The Missing Link: Older Women Mentoring the Younger Women

Let's go to Titus chapter 2 as we continue in this wonderful pastoral epistle.

You know the background. The Apostle Paul has left one of his associates, Titus, on the Greek island of Crete, tough place to minister, immoral, worldly, loose living, drunkenness. You name it, they did it on Crete. And he leaves Titus there with the instruction to set things in order in the local churches on the island of Crete. And one of the things he talks about early in the letter that we're into now is the specific duties or roles of the various age groups or you might say segments of the church.

He addresses the older men, the younger men, then the older ladies, the younger ladies, and then the servants and slaves. And what he's getting to is Paul's writing to Titus because Titus is going to face that these segments of the church are out of line. They are not acting appropriately.

Their priorities are wrong. Their habits are not sound and pleasing to the Lord. And so we're on this area here in Titus chapter 2 verses 3 and 4 where Paul tells Titus to get the older women of the church to teach the younger women some specific things.

Let's read it together there. Titus 2 verses 3 and 4. I'm sorry, let's go verses 3 through 5. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the Word of God will not be dishonored. Now concerning ladies in the church and ladies mentoring one another, the older ladies primarily mentoring the younger ladies, I've got a lot of work done on this already and just have spent already a considerable amount of time, far more than normal, on this text and on this truth of the women's role in the church.

And more than that extends of course to the home because the church does things so that the home can be what it's supposed to be. So we're going to spend a lot of time on this, particularly in the application of the truth of the text to our world and to our local church. This text shines true light straight into the aggressive advancement of darkness that is permeating our culture. This text corrects the insidious error or the insidious lie that has saturated our world. The insidious lie or error that this text speaks of causes us to be projected out into the front lines of the battle.

So I plan to lash on the full armor of God and wade unflinchingly into this battle. I want to point out that we face this vicious and unrelenting enemy and this enemy seems to have one predominant purpose and one major strategy at least as far as women are concerned. The enemy that's swarming around us in the culture and infiltrating the church has one predominant purpose and a top strategy, if you will, and particularly a strategy that concerns women. The purpose, the predominant purpose of this enemy is to bring reproach on Christ and on his gospel and to weaken the church of Jesus Christ.

That's his ultimate goal and everything he does bring dishonor, disdain, contempt, disrepute on the name of Christ in the gospel and weaken the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. And one of his major strategies and it could very well be that in our day, the major strategy the enemy is utilizing is this, to captivate Christian women by the deceptive lie. 2 Timothy 3, 5 and 6, we've referred to some as we come to these texts about women.

Paul sells Timothy as he is overseeing the church there in Ephesus. He said, there are those men who, verse 5, 6 Timothy 3, hold to the form of godliness, although they have denied its power and avoid such men as these. These are men who act like they know what they're talking about.

Their teaching seems wise and profitable, but they're phonies, they're hypocrites, they're false teachers. And notice what their goal is, notice their strategy, verse 6. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women, weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses. Now in a broader sense, when you talk about weak women that are especially vulnerable to the enemy's strategies, they might just come down in two categories. One category of weak women would just be young women who have just not been around long enough, under the word long enough, converted long enough, in the church long enough to have learned to be careful about these false strategies. The young women, like Paul tells Titus about, they need special protection.

The second category of weak women could be those older women who ought to know better, but willingly they're carnal, they're worldly, they're chasing one emotional whim after another, so they're very vulnerable, they're easy prey for the enemy to captivate them with his lie. I was in southern Africa with Vody Baucom some years ago, and Vody and I were traveling down a road in a suburban area and there was no street lighting. And as the headlights of the car we were in would shine, there were just hordes of young people just everywhere, just mingling around everywhere.

It might be five or six here, 12 over here, eight over there, just continuing. I said, well, man, there's just young people everywhere. And Vody quickly said yes and look at all of the unprotected girls.

What was Vody saying? He's saying those girls need daddies to protect them from the strategies and the efforts of the enemy. And by the way, fathers, you know what's right behind you and essential for you as you protect your daughters? A sound local church to raise those daughters in. It takes all of us to raise a child.

The federal government can keep their hands off of our families. The church will take care of our families. So this lie has made significant inroads even to the professing church. Well, pastor, based on the truth of this text and what you're thinking is a key strategy of the enemy, particularly directed at women, what is this lie? Here it is. That a woman's primary purpose and fulfillment is to be found in the world and specifically in a career.

