Trained by God’s Grace

Welcome back to our women's Bible study in Titus called While We Wait. I want to start with the question, what did you wait for this week? Did you wait for kids to get out of a practice or out of a lesson? Did you wait for a paycheck to hit the bank so that you could pay bills? Did you wait for a text or a phone call from someone that you wanted to connect with? Maybe you were waiting for answers to prayer on those mixed up crazy things in your life that you've been praying about, and you have been waiting for. We're all waited for something this week. While you waited this week, what kind of an attitude did you have? Attitude begins with the letter A, and there's a lot of attitudes that we can have. Did you agonize while you waited in this thing? Did you feel a sense of anxiety while you waited? Did you feel that anger rising up in you? In simple things that we wait with, like one jug of milk and the girl in front of us has about $273 worth of groceries and there's no other line, and Albertsons does not put in self-checking lines. So there's emotions, there's attitudes that we have while we wait. Or while you were waiting for things, did you say, ''Oh, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. That's what I'm going to do while I wait.'' Not a one of you thought that this week. However, I bet almost all of us attempted that. We tried to do that. We tried to adorn the gospel in all of our ways, make it more beautiful. And this is what the Lord wants his kids to do while we wait to be united with him. He wants us to adorn the gospel. So I'm reading a book, it's called Becoming Elizabeth Elliot. It is a new book, it's the authorized biography of Elizabeth Elliot written by Ellen Vaughn. And she talks about a time in there when she's young and in school, hoping that the Lord would have her be a missionary. And she has an older woman in her life that is speaking into her. And this older woman says to the young Betty Howard, ''Being a missionary isn't so much about declaring the gospel as it is about being the gospel.'' That was sound advice coming from this older woman. And you know, it's exact same thing for you and me. Being a Christian woman in today's world isn't so much about declaring the gospel as it is about being the gospel. That is how we adorn the doctrine of God, our savior. So last week when we went through Titus 2 verses one through 10, we learned all of these practical personal ethics that sync with God's character. Things like sober-minded, integrity, sound speech. We saw self-control three times. And so we thought we should slow down and investigate that. And we did, and we realized that the Greek word points us to thinking about this in terms of a sound mind, a balanced mind, which affects our speech, it affects our habits, it affects our decisions. Our sound mind affects so much about what we choose to do. So it is with a sound mind that I want to narrow our focus today to just Titus 2 verses three through five. I titled this, A Christian Woman in Today's World. And so let's read those three verses together. Here we go.

We're gonna take this apart pretty much phrase by phrase. And we looked at the first phrase last week, reverent in behavior. Remember I told you that King James calls that behavior that becometh holiness. And I'll say it a few times this week because I love to say it that way. It's just fun, it rolls off the tongue. But then we also said that a modern translation tells us that it means live in a way that honors God. Live in a way that honors God. That is an umbrella statement. You know what? If we just said, listen, girls, go live in a way that honors God, I could close my laptop, you could close your Bibles, and we could all just go home, right? Because it says it all. And that's a temptation for me because this week we have to talk about too much drinking, modesty, and submitting to husbands. So it might just be easier to say just live in a way that honors God, and we're done. But we will go through the text, okay? Okay, let's look at these phrases. Two of them I covered last week, slanderers and not slaves to much wine. The only thing more I want to say about slander, there was a question in the study guide that said, you know, we never wake up and say, I'm gonna be a slanderer today, so how does it happen? And I thought of one thing. I don't intentionally go around slandering people, but I do slander people, and do you know why I do? Because I don't slow down to find out what's behind, what motives are behind their actions and their words. I make assumptions, and I act on the assumptions. And I thought that was worthy of throwing out there because maybe you can, maybe that resonates with you. We see someone do something or say something, we make a quick judgment on it, and before we know it, we have maybe even passed along our assumption to someone else, and we have misrepresented their character. And so that's something for us to remember, slow down, find out the truth on that. Next