The Young Christian Woman #1

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Today, Don continues teaching God's people God's Word in our current series titled, Living as God's People. Let's join Don with part one of a message called, The Young Christian Woman on the Truth Pulpit. We have been teaching out of the book of Titus, and I invite you to turn there with me. Titus chapter two is where we are at.

Remember, what Paul has done in these early verses of Titus chapter two is rooted in the soil of the things that we have just seen from verses 11 to 14, and then into Titus chapter three. And so he speaks to older men. He's speaking to older Christian men and saying, in light of the work of Christ, this is the kind of person, this is the kind of character that you are to cultivate. In light of the work and person of Christ, verse three, this is what older women are to be like. They are to watch their tongues, and they are to seek to minister to the younger women in the church, and to have the teaching of kindness on their tongues. And now we come to a most practical passage in verses four through five that address the young women in the church, and this is of most practical consequence. Our church, Truth Community Church, I'm glad to say is blessed with a number, a very encouraging number of young women who want to be godly.

It shows in the way, in the decisions that they make for those that are married, it shows in the way that they live their lives and the way that they give themselves to their husband and to their children. It is a blessed encouragement for us in leadership to have such young women like that in our church. And so as I'm preaching from this passage today, my goal is to strengthen and encourage you in that, and also to give you an opportunity to see how you might continue to grow in Christ.

Beloved, here's the thing, and the things that we're going to talk about here have broader application than just the young ladies, but the text is speaking primarily to the young ladies today. And those of you that are maybe in your teenage years, and you're not yet at that stage of starting a relationship or starting a family, this is an amazing opportunity for you to look at what God sets as the aspirations of a godly heart. And if you're a young woman, a young teen woman in Christ, you have an opportunity to see what God defines as the priorities for a young woman, which you are becoming, and to start to cultivate your desires in that direction. It's not too early for you to pursue a godly life. It's not too early for you to cultivate these virtues in your own heart as you go forward.

And to think about what kind of woman do I want to become? What kind of woman should I be in light of the work of Christ in my life? That's what we have before us in this wonderful text. And so what does godliness look like for a young woman in Christ?

What should mark the aspirations of her heart? Before I read the text, I want to kind of pull my introduction into this and help you think again on a most basic fundamental level. Ladies, whatever it is that God's Word has for you, understand that it is necessarily going to be different from the world. And it is going to be different from your prior way of life before Christ saved you.

If you were the child of Satan before salvation, which you were, and now you are the child of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, it should be obvious that you should expect something fundamentally different than what animated you before. And if this world, as it does, lies in the power of the evil one, 1 John 5, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, and the world expresses itself in its philosophies and its entertainment and in its advertising and what it entices you and calls you and tells you what you should be. Ladies, you should understand that whatever God's Word has for you is going to be something very distinct and counter-cultural to that. We should not expect when we come to Scripture to find that which affirms what the world is doing. We would not expect to find Scripture affirming what women do who have no regard for Christ whatsoever.

Ladies, you've got to stop and step back and think in those fundamental terms. The world is opposed to Christ. The world belongs to Satan. The world speaks from what it knows, and what it knows is ungodliness. If you are in Christ, you've been saved for the purpose of godliness, and that is going to be different.

It is going to be distinct from what the world affirms as being important and the things that you should pursue. So, what does godliness look like for a young woman, and where would we find godliness defined for us? Well, we find godliness defined for us in the Word of God. We find it defined for us by the Word of Christ as expressed through his apostle Paul.

Jesus called the apostle Paul to his ministry and equipped him and authorized him to speak and to be a vessel of the revelation of Christ to his church. It's here that we find what God has for young women and what he calls them to do. We'll start in verse three to pick up the context, and then we'll read through verse five where it says older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good. What is good? What is it that older women should be teaching younger women?

What is that good teaching? Well, Paul immediately defines it and gives the content of the teaching that young women should be looking for, that older women in the church should be voicing to them what church leadership and what husbands and what men in the church should be affirming and supporting and making enabling to happen. It's this in verse four, 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. Ladies, God has called you to a deep-seated commitment to biblical priorities and he has defined them for you in his authoritative word.

Listen, this isn't about a patriarchal system trying to impose and control women. This is what the lovely Lord Jesus Christ blesses young women with and points them in this direction by sovereign prerogatives saying, this is the life that I saved you to live. This is the life that I, by my authority, Christ speaking, Christ calls you by his authority to this kind of life.