Did you hear me? That a woman's primary, note my words, primary fulfillment and significance is found in the world and particularly in a career. I'm not saying, the Bible wouldn't allow me to say that a woman cannot have employment outside the home.

Many women maybe do and they should not, but that's not what the Bible teaches. It's more of a heart issue and a time issue and a balance issue. But now just working outside the home to help out is very different than having as your primary purpose a career in the world.

Two very different things. And that's the lie that women on earth are put here so that they can primarily find their fulfillment in this world and particularly in a career. That means by consequence, if a woman's primary heart purpose and intention is a career in this world, then she will not have time to do what this text says.

Love her husband, love her children and be a keeper of her home being subject to her husband and all things. I don't know if you've loved any husbands lately. That's a lot of love. That's a lot of time.

That's a lot of energy. I don't know if you've loved any children lately. They require a lot of love, a lot of time and a lot of energy. I don't know if you've kept a house well.

Takes a lot of love, takes a lot of time and takes a lot of energy. And then you're going to tack onto that as a purpose of your life to have a career in the world. You need to take things up with the manager of this whole system.

Working outside the home may be allowable in your case. I don't know. Well, my husband's good with it.

Well, that's fine. Make sure God's good with it, though. We'll deal with some of that a little more later on. We face this unrelenting attack in our world today against the biblical role of womanhood.

And there's so many inroads and successes that the enemy is having here. I mean, for example, where in this present culture can a woman find support for her God-ordained duties of loving her husband, loving her children and keeping her home? Where are you going to find it out there? Is there a class in high school on that?

Is there a class or a degree in the university where they'll teach you that? Maybe we can call up Washington, D.C. Surely they have wisdom. Maybe they've got a whole department up there to help young women grasp this essential foundational role that God has given women in our world.

It's not there, is it? That's the ploy of the enemy. And see, it's not just that the culture is discouraging these duties and in many cases ignoring them, it's out and out attacking them. They're not really just satisfied and say, well, if that's what you want to do because of your religion, well, that's OK. No, they want to disdain you. They want to discredit you. They want to demean you.

They want to belittle you every way they can. If you honor God's word as your primary goal and purpose in life, love my husband. To love my children. And to be a good keeper of my home.

Think about the inroads with just these few examples. Our text tells us that women are to be taught by the older women in the church to love their husbands and submit to their husbands. You know, I've heard several times lately that upwards to 80 percent of all divorces today are initiated by the wife. That doesn't sound like loving a husband, does it?

And it goes up to 90 percent if the wife has a college education. Because the spirit of the age is that husbands are optional. Men are optional.

You might have one if you get him to fit into your mold. Why don't we just fit God's mold for husbands and God's mold for women and God's mold for children? Such inroads they are making. Our text tells us that the older women ought to be teaching the younger women to love their children. And I'll elaborate on just what this love for husband and love for children means in this text later on. But we'll just go on for our purposes for now. But my question is, how are we doing here on finding a renewed emphasis and a strong primary purpose among the women of our culture to love children?

How are we doing there? Well, what could be more indicting of an indication of women turning their hearts away from children than the abortion industry? Children are disposable. Since you've believed the lie that the primary purpose of a woman is out in the world and out in a career, if you get pregnant and that child's in the way, just remove it.

Take its life away. You know, for the first time in history in the United States of America, there are more 30-year-old women childless than there are 30-year-old women who have children. I mean, in the prime of childbearing years, instead of treasuring and joying in the duties of God to raise children, to be a good impact and a good influence in the world, women are deciding children are not that important. We can put that off. What's important is the lie that my primary purpose and my primary fulfillment is in the world and in my career. And it's all a lie. And by the way, it's not working.

There's a payday someday. They're coming out with survey after survey, research after research, that the women who are following this modern lie, and it's been going on for a few generations, hasn't it? They're getting into their 40s, going into 50, many of them not married yet, because that's optional. That's not the primary thing. Loving men is not the primary thing.

We might use men if we need one. Loving men is not the primary thing. So they're not married, some of them are, they are married, but they're getting past childbearing years. And in the surveys, the older middle-aged women are by far more unhappy than any other time in history. They note that they're longing for intimacy. They're longing for companionship. They long for children that now they can't have. They're longing for the family they don't have. And they're unhappy.