phrase was slaves to much wine. In today's world, I will make some enemies with whatever I say about this. So I'm just gonna be bold and say what I wanna say, what I think the Lord wants to say about this. Before we talk about wine itself or a substance, I wanna talk about philosophies, all right? In our Christian life, we can be tempted to absorb a few different philosophies. One philosophy that sort of eeps in is legalism. And legalism means that we seek God's approval through our actions. If I do the right thing, God will approve of me. And then I'm going to call the opposite of that for this morning's purposes, libertarianism, which is probably an incorrect use of that word because that's really more of a political word, but to tell you the truth, I can't pronounce the theological word. So I'm gonna use this word, having liberty, having license, feeling like it doesn't really matter. God loves me, he'll forgive me, it's all okay. And so we have these two extremes, but how we deal with something like drinking will highlight whether or not we have a sound mind, a balanced mind, a mind that has been renewed, that is going to avoid either one of those extremes. The key is behavior that becometh holiness. The key is living in a way that honors God. Now, I've been really thinking about this and praying about this, and maybe this information is going to be useful to someone. I have come to the conclusion that as we raise children in a Christian home, very often what happens is we do raise children in a way that honors God. And in a topic like this, we will raise them in a way to teach avoidance of this sort of a thing. And those Christian children become young adults, and they leave the home, and they're changing their ideas from the faith of their parents to their own faith. And sometimes whisperings get involved as they're growing up. And they begin to look at their home life and say, I think that was a little legalistic. Now, it may have been, but most often it wasn't. It wasn't legalistic. It was just living in a way to honor God. But young people begin to look back on it and say, I think that was a little legalistic, and so what happens? What do we always do in life? We tend to swing to the other side. And so as Christian mamas, we're looking around going, how did this happen? I did not raise them this way. How did they swing to this other side? Well, that's just natural human nature. We do that. We ping back and forth, and then we come back to center. But while a young person is swinging over to the side of libertarianism and having license, there is an opportunity to become enslaved. And some of our young people get snatched right over there, and they become enslaved because we don't set out to become enslaved to things. Okay, in this topic right here, no one wants to become enslaved to. much wine, okay? It starts with a desire to relax, to disconnect, to celebrate, and then you couple that with the lack of self-control and not having a sound mind, and you're on your way to slavery. That's how it happens. It happens all around us, right? Happens with all kinds of things. And we're not adorning the doctrine of God. Now, remember last week when we talked about a sound mind. A sound mind asks the question, how will my behavior affect other people? That's one of the things a sound mind asks. How will my behavior affect other people? That is not the same question as how will other people think about me? What do other people think about my behavior? That is a different thing. But a sound mind says, how does my behavior today affect other people? Because we should be looking outward, okay? Now, in the day that this was written, when Paul wrote this to Titus, wine was all around them. It was in every house. It was a necessity. It was part of their life. It's a little bit different than us processing this passage today. Because we have clean drinking water, we don't have to have an alcoholic beverage at some level of fermentation around us all the time. I haven't had an alcoholic beverage in my home for 40 years. Here's the temptation for me. I'm reading this passage and I said, should not be slaves to much wine. Skip over that, doesn't relate to me. But it does. So, for those of us who tend to want to just skip over that and say, yeah, so I'm not slaves to much wine, no big deal. Let's go on to the next one. Oh, we have something that we can learn from this. Because we have all kinds of things around us that are necessities of our life that are easily, that reach out to us to become enslaved to. We have food that we have to handle every day. And is it not easy to become impassioned or enslaved to food? Either the eating of too much of it or the weirdness of, you know, all of our, you know, any kind of food issue that it can be. We have our phones that are with us all the time. And so, it's like, I need to disconnect. I need to relax a little bit. We can become enslaved in that, in Netflix, in gaming, in all sorts of things. So, this does have something to say to