's implied that the responsibility to train the young men falls to Titus and the older men.
SPEAKER_00: So in the body of Christ, and this is one of these, one of these aspects of culture that we've been looking at, there's training taking place.
SPEAKER_00: There should be training taking place all the time.
SPEAKER_00: That this isn't just a preaching hub, but you're coming here, you're being built up, and then during the week, you are training.
SPEAKER_00: You are encouraging, exhorting people to become more like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You're studying the word together, you're you're uh memorizing scripture together, and we're on this journey together of sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says that these older women, your responsibility in the church is to train and build up the younger women.
SPEAKER_00: That word train, look at that word train.
SPEAKER_00: It means to bring to their senses.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's it that that is an important definition, especially this day and age.
SPEAKER_00: Because, friends, what has happened with younger women in our culture is absolutely catastrophic.
SPEAKER_00: Catastrophic.
SPEAKER_00: Younger women are coming to church, and by younger women, he's talking about basically 20 to 45.
SPEAKER_00: They're coming to church less than they ever have in Western civilization since the early church was established.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, for the first time in 150 years, more young men are going to church than young women.
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it used to always be that Christianity was the religion of women.
SPEAKER_00: Gen Z has more young men coming to church than young women.
SPEAKER_00: What has happened?
SPEAKER_00: An entire generation of young women has been swept away by feminism and secularism.
SPEAKER_00: An entire generation.
SPEAKER_00: And they've been taught that you gotta be like a man in order to be successful in the world.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you get married, your rights are gonna be trampled upon.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna be successful, you're gonna be miserable.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have kids, you're gonna be even more miserable.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this the lie of secularism?
SPEAKER_00: It's godless.
SPEAKER_00: It's completely contrary to the creation worldview.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's more necessary now.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, these statistics, uh I I can give you the statistics, uh, they're quoted in the New York Times.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just just something an observation I'm making.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, this is this is from a New York New York Times article.
SPEAKER_00: A Gallup poll found that 42% of men ages 18 to 29 consider religion very important in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the number of young women has stagnated at roughly 30 percent.
SPEAKER_00: So this is catastrophic what has happened to the young women.
SPEAKER_00: And so, ladies, the the hour is desperate.
SPEAKER_00: And you are to teach the young women important things about what it means to be a woman.
SPEAKER_00: This is the point of Satan's spear, is he's attacking what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we had a Supreme Court justice who couldn't even define a woman, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is madness, the culture that we're in.
SPEAKER_00: And so young women need to be taught what it means to be a woman.
SPEAKER_00: And this responsibility falls to you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, listen to Warren Wearsby.
SPEAKER_00: Quote, the godly older women have the responsibility of teaching the younger women how to be successful wives, mothers, and housekeepers, and the younger women have the responsibility of listening and obeying.
SPEAKER_00: New Testament scholar Andreas Kostenberger said these verses, the verses that we're looking at, present a compelling mentoring model for women.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than instructing Titus to mentor young women directly, Paul tells him to identify mature, experienced women who can mentor young women in the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: So this is your responsibility, older women.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I must say that what Paul tells Titus that the older women to teach is sadly not what is taught by older women across American evangelicalism.
SPEAKER_00: What the curriculum, we'll call it the curriculum, that Paul tells Titus that the older women are to teach the younger women is not what the older women are teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And I thank God for older women Bible teachers, they're needed, they're useful, but by and large, what they are teaching the young women is generic truth about how to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That's great, but we need you to do more.
SPEAKER_00: We need you to teach what Paul tells Titus that the older women are to teach.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's that curriculum?
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at it because this is the character qualities that younger women are to have.
SPEAKER_00: So this is now the teaching of older women.
SPEAKER_00: So, so far, just for review, we've looked at the character quality of the older women.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at what older women are to do, that they are to teach the younger women.
SPEAKER_00: Now, third, this is what they are to teach, and what the younger women ergo are to be.
SPEAKER_00: So he says they are to teach the younger women.
SPEAKER_00: And then he addresses this in verses four and five.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll notice he says seven things that they are to teach the younger women.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the first and the second, talking about love, uh, address who the younger women are to love, the people that are closest to them, namely their husband and children.
SPEAKER_00: The third and fourth things that he says that they are to do speaks to their virtue, wisdom, and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Number five and six speaks to their work, maintaining their home and doing good deeds.
SPEAKER_00: And then number seven speaks to their relationship to their husband.
SPEAKER_00: They are to be submissive to him.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at these.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, these seven things that the older women are to teach the younger women.
SPEAKER_00: And these first two, it's almost humorous, right?
SPEAKER_00: To love their husbands.
SPEAKER_00: Uh to the the it literally says to be a husband lover.
SPEAKER_00: One word.
SPEAKER_00: But they are called to love their husbands.