You know why? Because Satan's a liar. He always has been a liar. He always will be a liar.

They believe that lie, that the primary purpose is go to school, get an education, and that's good for all of us, and then make this world and a career in this world our primary heart commitment. And by the way, this is not something new. Here we have, in the book of Titus, Paul 2,000 years ago writes to Titus and said, Titus, one of the foundational things you're going to have to work on is to help especially the yoga women get their hearts and purpose out of the world and back at home, loving their husbands, loving their children, and being good keepers of their homes. So 2,000 years ago it was a problem. Brothers and sisters, Satan has nothing new.

He just keeps recycling it and throwing it back out there and recycling it and throwing it back. Do you know there was a feminist movement in ancient Greece? I mean, 2,000 years ago there was a feminist movement, and a lot of the women wouldn't wear anything on their chest to bare their chest and try to act strong like the men were strong.

There's just nothing new. Sin is sin. Let's go all the way back to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Here we have Eve in the Garden of Eden, and Satan comes up to her.

Now, do you think there's any strategy on Satan going to Eve first instead of Adam? Well, Paul teaches that women are generally more vulnerable because they think deeply with their hearts and their emotions, which gives them strengths for nurturing and compassion men don't have. Praise God, men. Amen?

I like it when mama's compassionate and nurturing. We tough guys need that. So God's given women that strength, but they're also more vulnerable. Satan goes to Eve, and Satan says back to Eve, Let me tell you something.

I can fix this thing for you. You are missing out. God's will for you, Eve, is not sufficient. There's something bigger and better if you'll listen to my words, Eve.

And it was a lie. If you'll eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, now listen to this, which God told your husband not to do. See, immediately Eve says, Now, wait a minute.

Adam's the one that told me because God told Adam before I was around. She goes out from under her headship, finds out I'm going to believe this. I'm going to fix me. I'm going to eat. It's going to fix this thing right up. We'll have the knowledge of good and evil. Satan's told me that, and we can be like God. That's what Satan told Eve.

So I'll eat this, and I'll fix me and see what I'll do. Then I'll fix Adam. And wife's been trying to fix Adam ever since. And she got Adam to eat, and he ate. And she thought this is going to give us paradise, and all it did was lose paradise. And we've been lost from it ever since. Because it's a lie.

It's a lie. Actually, for a few years now, I have been sensing a renewal among the ladies in this church to do better in this area, to do better of encouraging and even very practically encouraging our younger women. That if you meet with God and you're fine with the scriptures and you can have employment outside the home, but it cannot be your primary purpose. God's already given you a job description. It can't interfere with that.

It must complement your primary purpose of loving your husband, loving your wife, and be a keeper of the home. You know, this thing about women working, it's never been a question, can women do many jobs as good or better than men? Absolutely, they can. Many of them.

But it is interesting. 90 to 95% of all sewer workers are men. 90 to 95% of bricklayers are men. 90 to 95% of the folks who keep the electrical grid going are men. 95 plus percent of those who work on the oil rigs are men. Natural gas, men. Ladies, what are you going to do without men?

They're not expendable. It's kind of like the Proverbs says, you know, where the oxen is, the manger doesn't stay clean, but there's a lot of advance or blessing we get out of the oxen. Well, these guys may be rough to be around, ladies, but there's some good that comes out of them, too. Ladies can do a lot of jobs better than men, but there is not one man that can love his wife. There's not one man that can love babies like mamas love babies. Can't do it!

Cannot do it! God didn't make them to do it! Not like mamas can. And I don't care how domestic you make old Joe out to be, there's no man that can keep a home like a mama can keep a home. And we can't do without these things. And raise children and be a witness for Christ like we need to be and make other things our primary goal. You okay? I'm just preaching the Word.

I'm being as balanced as I know how to be. But there's been a renewal of that. I know it has been in Ms. Pam's heart. She's been talking to me about it over and over, and she's very transparent, she's very humble about it. There are things I didn't do as well as I should have done them, but I want our next generation to do better than I did.

Is that not fair enough, ladies? And that's why in my last sermon, what a month or so ago, one of my practical application points was, be a hypocrite and start now. And it's only a figure of speech.

A hypocrite is that person that parades like they were this great person. They really were not. You're not doing that at all. What I mean is, Satan is going to tell you, well, I dropped the ball here. I didn't do well there. I didn't teach this to my daughters. Whatever it is, whatever it is, I didn't do well there, I didn't teach this to my daughters, whatever it is.