me. I need to have a sound mind when it comes to anything that is around me all the time that could become, that could capture me. Now, if you were raised in a home with an alcoholic mother or father, I do not want to in any way minimize the pain. Okay, four hours on Instagram is not the same thing as four hours with a bottle in your bedroom. In terms of, okay, it's not the same thing. And I do not want to say that it's the same thing. Because there are some substances, some activities that have a tragic effect on the family. And we need to have compassion there. But we need to be transparent among each other about the things that get the better of us. Confess our sins to one another. Say, this is a struggle for me. And if you are enslaved, you find yourself, it's like, yeah, that is my verse. Like, I am enslaved to wine. I use this. I abuse this for different things. You know what our answer is? It's the same as all the other things that we have. We admit it before the Lord. We confess it. We ask forgiveness. And then we come and say, my only way out is a sound mind. I must renew my mind. Lord, would you help me renew my mind to apply self-control in this thing that captures me? I spent way too much time on that. I didn't mean to go that far. Let's keep going on the next phrase. It says that older women are to teach what is good. Turn their attention toward others. So, how do we teach? Do we hold classes? Do we start a podcast? How do we teach? So, last Thursday, we had all the pastors and wives from our region here at our campus for lunch. And so, I was dialoguing with the ladies that came, and I said, I'd like to hear from you. Like, how were you taught when you were a young Christian woman entering into the church? You got saved. How were you taught? What made the most influence on you? And like me, they said, I just watched the example. I just, I don't know. It wasn't very formal. I watched the women. And so, the teaching happened while the older women didn't know they were teaching. And that's often the way it goes. We teach by our conversations, by how we encourage, how we offer help, by the restraint, the kindness, the way we dress, how we respond to our husbands. Somebody's watching while we do that. And that's how we are teaching. What do we teach? According to this verse, we're to teach what is good. Whatever good things we have learned. And you know, our paths have all been different. Everybody's had a different path. You've learned a good path through some difficult things in life. Teach that. Teach what is good. We can't teach what we don't know. And so, we need to cultivate a life that absorbs the goodness of the Lord and teaches those good things. And then it says, so that we can go on to, so train the young women. So, that answers the question, whom do we teach? The younger women. This is logical. This is practical. This was also a safeguard to Titus in the day that this was written. So, Paul said, hey, you go, you know, this is how the older men should be. Be an example for the young men. Train the older women, but let them go train the younger women. How inappropriate and maybe even awkward it would be for Titus himself to be training. And so, that is the need in the body of Christ. It is so much more appropriate. So, the text goes on to say that we should teach relational health for young families. That's where the Apostle Paul is pointing Titus to. The older women are to train relational health. But before we get to that, I want to make a couple points here, okay? Teaching about marriage and family ethics isn't the only good thing that you've learned. That is not the only thing to teach. What follows here in this passage is a, for instance, so older women train the younger women, for instance, to love their husbands and their children. Now, in that day on Crete, probably 98% of the young women were married and raising families. There was no other kind of woman. Is that the way our culture is today? No. There are lots of other options today, okay? And it is completely within biblical bounds for a woman to flourish, a Christian woman to flourish, outside of being married, outside of having children. And so, we have a much broader spectrum to teach good things today. Again, in that book that I'm reading, Becoming Elizabeth Elliot, while she was in school hoping to become a missionary, studying linguistics, she had housemothers and teachers who were older women who were teaching good things, had nothing to do with husbands and children. Teaching from their own experience of being in the jungle, teaching linguistics, things like that. So, I want to make sure that we don't misinterpret this, that every older woman is supposed to teach about home and family ethics. No, teach good things. But it is also very important that we teach these things as well. And so, we're going to go dive into this, for instance, because part of the good things is order in the home. Chapter one, we talked about order in the church, and now we have order in the home.