The Christian woman of any age, the truly Christian woman should never, would never buck against Christ and say, I don't like that, I reject that, I don't care that it's in God's word, that's not what I want. Oh ladies, that's not the Spirit of Christ speaking in you. The Spirit of Christ speaking in you is that which is like what Isaiah said, Lord, here I am, send me. And in the words of the Apostle Paul when Christ stopped him on the road to Damascus, Lord, what would you have me to do? You see, you come and you lay your sensitive, tender heart out before the one who saved it and you lay it before Christ and in prayer and in a life understanding and commitment you say, Lord, what would you have for me? Because you are the supreme object of my love and my affection, you are the one who saved my soul and so of course I'm going to submit myself to you.

What is it that you want from me? You come to Christ with that kind of spirit and then the blessings can flow as his word starts to shape the way that you think and ultimately the way that you live and that's what we see expressed here in verses four and five. Ladies, God calls you to a deep-seated commitment to the priorities of Christ for your life and we're going to see that expressed in four different ways here in our message today and first of all, this is where we'll spend most of our time, it's the priority of relationships. First of all, it's a priority of relationships and I realize that we have a number of unmarried ladies in our church and this passage in this section of Scripture here speaks to what your priorities are even if you do not have a family yet, you are not yet married, you do not have children. What you see is the priority of relationships in the heart of a godly woman. The godly woman should be devoted to her relationships. This is anti-cultural, this is not elevating career as the aspiration of a woman that that becomes the defining thing that she wants.

I got to have a career, I want to be a CEO myself, I'm going to show that I can be just as good as any man in any occupation. That's the world talking, that's the world talking. The world that's dominated by Satan, that's the world talking. In those kinds of terms, God speaks differently. Look at verse four, what are the older women to be instructing the younger women in? Verse four, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children. Encourage here that they may encourage the young woman. It has the sense of training them in self-control, in developing this as the controlling disposition of your life.

You exercise discipline in your mind in order to think in this way. The older women are called to tell the younger women these things and to graciously, lovingly bring them to their senses to understand what it is that God has for them so that the older women are telling these younger women, sweetheart, love your husband, love your children. You tell me that your husband is difficult to live with, love him in the midst of it. You tell me that your children are hard to discipline and you're disciplining them for the same thing six times a day and it never seems to stop and you're tired and you're frustrated and you feel unappreciated.

The older women says, sweetheart, I understand that. Here's what you do in the midst of it. You love your husband and you love your children.

That's what you are to do. Now look, ladies, what you quickly see when real life hits the fan so to speak, what you quickly find out is that this is lived out. This is lived out in obedience to Christ, not in the context of a lot of flowers and romance necessarily. Some of you may find a man who buys you flowers every week, who whispers sweet nothings in your ear from day to day.

You may find that, but as life goes on, that's not always the way that it's lived out. I'll tell you something. Everyone in this room is going to hate me for what I'm about to say, but just to give you a sense that you can have sympathy for my wife. I don't know when I last actually sent her flowers.

Here's what I do. We have a little agreement. She likes this, but if I go to Kroger or Costco, you know what I'll do? I'll take a little picture of the flowers. I text her the picture of the flowers, thinking of you.

Yeah, you can hiss and all of that. It's a lot less expensive. We have an understanding. My point here being is that it's not always going to play out in the romantic ways that you've thought in your youth. It's not always going to be the outcome in the Hallmark movies that you watch at Christmas time, ladies.

The reality is likely to be less glamorous, more challenging, more of a grind from day to day. And in the midst of it, the call of Christ on your life is for you to love your husband and to love your children. What does that even mean?

If it's not about romance and big, fluffy feelings about one another, what does that even mean? Well, let's step back and think about the Christ who saved you. What did love motivate Christ to do? Look over at Matthew chapter 20 with me. Matthew chapter 20. As we're turning here, remember and understand that we're seeing what Christ says. I'm not saying that Christ affirms me in sending photos of flowers to my wife.

That's kind of a joke. As we get serious about it, what did the love of Christ compel and call him to do? In Matthew chapter 20 verse 26, actually look at verse 25, you see this. Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you.

That's the worldly way. In Christ, in me, Jesus says, it's something different. In me as my disciple verse 26, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Love in Christ motivated him to serve, to give of himself for the benefit and the advancement of his disciples. In John chapter 15, turn there with me.

John chapter 15, there's so many passages we probably should take time to look at 1 Corinthians 13, but we won't. Just seeing this out of the mouth of Jesus, John 15 verse 12, he says, this is my commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. Jesus was speaking this on the eve of his crucifixion. He's speaking about love and he says, here's what love does. Love lays down its life for those in its circle of relationships. And you are my friends if you do what I command you. Jesus says, in essence, looking back on it, Jesus says, I am about to lay down my life for you at the cross. That's what friends do.