Well, men have that too. Look, draw a line in the sand and say, yes, but we can go forward from here. Amen? Roman number one, that's my introduction.

Y'all are going to have to listen, listen faster or something. The missing link, older women mentoring the younger women. That's what Paul tells Titus to get going.

So, and say, this is what I love about this. I don't know if this has ever happened in my ministry where I can dump all of this off of you and then back up and say, it's not my job, the older women's job. It's the older women's job to help these younger women get back to loving their husbands and loving their children and keeping their homes. So Paul tells these older ladies that they must, look at verse four in our text, they may encourage, that's the New American Standard translates in, the younger women to love their husbands, love their children, be sensible, pure workers at home, kind, subject to their own husbands so that the word of God would not be dishonored.

So you could translate the word the older women should teach or the older women should train or even mentor, but it's an interesting word, the word that's translated encourage in the New American Standard. It comes from a root that means to be of sound mind or be of sane thinking, to have sanity, not insanity. And so in one sense, Paul is alluding to Titus, some of our ladies in the church, particularly young ladies, are acting like they're insane, they've lost their minds. Well, how have they lost their minds? Because they think there's something higher and better than loving their husbands and loving their children and keeping their homes.

That's insane thinking. Older ladies, you've got to love, not like I'm doing it, okay, you've got to lovingly and patiently encourage these younger ladies that there's one thing that really matters and one thing that really counts, and it's not out there in the world. So be of sound mind, help them Titus, help the older ladies to get going with teaching the younger ladies to think with sanity. So older ladies by both their example and their verbal instruction are responsible to train these younger ladies to think soundly, not so much as if they have lost their minds. They need to think soundly concerning the priority of their lives and the excellent discharge of the God-given duties God has given them. I know what some of you are thinking, well, I love Jesus and I love my family and my husband, I'm going to do all these other things and I'm going to tack my home on at the end of all of it and it's going to work out good for me. That's one thing you get when you pastor 40-something years in the same place, you see the end result of choices. Older ladies do not end well when they compromise on these primary truths. You just don't grow old well.

And I want you to. We'll talk a lot about that in the following sessions, Lord willing. The island of Crete where Titus is ministering, Paul left him there to set things in order, and he said to Titus, He said to Titus, The island of Crete where Titus is ministering, Paul left him there to set things in order. It is a place where the women, especially the younger women, had lost their minds. They were prone to think contrary to scriptural truth and contrary to nature.

You see, nature teaches us this. And the older women now in the church are going to be held responsible to launch a determined counter-attack. In verse 5 of chapter 1 where Paul tells Titus to set things in order, literally it could be translated to straighten things out. So these older ladies are responsible to straighten the things out in the church so that the younger ladies get back better on course in their thinking and in discharge of their duties. This insidious intrusion of insane thinking has found a lodging place into the hearts of too many hearts and minds of young women.

That's Paul's point. So the key question is, what was this error in their thinking? What was this error in the behavior of young women?

Well, you deduce it very clearly. They were not loving their husbands and putting them first. They were not loving their children and putting them first. They were not committed to keeping their homes the way God means for a woman to keep their homes. So that's the missing link.

The older ladies were not involved like they should have been of mentoring the younger ladies. Romans 2, the major problem. I mean, the problem behind all the problem was that this dishonors the Word of God. Notice how he says it there.

And I'm going to hurry along here because our time is so short. But in verse 5, he says the last phrase, so that the Word of God will not be dishonored. And the sloshing over of the Word of God being dishonored in the church and among any segment in the church was that the community would then hold Christ and his gospel in disrepute or disrespect.

It's robbing God of his glory. And matter of fact, that's Paul's thinking all through here. Let me jump down to, for example, when Paul instructs the young men. Look at verse 8 of chapter 2. The young men are to be sound in speech which is beyond reproach so that the opponent will be put to shame having nothing bad to say about us. In other words, if the young women will behave right according to Bible truth, if the young men will behave right according to Bible truth, then the community at large will respect what we are and they'll not hold our God into reproach. Hold God's name in disrepute. God will be glorified.