All right, let's take it apart. Love their husbands and their children. You may know that the word that we put in English is love, has lots of different Greek words. This one is be fond of, be affectionate toward them. Does that come naturally? We might think it should come naturally. They're your people, of course you love them. But, you know, not for everybody. Some women resent the demands that family places on their time and what they want to do. And then some women idolize loving their children. We have a word for that today. They grow up to be helicopter parents, and there's an idolatry, and it's like this overzealous, like being involved and love. So, yeah, there's a big spectrum. What do we need? Sound mind. We need self-control. We need the balanced mind there. But still an older woman is in a unique position to train a younger woman to prioritize her family. An older woman is in a position to exhort a young woman to love her child when she doesn't even like her child. An older woman can help a young woman to love her husband when she does not like him a bit right now. Does that ever happen? It happens all the time. Our lives are messy. And so because we are, we've had a little bit more experience, you know, youth has knowledge. Age adds experience. And we're able to speak and say, you know, just help out in some of those areas. Okay, the next phrase is self-control, which we covered last week. So I'm going to put pure and kind together. And because of the influence of our culture, purity might not be a natural inclination for every young woman. This word, hagnos, it means innocent, modest, void of carnality or sensuality, okay? Now every culture, since the time this was written until today, every culture has its form of carnality on display, okay? Its form of, you know, sensuality out there in literature, in whatever. First, an older woman needs to be walking in some measure of success in this in order to have good things to share. But younger women need to be exhorted and need to be trained because it's counter-cultural, isn't it? A Christian woman in today's world is counter-culture, should not look like the culture. So when I was visiting with the girls last Thursday, one of the pastor's wives was sharing with me when she was just saved, Southern California, big church. And she said one Sunday, I was walking in late to church, and she said I had to kind of like shimmy my way, you know, in front of everybody to find my place to sit. And during greeting time, an older woman turned to her and said, well, my husband might be old, but he still has eyes, you know. And of course she was like, and then she talked about how over time she thought about that. And now, 20 years later, she goes, I'm sure my skirt was skin tight in this short, and I'm sure like I think back on what, you know, she goes, it's true. However, I would not recommend that to any older woman. That is not the way to get the message across. But I thought it was a good illustration of just, you know, here's a young girl. She's figuring it out. She does need some training. How to do that training? I don't know. But the Holy Spirit knows everything. And so one of the best things is our choices in dress and in presentation, the movies that we watch, all that sort of thing. The word kind means good. To be kind, all of us, older and younger, temperate in our words, temper under control. And maybe that's something that you've grown in. Maybe when you were a young mother and you had lots of little ones at home and you remember like it didn't take much for you to fly off, maybe the Lord has grown you and you are able to speak into that to someone younger and encourage them, okay, let's just take one area this week to, you know, apply this kindness in our words, purposefully say to yourself, I am not going to lose my mind over the fact that you lost your shoes, you know, just whatever, you know. And then next we have working at home and submissive to their own husbands. I remember when we talked about that an elder was to be the husband of one wife and I said he was to be a one woman man. I think that that's a great way to look at this too. Women are to be a one man woman, eyes and heart at home, okay? So it's the same thing applied. So working at home, does this mean that a Christian woman should not be a nurse at the hospital or a teacher at the school? She should be working at home. Well, isn't everyone working at home now? We're all biblical, right? But no, but home should be the priority. In the same way that we talked about the elder that said, you know what, if he's not stewarding his children well yet, don't add more onto it. I think that's a good way to look at this. The priority is to steward the home and if that's not happening well, don't leave yet. But if you can, well, you know, then you can. We're all different in doing that. Home is where the family gathers. Home is where people always yearn to return. It is a great privilege to steward the family home and to nurture. What are the pitfalls of this? Well, home can become an idol. I call it the homier-than-thou syndrome where it becomes so pinpoint laser focused that it is the only thing going and that is not right. Again, a balanced mind. Some people I have observed over my 30 years get so home focused that the gathering of the church and the community of the church is on the basement level. It's like, well, if we ever feel like it or get to it or if it doesn't mess up our Sunday morning pancake thing or whatever, then we'll add that to what we do. But no, there needs to be a balance. We are to show hospitality. We are to be interested in the lives of outsiders. So there is a pitfall to be too home focused. And so that takes discernment on our part. In all these things, so now I've rattled off enough of these Christian ethics that you're probably thinking, I'm keeping my mouth shut