That's what love does. It lays down its life for the objects of its love. And then he went out and he laid his life down for his friends, for us, suffering in our stead, bearing the wrath of God on our behalf, receiving the nails, receiving the crown of thorns, receiving the spittle in his face, receiving the outpouring of the wrath of God. Beloved, in that moment, nothing glorious from an earthly perspective was happening. It was all an act of self-sacrifice on the part of our Lord. Ladies, that changes the way you view everything if you're in Christ. You no longer complain, I have to sacrifice so much in this place.

My husband is ungrateful, my children don't cooperate with me, and it makes me angry. That's not the spirit of it, ladies. That's the spirit of the world.

It's not the spirit of Christ. No, you look at Christ, you look at what love incarnate looks like, you look at the sacrifice, and you say to yourself, he did that for me. He loved me and gave himself up for me. He sacrificed for me when I was a rebel against him. I've got a rebel husband, I've got rebel children, and Christ laid down his life when I was a rebel. You look at Christ as a Christian woman and you no longer resent the circumstances, you say, I get the high and lofty privilege of following Christ in the sphere that he's given to me. Ladies, look at that. Look, I suppose that for, you know, we have Christian families here, there should be Christian women who are glad to be with the man that God has given to you, that you find joy and satisfaction even in the midst of some of the troubles.

Ladies, if you've got a good husband you should be grateful for him, not everyone does. I'm kind of teaching at the hard end of the spectrum because if you do that it's easier for those that aren't on the hard end of the spectrum, but here is the point. Ladies, you start by contemplating the purpose of God in your life by looking vertically, looking at Titus 2, 11 to 14, looking at Titus 3, 3 to 7. I have a different purpose in life. It's defined by the one who saved me. What did he do?

What was he like? He laid down his life. And now he comes and he tells me in his eternal purpose what I want you to do is I want you to lay your life down in a way that is like unto the way that Christ laid his life down. And you say, now no longer from a spirit of resentment against the human difficulties of it all, you look up and with gratitude in your heart you look at Christ and you say, I get to follow you? You've called me to be like you and to lay down my life in self-sacrifice for those around me? What a high calling of God on my life. What a high calling to emulate the virtue of Christ in the life that he has given to me. And it totally redefines life for you. And so ladies, those of you that are married and those of you that have children, those of you that are listening I assume in the cry room, Jesus Christ calls you to give your best time and your best effort to your husband and to your children.

And the rest of life fits in around those priorities, whatever that means. And when you are tired, when you are frustrated, when you are neglected, and I say that with deep sympathy knowing that some of you are, when you are unappreciated, step back from it all and know that Jesus Christ is using that to conform you to his image. Christ lived among a people that did not receive him. Scripture says he came to his own and his own did not receive him, John chapter 1. And he came to receive him, John chapter 1. They rejected him, they opposed him, they crucified him.

And yet he laid down his life in love for such rebels like that. Ladies, if Christ did that for you, it's not too much for him to say, now you follow me in the path that I have gone first before you in. Christ through his word calls you to love your husband and to love your children fully recognizing that it may not always be easy or pleasant.

Now, have a lot that I want to say by way of application to this. In Proverbs chapter 31 you'll find a description of a resourceful, hard-working woman who rises early to feed her children, to feed her family, to clothe her household. She interacts with others, speaks about selling fabrics in the marketplace and considering land and buying it.

But the focus, the center point of it all, is her household, is her husband as she is developing an inner character in her heart. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, with part one of a message titled, The Young Christian Woman, here on the Truth Pulpit. Now, just before we go, here again is Don with a closing thought.

Well, thanks, Bill. You know, my friend, I wanted to let you know about one of the hidden gems of our ministry, if I could put it that way. Available at our website, thetruthpulpit.com, is a link to our featured series. And in those featured series, you'll find topical series that will help you on many important issues in the Christian life, related to the Bible and Roman Catholicism, matters of homosexuality or transgenderism, dealing with sexual and transgenderism, dealing with the ministry of the Holy Spirit today, parenting resources, and so much more. Again, you can look for our featured series at thetruthpulpit.com.

It's available for free download, or we'll be happy to send you CD series, if you would like that. Just go to the website, thetruthpulpit.com. Thanks, Don. And now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright, inviting you back next time, as Don continues to teach God's people God's Word from the Truth Pulpit.