That's the major issue. The major problem was the reputation of Christ is being marred in the community because the ladies were not acting like Christian ladies. They were acting like worldly ladies. Then in verse 9, the slaves and the servants earned bond slaves to be subject to their own masters and everything and well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the gospel of God our Savior in every state. They will show that Christ makes us different and God will be glorified. So that's the major purpose. So the big problem, Paul says, if the ladies act this way, if the young men act this way, if the slaves act this way, the older ladies don't do their job, then we're not going to live according to the Scriptures and the world will mock us and mock our God.

Dishonor Him and rob Him of the glory He deserves. So some of you older ladies may feel like, I don't know what to do with my life. Oh, there's a lot to do. There's a lot to do. Call me up. I can give you the names of some of the young ladies you need to talk to.

There's plenty to do. So the chain of responsibility that Paul is laying out for Titus is, Titus, I'm giving you this instruction, which became inspired Scripture. It's a book of the Bible. So it's the Bible. And then it's given to Titus, Titus functioning as the pastor of these churches. Titus gets it to the older ladies and then the older ladies are to take these things to the younger ladies. So how do we get this sound teaching, this sound doctrine for women in the practical application, particularly in Grace Life Church of the Shoals? Well, let me give you some ideas. We're very practical this morning. All right.

How does the flow of this come out? Well, first of all, always in our small groups. That's where a lot of good mentoring of the older to the younger can take place. And we've worked really hard, Brother David now, Brother Nathan helping him works really hard to put older, mature ladies and older, mature men, for that matter, teaching younger ladies or younger men. Why?

Because of the mentoring element. But what I want to do for you ladies is to release you to go for it. Go for it. Talk about the things. Talk about what it looks like. Talk about what you've learned.

Talk about where you blew it. But hey, I did this part pretty good. This is effective way to love your husband. These are effective practical things in loving your children.

And these are effective practical things in keeping your home. And by all means, don't lose your minds and think fulfillment for you is out there. That may be fulfilling because sin is fulfilling for a season. But it's going to come back to bite you.

If you don't put first what God puts first. So small groups is an arena where natural mentoring could happen, then extension of the small groups. What we have for decades called accountability groups is another way that some mentoring could happen. Now, I know the accountability group is formally set up to hold each other accountable for memorizing scripture, for having a daily quiet time with the Lord and for sharing your faith. And we did it that way because we wanted to be simple, long lasting. If you get a whole lot of things that you're formally accountable for, it tends to die out.

It doesn't last. But I've always taught as you're being accountable for those three basics, quiet time, scripture, memorization, meditation and sharing your faith. You should naturally go over our slosh over into talking about things and helping one another in areas other than those three basics.

Like if you're guys, how you doing treating your wife or if you're a wife, how are we doing in our homes, et cetera, et cetera. Mentoring can take place and should take place to a degree in accountability groups. A third way that we're doing here at Grace Life, something we just started, is our Mentoring Mondays. Now, I understand that they're probably going to be on Sunday, so they're not going to be Mentoring Mondays. They'll be Mentoring Sundays or whatever, whatever Miss Pam tells me to call it. That's what we'll call it.

All right. But the whole purpose of that is to find ladies in our church who are seasoned in particular areas that they might encourage the younger ladies in those areas. A fourth one is what I would just call natural relationships and natural fellowship that just happens. The most obvious and foundational of these being your family. Can I charge you moms, be more intentional about teaching your daughters about loving husbands. Moms, be more intentional about teaching your daughters about loving husbands. Moms, be more intentional about teaching your daughters of how you got to make sure your heart is centered in your babies and loving your children.

I'll go ahead and mention this, though we'll elaborate on it later. But the concept here of loving husbands and loving children is not just you loving yours. You love the fact that God's created you to be the caretaker of that child. You love that God's created you to be the helpmate of that husband.

And you love the concept of it. You embrace it and treasure it. Older ladies help the younger ladies get that.

We'll elaborate on it as the time goes by. Grandmothers, be more intentional about teaching your granddaughters in these important areas. And that comes the thought to me under natural relationships or really all of these mentoring methods that we presently have before us.

That it's modeling before someone is always the best way to teach them. You remember Acts 1 where Paul is writing the book of Acts. I mean, Luke is writing the book of Acts and he refers back to his gospel he wrote. So he's writing Acts but he refers back to the gospel. He writes in Acts 1, 1, the first thing I wrote Theophilus, that is in my gospel, was about all that Jesus began to do and teach. Notice that. It's what he did.