SPEAKER_00: Love is a commitment, it's not a filling.
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, both Paul and Peter tell Christian women, if they're married, to unbelieving men, to stay married to them.
SPEAKER_00: And the implication of all that is, is sometimes men are difficult to love.
SPEAKER_00: Is anybody with me there?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if we're honest, we're all there.
SPEAKER_00: We can be difficult to love.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says, you need to teach the young women to love those that God has put in their life.
SPEAKER_00: You might find it difficult to be married to this man.
SPEAKER_00: I I laugh.
SPEAKER_00: There was a uh there was a book written about Sarah Edwards, who was who was married to Jonathan Edwards, and it was titled Marriage to a Difficult Man.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that's a book that that many women, if we're on, if they're honest, could write.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not about how difficult he is to love, it's the fact that you love him, that you're called to love him, that you are called to make that choice, that you are called to ask God to help you love him more.
SPEAKER_00: And then, secondly, he says to love their children.
SPEAKER_00: Children lovers.
SPEAKER_00: Can children be difficult to love?
SPEAKER_00: My goodness, yes.
SPEAKER_00: We have one child who wakes up every day, not to name names, but there was a president that also has his name.
SPEAKER_00: And he wakes up every single day discontent and upset.
SPEAKER_00: Every day he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.
SPEAKER_00: Children can be hard to love, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: But we need to be reminded.
SPEAKER_00: You need to be reminded of these realities that your children are your future investment in the world.
SPEAKER_00: They are your legacy.
SPEAKER_00: They bring back a blessing upon you.
SPEAKER_00: And so you build up love in your mind and in your heart by reminding yourself of truth.
SPEAKER_00: That your marriage is a reflection of Christ in the church, that your children are a blessing, and you ask the Holy Spirit to bring more love in your heart for them.
SPEAKER_00: Third, to be self-controlled.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at this rather extensively: this quality, this capacity to control one's desires, to be sober-minded, to control your feelings, to not act brashly.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, to be holy or pure.
SPEAKER_00: And this word speaks largely to sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: That you could translate it as chaste, that the woman's sexual life is entirely in her marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, this is this is a great problem with men, but it's a problem with women as well.
SPEAKER_00: That marriage is the only place for biblical sexuality to take place, and that the woman is pure in that regard.
SPEAKER_00: Fifth, to be workers at home.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is the only time this word is used in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Oiko ergos.
SPEAKER_00: It's a compound word.
SPEAKER_00: Oiko, house, ergos, worker.
SPEAKER_00: She's a busy worker at home.
SPEAKER_00: She's busy at home.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not a command to stay home and be lazy.
SPEAKER_00: And as the stereotype is, watch soap operas.
SPEAKER_00: It's a command to be busy at home, taking ownership of the home.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Timothy, Paul calls the wife the oiko despotes.
SPEAKER_00: So he uses another compound word, and he calls the wife the house despot.
SPEAKER_00: She is the house master.
SPEAKER_00: So that the house is her domain, and she is to be busy in that domain.
SPEAKER_00: And that means that the wife, in large part, makes the rules of that domain.
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to be reminded of that, men?
SPEAKER_00: You betcha.
SPEAKER_00: In our house, there's a rule that you shall not wear your shoes inside the house.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not track in what was in the restaurants and the gas stations into the house, and therefore you take off your shoes when you come into the mud room.
SPEAKER_00: That is a house rule.
SPEAKER_00: She has every right to make that rule.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I find myself, I'll be going out the door, and uh I'll realize, put on my shoes, put on my boots, and I realize in the mud room I forgot my keys in my office.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment I'm faced with a decision.
SPEAKER_00: Do I make a run for it?
SPEAKER_00: And hope that she does not see?
SPEAKER_00: Or do I take off my boots?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that is her prerogative because she is the oico despate.
SPEAKER_00: She is to be busy in the house.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this wasn't controversial since the beginning of man until the 20th century.
SPEAKER_00: This was not controversial.
SPEAKER_00: People understood that the woman was to own the domestic sphere.
SPEAKER_00: It's scriptural, it's biblical.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the families are instructed to function.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody debated this until you had the feminist movement.
SPEAKER_00: Now, can men be domineering and chauvinistic?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and that needs to be repented of as well.
SPEAKER_00: But that's no reason to say that women should not be the oikodespotes, the owners of their home who take dominion of their home.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a quote from MacArthur.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Keeping a godly home with excellence for one's husband and children is the Christian woman's non-negotiable responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this doesn't mean that a woman can never work in some way outside the home.
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be legalistic about this and saying that, well, she can't cross the threshold of the front door and do something outside the home.
SPEAKER_00: She can't maybe go work at a school or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: The idea is that the woman owns her home, not her husband.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be clear about that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Mom.