here, right? But you know what? We don't teach from a position of perfection. We teach from a position of humility. And so even if we have made mistakes, even if we're still working on things, we teach from humility. So we have something to share with one another. Okay, the cherry on top, submissive to their own husbands. Were you waiting for that? It's easy. It is. This is the word hupotasso, okay? I think we talked about it last week in our lesson. And if you've gotten this far in our Bible study, you probably don't have a lot of trouble with the concept of order and rank in God's world, okay? We have order and rank in our world. Children are to follow the instructions of their parents. The vice president is supposed to rank under the president, right? Even in the Bible, the Levites and the priests, when we went through the book of Numbers, they had special jobs. They were supposed to stay in their lane. This is the lane I've given you to do. And when they broke camp and set up, it's like, this is your job, this is your rank. Do the thing that you've been called to do. Jesus willingly submitted himself to the Father. And so in the home, wives are to walk in a rank with their husband. Hupotasso means to rank under, it does not mean to blindly submit, okay? So there's room for discussion, there is room for appeal, there is room for dialogue. It is not a blind obedience, it does not devalue the worth of a person, and it does not suggest an inferiority. It is a gift of obedience to God that's given in the home. Now, this presupposes a believing husband and wife, where they are both endeavoring to live out their Christian ethics in an ungodly world. So you ask the question, is it possible for a woman who's married to a guy who isn't doing this to still give this gift? Well, yeah, 1 Peter 3 gave some insights to that. It is, but it's definitely delicate. It takes some discernment, it takes some finesse. So this is not a one-size-fits-all conversation over everything. But just because things don't work out perfectly in everyone's relationship doesn't negate the Word of God. Because marriage is to be a symbol of the union of the church in Christ. It is to symbolize, to demonstrate a play. And you didn't last week look at a married couple and go, oh, look, they look just like, you know, Jesus and the body of Christ. No, we don't see that, but yet it is. It is symbolic. This is part of the created order that we see from the beginning, okay? And so, when we realize that, we say, oh, well, I will… Walk in that because this is God's created order. It was his design to create man From man to create woman to join them together and the mystery We see there is the church in Christ so what I want to do is take us to the Ephesians passage that we had in our study guide here and Just show how we can adorn the gospel in a marriage relationship What I'm gonna do first is put Ephesians chapter 5 verse 25 and 23 I've rearranged these just a little bit So I'm gonna put these two first so that we talk about the husband's job first and it says this way husbands Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up that means sacrificed for her For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church his body and is himself its Savior So what is the husband's job in this role sacrifice? He is to die Okay to adorn the gospel husband in this Symbolism is to be the one that makes the sacrifices does that all of a sudden make our job sound quite a bit easier Let's go to the wife's part verse 22 and 24 wives Submit to your own husbands as to the Lord now as the church submits to Christ so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands and So the role of the wife in a Christian marriage trying to adorn the gospel Make it more beautiful is to respond as the church responds to its head Christ in Acceptance in rank in submission and so these are these are worthy goals of our life They're not They're simple I should say but they're not easy because of our flesh But what I want to say now is just I want to wrap this all up with a bow What is the sum total of? Verses 3 through 5 it ends with this phrase that the Word of God may not be reviled That is the sum total of everything that we have talked about We are to live in our marriage respect our husband rank under him in such a way That the Word of God may not be reviled We are to dress in such a way that the Word of God may not be reviled We are to speak kindly in such a way that the Word of God may not be reviled We are to come to the Lord to renew our minds to have a sound mind that will affect our decisions and our goals and our relationships in such a way that Say it the Word of God may not be reviled We are to invest in our children in such a way that the Word of God may not be reviled So like I said that umbrella statement live in a way that honors God That sums this up Father thank you for this passage and Lord It is a tall order for us to live in a way that honors God and yet there is a simplicity to that statement To be connected with you to have our minds renewed To have the desire to honor you so Lord we ask you for the desire We ask that you would speak into our mind and into our heart to give us the desire to live in such a way that honors God Lord we know that we're going to look different from our neighbors different from the culture around us We know that that's a challenge sometimes Lord we know we're not going to do these things perfectly. We know that that's not what you that's not the point of this the point Is to show us how to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior how to make it more beautiful So Lord wherever we're at in our lives for everyone that's listening. I just pray that you would be the one to Enable us Lord to make the gospel more beautiful so that we can be the gospel in our World while we wait to be united with you. I pray in Jesus name. Amen You