He modeled in front of us and he taught us. So ladies, we've got to be modeling what it looks like to love your husband. Have you found out that if you love out of duty then your heart catches up?

Have you found that out? One of the most ungodly, unwise barriers to human flourishing is the idea that God intends for you to be happy in your marriage. That marriage was meant to make you happy. That's stupid.

That's the dumbest thing I've heard. The Bible says that if you get married you're going to have trouble in this life. That's what Paul said. Because you're a fallen flesh being and they're a fallen flesh being and you've got your idiosyncrasies and hang-ups and weird stuff and they got all of their stuff and you put two of you together. Trouble! No, you're put together that your marriage might be an expression of the gospel and Jesus' love for his church and the church loves for her Savior. And it might show to the world Jesus Christ and then you fight it out together that you might get some goodness and fun and joy in the process.

Are you hearing me church? You wrestle with it and you strive with it and you slam the door and you come back and say, I'm sorry I shouldn't slam the door. You just keep working at it and then you find some happiness along the way. And you find out the more I commit to do what I'm supposed to do, even if I don't feel like it, the more my heart is moved to cherish that person. That's the way it's designed to work. That's a whole other sermon.

Let's go to something else. You've got to model it in front of these folks, our children, our daughters here in this particular example. Modeling, let me say this, Jimmy Irving was the president of Pro Missions. We worked with Jimmy Irving and Pro Missions for years and he had a seminar. I don't think I ever got him to teach it, but I should have. He was always an associate pastor, a senior associate pastor. What Matt's doing now, what I used to do. Brother Matt, it might be something to get our hands on because Matt does a great job in my classes in the PTI of telling people how an associate pastor ought to function.

Does an excellent job. But Jimmy Irving wrote a series of messages on you follow Jesus by following men. That sounds wrong, but it's not wrong. God intends for us to watch the models of others. And it's a great part of our discipleship in learning how to love and serve God. For example, 2 Thessalonians 3 7. Paul says to the Thessalonians, For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you. Paul's not saying I'm the final arrival.

I'm the perfect example. He's saying no, but in many ways, I've shown you what it looks like to follow Jesus. So follow me and follow Jesus. You follow Jesus by following men. Philippians 3 17. Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern. That's modeling. That's modeling it in front of someone. Just contemplating on this whole thing of mentoring and Grace Life Church, taking our purpose of older ladies, mentoring the younger ladies from maybe a 2 or 3 on the scale of 1 to 10 and getting it up to a 7 maybe.

Just bumping it up. I thought about my childhood and this happened several times in my childhood. Some of y'all will tell me, I heard those same conversations in my childhood. If I was sitting in a room, maybe my grandmother was in there, my mother was in there, two or three of my aunts were in there, my sisters were in there. Sometimes, somebody would bring up, well, I taught so-and-so how to cook. Oh, and then it started. No, I really taught them how to cook.

And then the other one, no, no, no, no, but I taught so-and-so and so-and-so. There was pride in mentoring the next generation of women in keeping their homes. It was just, I believe these ladies knew the Lord, but that wasn't the basic, it was just a cultural thing.

I think, why did we lose that? When did we decide that God's clear teaching is kind of a optional thing, but these girls must make their mark with the corporations of the world? I tell you, you need to make your mark on. You need to make your mark on Johnny and Susie.

Those babies God's given you. Again, I'm not saying there's no place for working in the world for a lady, but you've got to be very careful and balanced and wise that it does not take the place of what God's assigned you to do. Let the women of Scripture mentor you, 1 Peter 3, 5 and 6. He's saying, ladies, learn how to robe yourselves, looking at the example in the Scriptures of the holy ladies of old, being submissive to their own husbands. I think the idea is that they would not dress like they're suggestive to other men.

They dress like they belong to a man, their husband. Verse 6, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, and you have become your children if you do what is right. Well, lady, here's the key phrase, without being frightened by any fear. Down with sins, led on by various impulses.

The one great scholar says the phrase frightened by any fear means a nervous agitation. What's going to happen? What's going to happen?

What's going to happen? Peter says, don't let that stop you from in faith going ahead and doing what's right for your daughters. Yeah, but all the world says that it doesn't matter what the world wants. It matters what God says works. What God says is best. Don't be frightened by any fear. Well, good books, that'd be the last one.