SPEAKER_00: When you have Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Mom and the woman being the breadwinner, what happens almost inevitably with those marriages?
SPEAKER_00: They fall apart because they're not operating God's way.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is saying, this is how the house is to operate, with the woman being busy owning the home.
SPEAKER_00: She's to do this, look at number six, with kindness.
SPEAKER_00: With kindness, not in a mean-spirited way.
SPEAKER_00: Can a woman own the home and do everything, but not be kind about it?
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, by the way, when Grace Anna tells me to take off the boot, she is very kind.
SPEAKER_00: But can you do all this and be harsh?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says the Greek word is agathas, uh, where we uh Chrissy Agatha, it means good.
SPEAKER_00: It's good works, it's it's kind, the way it's sometimes translated.
SPEAKER_00: Kind towards others, good towards others.
SPEAKER_00: And then seventh, submissive to their own husbands.
SPEAKER_00: Notice it doesn't say to every man, it doesn't say that that every woman is submissive to every man.
SPEAKER_00: Paul just says, teach them to be submissive to their own husbands.
SPEAKER_00: Notice he doesn't say that it's the husband's job to make the wife submit to his leadership.
SPEAKER_00: No man can make his wife submit to his leadership.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how good of a leader you are.
SPEAKER_00: You could be Abraham Lincoln, you could be Steve Jobs.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter how great a leader you are, the responsibility of submitting to that leadership belongs to the wife.
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean that the woman is not equal to her husband or that a woman is less than her husband.
SPEAKER_00: We all have to submit to various people and various stations and various aspects of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in the Marine Corps, I had to submit to anybody who had a rank higher than I did.
SPEAKER_00: That didn't mean that they were superior to me in worth, it just meant that they were superior to me in rank.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is saying is that in the household, you have the husband in Ephesians 5, who he says is the kephalos, the head, and then you have the woman who is under the headship of the home, and then the children are under, not just the husband, but but the husband and the wife.
SPEAKER_00: So there's equality at the foot of the cross, but yet there's distinction in roles in the family.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul tells the older women to instruct the younger women to be submissive to their own husbands.
SPEAKER_00: Again, not controversial until the 20th century.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think if our younger women do this, do these seven things, love their husbands, love their children, their workers at home, they're kind, they're self-controlled, they're submitting to their own husbands?
SPEAKER_00: Is that counter-cultural today?
SPEAKER_00: Man, think about how amazing that would be to see that type of culture.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, do you think that that type of culture leads to despair and despondency and tragedy?
SPEAKER_00: No, that type of culture leads to flourishing in the family, flourishing in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Notice how Paul closes verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the phrase.
SPEAKER_00: That the word of God may not be reviled.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this is a reflection of the culture of the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: How so?
SPEAKER_00: In this simple way.
SPEAKER_00: Are we or are we not ready to submit to the word of God?
SPEAKER_00: That is the problem in modern evangelicalism.
SPEAKER_00: As people say, I know what the Word of God says, but I don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_00: I'll find every way, I'll find cultural arguments.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was just speaking to a cultural group there in Crete.
SPEAKER_00: It's different from Raleigh in the 21st century.
SPEAKER_00: It's different.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to do that.
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking to a different culture, different time.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Do these things that Paul's talking about, are these just cultural?
SPEAKER_00: Be self-controlled and pure and loving their husbands?
SPEAKER_00: These aren't cultural things, these are transcendent things.
SPEAKER_00: But yet they need to be obeyed by the Spirit's power.
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray to that end.
SPEAKER_00: Older ladies, that you're reverent, you're not slanders, you're not lovers of wine.
SPEAKER_00: And then you are taking the ownership of teaching.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to do this.
SPEAKER_00: The elders need you to do this, that you are teaching the younger women, your modeling and your teaching, and you're teaching this curriculum how to love their husbands, how to love their children, how to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, submissive to their own husbands.
SPEAKER_00: And if we do this, you are talking about a transcendent church.
SPEAKER_00: A transcendent church where people who come here, they're gonna notice that something is vastly different than what they are seeing in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And they're gonna see flourishing.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna see children that are flourishing, they're gonna see marriages that are flourishing, they're gonna see a church that's flourishing.
SPEAKER_00: You see why this is so important?
SPEAKER_00: Massively important that we get this right.
SPEAKER_00: And we will with God's help.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we need your help.
SPEAKER_00: We ask for your help.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for this transcendent word to build a kingdom culture with pastors and church leaders that are under the Lordship of Christ teaching sound doctrine with older men who are sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in the faith, sound in love, sound in steadfastness, older women who are reverent in behavior, not slanders, nor slaves to much wine, younger women who love their husbands and children, who are self-controlled, who are pure, who are working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we want to adorn the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We want to obey the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We do not want to revile the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, may we be found faithful in obedience to your word.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.