INTRODUCTION
Opening Statement: Three weeks ago, we began to talk about Striving For Church Health. If SCC is going to be a healthy church, the senior saints must lead the way in example and conduct and we, the congregation, must know how to react and respond to their lives and walk among us. Young women must also lead by example and conduct.
Text: Titus 2:1-10
Background: The apostle left Titus on the island of Crete to ’’set in order what remains, and appoint elders in every city (Titus 1:5).’’ They have need for spiritual maturity in the congregation. And so Titus has been given the assignment to work to that end. To establish order in the church Paul gave Titus instructions concerning the behavior of various groups of Christians. Titus was instructed to approach every group in the church and challenge them to a holy lifestyle. “I want them to be godly men and women so that they will be salt and light on that island.” He did not only want them to live holy lives but to preserve a powerful Christian testimony in their community. He wanted them to be a healthy, well-balanced group of believers that clearly and attractively presented the gospel in their island community.
Title: Striving for Church Health – Healthy Younger Women
Miniseries Theme: Equipping Them In All Stages of Life!
Key Word: There are 5 SPECIFIC GROUPS that are addressed: senior adult men, senior adult women, younger women, younger men, and employees. Today, we focus on younger women in particular with applications for everyone.
Notation: Today is the 2nd Sunday of the month. We have junior worship today. It would be best if our children could utilize this today due to what I am going to share later in the sermon time.
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OUTLINE
Opening Statement: No matter what I would say about Titus 2 verses 4 and 5, it will be controversial. If I just read it, it would be controversial. So my disclaimer is simply this: If you don’t like what I say this morning, talk to God about it. He’s the one who inspired its authorship.
Exposition: Titus 2:1 But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. 2 Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. 6 Likewise urge the young men to be sensible; 7 in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, 8 sound in speech which is beyond reproach, so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us. 9 Urge bond slaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.
Personal Comments: Allow me to share that I am aware of the multitude of scenarios that women often find themselves in. I am aware of the unrealistic expectations that are placed on women – job harassment, unfair treatment, and selfish husbands.
Transition: But today, rather than listen to a talk show host define for you what you should do about your role and duties in life, can we turn to God’s Word to help us define what that might be? Paul wanted the young women in the local church to set the example for family life.
Healthy Younger Women
Exposition: III. (:4-5) CONDUCT OF YOUNG WOMEN
A. "love their husbands" First, younger women should "love their husbands," i.e., have tender affection for them. The implication is that they get married after connecting with a life-partner and that they love their husbands. You say, “You don’t know my husband. I don’t love my husband; my husband is not lovable.” Cretan marriages were contracts arranged by parents, and this caused a lot of problems later in marriage. Be thankful, because at least, you had a choice in the matter! You may be smarter than he is; you may make more money than he does; you are prettier than he is (hopefully); you are not appreciated as much as you should be; but nevertheless, love him. Affirm his leadership role. I did not say bow to his whims and be his slave.
Illustration: I love my children, but I don’t bow to their every whim and fancy. If I did, I would have to buy an entire Toys R Us toy store! I recognize the role that I have in their lives, and in love I try to fill that role and meet the basic needs but I don’t cater to their every demand. Ladies, you don’t have to cater to a husband’s every demand. That’s not love. If God has blessed him with health, then he can get his own dessert and pour his own glass of milk. He can even run the sweeper and do the dishes on occasion. Don’t become obsessed with bowing to a husband’s whims. That’s not love. That’s manipulation and your husband needs to be held accountable for such childish behavior.
Application: There are some basic needs that you can meet in your husband’s life that I think are appropriate and right. These have been proven over time from thousands of marriages.
1. Be his lover. This is not something that you are to use for leverage in the relationship. A husband should not have to earn the right to enjoy intimacy in marriage.
2. Be his recreational companion. You can’t do everything that he can do, but you can find one or two things that you can do with him. For Dot, and me it’s bike riding. That’s the one recreational thing we can do together, and both really enjoy it. But she doesn’t bow to my “whims.”
3. Be attractive. No, you don’t have to look like you’re going to a wedding every day. If that’s what he wants, it’s “a whim and fancy” and he’ll get over it. But in those important moments in life, you need to look nice.
4. Be a domestic support in the home. Do your fair share of the housecleaning. Divide up responsibilities equally and work as a team to get things done around the house. When we go on a trip, Dot usually packs up the bags for herself and the kids (I pack my own luggage) and it’s my job to carry all of them to the car and fit them in. Dot is the one that cooks in our family and I’m the one that eats it up! Teamwork! While Dot does most of the cleaning on a daily basis, there are days when the entire family says, “OK, today is cleaning day.” No one person can keep up with 4 other people.
5. Be his admirer. Don’t ridicule what he does for a living or how much he makes, or what a “low-life underachiever” he is. Appreciate his work and his commitment to do the best he can to provide for the family.
