A Christian Woman in Today’s World

Welcome back to our women's Bible study on the book of Titus called While We Wait. So this week's lesson I titled Doctrine and Duty. I had a second thought about that this morning. I almost wanted to change everything up to from grace to glory, because I thought that that sounded better, because doctrine is a yawner to most people, and duty we feel is overrated, and so those words are problematic to us. But let's think it through before we get started, okay? When it comes to Jesus and what he has done for us, that is the doctrine of God, and that is not a yawner, that is not dull, that is a delight. When it comes to what we do in return, that is also a delight, that is our duty, and so they are words that we don't normally want to do a Bible study on, but they're good for us. I think that this is going to be a good lesson. Here's what I want to start with this morning. I want to put up a few soundbites from last week's lesson. I'll put them up on the screen for you. I don't easily memorize big passages of scripture. I can if I put my mind to it, but I do find it easy to just come away with a phrase. So I'm calling these soundbites from last week, verse 10, to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. We really handled that. We are to make more beautiful. The doctrine of God our Savior. How about this one? I like this spoken to Titus, show yourself to be a model of good works. Be an example, be a type of good works for others to see, for the believers to see. The other one we had was from verse five, that the word of God may not be reviled. Live in such a way that the word of God may not be reviled or be blasphemed. We'll read our passage for today and I'll add another one, but we are in Titus two and we're starting in verse 11. Let's read our text.

So the new sound bite I want to add today is zealous for good works. We live in such a way that the word of God is not only reviled or blasphemed, but we are zealous for good works to share the word and the work that Jesus did. Well, we'll get to that, but let's start back at verse 9. The first word that we have there, I'm sorry, verse 11. The first word that we had there is for. It is the connecting point between last week when we talked about how we are to live as those whom God has redeemed. Now, this passage pulls us into why. Why we are to live because the grace of God has appeared. That is why we are to live that way. So in your journal, you should have two words that you drew little sun rays over, a past tense and a future tense, the word appeared and the word appearing, okay? And this word we discovered means the visible appearance of something that was previously concealed. Very similar to when our sun appears at the dawn, at daybreak every day, it was previously concealed. Why? Because the earth had not yet rotated fully. The sun's over here and the earth rotates to such a way. Oh, look at, there it is. Now we have the appearance of something that was previously concealed to us. And so these two bookmarks in history that our attention is drawn to is the first one, when Jesus appeared 2,000 years ago, the prophets had foretold, but the exact time and way was concealed. And that is the first bookmark. The grace has appeared. And the second bookmark in history is he will appear again in glory to snatch us up and take us to be with him. The exact time is concealed from us. We will know when we see the sunrise, S-O-N, right? Now there's two words that are associated in this passage with grace is associated with that first appearance and glory is associated with the second appearance. That's why I thought maybe I should have changed this to from grace to glory. I like that. But the grace of God happened when Jesus appeared that first time, offered himself as a sacrifice. Grace is getting something we don't deserve, right? But we didn't necessarily see his glory in that appearance. We were given grace. But when he comes again, we will see him in all of his glory. So look again at how Paul weaves those words into this text. He said, the grace of God has appeared in the past, bringing salvation for all people and training us in these ways while we wait for the blessed hope, which is the future appearing of his glory, the glory of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. So I thought about this. Here's what I want to say about it. I think that we anticipate the glorious coming of Jesus Christ in direct proportion to how much we appreciate the grace of God in our life. When I was a middle schooler in the 70s, of course, we were on the heels of a great revival. And when you're on the heels of a great revival, there's a high expectation and anticipation for the coming of Christ. Everybody's buzzing about it. Can I be honest with you and say, I didn't really care about that conversation very much. Because what I wanted to do was get into high school. And I wanted to go to college. And I wanted to fall in love. And I wanted to do my life. And I was a little bit annoyed by all the second coming of Jesus Christ. Can anybody else relate to that? Okay, and then my life changed. And then I had to confront my sin. I had to confront the brokenness of my life. I had to, I was a saved as a young person, but I had to embrace the grace of God and hold on and just suck that into my life and understand He had done something for me that I didn't deserve. Ah, it began to change my desire to see the glory of God. And so I think we anticipate the glorious coming of God in direct proportion to how much we appreciate the grace of God in our lives. And those who are saved, those who belong to the Lord are all points on that spectrum. So we don't get frustrated with anyone or even with ourselves. But God has given us a superpower. Do those conversations ever come up? My kids, they still do as adults. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? It's like, these are not the things I think of, okay? I'm like, I don't know. But God has given us a superpower. Right now, physically, I'm standing here and I'm facing you. And physically, all I can do is look this direction. I cannot at the same time look at the back wall as I'm looking at you, okay? Physically impossible. But we have been given a spiritual superpower. And so spiritually, I can be viewing the grace of God that came in the world and anticipate the glory of God all at the same time. I can rise above what I see right here. And I can rise above and look at the whole thing spiritually and understand I'm living in this present age. That's what the Apostle Paul called it, this present age. I'm living in this present age, but I see it both. I see his coming in grace and I see his coming in glory. That's our superpower. We can rise above what's going on in this present age. I think it's kind of cool. Well, verse 14 says that we're in training while we wait. Do you love training? There are people who do. I gave birth to one of them, loves to train, like eats that up to train for something, to train for a competition. Some people do. I, on the other hand, do not love training. Maybe you find it tedious like I do. In college, I had to train for piano class and piano competitions and the tedium of going over technique and memorizing things. It was exhausting to me. But training, when we discipline ourselves, it teaches us, it helps us to say yes to some things and say no to some things. If you are training for a physical situation, you have to say yes to that rigid training schedule and you have to say no to late nights. You have to say no to the wrong types of food. Also, we need motivation when we're training. And Peter gave us some motivation. I want to put this verse up for you. It's from 2 Peter 1. In verse 3, this is out of the NIV, speaking of Jesus, His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him. Can I put a different word in there? His divine power has given us everything we need for training, everything we need to say yes to some things and to say no to other things. So now let's go back into our text in Titus because He is training us to renounce, say no to, ungodliness. Ungodliness are the things that are opposite of God-like, not like God, and say no to worldly passions. The worldly passions are things that naturally come up in us, carnality, sensuality, having my way, being the one that's right, having people pay attention to me. Those are the things that He gives us the power to say no to and then say yes to. Oh, look at that, self-control. Again, to live self-controlled, have a sound mind, upright, godly lives in the present age. So the training, He's giving us what we need to say the yeses and to say the nos. Verse 14 says, because Jesus has redeemed us from lawlessness and purified us, and now we belong to Him, we are His own possession. And now He gives us power to be zealous for good works while we wait. And Paul tells Timothy, so that's what you're supposed to declare, exhort and rebuke in these things. Zealous for good works. Now, what are some of those good works? Oh, we can come up with great Sunday school answers like baking cookies for somebody as an encouragement or picking up somebody, carpooling, you know, whatever. Okay, those are really sweet, good works. But look at where the text takes us, right into chapter three. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities. So we're not gonna go and talk about baking cookies for people. Zealous for good works takes us into submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy toward all people. Ah, there's a good list of being zealous for good works, huh, how do you like that one? Remember, Paul is inspiring Titus to equip the Christians to evangelize their neighbors. Nothing evangelizes better than a life that looks different than theirs. So that people say, huh, they're kind of different, what makes them tick? That sort of thing. So let's look at these three phrases of interest. The first one, submissive to rulers and authorities, to rank under, that is the same word we met before, hupotaso, the pagans were accustomed to lawlessness, breaking the law. Christians who are in training to live differently should obey the law. Now, it is true that as a Christian, we are citizens of heaven, okay, but yet the Lord is telling us to submit to our citizenship on earth, don't rebel against that, but work in cooperation with it. I wanna help us draw a few parallels here with that word, that Greek word that we've met, submit, submissive, that hupotaso word, remember we had it last week, wives must submit to their husbands, citizens must submit to their rulers because there's order in God's economy, there's order and there's rank, okay? Now that's all great, when a husband is good to the wife and when laws are favorable to the citizens, it all works really fine, doesn't it? But what does a Christian do when that is not the case? We'll talk about that in a minute, but I wanna remind you that in both of these examples and in every example you can find where we are told to rank under, we remember this, for the Christian wife, what is her primary eternal relationship? The union with Christ, okay? And then the union with her husband is her earthly relationship, what about for the citizen? Our citizenship in heaven, that is eternal, but yet while we're here, while we wait, we have this relationship, we are a citizen on earth, okay? So there's two things at play here, what's going on? All right, so we asked last week, is it possible for a Christian wife to submit to an unbelieving husband who wasn't holding up his part of that whole marriage drama thing, marriage is a symbol of the union of the church and Christ, well, he's not doing his part, is it possible for that Christian wife to do her part and what did we say? Well, yeah, we said according to 1 Peter 3, it's possible, but here's what it takes, it takes a life yielded to the Lord, takes that sound mind, it takes some discernment and some finesse in that relationship and it stops on the edge of illegal, immoral, unbiblical, okay, what about the citizen? Is it possible for a citizen to obey the authorities that are not honoring God in the laws that they make, is it possible? Yes, but it takes a life yielded to the Lord and it takes discernment and it takes a little bit of finesse and it stops at the border of illegal, immoral or unbiblical okay, so again, like we always say, it's simple, it's just not easy, the next phrase says to be obedient, ranking under does not mean blind obedience, okay, that would violate the primary relationship, the eternal relationship that we're talking about, here's what we do though as people, I find this, me, you, we all do this, so we find that area, we love to find, okay, so where does it hit illegal, immoral, unbiblical, where does it hit that? And we come up with extreme hypothetical things and we say, yeah, but well, what about if they make us throw our babies into the Nile River, then what? Right, we do that, we go to extremes, you know what, we don't have very many extremes in our life usually and you know what that does to us? It causes us to get distracted from what we should just obey today, like do I drive