You can read a lot of good books, ladies, that will give you some good insights on just how does this work? How can we be reminded of what our priorities are? And how can we put this into shoe leather and live this out?

I call it secondhand modeling because you're reading it from a book not seen in somebody's life. But sometimes that's all you have. When we started here as pastoring people 30, whatever, seven, eight years ago, whatever it was, we decided to reform this church and to be more biblical. And it was hard to find encouragement.

It was easy to find naysayers and critics. But I found a lot of old Baptists from the 17th and 19th century, and I read their biographies, and they were doing the biblical things I thought the church ought to be doing because they're biblical. And they mentored me because there was almost no one else to do it. So you've been down that road in many ways. And sometimes you just have to find somebody out there. I've actually had ladies say to me, well, who's going to mentor me? And I've had to say, you just have to start. We're just going to have to suck it up, draw a line in the sand and just start.

Now, listen, ladies, without judgment. Without legalism. Without condemnation. Amen.

But starting where we are and going forward. See, I might not even need to preach any of this other work I've got together because this right here might do enough. I don't know. Last one, I call it organic.

Organic. While there must be intentionality, it's just like God just in the going on of your regular life to put somebody there that's the lady you need to mentor you. It's just like God in your regular church life and everyday life for God to put that person in your life that you need to mentor. So be aware of who God's put around you.

I think probably I talk about too many personal things and maybe I'm too transparent. But starting in the ministry, I had to learn a lot about personal relationships and getting along with people. Just doing better at that. And God put a man in my life that was just excellent at that. And I asked him early on, I said, how did you learn to be so good in social settings? And I'm not talking about glad handing and happy Jack patchy on the back kind of stuff. I'm talking about just genuinely caring for people personally.

He said, I worked at it. I thought, oh, you don't just be born this way? All this silly, stupid, childish, less than kindergarten nonsense in our culture today that, well, I'm just born this way. You're born a depraved sinner. You can't act that out, dummy. You don't just do what you're born as. You become what Christ is. Folks, are we not being bombarded with the most juvenile, insane, childish nonsense?

It's not about what we it's about what we need to become young people. I just got to be true to me. You're a freak. You don't know who you are. You don't even understand what life is. You don't even know right from wrong. You don't know up from down.

You don't know anything yet. You can become a much better version of a true man or true woman. You have to repent of things, deny things, change things, do hard things and become somebody.

You are born any certain way, but born a wretched sinner. This book fixes everything. It fixes everything. What was that? What was my point? They organically got to just put people in your life and listen to me. You're going to have to brute aggressively grab yourself by the nap on the next thing. I'm changing this about me. And you know what?

You might not score 100 on it, but you might get up to 75 where you were at 25. Are you with me, church? We have so many precious, good and Godly ladies in this church. I mean, precious, good and Godly ladies. And so as your pastor, as the mouthpiece, I hope, of God, I'm saying to you, I unleash you to be about the task of helping the younger women, to know what it looks like to be devoted and to act out loving your husbands, loving your children and being a good keeper of your home. And Proverbs promises, ladies, if you do that, in your latter years, your children will rise up and bless you. Your husband will praise you.

Even your renown cannot be hid from the community at large. But IBM isn't going to care a flip about you when you're 80 years old and retired. Are you hearing me?

IBM is not going to care. But what you did for your husband, for those babies that are at home, God will cause it to bring you praise. You can tell this has been burning in my heart, can't you?

You know why? Are you listening to me, church? I don't have any special gifts.

The gifts I have are common. But if I have a gift of discernment, I can see where the dominoes are falling. I just can't.

I can see where if we don't do better here, we're not going to lack that 10th and 12th dominoes out there. And we need to just kind of be pushing back in the other. And ladies, listen to me. Listen to me, pastor. I love you and I'm for you. This is not condemnation.

And I know some of you may not be doing the things you ought to do as well because I'm just trying to pay bills. Look, I know that and my heart's with you and I bleed with you over that. All I'm saying is keep taking it to God and say, God, is there a way out of this?

Is there a way I can shift on this? You never know what God might do. Well, Brother Tim's our media guy. Brother Tim, we'll cut some of this out before it goes on the Internet, all right? But it's the truth. There are freaks, there are idiots, they don't know anything. They think, oh, we're wise.

No, you're stupid. It's just so clear. This right here is the wisdom. I don't have any. This right here is the wisdom. That's the wisdom. And I'll die on that mountain.