Clarification: Husbands, don’t try to remake your wife. Don’t try to squeeze her into your mold to fit your convenience. If you love her, you’ll listen to her and loving you in return will be much easier. Don’t come to her listing your demands and all of the things she’s going to have to do to make you happy. There’s a phrase for that that comes from the West, “Get off of your high horse!” and she’ll be delighted to do all of these five things.
B. "to love their children" Then, older women were to teach the younger women to "love their children." Why would you have to tell a mother to love her children? To me, it would be a natural thing to do. In Cretan society, however, it has been suggested that many children were conceived without the consent of the wives, sometimes just to produce laborers for the family. Thus there was a danger that women would become resentful and bitter toward their children. Young women are to pour themselves sacrificially into their children.
Observation: While there are many men and women who faithfully do what parents are supposed to do, there are many who have mortgaged their children. They’re not mortgaging a house; they are mortgaging their children. They are going deeper and deeper in debt to them because they want the freedom to get ahead financially.
Illustration: A young lady in our church works at a daycare. There are many quality individuals, including this young lady, who work at daycare and do a fine job. But the workload is overwhelming, especially when you consider the needs of little 2 and 3 year olds. To give a child the one on one attention that is so necessary would be too expensive to enroll in. If you work in a daycare or you own one, I’m not making any kind of judgment toward you today. As I said, there are quality people doing the very best they can in many daycare centers. But what I want you to see is how a child sees daycare. A young lady in our church shared with me that there are toddlers who are dropped off at daycare at 6 AM and are picked up at 6 PM, Monday through Friday. Again, I say, we are not mortgaging a house; we are mortgaging our kids. We are going deeper and deeper in debt to them. Another of our fine young women was sharing with Donnette how that parents who have left their children for a ridiculous amount of time at daycare often come rushing in after work. Their child greets them after the long day, “Look Mommy what I drew for you today.” She replied, “Nice…now let’s go…hurry up.” You’ve been gone all day, and now you won’t give me 30 seconds to show you a picture? Thanks Mom. Thanks Dad.
According to psychological researchers, approximately 85 percent of the adult personality is formed by the time a person is six years old. The way in which parents train their children during those critical years, together with the influences we expose them to and the environment we place them in, will have a tremendous impact on their character, emotional development, and mental health.
Application: Keep yourself in a position or vocation in life where you can treat your children as blessings, not burdens, especially those first six years of life. It’s six years that you’ll never get again. Before allowing someone else to have the best and most important years of your child’s life, ask yourself these questions: Do I have to work – or am I choosing to work? Why am I working? Can I postpone my career for a few years in order to give more time to the family? Are there any income sources that I could draw upon that would enable me to stay at home with my children, at least until they go to school? After factoring in all my expenses – day care, new wardrobe, transportation, lunches – does it really pay me to work? Is there another job that I could do that has more family friendly hours?
Illustration: Dot and myself are big proponents of staying as close as you possibly can to a child for the first six years of a child’s life. Levi is almost 6 now. She has been at home with the other two as well. While our kids aren’t perfect and sometimes sibling rivalry gets the best of them and sometimes I think they’re really going to hurt one another, they are as good as any kid you’ll find anywhere. I was thinking of one-word associations for my kids this week. What one word could I associate with each child that best describes what they are about? With Megan, it’s art. With Will, it’s creatures. With Levi, it’s food. As I said, Levi is almost 6. While we know there are many more days of training ahead, it almost feels like a graduation to us. Their basic character is set. They know there is a God who loves us. They know mommy and daddy love them. They know that the people in the world can be mean and cruel, but that home will always be a loving, safe, peaceful, supportive, correcting, and place of guidance. They know that life is about sharing and about considering the effects of their decisions on other people.
Observation: When God blesses us with children, our highest calling is not to the corporation. Our highest calling is to that child. Merely, staying home with them is not enough though. You can stay home all of the time, but if you’re not connecting with and loving a child, he/she is not better off.
C. "to be sensible" Younger women were to be "sensible," i.e., to place their emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit. They were to be pure in a defiled society.
D. "pure" The women were to be devoted to one man – their husbands.
E. "workers at home" Paul says, they were to be "workers at home” or producers of orderliness in the home, 1 Tim. 5:14; not necessarily occupied exclusively with household chores. I don’t think it is fair to embrace either a “stay-at-home” stereotype for all women or a prohibition of wives from being also professional women from this verse. The thing that is being affirmed here is that if a woman accepts the vocation of marriage, and has a husband and children, then she will love them and not neglect them.
Observation: It is possible to neglect a child on both the career and stay-at-home fronts. You can neglect a child by going to work everyday and not meeting a child’s needs. It is common for a new mother who is also a career woman to refuse to get close to her little infant because she doesn’t want to become attached to her child and her child to her. Yet, that is exactly what is supposed to happen. Or, you can neglect a child by staying at home all of the time, yet going from house to house or pursuing your own interests. One lady was recently convicted for the deaths of her two toddlers that she left in the car on a hot day while she got her hair done. So the issue is not necessary “stay-at-home mom” versus “career woman mom.” The issue is whether or not you are giving the necessary time to make the home what it is suppose to be.