the speed limit? Do I report my income properly? Do I hunt where and when I'm told to do? And so often what we need to do is push away the hypothetical extremes and as my husband always says, we'll fall off that bridge when we get to it and just say, but what about the common everyday things? Am I doing those things? And I think that that's good for us to answer, to be ready for every good work, so with a clear conscience, we're zealous for good works, ready to do whatever is required and of course, this is kind of talking about in a sense of community here and that makes me think about organizations that we have that are ready for every, zealous for good works, ready for every good work. Maybe you can think of some of them too. If there's a wildfire or a tornado or a hurricane, who is there ready for every good work? There are a lot of Christian organizations. Samaritan's Purse is one of my favorites, ready for every good work, that is a great example of how to express, how to adorn the doctrine of God, our savior in civic life. Okay, verse two, told us to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and to show perfect courtesy toward all people, hashtag conversation goals. Those are not easy, but these are goals for any situation in life, but yet the context is what? Civic life, government, community, okay? Interesting that we should hit this passage not only in an election year, but about one week in front of an election. I always find that fascinating. How easy has it been for us this year when we have inconsistencies in mandates and policies and things like that? How easy has it been for us to speak evil of governors that we do not believe have our best interests in mind? How easy is it to speak evil of politicians who seem to us to promote ungodliness and even evil? How easy is it to quarrel with people or quarrel on social media about mandates we don't agree with? It's easy, right? It's easy to do those things. Do you know what we look like when we do those things? We look just like the pagans, don't we? Because we just fall in line. And aren't we being trained to do differently? So we should ask ourself, and I just wanna say here, I wanna say there is a difference between speaking the truth about an issue and speaking evil of someone, okay? So this doesn't mean that we're just quiet and we never say, no, if it's true, what is the heart that you're saying it in? But you need to say, this is the truth of the matter without speaking evil of someone. And that is a possibility. Takes discernment and a little bit of finesse, but it is a possibility. What did Jesus say about paying taxes? Give to Caesar. belongs to Caesar. Now there's finesse for you, you know, I love it. But what interactions or situations tempt us to do the opposite of these verses? And what can we do to put roadblocks in our way so that we don't fall into that, so that we don't fall into the temptation? Because our calling is to view people who make our life difficult as if they have the potential to come into the kingdom. I always get caught on that. I'll be just fuming on the inside trying to be calm on the outside and someone will say, well they just need Jesus. I'm like, no, I don't really want them in the club. Does that, does that shock you that the pastor's wife would say that? But you've thought it too, right? It's like, you know, the kingdom is for nice people, not people like that. That is not what I want to think about right now, is that you should come into the kingdom. So it gets us when, but we need to view people who make our life hard as if they have the potential to enter into God's kingdom. Because look at verse 3. I think that's exactly, I think Paul was reading the minds. Look at there. He says, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient. We were led astray. We were slaves to various passions and pleasures. We were passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others, and hating one another. So Paul connects the dots and he points out, you don't, you're fussing with those people. We ourselves were once like those people. They have the potential to enter into God's kingdom. And did you come into God's kingdom because someone was, you know, because someone spoke evil of you or fussed with you? No, no, that's not how it works. So we end abruptly right there on that weird verse, and the reason is because the next verse, the next sentence is like four verses long and it's too much to take, but we'll back up next week and start on that verse again. But I just want to end with this. This is the stark reality of our existence in this present age while we wait. Sometimes God will not only call on us to live among the fools and the disobedient, but sometimes, all the time, he will call on us to live our lives in a counterculture way that the Word of God is not reviled and we adorn the doctrine of God our Savior, and sometimes he will call upon us to rank under the fools and the disobedient. How could that happen? You know why? It's because we're living in this present age and it's gonna disappear as quickly as it appeared. And it's because we're in training and we are supposed to, we don't train, remember I told you how tedious training is sometimes? We don't train when everything goes well. We train by butting up against challenges, and these present some of the challenges for us that are right here in this text. So the point is we're waiting, we're in training, we're looking forward to that next appearing of Jesus while we wait. Father, we do look forward to your appearing. And Lord, I really am conscious this week that we look forward to it as much as we breathe in your grace from your first appearing. So we thank you, Lord God, that you have redeemed us and you have provided the sacrifice, and by your grace, Lord, you have given us something that we did not deserve. We thank you, we ponder that, we make that part of our thinking, part of our thanksgiving to you, Lord God, so that it is so tender and special to us that it encourages us to want to see your appearing in glory. Lord, these are some tough things that we read in here. I think all of us feel a sense of a little twinge of guilt as we read through some of those things. And I just pray, Lord, that in our training that you would come with the power of your Holy Spirit to build us up and equip us in this, Lord, because we need you. These are things that we cannot do in our own flesh. We need the power of your Spirit to do that. We trust in the power of your Spirit to do that in us, and we thank you for this passage in Jesus' name. Amen.