Conclusion: A home with children living there is to be a young ladies primary responsibility, complimented by the presence of an involved father. It doesn’t mean she has to be there 24 hours a day and can never leave. The idea was that the home should be a place where the family found peace, refuge and beauty. Women have a valuable ministry with their children, producing righteous men and women for the next generation.
Explanation: Of course, young women today have so many tools and resources to assist them in maintaining a home that additional time is made available for them to go do other things. And, they should expand their experiences and keep growing personally. However, young women with children must never forget that her opportunity to have the greatest impact on the world doesn’t happen by getting a briefcase and going downtown (no offense intended if that is what you do). But I must say, your greatest impact in the world will be in raising and nurturing a godly generation of men and women if you have been blessed with children. Young ladies, don’t buy into the thought that you need some kind of professional career to really count. Climbing the corporate ladder while Johnnie and Suzy sit at home trying to figure out if they matter in the world is a family tragedy waiting to happen.
Illustration: Several years ago we encountered a movement that was designed to liberate women. “Free the oppressed homemaker!” was the battle cry. It assumed that all women wanted a career and that somehow being a homemaker was a lesser calling. Suddenly, with the media machine hammering this into our thinking, women who were really happy as a homemaker, felt confused and oppressed by other women who wanted them to conform to their idea of what a woman should be and do. So other women who felt they were enslaved to men enslaved other women to this mentality.
Summarization: There’s nothing wrong with women who want to love their husbands, raise their children sensibly, and maintain a sense of order in the home. On the other hand, be careful about making every woman fit the same mold. Women have various skill levels and energy levels. Some have children while some do not. Some have only one child while others have five. Some can juggle a really intense schedule while others prefer a more relaxed pace (if that is even possible with kids). A fulfilling career outside of the home for younger women can be a wonderful blessing, providing that the job is subservient to their home-leadership role. Remember where your first priority is. It is to your home. Everything else is subservient to that basic premise.
Illustration: This is not true with the radical feminist movement of today. Feminist liberation releases us from God and from all His evil male values like marriage, fidelity, family, authority, morality.
Quotation: Gloria Steinam, editor of Ms Magazine said some years ago: "By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God." Radical feminist leader Sheila Cronan(?)says this, quote: "Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the Women’s Movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage."
F. "kind"
G. "being subject to their own husbands" Titus should request the older women to admonish the younger women to be kind to their husbands, their children, their servants, parents, in-laws, neighbors and strangers. They are to rank under their husbands as unto the Lord, recognizing the difference between equality and function and between headship and helpmate. The purpose behind the older women teaching the younger women is "so that the Word of God may not be dishonored.’’
H. Goal: "that the word of God may not be dishonored" Christian marriages and homes serve as a wonderful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is one of the greatest witnesses of a Christian.
Illustration: If you are a great preacher, but your home is in shambles, the word of God is dishonored.
If you are a faithful stay-at-home mom, but your children are always the ones misbehaving, disrespecting authority, willfully disobedient, and consistently misrepresenting the truth, not just at home but with others, what kind of Christian witness do you think you’ll have in your community? The word and gospel of God is dishonored.
If you’re a career person and you use your job and money to support God’s work and to buy things for your family, but your children totally disrespect you because you’ve never taken the time for them and your husband is going to walk out on you because you never feel like doing anything together, then the word and gospel of God are dishonored. Your home is your greatest testimony. If life falls apart there, who would want the gospel that we believe in?
You don’t have to have perfect kids and an ideal marriage to honor God’s word. In fact, home is where mistakes can be made and lessons can be lovingly learned. But the overall picture of your life must show a commitment to the home, to the important people in your life, and the time and love that you’ve either invested or wasted in these people will become increasingly evident in the way that they live their lives.
CONCLUSION
Conclusion: Allow me to amplify where some of our women are today and how we should respond to their godly walk among us.
Some of our early adult women are testing and experimenting with some of their adolescent dreams in the real world. Life is becoming realistic to them as they complete their education and balance a career field with homemaking responsibilities.
Some of our middle adult women are concerned about wrinkles, drooping eyelids, sagging checks, double chins, brittle gray hair, and a body that’s going through some major changes. Some are becoming grandparents and some know an empty nest for the first time in years.
Given these many concerns and adjustments and given the incredible responsibility that our early to middle aged women bear, what should be our response to make life a little easier.
Application: How should we respond?
1. Husbands, make it easy for your wife to love you.
2. Children, love and respect your mother and don’t take advantage of her. Help her out.
3. Older senior adult women, remember that all of these things were spoken in a context of training. According to Paul’s words to Titus, it’s the senior adult women who are to come in alongside the younger women and encourage and assist them in leading a Christian home.
4. Church family, your greatest witness in this community will be the quality of your home life. Don’t short-change the home.
Invitation: All women aged 20 to 59 are invited to come for renewal today.
